Scientific claims are only worth the data they’re based on. In turn, that data is only as good as the methodology by which it’s collected. Among other things, experimenters should absolutely rigorously compare apples with apples. Measuring two different things, however similar they might be, and pretending that they’re the same is not good science. Using such flawed data to construct a strong claim – especially a startling or catastrophic claim – is junk science.
Once again, we are seeing that a key claim of climate change alarmism – the alleged “death” of the Great Barrier Reef – is based on flawed methodology, and may well turn out to be junk science.
Rebel marine scientist Peter Ridd has thrown down a challenge to reef scientists to test whether or not human actions have caused a collapse in the growth rate of corals on the Great Barrier Reef.
Dr Ridd said despite published claims of a collapse in coral growth rates between 1990 and 2005 due to stress from human pollution, there was no data for the past 15 years. “We don’t know how the Great Barrier Reef has fared since 2005,” he said.
If the Reef really was under such threat, then surely it would be continuously monitored?
He has proposed a new program of drill core sampling to bring the record up to date and test whether assumptions about a collapse in growth rates because of warmer temperatures can be believed. Like tree trunks, drill cores from old corals can reveal growth rings that show age and growth rates. Writing in The Australian on Thursday, Dr Ridd says a properly supervised program would be an “acid test of the trustworthiness of our major science institutions”.
When similar problems emerged with the proxy measurements (such as bristlecone pines) used to support claims of global warming, the alarmists simply refused to go back and re-do the measurements. “Too hard,” they whined.
Sure: when you’re proposing unprecedented, trillion-dollar social and economic upheavals, trudging a few kilometres carrying a piece of boring equipment really is just too hard.
Far easier to stick with the alarmist narrative, and not risk inconvenient facts getting in the way.
The foundation of claims about a dramatic decline in reef growth is contained in a 2009 paper by Glenn De’ath from the Australian Institute of Marine Science that is still widely quoted.
The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2019 cites the De’ath report in claims that reef calcification declined by 14 per cent between 1990 and 2005…
Dr Ridd challenged the research, claiming a change in methodology had resulted in the apparent drop in coral growth rates from 1990.
The authors accepted criticisms that there had been incorrect measurement of near-surface coral growth rings on most of the corals that were giving data from 1990 to 2005 and printed a correction to the paper. However, AIMS rejected criticisms by Dr Ridd that much smaller and younger corals had been sampled for the 1990-2005 data compared with the mostly very large and old corals of the pre-1990 data.
theaustralian.com.au/science/great-barrier-reef-coral-testing-flawed-needs-fix-says-peter-kidd/
This all highlights some common, and growing, problems with modern science. First, the “reproducibility crisis”: in recent years, it has become more and more obvious that many scientific studies are impossible to reproduce. They’re scientifically worthless, in other words. This is modern science’s shameful secret, and why, when a headline claims that “science says…”, you should immediately assume that it doesn’t, until otherwise proven.
Secondly, the deplorable media-tarting of many scientists. Outlandish claims are rushed to print in the mass media, often ahead of publication in the scientific literature (this is, in fact, a key characteristic of pseudo-science). Quite often, the same studies are either rejected by scientific publishers (for instance, Gergis, et al, 2012) or later withdrawn (Resplandy, et al, 2018). Yet, these facts are never reported in the mass media, certainly not with the same shrieking headlines with which their alarmist (and, as it turned out, utterly false) claims were originally trumpeted.
The “IFL Science” crowd won’t admit it, but we are smack in the middle of a full-blown crisis in modern science. Rigorous scientific practise is being trashed by activist, junk science. As we see, too, climate science is frequently among the worst offenders.