How Science Failed During the Gulf Oil Disaster

When the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded two years ago in the Gulf of Mexico, many scientists, including me, stepped outside of the Ivory Tower to study what was an unprecedented — and unintended — environmental experiment. We succeeded in gathering mountains of data, learning all sorts of new things, and advancing science.

But we also failed.

Academic scientists chose the research that most interested us, rather than what may have been most important to responding to the immediate disaster. We failed to grasp the mechanics of the media. And we struggled with how our data was vetted and whom we could trust with it. Simply put, problems arose when academia did not appreciate the cultures of the other players responding to the spill.

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