re: ‘Propaganda’: Top MIT Climate Scientist Trashes ‘97% Consensus’ Claim

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I Can't Believe It's Not Science

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For nearly half a century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have put out dietary guidelines telling Americans to eat less sodium, cholesterol, and saturated fat — i.e., red meat and full-fat dairy, including butter — and to eat more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, among other directives. These recommendations emanated from hearings held in the mid-to-late 1970s by the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, despite a “boisterous mob of critics,” including those within the scientific community who pleaded with the Committee to wait for more research “before we make announcements to the American public.” In response, Committee Chairman Sen. McGovern responded that “Senators don’t have the luxury that the research scientist does of waiting until every last shred of evidence is in.”

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Since the Committee issued its report in 1977, those patient research scientists have repeatedly called into question or undermined many of the Committee’s original recommendations. Increasing the level of dietary salt, for example, appears to lead to hypertension only in a small percentage of the population; and in some, lowering dietary salt can, in fact, result in higher blood pressure. Moderate levels of dietary cholesterol no longer seems to be linked to heart disease. And full-fat dairy has been shown to reduce the risk of obesity and diabetes.

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Scientific progress is not achieved via committee — whether Congressional or scientific. Rather, science advances toward an understanding of reality through years — often decades — of research, with scientists fighting for their own hypotheses. They present, defend, test, and modify their ideas over time. Whichever side offers the most compelling argument “wins” by gradually becoming the predominant theory. Soon, other researchers gravitate toward that theory, basing their own research on it.

Congress, of course, is an inherently political entity. And so when it — or any other government-appointed body — privileges one theory over another, it creates bias that trickles down to the research community. The problem is not simply that the government makes decisions on the basis of imperfect information, but that government intervention, itself, can distort the development of research.

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Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations. Of necessity, they observe with a preconceived idea, and when they devise an experiment, they can see, in its results, only a confirmation of their theory. In this way they distort observation and often neglect very important facts because they do not further their aim…. But it happens further quite naturally that men who believe too firmly in their theories, do not believe enough in the theories of others. So the dominant idea of these despisers of their fellows is to find others’ theories faulty and to try to contradict them. The difficulty, for science, is still the same.

CLAUDE BERNARD, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, 1865

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