When “the science” defies common sense and ignores real expertise

Highly questionable assertions and findings are not uncommon in any body of scientific literature. In the past, they would have been quietly considered in the background as part of an evolving scientific consensus which, if appropriate, would eventually inform bureaucratic policy and field practice. Nowadays, the publication of research papers about trendy causes, such as 'saving' forests from logging, is more often a public spectacle, promoted by its authors and eagerly appropriated by lobby groups to help push their agendas via a generally uncritical media. If such papers have conceptual flaws and/or factual errors, they are simply overlooked in the rush to publicise and shape their findings into a politically-attractive message, and by the time these errors are unearthed, the attitudes of the interested public and politicians have already been influenced.

The nation's forest industry sector has endured over a decade of 'hostile science' publicising its supposed dire impacts on bushfire frequency and severity, climate change, and biodiversity conservation; despite the proportionally very small scale of native forest logging making such impacts either implausible or greatly exaggerated. This has grown into a body of scientific literature that typically ignores wider context (such as scale and proportional extent) to enable exaggerated findings, and is founded on often inappropriate assumptions, problematic evidence, and factual errors that are cumulatively compounding in successive papers.

These flaws are in-part due to the reluctance or refusal of some conservation scientists to engage with forest scientists and forestry practitioners who could better inform their understanding of local forest management concepts and practices. This is suggestive of an intellectual arrogance amongst some academic conservation scientists effectively claiming to know more about managing forests than those who actually carry that responsibility on a daily basis, and who, in most cases, are themselves university science graduates who have spent their careers applying their learnings to real-life land management challenges.

We have long since reached the point where those employed within the forestry sector routinely question whether the primary motivation of the conservation scientists producing these papers is to create a platform for media headlines specifically designed to push a politicised conservation agenda. This latest episode certainly feeds that perception.

This article was first published by Quadrant Online on 17 May 2020