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"Environmental Wars"

As response to one person's opinion of the keynote speakers, all 4, whatever else you think of what they do, are in tune with how the public at large tends to view scientific information because of the feedback they receive in their lines of work. It is interesting to me, as one with a Sociology degree. I think good advice has already been given if such doesn't interest you. If the other speakers do, that evening could be a great chance to sightsee or go to a show in the area instead.

A question too. Obviously, you think Randi is more than just a magician, or you wouldn't be on this site, so why belittle him and the others? There was a more polite way to say you thought there could be better keynote speakers and/or disagree with me. The two speakers I have met would not speak of others in the same manner unless warranted.

Mattfn :moose:
 
"One person"? I guess that's me. I have a name, you know.

I think I was pretty clear: none of those four men are what I would consider an expert on the issue of global warming.

Stossel has shown on numerous occasions that he's willing to lie and distort facts in pursuit of his political agenda. Recently, he's taken to shilling for Crichton's anti-environmentalist tract State of Fear. So right there, half of the "special guests" have been outspokenly critical of conventional scientific thought on this issue. Have the other two been equally outspoken in the other direction? Not to my knowledge.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have every reason to expect, given their general attitudes, that Adam and Randi would defend the mainstream scientific view, but their names do not leap immediately to mind as a balance against Stossel and Crichton.

Oh, and I live in Long Beach, so I don't really need a conference as an excuse to "sightsee" in Pasadena.
 
That's a bit more like it. You have mentioned valid reasons for your opinion on the first two, and admitted you don't have too much on the second two. That's what I was looking for, and expecting here. Thanks for responding.

Mattfn :moose:
 
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aargh57 said:
Could you site some of these lies and distortions please.
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Sure.

"It's logical to worry about pesticide residues, but in our tests we found none on either organic or regular produce." -- John Stossel, 20/20, July 7, 2000. As it turns out, no such tests were ever performed. Stossel was forced to offer an on-air apology.

"Parkinson's [Disease] ... kills more people [than AIDS]" -- John Stossel, 20/20, October 11, 1999. AIDS killed 16,000 people in the US that year, compared with an estimated 4,000 for Parkinson's Disease.

"98% [of Catholic school students] graduate, vs. 49% for the public schools" -- John Stossel, 20/20, November 12, 1999. No state reported a public school graduation rate so low. Using the most recent figures that would have been available to Stossel at that time, the numbers ranged from 53.2% in DC to 89.9% in Vermont.

"Factory wages were up, too -- up 70% [from 1983 to 1998]" -- John Stossel, Greed, February 3, 1998. The real figure was 55%, without adjusting for inflation. Adjusted for inflation, factory wages decreased by 6% during those years.

"America now spends about $40,000 a year on every family of four below the poverty line" -- John Stossel, 20/20, January 27, 2001. Stossel apparently arrived at this figure by totalling up federal spending on all social welfare programs, including things like Medicare and Medicaid that don't necessarily go to people below the poverty line.

On August 12, 1994, Stossel railed against the FDA for not approving the "Sensor Pad" -- a device that supposedly would help detect breast lumps, saying that in Canada, "they approved this in less than 60 days." In fact, the device was never approved for sale in Canada because the makers never supplied any data demonstrating its effectiveness.

On his September 19, 1999, special Is America #1?, Stossel used a quote from economist James Galbraith ("There might be a moment for the European to learn from us, rather than for us to be studying them.") in a context that made it seem as though Galbraith were agreeing with Stossel that American-style laissez-faire capitalism was the answer to Europe's high unemployment rates. In fact, Galbraith said later (Extra!, Nov-Dec, 1999), "My point is quite different from the one Stossel makes in the lead-in ... Europe could, in short, benefit from adopting some of the continent-wide transfer mechanisms, such as Social Security, that we have long enjoyed in the United States."
 
Steve, could you please provide links to your references.

I think your references are great, btw, but links are even greaterestlyer

thanks
 
Rob Lister said:
Steve, could you please provide links to your references.
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Or better yet, can you come over to my house with tapes and play Stossel's shows for me on my VCR? And bring along everyone else you cite -- I'd love to meet Galbraith!

Sorry, Rob, but I couldn't help it. SH has provided dates, quotations, and explanations. I think that's sufficient on his part. This is enough information for anyone to easily prove him wrong if he's not accurate. Asking for links to Web sites is a bit much (and a bit lazy) especially considering that online cites may not exist and that, if they do, they may provide no particular validation.
 
