NEW ON THE SEPP WEB: "I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with
consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.
The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't
science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. .............
........In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was 'responsible for
approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults,' and
that it ' impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of
people.' In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based
its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they
collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For
reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or
for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.)
Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95%
confidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified
second-hand smoke as a Group-A Carcinogen.
This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on
smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public
smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian
Science Monitor was saying that 'Second-hand smoke is the nation's
third-leading preventable cause of death.' The American Cancer Society
announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The
evidence for this claim is nonexistent.
In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had
'committed to a conclusion before research had begun', and had 'disregarded
information and made findings on selective information.' The reaction of
Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: 'We stand by our science; there's wide
agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second
hand smoke brings a whole host of health problems.' Again, note how the
claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn't even a consensus
of scientists that Browner evokes! It's the consensus of the American
people.
Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large,
seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have
well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for
example, that second-hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point
you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke."
Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with
consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.
The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't
science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period. .............
........In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was 'responsible for
approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults,' and
that it ' impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of
people.' In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based
its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they
collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For
reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or
for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.)
Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95%
confidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified
second-hand smoke as a Group-A Carcinogen.
This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on
smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public
smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian
Science Monitor was saying that 'Second-hand smoke is the nation's
third-leading preventable cause of death.' The American Cancer Society
announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The
evidence for this claim is nonexistent.
In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had
'committed to a conclusion before research had begun', and had 'disregarded
information and made findings on selective information.' The reaction of
Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: 'We stand by our science; there's wide
agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second
hand smoke brings a whole host of health problems.' Again, note how the
claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn't even a consensus
of scientists that Browner evokes! It's the consensus of the American
people.
Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large,
seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have
well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for
example, that second-hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point
you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke."
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