In a recent article titled “The astonishingly woke Australian Academy of Science” published in the Spectator, Peter Ridd sheds light on the current state of the Australian Academy of Science (AAS). The article raises concerns about the AAS’s approach to scientific research, particularly in relation to the Great Barrier Reef.
“The Australian Academy of Science (AAS) recently released a report Reef Futures Roundtable, which is ostensibly about the doomed Great Barrier Reef. However, the report only demonstrates that the AAS, Australia’s peak science body, has become not just unscientific, but anti-scientific. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has also become astonishingly Woke.”
This statement sets the tone for the entire article, suggesting that the AAS has shifted its focus from genuine scientific research to a more politically-driven agenda.
The Great Barrier Reef: A Case in Point
Ridd points out that the AAS report concluded that the Great Barrier Reef could already be ‘irreversibly’ damaged. However, he highlights some glaring omissions:
“The fact that UNESCO has just declared it not endangered did not rate a mention, and neither did the latest two years of statistics showing the reef is at record high coral levels. Remarkably, the report does not contain a single fact or figure to support any of its claims about the reef – except the area of the reef is 340,000 square kilometres.”
Such omissions raise questions about the credibility of the report and the motivations behind its conclusions.
Impractical Solutions
Ridd goes on to critique the ‘interventions’ recommended by the AAS to address the perceived issues with the reef. He finds them to be not just impractical but bordering on the absurd:
“For example, it suggests ‘solar radiation management’ – shading the reef from the sun with man-made fog and clouds to prevent the water heating up and causing coral bleaching… How are you going to make a cloud as big as Germany and keep it anchored over the reef for the whole summer over the next few hundred years?”
Such suggestions, Ridd argues, demonstrate a lack of quantitative analysis and a departure from genuine scientific inquiry.
Wokeness Over Science
One of the most striking critiques Ridd offers is the apparent shift in the AAS’s priorities. He suggests that the AAS places more importance on issues of gender and race than on genuine scientific facts:
“The AAS ascribes such importance to facts and figures on gender and race, but not to scientific facts. This demonstrates it is anti-science. Science is about evidence and logic. It does not matter whether one is male or female or whatever else, it is still impossible to make clouds as big as Germany for the next hundred years.”
Conclusion: A Once-Esteemed Organisation’s Fall from Grace
Ridd concludes his article with a somber reflection on the state of the AAS:
“I have been saying for some time that many of our science institutions have become totally untrustworthy. By its wilful abandonment of quantitative analysis, the AAS has destroyed its reputation as a source of useful scientific advice… The Australian Academy of Science is now a joke.”
This article serves as a stark reminder of the importance of maintaining the integrity of scientific institutions and how far they’ve fallen. When political agendas overshadow genuine scientific inquiry, it not only undermines the credibility of the institution but also has broader implications for public trust in science.
In an era where trust in institutions is already waning, it’s crucial for scientific bodies like the AAS to return to upholding the principles of genuine scientific research. The Great Barrier Reef, one of the world’s most treasured natural wonders, deserves nothing less.
Source: The astonishingly woke Australian Academy of Science, Spectator.
The astonishingly woke Australian Academy of Science | The
In March 2021, I wrote to the Australian Academy of Sciences asking them to retract a long report on the dangers of a global warming of 3 deg C.
There was little response, not more that an acknowledgement of receipt of jmky request.
Here is the reasoning I sent to the AAS in support of the need to retract.
The standard of the science in the AAS report was quite poor.
It reads more like selective advertising for a cause than a balanced representation of what all science has reported.
Geoff S
https://www.geoffstuff.com/threedeg.docx
It’s amazing AAS produced a long report in the first place. If anyone ever offers real money for thoughts and opinions about something nobody can control, take it and run.
Tony Thomas is a retired, senior Australian journalist respected for his attention to accuracy.
He writes now and then for the online version of the conservative journal Quadrant.
He has written several articles critical of the Australian Academy of Sciences.
This one is perhaps pertinent to the Charles Rotter article here. There are more, searcing is easy.
Geoff S
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2022/08/shut-them-up-argues-the-academy-of-science/
To save searching, most of my Australian Academy articles are here
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2023/07/the-australian-academy-of-contrivance/
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2021/04/the-australian-academy-of-drama-queens/
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2022/09/posturing-and-piffle-at-the-academy-of-science/
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2012/06/our-planet-saving-science-lobbyist-the-integrity-of-the-australian-academy-of-science/
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelong-papers/2021/05/154448/
https://joannenova.com.au/2015/12/australian-academy-of-science-trains-school-children-to-be-lobbyists-and-teachers-dont-mind/
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2015/12/scientists-still-science/
The scientific method was established because it was recognized that humans by nature have an extremely difficult time being objective. The scientific method is a process, if followed rigorously, that is designed to help us overcome our inherent weaknesses in pursuit of truth about the world we live in. The scientific method has been abandoned by so many now that the ability for human-kind to objectively seek the true nature of the world they live in is being lost. The consequences of this will reverberate for generations to come.
