By Paul Taylor
PAUL TAYLOR CONSULTING
www.taylorenvironmental.net
Ph.(310)709-8711 Fax(310)826-5476
Originally posted on July 27, 10:12 AM
With the global recession and California’s unemployment rate above 11%, the extra costs of green living are colliding with economic reality. Environmentalists have been green-guilt baiting us for years to donate to sanctimonious eco-nonprofits and to pay extra for green products and services.
The cold realities of economic recession have chilled recent years of obsessive environmental politicking. Environmentalism is the most densely organized political movement in human history -- eco-groups grew from 2,000 to over 4,000 during the 1990s. Now, as a political “special interest,” green groups have leveraged their roughly $1.5 billion in annual nonprofit assets to drown us in a tsunami of scary scenarios of climate change and global warming. Corporate marketeers have “greened” every product, service and advertising tag line. Surveys last year of large US retailers found more than 1,700 products boasting of green credentials or environmental benefits -- most at extra cost with unproven benefits. Critically missing in this eco-emersion of fanciful ideas for green living has been the increased consumer costs involved.
A contemporary example of smarter consumers is a 2007-launched California utility’s “climate smart” program. The patronizing program asked electric power users to donate an extra monthly $2 to $3 for “forestry projects” that would control global warming. Well, consumers are not that dumb. With common sense applied to the debate about the causes of climate change and to some theoretical reduction in greenhouse gases from a “forest project,” smarter consumers didn’t buy in. The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has found that only 0.6% of its 5.1 million users would pay extra to be “climate smart." It costs this utility about four times more (in millions) to run the “climate smart” program than donations received to date. So, power user rates may be raised to pay for this silly and indulgent green gone wrong mistake.
Let the green buyer beware. So-called “smart” green products and services always cost more than the conventional items they pretend to replacement. Maybe “SMART” is actually an acronym meaning “Socialist Manipulation And Rhetorical Tripe.”
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
The “PhD Effect” and scientific prediction
This appeared on May 29th, 2009 in the blog, Things I Don’t Understand. I would like to thank the author (let's make John A. Underhill his nom de plume) for allowing me to reprint this article.
Randi’s Theory of PhDs
One of my personal inspirations to look at the Universe through scientific eyes is not a scientist at all, but a conjurer, escape artist and illusionist called James “The Amazing” Randi. Randi (as he is frequently called) is now semi-retired from show business, but is fully engaged in making speeches and writing books on the paranormal, upon hucksters and scam–artists, on fake psychics like Uri Geller and Sylvia Browne and all sorts of flim-flam that causes gullible people to be separated from their money. He does this through his own charitable Foundation, the James Randi Educational Foundation,based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Now many people are beguiled into thinking that Randi is some mere conjurer. He most certainly is much more than that. Randi is a genius of first rank and a highly original thinker whose persistence has infuriated many counsels of the “great and the good” including that most precious of elites, the PhD scientists of academe.
It’s not that Randi is against PhDs or the people that have PhDs. He is a blessed and trusted friend to many people who possess those qualifications and more. He was a great friend of Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman.
Its simply that in his long observation of PhD scientists that some of them are peculiarly blind to their own deficiencies as observers, thinkers or even experimenters, and can be fooled by simple trickery or deluded by chance or human error into believing the most preposterous of nonsenses.
Randi has his own theory as to why PhDs are more credulous than they would admit. He refers to it as the “PhD Effect” and whimsically relates that he notices at the PhD ceremony the Presiding Professor always wears gloves to handle the PhD certificates and wonders why this should be – and then Randi proffers the suggestion that it must be because the certificates contain a substance that transfers itself instantaneously to the new PhD holder through the skin, one of whose results is that the newly minted PhD cannot utter either of the following two phrases “I was wrong” and “I don’t know”.
Randi’s Theory of PhDs
One of my personal inspirations to look at the Universe through scientific eyes is not a scientist at all, but a conjurer, escape artist and illusionist called James “The Amazing” Randi. Randi (as he is frequently called) is now semi-retired from show business, but is fully engaged in making speeches and writing books on the paranormal, upon hucksters and scam–artists, on fake psychics like Uri Geller and Sylvia Browne and all sorts of flim-flam that causes gullible people to be separated from their money. He does this through his own charitable Foundation, the James Randi Educational Foundation,based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Now many people are beguiled into thinking that Randi is some mere conjurer. He most certainly is much more than that. Randi is a genius of first rank and a highly original thinker whose persistence has infuriated many counsels of the “great and the good” including that most precious of elites, the PhD scientists of academe.
It’s not that Randi is against PhDs or the people that have PhDs. He is a blessed and trusted friend to many people who possess those qualifications and more. He was a great friend of Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman.
Its simply that in his long observation of PhD scientists that some of them are peculiarly blind to their own deficiencies as observers, thinkers or even experimenters, and can be fooled by simple trickery or deluded by chance or human error into believing the most preposterous of nonsenses.
Randi has his own theory as to why PhDs are more credulous than they would admit. He refers to it as the “PhD Effect” and whimsically relates that he notices at the PhD ceremony the Presiding Professor always wears gloves to handle the PhD certificates and wonders why this should be – and then Randi proffers the suggestion that it must be because the certificates contain a substance that transfers itself instantaneously to the new PhD holder through the skin, one of whose results is that the newly minted PhD cannot utter either of the following two phrases “I was wrong” and “I don’t know”.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Moral Fashions and the Corruption of Science
I asked John A. for his last name in order to properly credit this commentary, but he commented that he keeps his “surname off the Internet." He went on to say, “Just link to my blog, Things I Don’t Understand, and people will know who I am.”
John apparently is a history buff and categorizes himself as a “classical liberal”. Those among us who are history buffs will find that statement insightful. For those who aren’t, I have linked the history of “Classical Liberalism”. It isn’t what you think. I have also linked a number of names and events that may not be commonly known to most people in order to give everyone the true flavor of what John is saying. I would also like to thank him for allowing me to reprint what originally was an e-mail that appeared in the blog Greenie Watch. RK
The history of science is rife with examples of political, social and moral fashions which not simply influence, but pervert the scientific method and corrupt the conduct of scientists. Einstein faced off the political and moral fashions of Nazism and eugenics but plenty of his colleagues happily incorporated those twin systems into their own research. Eugenics also laid the foundations for the moral crusade against alcohol in early 20th Century America which was again a supposedly scientific assessment delivered as a moral panic which must be addressed immediately lest America fall into a deep pit of moral degeneration.
The example of Trofim Lysenko and the political outlawing of Mendelian genetics in Stalinist Russia is a particularly scary example of a political fashion given to be a moral and political imperative by a dangerously unstable man who became President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The parallels with the modern global warming scare are obvious.
Another example would be neo-Malthusianism as popularized in the 20th Century repeatedly by Paul Erlich first in the 1960s and more recently by the scarily named "Optimum Population Trust" (and here)which includes such luminaries as Sir David Attenborough calling for mandatory limits on family size to prevent near future overpopulation and mass starvation. Once again, a supposed scientific analysis is communicated as a moral imperative.
John Holdren,now President Obama's Climate Czar, co-wrote several books with Paul Erlich in the 1970s at least one of which argued for forced abortions, forced adoptions of illegitimate children or from mothers "who contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children" and the introduction of chemicals into water and food that rendered people sterile. All of this to forestall a crisis of overpopulation by the year 2000!
Carl Sagan, Erlich and others began and propagated the Nuclear Winter story of the 1980s, together with scary scenarios about likely darkening of the skies due to dust from burning cities rising into the stratosphere and blocking out the Sun. All with the aid of computer models with extremely rubbery parameters and dubious simplifications. A moral imperative against nuclear weapons? You betcha. Even Richard Feynman, iconoclast as he was, while averring that the underlying theory was nonsense, could not raise his voice too loud lest people think he was in favour of nuclear proliferation. Moral panics do that to the best of scientists.
There are lots more examples, but you get the idea. These scientific fashions all in their own time held great sway in academia and mainstream media. They divided scientists into those who were credible and those who were so morally and intellectually corrupt as to actually oppose these ideas.
Modern environmentalism has most, if not all of the above ideas incorporated into the unholy fusion of science and Marxist political theory now called "ecology", but is really a manifestation of what David Henderson memorably called "Global Salvationism".
The most interesting thing about all of this is that I, as a classical liberal, can find common cause with people from a wide spectrum of political and philosophical beliefs that the lessons of history are that moral fashions in science are endemic, cyclical and a constant menace to the real business of scientists to understand how the Universe works.
Scientists don't live in a fashion-free vacuum. They dress themselves in the fashions of the day, read the latest scare stories of the day, follow the latest celebrity soap operas of the day and most of all abide by rules to not upset the funding apple-cart from which their work is done, whatever their personal and moral qualms, at least until retirement.
John apparently is a history buff and categorizes himself as a “classical liberal”. Those among us who are history buffs will find that statement insightful. For those who aren’t, I have linked the history of “Classical Liberalism”. It isn’t what you think. I have also linked a number of names and events that may not be commonly known to most people in order to give everyone the true flavor of what John is saying. I would also like to thank him for allowing me to reprint what originally was an e-mail that appeared in the blog Greenie Watch. RK
The history of science is rife with examples of political, social and moral fashions which not simply influence, but pervert the scientific method and corrupt the conduct of scientists. Einstein faced off the political and moral fashions of Nazism and eugenics but plenty of his colleagues happily incorporated those twin systems into their own research. Eugenics also laid the foundations for the moral crusade against alcohol in early 20th Century America which was again a supposedly scientific assessment delivered as a moral panic which must be addressed immediately lest America fall into a deep pit of moral degeneration.
The example of Trofim Lysenko and the political outlawing of Mendelian genetics in Stalinist Russia is a particularly scary example of a political fashion given to be a moral and political imperative by a dangerously unstable man who became President of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The parallels with the modern global warming scare are obvious.
Another example would be neo-Malthusianism as popularized in the 20th Century repeatedly by Paul Erlich first in the 1960s and more recently by the scarily named "Optimum Population Trust" (and here)which includes such luminaries as Sir David Attenborough calling for mandatory limits on family size to prevent near future overpopulation and mass starvation. Once again, a supposed scientific analysis is communicated as a moral imperative.
John Holdren,now President Obama's Climate Czar, co-wrote several books with Paul Erlich in the 1970s at least one of which argued for forced abortions, forced adoptions of illegitimate children or from mothers "who contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children" and the introduction of chemicals into water and food that rendered people sterile. All of this to forestall a crisis of overpopulation by the year 2000!
Carl Sagan, Erlich and others began and propagated the Nuclear Winter story of the 1980s, together with scary scenarios about likely darkening of the skies due to dust from burning cities rising into the stratosphere and blocking out the Sun. All with the aid of computer models with extremely rubbery parameters and dubious simplifications. A moral imperative against nuclear weapons? You betcha. Even Richard Feynman, iconoclast as he was, while averring that the underlying theory was nonsense, could not raise his voice too loud lest people think he was in favour of nuclear proliferation. Moral panics do that to the best of scientists.
There are lots more examples, but you get the idea. These scientific fashions all in their own time held great sway in academia and mainstream media. They divided scientists into those who were credible and those who were so morally and intellectually corrupt as to actually oppose these ideas.
Modern environmentalism has most, if not all of the above ideas incorporated into the unholy fusion of science and Marxist political theory now called "ecology", but is really a manifestation of what David Henderson memorably called "Global Salvationism".
The most interesting thing about all of this is that I, as a classical liberal, can find common cause with people from a wide spectrum of political and philosophical beliefs that the lessons of history are that moral fashions in science are endemic, cyclical and a constant menace to the real business of scientists to understand how the Universe works.
Scientists don't live in a fashion-free vacuum. They dress themselves in the fashions of the day, read the latest scare stories of the day, follow the latest celebrity soap operas of the day and most of all abide by rules to not upset the funding apple-cart from which their work is done, whatever their personal and moral qualms, at least until retirement.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Of Mice and Men (and Pest Control)
By Alan Caruba
I would like to thank Alan for allowing me to publish this commentary. RK
Among the many books in my office is the “Handbook of Pest Control”, seventh edition, edited by Arnold Mallis. Its contributing editors are a who’s who of the leading authorities on pest control and its encyclopedic text includes thousands of references to the diseases that insect and rodent pests routinely spread in the course of their daily lives.
In one fashion or another for some three decades or more, I have provided public relations services to various elements of the pest control industry; manufacturers of pesticides and my own state’s trade association which is affiliated with the National Pest Management Association.
I tell you this so you don’t think I am evading an obvious bias that favors a profession that dates its history back to medieval times when being a “ratcatcher” was so highly regarded that the Queen of England designated one to keep the castle free of the nasty beasties.
Over the years, these men developed formulas for killing off rodent and insect pests. When you contemplate that the Black Death that swept Europe and England killed a third of the entire population and was caused by a combination of fleas and rats spreading the bubonic plague, the need to control such pests is obvious.
These days, America is experiencing a huge comeback of a pest that had been largely eradicated, the common bed bug. After DDT was banned from use worldwide, along with depriving millions of Africans from protection against malaria, the bed bug returned. Other pest related diseases that have emerged in recent years are West Nile Fever, imported from Africa and spread by mosquitoes, and Lyme disease, spread by ticks.
It is common knowledge that cockroaches spread Salmonella and a variety of other diseases, but probably less well known that termites do more property damage nationwide every year than all the floods and fires combined.
I tell you this because the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Environmental Protection Agency in order to get it to evaluate the effects of 74 pesticides on eleven endangered and threatened species in the San Francisco Bay area over the next five years.
America is on the brink of bankruptcy, but this inane environmental group thinks that pesticides are a greater threat to eleven supposedly endangered species than national insolvency.
While people are losing their jobs and their homes, the environmentalists are worrying about pesticides, not pests. In the San Francisco Bay area represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tucked away in the under-performing $787 billion “stimulus” bill is a provision for as much as $16.1 million to save the habitat of the allegedly endangered Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.
Stay with me just a bit longer. As reported in Pest Control Technology, “As part of the Endangered Species Act, the EPA is required to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services—and sometimes the National Marine Fisheries Services—when they make a pesticide regulatory decision to register or re-register a product.”
The suit, settled in favor of the Center for Biological Diversity, will ultimately require the EPA to ban the use of pesticides anywhere in the entire nation if they are found to threaten “endangered species” which are anywhere and everywhere in the entire nation.
At present this means that “As a result of the lawsuit filed in California, pest control operators in Northern California are presented with serious challenges.” All of the pesticides that are the subject of the proposed injunction are used routinely to protect homeowners, apartments, restaurants, hospitals, schools, as well as warehouses where various food products are stored. The affect on the agricultural use of pesticides and herbicides is incalculable.
