This is a MUST READ op-ed. WUWT readers will recall that just a few days ago, we spearheaded an effort to make a legal fund go “over the top” to help Professor Ridd fight back against the bureaucracy at James Cook University that was censoring him. Today, he penned an op-ed that appeared on Fox News online, and I’m please to say, he pulls no punches.
Science or silence? My battle to question doomsayers about the Great Barrier Reef
Around the world, people have heard about the impending extinction of the Great Barrier Reef: some 133,000 square miles of magnificent coral stretching for 1,400 miles off the northeast coast of Australia.
The reef is supposedly almost dead from the combined effects of a warming climate, nutrient pollution from Australian farms, and smothering sediment from offshore dredging.
Except that, as I have said publicly as a research scientist who has studied the reef for the past 30 years, all this most likely isn’t true.
And just for saying that – and calling into question the kind of published science that has led to the gloomy predictions – I have been served with a gag order by my university. I am now having to sue for my right to have an ordinary scientific opinion.
My emails have been searched. I was not allowed even to speak to my wife about the issue. I have been harangued by lawyers. And now I’m fighting back to assert my right to academic freedom and bring attention to the crisis of scientific truth.
The problems I am facing are part of a “replication crisis” that is sweeping through science and is now a serious topic in major science journals. In major scientific trials that attempt to reproduce the results of scientific observations and measurements, it seems that around 50 percent of recently published science is wrong, because the results can’t be replicated by others.
And if observations and measurements can’t be replicated, it isn’t really science – it is still, at best, hypothesis, or even just opinion. This is not a controversial topic anymore – science, or at least the system of checking the science we are using, is failing us.
The crisis started in biomedical areas, where pharmaceutical companies in the past decade found that up to 80 percent of university and institutional science results that they tested were wrong. It is now recognized that the problem is much more widespread than the biomedical sciences. And that is where I got into big trouble.
I have published numerous scientific papers showing that much of the “science” claiming damage to the reef is either plain wrong or greatly exaggerated. As just one example, coral growth rates that have supposedly collapsed along the reef have, if anything, increased slightly.
Reefs that are supposedly smothered by dredging sediment actually contain great coral. And mass bleaching events along the reef that supposedly serve as evidence of permanent human-caused devastation are almost certainly completely natural and even cyclical.
These allegedly major catastrophic effects that recent science says were almost unknown before the 1980s are mainly the result of a simple fact: large-scale marine science did not get started on the reef until the 1970s.
By a decade later, studies of the reef had exploded, along with the number of marine biologists doing them. What all these scientists lacked, however, was historical perspective. There are almost no records of earlier eras to compare with current conditions. Thus, for many scientists studying reef problems, the results are unprecedented, and almost always seen as catastrophic and even world-threatening.
The only problem is that it isn’t so. The Great Barrier Reef is in fact in excellent condition. It certainly goes through periods of destruction where huge areas of coral are killed from hurricanes, starfish plagues and coral bleaching. However, it largely regrows within a decade to its former glory. Some parts of the southern reef, for example, have seen a tripling of coral in six years after they were devastated by a particularly severe cyclone.
Reefs have similarities to Australian forests, which require periodic bushfires. It looks terrible after the bushfire, but the forests always regrow. The ecosystem has evolved with these cycles of death and regrowth.
The conflicting realities of the Great Barrier Reef point to a deeper problem. In science, consensus is not the same thing as truth. But consensus has come to play a controlling role in many areas of modern science. And if you go against the consensus you can suffer unpleasant consequences.
The main system of science quality control is called peer review. Nowadays, it usually takes the form of a couple of anonymous reviewing scientists having a quick check over the work of a colleague in the field.
Peer review is commonly understood as painstaking re-examination by highly qualified experts in academia that acts as a real check on mistaken work. It isn’t. In the real world, peer review is often cursory and not always even knowledgeable. It might take reviewers only a morning to do.
Scientific results are rarely reanalyzed and experiments are not replicated. The types of checks that would be routine in private industry are just not done.
I have asked the question: Is this good enough quality control to make environmental decisions worth billions of dollars that are now adversely affecting every major industry in northeast Australia?
Our sugar industry has been told to make dramatic reductions in fertilizer application, potentially reducing productivity; our ports have dredging restrictions that threaten their productivity; scientists demand that coal mines be closed; and tourists are scared away because the reef is supposedly almost dead – not worth seeing anymore.
