Fracking is horrible for the environment, right? Well, a large body of evidence does say that pumping the ground full of chemical-laced water isn’t a good idea, but as is always the case with science, researchers are now popping up that oppose the conclusions of some data. As I briefly noted yesterday, this is how research generally works: researchers will debate numbers and conclusions, while the media tend to take the latest shocking report as gospel. But here’s how science can’t work: when university-backed researchers are paid off to report misleading conclusions.Now University of Texas researcher Dr. Charles “Chip” Groat might take issue with that characterization, but being a member of the media, I can only see things in black and white. Seriously though, here’s what happened: Groat scored a wealth of headlines at the end of last year for a study that supposedly found no link between fracking and groundwater contamination.Read the rest over at Motherboard.
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