To put it another way, the Center for Biological Diversity has put the health of everyone living in Northern California and eventually the entire nation at risk of the many diseases insect and rodent pests spread in order to protect some “endangered species.”
For now, the least protected specie will initially be the people living and working in Northern California if pest control operators are deprived of the pesticides they use. The most privileged specie in the Bay Area will be the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.
Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/ A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.
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I would like to thank Alan for allowing me to publish this commentary. RK
Among the many books in my office is the “Handbook of Pest Control”, seventh edition, edited by Arnold Mallis. Its contributing editors are a who’s who of the leading authorities on pest control and its encyclopedic text includes thousands of references to the diseases that insect and rodent pests routinely spread in the course of their daily lives.
In one fashion or another for some three decades or more, I have provided public relations services to various elements of the pest control industry; manufacturers of pesticides and my own state’s trade association which is affiliated with the National Pest Management Association.
I tell you this so you don’t think I am evading an obvious bias that favors a profession that dates its history back to medieval times when being a “ratcatcher” was so highly regarded that the Queen of England designated one to keep the castle free of the nasty beasties.
Over the years, these men developed formulas for killing off rodent and insect pests. When you contemplate that the Black Death that swept Europe and England killed a third of the entire population and was caused by a combination of fleas and rats spreading the bubonic plague, the need to control such pests is obvious.
These days, America is experiencing a huge comeback of a pest that had been largely eradicated, the common bed bug. After DDT was banned from use worldwide, along with depriving millions of Africans from protection against malaria, the bed bug returned. Other pest related diseases that have emerged in recent years are West Nile Fever, imported from Africa and spread by mosquitoes, and Lyme disease, spread by ticks.
It is common knowledge that cockroaches spread Salmonella and a variety of other diseases, but probably less well known that termites do more property damage nationwide every year than all the floods and fires combined.
I tell you this because the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Environmental Protection Agency in order to get it to evaluate the effects of 74 pesticides on eleven endangered and threatened species in the San Francisco Bay area over the next five years.
America is on the brink of bankruptcy, but this inane environmental group thinks that pesticides are a greater threat to eleven supposedly endangered species than national insolvency.
While people are losing their jobs and their homes, the environmentalists are worrying about pesticides, not pests. In the San Francisco Bay area represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tucked away in the under-performing $787 billion “stimulus” bill is a provision for as much as $16.1 million to save the habitat of the allegedly endangered Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.
Stay with me just a bit longer. As reported in Pest Control Technology, “As part of the Endangered Species Act, the EPA is required to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services—and sometimes the National Marine Fisheries Services—when they make a pesticide regulatory decision to register or re-register a product.”
The suit, settled in favor of the Center for Biological Diversity, will ultimately require the EPA to ban the use of pesticides anywhere in the entire nation if they are found to threaten “endangered species” which are anywhere and everywhere in the entire nation.
At present this means that “As a result of the lawsuit filed in California, pest control operators in Northern California are presented with serious challenges.” All of the pesticides that are the subject of the proposed injunction are used routinely to protect homeowners, apartments, restaurants, hospitals, schools, as well as warehouses where various food products are stored. The affect on the agricultural use of pesticides and herbicides is incalculable.
To put it another way, the Center for Biological Diversity has put the health of everyone living in Northern California and eventually the entire nation at risk of the many diseases insect and rodent pests spread in order to protect some “endangered species.”
For now, the least protected specie will initially be the people living and working in Northern California if pest control operators are deprived of the pesticides they use. The most privileged specie in the Bay Area will be the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.
Alan Caruba blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/ A business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.
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Thursday, July 16, 2009
Take Time to Smell the Horsepucky
By Rich Kozlovich
This first appeared on June 18, 2006. This is a lead in article to two other hard hitting articles that I have been working on for some weeks. I have crossed the Rubicon.
I have quoted Ben Franklin in a number of articles saying, “Truth will very patiently wait for us”. One of my fellow pest controllers took umbrage with that statement. Actually he took umbrage with me being the one saying it. Why? He stated that it wasn’t for me to point out what was truth since I have no qualifications and hadn’t done any research. He then went on to imply that truth was in the eye of the beholder. I have some questions.
The problem we have today is that we have the tendency to rely on “experts” entirely too much. Who says they are “the experts”? Scientists who are “experts” in their own field very often disagree. Vehemently! Global Warming is one such issue. We also have to tendency to run to the middle of the road. Well, let me say this about the middle of the road. That is where the dead animals are.
When Mann, Bradley and Hughes published their now infamous and discredited Hockey Stick graph to show global warming was an Earth threatening event that had to be addressed immediately; it was received by the greenies with utmost enthusiasm.
When McIntyre, a consultant for mineral exploration, and McKitrick published their independent study (they received no funding so as to avoid being criticized as lackeys of big business) the Greenies went almost apoplectic. So what was the solution? Mann and his cohorts merely needed to turn over all their research and show how they arrived at their numbers, which is typically done to allow for peer review. They refused; demanding that everyone had to just accept their conclusions and that there was “consensus” among all serious scientists regarding this matter and further review was unneeded.
Well, first off, that isn’t how peer review works. Secondly, part of the funding for their research came from the United States government which prompted a Senate committee chairman by the name of Inhofe to demand that they turn over their information or else. They and their allies went into even further stages of purple apoplexy. Once released it was obvious to the scientific community why they didn’t want to turn over the information. It exposed how they worked the numbers to get the answer they and their Greenie allies wanted. It was a case of a conclusion in search of data.
Now entering stage left, the High Priest of and First Televangelist for the “First Church of the Warming Globe”, Al Gore, with his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” with his pitch to send out 1000 apostles (Wow, Christ only needed 12) to spread the word to high schools and anywhere else uninformed, unformed minds could be molded.
Who amongst all of the above are qualified to expose the “truth”?
In grade school, junior high school and high school we get the basic tools necessary for independent thought. This requires a certain amount of teaching of what to think versus how to think. Yet isn’t self-education the basic ingredient of formal education? Reading the information, discussing the information, and challenging each position by cross-referencing various writings. Finally writing about the information ourselves, since nothing sharpens the mind quite like having to place your thoughts down on paper.
Unfortunately higher education has lost sight of its role. Formal education at the higher levels continues to teach you what to think, not how to think. Unfortunately so many come out of college as a herd of independent thinkers. Has it always been this way? I don’t know; although I do believe it depends on the school and the professors; and more schools and their professors are more and more radical. Woe be unto any student who stands against one of his professors pet theories. Worse yet; one who proves this pet theory has the smell of horse pucky attached to it.
It may take a little time, but eventually truth comes out. We need to stop being intimidated. We have the right and duty to challenge those in leadership positions in our industry irrespective of their credentials. We have the right and duty to challenge those who would destroy the pesticide manufacturing/distribution/application industries. This is our industry, not the experts. It is our families who will suffer the consequences for their being wrong. They will just move on to some other project. As Winston Chruchill pointedly stated, "experts should be on tap, not on top". If we have opinions that are contrary to what has become the conventional wisdom we need to speak up and not allow anyone to intimidate us into submission. We need to avoid the middle of the road and take a stand for what we believe is “truth”.
Albert Einstein once said, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." While I don’t present myself as the absolute judge of truth and knowledge, I do however think I’m a pretty good judge of the smell of horse pucky.
This first appeared on June 18, 2006. This is a lead in article to two other hard hitting articles that I have been working on for some weeks. I have crossed the Rubicon.
I have quoted Ben Franklin in a number of articles saying, “Truth will very patiently wait for us”. One of my fellow pest controllers took umbrage with that statement. Actually he took umbrage with me being the one saying it. Why? He stated that it wasn’t for me to point out what was truth since I have no qualifications and hadn’t done any research. He then went on to imply that truth was in the eye of the beholder. I have some questions.
1. How qualified does someone have to be to point out “truth”?Well then, let’s try this. One and one are two….right? See, there are absolute truths. Then again it didn’t take much brainpower to come to that conclusion. Perhaps it was far too bold for me to be the one point this out. This bodes well the question; is integrity and a legitimate concern for that which is right more important to brainpower than formal education?
2. How does one become qualified to be able to see that which is true?
3. What determines what the qualifications are?
4. Who determines who is qualified?
5. Are public officials automatically qualified?
6. If public officials are elected officials, are they now qualified by virtue of their election?
7. If public officials are found to be wrong are they now unqualified?
8. Are they unqualified forever?
9. Is honesty a quality necessary to point out the “truth”?
10. Is an alphabet soup of letters behind your name necessary to be able to point out “truths”?
11. Does education guarantee integrity, insight and understanding?
12. Is integrity more important than education or visa versa?
13. Is being over educated and under smart acceptable?
14. Has a researcher ever been found to be lying? If so, is he disqualified forever?
15. Is he only disqualified until the next government grant?
16. If a researcher lies should his alphabet soup of letters behind his name be removed?
17. If that happens is the one who was not formally educated now more qualified?
The problem we have today is that we have the tendency to rely on “experts” entirely too much. Who says they are “the experts”? Scientists who are “experts” in their own field very often disagree. Vehemently! Global Warming is one such issue. We also have to tendency to run to the middle of the road. Well, let me say this about the middle of the road. That is where the dead animals are.
When Mann, Bradley and Hughes published their now infamous and discredited Hockey Stick graph to show global warming was an Earth threatening event that had to be addressed immediately; it was received by the greenies with utmost enthusiasm.
When McIntyre, a consultant for mineral exploration, and McKitrick published their independent study (they received no funding so as to avoid being criticized as lackeys of big business) the Greenies went almost apoplectic. So what was the solution? Mann and his cohorts merely needed to turn over all their research and show how they arrived at their numbers, which is typically done to allow for peer review. They refused; demanding that everyone had to just accept their conclusions and that there was “consensus” among all serious scientists regarding this matter and further review was unneeded.
Well, first off, that isn’t how peer review works. Secondly, part of the funding for their research came from the United States government which prompted a Senate committee chairman by the name of Inhofe to demand that they turn over their information or else. They and their allies went into even further stages of purple apoplexy. Once released it was obvious to the scientific community why they didn’t want to turn over the information. It exposed how they worked the numbers to get the answer they and their Greenie allies wanted. It was a case of a conclusion in search of data.
Now entering stage left, the High Priest of and First Televangelist for the “First Church of the Warming Globe”, Al Gore, with his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” with his pitch to send out 1000 apostles (Wow, Christ only needed 12) to spread the word to high schools and anywhere else uninformed, unformed minds could be molded.
Who amongst all of the above are qualified to expose the “truth”?
• The scientists who have been shown to have baked the data?Is a dishonest scientist more qualified than an honest “reader”? Education is a wonderful thing. We need to be constantly educating ourselves by reading books, articles in newspapers, magazines and listening to discussions regarding a whole host of issues.
• The scientists who exposed them?
• The political leader who desperately wants the limelight and is inclined to accept any foolish Philosophical Flavor of the Day to get it?
• Or perhaps it is the honest "reader"!
In grade school, junior high school and high school we get the basic tools necessary for independent thought. This requires a certain amount of teaching of what to think versus how to think. Yet isn’t self-education the basic ingredient of formal education? Reading the information, discussing the information, and challenging each position by cross-referencing various writings. Finally writing about the information ourselves, since nothing sharpens the mind quite like having to place your thoughts down on paper.
Unfortunately higher education has lost sight of its role. Formal education at the higher levels continues to teach you what to think, not how to think. Unfortunately so many come out of college as a herd of independent thinkers. Has it always been this way? I don’t know; although I do believe it depends on the school and the professors; and more schools and their professors are more and more radical. Woe be unto any student who stands against one of his professors pet theories. Worse yet; one who proves this pet theory has the smell of horse pucky attached to it.
It may take a little time, but eventually truth comes out. We need to stop being intimidated. We have the right and duty to challenge those in leadership positions in our industry irrespective of their credentials. We have the right and duty to challenge those who would destroy the pesticide manufacturing/distribution/application industries. This is our industry, not the experts. It is our families who will suffer the consequences for their being wrong. They will just move on to some other project. As Winston Chruchill pointedly stated, "experts should be on tap, not on top". If we have opinions that are contrary to what has become the conventional wisdom we need to speak up and not allow anyone to intimidate us into submission. We need to avoid the middle of the road and take a stand for what we believe is “truth”.
Albert Einstein once said, "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." While I don’t present myself as the absolute judge of truth and knowledge, I do however think I’m a pretty good judge of the smell of horse pucky.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Weekly ACSH Report
Compiled by Rich Kozlovich
This week there has been so much information that I couldn’t even begin to put it all in here. As I organized this week’s information I ended up with about 7 pages of stuff. It was just too much to put in this article, so I deleted a great deal of wonderful information, which is typical.
Here are ACSH’s latest views on the Swine Flu “crisis”.
There is so much going around about the latest flu “crisis” and so much is somewhat irrational. The media is clearly responsible for most if it. Apparently the WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, indicates that the swine flu virus mixing with other strains such as avian flu,responded, “The virus is still very stable...But as we all know, the influenza virus is highly unpredictable and has great potential for mutation.” There are a number of points that should be discussed as a result. Avian flu is “highly pathogenic” according to Dr. Ross and “In combination with swine flu, that would indeed be a devastating virus, but they’re being alarmist again. They simply have to monitor the virus to see if there’s any change in genotype or virulence.” The CDC claims that their mathematical modeling shows that over one million Americans have now been infected with the swine flu virus.
So far there have only been 127 deaths in the U.S., “a relatively low number but disturbing in its uncharacteristic concentration in younger patients.”An article published on Friday from Associated Press medical writer Mark Stobbe reports that 600million swine flu vaccinations may be distributed for the upcoming flu season
All of this “crisis” thinking is causing “crisis” decisions that are unfounded regarding flu vaccinations. The country has three hundred million people and six hundred vaccinations are going to be available. Is everyone going to have two vaccinations this year? Irrational! Dr. Ross Gilbert points out “For now, people are running around in a panic, wearing masks and not going to school. They lack the perspective to see that the seasonal flu is more dangerous than this. [The usual seasonsal flu] is a pandemic by any standard, and thus far, apparently much more dangerous than swine flu.”
Because of the implementation of this and regular flu season shots ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan says “I can’t imagine the logistics of that. There’s going to be a huge overlap between the two vaccination schedules. I could easily imagine tens of millions of doses of this stuff not being used because people don’t want it or there’s just no way to get it distributed. In fact, millions of doses of annual, seasonal flu vaccine are discarded every year.”
The article also mentions the 1976 vaccination of 40 million Americans in anticipation of a new strain of swine flu: In 1976 America was in an anticipation of a swine flu “crisis” which never materialized. Forty million got shots and five hundred developed Guillain-Barre Syndrome, but this is a bit of data dredging because no one knows what really causes it.