Last August I made this point on Sky News in Australia in promotion of a chapter I wrote in “Climate Change: The Facts 2017,” published by the Australian free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.
“The basic problem is that we can no longer trust the scientific organizations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, even things like the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies … the science is coming out not properly checked, tested or replicated and this is a great shame because we really need to be able to trust our scientific institutions and the fact is I do not think we can any more,” I said.
The response to these comments by my employer, James Cook University, was extraordinary.
Rather than measured argument, I was hit with a charge of academic serious misconduct for not being “collegial.”
University authorities told me in August I was not allowed to mention the case or the charges to anybody – not even my wife.
Then things got worse. With assistance from the Institute of Public Affairs, I have been pushing back against the charges and the gag order – leading the university to search my official emails for examples of where I had mentioned the case to other scientists, old friends, past students and my wife.
I was then hit with 25 new allegations, mostly for just mentioning the case against me. The email search turned up nothing for which I feel ashamed. You can see for yourself.
We filed in court in November. At that point the university backed away from firing me. But university officials issued a “Final Censure” in my employment file and told me to be silent about the allegations, and not to repeat my comments about the unreliability of institutional research.
But they agreed that I could mention it to my wife, which was nice of them.
I would rather be fired than accept these conditions. We are still pursuing the matter in court.
This case may be about a single instance of alleged misconduct, but underlying it is an issue even bigger than our oceans. Ultimately, I am fighting for academic and scientific freedom, and the responsibility of universities to nurture the debate of difficult subjects without threat or intimidation.
We may indeed have a Great Barrier Reef crisis, but the science is so flawed that it is impossible to tell its actual dimensions. What we do know for certain is that we have an academic freedom crisis that threatens the true life of science and threatens to smother our failing university system.
Professor Peter Ridd leads the Marine Geophysical Laboratory, James Cook University, Australia and has authored over 100 scientific papers.
Yet always unmentioned is that common sun screen products contain a potent toxin for coral that in ppb concentration can cause coral to die.
Those same “researchers” finding coral death slathering it on by the pint. Everywhere they go they find coral death and destruction, but never think it could be them…
There was also the frogs that were dying in some rainforest, there were several studies that tried to link these deaths to global warming. Until they found out the frogs were being killed by a fungus that had been brought in on the shoes of the researchers.
Snowflake syndrome is reaching pandemic proportions. JCU infected.
Reminds me of the 1960s TV classic The Prisoner. One of the biggest accusations you could be hit with was being “unmutual”. Universities are so blinded by the righteousness of their ideological causes they have no sense of self-perspective or irony.
This seems to be how australian universities operate.
mlsxmq.wixsite.com/svmq-r/page-1f
[Please check your link. .mod]
I recall rending of garments about the imminent disappearance of the G.B.R. at least twenty years ago. Unless I am very much mistaken, it is still there, in roughly the same condition as twenty years ago. I leave the obvious deduction as an exercise for the reader.
If consensus in science worked, we would be living on a flat earth. Terry Pratchett’s Disc World would be real life instead of a great escape from the insanity of Earth.
If ‘consensus’ had not changed the last few hundred years, we would still be literally burning witches……
This is the same James Crook University which expelled Bob Carter! Collegiality is merely groupthink. And to think this mob are funded by taxpayers!
It would seem that today the cyclic events in nature are only accepted in science by “the consensus” are those those that claim Man is doing the peddling.
“And if observations and measurements can’t be replicated, it isn’t really science – it is still, at best, hypothesis, or even just opinion.”
Or just pigs finding new ways to feed at the government trough because their “science” is complete hogwash.
it is no coincidence the problems in science developed at the same time as PC speech.
PC speech is totalitarianism. only the approved consensus is permitted.
once you accept this limit on freedom of expression it is a very small step to apply this to science. only the approved consensus is permitted.
how long until it is agreed the word “human” is sexist and must. be replaced by huperson?
how long until it is agreed the word “woman” is sexist and must. be replaced by woperson?
are we not falling into the trap of the ancients that believed that science could be determined by logic devoid of observation? is that not the very definition of a computer model?
PC speech is totalitarianism. only the approved consensus is permitted
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate;
and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when
they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is…in some small way…to become evil oneself.
One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the
same effect and is intended to.” [Theadore Dalrymple or Anthony Daniels]
“how long until it is agreed the word “human” is sexist and must. be replaced by huperson?”
