Science

30 August 2023

In this article, Dr Peter Ridd contextualises and disseminates the findings of the IPA’s research into the Great Barrier Reef, conducted as part of the IPA’s Project for Real Science Program. The Project for Real Science is an initiative of the Institute of Public Affairs to rebuild the integrity of scientific research in Australia. The Australian Academy of Science (AAS)

18 June 2023

On June 18, IPA Adjunct Fellow Peter Ridd joined Outsiders on Sky News Australia to discuss the integrity of scientific institutions. All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research. Below is a transcript of the interview. Rowan Dean: Scientists are usually the ones doing the testing, but this time

10 March 2023

When The New York Times allows its star columnist to write an oped revealing that mask mandates did nothing to stop the spread, it’s obvious something is changing the narrative about the pandemic. The truth, as the saying goes, is a time-release pill. Three years on from the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, we’re getting closer to identifying the origin

29 September 2022

This article first appeared on the author’s social media page. The author’s intention in this article is to summarise the research that he has done on the corals in the Great Barrier Reef and contextualises and disseminates the findings of research conducted as part of the IPA’s Project for Real Science Program. The Project for Real Science is an initiative of

14 April 2022

According to The Guardian, John Brewer Reef is at the “centre of a widespread coral bleaching event” with its corals in a “battle” against an “unprecedented” sixth event. The ABC reported similarly, and the story has made headlines around the world. So, Jennifer Marohasy and I thought we would go to Brewer and see how the corals have fared a

6 April 2022

The Bill introduced by Nick Dametto of Katter’s Australian Party’s (KAP) in the Queensland Parliament to reverse Labor’s pointless Reef Regulations (see here), was defeated by a combination of Labor and Liberal-National (LNP) parliamentarians last week. The Reef is in extremely GOOD condition – at record levels by some measures such as coral cover. The levels of farm pesticide concentrations

23 March 2022

There is a smell of something worse than failure: The Queensland government is claiming that the mackerel fish stocks on the reef are at alarming low levels, and it wants to drastically curtail or close the fishery. They base this on two things:​​​​​​​ (a) Calculations of fish stock going back to 1912, from data on fish catch and how many

6 December 2021

The Australian Institute of Marine Science recently released its annual survey of coral on the Great Barrier Reef. It shows spectacularly good results. For all three major regions of the reef, once data uncertainties are considered, there has never been more coral since records began in the mid-1980s. This despite three supposedly catastrophic and unprecedented hot water bleaching events in

3 December 2021

Scientists are collecting coral spawn to regrow dead parts of the Reef (see links below). The idea that the reef, which is as big as Germany, can be replanted this way indicates that the scientist might be becoming detached from reality. It is one thing to plant some corals on a few square meters, but there is no possibility that

23 September 2019

Fundamental to the scientific method is the assumption that reality exists independently of our belief systems; that there is such a thing as evidence, and that it matters. There seems to be general agreement on this point from both the left and right sides of Australian politics. Indeed, in an article in The Weekend Australian newspaper (page 18) written by Graham Lloyd