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folly insider corruption moral hazard nannyism national politics & policies porkbarrel politics responsibility

Settled Science?!?

You probably know that America’s sugar industry is protected, making astounding profits because of high tariffs and artificially raised consumer prices.

And you likely know that government has worked hand-​in-​hand with agribiz interests to cook up (and regulate) a competitive sweetener, high fructose corn syrup. You understand that there are various types of sugar, and almost certainly suspect that refined sugar is bad for you, with high fructose corn syrup perhaps worse.

In fact, the scientific evidence for the danger of a high sugar diet has been around since the 1950s.

Well, what we now know, Elizabeth Nolan Brown writes at Reason, is “how the sugar industry essentially bribed Harvard scientists to downplay sugar’s role in heart disease — and how the U.S. government ate it up.”

Before Reason weighed in, my colleague Eric D. Dixon sent me a New York Times story, which stated the main proposition plainly: “How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat.” But Reason’s Brown is right: it was government that really made this a nationwide disaster. The imprimatur of government sanctified the anti-​fat craze, and the government’s own dietary guidance (and regulations) proved grossly wrongheaded.

Now we’re the ones who are gross.

Scientists and government (bought off by a protected industry) fed us a line that many swallowed. We increasingly swapped fat for refined sugars, causing health to decline as girths went out and weights went up.

So when I hear outrageous claims for the “settled science of climate change,” I look at my middle and doubt that “settled” part. And I nurture an unsettling thought.… it’s the political science that’s settled: government lies to us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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sugar, lobbying, science, corruption, illustration

 

Categories
ideological culture responsibility

A Trumped-​up “Consensus”

“A co-​founder of Greenpeace told a Senate panel on Tuesday that there is no scientific evidence to back claims that humans are the ‘dominant cause’ of climate change,” the Washington Times reported yesterday.

But what about that grand consensus — “97 percent” — of scientists saying the exact opposite?

Well, economist and legal theoretician David D. Friedman wrote, this week, that one of the most famous citations about the climate change consensus is the result of some, uh, data fudging.

Friedman chased down the origin of that infamous and oft-​repeated 97 percent figure through three papers, all available online. Despite the high tone of certainty, the scientists who collated information from surveys of other scientists did not find that “over 97% endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.” At best, a huge cohort of these scientists agreed that humans merely contributed to global warming. Very different.

Friedman concluded that the main author responsible for the strong interpretation of weak findings,  John Cook, told “a deliberate lie.”

This scientist’s misrepresentation of “the result of his own research” doesn’t prove that Anthropogenic Global Warming is true or untrue, of course. But it does suggest that the “consensus” so much talked about is shaky indeed.

I began the week talking about our reliance upon experts to gather, analyze and report on information honestly and reliably.

And how horrible it is when they let us down.

The climate change we need is in the culture of academic responsibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.