[Coral-List] Prioritizing impacts to coral reefs

Magnus Johnson m.johnson at hull.ac.uk
Wed Apr 23 08:47:02 EDT 2014


Hi Richard,

Not a good analogy to use.  Have you read Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre?

We are regularly subjected to medication that has been promoted to Drs on the basis of a few trials that have provided a positive result and were made public (e.g. Tamiflu in the UK) but we are not told about the ones that fail.

We, I am sure, are victim to the same types of error in natural sciences.  E.g. Successful MPAs produce papers saying how wonderful MPAs are, overfishing gets reported more often than successful fisheries management, coral disease gets reported - absence of coral disease doesn’t.

I’m not for one second saying I believe climate change is not affecting reefs, or that the oil/energy industry is populated by saintly individuals who only have the planet’s best interests at heart, or that everyone who accepts money from Pew is allowing their science to be driven by $$$s.

But cynicism and scepticism are healthy traits in any scientist/environmentalist!

Cheers, Magnus
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