Dr. Ross notes that “The flu vaccine is practically as safe as rainwater unless you’re allergic to eggs, since it’s developed in eggs. The fact that in 1976 there were 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome from 40 million doses swine flu is of minimal concern. That risk is about one in 100,000, and in most cases the symptoms were mild and reversible. These vaccines will hopefully even be less toxic.”
Get the Lead out….Another environmental scare?
Without scares could these activist organizations exist? If they didn’t exist would they have to go out and get real jobs? Perhaps that what they are really afraid of?
The Center for Environmental Health claim to have “found yet another unnecessary lead risk: high levels of lead in name-brand handbags and wallets purchased from Target, Macy’s, Wal-Mart, and many other retailers,” and they recommend that we “TELL THESE STORES TO GET THE LEAD OUT OF PURSES!” They go on to make a demonstrably false claim: “Scientists are increasingly convinced that there is no safe level of lead exposure.”
Once again we find “scientists”, the so-called experts who we are all supposed to bend before and obey, are changing the rules to make their views the “new science”. “This is a new wave of people who are arguing against the classical toxicological principle that dosages are significant,” says Dr. Whelan.
Dr. Ross adds: “We strongly disagree with that thesis on the grounds that it is unscientific and is basically analogous to a revocation of the laws of thermodynamics -- by which I mean they can’t just get away with saying that a tiny exposure is worse than a large one -- it’s nonsense. There is no evidence to support it.”
Bisphenol-A (BPA)
I recently had a conversation with a good friend who has been involved in all the legislative issues that have faced our industry for many years. Recently there was a discussion about the need to return pesticides that have been forced off the market (banned is the commonly used term, but the only pesticide used in structural pest control that was ever banned was DDT and that was based on junk science) by EPA and their tactic of changing the rules in order to make it too expensive to maintain a pesticide registration.
Dursban came into the conversation and the claims by activists that it caused autism. One of the scientists commented that Dursban has been off the market for ten years and if it really did cause autism then you should have seen a drop in autism cases and we haven’t. It must then be concluded that Dursban didn’t cause autism. I was really impressed; at least until he then said that he has decided that plastic bottles were what was causing autism. And he meant it. Of course it could be worse….here is someone who believes that these chemicals cause obesity.
Former environmental consultant Janelle Sorensen has a hunch that our children are getting fatter because of chemicals in plastics, and she convinced Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, a professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai, to agree with her. Well, sort of. “Right now it’s a correlation; we don’t know if it’s cause and effect or an accidental finding,” Dr. Landrigan said. “The $64,000 question is, what is the causal pathway? Does it go through the thyroid gland? Does it change fat metabolism?”
Except for a very few people, I will tell you what changes metabolism. Exercise! It is all about calories in and calories out.
In a blog entry published on Friday, Andrew Van Dam with the Association of Health Care Journalists finally noticed the media bias against bisphenol-A (BPA)that ACSH staffers -- almost alone against the crowd -- have been condemning for some time. “In a review of American media coverage of the controversy of bisphenol-A, researchers at STATS (a nonprofit, nonpartisan Statistical Assessment Service affiliated with George Mason University), say the media failed to properly weight different studies based on their size and research methodology.”
Dr. Whelan has noticed the trend: “If you looked at media coverage of BPA for the last six months, you’d find that a vast majority of the reports were biased in favor of anti-chemical scares. There were very few scientists who were willing to defend BPA despite all the evidence that proves it’s not dangerous. The FDA has already ruled time and time again that BPA is safe as used. How could they come out with any other assessment, unless a new administration can overturn scientific evidence?”
“This needs to be brought to light,” says Dr. Ross. “All of this hype comes from two or three junk science groups like the one under Frederick vom Saal that has been trying to scare people about BPA for over ten years. They automatically doubt any corporate-funded study -- including any researcher who ever received industry support -- for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they want to be praised as heroes.”
“Well, I don’t know their motivation, if it’s publicity-seeking or what,” says Dr. Whelan, “but I know that they aren’t advancing the cause of public health. Any reassessment study would take so long that BPA would probably be banned everywhere already by the time that they prove it is safe again.”
New York Times health and science columnist Gina Kolata, wrote a guest contribution to John Tierney’s New York Times science blog highlighting the recent STATS report that revealed a lack of objectivity in media coverage of the bisphenol-A debate.
“The fact that Ms. Kolata is raising questions about media bias is important since she’s a mainstream reporter, and the mainstream media doesn’t like to criticize itself,” says ACSH’s Jeff Stier. “People aren’t interested in a critical look at the negative news they’ve been putting out, but she’s showing them anyway. Thanks are due as well to John Tierney for highlighting this story initially.”
Acetaminophen: Use As Directed
FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory committee is meeting to discuss “how to address the public health problem of liver injury related to the use of acetaminophen in both over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription (RX) products,” noting that they are not seeking to remove it from the market, as it is safe when used as directed…..People just need to be careful about mixing medications that have acetaminophen in them.” For more information, see ACSH’s publication on OTC pain relievers.
FDA advisory panelists voted yesterday to ban Percocet and Vicodin, two popular painkillers that contain acetaminophen, because of their potential to cause liver damage. I think this is an important point.
As I said before, I had to eliminate a host of information, including information about activists attempting to eliminate fluoride from the drinking water in New Jersey, and medicines that can be developed from genetically modified foods, although I did link those two pieces of information in my weekly newsletter. For those who would like to receive ASCH’s Morning Dispatch:
ACSH's Morning Dispatch, written by Curtis Porter, is an exclusive chance to sit with us at our "virtual" breakfast table each morning -- and is limited only to our family of supporters.
Donors have ACSH experts at the "click of a mouse." Have a question or comment? Thought we missed something? Send it to AskACSH@acsh.org and ACSH will address it in a future Morning Dispatch issue or video commentary.
To join us at the breakfast table, anyone can give a gift to ACSH securely online at https://www.acsh.org/support/step1.asp, or by sending a tax-deductible donation to:
American Council on Science and Health
1995 Broadway, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10023
For questions, call 212-362-7044 x225 or e-mail morning[at]acsh.org.
This week there has been so much information that I couldn’t even begin to put it all in here. As I organized this week’s information I ended up with about 7 pages of stuff. It was just too much to put in this article, so I deleted a great deal of wonderful information, which is typical.
Here are ACSH’s latest views on the Swine Flu “crisis”.
There is so much going around about the latest flu “crisis” and so much is somewhat irrational. The media is clearly responsible for most if it. Apparently the WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, indicates that the swine flu virus mixing with other strains such as avian flu,responded, “The virus is still very stable...But as we all know, the influenza virus is highly unpredictable and has great potential for mutation.” There are a number of points that should be discussed as a result. Avian flu is “highly pathogenic” according to Dr. Ross and “In combination with swine flu, that would indeed be a devastating virus, but they’re being alarmist again. They simply have to monitor the virus to see if there’s any change in genotype or virulence.” The CDC claims that their mathematical modeling shows that over one million Americans have now been infected with the swine flu virus.
So far there have only been 127 deaths in the U.S., “a relatively low number but disturbing in its uncharacteristic concentration in younger patients.”An article published on Friday from Associated Press medical writer Mark Stobbe reports that 600million swine flu vaccinations may be distributed for the upcoming flu season
All of this “crisis” thinking is causing “crisis” decisions that are unfounded regarding flu vaccinations. The country has three hundred million people and six hundred vaccinations are going to be available. Is everyone going to have two vaccinations this year? Irrational! Dr. Ross Gilbert points out “For now, people are running around in a panic, wearing masks and not going to school. They lack the perspective to see that the seasonal flu is more dangerous than this. [The usual seasonsal flu] is a pandemic by any standard, and thus far, apparently much more dangerous than swine flu.”
Because of the implementation of this and regular flu season shots ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan says “I can’t imagine the logistics of that. There’s going to be a huge overlap between the two vaccination schedules. I could easily imagine tens of millions of doses of this stuff not being used because people don’t want it or there’s just no way to get it distributed. In fact, millions of doses of annual, seasonal flu vaccine are discarded every year.”
The article also mentions the 1976 vaccination of 40 million Americans in anticipation of a new strain of swine flu: In 1976 America was in an anticipation of a swine flu “crisis” which never materialized. Forty million got shots and five hundred developed Guillain-Barre Syndrome, but this is a bit of data dredging because no one knows what really causes it.
Dr. Ross notes that “The flu vaccine is practically as safe as rainwater unless you’re allergic to eggs, since it’s developed in eggs. The fact that in 1976 there were 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome from 40 million doses swine flu is of minimal concern. That risk is about one in 100,000, and in most cases the symptoms were mild and reversible. These vaccines will hopefully even be less toxic.”
Get the Lead out….Another environmental scare?
Without scares could these activist organizations exist? If they didn’t exist would they have to go out and get real jobs? Perhaps that what they are really afraid of?
The Center for Environmental Health claim to have “found yet another unnecessary lead risk: high levels of lead in name-brand handbags and wallets purchased from Target, Macy’s, Wal-Mart, and many other retailers,” and they recommend that we “TELL THESE STORES TO GET THE LEAD OUT OF PURSES!” They go on to make a demonstrably false claim: “Scientists are increasingly convinced that there is no safe level of lead exposure.”
Once again we find “scientists”, the so-called experts who we are all supposed to bend before and obey, are changing the rules to make their views the “new science”. “This is a new wave of people who are arguing against the classical toxicological principle that dosages are significant,” says Dr. Whelan.
Dr. Ross adds: “We strongly disagree with that thesis on the grounds that it is unscientific and is basically analogous to a revocation of the laws of thermodynamics -- by which I mean they can’t just get away with saying that a tiny exposure is worse than a large one -- it’s nonsense. There is no evidence to support it.”
Bisphenol-A (BPA)
I recently had a conversation with a good friend who has been involved in all the legislative issues that have faced our industry for many years. Recently there was a discussion about the need to return pesticides that have been forced off the market (banned is the commonly used term, but the only pesticide used in structural pest control that was ever banned was DDT and that was based on junk science) by EPA and their tactic of changing the rules in order to make it too expensive to maintain a pesticide registration.
Dursban came into the conversation and the claims by activists that it caused autism. One of the scientists commented that Dursban has been off the market for ten years and if it really did cause autism then you should have seen a drop in autism cases and we haven’t. It must then be concluded that Dursban didn’t cause autism. I was really impressed; at least until he then said that he has decided that plastic bottles were what was causing autism. And he meant it. Of course it could be worse….here is someone who believes that these chemicals cause obesity.
Former environmental consultant Janelle Sorensen has a hunch that our children are getting fatter because of chemicals in plastics, and she convinced Dr. Philip J. Landrigan, a professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai, to agree with her. Well, sort of. “Right now it’s a correlation; we don’t know if it’s cause and effect or an accidental finding,” Dr. Landrigan said. “The $64,000 question is, what is the causal pathway? Does it go through the thyroid gland? Does it change fat metabolism?”
Except for a very few people, I will tell you what changes metabolism. Exercise! It is all about calories in and calories out.
In a blog entry published on Friday, Andrew Van Dam with the Association of Health Care Journalists finally noticed the media bias against bisphenol-A (BPA)that ACSH staffers -- almost alone against the crowd -- have been condemning for some time. “In a review of American media coverage of the controversy of bisphenol-A, researchers at STATS (a nonprofit, nonpartisan Statistical Assessment Service affiliated with George Mason University), say the media failed to properly weight different studies based on their size and research methodology.”
Dr. Whelan has noticed the trend: “If you looked at media coverage of BPA for the last six months, you’d find that a vast majority of the reports were biased in favor of anti-chemical scares. There were very few scientists who were willing to defend BPA despite all the evidence that proves it’s not dangerous. The FDA has already ruled time and time again that BPA is safe as used. How could they come out with any other assessment, unless a new administration can overturn scientific evidence?”
“This needs to be brought to light,” says Dr. Ross. “All of this hype comes from two or three junk science groups like the one under Frederick vom Saal that has been trying to scare people about BPA for over ten years. They automatically doubt any corporate-funded study -- including any researcher who ever received industry support -- for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they want to be praised as heroes.”
“Well, I don’t know their motivation, if it’s publicity-seeking or what,” says Dr. Whelan, “but I know that they aren’t advancing the cause of public health. Any reassessment study would take so long that BPA would probably be banned everywhere already by the time that they prove it is safe again.”
New York Times health and science columnist Gina Kolata, wrote a guest contribution to John Tierney’s New York Times science blog highlighting the recent STATS report that revealed a lack of objectivity in media coverage of the bisphenol-A debate.
“The fact that Ms. Kolata is raising questions about media bias is important since she’s a mainstream reporter, and the mainstream media doesn’t like to criticize itself,” says ACSH’s Jeff Stier. “People aren’t interested in a critical look at the negative news they’ve been putting out, but she’s showing them anyway. Thanks are due as well to John Tierney for highlighting this story initially.”
Acetaminophen: Use As Directed
FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory committee is meeting to discuss “how to address the public health problem of liver injury related to the use of acetaminophen in both over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription (RX) products,” noting that they are not seeking to remove it from the market, as it is safe when used as directed…..People just need to be careful about mixing medications that have acetaminophen in them.” For more information, see ACSH’s publication on OTC pain relievers.
FDA advisory panelists voted yesterday to ban Percocet and Vicodin, two popular painkillers that contain acetaminophen, because of their potential to cause liver damage. I think this is an important point.
“Consumer representatives on the panel included Sidney Wolfe, an outspoken opponent of pharmaceutical companies and drugs in general. “The fact that Sidney Wolfe is a ‘consumer representative’ on a supposedly objective panel is very disturbing,” says ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross. “He is taking up a position that should be going to an actual consumer representative and not an activist from the country’s most strident anti-pharmaceutical watchdog group.”Very often these panels of government “experts” are nothing more than activists who have been given the opportunity to expound their latest philosophical flavor of the day without any real opposition. These various panels are often rigged in order to come out with predetermined results. It was the same with DDT and the pattern has continued down to today.
As I said before, I had to eliminate a host of information, including information about activists attempting to eliminate fluoride from the drinking water in New Jersey, and medicines that can be developed from genetically modified foods, although I did link those two pieces of information in my weekly newsletter. For those who would like to receive ASCH’s Morning Dispatch:
ACSH's Morning Dispatch, written by Curtis Porter, is an exclusive chance to sit with us at our "virtual" breakfast table each morning -- and is limited only to our family of supporters.
Donors have ACSH experts at the "click of a mouse." Have a question or comment? Thought we missed something? Send it to AskACSH@acsh.org and ACSH will address it in a future Morning Dispatch issue or video commentary.
