I have only pointed out the weakness of the study design based on my 30 years of utilizing and studying medical studies that rely on many of the scientific principles as the bear studies.
Right, I get that.
There are two problems with your reasoning.
1. It is based on the idea that it's necessary to definitively establish cause and effect and also to precisely quantify the outcomes. That's not necessary given the wide disparity in the two outcomes. One doesn't need to establish cause-and-effect, nor does one need to precisely quantify anything to know that about 90% is better than about 60%. Even with significant errors in the quantification of the results, the overall conclusion about which works most often isn't going to change.
2. You are overstating your case. The quotes you provide are nowhere near as categorical in their statements as you are. They urge caution in interpreting the results of surveys/studies, they state that there can be errors, they do not state what you have been claiming--they do allow that it's possible to prove things, even with loosely controlled surveys and studies.
Bottom line, if you take your bear spray, don't forget the .44 magnum as well.
Sure, I think that's an excellent idea and I've already said so at least once on this thread. It makes sense to cover all your bases.
That is 6/15 cases. More than a 3rd of the time, the bear will still be aggressive and you have a 1/5 chance of still being attacked.
First of all, there were 16 close range cases, not 15. Second, since no one is claiming that pepper spray is 100% effective, pointing out that it's not 100% effective doesn't prove anything. The discussion is about which tactic is more effective.
Finally, even in this study, it states pepper spray IN ADDITION to firearms.
Sure, no one but you on this thread, is talking about using bear spray exclusively. I'll say it again. It makes sense to cover all the bases.
Fortunately, predacious black bear encounters are rare. But when they occur, you MUST have lethal force to survive or escape serious injury.
Except, of course, that the 4 people in the study who encountered predacious black bears survived the encounters without using lethal force.
Here the researchers lumped all encounters and did not distinguish aggressive vs curious as in the last paper from 1995.
The abstract clearly says that 72 of the incidents (the ones they drew from for the pertinent statistics) involved persons spraying bears to "defend themselves". I guess you could try to say that it's possible to "defend" yourself when you're in no danger, but I think it's safe to say that when the word "defend" is involved on one side that agressive behavior is involved on the other side. That's really neither here nor there. You're referring to a 3 page article. There's more to it than the 1 paragraph abstract you quoted. It's probably worthwhile to read the entire article to see exactly how they broke the attacks down before trying to find fault with their methods.
Besides, given that you have stated in no uncertain terms that these studies can't prove anything at all, what possible point could you have in quoting them to try to support your position?
Clearly, what you're REALLY saying is that the studies can't prove anything that you don't want them to but you're more than willing to quote them and base conclusions on them when you feel that they support your point of view.
In short, you're trying to argue that if it supports anyone else's arguments the data doesn't, CAN'T prove anything but that the parts you like are just fine. How can you straightfacedly talk about bias while you're pulling a stunt like that?
Guns are effective but only if you know how to use them.
Given that bears aren't generally susceptible to "psychological stops" like humans are, yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense that a firearm won't do you any good in a bear attack if you don't know how to use it. Against a human, you might scare them off just by pulling it out. A bear won't be impressed. You'll actually have to be able to use it to get anywhere.
The myth is that guns won't help and the only salvation is pepper spray.
That's not what the studies are saying. What's more, I know you know that's not what they're saying because you just quoted what they say. Namely that if you don't know how to use a gun, having a gun won't help you.
What they say is that if you don't know how to use a gun it won't help you in a bear attack. I don't think that's a myth at all as I explained above. Unless you have evidence that bears are known to break off attacks at the sight of a gun, I think that even you will have to agree that just having a gun won't do you any good. You'll also have to know how to use it in order to actually to make a bear go away.
...but it is NOT good enough to leave the .44 magnum at home either.
That's not what the studies say either. And I know you know that's not what they're saying because you just quoted what they say. Namely that they recommend carrying a firearm as well as spray.
At this point, it seems like you are arguing points that no one here opposes. Even the studies that you say don't prove anything and are promoting myths don't promote the myths you say they do and you've quoted them to prove it.
In addition, the majority of black bears will NOT leave you with pepper spray and will continue to come back again and again in an aggressive encounter. In addition, 24% of the time, you will have to spray them more than once.
So after steadfastly asserting for 3 pages that the studies prove nothing, now you're repeatedly quoting the parts from them that you like as if they're gospel? How can you possibly justify that?
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