Doesn't scientific method dictate that coral bleaching, specifically caused by a slow rise in average temperature, be repeatable in a controlled environment (like a reef tank)? It's odd that every time someone touts a method or product to enhance a reef tank, people cry foul in the name of science, claiming those results can't be consistently repeated. However, when countless reef tanks run with high temperatures and crazy temperature swings, don't suffer the same major bleaching occurrences that happen on some reefs, it is irrelevant because scientific method just doesn't apply when someone wants to claim "climate change". I guess "science" only applies when it doesn't infringe on political correctness.
A whole lot of just plain wrong and/or misunderstanding of the basic facts of the scientific method here... I’ll try to address at least some of them.
1. “Scientific method” does not dictate anything, it’s simply a means to test hypotheses.
2. Coral bleaching isn’t necessarily caused by a slow rise in oceanic temperatures (which isn’t happening), or even necessarily by rapid temperature rise alone, although the geologically meteoric and unprecedented (again, on the geologic time scale) increase in ocean temps is certainly a main driver of it. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Too high temps, far too quickly, often paired with high carbonic acid levels, myriad acute and chronic chemical pollution, over-fishing, silt/runoff, fertilizer runoff, dredging, large plastic pollution, and worse yet, micro plastic pollution, and more, all interact with each other. Depending on the coral species and the relative strength and presence of these factors you might get bleaching/disease events and low or high odds of recovery (although, for pseudoscience, I’d challenge you to try running your reef at 93 degrees for a month or so, if I wasn’t a nice guy, but I am, so don’t).
3. Random, undocumented, utterly uncontrolled, short lived temperature spikes in aquaria that don’t produce bleaching events in a random but select few species of coral, with random lighting, flow, water chemistry, disease presence or lack of disease, nutrients, health histories, and so on and so forth is about as far away from proving anything via the scientific method as one can possibly get.
4. Read the article I posted. You’ll see that scientist are actively using the scientific method to select for climate change hardier coral strains. Indeed, they are going a step further and engaging in something called selective evolution, literally attempting to mine the oceans for coral gametes to combine that just might be capable of surviving in the anthropocene.
5. The scientific method most certainly applies to climate change. Precious little else so globally consequential has been so rigorously subjected to the method, and the data has been overwhelmingly consistent, clear (if one cares to acknowledge it), and terrifying.
6. “Science” applies when the scientific method is understood, executed, and the data has been dispassionately interpreted. Doubly so when it’s been mountains of consistent data over decades, case in point, the data supporting climate change. The data is apolitical, and much the same as me, it does not care, even a little bit, whether it suits your, or anyone else’s, vision of political correctness. It simply is, and therefore you must become scientifically literate, engage in the battle to save the planet, or simply take your dog out of the fight and get out of the way, because at that point you can’t or won’t allow yourself to see what’s right in front of your nose. We haven’t got time for that anymore.
