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The article you yourself cited is headlined, "Record coral cover doesn’t necessarily mean the Great Barrier Reef is in good health".

myshpa 3y ago
Record coral cover !== fully recovered From the article: "Inferring that a reef has recovered by a person being towed behind a boat to obtain a rapid visual estimate of coral cover is like flying in a helicopter and saying a bushfire-hit forest has recovered because the canopy has grown back. It provides no information about diversity, or the abundance and health of other animals and plants that live in and among the trees, or coral."
- revelio 3y ago
  Uh huh. They were happy to use those measurement techniques just three years ago when they were predicting doom. They didn't even start measuring fish species until the 2019 survey. Now the coral has unfortunately rebounded, their prior methods suddenly aren't good enough anymore. She isn't even saying there's a problem here, just that she doesn't have data to say! That's really desperate. She's also moving the goalposts, but her argument makes no sense. Now the coral is at record-breaking coverage the problem has become that it's the wrong type of coral - except the justification for it being the wrong type is that it consists mostly of the type of coral that grows the fastest. Which is obvious and circular: in any natural ecosystem that involves regular dieoffs and regrowths, some species will grow back faster. That's inherent to a diverse natural world, the exact thing she claims to be worried about losing. Putting corals aside for a moment, I hope we can find agreement on the underlying meta-scientific issue here. Scientists in whatever field should carefully study their domain and either come to fully understand it, or if they can't do that, at least understand their own level of understanding. What people need to see from universities is a recognition when they make confident predictions that are later falsified. Without the recognition that falsification has occurred, science cannot advance. In this case they're refusing to accept that falsification has happened, instead engaging in ad hominem attacks, goalpost shifting, circular reasoning and other fallacies. The approach of these biologists is summed up by this chef's kiss statement: "While there’s no data to prove or disprove it, it’s also probable ..." Literally "although we have no evidence, we know what's happening anyway". The scientific method has gone AWOL.

myshpa 3y ago

Record coral cover !== fully recovered From the article: "Inferring that a reef has recovered by a person being towed behind a boat to obtain a rapid visual estimate of coral cover is like flying in a helicopter and saying a bushfire-hit forest has recovered because the canopy has grown back. It provides no information about diversity, or the abundance and health of other animals and plants that live in and among the trees, or coral."

revelio 3y ago
Uh huh. They were happy to use those measurement techniques just three years ago when they were predicting doom. They didn't even start measuring fish species until the 2019 survey. Now the coral has unfortunately rebounded, their prior methods suddenly aren't good enough anymore. She isn't even saying there's a problem here, just that she doesn't have data to say! That's really desperate. She's also moving the goalposts, but her argument makes no sense. Now the coral is at record-breaking coverage the problem has become that it's the wrong type of coral - except the justification for it being the wrong type is that it consists mostly of the type of coral that grows the fastest. Which is obvious and circular: in any natural ecosystem that involves regular dieoffs and regrowths, some species will grow back faster. That's inherent to a diverse natural world, the exact thing she claims to be worried about losing. Putting corals aside for a moment, I hope we can find agreement on the underlying meta-scientific issue here. Scientists in whatever field should carefully study their domain and either come to fully understand it, or if they can't do that, at least understand their own level of understanding. What people need to see from universities is a recognition when they make confident predictions that are later falsified. Without the recognition that falsification has occurred, science cannot advance. In this case they're refusing to accept that falsification has happened, instead engaging in ad hominem attacks, goalpost shifting, circular reasoning and other fallacies. The approach of these biologists is summed up by this chef's kiss statement: "While there’s no data to prove or disprove it, it’s also probable ..." Literally "although we have no evidence, we know what's happening anyway". The scientific method has gone AWOL.