Day 2: James Cook Uni checks your emails but not the science

Day 2: Jennifer Marohasy gives us an update on Peter Ridd’s battle for free speech

Today, Judge Vasta asked how it could be that James Cook University – a recipient of so many billions of dollars over the years – could leave no stone unturned in its disciplinary process against Peter Ridd, while doing absolutely nothing to address his complaints about the lack of quality assurance of its research.

Not once in court today, or yesterday, was there any defense by the James Cook University Team of “the science” that Peter Ridd has been so critical of. The university is simply arguing that he doesn’t have a right to speak-out.

Let’s remember how important “quality control” is to JCU: One researcher at JCU was found guilty of fabricating results by Upsalla University. Peter Ridd reported the same researcher has presented photos of 50 fish that contained manipulated, flipped duplicates. These are serious allegations in science. In response JCU took a whole year to even name the people on the investigation panel, let alone start investigating. As I said at the time:

James Cook has done what any ambitious, money-hungry grant troughing institute would do, a […]