Freaky Frog Fraud

“‘Frog sex malformities linked to weedkiller, study says’ was a popular media story last week. University of California junk scientist Tyrone Hayes once again tried to link the widely used herbicide atrazine with deformed frog sex organs and allegedly declining frog populations. Hayes’ one-page write-up of his latest scary ‘research’ appeared in the Halloween issue of the pre-eminent journal Nature. No doubt the article was a treat for publicity-hungry Nature and anti-chemical activists (the sponsors of the study).”Steven Miloy

—Freaky Frog FraudFox News)

My freshman composition students are busily seeking credible sources for their persuasive researched reports. If I were looking for credible scientific data, I wouldn’t start in a glossy commercialized publication like Nature. All research has to be funded by somebody, and all research is to some extent political, but journalists are far too quick to overhype environmental scare stories like this.