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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

(reason.com)
473 points Bostonian | 9 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.508s | source | bottom
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Crayfish3348 ◴[19 Nov 24 17:23 UTC] No.42185914[source]▶
A book came out in August 2024 called "Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola," by Susan Greenhalgh. She's a professor (emeritus) at Harvard. The book is a history. It shows how the Coca-Cola Company turned to "science" when the company was beset by the obesity crisis of the 1990s and health advocates were calling for, among other things, soda taxes.

Coca-Cola "mobilized allies in academia to create a soda-defense science that would protect profits by advocating exercise, not dietary restraint, as the priority solution to obesity." It was a successful campaign and did particularly well in the Far East. "In China, this distorted science has left its mark not just on national obesity policies but on the apparatus for managing chronic disease generally."

Point being, the science that Coca-Cola propagated is entirely legitimate. But that science itself does not tell the whole, obvious truth, which is that there is certainly a correlation in a society between obesity rates and overall sugar-soda consumption rates. "Coke’s research isn’t fake science, Greenhalgh argues; it was real science, conducted by real and eminent scientists, but distorted by its aim."

"Trust the science" can thus be a dangerous call to arms. Here's the book, if anybody's interested. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo221451...

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grecy ◴[19 Nov 24 17:40 UTC] No.42186121[source]▶
And this is exactly the problem we face now in so many aspects of life.

If cell phones or microwaves or a hundred other things were harmful we would not find out, because of all the lobbying and armies of scientists paid to find and publish a very narrow version of truth

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1. mrandish ◴[19 Nov 24 17:48 UTC] No.42186209[source]▶
> If cell phones or microwaves or a hundred other things were harmful we would not find out

While I agree that there may be things which have subtle but cumulatively harmful effects over time, the two specifics that you cited (cell phones and microwaves) are very poor examples because they've been deployed so broadly for so long, the chances there is some significant medical harm still undetected is vanishingly small.

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2. CamperBob2 ◴[19 Nov 24 18:16 UTC] No.42186517[source]▶
Also, trial lawyers would rapidly become the wealthiest people on Earth if genuine, reproducible evidence of harm from non-ionizing radiation could be found.

If you thought the tobacco and silicone breast implant settlements were impressive...

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3. genewitch ◴[19 Nov 24 19:02 UTC] No.42186941[source]▶
just jump on the two examples instead of actually considering the point being made, i guess.

Think "leaded gasoline" if you need a concrete example

4. creer ◴[19 Nov 24 21:05 UTC] No.42188074[source]▶
> trial lawyers would rapidly become the wealthiest people on Earth if genuine, reproducible evidence of harm from non-ionizing radiation could be found.

Probably not, as electronics manufacturers would quikly take that into consideration. Liability comes from both knowing and continuing.

5. nataliste ◴[19 Nov 24 21:11 UTC] No.42188138[source]▶
>cell phones

Well, as far as direct physical harms, yes, but as far as mental harms that translate to physical harms, the jury's still out:

'“Given that the increase in mental health issues was sharpest after 2011, Twenge believes it’s unlikely to be due to genetics or economic woes and more likely to be due to sudden cultural changes, such as shifts in how teens and young adults spend their time outside of work and school.'

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/03/mental-healt...

6. alexey-salmin ◴[19 Nov 24 21:45 UTC] No.42188433[source]▶
> the chances there is some significant medical harm still undetected is vanishingly small

I don't think this statement is true.

Long-term effects can only be observed over the, well, long term which makes it hard to compare with the baseline. It was measured differently and with very different external factors. Then even if we do by chance manage to observe the harm today it could be very hard to identify the reason — we would see the factual result but neither the process nor the cause.

Take any unexplained health issue we have today, e.g. decline in male fertility estimated at 50% in western counties since 1970s, a dramatic change. Could it be microwaves? Well possibly, can't be ruled out at this point, among many other candidates. Furthermore, with the new research saying that 1) microwaving food in "microwave-safe" plastic containers releases huge number of microplastic particles into the food and 2) microplastic accumulates in testicles — it's not even a fringe science anymore but a normal theory to be studied and be proven or disproven.

Do we have any other health issues that increased over the past 50 years? Yes. What caused them, is it something recent that became popular in the past 50 years? Very likely, yes. Do we know it? Not yet.

It took us a very long time to figure out cigarettes. Or leaded fuel, even though we knew in advance that lead is poisonous.

7. mozman ◴[20 Nov 24 09:34 UTC] No.42192202[source]▶
Divorce lawyers are generally the most profitable. $750/hr if you’re good.
8. grecy ◴[20 Nov 24 10:09 UTC] No.42192415[source]▶
> because they've been deployed so broadly for so long, the chances there is some significant medical harm still undetected is vanishingly small.

Cancer rates continue to rise, and will be well over 50% of all people in my lifetime.

There is no doubt our current world is making us very sick.

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9. CamperBob2 ◴[20 Nov 24 15:18 UTC] No.42194613[source]▶
If you don't die of something else first, cancer is what will get you. Increased cancer rates are merely a side effect of improvements in other aspects of health and longevity.