[revelio]

The sorts of studies that proclaim loss of 50% of insects don't check out when looked at closely. As you might guess, counting insects is quite hard, doing so reliably over time is much harder still and then assigning causality harder yet again.

[popol12]

Could you please provide details/source ? I'd be very happy to learn that this 50% figure is wrong :)

[revelio]

It's not about insects specifically but this paper points out statistical problems in a very similar claims about vertebrates:

https://www.sfu.ca/biology2/rEEding/pdfs/Leung_et_al_Cluster...

But it's a common theme. These claims get attention and journalists don't check, so they proliferate. Dig in to any given claim and you'll find they're all built on statistical quicksand.