Sky News Discovers Fired Crank Scientist, Creates A Plucky Underdog Who Says GBR In Great Shape

EDIT

Once Ridd decided to sue James Cook Univeristy, he started a crowdfunding campaign, which, thanks to promotions from the IPA and climate science denialists around the world, raised more than AU$250,000. Ridd then hired a team of lawyers including Stuart Wood QC — described as one of the country’s leading industrial relations barristers. He won’t be cheap — sources say he usually charges upwards of AU$10,000 a day.

“The IPA have been the source of this,” Ridd told Rozner. “Not just for the financial support, but also the moral support that helped me go on. John Roskam (the IPA’s executive director) gave me a call and said he would get some lawyers to look at it and it was not until that happened that we thought we were in with a fight.”

In a segment on another Sky News show, Peta Credlin, who was chief of staff to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, said Peter Ridd was “world renowned” as a reef scientist, and that in Australia “you can’t find a better expert on the Great Barrier Reef.”

One way of measuring what scientists think of each other’s work, is to look at how many times scientists cite the studies of other people. Ridd does not have a Google Scholar profile (the easiest place to check citations), but his ResearchGate page shows his work has been cited 3,113 times. For comparison, according to ResearchGate Terry Hughes has been cited 41,600 times. Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, of the University of Queensland, and a pioneer of coral bleaching research, has also been cited 41,600 times.

EDIT

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/04/04/great-barrier-reef-sacked-scientist-peter-ridd-sky-news-ipa