Reply to: People do care about the deep sea. A comment on Jamieson et al. (2020)

Why don't people care about the deep sea? was a question addressed in a 2020 Food for Thought article in this journal. That article delivered an extensive critique of misleading statements, poorly structured analogies, and common misconceptions to challenge the largely negative or unnecessarily sensationalist narrative when the deep sea is communicated to the public. The overarching sentiment of that article has been countered by a Comment in which it is argued that people do in fact care about the deep sea. However, this counter argument is based on very little to do with the deep sea but rather a corpus of studies relating mostly to cold water corals and people's willingness to pay for their conservation and restoration in the event of impending or recent destruction. We do not feel that the Comment addresses the same problem as discussed in the original article. Here, we explain that the seeming differences of opinion about whether people care about the deep sea are based on two things: the title of the article commented on (not its content) and how the original article, and the Comment on it, define the deep sea.

Automated summary

This article discusses the issue of whether people care about the deep sea, critiquing the misleading statements and misconceptions often found in public communication about the deep sea. A comment counters the article's argument by focusing on studies related to cold water corals and people's willingness to pay for their conservation and restoration. However, the comment fails to address the same problem raised in the original article.