{"id":342532,"date":"2024-09-10T09:04:37","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T07:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=342532"},"modified":"2024-09-10T09:04:39","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T07:04:39","slug":"acidification-alarmists-forced-to-fake-findings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=342532","title":{"rendered":"Acidification Alarmists Forced to Fake\u00a0Findings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Science Matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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The story of fake research findings was published at the journal Science entitled Star marine ecologist committed misconduct, university says<\/strong><\/a>.  Excerpts below in italics with my bolds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding against Danielle Dixson vindicates whistleblowers
who questioned high-profile work on ocean acidification<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A major controversy in marine biology took a new twist last week when the University of Delaware (UD) found one of its star scientists guilty of research misconduct. The university has confirmed to Science that it has accepted an investigative panel\u2019s conclusion that marine ecologist Danielle Dixson committed fabrication and falsification in work on fish behavior and coral reefs.<\/strong> The university is seeking the retraction of three of Dixson\u2019s papers<\/strong> and \u201chas notified the appropriate federal agencies,\u201d a spokesperson says.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dixson is known as a highly successful scientist and fundraiser.<\/strong> She obtained her Ph.D. at James Cook University (JCU),<\/strong>  Townsville in Australia, in 2012; worked as a postdoc and assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology for 4 years; and in 2015 started her own group at UD\u2019s marine biology lab in Lewes, a small town on the Atlantic Coast. She received a $1.05 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2016 and currently has a $750,000 career grant from<\/strong> the National Science Foundation (NSF)<\/strong>. She presented her research at a 2015 White House meeting and has often been featured in the media, including in a 2019 story in Science.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together with one of her Ph.D. supervisors, JCU marine biologist Philip Munday,<\/strong> Dixson pioneered research into the effects on fish of rising CO2 levels<\/strong> in the atmosphere, which cause the oceans to acidify. In a series of studies published since 2009 they showed that acidification can disorient fish<\/strong>, lead them to swim toward chemical cues emitted by their predators, and affect their hearing and vision. Dixson\u2019s later work focused on coral reef ecology<\/strong>, the subject of her Science paper.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The colorful diversity of coral found at One Tree Island. The structure and diversity of coral we see today is already at risk of dissolution from ocean acidification. Kennedy Wolfe University of Sydney<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among the papers is a study about coral reef recovery that Dixson published<\/strong> in Science in 2014, and for which the journal issued an Editorial Expression of Concern in February. Science<\/strong>\u2014whose News and Editorial teams operate independently of each other\u2014retracted that paper<\/strong> today.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigative panel\u2019s draft report,<\/strong> which Science\u2019s News team has seen in heavily redacted form, paints a damning picture of Dixson\u2019s scientific work<\/strong>, which included many studies that appeared to show Earth\u2019s rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels can have dramatic effects on fish behavior and ecology. \u201cThe Committee was repeatedly struck by a serial pattern of sloppiness, poor recordkeeping, copying and pasting<\/strong> within spreadsheets, errors within many papers<\/strong> under investigation, and deviation from established animal ethics protocols,\u201d wrote the panel, made up of three UD researchers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several former members of Dixson\u2019s lab supported<\/strong> the whistleblowers\u2019 request for an investigation. One of them, former postdoc Zara Cowan, was the first to identify the many duplications in the data file<\/strong> for the now-retracted Science paper. Another, former Ph.D. student Paul Leingang, first brought accusations against Dixson to university officials<\/strong> in January 2020. He left the lab soon after and joined the broader group of whistleblowers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leingang, who had been at Dixson\u2019s lab since 2016, says he had become increasingly suspicious of her findings, in part because she usually collected her fluming data alone<\/strong>. In November 2019 he decided to secretly track some of Dixson\u2019s activities. He supplied the investigation with detailed notes,<\/strong> chat conversations, and tweets by Dixson to show that she did not spend enough time on her fluming studies to collect the data she was jotting down in her lab notebooks.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investigative panel found Leingang\u2019s account convincing and singled him out for praise. \u201cIt is very difficult for a young scholar seeking a Ph.D. to challenge their advisor on ethical grounds,\u201d<\/strong> the draft report says. \u201cThe Committee believes it took great bravery for him to come forward so explicitly. The same is true of the other members of the laboratory who backed the Complainant\u2019s action.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

UD \u201cdid a decent investigation. I think it\u2019s one of the first universities<\/strong> that we\u2019ve seen actually do that,\u201d says ecophysiologist Fredrik Jutfelt of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, one of the whistleblowers. \u201cSo that\u2019s really encouraging.\u201d But he and others in the group are disappointed<\/strong> that the committee appears to have looked at only seven of the 20 Dixson papers they had flagged<\/strong> as suspicious. They also had hoped UD would release the committee\u2019s final report and detail any sanctions against Dixson. \u201cThat is a shame,\u201d Jutfelt says.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Inventing Facts to Promote an Imaginary Crisis<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Legacy and social media are awash with warnings about hydrocarbon emissions making the oceans acidic and threatening all ocean life from plankton up to whales.  For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ocean acidification: A wake-up call in our waters<\/strong> \u2013 NOAA<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canada\u2019s oceans are becoming more acidic<\/strong> \u2013 P\u00eaches et Oc\u00e9ans Canada<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ocean Is Getting More Acidic\u2014What That Actually Means<\/strong>\u2013 National Geographic<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Ocean Acidification?<\/strong> \u2013 NASA Climate Kids<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ocean acidification: why the Earth\u2019s oceans are turning to acid<\/strong> \u2013 OA-ICC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Etc, etc., etc.<\/p>\n\n\n

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With the climatism hype far beyond any observations, marine biologists have stepped up to make an industry out of false evidence.  They are forced to do so because reality does not conform to their beliefs.  A good summary of acidification hoaxes comes from Jim Steele Un-refutable Evidence of Alarmists\u2019 Ocean Acidification Misinformation in 3 Easy Lessons<\/strong><\/a> posted at WUWT.  Points covered include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2666  The Undisputed Science<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2666  The Dissolving Snail Shell Hoax<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2666  The Reduced Calcification Hoax<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More detail on the bogus fish behavior studies is also found at WUWT: James Cook University Researchers Refuted: \u201cOcean Acidification Does not Impair\u201d Fish behaviour<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A brief explanation debunking the notion<\/strong> of CO2 causing ocean \u201cacidification\u201d is here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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