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polymathwannabe comments on Open Thread, January 11-17, 2016 - Less Wrong
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Obvious in hindsight: one cause of massive bee death turned out to be neonicotinoids. In other words, newsflash: insecticides kill insects.
Was there any way this could have been anticipated?
It's not obvious that use of a pesticide would substantially harm bees, as pesticides have been in use for a very long time, and many organophosphate pesticides are fairly non-toxic to bees. Neonicotinoids, however, are extremely toxic to bees. The use of neonicotinoids is fairly recent; large-scale use only started in the late 90's, and very soon after that beekeepers started filing petitions to the EPA. They were ignored. I'd say this is more a case of systemic and deliberate ignorance/politics rather than a 'mistake'.
Be more conservative. Require more evidence before you allow a new insecticide to come to market.