In conversation with some biologists yesterday about the anniversary of the oil spill in the Gulf. Biologists found that species:  crabs, shrimp, fish INCREASED. Counter intuitive. And senior biologists told them not to publish the results “as it went against the established narrative, that spill was bad for gulf life”.  It looked like the spill led to an increase in Gulf life. 

So what happened? As a result of the spill fishing was stopped, but “fishing” meant sea bed dragging. Stopping the dragging led to a flourishing of life that had been dragged off the bottom and killed. Hence the spill led to more Gulf  life, but through an unrecognized intermediate step – stopping the dragging despite the presence of millions of gallons of spill.

Is that story too hard to tell?