Maldives and Junk Science

The seas are rising! Or perhaps the sky is falling.

One groups of scientists has been checking the sea levels in the Maldives and found that they have been dropping. Another group has been checking the sea levels and say that sea levels are rising.

The government of the Maldives has decided to listen to the latter and is spending over $1B to go green to stop this terrible event happening. When you live an average of six feet above sea level you tend to worry about these things.

The first of the above mentioned groups is on the ground in the Maldives checking tide levels and historical deposits and high water marks. They have photographic evidence of the historical levels and can physically show that the levels are dropping or have dropped.

The second group operate at a desk and work of dubious tide data and using models and linear regression analysis to come to their conclusions. Worse "Church, White, and Hunter applied a number of regional ‘corrections’ to the basic tide gauge record and calculated averages of a large region to arrive at their conclusion that sea level was rising in the Maldives."

The only time supporters of the second group ever came to the Maldives to do any physical checking they pulled down a very significant tree because it was proof that their calculations were wrong and they wanted to get rid of the evidence. This is a very well known event, caused by students from an Australia sea-level team, is the height of anti-science and it typifies the "Consensus or Believers" approach to science.

Since the government policy has been decided based on what most would call junk science they are going down a very silly and expensive path.

So who are you more willing to believe; those on the ground doing the actual measurements or those sitting in a room thousands of miles away doing their calculations with computer models and statistical analysis?