The people who most tightly embraced the scientific method as a guiding philosophy caused a lot of trouble in the 20th century.
Yep, lefties just want a quiet life devoid of reality: poor things, probably gave them headaches.
Yes, they did embrace the scientific method as a guiding philosophy, then proceeded to misapply it, ignore it’s edicts anytime it contradicted their desires, and use it selectively (at best) to advance their agenda. .
Similar to some of today’s climate ‘science’.
Examples please.
Mao, Stalin, Lenin. Hitler
Eugenics
The idea “if you can’t measure it then it isn’t real” has consequences for people with limited memory.
Scientists, being humans, add their worldviews to to the experiments they design, the results they report and the words they use to frame the results.
Im surprised to find so many negative votes the next day – global warming politics is all about using science as a tool to achieve political ends.
I’m now reading Cixin Liu Sci-fi. It’s very modern relative to Heinlein and Asimov, and it can be hard to read around the foreign worldview – the propensity to appeal to scientific (false?illigitimate?) authority is a strong component of culture.
I laugh at ideas like “chemical free” beauty products. The obvious problem is something endemic to a culture built around ideas its members don’t understand.
The people you mention and the damaged caused was not due to adherence to the scientific method but rather the complete opposite. They created ideologies and insisted “science” produce results consistent with those ideologies.
The trouble has been caused in many cases by those who claim to know the truth and seek to stifle any debate. The Royal Society understood this already in 1660 and adopted the motto “Nullius in verba” (take nobody’s word). The University of Wisconsin class of 1910 placed a plaque on a campus hall that says:
“Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”
Sadly the current woke administration no longer ascribes to this philosophy.
Thanks for “getting it”. And also acknowledging we’re not the first people to think about it. One might retort: How has The Royal Society done in regards to global warming?
Sadly, like all institutions run primarily by academics who depend on government funding, the Royal Society has been captured by the woke elite and abandoned any pretense of objectivity or adherence to its founding principles.
The US National Acsdemies of Science, Engineering and Medicine is likewise DEIncompetent.
Ayn Rand.
“Alice O’Connor, better known by her pen name Ayn Rand, was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher. She is known for her fiction and for developing a philosophical system she named Objectivism. Born and educated in Russia, she moved to the United States in 1926.”
Why -2 for an overly brief meta-comment about the danger of federal government-funded science?
Gad Saad put it well. ”Misplaced orgiastic compassion”.
“Wokesters” are sh1t scared of saying or doing anything that puts them at odds with “the narrative”.
Which is why all the professional organizations sing from the songbook.
Pathetic really.
Imagine a woke thinker looking at a world where artificial intelligence wades through a million layers of expert opinion to find the one data kernel the experts base their expert opinions on.
What if AI decides the one data kernel supports the wrong opinions?
One of five objectives stared in the AAS mission statement is “excellence and diversity: be a national leader in diversity, equity and inclusion in the science sector”.
A subsidiary meaning of ‘diversity’ given in the Oxford dictionary is : ”the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.” (Oxford itself has gone ‘woke’).
That mission statement is tautological unless the governing body believe that excellence alone would not ensure diversity.
The worldviews that paved the way for woke thought should be well suited to seeing woke thought self extinguish. I hope a woke thought collapse doesn’t take Western thought and nationalism down with it.
The only question organisations like that pursue is ‘Do you want a piece of cake with your coffee?’
The article is informative, and I generally agree with the direction and findings of the article. However, In the article, Charles Rotter makes the case that the The Australian Academy of Science (AAS) recently released report Reef Futures Roundtable is lacking in data to support the thesis that the Great Barrier Reef is dying. However, he does not include any data or graphs showing why the Great Barrier Reef is doing well. Although I have been following other articles (that include data) that support the thesis that the Great Barrier Reef is thriving, I think that Charles Rotter would do a better job in his challenge to the AAS wokeness if he included evidence to support his thesis.
BTW – If heat is such a problem with the GBR why are coral reefs in the Indonesia Reef system not dying?
As you say there is published evidence of GBR doing well. One example is from Daily Sceptic:
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/08/10/coral-at-the-great-barrier-reef-holds-on-to-recent-record-gains-defying-all-doomsday-predictions/?highlight=reef
My synopsis is:
https://rclutz.com/2023/08/12/barrier-reef-great-again/
“BTW – If heat is such a problem with the GBR why are coral reefs in the Indonesia Reef system not dying?”
Why is the Great Barrier Reef thriving if heat is such a problem? The truth is the warmth of the water is not preventing the GBR from thriving. The Australian AAS is misrepresenting the facts. A science organization misrepresenting the facts.
Most of our professional institutions are just as corrupt as the Austrailian AAS
when it comes to the human-caused climate change narrative.
Mass delusion in the professional classes.
I suspect many in the professional classes are not so deluded- they just want to protect their career. I consider such people to be the lowest of the low- worse than criminals- it’s a different kind of criminality with terrible consequences for everyone. Wokeachusetts is full of this type of scum.