To join us at the breakfast table, anyone can give a gift to ACSH securely online at https://www.acsh.org/support/step1.asp, or by sending a tax-deductible donation to:
American Council on Science and Health
1995 Broadway, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10023
For questions, call 212-362-7044 x225 or e-mail morning[at]acsh.org.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Original Thinkers
By Rich Kozlovich
I originally ran this article on Wed, Oct 12, 2005 in my original blog. There has been a lot of activity in our industry lately. In Ohio and at the national level! Perhaps that is why this article kept coming into my mind. Nothing in particular that I can point my finger at....it just kept nagging at me. So with some small changes I have chosen to re-run it. RK
Updated 11-06-11. RK
Recently I have had an e-mail debate with someone (who will not permit me to publish the debate) who kept accusing me of not being an original thinker. It was a point I was more than willing to concede, since I am more concerned with factual thinking versus original thinking. This person seemed to think this was the linchpin of his logic, because he kept making it over and over again. His last comment was that no matter how hard I tried I was never going to be an original thinker. No matter how many times I agreed with him he kept irrationally making the charge as if it was some new and terrible insight that I should care about. This silly debate did however trigger a series of questions in my mind.
I was interested in what others thought about these points and sent these questions out to my Green Notes net. The first respondent was Frank Gasperini who worked at RISE at the time. Frank has graciously allowed me to reprint his comments.
The first represent what I call the “nuts and bolts” thinkers. These are the people that actually come up with products and services that benefit society. This type absolutely relies on truthful information. The success is in the facts. These are people that are the “doers, and builders rather than the vandals and vacant philosophers”.
The second type of original thinker is what I call the “ideological” thinkers. These people rely on concepts and philosophy that may or may not be factual. History is replete with these types of individuals. They have the tendency to adopt the attitude, “I am going to get the truth out there and I don’t care how many lies I have to tell”.
The 20th century has had more than its share of these “ideological thinkers”. (Please view this 11-04-11 article written by Ellis Washington entitled, Alfred Kinsey's sexual revolution, where he discusses many of these "original thinkers"! RK)
Marx started a philosophical political movement that was the basis for socialism and communism. Among the great murderers of the 20th century were Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung and Pot Pol. It has been estimated these socialist/communists (Hitler was a socialist by the way) original thinkers killed over 100 million people.
Margaret Sanger, Margaret Mead and Alfred Kinsey under the guise of science set patterns of behavior into motion that has had serious social consequences ever since. Because of them society could now justify why it was acceptable to abandon values that are absolutely essential for maintaining a stable society.
Rachel Carson can be directly blamed for the death of millions as a result of her work to eliminate DDT. Although “junk science” has always existed (snake oil salesmen are a good example) and was practiced by the above mentioned people, Carson’s greatest achievement is that her success as a junk scientist was so profound she could reasonably be called the mother of modern junk science. Her acolytes have made it policy.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of original thinkers in the 20th century who caused devastation in their wake. Sadly, if you are to believe the reports of their personal lives there is every indication these people all had serious emotional problems and no affection for the traditional values they set out to destroy, nor did they have a deep attachment to facts, especially those facts that are not in harmony with their brand of “original thinking”.
Consistency is somewhat of an alien concept for them also. The first Earth Day the greenies screamed that humanity faced “a new ice age”; and the reason? Industrial pollution in the atmosphere! Today they scream “global warming” and the reason; Industrial pollution in the atmosphere.
Con artists and “ideological thinkers” have a great deal in common. Call it a shell game, three or card Monte or for that matter the Montreal Protocol or the Kyoto Accord or whatever works to fool the public, it’s all the same. Is this really original? Both of these international agreements are based on science that was dubious at best at the very beginning and as more current information comes to light it appears to be wrong.
Using misinformation to attain the goals of power and money is nothing new. The tools and names of those tools may change over time, but it is still about power and money. There is nothing original about that at all. That bodes well the question; is there really any “original thinking” if it doesn’t produce products and services to make life better?
I think the phrase “original thinker” is over used. When people use it as a condemnation of those that disagree with them, it is a cop out so as to not answer the challenges to their “ideological thinking”. It is a form of intimidation that says; “you had better not disagree with me or you are a backward thinker”, or as I was recently called..."a flat Earther" because of my views on IPM in structural pest control
I have concluded that in areas of ideology and philosophy there are no original thinkers, no original thoughts and no original outcomes. It turns out there really isn’t anything new under the sun. The fact is that those that proclaim they are original thinkers have in reality become a herd of non-conformists being washed back and forth by the latest philosophical flavor of the day. They are a bunch “self perpetuating head nodders sitting in an echo chamber of self congratulations” who aggrandize themselves by calling themselves global problem solvers. For ideological thinking to become original thinking it must be just as concerned with facts as “nuts and bolts thinking”. Otherwise it is just three card Monte.
For those that would accuse me of not being an original thinker, I say - Thank You! I accept!
I originally ran this article on Wed, Oct 12, 2005 in my original blog. There has been a lot of activity in our industry lately. In Ohio and at the national level! Perhaps that is why this article kept coming into my mind. Nothing in particular that I can point my finger at....it just kept nagging at me. So with some small changes I have chosen to re-run it. RK
Updated 11-06-11. RK
Recently I have had an e-mail debate with someone (who will not permit me to publish the debate) who kept accusing me of not being an original thinker. It was a point I was more than willing to concede, since I am more concerned with factual thinking versus original thinking. This person seemed to think this was the linchpin of his logic, because he kept making it over and over again. His last comment was that no matter how hard I tried I was never going to be an original thinker. No matter how many times I agreed with him he kept irrationally making the charge as if it was some new and terrible insight that I should care about. This silly debate did however trigger a series of questions in my mind.
1. What is an original thinker?
2. What constitutes original thinking?
3. Who decides what is original?
4. What makes original thinking so important?
5. Does original thinking have to be factual?
6. Is original thinking more important than factual thinking?
7. Is original thinking only philosophical and is philosophical thinking the only original thoughts?
8. If original thinking is only philosophical, why should it be taken seriously?
9. Is original thinking contrary to traditional thinking?
10. Is original thinking contrary to conventional thinking?
11. Is original thinking actually conventional thinking?
12. If it becomes conventional and or traditional thinking is it original anymore?
13. Can original thinking become conventional or traditional thinking?
14. How often do we think originally?
15. If we think originally all the time, how many times can we be right?
16. Is original thinking actually retread old thinking couched in new terms?
17. Are new thinking and original thinking the same thing? Is it neither?
18. Lastly, is there really such a thing as original thinking?
I was interested in what others thought about these points and sent these questions out to my Green Notes net. The first respondent was Frank Gasperini who worked at RISE at the time. Frank has graciously allowed me to reprint his comments.
Rich,Since I had some errands to run I had time to think about what all was said, I came to the conclusion that there are really two types of original thinkers.
Not a direct answer, but a few Saturday morning 'musings". Original thinking is a wonderful and important thing, our world would not be the same without it, however if you think about "original thinkers" and the product of their ideas through reading history, you will find that the so called "original thinker" often completely misunderstood or failed to recognize the significance of his work-product--- and--- that those of us who embrace the concept of "Innovative Imitation" tend to be the ones who not only thrive and profit, but present humankind with the real benefits of the "original thinker's" work. This does not in any way denigrate the "original thinker", but it certainly does justify and elevate the role of the "innovative imitator".
Remember the old adage about pioneers--- 'the pioneer is the one likely to take the arrows, the pilgrim who follows ends up developing and owning the farm'. I once worked for the company that invented Gortex, but while they believed it to be a wonderful and "elegant" discovery, did not see any real value for it and thus "spun it off" to some ex-employees. I bet they wish they had kept that product--- but they invented it, failed to capitalize on its value because they only wanted to "original" things with it, not use it to do a better job of "old" things, and certainly not to "copy" anything someone else may have thought of.
There is an OLD "Harvard Business Review" classic article titled "Innovative Imitation" (mid 1970s?). It discussed in detail how innovators, 'pure researchers', and companies 'long on science and technology, but short on adaptability and willingness to imitate' end up inventing wonderful ideas that someone else profits from after they go belly-up. The old concept of 'if we didn't invent it (original thinking), we are not interested in it almost killed American industry at one point--- do you recall any "original thinking" from "Japan, Inc."? No, they took the best ideas developed by the world's "original thinkers" and improved and simplified them to fill the needs of real people!
Well, enough of a rant. I no longer consider myself a scientist, I am no longer interested in "elegant, or original thinking" for its own sake--- I am interested in ideas that make the lives of people easier and better, that protect people and the environment from harm, and whose benefits outweigh the risks. And, yes I am willing to take risks as long as they are outweighed by the benefits.
Frank
The first represent what I call the “nuts and bolts” thinkers. These are the people that actually come up with products and services that benefit society. This type absolutely relies on truthful information. The success is in the facts. These are people that are the “doers, and builders rather than the vandals and vacant philosophers”.
The second type of original thinker is what I call the “ideological” thinkers. These people rely on concepts and philosophy that may or may not be factual. History is replete with these types of individuals. They have the tendency to adopt the attitude, “I am going to get the truth out there and I don’t care how many lies I have to tell”.
The 20th century has had more than its share of these “ideological thinkers”. (Please view this 11-04-11 article written by Ellis Washington entitled, Alfred Kinsey's sexual revolution, where he discusses many of these "original thinkers"! RK)
Marx started a philosophical political movement that was the basis for socialism and communism. Among the great murderers of the 20th century were Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse Tung and Pot Pol. It has been estimated these socialist/communists (Hitler was a socialist by the way) original thinkers killed over 100 million people.
Margaret Sanger, Margaret Mead and Alfred Kinsey under the guise of science set patterns of behavior into motion that has had serious social consequences ever since. Because of them society could now justify why it was acceptable to abandon values that are absolutely essential for maintaining a stable society.
Rachel Carson can be directly blamed for the death of millions as a result of her work to eliminate DDT. Although “junk science” has always existed (snake oil salesmen are a good example) and was practiced by the above mentioned people, Carson’s greatest achievement is that her success as a junk scientist was so profound she could reasonably be called the mother of modern junk science. Her acolytes have made it policy.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of original thinkers in the 20th century who caused devastation in their wake. Sadly, if you are to believe the reports of their personal lives there is every indication these people all had serious emotional problems and no affection for the traditional values they set out to destroy, nor did they have a deep attachment to facts, especially those facts that are not in harmony with their brand of “original thinking”.
Consistency is somewhat of an alien concept for them also. The first Earth Day the greenies screamed that humanity faced “a new ice age”; and the reason? Industrial pollution in the atmosphere! Today they scream “global warming” and the reason; Industrial pollution in the atmosphere.
Con artists and “ideological thinkers” have a great deal in common. Call it a shell game, three or card Monte or for that matter the Montreal Protocol or the Kyoto Accord or whatever works to fool the public, it’s all the same. Is this really original? Both of these international agreements are based on science that was dubious at best at the very beginning and as more current information comes to light it appears to be wrong.
Using misinformation to attain the goals of power and money is nothing new. The tools and names of those tools may change over time, but it is still about power and money. There is nothing original about that at all. That bodes well the question; is there really any “original thinking” if it doesn’t produce products and services to make life better?
I think the phrase “original thinker” is over used. When people use it as a condemnation of those that disagree with them, it is a cop out so as to not answer the challenges to their “ideological thinking”. It is a form of intimidation that says; “you had better not disagree with me or you are a backward thinker”, or as I was recently called..."a flat Earther" because of my views on IPM in structural pest control
I have concluded that in areas of ideology and philosophy there are no original thinkers, no original thoughts and no original outcomes. It turns out there really isn’t anything new under the sun. The fact is that those that proclaim they are original thinkers have in reality become a herd of non-conformists being washed back and forth by the latest philosophical flavor of the day. They are a bunch “self perpetuating head nodders sitting in an echo chamber of self congratulations” who aggrandize themselves by calling themselves global problem solvers. For ideological thinking to become original thinking it must be just as concerned with facts as “nuts and bolts thinking”. Otherwise it is just three card Monte.
For those that would accuse me of not being an original thinker, I say - Thank You! I accept!
"Some ideas seem so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas seem so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time." - Thomas Sowell
Reflections on Reality
By Rich Kozlovich
Did you ever have a SHAZAM moment? All of a sudden you get this flash of insight …. SHAZAM …. all of a sudden we understand something that we have been working on mentally for some time, maybe even years. As I grow older I find that this happens much more often than in years gone by. How does that happen? I can tell you that age makes up a part of it, because clearly the brain’s abilities change as we grow older. I read James A. Michener’s book “The Source” when I was 19 and enjoyed it. I read it again when I was 30 and understood it.
The ability to draw correct conclusions from incomplete data is a work of the brain that is a very necessary gift, but there still has to be a reason for it. Everyone has this ability in varying degrees, but are we capable of training our minds to do it better? I believe so! I believe that this is done by absorbing a great deal of information and thinking a great deal about a great many small things. All of this is being filed and correlated by the brain without any conscious effort on our part. Eventually we will have a brain full of seemingly disparate and useless information that will come together into some cohesive form. A bit here, a bit there and all of a sudden..SHAZAM... you have the whole story with the informational gaps filled in automatically. How large those gaps are depends on the individual. That at least was my analysis of what was happening.
Scientists have always been interested in what they call Eureka moments. I recently read an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, June 19th entitled “A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight - Researchers Map the Anatomy of the Brain’s Breakthrough Moments and Reveal the Payoff of Daydreaming”.
The article outlined some examples such as Archimedes discovering how to calculate density and volume while taking a bath. Sir Isaac Newton allegedly discovered the law of universal gravity by being hit on the head by an apple, Descartes developed what is now known as coordinate geometry by watching flies, Einstein was thinking about trains and lightening when the idea of special relativity flashed into his head and Tesla was walking with a cane when he first thought of alternating current.
They report that there is a difference between analytical thinking and insightful thinking and “daydreaming” is the key.
“Kalina Christoff of the University of British Columbia on Vancouver makes the point that the “mind wandering is a much more active state that we ever imagined, much more active than during reasoning with a complex problem.” She suspects that the flypaper of an unfocused mind may trap new ideas unexpected and associations more effectively than methodical reasoning. That may create the mental framework for new ideas. You can see regions of these networks becoming active just prior to people
No one really knows what triggers SHAZAM moments, but reflection, meditation, daydreaming, or whatever you may wish to call it, allows the mind to work unhindered by structure. However, the brain can’t work on anything if there isn’t anything there to work on. Reading may cause eye trouble, but the lack of reading definitely causes ignorance, and ignorance prevents SHAZAM moments.
Another article that caught my eye in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on Thursday, June 25th which was another example of why it is impossible to deal with, or please, the greenies.
