Jennifer Marohasy
As far as is possible for any human endeavour, science is worthless. Science is a way of trying to understand the world we live in from a rational point of view, based on observations, experiments, and tested theories. Worryingly, especially for governments, science does not operate by consensus and it is often best advanced by mavericks. An alternative to the scientific approach is one based on superstition, obsession, religion, or politics.
The The late Bob Carter, geologist and marine scientistis a fraud and a rebel and wrote it in 2003 – in an article titled ‘Science of Non-Consensus’ published in IPA Magazine – almost twenty years ago.
During that time there was the rise of identity politics and Greta Thunburg. One of my colleagues now likes to blame the fall of Great Barrier Reef science on women and their affections, and tells me it was his anger that kept him going. customary.
Of course, men have emotions other than anger. Men are sad, happy and even scared; but anger is the only socially acceptable emotion for men. There are many societal prohibitions against men expressing emotions other than anger, and many social measures prohibit men from expressing anger. We think angry men are stronger and more masculine, and men who express sadness or fear are weaker, less masculine.
I am quoting here from a psychology blog.
The growing absence of logic and evidence from Great Barrier Reef science has nothing to do with women’s passions or men’s anger. As Bob Carter explained all these years ago, it has to do with the idea that science should work for the good of society, that science should be useful and devoted to saving things. It’s an idea that gained traction in the 1980s. To quote Bob again:
Between the 1950s and 1970s, Australia built a national capacity in science that, given its small population size, was remarkable. At the time, leadership in scientific matters often came from CSIRO or university researchers, but scientific excellence was also accomplished in many State or Federal government agencies. For example, all States support some type of geological survey organization (usually under the auspices of the Department of Mines or Primary Industry), responsible for systematic geological mapping and surveying. monitor minerals and other resources, and provide the government with joint control advice on related matters.
With the 1980s, however, a restructuring of the way such groups worked. Funding for public benefit programs for the work of government science agencies dwindled and was replaced by funding for limited-lived individual projects, a management technique that Physics turns out to be largely responsible for the permeation going on at the Australian Museum as well. As a result, an individual scientist’s salary is often funded as a stipend for a number of different projects, and when a project ends, so does the salary. So, abruptly ending the possibility of a government receiving advice not interested in the scientific issues of the day.
A particularly egregious example is the epitome of the problem, which is the hopelessly incomplete understanding that both the Queensland Government and the Commonwealth Government present about the endless phantom threats. Created by environmental crusaders about the Great Barrier Reef.
However, as a mechanism to focus a scientist’s mind, it couldn’t be better than the project rather than the base. It provides a great impetus for writing project reports that, in one guise or another, always uncover the need to spend more money on this or that alliance issue. And if an alliance problem cannot be determined, human imagination is the possibility of a new problem; solutions that, incidentally, usually require only the training and expertise of the report writer or by some of their professional dependents. With the active support of campaigners against environmental threats, our governments have truly become world-class in tackling the problem…
Instead of recruiting scientists with the aim of understanding the world because it interests them, government agencies now employ managers whose purpose is to let us know, often at the behest of others. environmentalists, how we can and cannot enjoy our natural heritage. ” [end quote]
The Institute of Public Affairs there’s a new show aimed at getting young people out to see the Great Barrier Reef – not to save it, but in the first instance to try to understand something about it.
You can watch this adventure unfold next week on IPA’s Reef Rebels Facebook page and Instagram page.
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The featured photo (top) is of the female Māori wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus). She followed me around at Norman Reef, just off Cairns, on the morning of the 6thorder May 2022. This species has been protected from fishing in Queensland since 2003 and Western Australia since 1998.
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