Wowbagger will be there! (And not just because the next victim on my list happens to be attending.)

I was hoping to join in on the Geology tour, but it's sold out, at the moment.

If anyone has a spare Geo Tour ticket, I'd be willing to buy it off you for a reasonable price!! (PM me, if you'd like to sell.)
 
SH,

Thanks. I'm a little sceptical of Fair as I didn't see any cited sources but definitely worth looking into. I'm not a huge Stossel fan but a co-worker had his book so I started reading it and so far it is a very good read. I'll tell you right now that I am a believer in the free market system but that doesn't mean that I'm going to discredit what you (or FAIR) says because of that. I'll try to look into it a little more when I get the time.
 
It's hard to check the quotes on FAIR because it just lists the shows and the transcripts from 20/20 costs $15 each so I wasn't able to verify if the quotes were genuine but I'll take their word for it that the quotes at least are accurate. However, just from looking up a few things I've found a few holes.

John Stossel defended the pesticide thing by saying that he did indeed err in that story. They tested for bacteria but never for pesticides but incorrectly took the word of one of his producers that said they had those test results. Basically he claims that the main crux of his piece is true. Namely that organic food is no better for you than nonorganic foods. Yes, he did make an error in that report but he maintains that the important part of the story was correct.

The AIDS/Parkinsons thing looks to me to be pretty dishonest on the part of FAIR. Here's part of that article:
"In fact, AIDS killed more than 16,000 people in the United States in 1999--down from 43,000 in 1995. Parkinson's, which is not itself generally fatal but contributes to other illnesses, has a mortality rate of 2 per 100,000 to less than 1 per 100,000, depending on the demographic group (BC Medical Journal, 4/01)--which works out to a death toll in the United States of less than 4,000 per year."

So instead of looking at the actual number in deaths they tried to extrapolate a number. Why not just go to the CDC (like I did) and find out how many people really died? In fact, Stossel told a whopper on this one. According to the CDC, 14,802 people died due to HIV while 14,593 died from Parkinson's. http://webappa.cdc.gov/cgi-bin/broker.exe
Stossel was off by about 200, FAIR was only off by 10,593. Close enough.
(Incidentally, for 2003 Parkinson's ranked 14th and HIV/AIDS ranked 19th)
 
aargh57 said:
Basically he claims that the main crux of his piece is true. Namely that organic food is no better for you than nonorganic foods.
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I think this is pretty much common knowledge by now. For most of us, it was the working assumption from the very beginning.
 
Scrutinizer,

Just arguing Stossel's point. I never thought that organic food was better.


One other thing. I'm only up to page 95 or so in his book but in it he says "Am I missing something? Why is it a good thing to spend 10 times more on AIDS than on breast cancer or prostate cancer? Or, for that matter, 25 times more than on Parkinson's, which kills more people?"

Compare that with FAIR's quote of Stossel:

"Stossel's errors are often so obvious that one wonders how they could have ended up on the air. In a 20/20 report on medical research (10/11/99), Stossel complained that too much funding was going to AIDS research, claiming that spending on the disease was "25 times more than on Parkinson's, which kills more people."

Notice that FAIR quotes him as stating that Parkinson's kills more people. Isn't it very possible that he said the statement just like in the book, as a question? Now, it may sound like splitting hairs but isn't that what FAIR's doing. Even if they didn't misquote him they still fudged the numbers to make it look like Parkinson's kills far fewer people than it actually does. Then it muddies the water's further by saying " Parkinson's, which is not itself generally fatal but contributes to other illnesses". Hey, wait a minute. If you want to really get technical couldn't you say that AIDS really doesn't kill people, it just breaks down their immune systems so much that people die of other, often pretty simple, illnesses?

Anyhow, I agree with Stossel. If we're going to give funding for reasearch it shouldn't go to the disease that gets the most media attention/senators/celebrities. So far it looks like FAIR is the one lying and distorting things.
 
I buy organic vegtables from a local farmer. It's not because I'm worried about pesticides so much as I find it tastes better. Particularly things like tomatoes, which actually HAVE flavour, unlike the ones from the supermarkets. Also, supermarkets only carry usually one or two varieties, bred for size and colour. I don't care about size and colour, and the amount of waste these stores produce is insane. They won't buy anything that's not exactly the size and shape they want. It's crazy. (This is in the Uk)
 
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