It appears there’s a 58 foot high dam on the Cuyahoga River near Akron, Ohio called the Gorge Metro Dam. A company wants to turn this small dam into a small hydroelectric power plant that will serve about 2,000 homes. Green...right? The dam is already there...right? All that is required is to alter it a bit by putting the plant there and create access roads to it...right? How green can you be? Well…that is the 64 thousand dollar question, and the rub.
The project is being stopped by the Ohio EPA and the Summit County Metro Parks and about 20 other groups who claim the dam serves no useful purpose, impairs water quality and prevents fish from moving upstream, so therefore, the dam should be torn down. Furthermore, the project would require clearing four acres of park for a new road and the plant itself and that would ”potentially endanger plant species”.
I thought that was really interesting because when they stocked Lake Erie with Coho salmon they go upriver and they died…on someone else's property, and really made a huge stink. But that's typical for salmon but there's a different rub in this story. The die without creating next year’s brood because the water quality is naturally unsuitable for reproduction for Coho Salmon.
What about other fish. Who cares? They aren’t salmon and will adapt.
It gets better. Remember this is a “renewable” energy source to 2,000 homes. That also is part of the rub because as they're saying, "it is “only” 2,000 homes". What if it was for 200,000 homes? They would then say that the project was entirely too big versus entirely too small. But the rub gets better and better. They refuse to even allow them to conduct an environmental impact study to “demonstrate the benign nature of the project”.
There is no green that is green enough to satisfy those who are truly “green”. I wonder if there is anything green enough to satisfy those who are insane. Oh wait...SHAZAM...They are green!
.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
US government’s climate con-job
Obama administration “report” on climate change is deceitful, scare-mongering, bogus science
by Paul Driessen
News stories, congressional hearings and subpoenas would be in overdrive. Fines and jail sentences would follow. And rightly so.
But the standards change when “climate catastrophe” is involved.
The White House has made global warming the centerpiece of its revenue-raising and energy policies. A House of Representatives 1,201-page bill would tax, regulate and penalize all US hydrocarbon energy use, to “save the planet from climate disaster.” The Senate promises an August vote.
But average global temperatures peaked in 1998 and since have fallen slightly, even as carbon dioxide levels continue to climb. Thousands of scientists say CO2 has little effect on planetary temperatures, and there is no climate crisis. Few developed countries are ready to commit economic suicide, by agreeing to reduce their CO2 emissions by a fraction of what the House bill demands for the United States.
Americans are beginning to realize the legislation would cost millions of jobs and trillions of dollars for a hypothetical 0.1 degree F reduction in global temperatures. Most put global warming dead last in a Pew Research list of 20 concerns.
The government’s answer to these inconvenient truths is simple.
Issue another report by government scientists carefully selected to exclude any who don’t subscribe to climate Armageddon. Ignore contrary data and analyses. Crank out more bogus computer-generated worst-case scenarios. Hire an activist media firm that specializes in environmental scare campaigns. And spend tens of millions hyping every imaginable climate disaster:
Rising sea levels, floods in lower Manhattan, California beaches permanently submerged. Ferocious hurricanes, floods and droughts. Food shortages, epidemic diseases, a quadrupling of heat-wave deaths in Chicago. Aged sewer systems convulsing from massive storm runoff. Wildflowers disappearing from Rocky Mountain slopes and polar bears from the Arctic. Leisure time gone, as people struggle to survive.
“Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” is the “most up-to-date, authoritative, comprehensive” analysis ever done on how human-caused warming affects the United States, deadpans Obama “science” advisor John Holdren.
Actually, it’s the most flagrant attempted con-job and propaganda campaign in US history.
If it helps Congress enact cap-and-tax legislation, it will give activists, courts and bureaucrats control over virtually every aspect of our lives. It will enable them to confiscate hard-earned dollars, convert them to payoffs for activists and companies that get on the climate-crisis bandwagon, consign uncooperative companies and scientists to the ash heap of history, and conceal the exorbitant costs of restrictive energy policies – on families, industries, jobs and transportation – until long after the bill becomes law.
The bogus “report” conflates and confuses human activities and emissions with the powerful natural forces that have caused major and minor climate changes and weather anomalies since the dawn of time – from the Carboniferous Period to the Age of Dinosaurs, from the Big Ice Ages and interglacial periods to the Little Ice Age, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, Dust Bowl and countless others. It relies on conjecture, conformist thinking and conspicuous elimination of contrary, skeptical, realist scientists and studies that do not support climate cataclysm conjecture and ideology.
The authors “largely ignored” critical comments to earlier drafts and made the final version “even more alarmist” than infamous UN “summaries” of global warming “crises,” says Joseph D’Aleo, first director of meteorology at the Weather Channel and former chairman of the American Meteorological Society’s Weather Analysis and Forecasting Committee. The report is simply “wrong on many of its claims” and marks “an embarrassing episode for the authors and NOAA,” D’Aleo concludes.
University of Colorado environmental studies professor Roger Pielke, Jr. says the report “misrepresents” his own work, makes claims that are not supported by citations provided, relies heavily on analyses that were never peer reviewed, ignores peer-reviewed studies that reach opposite conclusions from those proclaimed by the report, and cites analyses that do not support conclusions rendered.
“I didn’t notice a single recognized hurricane expert in the list of authors,” says NOAA Hurricane Research Division scientist Stanley Goldenberg. The report relies heavily on surface temperature data from monitoring stations located next to parking lots and air conditioning exhaust ports – falsely skewing temperature records upward – other experts noted. It is lead-heavy on assumptions, assertions and speculation – hydrogen-light on evidence.
But the most egregious miscarriage of science in this agit-prop exercise is its near-total dependence on worst-case scenarios conjured up by computer models. That’s where it gets its litany of “Day After Tomorrow” Hollywood disasters.
These climate models have never been validated by actual observations, notes Professor Robert Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at Australia’s James Cook University. Indeed, Australia’s own climate modeling agency (CSIRO) stresses that climate change scenarios are based on computer models that “involve simplifications of [real world] processes that are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted … for the accuracy of forecasts inferred” from its reports.
“Modeling results are interesting – but worthless for setting public policy,” says Carter. But that is exactly how they’re being used.
Sure, it’s conceivable that Antarctica could melt, and cause sea levels to rise 20 feet, as Al Gore and the government con-artists suggest. Greenhouse gases would merely have to increase average annual Antarctic temperatures from their current –50 degrees F to +40 degrees for a century or two, to melt 200,000 cubic miles of South Pole icecaps. A mere 90-degree swing.
That may be as likely as having the planet overrun by raptors and T-rexes cloned from DNA in fossilized mosquitoes. But it’s conceivable. And in the realm of global warming politics, that’s all that matters. As MIT atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen observes, “global warming has developed so much momentum that it has a life of its own, quite removed from science.”
As one climate activist group put it: “The task … is not to persuade by rational argument.” It is “to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement. The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken.” The strategy is to treat “climate-friendly activity as a brand that can be sold. This is the route to mass behavior change.”
This is the kind of science, transparency, honesty and accountability we have come to expect over “human-caused climate chaos.”
If the congressional, administration and activist conspirators behind this massive deceit were in the private sector – peddling bogus drugs, rather than bogus science – they’d quickly become convicts. Instead of jail time, though, they’ll probably get bonus checks.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death.
-
by Paul Driessen
News stories, congressional hearings and subpoenas would be in overdrive. Fines and jail sentences would follow. And rightly so.
But the standards change when “climate catastrophe” is involved.
The White House has made global warming the centerpiece of its revenue-raising and energy policies. A House of Representatives 1,201-page bill would tax, regulate and penalize all US hydrocarbon energy use, to “save the planet from climate disaster.” The Senate promises an August vote.
But average global temperatures peaked in 1998 and since have fallen slightly, even as carbon dioxide levels continue to climb. Thousands of scientists say CO2 has little effect on planetary temperatures, and there is no climate crisis. Few developed countries are ready to commit economic suicide, by agreeing to reduce their CO2 emissions by a fraction of what the House bill demands for the United States.
Americans are beginning to realize the legislation would cost millions of jobs and trillions of dollars for a hypothetical 0.1 degree F reduction in global temperatures. Most put global warming dead last in a Pew Research list of 20 concerns.
The government’s answer to these inconvenient truths is simple.
Issue another report by government scientists carefully selected to exclude any who don’t subscribe to climate Armageddon. Ignore contrary data and analyses. Crank out more bogus computer-generated worst-case scenarios. Hire an activist media firm that specializes in environmental scare campaigns. And spend tens of millions hyping every imaginable climate disaster:
Rising sea levels, floods in lower Manhattan, California beaches permanently submerged. Ferocious hurricanes, floods and droughts. Food shortages, epidemic diseases, a quadrupling of heat-wave deaths in Chicago. Aged sewer systems convulsing from massive storm runoff. Wildflowers disappearing from Rocky Mountain slopes and polar bears from the Arctic. Leisure time gone, as people struggle to survive.
“Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” is the “most up-to-date, authoritative, comprehensive” analysis ever done on how human-caused warming affects the United States, deadpans Obama “science” advisor John Holdren.
Actually, it’s the most flagrant attempted con-job and propaganda campaign in US history.
If it helps Congress enact cap-and-tax legislation, it will give activists, courts and bureaucrats control over virtually every aspect of our lives. It will enable them to confiscate hard-earned dollars, convert them to payoffs for activists and companies that get on the climate-crisis bandwagon, consign uncooperative companies and scientists to the ash heap of history, and conceal the exorbitant costs of restrictive energy policies – on families, industries, jobs and transportation – until long after the bill becomes law.
The bogus “report” conflates and confuses human activities and emissions with the powerful natural forces that have caused major and minor climate changes and weather anomalies since the dawn of time – from the Carboniferous Period to the Age of Dinosaurs, from the Big Ice Ages and interglacial periods to the Little Ice Age, Roman and Medieval Warm Periods, Dust Bowl and countless others. It relies on conjecture, conformist thinking and conspicuous elimination of contrary, skeptical, realist scientists and studies that do not support climate cataclysm conjecture and ideology.
The authors “largely ignored” critical comments to earlier drafts and made the final version “even more alarmist” than infamous UN “summaries” of global warming “crises,” says Joseph D’Aleo, first director of meteorology at the Weather Channel and former chairman of the American Meteorological Society’s Weather Analysis and Forecasting Committee. The report is simply “wrong on many of its claims” and marks “an embarrassing episode for the authors and NOAA,” D’Aleo concludes.
University of Colorado environmental studies professor Roger Pielke, Jr. says the report “misrepresents” his own work, makes claims that are not supported by citations provided, relies heavily on analyses that were never peer reviewed, ignores peer-reviewed studies that reach opposite conclusions from those proclaimed by the report, and cites analyses that do not support conclusions rendered.
“I didn’t notice a single recognized hurricane expert in the list of authors,” says NOAA Hurricane Research Division scientist Stanley Goldenberg. The report relies heavily on surface temperature data from monitoring stations located next to parking lots and air conditioning exhaust ports – falsely skewing temperature records upward – other experts noted. It is lead-heavy on assumptions, assertions and speculation – hydrogen-light on evidence.
But the most egregious miscarriage of science in this agit-prop exercise is its near-total dependence on worst-case scenarios conjured up by computer models. That’s where it gets its litany of “Day After Tomorrow” Hollywood disasters.
These climate models have never been validated by actual observations, notes Professor Robert Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at Australia’s James Cook University. Indeed, Australia’s own climate modeling agency (CSIRO) stresses that climate change scenarios are based on computer models that “involve simplifications of [real world] processes that are not fully understood. Accordingly, no responsibility will be accepted … for the accuracy of forecasts inferred” from its reports.
“Modeling results are interesting – but worthless for setting public policy,” says Carter. But that is exactly how they’re being used.
Sure, it’s conceivable that Antarctica could melt, and cause sea levels to rise 20 feet, as Al Gore and the government con-artists suggest. Greenhouse gases would merely have to increase average annual Antarctic temperatures from their current –50 degrees F to +40 degrees for a century or two, to melt 200,000 cubic miles of South Pole icecaps. A mere 90-degree swing.
That may be as likely as having the planet overrun by raptors and T-rexes cloned from DNA in fossilized mosquitoes. But it’s conceivable. And in the realm of global warming politics, that’s all that matters. As MIT atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen observes, “global warming has developed so much momentum that it has a life of its own, quite removed from science.”
As one climate activist group put it: “The task … is not to persuade by rational argument.” It is “to work in a more shrewd and contemporary way, using subtle techniques of engagement. The ‘facts’ need to be treated as being so taken-for-granted that they need not be spoken.” The strategy is to treat “climate-friendly activity as a brand that can be sold. This is the route to mass behavior change.”
This is the kind of science, transparency, honesty and accountability we have come to expect over “human-caused climate chaos.”
If the congressional, administration and activist conspirators behind this massive deceit were in the private sector – peddling bogus drugs, rather than bogus science – they’d quickly become convicts. Instead of jail time, though, they’ll probably get bonus checks.
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death.
-
Saturday, June 20, 2009
So Many Experts - So Many Opinions!
By Rich Kozlovich
Who to believe? We absolutely KNOW that PhD’s cannot be trusted. Grant money and the desire for prestige has contaminated their ranks to the point that everything they say must be questioned. De omnibus dubitandum, (doubt everything) is supposed to be the basis for all that a true scientist does. It has become my personal motto and should be adopted by everyone else because entirely too many “scientists” doubt only those things that will stop the flow of grant money.
Those true scientists who stood against the “science” regarding anthropogenic global warming were virtually ostracized by their peers. Many lost positions and had their grants revoked, very often those two situations go hand in hand….no grant money….no job! As the years go by the grant money flowed faster and faster to promote all things green. Unfortunately they didn’t necessarily promote all things scientific. Because of the internet we see can now clearly see just how untrustworthy “scientists” can be and who the untrustworthy ones are. We can also see who can be trusted.
We now have access to all the arguments, both pro and con, on any given subject. Unfortunately many of the scares really are nothing more that con jobs that help make sure that the grant money keeps right on flowing into their corrupt hands, and that has consequences.
Once someone has made their mind up to really research information they find themselves in a quandary, where do I go to read the truth. It is difficult to know right away who to read and who to trust. It took me some time and a great deal or reading to find those worth reading. I now know who to go to in order to find out the truth on any matter in which I am interested, and that list grows every year.
I have been re-reading Steve Milloy’s book, Junk Science Judo. Milloy discusses statistics and epidemiological studies extensively in this book and how this information is manipulated and misrepresented. Really boring and complicated stuff, but in order to know what everyone is talking about you must understand how statistics, which has been described as an arcane art of the occult, actually works and how that data are molded.
Having said that I will come to the point! The last chapter of his book is entitled, “Know Your Friends” and one of them that he lists is the American Council on Science and Health, headed up by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. They don’t always agree with one another, and for that matter I don’t always agree with them, but both recognize the intrinsic integrity in each other’s work, and so do I. They’re only concerned with the facts and each is prepared to follow the facts no matter where they lead.