Well Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada berated an audience member for using the word ‘mankind’ and told her that the term ‘peoplekind’ should be used instead. So you are a little behind the times already.
Well Done, Peter Ridd!
Your stand for Freedom of Speech serves all of us and honors the American tradition. I can not find words to laud your personal sacrifices sufficiently so I’ll offer these excerpts from the movie ‘The Alamo’:
John Wayne on Our Republic and Right and Wrong.
https://youtu.be/EYs5k1sCMz8
Well done! Sadly however, Australians will never hear of this in the MSM. Only those who visit sites like WUWT will know the truth. But it is a start.
For me the biggest issue with the problems with replication is “publish or perish” combined with university rankings. Researchers and professors at Government universities are being forced to get anything published or risk losing their jobs. Then they are also induced to writing ‘splashy’ kinds of articles, designed to get many citations.
It’s like a loyalty card for coffee shops. If you are the only one doing it, it’s fantastic for you. When everyone does it you are cutting each other’s throats with no way out of the cycle.
The inducement system is encouraging government universities to publish low quality shoddy research, and is doing far more damage to science than any profit induced distortments from private industry. Private industry has a natural brake, which is the ability to get sued if they get things wrong.
This is why JCU is so worried about the professor being non-mutual. If the snowflakes are triggered and peoplle stop citing JCU papers then their rankings and their funding suffer. So its far better for the universoty that no one rocks the boat.
Don’t blame wthe administrators at JCU. All they are doing is responding rationally to the inducements offered by the government ranking/review process.
Abetting this is a kind of go along to get along attitude as demonstrated by the university in this case.
It’s a gentleman’s agreement. I won’t point out the problems with your research if you won’t point out the problems with mine.
Which is wht the charge of ‘behaving in an ungentlemanly manner” is so important to JCU.
“And if observations and measurements can’t be replicated, it isn’t really science – it is still, at best, hypothesis, or even just opinion. This is not a controversial topic anymore – science, or at least the system of checking the science we are using, is failing us.”
And herein lies the root of the problem. Climate Science is no longer Science; it is Political Science and therefore can never be falsified by experiment or observation. And as long as the Totalitarian Progressive Left is in power, it will continue unabated.
Morals? Ethics? The Scientific Method? Pfft, who needs them? They only get in the way of “The Cause”..
If the reefs are similar to our forests, & can start deteriorating because of overgrowth, then to prove a point why not remove a part of the dead coral & see, if over the next decade the reef starts to regenerate!
No need to remove the dead coral. New coral polyps will colonise it anyway.
Excellent comments on this sorry state of affairs in Oz. Peter Ridd is doing exactly what needs to be done when one’s integrity is challenged. Let’s keep this in the headlines until the shabby clowns responsible for censoring truth are exposed and hounded from their undeserved positions of authority. Sic ’em Peter!
I notice that the usual (paid) trolls: Griff, Nick, TonyB, Chris, and Simon, are notably absent/silent on yet another example of the demonic political corruption of true, actual Science.
Hardly surprising.
Sad state that Science as devolved into.
“demonic political corruption”? Wow
That devil Hillary made ’em do it, I guess he means.
The replication crisis became acutely obvious in the biomedical sciences because that is almost the only place where replication is routinely attempted.
Drug companies follow journals looking for research findings that they can develop into new drugs. The first thing they do when they find something interesting is to try to replicate it. As detailed in the book Rigor Mortis one drug company found that nearly 90% of research findings can’t be replicated. Much of the time the original researchers can’t even reproduce their own results.
All of science suffers from the same things that beset biomedical science. There is no reason to believe that there is any scientific field that is more reliable.
It’s about publish or perish and perverse incentives. Journals want interesting results to publish. There’s no penalty for being wrong. What the heck do you think is going to happen!
Dr. Michael Mann can be as sanctimonious as he wants. All he’s doing is displaying his abysmal ignorance … and that’s being charitable. Every scientist, including him, should be acutely and painfully aware of the replication crisis. If he isn’t, it’s because of wilful ignorance. Disgusting.
Let’s hope this syndrome doesn’t spread to engineering, or things might get really dicey.
One thing people should be asking themselves is why doesn’t Ridd, a scientist, tackle his opponents through the scientific literature? He has published up to 2015 or 2106, mainly on water stuff in the barrier reef, why not document his grievences like the scientist he is?
He is criticising people who have published their work, who have documented their findings. He says it’s fake, but doesn’t document his findings like they do.
