Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Selling Bad Science

The Blog | Paul Abrams: Latest Right-Wing Junk Science on Global Warming: "It's the Sun, Stupid" | The Huffington Post: "...We all know why the radical rightwing has to debunk the human contribution to global warming---recognizing it requires some regulation of their businesses. Of course, if Reagan had not canceled Carter's CAFE standards, we would not be importing ANY oil today, and Detroit would be prosperous making high efficiency engines, probably even leading the world.

The tobacco industry 'invented' the strategy behind junk science, hiring some scientists who could never make it on merit, pay them gobs of money, and have them 'publish' in journals that do not require scientific review. The industry is, after all, selling death--lung cancer, emphysema, stroke, heart attack, to name just a few, and they had to convince about 5000 children per week to take it up to grow their markets. If you can convince society not to regulate that, as they did for 30+ years AFTER the surgeon general's report linking cigarettes to those diseases was published, it is mere chickenfeed compared to getting people to dismiss global warming or, for that matter, to vote an insecure, incuriousn'er-do-well 'son-of'into the White House. According to the tobacco apologists, the link between cigarettes and those diseases was 'only' statistical..."

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