This is not the first time of course that slanted and pre-determined conclusions to suit a political agenda are drawn from supposedly “rigorously peer-reviewed research”. Peer-review carried out correctly is no doubt very effective but it also always discourages the non-establishment view. And if the establishment has a preconceived “belief”, then any views dissenting from that orthodoxy are easy to suppress.
ABC reports:
There are new allegations of scientific misconduct being directed at the National Park Service. A park service study claims an oyster farm in the Point Reyes National Seashore is harming wildlife, but there are disturbing new questions about the science behind that study.
The Drakes Bay Oyster Company has been at Point Reyes since the 1930s, but the National Park Service says it must close in 2012 in order to return it back to wilderness. The park service released a study in April claiming to have evidence the oyster farm is a threat to harbor seals, driving them out of their home in Drakes Estero. However, an independent analysis by outside experts shows that evidence is slanted to make the oyster farm look bad.
Addendum (21st September 2011)
It seems (not yet confirmed) that the paper in question is Modeling the effects of El Nino, density-dependence,and disturbance on harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) counts in Drakes Estero, California: 1997–2007 by Becker, Press and Allen,
MARINE MAMMAL SCIENCE, 25(1): 1–18 ( January 2009), Society for Marine Mammalogy, DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-7692.2008.00234.x
I think the problematic paragraph could be this one in the Results section
Disturbance rates in the upper estero (subsites OB, UEF, UEN) significantly
increased with oyster harvest (rs = 0.55, P < 0.03) (Fig. 2B). This correlation
is highly robust to sample size. For example, there was still a significant positive
correlation (rs = 0.53, P < 0.04) of disturbance rate with oyster harvest even
when removing the 2006 disturbance, four of the 2007 disturbances (including two
disturbances on 1 day in 2007 that the mariculture company challenged), and four of
the 1996 disturbances (nine total) from the analysis. Similarly, oyster harvest levels
in years with oyster related disturbances were significantly higher (U = 43, n =
The independent study itself seems to have been done by heavyweights in the world of science led by Corey S Goodman:
“This is a published paper, it’s publicly available, it’s been supported by taxpayer dollars, it’s done by government scientists,” said biologist Corey Goodman, Ph.D. Goodman is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and he has published more than 200 scientific papers. He was asked by a Marin County supervisor in 2007 to look into how the park was conducting scientific research and he’s been pouring over data ever since. …….
It took the National Park Service three months to hand over their data to Goodman. When he finally got it, he shared it with statisticians at Stanford and U.C. Davis to see if they could replicate the results. “And what I find is that none of the conclusions in the paper are valid,” said Goodman. ……That’s why Goodman is charging the park service with distorting science to fit their ultimate goal of closing the oyster farm.
Further details of Dr. Goodman’s charges of scientific misconduct are here.
The author of the Parks Service paper seems to have gone into hiding and the Parks Service is in a defensive mode.
ABC7 wanted to hear from the park service scientist who wrote the study, Dr. Ben Becker, director of the Pacific Coast Science and Learning Center at Point Reyes National Seashore. We asked the park service for an interview, left messages for Becker, and sent emails, but never heard back. We even went to his house to get answers, but Becker refused to answer our questions.
Park service spokesman Melanie Gunn told us in an email that Becker’s paper “went through a rigorous peer review process.”
But merely invoking peer-review -which is notoriously patchy in its quality – and which often ends up as being “pal-review” is unlikely to be enough in this case.
Goodman’s concerns were still enough to raise the interest of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California. The senator has asked the Marine Mammal Commission to do an independent review of the park service study and now she wants the park service to delay its environmental impact statement on the oyster farm until after that review. She sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
In it the letter, Feinstein says: “I fear that if the Department of Interior does not stand behind the independent analysis, it will be another example of a lack of credibility at Point Reyes National Seashore.”
The park service says it is cooperating with the review but still plans to release its report this month, adding that “Dr. Becker continues to work with the Marine Mammal Commission on any remaining questions the Commission may have.”
Related: Peer review and the corruption of science
The k2p blog 