Because of the manner he has approached this, he is beginning to sound more like a crank than a scientist.
Ridd is JCU Head of Department MARINE GEOPHYSICS LABORATORY http://www.marinegeophysics.com.au/
Your suggestion he’s a “crank” reveals your a troll in training.
Ridd attempted to resolve many issues internally over many years.
A wall of obstruction and/or silence.
Now and as ever the left don’t take kindly to whistle-blowers .
Publishing research critical of matters relating to funding . . . well you clearly don’t understand how the game is played.
What sort of issues? How was the obstruction manifested?
It’s not the left that doesn’t take kindly to whistle-blowers, it’s whoever is the entity charged with wrongdoiing. In order for a “whistle” to be blown, there should be some kind of misconduct. Lack of replication of experiments is not misconduct. I’m not saying it’s not a problem, but it’s not confined to any institution or field. There are systemic issues that science as a whole needs to tackle (and scientists are aware of them; things are slowly changing), but that does not in any way justify telling the public they shouldn’t trust science. That won’t accomplish anything but turn people against it, decrease funding and make problems worse.
I’m not sure why Dr. Ridd is so certain that coral bleaching isn’t a problem, but there are thousands of scientists who study it around the world and disagree. But, of course, they are all dishonest and part of the conspiracy, while he is unquestionably honest and correct.
To me the timing of his complaints is odd. He went on TV to publicize the book he contributed to. This whole affair is a great way to get publicity….and he doesn’t even have to pay his attorney’s fees! Pretty nice publisher who will cover that, at least to begin with.
In business and government work, we are told of the two cardinal rules early on.
1) The boss is always right.
2) If, for some reason, you discover that the boss is wrong, see rule 1.
Even if Peter wins, he will still have lost because of rule 1. The boss has a million and one ways to punish you without even exposing himself to the claim of open action. All of Peter’s co-workers and their subordinates will actively distance themselves. Worse, they may openly white-ant your work.
So yes, a very brave act. But almost certain to fail, even if he wins his court case.
That is why we must all support his fight. There is too much at stake!
For anyone here interested in further information on dubious scientific claims about the Great Barrier Reef involving JCU and GBRMPA I have also documented a number of these in a pdf file at:
http://www.goldendolphin.com/WSarticles/Extraordinary%20Claims%20Regarding%20GBR%20Green%20Zones+++.pdf
Everyone who wants to know what Peter Ridd is up against should read Walter Starck’s document (especially the letters at the end).
Current politicians, academics and ‘authority’ management are no different to those in ‘power’ when Walter was actively challenging their corruption.
The GBR-salvation-industry is a criminal cartel ripping Australian taxpayers in the name of science.
It’s Australia’s peak white-collar crime on steroids.
I took the trouble to see what you were talking about.
I read some of your claims. The “report” is so long and wordy, I didn’t go through them all. I did read the responses at the bottom. I agree with the one saying that if you want to criticize the things you do, you should go through the process of doing it in the published literature, so that the scientific community can evaluate your claims.
I saw your three biggest complaints. The paper says UP TO 2X the fish on non-fished reefs, so I don’t see what your gripe is about that. I don’t know what you mean by 5 of the 8 reefs show declines in fish following restriction. Out of the eight reefs, there is only one point that doesn’t show higher abundance on non-fished reefs, and all show higher biomass. There are declines (and increases), yes, but they are mostly similar for both fished and non-fished. You are aware that the data for outer reefs are all post-restriction, right?
Funding is discussed under acknowledgements. There is no conflict of interest assumed just because a management agency monitors the effects of its management practices (do companies hire independent contractors for their quality control?).
Bucks from the reef may come from reef tours and associated income (some hotel and restaurant visits), game fishing, productivity of the reef itself, meals for tourists of fresh-caught fish…maybe even preservation of the coastline and it’s habitat, I don’t know. I don’t know how they calculated it, and you don’t either. Perhaps it would have been more effective to ask rather than accuse them of misconduct, of which I see no evidence based on your accusations.
Did you ever contact them to ask for the data before demanding it? it is not their responsibility to put it online for public access, as long as it’s available to those who would like it.
I don’t know what your beef with them was, but you come across as being combative, nit-picky, and needlessly insulting. I wouldn’t want to spend much time on your accusations, either. You would have been better off choosing a few points you thought were particularly important than a long list of (sometimes erroneous) gripes. That’s my honest evaluation, though I admit I didn’t read all your charges.
