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Underwater Sonar Linked To Whale Deaths
An anonymous reader writes "A group of scientists have confirmed a link between the sonar used by Exxon Mobil to map the ocean floor for oil and the death of melon-headed whales. From the article: 'A spokesman for ExxonMobil said the company disagrees with the findings. "ExxonMobil believes the panel's finding about the multi-beam echo sounder is unjustified due to the lack of certainty of information and observations recorded during the response efforts in 2008," spokesman Patrick McGinn told AFP in an email. He added that observers employed by the Madagascar government and the oil giant "were on board the vessel and did not observe any whales in the area."'"
"ExxonMobil believes the panel's finding about the multi-beam echo sounder is unjustified due to the lack of certainty of information and observations recorded during the response efforts in 2008," spokesman Patrick McGinn told AFP in an email. He added that observers employed by the Madagascar government and the oil giant "were on board the vessel and did not observe any whales in the area."'"
Certainty of information: Nobody requires absolute certainty in science. In fact, even the court system, sad as it is, needs it -- it requires "beyond reasonable doubt", whereas science is similarily situated at "best model that fits the facts". Type of cognitive distortion ExxonMobile uses here: All-or-nothing thinking.
Out of date observations: It's 2013 now. By carefully hand picking your data set to be only, say, 2008, or pre-2008, you are discounting everything that came after. One supposes that an extra five years' worth of observations, we'd be able to narrow in on a cause. But let's humor them and take just 2008. In February of that year, before the incident in question, the US courts found there was enough evidence that high energy sonar was killing whales to ask the military to reduce its use in naval operations.
Impartial observers: Let me sum this one up real easy -- "Managment finds no problem with the management." The government was paid a lot of money to go along with Exxon, and employees of Exxon I think we can safely say aren't impartial observers. So one of the most basic things required for proper fact gathering went right out the window. This is, in effect, an admission that ExxonMobile has no valid data points from which to draw any conclusions whatsoever. It is, from a scientific perspective, pure speculation. "We're not wrong because, er, we saw ourselves doing nothing wrong." Okay... what about everyone else? "We didn't ask them."
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
"We're no worse than anyone else and you can't prove otherwise"
The reason for the doubt is that melon-headed whales beach themselves anyway with surprising frequency.
The interesting question is, how can you tell this surprisingly high frequency ist not due to sonars?
Except there's a solid causal mechanism in play here. Whales are known to have particularly sensitive sound-receiving organs that also also known to be sensitive to extremely loud sounds like explosions and sonar. And it just so happens that someone was using a highly focused sonar in the time and space these whales turned up dead.
By your logic, a guy going into an auditorium and shooting a bunch of bullets isn't necessarily the cause of all the people found dead there with bullet-holes in them. There's just not a cause and effect relationship... sure, it's a plausible explanation, but that's far from being 'cause and effect'.