This is great feedback, Sebastien! Thanks so much for all the recommendations. We do want to keep updating the table with new references and, eventually, expand it to include other species. Cattle, sheep, and goats are probably the most important terrestrial vertebrates, but many aquatic animals and invertebrates are farmed in much greater numbers. Hopefully, we’ll be able to include them all over time.
As for the decision to include just one paper, that was mostly to keep the table relatively neat. Moreover, if one paper makes a decent case for the presence or absence of a trait, it isn’t clear whether our credences would change enough, given the large “credence buckets” we’re using, to justify including more of the literature. But I agree that, all else equal, it would be better to have as many references as possible.
This is great feedback, Sebastien! Thanks so much for all the recommendations. We do want to keep updating the table with new references and, eventually, expand it to include other species. Cattle, sheep, and goats are probably the most important terrestrial vertebrates, but many aquatic animals and invertebrates are farmed in much greater numbers. Hopefully, we’ll be able to include them all over time.
As for the decision to include just one paper, that was mostly to keep the table relatively neat. Moreover, if one paper makes a decent case for the presence or absence of a trait, it isn’t clear whether our credences would change enough, given the large “credence buckets” we’re using, to justify including more of the literature. But I agree that, all else equal, it would be better to have as many references as possible.