Scientific misconduct is a very serious accusation.
“Scientific misconduct is a very serious accusation.”
Ms Silber, if you truly believe this statement, as do I and all of my colleagues, then how do you feel about the Mann hockey stick, Climategate, or a recent paper by Garner, A.J., Mann, M.E., Emanuel, K.A., Kopp, R.E., Lin, N., Alley, R.B., Horton, B.P., De Conto, R.M., Donnelly, J.P. & Pollard, D., 2017. Impact of climate change on New York City’s coastal flood hazard: Increasing flood heights from the preindustrial to 2300 CE. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(45):11861-11866,
proclaiming SLR for New York City of 17.5M by 2300?
The Hockey Stick curve for temperature has been repeatedly shown to be in error by many scientists; Climategate was a disgrace to its perpetrators and showed clearly exactly what kind of manipulations have been carried on to silence true scientific debate about climate; the paper I cite above makes outrageous claims that cannot be proven or substantiated by field research.
There is no such thing as settled science! In my lifetime I have witnessed many major changes in what we believe, starting with “Continental Drift” that I learned about in the 5th grade from my Friends School teachers, a promising theory, now studied as plate tectonics.
I am sorry if you are offended by my comment, but I have been reading your numerous comments and criticisms of Peter Ridd and they offend me. What is your field of expertise? Do you know anything about how corals grow or how many millions of years they have survived? As it happens I do and am fairly confident that the GBR will be around in excellent condition long after all the commenters on this site are dust.
Sigh. Pameladragon. I’m sorry if I offended you. I just say what I think. Ridd may be a fine, smart guy, but I don’t like what he did.
I’m not a fan of Michael Mann, either. The Hockey Stick is not wholly accurate, but not bad… but I don’t really care. it’s old. From what I gather, Mann made a statistical error, and that wouldn’t qualify for misconduct; I suspect after all this time he doesn’t want to admit it. BWDIK? I don’t know the whole story.. I wish the whole thing could be dropped. It’s irrelevant now, except as a symbol. Boy, deniers really loathe him, don’t they?
For some foolish reason, I believe it’s unlikely that 8 independent investigations are going to find no misconduct in the Climategate affair if there really was misconduct. Crazy me, huh? Instead of assuming I know the truth (without knowing any of the background, the conversations and emails and science and statistics that went into the investigations), I trust the investigators did their jobs.
I haven’t read the whole NYC paper, but on the surface it seems OK. I don’t know, I’m not qualified to tell. Pretty optimistic to try to predict that far in the future, and some assumptions are made, and it is pretty hard to believe that a 500-yr flood is now a 25-yr flood…but I really don’t know and even if I did read the whole thing I don’t know if I could say. It does talk about high uncertainties associate with some models, and one model hasn’t been run enough times to be very informative, it seems. It’s one paper. I wouldn’t take it as gospel. “proclaiming SLR for New York City of 17.5M by 2300?” I have no idea where you get that figure.
My field of expertise is in ecology and evolution. While I’ve only done research in terrestrial systems, there are similarities across biomes. I’ve also been scuba diving for 30 years; I’ve dived the GBR dozens of times.
Sigh…if you had read the paper and understood it (ok, I admit, the paper is poorly-written but the numbers are clear), you would have seen that the 17.5 M increase in SLR by 2300 is quoted from the paper. They also predict SLR of up to 2.6 m by 2100, 10.5 m by 2200. This is not science but pure speculation designed to alarm people with little or no knowledge of the science of SLR. That this trash paper was published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science should tell you a lot about what is going on in scientific publications today. Thirty years ago, this paper would have been rejected immediately.
As an ecologist and environmentalist, do you get that warm is good, cold is bad? I have done field work in the tropics and am well aware of the tremendous amount of diversity there. Just traveling from New England in the US to south Florida it should be impossible to miss how biodiversity increases on the way south. But them, as a field researcher, I am always extremely aware of my surroundings….
You say you are familiar with the GBR, what are your observations? It is dying, sinking into the benthos, from bleaching and pollution? I doubt very much you would have returned after your first visit if that were the case.