As a member of the American Council on Science and Health I get an update called the “Morning Dispatch” which outlines the latest news scare or latest junkscience being presented to the public through a corrupt and lazy media, and they may even agree with the latest media blitz.
I have decided to write a weekly outline on stories that interest me that ACSH sends to its members. I will share their views, with my take on it on a weekly basis because I believe that much of what they have to say isn’t being seen by enough people. Many times the story will extend over a week or a month, so I will try to condense the story each week into a few paragraphs.
Swine Flu
Each week since the swine flu made its appearance on the world scene the ACSH has been a steady voice of moderation. When it appeared that the media had the world in the grip of a disastrous worldwide plague, the ACSH outlined just how many cases there were and how many deaths actually occurred. It turned out their view that this was more hype that disaster was correct. “Dr. Henry Miller of ACSH’s Board of Trustees and Stanford University's Hoover Institution is a molecular biologist and former flu researcher who argues in the Washington Times that the swine flu pandemic was labeled as such too readily.” Part of the problem is the WHO doesn’t follow its own rules for these kinds of determination.
The latest scare is that “Brazilian scientists reported on Tuesday that they have identified a new strain of the H1N1 virus”. Dr. Gill Ross states that “Influenza viruses are notoriously plastic. They change quite readily,” explains Dr. Ross. “If you analyze the genome of the currently circulating flu virus you’re going to find variability. So if the swine flu virus does mutate to become more virulent, it will most likely still contain many of the same antigens. The vaccine being developed and produced for this new H1N1 variant should still provide substantial protection, and it should still prevent a lot of cases.”
Dr. Ross likes that idea that that CDC under Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has decided to offer vaccinations against this virus right in the schools next year. Noting that “It’s a convenient location, and giving an intramuscular flu shot is a straightforward procedure. School nurses are more than qualified to do it.” Also, the FDA has been targeting websites that peddle fraudulent swine flu prevention and treatment products.
Many of you may too young to remember polio because Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine to prevent it in the 1950’s. However, he created his vaccine from dead cells, which the epidemiological world hated because he violated their first law….all vaccines had to be created from live cells. Later the Sabin vaccine was developed (from live cells) and was introduced to the general population …for free as I recall….in sugar cubes at schools. I remember the long lines and I also remember that these efforts eradicated polio…except for those few who contracted it from the live cells vaccine. There never was a case from the Salk vaccine, which I took early on. I found them to be three very painful shots, which made the Sabin vaccine much more popular….but no cases of polio from it.
Zicam
Homeopathic treatments apparently don’t need FDA approval and therefore they don’t go through the testing as would be expected of pharmaceuticals. Matrixx Initiatives, the manufacturer of Zicam has been ordered to stop selling intranasal cold remedies after more than 130 reports of people who lost their sense of smell after using the zinc-based, homeopathic products. “A public health advisory posted on the FDA website said the products “have all been associated with long-lasting or permanent loss of smell” and “have not been shown to be effective in the reduction of the duration and severity of cold symptoms.”
Stier says that “This is a problem because homeopathic supplements are like other diet supplements under the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act of 1994 in that they don’t need to be proven effective or even safe. This law’s deferential treatment of dietary supplements is based on the unscientific notion that ‘natural’ cures are somehow safer.” ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross would like to know just how dangerous is this product? If this was a pharmaceutical the activists would be screaming to the heavens….but not a peep when it is “all natural”. And you wonder who can be trusted.
ADHD
Here is an area in which I have some personal concerns. ACSH agrees with this judgment. Regulators have advised parents to continue medicating their children for ADHD despite the risk of sudden death suggested by a study that used questionable methods. I have some personal experience with this issue of children being drugged for “acting” up. I have heard accounts of these drugs working wonders on children, and I believe these accounts. I have heard the opposite, and I believe those also. I also question the way it is determined whether treatment really is necessary. Maybe that is the real issue. Those who really need treatment versus those who are just difficult! I also have misgivings as to what these drugs do to them as they hit their teen years. I hate saying this, but If children are being prescribed drugs when they don’t really need them (which I believe is an ongoing problem with this issue) what are the long term effects.
Fortified Foods
The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday examining the latest trend of fortifying foods with extra nutrients. ACSH’s Dr. Ruth Kava adds: “There are no daily requirements established for many of these added compounds, so there’s no way for a consumer to know if the amount in a particular food will be too little, just right, or excessive.”
For more information, see ACSH’s publication on functional foods.
Anti-Aging Hormones
Recently I linked an article in Green Notes that highlighted the Oprah Winfrey show and her “expert” guests (who she apparently agrees with) promoting all sorts of unscientific horsepucky. Their only real qualification is that they are celebrities who are paid huge sums of money to mouth other people’s words while pretending to be someone else. When are people going to stop listening to this woman?
“At their annual meeting in Chicago on Monday, the American Medical Association echoed ACSH staffers’ assessment that there's no scientific evidence to justify the claims of anti-aging hormones, including the so-called “bio-identicals” touted by celebrity non-expert Suzanne Sommers. These hormones are not just ineffective for their touted purpose, they can also be dangerous when used without medical direction.” says Dr. Ruth Kava.
Integrity Exemplified
This story is rich in irony. The Center for Science in the Public Interest accused the American Council on Science and Health of being a shill for those who support and donate to them. Dr. Elizabeth Whelan told them that if they really think that donating money to ACSH will change their views, then they should sponsor them and see what happens. They never did send a check and here we have the ultimate irony. CSPI is threatening to sue “Bayer Healthcare if it continues to claim its One-A-Day vitamins for men reduce the risk of prostate cancer” and ACSH says that they will “join CSPI in criticizing Bayer “ in spite of CSPI’s claims of bias…which is really the pot calling the kettle black. And just think……CSPI never sent a check! Of course when all you are concerned about is the facts the decision is an easy one.
Ejeta Wins World Food Prize
Ethiopian geneticist Gebisa Ejeta of Purdue University was honored with the 2009 World Food Prize for developing strains of sorghum that are resistant to drought and the parasitic weed Striga. “This is something that people across the spectrum from the left to the right should be celebrating,” says Stier. Even so, ACSH staffers doubt that we'll hear any endorsements of this lifesaving research from the anti-chemical activists at Greenpeace and similar groups.” Let’s face it….they are not about saving lives…that is the shtick they use to convince everyone to adopt practices and policies that will actually cause disease, squalor, misery, suffering and death.
Dangerous Side Effects, Dangerous Labels
If you really read the potential side effects of everything that goes into your mouth you wouldn’t eat. The same can be true of drugs. According to an Associated Press article on Friday,“After fifteen months of investigation, the Food and Drug Administration said Merck & Co. Inc., AstraZeneca, and Cornerstone Therapeutics will have to raise label warnings about psychiatric problems reported by a handful of patients taking their [asthma] drugs.” Potential problems include depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and insomnia.
“Hopefully, this won’t follow the trend of counterproductive and unanticipated effects of excessive black-box warnings from the FDA,” says Dr. Ross. “Some people correctly read them as alerts that there can be these effects, but some doctors and parents of sick children will be so fearful that they won’t give kids the medication they require.” “The most effective solution to a problem like this is for parents and doctors to pay attention to possible effects that a medication might be having on their child,” says Dr. Kava, “but of course, that’s true for any medicine.”
For more information, including asthma treatment options, see ACSH’s publication on asthma.
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Who to believe? We absolutely KNOW that PhD’s cannot be trusted. Grant money and the desire for prestige has contaminated their ranks to the point that everything they say must be questioned. De omnibus dubitandum, (doubt everything) is supposed to be the basis for all that a true scientist does. It has become my personal motto and should be adopted by everyone else because entirely too many “scientists” doubt only those things that will stop the flow of grant money.
Those true scientists who stood against the “science” regarding anthropogenic global warming were virtually ostracized by their peers. Many lost positions and had their grants revoked, very often those two situations go hand in hand….no grant money….no job! As the years go by the grant money flowed faster and faster to promote all things green. Unfortunately they didn’t necessarily promote all things scientific. Because of the internet we see can now clearly see just how untrustworthy “scientists” can be and who the untrustworthy ones are. We can also see who can be trusted.
We now have access to all the arguments, both pro and con, on any given subject. Unfortunately many of the scares really are nothing more that con jobs that help make sure that the grant money keeps right on flowing into their corrupt hands, and that has consequences.
Once someone has made their mind up to really research information they find themselves in a quandary, where do I go to read the truth. It is difficult to know right away who to read and who to trust. It took me some time and a great deal or reading to find those worth reading. I now know who to go to in order to find out the truth on any matter in which I am interested, and that list grows every year.
I have been re-reading Steve Milloy’s book, Junk Science Judo. Milloy discusses statistics and epidemiological studies extensively in this book and how this information is manipulated and misrepresented. Really boring and complicated stuff, but in order to know what everyone is talking about you must understand how statistics, which has been described as an arcane art of the occult, actually works and how that data are molded.
Having said that I will come to the point! The last chapter of his book is entitled, “Know Your Friends” and one of them that he lists is the American Council on Science and Health, headed up by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. They don’t always agree with one another, and for that matter I don’t always agree with them, but both recognize the intrinsic integrity in each other’s work, and so do I. They’re only concerned with the facts and each is prepared to follow the facts no matter where they lead.
As a member of the American Council on Science and Health I get an update called the “Morning Dispatch” which outlines the latest news scare or latest junkscience being presented to the public through a corrupt and lazy media, and they may even agree with the latest media blitz.
I have decided to write a weekly outline on stories that interest me that ACSH sends to its members. I will share their views, with my take on it on a weekly basis because I believe that much of what they have to say isn’t being seen by enough people. Many times the story will extend over a week or a month, so I will try to condense the story each week into a few paragraphs.
Swine Flu
Each week since the swine flu made its appearance on the world scene the ACSH has been a steady voice of moderation. When it appeared that the media had the world in the grip of a disastrous worldwide plague, the ACSH outlined just how many cases there were and how many deaths actually occurred. It turned out their view that this was more hype that disaster was correct. “Dr. Henry Miller of ACSH’s Board of Trustees and Stanford University's Hoover Institution is a molecular biologist and former flu researcher who argues in the Washington Times that the swine flu pandemic was labeled as such too readily.” Part of the problem is the WHO doesn’t follow its own rules for these kinds of determination.
The latest scare is that “Brazilian scientists reported on Tuesday that they have identified a new strain of the H1N1 virus”. Dr. Gill Ross states that “Influenza viruses are notoriously plastic. They change quite readily,” explains Dr. Ross. “If you analyze the genome of the currently circulating flu virus you’re going to find variability. So if the swine flu virus does mutate to become more virulent, it will most likely still contain many of the same antigens. The vaccine being developed and produced for this new H1N1 variant should still provide substantial protection, and it should still prevent a lot of cases.”
Dr. Ross likes that idea that that CDC under Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has decided to offer vaccinations against this virus right in the schools next year. Noting that “It’s a convenient location, and giving an intramuscular flu shot is a straightforward procedure. School nurses are more than qualified to do it.” Also, the FDA has been targeting websites that peddle fraudulent swine flu prevention and treatment products.
Many of you may too young to remember polio because Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine to prevent it in the 1950’s. However, he created his vaccine from dead cells, which the epidemiological world hated because he violated their first law….all vaccines had to be created from live cells. Later the Sabin vaccine was developed (from live cells) and was introduced to the general population …for free as I recall….in sugar cubes at schools. I remember the long lines and I also remember that these efforts eradicated polio…except for those few who contracted it from the live cells vaccine. There never was a case from the Salk vaccine, which I took early on. I found them to be three very painful shots, which made the Sabin vaccine much more popular….but no cases of polio from it.
Zicam
Homeopathic treatments apparently don’t need FDA approval and therefore they don’t go through the testing as would be expected of pharmaceuticals. Matrixx Initiatives, the manufacturer of Zicam has been ordered to stop selling intranasal cold remedies after more than 130 reports of people who lost their sense of smell after using the zinc-based, homeopathic products. “A public health advisory posted on the FDA website said the products “have all been associated with long-lasting or permanent loss of smell” and “have not been shown to be effective in the reduction of the duration and severity of cold symptoms.”
Stier says that “This is a problem because homeopathic supplements are like other diet supplements under the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act of 1994 in that they don’t need to be proven effective or even safe. This law’s deferential treatment of dietary supplements is based on the unscientific notion that ‘natural’ cures are somehow safer.” ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross would like to know just how dangerous is this product? If this was a pharmaceutical the activists would be screaming to the heavens….but not a peep when it is “all natural”. And you wonder who can be trusted.
ADHD
Here is an area in which I have some personal concerns. ACSH agrees with this judgment. Regulators have advised parents to continue medicating their children for ADHD despite the risk of sudden death suggested by a study that used questionable methods. I have some personal experience with this issue of children being drugged for “acting” up. I have heard accounts of these drugs working wonders on children, and I believe these accounts. I have heard the opposite, and I believe those also. I also question the way it is determined whether treatment really is necessary. Maybe that is the real issue. Those who really need treatment versus those who are just difficult! I also have misgivings as to what these drugs do to them as they hit their teen years. I hate saying this, but If children are being prescribed drugs when they don’t really need them (which I believe is an ongoing problem with this issue) what are the long term effects.
Fortified Foods
The Wall Street Journal published an article yesterday examining the latest trend of fortifying foods with extra nutrients. ACSH’s Dr. Ruth Kava adds: “There are no daily requirements established for many of these added compounds, so there’s no way for a consumer to know if the amount in a particular food will be too little, just right, or excessive.”
For more information, see ACSH’s publication on functional foods.
Anti-Aging Hormones
Recently I linked an article in Green Notes that highlighted the Oprah Winfrey show and her “expert” guests (who she apparently agrees with) promoting all sorts of unscientific horsepucky. Their only real qualification is that they are celebrities who are paid huge sums of money to mouth other people’s words while pretending to be someone else. When are people going to stop listening to this woman?
“At their annual meeting in Chicago on Monday, the American Medical Association echoed ACSH staffers’ assessment that there's no scientific evidence to justify the claims of anti-aging hormones, including the so-called “bio-identicals” touted by celebrity non-expert Suzanne Sommers. These hormones are not just ineffective for their touted purpose, they can also be dangerous when used without medical direction.” says Dr. Ruth Kava.
