The "errors" in the arguments are not relevant. When surveying people who aren't disease biologists, it doesn't matter if there are specific one-way paths in the cutting edge research, what matters are the processes that inform the decisions. In the absence of any biological information, there's no indication to tilt the scales one way or another. If these people were saying 'well, robins have gene XYZZY which causes etc.', but they aren't, they're functioning on categories as they don't have any real information on cross-species disease. Acciden...
1) the prototype model is correct,
He cites five papers that fairly well establish the prototype model within the domain of this discussion. If you don't like this sort of "presumption", and don't offer any sort of counter argument before calling it an "incredibly sloppy mistake", you've gone beyond the point of reasonable discussion.
2) that robins are closer to the prototype than ducks,
This is indeed the general finding, at least for Americans and presumably many other groups.
3) the reason people thought a disease transfer would be more... (read more)