Science Trivialized by the Internet?

[catbirdseat]

Many of you have by now heard about the row over the proposal to add fluoride to the drinking water in Bellingham. Opponents have gone so far as to leave dead rats at the door of the dentist who made the proposal. Fluoridation has been around for 100 years and numerous scientific studies have proved it safe at concentrations used to protect teeth. But, as the author of the Times article pointed out, if you Google "Fluoridation" you'll get 8 out of 10 articles from wackos saying it will poison you.

 

Bellingham Fluoride Debate

 

Now my aim is not to debate the issue of fluoridation but rather the "trivialization of science" by the Internet.

But what's disturbing about the Bellingham debate is how much it has trivialized science. Something in society — be it ready information on the Internet, the political divide, something — has turned us into a nation of relativists in which all ideas now are equally valid.

 

You can see it with issues like global warming and evolution. The actual findings of scientists scarcely matter. What matters is what Google says.

 

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

[olyclimber]

If you believe everything you read on the Internet, then yes. But if you do that, then you were stupid before the Internet too.

[cj001f]

General Jack D. Ripper: You know when fluoridation first began?

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: I... no, no. I don't, Jack.

General Jack D. Ripper: Nineteen hundred and forty-six. Nineteen forty-six, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Uh, Jack, Jack, listen, tell me, tell me, Jack. When did you first... become... well, develop this theory?

General Jack D. Ripper: Well, I, uh... I... I... first became aware of it, Mandrake, during the physical act of love.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.

General Jack D. Ripper: Yes, a uh, a profound sense of fatigue... a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I... I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Hmm.

General Jack D. Ripper: I can assure you it has not recurred, Mandrake. Women uh... women sense my power and they seek the life essence. I, uh... I do not avoid women, Mandrake.

Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No.

General Jack D. Ripper: But I... I do deny them my essence.

[Dru]

Hey catbirdseat, maybe next you can prove that the mercury used in killed-virus vaccines is safe for children? Even though they've stopped making it?

 

Point being - it isn't the Internet which has trivialized science. It is the subversion of science into "tobacco science" by funding from groups that already know what result they want found that has trivialized science.

[catbirdseat]

Well Dru, your answer is the sort that I am looking for.

 

The fact that mercury has been removed is not proof that it was ever dangerous, but rather proof that science was not able to convince enough people that it wasn't dangerous.

[cj001f]

It is the subversion of science into "tobacco science" by funding from groups that already know what result they want found that has trivialized science.

Coupled with an inability of people to differentiate between sources and influences in a substantive manner.

 

It's interesting to watch the American right, who long railed against the relativism inherent in parts of postModern theory now accept and utilize the same identity/feeling logic to justify their positions.

[Dru]

Rather, it was removed because, although a direct link could not be shown, circumstantial evidence indicated that the mercury used in vaccines might possibly result in damage to developing brains when young children were vaccinated.

 

The choice to discontinue the mercury even though the link between vaccination and developmental abnormalities is circumstantial, is an example of the precautionary principle in action.

[catbirdseat]

Our receptionist tells me that Valery Plame was not in fact an undercover operative for the CIA. I asked her were she got that information. She asked me where I got my information and I said The New York Times. Finally she said Fox News and the Internet. I said well, there you go.

[catbirdseat]

Rather, it was removed because, although a direct link could not be shown, circumstantial evidence indicated that the mercury used in vaccines might possibly result in damage to developing brains when young children were vaccinated.

 

The choice to discontinue the mercury even though the link between vaccination and developmental abnormalities is circumstantial, is an example of the precautionary principle in action.

If you have to technology to produce mercury free vaccine that is also completely free of pyrogens then I agree it should be done if it doesn't raise costs excessively.

[JayB]

I remember reading a great article a few years ago concerning fluoridation of drinking water.

 

A small municipality had invested in fluoridation equipment, and announced that they would begin fluoridating the drinking water on a certain date, despite vocal opposition from certain quarters of the community.

 

The day after the said date arrived, people in town began complaining of migraines, aching kidneys, dizzyness, misbehavior in children, fatigue, shortness of breath, and other related maladies. With each passing day both the number of people reporting health problems and the intensity of the problems escalated, as did the uproar. When the head of the water district was finally summoned to address the town, he made a startling announcement - no fluoride had actually been added to the water yet, and would not begin for another month. The real start date came and went uneventfully and they've had fluoride in the water ever since.

[cj001f]

Our receptionist tells me that Valery Plame was not in fact an undercover operative for the CIA. I asked her were she got that information. She asked me where I got my information and I said The New York Times. Finally she said Fox News and the Internet. I said well, there you go.

It seams most Americans now choose sources to justify and reinforce their opinions or increasingly even outsourcing opinion formation. In a preInternet/Cable TV era with fewer sources of information, and perhaps more oblique editorialization, opinion formation resided closer to the individual and his community.