2 or 5000 scientists agreeing on something does not make it correct if they are just repeating what they have been told. There is no place in science for consensus. Science is the one place where a single researcher can come up with an entirely new way of looking at things and change the paradigm forever for everyone until the next revolutionary discovery. Remember Darwin? Copernicus? When I was a child the continents did not move but by the time I was an undergrad there was a new science called Plate Tectonics and all the texts had to be rewritten.
pameladragon,
I don’t consider myself an environmentalist and have always disliked being called one.
I searched for the 17.5 in the article, came up with nothing, and don’t know what you are referring to.
Relative SLR at NYC is likely to be greater than the global mean, due primarily to the combined effects of glacial isostatic adjustment and the static-equilibrium fingerprint of AIS mass changes (21, 36). Under RCP8.5, relative SLR for NYC will very likely (P = 0.90) be 0.55–1.4 m (median of 0.96 m) between 2010 and 2100 and 1.5–5.7 m (median of 3.2 m) between 2000 and 2300. Our projections increase to 0.88–2.5 m (median of 1.5 m) and 10.7–15.7 m (median of 12.7 m) for 2100 and 2300, respectively, for the enhanced AIS input scenario (Fig. 4).
As the paper states, the AIS scenario is not reliable for prediction. That’s the highest figure, though, and even the upper limit of the the possible range is only 15.7 m – is that what you meant to write, perhaps, and go the numbers reversed? But this is not a prediction, it’s the highest of the potential range (according to these models).
“As an ecologist and environmentalist, do you get that warm is good, cold is bad? ” No, not at all! There is no “bad” or “good” about particular temperatures, it’s a matter or what communities are adapted to, how quickly they can move or evolve in response to climate change, and what benefits or stressers are affecting them. A background in ecology is useful in considering how climate change may disrupt interactions of species and their environment, and knowledge of evolution gives an idea on the factors that influence whether organism can adapt. Both fields are highly mathematical and make ample use of statistics and modeling.
Examples of just a few (probable) effects of warming: there is evidence that bark beetle populations have benefited from higher low winter temps and/or longer growing seasons, allowing plagues of them to kill huge swathes of forest in the Rockies. Prey fish (e.g. sardines) numbers have declined drastically of the west coast, where there is a giant blob of warm water – the theory is that they’ve moved elsewhere, but it’s disrupting the food web. And, of course, warmer temps mean sea level rise, which threatens many coastal communities around the world.
You say the article about NYC is pure speculation. Is that because you quibble with something about the models they used, or do you think that models in general are useless?
It’s been 18 years since I lived in Australia. The reef seemed healthy then, although there were issues caused by sedimentation and in some areas crown-o-thorns were prevalent. Dive operators are going to take people where the reef looks best.
“2 or 5000 scientists agreeing on something does not make it correct if they are just repeating what they have been told.” True, but that is a baseless assumption you have no reason to make.
“There is no place in science for consensus.” Sure there is. Consensus is a measure of the regard the scientific community in general holds for an idea. It’s a way for society to interpret how likely it is that an idea is supported by scientists. An idea that only half of scientists support should be given different attention than one supported by over 90% of those who work in the field. Of course it may be wrong, but at some point scientists and others have to take scientific ideas as their working hypotheses in order to advance the state of knowledge and (sometime) so that policy can be made. Policy decisions could never be based on science if people waited for “proof” because, as you point out, science is never “settled.”
“Science is the one place where a single researcher can come up with an entirely new way of looking at things and change the paradigm forever for everyone until the next revolutionary discovery.”
Sure, but that doesn’t mean we should wait around for a scientist who has an ability to see into the future or come up with an explanation that fits all the data and tells us what to expect in the future. The models aren’t perfect, but they are getting better. There’s nothing about computer modeling that is inherently untrustworthy, it all depends on how they are built, tested, used, and interpreted. The problems are known and discussed. not hidden. Maybe AR4 wasn’t transparent enough in discussion of uncertainties, but AR5 seems better.
Until that revolutionary scientist comes around, we need to work with what we have.
What’s your field, Pamela?
Ridd has powerful enemies outside JCU
Dr Wendy Craik . . .
http://www.environment.gov.au/marine/gbr/authority-governance-review
http://climatechangeauthority.gov.au/about-cca/authority-members
and her pal Prof Russell Reichelt – chairman and CEO Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority;(Adjunct Professor at James Cook University).
They are his enemies as they are only important while the hypothesis that the ‘Great Barrier Reef is being destroyed’ is accepted as true. As soon as that ceases to be the case a lot of their funding, power and bragging rights vanish not only that but if they are shown to be wrong, then all that money and all those regulations that they supported were wrongly imposed too. They literally cannot accept that Professor Ridd has falsified their hypothesis.
