Fake Science - It's Far, Far Worse Than You Could Possibly Imagine

[hatrack]

EDIT

Around 2004, I’d been chosen to attend an exclusive science conference on toxic chemicals, along with Vom Saal, a University of Missouri professor of reproductive biology. Vom Saal studied a chemical in plastics called bisphenol-A, or BPA. In humans and other animals BPA mimics estrogen, meaning it can disrupt our body’s hormonal system. According to Vom Saal, industry-funded scientists were attacking his research by repeating his studies, but with slight changes in the protocols so that the problems he’d discovered with BPA wouldn’t turn up. With these studies in hand, companies then claimed that Vom Saal’s research was shoddy. I listened to Vom Saal rant for about 30 minutes one summer afternoon during a break in the conference, then exited politely. Science, like every profession, attracts its share of crazies. It was easier for me to accept that Vom Saal was a tad delusional than to believe that industry scientists manipulated research.

But then I started hearing about Tyrone Hayes, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Hayes was studying atrazine, a widely-applied herbicide that controls weeds and increases crop yields in corn and sorghum. Scientists were discovering that this chemical was the most common pesticide contaminant of ground and surface waters, and finding it in some drinking water wells, too. Hayes’ research showed that atrazine interfered with testosterone, chemically castrating some animals and turning males into females. The next question should have been: What was atrazine doing to humans? But like Vom Saal, Hayes contended that corporate scientists were publishing studies that nearly mirrored his own, with slight changes in protocol to get results that found no problems with atrazine. According to Hayes, these studies were part of an orchestrated campaign to make him appear incompetent. But Hayes struck me as an odd fellow and a bit eccentric. As with Vom Saal, I had my doubts about him.

Then along came climate scientist Michael Mann. In the summer of 2005, Congressman Joe Barton, R-Texas, began investigating Mann, along with several other climate scientists, for allegedly making “methodological flaws and data errors.” Barton demanded information on their financial backing from government agencies and access to their data and computer codes. He questioned their relationships to organizations studying climate change. It seemed like a juicy story that was right in line with ES&T's science news coverage, so I contacted sources to learn more and begin writing stories.

Because ES&T didn’t cover climate change, I knew little to nothing about climate science. What I did know came from reading the mainstream news, which put across climate science as controversial, and climate researchers' many troubling claims about global warming as overblown. But I also knew that these outlets were probably getting the story wrong, because of an interaction I’d had the year before with some fellow reporters at the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

EDIT

https://www.drillednews.com/post/fake-science-is-a-real-danger

[eppur_se_muova]

1. Whole article worth a read -- extremely unsettling. Thanks for finding this and posting it. nt

[KT2000]

2. Environmental research is generally

quarantined away from policy matters and mainstream medicine. When it leaks into the mainstream, the character assassination begins. Meanwhile, it is the slow destruction of our species and earth itself. Our brains, sexuality, endocrine system, are being rewired to make huge profits for international corporations.

Everyone should have health care because it is these profit driven liars who are responsible for much of the illnesses.

[DanieRains]

3. Tax Poisons And Sugar Another Poison To Pay For Medicare For All

Bingo.

You are welcome.

[Alwaysna]

4. If trump pays $1.00 for each time he lies THAT would pay for Medicare for all!