Reef madness: Top scientist backs plan to fact check government science

AUSTRALIA’S most famous living scientist and Nobel Laureate, Professor Barry Marshall, has offered his support to a campaign by Dr Peter Ridd to improve science integrity at a government decision level. Dr Ridd is the Queensland scientist who fought the academic establishment at James Cook University for contradicting alarmist claims about the Great Barrier Reef.

Dr Ridd has highlighted a current problem with scientific integrity, most obvious in politicised and alarmist “climate research”. For instance, in a recent presentation on his YouTube channel, Dr Ridd revealed that reef scientists had in effect, redefined inland swamps as “coral reefs”.

“If a man can become a woman, why can’t a freshwater swamp transition into a coral reef – because a scientist says so,” says Dr Ridd.

He says the centre of the Great Barrier Reef is now on land at a place called Calen, and in his video presentation he takes a road trip to the area to inspect it. “There’s no coral here, I think it must have been devastated,” says Ridd tongue in cheek, standing on the edge of a lagoon inland from Townsville.

He also points out some real environmental issues with vast infestations of weeds like leucaena, considered one of the 100 worst invasive species by the Invasive Species Specialist Group of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Dr Ridd’s campaign aims to get science audits for science evidence underpinning government decisions, many of which in recent years and decades have been based on dubious claims about the environment and climate.

“Prof Marshall is his own man, and an independent of our campaign, but he would be happy to help the Premier (David Crisafulli) set up science auditing,” says Dr Ridd.

“There is actually a groundswell in the science community for this. I did a video on my Reef Rebels YouTube channel on this.”

Prof Marshall is famous for showing that stomach ulcers were caused by a bacterium and not by stress and other factors.

His work was initially ridiculed by the science establishment, but he went against the consensus, against the group think that had become entrenched for decades. They said the strong acids in the stomach would kill any bacteria and he must be wrong.

In one of the most remarkable stories of science discovery, after having no luck convincing the science establishment that bacteria were the cause of stomach ulcers, Prof Marshall brewed up a concoction of the bacteria Helicobacter pylori , and drank it to give himself an ulcer.

But he was smart – he also had the cure, which was a mixture of antibiotics and bismuth. He documented the whole process, with endoscopies and sampling of his stomach contents.

“It was an incredibly brave thing to do, but it forced the establishment to take his evidence seriously. He won a Nobel Prize for his work in 2005. Goodness knows how many lives he saved, and how much pain and suffering he stopped,” says Dr Ridd.

“Irrespective of our ‘Check the Science’ campaign, we can all agree, Prof Marshall is a legend. And don’t forget to sign the parliamentary petition supporting Check the Science.”

For more information on ‘Check the science” go to https://www.australianenvironment.org/