Defending Good Science

March, 2004

Political Silly Season

It's an election year in both Canada and the United States.  As coverage for politics increases, the air waves become increasingly crowded, and the attention spans of Mr. and Mrs. Average Consumer grow shorter and shorter.  Commercial time is harder to buy, and, of course, the closer we get to Election Day, the harder it will get to obtain news coverage for anything else. 

This means every activist group, social coalition and special interest will be competing for precious seconds of public attention.  And when your business is scaring the consumer, the only way to compete in a crowded marketplace is to become even better at scaring those consumers.

We've already started to see the first hints of a coordinated attack against President Bush.  The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report accusing Bush of politicizing the science on a number of controversial issues, ranging from global warming to HIV/AIDS to Iraq's nuclear weapons efforts.

I will be the first to say I get upset when I see the political process using science as a crutch.  As a former political aide myself, I've seen first hand the sort of mess that occurs when politicians try to inject a 'soft science' into a 'factual science.'  But what I found truly ironic about an accusation of junk science against President Bush was the background of the group making the claim - the Union of Concerned Scientists admits they're an activist group!  Their eco-extremist, anti-biotechnology, anti-chemical, anti-nuclear stands on issues are hardly the scientific ideal of objectivity.

Stand back and watch the facts blur into rhetoric and innuendo.  According to the news coverage you will see in the next six months, we're all developing cancer, drinking unsafe water and poisoning children with our food.  But don't worry - according to the coverage, your children won't live to see adulthood anyway, because of catastrophic climate change. 

There's no point in reading fiction anymore.  The creators of "Lord of the Rings" - 11 Oscars and all - wouldn't be able to spin some of the headlines that activist groups are going to create in the next few months.  In the past year, we've seen activist groups bury a killer whale carcass, warn that Manhattan will soon be underwater because of global warming, and run naked with the bulls in Pampalona,Spain.  Interestingly, last month, in the midst of a vicious cold snap in New England, former Vice President Al Gore claimed that climate change is to blame for the cold weather as well.  It would be nice if they could at least try to scare us with a consistent message.

In the cocktail party of life, activists are often the ones standing naked on the coffee table .  Unfortunately, they don't really care about public opinion, just public attention. 

The ultimate casualty of these increasingly fervent displays of rhetoric and innuendo won't be people like President Bush or Prime Minister Martin.  I may even venture a guess that the ultimate casualties aren't even the targeted industries or companies. 

True casualties are Mr. and Mrs. Consumer, for two reasons.  To begin, they simply can't tell truth from fiction anymore.  They will make decisions regarding food purchases, lifestyle changes and household products based not on facts, but fiction.

And when Mr. and Mrs. Consumer genuinely feel the need to get involved in a community activity and raise public concern, attention or alarm, they're going to find that they're too late to the party.  The public will have long learned to tune them - and just about everyone else - out.

Checkmate Link of the Month

Any organization that claims to specialize in Junk Science,will acknowledge the fine work that Steven Milloy is doing with www.junkscience.com.

Milloy has written several books dedicated to debunking activist myths, and writes a weekly column on junk science issues.  The site is a wealth of information, and worth checking out.

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