Integrity Exemplified
This story is rich in irony. The Center for Science in the Public Interest accused the American Council on Science and Health of being a shill for those who support and donate to them. Dr. Elizabeth Whelan told them that if they really think that donating money to ACSH will change their views, then they should sponsor them and see what happens. They never did send a check and here we have the ultimate irony. CSPI is threatening to sue “Bayer Healthcare if it continues to claim its One-A-Day vitamins for men reduce the risk of prostate cancer” and ACSH says that they will “join CSPI in criticizing Bayer “ in spite of CSPI’s claims of bias…which is really the pot calling the kettle black. And just think……CSPI never sent a check! Of course when all you are concerned about is the facts the decision is an easy one.
Ejeta Wins World Food Prize
Ethiopian geneticist Gebisa Ejeta of Purdue University was honored with the 2009 World Food Prize for developing strains of sorghum that are resistant to drought and the parasitic weed Striga. “This is something that people across the spectrum from the left to the right should be celebrating,” says Stier. Even so, ACSH staffers doubt that we'll hear any endorsements of this lifesaving research from the anti-chemical activists at Greenpeace and similar groups.” Let’s face it….they are not about saving lives…that is the shtick they use to convince everyone to adopt practices and policies that will actually cause disease, squalor, misery, suffering and death.
Dangerous Side Effects, Dangerous Labels
If you really read the potential side effects of everything that goes into your mouth you wouldn’t eat. The same can be true of drugs. According to an Associated Press article on Friday,“After fifteen months of investigation, the Food and Drug Administration said Merck & Co. Inc., AstraZeneca, and Cornerstone Therapeutics will have to raise label warnings about psychiatric problems reported by a handful of patients taking their [asthma] drugs.” Potential problems include depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and insomnia.
“Hopefully, this won’t follow the trend of counterproductive and unanticipated effects of excessive black-box warnings from the FDA,” says Dr. Ross. “Some people correctly read them as alerts that there can be these effects, but some doctors and parents of sick children will be so fearful that they won’t give kids the medication they require.” “The most effective solution to a problem like this is for parents and doctors to pay attention to possible effects that a medication might be having on their child,” says Dr. Kava, “but of course, that’s true for any medicine.”
For more information, including asthma treatment options, see ACSH’s publication on asthma.
ACSH's Morning Dispatch, written by Curtis Porter, is an exclusive chance to sit with us at our "virtual" breakfast table each morning -- and is limited only to our family of supporters.
Donors have ACSH experts at the "click of a mouse." Have a question or comment? Thought we missed something? Send it to AskACSH@acsh.org and ACSH will address it in a future Morning Dispatch issue or video commentary.
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Monday, June 1, 2009
"A Long Overdue Press Conference"
(Editor's Note: don't normally do a "news" column here because it is far too much work for someone with a real job. At least for me it is. However, for those of you who read Paradigms and Demographics and don't get my weekly newsletter, where I do the link news articles, I wanted to make sure that you didn't miss this. RK)
Are chemicals killing us?
S. Robert Lichter, Ph.D,, May 21, 2009
A groundbreaking study conducted by STATS, and The Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University, shows how experts view the risks of common chemicals - and that the media are overstating risk.
Download a PDF of the full report here
If you believe what you see and hear in the media, Americans are being poisoned every day by the very chemicals we routinely use to improve our lives. Nora Ephron has told readers of the Huffington Post that she “loved” Teflon but had to throw out all her pans after hearing that the coating “probably causes cancer and birth defects.” The Environmental Working Group has repeatedly warned Americans that “millions of babies” are at risk from the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic baby bottles. Last week Chicago became the first city to ban the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups, on the grounds that BPA has been associated with everything from cancer to obesity.
Are Chemicals Killing Us?
Ronald Bailey May 21, 2009
That was the teaser question for a press conference this morning organized by the Society of Toxicology (SOT), the Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University, and the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) think tank. The groups were reporting the results of a recent Harris poll of full members of the Society of Toxicology that aimed to determine the collective judgments of toxicologists on chemical health risks. In addition, the survey asked toxicologists how well they thought environmental advocacy groups, industry, government and media do in explaining chemical risks to the public.
The online survey, done in conjunction with the leadership of the Society of Toxicology, was sent to all of its 3600 full members and got a 30 percent (937 members) response rate. Of the respondents, 37 percent worked in industry, 25 percent in academia, 15 percent were associated with government, and the remaining members were spread among non-profit organizations, consultants, and contractors. Apparently, as a proportion of the SOT's membership, academicians were over-represented and industry toxicologists were under-represented.
What do real scientists think about the dangers of common chemicals?
Most people on the rational side of the environmental field clamor for more science and less emotion to be used in setting policy. Who could argue with that?
The problem is that many of the scientists don't actually believe in science—according to the results of a recent survey. A sampling of toxicologists was asked to complete an online questionnaire, and it was clear from the responses that many of them were just as susceptible to media hype as the lay public.
A toxicologist friend of mine, who also participated in the survey, was not surprised. He noted, cynically, that the results reflect the "diversity" of the membership, and was confident that many of the respondents who bought into the popular mythology on chemicals—including the absurd use of the precautionary principle, even if tons of data is available on a chemical—were probably from academia or the EPA.
Even worse are situations whereby certain chemicals are actually being regulated down to levels LOWER than they occur in nature, because that is what the regulators' computer models calculate.
Surveying The Experts On The Dangers Of Common Chemicals: Some Surprising Findings Emerge
By Michael D. Shaw, Contributing Columnist - HealthNewsDigest.com May 24, 2009
(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Have you ever wondered what real scientists think about the seemingly endless parade of bad news regarding chemicals in the environment? So did Dr. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University. To get answers, CMPA teamed up with the Society of Toxicology, and presented an online questionnaire to 3,562 of its members.
While 1136 members did respond, the findings—released on May 21, 2009—were based on the responses of those 937 members who answered every question.
Lichter felt that it was important to get scientific opinion based on an expert community at large, as a counter to the opinions of the small circle of authorities often quoted in the media. Indeed, a 1997 study conducted by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research found that media scientists portrayed so-called xenoestrogens as being a definite cause of harm to human health in 62 percent of the cases. This was vastly different, however, from the opinion of a random sample of distinguished scientists, who—again in 62 percent of the cases—characterized the threat of xenoestrogens as either "minor" or "none."
The inescapable conclusion is that the media, ever in search of bad and alarming news, tends to quote those who give them what they want, even if this is far from the expert consensus………….One can only conclude that such beliefs must be heavily influenced by the popular media…………..
The pesticides finding is strange. Other data in the study show the members almost equally divided on DDT, the historically libeled and now mostly reprieved baddie, originally maligned by Rachel Carson. Here again, exactly what sort of scientific studies can they cite to form such an opinion? They speak of balance and diversity. How would they propose to feed billions without pesticides?
The members tend to hold such environmental activist fund-raising groups as Greenpeace, PETA, the Environmental Working Group, and the National Resources Defense Council in low esteem, which prompted Linda Greer, NRDC's Director, Health and Environment Program, to react during the press conference held to announce the survey. Greer—apparently unfamiliar with survey methodology—noted that the results were not peer reviewed. If the results and methodology of a survey are to be published in a journal, then they are peer reviewed. Otherwise, a survey stands on its own, subject to the informal peer review of the media.
Lichter couldn't resist asking Greer if her organization ever releases data without peer review. She replied (as quoted by Reason magazine) "We're an advocacy group and we don't hold ourselves out as scientific researchers. We don't do peer reviewed science. Everybody knows that."
Are chemicals killing us?
S. Robert Lichter, Ph.D,, May 21, 2009
A groundbreaking study conducted by STATS, and The Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University, shows how experts view the risks of common chemicals - and that the media are overstating risk.
Download a PDF of the full report here
If you believe what you see and hear in the media, Americans are being poisoned every day by the very chemicals we routinely use to improve our lives. Nora Ephron has told readers of the Huffington Post that she “loved” Teflon but had to throw out all her pans after hearing that the coating “probably causes cancer and birth defects.” The Environmental Working Group has repeatedly warned Americans that “millions of babies” are at risk from the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic baby bottles. Last week Chicago became the first city to ban the sale of baby bottles and sippy cups, on the grounds that BPA has been associated with everything from cancer to obesity.
Are Chemicals Killing Us?
Ronald Bailey May 21, 2009
That was the teaser question for a press conference this morning organized by the Society of Toxicology (SOT), the Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University, and the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) think tank. The groups were reporting the results of a recent Harris poll of full members of the Society of Toxicology that aimed to determine the collective judgments of toxicologists on chemical health risks. In addition, the survey asked toxicologists how well they thought environmental advocacy groups, industry, government and media do in explaining chemical risks to the public.
The online survey, done in conjunction with the leadership of the Society of Toxicology, was sent to all of its 3600 full members and got a 30 percent (937 members) response rate. Of the respondents, 37 percent worked in industry, 25 percent in academia, 15 percent were associated with government, and the remaining members were spread among non-profit organizations, consultants, and contractors. Apparently, as a proportion of the SOT's membership, academicians were over-represented and industry toxicologists were under-represented.
What do real scientists think about the dangers of common chemicals?
Most people on the rational side of the environmental field clamor for more science and less emotion to be used in setting policy. Who could argue with that?
The problem is that many of the scientists don't actually believe in science—according to the results of a recent survey. A sampling of toxicologists was asked to complete an online questionnaire, and it was clear from the responses that many of them were just as susceptible to media hype as the lay public.
A toxicologist friend of mine, who also participated in the survey, was not surprised. He noted, cynically, that the results reflect the "diversity" of the membership, and was confident that many of the respondents who bought into the popular mythology on chemicals—including the absurd use of the precautionary principle, even if tons of data is available on a chemical—were probably from academia or the EPA.
Even worse are situations whereby certain chemicals are actually being regulated down to levels LOWER than they occur in nature, because that is what the regulators' computer models calculate.
Surveying The Experts On The Dangers Of Common Chemicals: Some Surprising Findings Emerge
By Michael D. Shaw, Contributing Columnist - HealthNewsDigest.com May 24, 2009
(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Have you ever wondered what real scientists think about the seemingly endless parade of bad news regarding chemicals in the environment? So did Dr. Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University. To get answers, CMPA teamed up with the Society of Toxicology, and presented an online questionnaire to 3,562 of its members.
While 1136 members did respond, the findings—released on May 21, 2009—were based on the responses of those 937 members who answered every question.
Lichter felt that it was important to get scientific opinion based on an expert community at large, as a counter to the opinions of the small circle of authorities often quoted in the media. Indeed, a 1997 study conducted by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research found that media scientists portrayed so-called xenoestrogens as being a definite cause of harm to human health in 62 percent of the cases. This was vastly different, however, from the opinion of a random sample of distinguished scientists, who—again in 62 percent of the cases—characterized the threat of xenoestrogens as either "minor" or "none."
The inescapable conclusion is that the media, ever in search of bad and alarming news, tends to quote those who give them what they want, even if this is far from the expert consensus………….One can only conclude that such beliefs must be heavily influenced by the popular media…………..
The pesticides finding is strange. Other data in the study show the members almost equally divided on DDT, the historically libeled and now mostly reprieved baddie, originally maligned by Rachel Carson. Here again, exactly what sort of scientific studies can they cite to form such an opinion? They speak of balance and diversity. How would they propose to feed billions without pesticides?
The members tend to hold such environmental activist fund-raising groups as Greenpeace, PETA, the Environmental Working Group, and the National Resources Defense Council in low esteem, which prompted Linda Greer, NRDC's Director, Health and Environment Program, to react during the press conference held to announce the survey. Greer—apparently unfamiliar with survey methodology—noted that the results were not peer reviewed. If the results and methodology of a survey are to be published in a journal, then they are peer reviewed. Otherwise, a survey stands on its own, subject to the informal peer review of the media.
Lichter couldn't resist asking Greer if her organization ever releases data without peer review. She replied (as quoted by Reason magazine) "We're an advocacy group and we don't hold ourselves out as scientific researchers. We don't do peer reviewed science. Everybody knows that."
Friday, May 29, 2009
My Own "Random Thoughts"
By Rich Kozlovich
Thomas Sowell is one of the finest thinkers and writers in the nation today. He has the unique ability to make very complex problems understandable. That… is no small skill. On a regular basis he writes a column called Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene. I love reading his insights and his basic common sense, thought provoking and sometimes humorous approach about the real world. This has inspired me to publish my own “Random Thoughts”. Probably just this once….because much to my surprise…..it isn’t as easy as it seems.
I have noticed over the years that the trade journals that support our industry are filled with advertising. Many of the advertisers are pesticide manufacturers and distributors. It amazes me that the industry’s trade journals work so hard promoting “green” pest control and IPM, which is promoting the elimination of pesticides. If that happens - who will advertise in the trade journals? It kind of reminds me of those churches and ministers that went around saying that God was dead, and the Bible is a myth, and then expected the churches to be full.
It seems to me that “green” pest control and IPM are largely indefinable and must be taken as an article of faith. Should the EPA be promoting this “faith based intuitive”?
Our state and national trade associations are also working hard to promote “green” pest control and IPM. If we give in to the green activists and become “green", will we need trade associations, or will the Sierra Club sufficiently fulfill that function?
Socialism has been an abject failure everywhere in the world where it has been tried - yet we hear socialist concepts being touted as the answer to our problems. Why? If it has failed everywhere else, why would we think it would prosper here?
When environmental policy has seriously influenced or been imposed by green activists and organizations on the third world, it consistently produced misery, squalor, disease, death and suffering. Yet we insist that these are the very same concepts and programs that we should adopt here. Why? If environmentalism promotes dystopia everywhere else in the world, why would we think that it will be different here?
If creating green jobs cost 2.2 jobs for every “green” job elsewhere in the world, why would we think it would be different here?
If green policies increase costs and reduce the quality of life everywhere else in the world, why would we think it would be different here.
Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick Graph has been shown to be fraudulent. James Hansen’s climate figures had easily discovered “mistakes” and the IPCC has shown itself to be thoroughly corrupt. Why do those who promote anthropogenic climate change still cite them as sources?
When the leaders of the environmental movement make misanthropic comments about humanity and how the Earth would better off without mankind - why do we believe them when they say that we should adopt their policies “because it is for the children”?
The greenies are against nuclear power. Then they are for it - then they are against it again. They loved wind power - then the hated it. They loved solar power - then they hated it. Why is it greenies are always hot for technology that doesn’t exist? Why is it that they hate that self same technology when it has the potential to become reality?
The green activist organizations have no command and control structure. That means they can be for and against something at the same time and still be right. Must be nice!
We have a real problem with words in this country. We love the words fair and sustainable. We just can’t define them, and yet we wish to make them the basis for programs that also can’t be defined and are therefore open ended. Much like green pest control and IPM!
We have had the “best” and “brightest” tell us that everything we have done for 60 years is all wrong. We also have had more people live longer, healthier, happier lives than ever in human history. I find that strange - don't you? It seems to me the evidence is clear "someone" must have done "something" right!
