Sorry, I don’t think I have relevant expertise to assess such empirical claims (which is why I focus more on hypotheticals).
Note many do not engage with my empirical claims about effects on soil animals for philosophical reasons (“that assumes utilitarianism!”), and assessing these is a comparative advantage you have. Moreover, in the effective altruism community, some people initially concluded that targeting farmed animals increases animal welfare very cost-effectively based on classical utilitarian reasons, and I expect many of those people to depart from classical utilitarianism after realising it plus empirical evidence point towards prioritising soil animals much more than farmed animals. People with a scout mindset, and not invested in any particular way of increasing animal welfare could be in a better place to assess the extent to which such departures from classical utilitarianism are post hoc justifications, eventually in the form of empirical arguments which are seldomly investigated.
As a concrete example of philosophical arguments being important, @Wladimir J. Alonso, the founder and innovation director of the Welfare Footprint Institute (WFI), values averting intense suffering more than is justified by its intensity. Some people, not necessarily Wladimir, endorse this so much that they would prefer averting 1 h of excruciating pain over an infinite amount of annoying pain, and would never consider effects on soil animals given other animals can experience much more intense suffering.
As a concrete example of philosophical arguments being important, @Wladimir J. Alonso, the founder and innovation director of the Welfare Footprint Institute (WFI), values averting intense suffering more than is justified by its intensity.
2 more notable examples. From the comments under this thread, Bob Fischer, who led Rethink Priorities’ (RP’s) moral weight project, and is the president of the Arthropoda Foundation, and Mal Graham, who is the strategy director of Wild Animal Initiative (WAI), and together with Bob “make[s] most of the strategic and granting decisions for Arthropoda”, prioritise farmed invertebrates over soil animals “in part because we don’t endorse precise-probabilities approaches to handling uncertainty”. In addition, at least Bob “also want[s] robustness in the case for sentience”, which I am interpreting as a narrower distribution of the probability of sentience.
Note many do not engage with my empirical claims about effects on soil animals for philosophical reasons (“that assumes utilitarianism!”), and assessing these is a comparative advantage you have. Moreover, in the effective altruism community, some people initially concluded that targeting farmed animals increases animal welfare very cost-effectively based on classical utilitarian reasons, and I expect many of those people to depart from classical utilitarianism after realising it plus empirical evidence point towards prioritising soil animals much more than farmed animals. People with a scout mindset, and not invested in any particular way of increasing animal welfare could be in a better place to assess the extent to which such departures from classical utilitarianism are post hoc justifications, eventually in the form of empirical arguments which are seldomly investigated.
As a concrete example of philosophical arguments being important, @Wladimir J. Alonso, the founder and innovation director of the Welfare Footprint Institute (WFI), values averting intense suffering more than is justified by its intensity. Some people, not necessarily Wladimir, endorse this so much that they would prefer averting 1 h of excruciating pain over an infinite amount of annoying pain, and would never consider effects on soil animals given other animals can experience much more intense suffering.
2 more notable examples. From the comments under this thread, Bob Fischer, who led Rethink Priorities’ (RP’s) moral weight project, and is the president of the Arthropoda Foundation, and Mal Graham, who is the strategy director of Wild Animal Initiative (WAI), and together with Bob “make[s] most of the strategic and granting decisions for Arthropoda”, prioritise farmed invertebrates over soil animals “in part because we don’t endorse precise-probabilities approaches to handling uncertainty”. In addition, at least Bob “also want[s] robustness in the case for sentience”, which I am interpreting as a narrower distribution of the probability of sentience.