You’re assuming he did.
@Kristi Silber
You’re assuming he didn’t. Do you have any data to back up your claim he hasn’t refuted the alarmist claims? Please provide links.
Andrew, I’m not assuming he didn’t find evidence that coral can recover or that there has been cyclic bleaching, or even that bleaching isn’t widespread on the GBR (though when it comes to one scientist vs. 2500 that bleaching is a global problem, I’m betting on the latter). My point is that people here are assuming that he’s right and everyone else is wrong. On what basis?
BUT THAT’S IRRELEVANT TO MY MAIN POINT.
Well done Peter Ridd. Keep up the good fight.
Whoever thought that Stalin’s Lysenkoism would be alive and well in AGW/Climate Change issue.
If the alarmists can’t suppress opposing views, they then go on attack with character assassination as they did here on ABC media watch : http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4502927.htm
Hardly a character assassination! A critique of reporting is more like it.
Interesting…
Last month [June 2016], some 2500 of the world’s coral reef experts met in Hawaii and agreed to send a letter to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, warning him that:
“Coral reefs … are threatened with complete collapse under rapid climate change.”
But what’s 2500 scientists vs. one guy who says everything is hunky-dory, and if the science doesn’t say so then they’re all doing it wrong?
Kristi – so you believe science should be put to a vote?
Would it not be better to actually show the problem demonstrate that areas that were ‘irrecoverable and destroyed’ say 5 years ago remain irrecoverably destroyed now? All Professor Ridd has done is show that the reef has recovered and hypothesized that periodic bleaching is a normal process. For that hypothesis he is not even allowed to talk to his wife? If he is wrong demonstrate where he is wrong that is how science progresses. Putting a gag order on the professor rather than show where he is wrong, makes it look as if those 2,500 world coral reef experts may have a guilty secret and they are worried he may let the cat out of the bag. After all they are claiming rapid climate change and like Flannery’s perma-drought that is not the case either.
“But what’s 2500 scientists vs. one guy who says everything is hunky-dory”
Nothing, if the “one guy” is right. That’s (real) science.
Kristi write this silly dribble since being ignorant of past history of science controversies doesn’t help you here,:
“But what’s 2500 scientists vs. one guy who says everything is hunky-dory, and if the science doesn’t say so then they’re all doing it wrong?”
J. Harlan Bretz is a perfect example of being right and 2,500? Geologists being wrong. Alfred Wegener (amateur geologist) was another example of being right about Continents moving around, which many degreed Geologists of the day disputed.
You suffer from Consensus ideology, which has no place in science research.
“Would it not be better to actually show the problem demonstrate that areas that were ‘irrecoverable and destroyed’ say 5 years ago remain irrecoverably destroyed now?” I am not qualified to do so. No, science shouldn’t be put up to a vote, but if it’s a choice between believing thousands of scientists who have studied coral bleaching around the globe vs. one guy who has studied the GBR, why would I believe the latter? How do you know he has shown that the reef has recovered? Is his research beyond question, while all contradictory research is automatically wrong? Even his arguments are foolish. Sure, storms come along and wreck parts of a reef, but not 1000-km swaths of it. Storms are single events, ocean temps are going up generally – the cycles he talks about could come more often or be more extended. Coral recovery doesn’t mean it’s as diverse as it was before – some corals are much faster growers and much more resilient. Etc., etc.
But all that’s beside the point. The point is the way he went about airing his grievances is not acceptable. If he were pointing to systematic scientific misconduct, that would be one thing, but that’s not at all what he did. He made claims to the public that the public is not capable of evaluating and that don’t qualify as misconduct. His are criticisms that belong in the scientific community where they can be properly understood and addressed if merited and possible.
I am sick an tired of hearing how corrupt the scientific community is from those who aren’t a part of it and don’t understand it. Many people believe there is a global conspiracy of climate scientists out to fool the world for political or financial reasons. It’s just ridiculous, but some Americans believe it. I have no patience for scientists who blithely throw around accusations that only compound the problem. Ridd is free to discuss particular issues, but saying that science is not trustworthy is not good for anyone.
The irony is that if the university had left him alone , he wouldn’t have gotten all this attention. My advice the James Cook U is to double down, maybe hire some private detectives to follow him around. You can’t do academic suppression half assed.