No matter how much technology we develop to make life better we keep hearing and believing that it is making us sick. Why then are we living longer?
I am convinced that the “best” and “brightest” amongst us believe that as long as they keep dumping more and more horsepucky on us that eventually we won’t notice the smell. Or worse yet we'll think that the smell is normal.
There really isn’t anything quite like a good epidemic to get things started.
If “green” is so much better, why did anyone abandon it in the first place? If “green” was so good, there wouldn’t have been pest problems…right? How then did manufacturers convince anyone they needed pesticides?
For years I have noticed activists in the green movements don’t seem to have jobs. If they never had a real job how did they become so expert in everyone else’s business?
Thomas Sowell once commented - “One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans— anything except reason.”
I was once told to not focus on the negative aspects of a program, but rather focus on the positive aspects. I said I would if they would just explain to me what they were. I never got an answer.
Why do we keep trying to find a third way? Clearly, in order for there to be a third way, there had to already be two different ways. It seems likely that one way had to be right and one had to be wrong. Why can’t we just take the right way?
Why is it that someone who pays twenty thousand dollars in real estate taxes won’t pay the exterminator five hundred dollars for pest control services?
Thomas Sowell is one of the finest thinkers and writers in the nation today. He has the unique ability to make very complex problems understandable. That… is no small skill. On a regular basis he writes a column called Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene. I love reading his insights and his basic common sense, thought provoking and sometimes humorous approach about the real world. This has inspired me to publish my own “Random Thoughts”. Probably just this once….because much to my surprise…..it isn’t as easy as it seems.
I have noticed over the years that the trade journals that support our industry are filled with advertising. Many of the advertisers are pesticide manufacturers and distributors. It amazes me that the industry’s trade journals work so hard promoting “green” pest control and IPM, which is promoting the elimination of pesticides. If that happens - who will advertise in the trade journals? It kind of reminds me of those churches and ministers that went around saying that God was dead, and the Bible is a myth, and then expected the churches to be full.
It seems to me that “green” pest control and IPM are largely indefinable and must be taken as an article of faith. Should the EPA be promoting this “faith based intuitive”?
Our state and national trade associations are also working hard to promote “green” pest control and IPM. If we give in to the green activists and become “green", will we need trade associations, or will the Sierra Club sufficiently fulfill that function?
Socialism has been an abject failure everywhere in the world where it has been tried - yet we hear socialist concepts being touted as the answer to our problems. Why? If it has failed everywhere else, why would we think it would prosper here?
When environmental policy has seriously influenced or been imposed by green activists and organizations on the third world, it consistently produced misery, squalor, disease, death and suffering. Yet we insist that these are the very same concepts and programs that we should adopt here. Why? If environmentalism promotes dystopia everywhere else in the world, why would we think that it will be different here?
If creating green jobs cost 2.2 jobs for every “green” job elsewhere in the world, why would we think it would be different here?
If green policies increase costs and reduce the quality of life everywhere else in the world, why would we think it would be different here.
Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick Graph has been shown to be fraudulent. James Hansen’s climate figures had easily discovered “mistakes” and the IPCC has shown itself to be thoroughly corrupt. Why do those who promote anthropogenic climate change still cite them as sources?
When the leaders of the environmental movement make misanthropic comments about humanity and how the Earth would better off without mankind - why do we believe them when they say that we should adopt their policies “because it is for the children”?
The greenies are against nuclear power. Then they are for it - then they are against it again. They loved wind power - then the hated it. They loved solar power - then they hated it. Why is it greenies are always hot for technology that doesn’t exist? Why is it that they hate that self same technology when it has the potential to become reality?
The green activist organizations have no command and control structure. That means they can be for and against something at the same time and still be right. Must be nice!
We have a real problem with words in this country. We love the words fair and sustainable. We just can’t define them, and yet we wish to make them the basis for programs that also can’t be defined and are therefore open ended. Much like green pest control and IPM!
We have had the “best” and “brightest” tell us that everything we have done for 60 years is all wrong. We also have had more people live longer, healthier, happier lives than ever in human history. I find that strange - don't you? It seems to me the evidence is clear "someone" must have done "something" right!
No matter how much technology we develop to make life better we keep hearing and believing that it is making us sick. Why then are we living longer?
I am convinced that the “best” and “brightest” amongst us believe that as long as they keep dumping more and more horsepucky on us that eventually we won’t notice the smell. Or worse yet we'll think that the smell is normal.
There really isn’t anything quite like a good epidemic to get things started.
If “green” is so much better, why did anyone abandon it in the first place? If “green” was so good, there wouldn’t have been pest problems…right? How then did manufacturers convince anyone they needed pesticides?
For years I have noticed activists in the green movements don’t seem to have jobs. If they never had a real job how did they become so expert in everyone else’s business?
Thomas Sowell once commented - “One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans— anything except reason.”
I was once told to not focus on the negative aspects of a program, but rather focus on the positive aspects. I said I would if they would just explain to me what they were. I never got an answer.
Why do we keep trying to find a third way? Clearly, in order for there to be a third way, there had to already be two different ways. It seems likely that one way had to be right and one had to be wrong. Why can’t we just take the right way?
Why is it that someone who pays twenty thousand dollars in real estate taxes won’t pay the exterminator five hundred dollars for pest control services?
Monday, May 18, 2009
Scientific Computer Modeling Method 101
By Roy Tucker
I'm a bit dismayed about how computer models have come to be more important than actual observations and so I offer a formal statement of the Scientific Computer Modeling Method.
I'm a bit dismayed about how computer models have come to be more important than actual observations and so I offer a formal statement of the Scientific Computer Modeling Method.
The Scientific Method
- Observe a phenomenon carefully.
- Develop a hypothesis that possibly explains the phenomenon.
- Perform a test in an attempt to disprove or invalidate the hypothesis. If the hypothesis is disproven, return to steps 1 and 2.
- A hypothesis that stubbornly refuses to be invalidated may be correct. Continue testing.
- Observe a phenomenon carefully.
- Develop a computer model that mimics the behavior of the phenomenon.
- Select observations that conform to the model predictions and dismiss observations as of inadequate quality that conflict with the computer model.
- In instances where all of the observations conflict with the model, "refine" the model with fudge factors to give a better match with pesky facts. Assert that these factors reveal fundamental processes previously unknown in association with the phenomenon. Under no circumstances willingly reveal your complete data sets, methods, or computer codes.
- Upon achieving a model of incomprehensible complexity that still somewhat resembles the phenomenon, begin to issue to the popular media dire predictions of catastrophe that will occur as far in the future as possible, at least beyond your professional lifetime.
- Continue to "refine" the model in order to maximize funding and the awarding of Nobel Prizes
- Dismiss as unqualified, ignorant, and conspiracy theorists all who offer criticisms of the model.
- Repeat steps 3 through 7 indefinitely.
Reprinted with permission. RK
Sunday, May 10, 2009
The Butterfield Bill: Activity as a Substitute for Accomplishment, Part II
By Rich Kozlovich
On April 14th and 15th of this year the EPA hosted something that they called the Bedbug Summit, which “drew almost 300 state and federal regulatory, public health, and housing officials, academics, landlords/property managers, pest professionals, and other key stakeholders”
On April 19th, 2009 I published a critique of EPA’s “Bedbug Summit”, called Bedbug Summit: Activity As A Substitute For Accomplishment, which clearly outlined what could only be called a great public relations deception and a farce. That is, if your goal is the control of bedbugs. If the goal was to misdirect, deceive and justify the creation of a massive, costly and ineffectual multilayered bureaucracy and promote ineffectual pest control programs such as IPM, then it was a smashing success. Quite frankly, it disturbed me to realize that for some reason I didn’t connect the dots at the time between this and the Butterfield bill. I know…I know…there is no such thing as a conspiracy.
Currently there is a bill introduced by Congressman G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina on May 5th, 2009 that the NPMA officially supports and has asked everyone in the structural pest control industry to openly support. The Butterfield bill is entitled, "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009", and based on what is in this bill that title is a misnomer.
NPMA believes that this:
“multi-faceted legislation provides critical resources to state and local officials to combat bed bug outbreaks in lodging facilities, residential housing and other settings. Specifically, the bill:
I. Establishes a state bed bug inspection grant program within the Department of Commerce for states to use to help fund inspections of lodging facilities;
II. Expands an existing grant program managed by the Department of Health and Human Services that already provides funds to states for cockroach and rodent control to be used for bed bug prevention and control;
III. Requires public housing agencies to include in annual plans,required by the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, measures necessary for the management of bed bugs, similar to their current responsibility to manage cockroaches; and
IV. Directs the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate the public health implications of bed bugs.”
NPMA goes on to say:
“His legislation will grant state and local governments, in concert with the professional pest management industry, the necessary resources to more effectively and aggressively manage bed bug infestations.”
Before I go any further I wish to state for the record that I am not attacking any individuals at NPMA, their integrity or their work ethic. I have stated this in the past and I will restate it again….these people work and they work hard and they believe what they are doing is in the long term best interests of the industry. In their defense they believe that this bill is going to pass, whether we are on board or not, and in the long run this will give the pest control industry some positioning on these matters for the economic future of our industry. It is that judgment and view that I wish to challenge.
Apparently Congressman Butterfield believes the first step in eradicating bedbugs is to create a grant program administered by the Commerce Department to inspect hotels and motels for bedbugs in each state. And that each state’s hotels will have 20 percent of their rooms inspected each and every year. Those inspections will be conducted by “trained inspection personnel” and money will be provided to “train the inspectors” and they shall do the following under this bill
I. inspections are conducted by individuals who meet the minimum competency standard or requirement for inspecting or treating rooms in lodging facilities for bed bugs, as adopted by the State agency charged with regulating pest
management
II. conduct inspections of lodging facilities for cimex lectularius, including transportation, lodging and meal expenses for inspectors;
III. train inspection personnel;
IV. contract with a commercial applicator, as defined in section 2(e) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (7 U.S.C. 136(e)), to inspect and treat lodging facilities for cimex lectularius;
V. educate the proprietors and staff of lodging establishments about methods to prevent and eradicate cimex lectularius.
And what will this little program cost. Fifty million dollars a year from 2010 to 2013! First off, Congress didn’t find anything that we didn’t already know. The fact of the matter is that taxpayer money is going to be wasted; and for what will the taxpayer’s money be wasted to the tune of fifty million dollars a year? To inspect rooms for bedbugs! We already have trained inspectors….they are called exterminators and they do it for free. They already know what to tell the owners and maintenance people and they certainly know what bedbugs look like and don’t need any further training. We already have health departments requiring treatment. We already have laws in each state that determines who can make those treatments. So, why is there a need to train “new” inspectors and who will these “new” inspectors be?
I don’t believe for a minute that pest controllers will be used for these inspections, except possibly at the beginning, no matter what it says about standards. This grant money is going to be used up by State Health departments, State Universities, State Agricultural departments or whoever is in charge of pesticide regulations in the state in question and they will set the standard to accommodate themselves.
And because grant money will be available, they won’t have to take the inexpensive way out and use PCO standards. This money will go to state agencies, and I believe to the Health Departments, which will make them secondary de facto regulators of the pest control industry in their states.
This is nothing more than window dressing, creating a gigantic multilayered bureaucracy with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Center for Disease Control and state agencies all over the country. Bureaucratic activity as a substitute for accomplishment, and when was the last time you saw a bureaucracy disappear?
Nowhere does it discuss the real issue: The EPA’s responsibility for this mess and the introduction of chemistry that works. This bill will spend fifty million each year and accomplish nothing, even if hotels are treated more often. Bedbugs will still be infesting homes, other businesses, buses, trains, cabs, schools…etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam, and where are the requirements for tools that will bring about proper control?
I. Inspections will not eliminate bedbugs.This isn’t leadership, nor will it manage bed bugs aggressively, effectively or otherwise. We need chemistry that works. This is a singular problem with a twofold solution.
II. It may fix the blame, but it won’t fix bedbugs.
III. Furthermore, I believe this will lay the ground work for more unnecessary regulations, unnecessary documented training sessions and added licensure.
IV. If that happens, and based on past history, I believe eventually that's where the grant money will go and the requirements will increase.
First and foremost, we have to define the real problem. We need to outline the cause. Both of those are easy. We know the EPA is a fault for this plague, we need place the blame right at their feet. We need chemistry that works, either by returning old chemistry, changing labels of chemistry that is currently available or give us new chemistry that works. (NPMA is currently working with EPA on this matter)
Everything else is a waste of money, energy, time and only gives the impression of accomplishment where very little actually exists. There is nothing in this bill that provides for anything that isn’t already being done…. except for getting the fifty million dollars.
To perceive is “to become aware of, know, or identify by means of the senses, to discern, envision or understand. “ My "perceptions" of what is wrong with this bill were easily identified because they should have been obvious to the most casual observer.
So then, what are the “positive aspects” of this Bill?
I. Fifty million dollars is going to be spent every year, and who knows how much more in the future, and yet bedbugs will not be curtailed because of it.
Grant chasers will by positively impacted. That doesn’t seem very positive to me
except for those getting the money. Those with bedbugs will still have them.
II. A great deal of bureaucratic welfare is going to be created and still bedbugs are not going to be curtailed. That doesn’t sound positive to me except for the bureaucrats.
III. Legislators will give the impression that they are doing something worthwhile to stop this plague caused by the EPA. That doesn’t sound positive to me except for the legislators who will give the impression that they are actually doing something.
IV. The real cause of the problem isn’t identified. That doesn’t sound positive to me, except for the EPA who is responsible.
V. No new directives are part of this bill that requires EPA or anyone else to approve chemistry that works. That doesn’t sound positive to me, except for the pest controllers who will be getting large sums of money to control this plague with inadequate tools, and even if the tools needed to eradicate bedbugs are returned, this bureaucratic layer cake will never disappear.
What about the “general public”? How will they benefit? And please don’t tell me how better communications will make a difference in their lives. That isn’t even a logical fallacy. That would be a blatant falsehood. The claim that this “proposed legislation …will be beneficial for all parties, including pest management professionals, regulatory agencies and the general public” is a fallacy of composition.
There is only one party that we should be focusing on. Not pest controllers, not regulators, and especially not regulators. The public!
It's the public and the public only who should be our one and only concern. In no way will this bill alleviate the public’s suffering. That, and only that, should be our concern. Everything else is horsepucky!
I would like to share a quote with everyone from Thomas Sowell.
“Life is all about tides. There are those who catch the tide and those who
row against the tide. Those rowing against the tide will always go in that
direction no matter which way the tide is moving. The rest have no direction and
will simply follow the tide. Those who row against the tide are in better shape
than those who go with the tide. Not only physically, but intellectually,
emotionally and psychologically! When the tide changes direction, and it will,
guess who will be in the lead? “
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