I got multiple vaccines to keep my job. I work elsewhere now. It is (always?) a challenging time to take the high road.
Two sources of excellent, irrefutable evidence that the Great Barrier Reef is thriving:
Because Charles Rotter/WUWT has already published the above evidence, he probably felt it unnecessary to publish it all again, here. In fact, if he were to follow your logic, every time Rotter published ANY article that had more evidence which he/WUWT had already published, he would have to publish all those supporting articles over and over.
Thank you, nevertheless, for pointing any “lurker” readers to the fact that there is, indeed, MUCH more evidence proving that the GBR is A-OK. 😀
Also, that you elicited researcher and writer extraordinaire, Ron Clutz’s, response was a job well done.
They cherry pick items in most fields that are related to climate science.
If there are 10 separate elements which define the understanding of a particular climate science realm, they intentionally discard everything that shows benefits in discussions.
Also with all the negatives that they use, there is an enormous amount of distorting and exaggerating.
If that were not true and they were being objective and honest, then most discussions would also include large parts about the massive benefits.
The stone cold fact is that the biggest impact from increasing CO2, by an extremely wide margin is being caused by its role in the indisputable law of photosynthesis.
The realm being impacted the most…………get’s the least coverage because their objective is activism NOT science.
Authentic science tells us all the comprehensive facts, including those the scientist doesn’t want to be true.
Activism tries to convince people to believe something so that, by controlling their opinion(s) you can generate enough support for your cause so that political actions will be taken.
If I’m trying to sell you my car or house, I tell you all the good things but not the bad ones that will scare off potential buyers.
That’s how people act when they are selling something. Use car dealers have a bad reputation because of this.
Science, however should tell us EVERYTHING. Good and bad because the mission for all authentic scientists should be to EDUCATE people so that they understand the topic.
Sadly, mainstream climate science is SELLING a fake crisis NOT reporting objective science or educating us with authentic science.
“That’s how people act when they are selling something”
Which is EXACTLY what they are trying to do. !
Cold or cool weather kills 8 to 20 times as many people each year compared to hot or warm weather.
This recent study shows that cold weather we have every year causes about 4.6 million deaths a year mainly through increased strokes and heart attacks, compared with about 500,000 deaths a year from hot weather. We don’t protect our lungs from the cold air in the winter and that causes our blood vessels to constrict causing heart attacks and strokes.
‘Global, regional and national burden of mortality associated with nonoptimal ambient temperatures from 2000 to 2019: a three-stage modelling study’
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(21)00081-4/fulltext
This study from 2015 says that cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather and that moderately warm or cool weather kills far more people than extreme weather. Increased strokes and heart attacks from cool weather are the main cause of the deaths.
‘Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multi-country observational study’ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/fulltext
This is true.
The climate crisis activists tell us to believe that the perfect temperature and CO2 level for life was right when humans stated burning fossil fuels.
Despite the authentic science which tells us that most life, would still prefer it a bit warmer than this and the optimal level of CO2 is around 900 parts per million, which I’d double the well mixed atmospheric CO2 level here in 2024.
One of the false narratives is that the climate is changing too fast for life to adapt.
Certainly, we can find many examples of life needing to adapt to the warmer world. However, when the change is going from SUB optimal towards optimal, it reduces the need to adapt to overall better conditions.
If I live in a 3rd world country and my family is starving because they only get 1,000 calories/day and they suddenly boost that to 1,500 calories a day, their bodies and health will benefit enormously and quickly.
Will they need to adapt to the higher calorie diet?
Of course and most of the adapting will result in/from benefits.
But we can cherry pick negatives.
More food means more time preparing and eating food.
It means taking a dump a few more times every month…….which is toxic waste. If it was climate science, instead of human nutrition, we would be told that the extra, entirely beneficial 500 calories to sustain these humans is actually a crisis because it causes additional toxic waste from the extra human waste deposited after that wonderful food has been metabolized.
The problem the Aussies and many others have is that their governments are made up of jumped-up nobodies, flotsam emerging from a corrupted political system floating on top of a sea of incompetents. A minister for science worth his or her salt would have taken a big broom through such derailed institutes, kicked out the governors and rebuild it from scratch.
Quantitative Analysis? Really? Surely you know that Maths is simply wh1te supremacy?!
Mikey Mann feels a friend in the AAS….he says Australia did not used to experience fires and floods…it’s carbon emissions that done it…woke scientists of the world UNITE!
Peter Ridd must be commended for this clearly written and concise piece – roughly 1000 words. He provides enough information to be checked by anyone and will be proved to be accurate in his assertions unlike the AAS on this subject.
Corals have been around for 500 million years an have survived my warmer temperatures than the cool temperatures in the current 2,6 million-year ice age.
Natural selection will take care of the problem. If the temperatures changes variants that are better suited to the change will flourish while variants that are less suited will decline.
Progressive progress continues to march forward down under.