Cascade of Stupidity

Speaking of food, this article in the NY Times (shock) talks about the dangers of consensus among scientists and how it can lead to huge, society changing mistakes. Are you listening GW people?

Except they’re talking about food.

In 1988, the surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, proclaimed ice cream to a be public-health menace right up there with cigarettes. Alluding to his office’s famous 1964 report on the perils of smoking, Dr. Koop announced that the American diet was a problem of “comparable” magnitude, chiefly because of the high-fat foods that were causing coronary heart disease and other deadly ailments.

He introduced his report with these words: “The depth of the science base underlying its findings is even more impressive than that for tobacco and health in 1964.”

That was a ludicrous statement, as Gary Taubes demonstrates in his new book meticulously debunking diet myths, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (Knopf, 2007). The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly. The evidence against Häagen-Dazs was nothing like the evidence against Marlboros.

It may seem bizarre that a surgeon general could go so wrong. After all, wasn’t it his job to express the scientific consensus? But that was the problem. Dr. Koop was expressing the consensus. He, like the architects of the federal “food pyramid” telling Americans what to eat, went wrong by listening to everyone else. He was caught in what social scientists call a cascade.

They go on to show how a few scientists issuing reports from august institutions can influence public policy, which results in new laws and programs that often cost millions of dollars. And all based on mistaken conclusions. When the mistake has to do with human health, that’s a serious issue. It’s also serious when it has to do with the global economy as in global warming. People shouldn’t leap to conclusions because of what a few people say. The fact that they’re scientists is immaterial. All humans are subject to ego and delusion. And group think is a real problem.

As the man said:

‘Insanity in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.’ — Nietzsche

The most bizarre thing about that article is that he uses the cascade theory to attack global warming...skeptics.
Huh?

Posted by  on  10/09  at  03:05 PM

No kidding. However, the ideologues often like to talk about themselves in this way.

Posted by  on  10/09  at  04:58 PM
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