Aussie scientists to world: Liar liar, pants on fire!

[bhsup]

Scientists Over-Hyped Global Warming’s Harm To Oceans

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, then you know the ocean is on the verge of collapse and the seas will destroy coastal communities. But a team of researchers has found that global warming’s impacts on the oceans have been greatly exaggerated by scientists and the media. As it turns out, reports about things like coral reefs dying off, invasive species destroying ecosystems and species becoming endangered are mostly media hype and have little to do with actual science. It’s a form of groupthink, say researchers, that can damage scientific inquiry. Carlos Duarte, a marine biologist at the University of Western Australia, told the science journal Nature says “There are a lot of conversations around meetings about the excess doom and gloom in our reporting of ocean health, but perhaps this is the first paper to bring these concerns out of the privacy of peer conversations,”

(same info, original source - Nature)
Ocean 'calamities' oversold, say researchers

So... intentional lies to push agenda or just sheeple syndrome with scientists?

 

[bhavv]

Seems like politically funded lies so they can get more reasons to destroy their coral reefs.

 

[FriendlyFire]

So... intentional lies to push agenda or just sheeple syndrome with scientists?

As well as pointing the finger at scientists and journalists, Duarte’s group places some of the blame for the hype at the door of some journals including Nature “The appetite of the media for particular headlines can influence the contents of top scientific journals,”

Philip Campbell, Nature's editor-in-chief, disagrees. “We select research for publication in Nature on the basis of scientific significance,” he says. “That in turn may lead to citation impact and media coverage, but Nature editors aren't driven by those considerations, and couldn’t predict them even if they wished to do so.”

....... So Liberal Media is at it again publishing scientific journals based on "scientific significance" ... HOW DARE THEY !

 

[Tee Kay]

Overselling such claims is dangerous, says the group, because the public may become inured to them and give up trying to save an ocean that it believes is already beyond redemption.

This is a good point they raised, it's one of my main concerns with environmentalist movements. However...

... how does "a few scientists and media may have exaggerated the impact of global warming on oceans" becomes "scientists lie about global warming 'cause they're sheep/evil"

Pot, meet kettle.

 

[JollyRoger]

I think we should put BP in charge of the oceans.

 

[bhsup]

Pot, meet kettle.

Don't try to turn this into a thing about homemade bongs!!

Just kidding! For once, I wasn't trying to be the climate denial dude. My topic title and OP content was actually a play on what the article was about. Sensationalistic headlines.

 

[Harv]

Don't try to turn this into a thing about homemade bongs!!

Just kidding! For once, I wasn't trying to be the climate denial dude. My topic title and OP content was actually a play on what the article was about. Sensationalistic headlines.

....getting in the way of an honest discussion?

 

[Antilogic]

I assume Dale wrote this.

 

[El_Machinae]

http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/12/24/biosci.biu198.full

That's the original article. It's actually quite interesting, and it's worth a read if you (a) give two craps about the ocean and (b) if you like learning about biases in science reporting. The major issue is that, due to the way statistics works, it's much easier to statistically observe that something might be happening compared to proving that something is not happening.

We call it 'statistical power to detect an effect'. It's reasonably easy to learn, but probably requires at much time to watch a season of a TV show, so most people won't do it.

The obvious answer to the article is obviously to ramp up the rate at which we're causing issues and to decrease the scientific funding studying the issue. No, wait, it's probably not that.

Ecology is a hard science. About 60% of the population hates funding it. It's only about a century old. We need time and IQ devoted to it, with concomitant progress in the development of both research techniques and technologies. The best we can do is try to limit the harms to necessary ecosystem services, and maintain sufficient economic growth to increasingly fund the science in this area. It's a series of deliberate choices we each make

 

[dusters]

http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/12/24/biosci.biu198.full

That's the original article. It's actually quite interesting, and it's worth a read if you (a) give two craps about the ocean and (b) if you like learning about biases in science reporting. The major issue is that, due to the way statistics works, it's much easier to statistically observe that something might be happening compared to proving that something is not happening.

We call it 'statistical power to detect an effect'. It's reasonably easy to learn, but probably requires at much time to watch a season of a TV show, so most people won't do it.

The obvious answer to the article is obviously to ramp up the rate at which we're causing issues and to decrease the scientific funding studying the issue. No, wait, it's probably not that.

Ecology is a hard science. About 60% of the population hates funding it. It's only about a century old. We need time and IQ devoted to it, with concomitant progress in the development of both research techniques and technologies. The best we can do is try to limit the harms to necessary ecosystem services, and maintain sufficient economic growth to increasingly fund the science in this area. It's a series of deliberate choices we each make

Great article. It kinda shows that scientists these days can't fully trust media with their data due to political agenda and therefore they are forced to work double by checking if their info has been passed and interpreted correctly lest they risk recieving less funding, because politicians are influenced by afromentioned media bias.