[Dru]

Must have been the chemtrails then

[catbirdseat]

That's a good one, Jay. Certainly you can point to regions of the world that have excessively high natural concentrations of fluoride and yes it can be toxic. I believe Colorado is one such place. Of course the therapeutic levels are much lower than this.

[olyclimber]

I rode the bus with some guy that said that there are underground antennas under the railroad in Bellingham that are used by aliens to control our minds. And now they want to use fluoridation to extend their reach? Bellingham must be the center of their operations.

[catbirdseat]

Oly, don't look now, but you forgot to wear your foil helmet!

[olyclimber]

Whats worse is we are outsourcing opinion formation to Poland!

 

(I'm going to catch it from someone on this! )

[catbirdseat]

That statement was a bit cryptic to me.

 

I was thinking back on ____'s attempts to tarnish Kellogg's reputation by spreading misinformation on as many web sites as possible so that information seekers come up with mostly negative hits- his.

 

There are lots of people who do this with medical issues, because they feel so strongly about their opinions that they want to influence others.

Edited November 2, 2005 by catbirdseat

[Dru]

That statement was a bit cryptic to me.

 

Yeah, how many poles live in Bellingham

[catbirdseat]

I didn't know that the Fido's name would get replace by a _____. That's pretty funny. Nice work Jon.

[JayB]

It is the subversion of science into "tobacco science" by funding from groups that already know what result they want found that has trivialized science.

Coupled with an inability of people to differentiate between sources and influences in a substantive manner.

 

It's interesting to watch the American right, who long railed against the relativism inherent in parts of postModern theory now accept and utilize the same identity/feeling logic to justify their positions.

 

Not quite the same thing. In this case the dispute is over the facts, whereas with POMO the dispute was/is about whether or not there are "facts." At least people who are using less than sound science agree about the utility and validity of science as a tool for humanity, whereas a great deal of the POMO crew were using a maladaption of literary criticism to dispute the notion that one could ever obtain accurate information about the natural world, and that science was simply a ruse used by white men to codify and reinforce their power in society, etc, etc, etc.

 

BTW - you might enjoy reading "Science and Relativism" by Larry Laudan. Quote from the intro below:

 

"I did not write this work merely with the aim of setting the exegetical record straight. My larger target is those contemporaries who -- in repeated acts of wish-fulfillment -- have appropriated conclusions from the philosophy of science and put them to work in aid of a variety of social cum political causes for which those conclusions are ill adapted. Feminists, religious apologists (including "creation scientists"), counterculturalists, neoconservatives, and a host of other curious fellow-travelers have claimed to find crucial grist for their mills in, for instance, the avowed incommensurability and underdetermination of scientific theories. The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is -- second only to American political campaigns -- the most prominent and pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time."

[Recycled]

So, is public access to science via the internet a bad thing? Sure there's a lot of crap and noise out there, but on the up side I can do a lot of research from original peer-reviewed (as well as non-reviewed) documents to help better understand an issue. I live in Bellingham and my wife and I honestly had a hard time deciding which way to vote, and we both have scientific/technological backgrounds. There's a lot to the flouride debate.

 

The scientific establishment does not always makes the right decisions, and it is arrogant to presume that "science" always knows best. It seems to me that the biggest educational failing is making sure that the public at large has a better understanding of just what the scientific method really is to better understand the differences between hypothesis testing and faith, and to tell bullshit armwaving from reasoned argument.

[catbirdseat]

As an adult who has excellent home dental care and access to a good dentist, you might not derive any personal benefit at all from fluoridation. You personally might not wish to incur any risk at all, no matter how inconsequential because there is no benefit. It then comes down to whether you would wish to confer its benefits on the less fortunate.

[Stefan]

We here in Western Washington have some of the finest drinking water available in the 48 states. My water comes from the Cedar River Watershed.

 

And I still cannot fathom why my wife drinks bottled water.

[catbirdseat]

So, is public access to science via the internet a bad thing? Sure there's a lot of crap and noise out there, but on the up side I can do a lot of research from original peer-reviewed (as well as non-reviewed) documents to help better understand an issue. I live in Bellingham and my wife and I honestly had a hard time deciding which way to vote, and we both have scientific/technological backgrounds. There's a lot to the flouride debate.

 

The scientific establishment does not always makes the right decisions, and it is arrogant to presume that "science" always knows best. It seems to me that the biggest educational failing is making sure that the public at large has a better understanding of just what the scientific method really is to better understand the differences between hypothesis testing and faith, and to tell bullshit armwaving from reasoned argument.

The next incremental step will be customizable "filters" that can be applied to Google that preselect hits based on their scientific relevance. You could have a site that ranks other sites on their adherence to scientific priniciples. The ranking would influence the order that hits come up in your searches.

[Dru]

There's always Wikipedia... imagine if DFA and Dwayner had to co-author an essay on the use of bolts in American climbing.