Alex yeah when you read how the cigarette, nuclear and other interests worked...hey,
F. U. D.
fear uncertainty doubt
and other acronyms and "dirty pool"
hate them can't stand it, science has to be absolutely neutral, I've tried getting folk to see in other stuff, like vaccines, that no, you cannot trust ANYTHING, because everything in science relies on the integrity of base evidentiary and from that, honest theory.
But in case of vaccines, the vested interests are horrific and wouldnt' be tolerated elsewhere, but have been hammered into the Public as vaccines are "god beings not to be questioned"...gah! they're only pharmaceutical products, potentially the best...or most dangerous.
too much weight is given to them,
venerated...that is dangerous as heck.
should just be treated neutrally as they should.
I also bloody dislike "skeptics", note spelling, UK it's "sceptics" folk should be sceptical, that is rational
but go too far, and you are just as bloody bad as the dogmatic twerps, hence "skeptics"
When James Randi to prove his skeptic point against parapsychology, proved he could dupe and interfere with research on one hand, he did a small service showing it could be done, but damn few including him got the other point of:
it opened the door for others to see you COULD do that.
holy CRAP, that egotism screwed the pooch :/
industrial espionage is *huge* nowadays, the NSA and "phone hacking" stuff proves this
so, how do you know any research is valid, hm?
I'm not saying most of it isn't, but they opened a Pandora's box
and look at the fraud so big in Pharma that many are now calling for all such research to be banned, or extremely scrutinized for publication etc
there's a principle in law "fruit of the poisoned tree", if primary evidence is potentially unsound, stolen, altered, obtained illegally etc,
none of it can be used.
these damn idiots, in their lust for control, that's what it is all about, have taken a chisel and hammered it into the bedrock of Science :/
I do not know, I cannot know whether Andrew Wakefield is a despicable fraud, or a brave physician and activist.
You can't. Anyone who takes either extreme position absolutely is fooling themselves.
Sigh. long time ago, a lad from working class background trying to tell folk that you know, Science needs a legally binding Hippocratic style oath and actual laws...they didn't want to know
Science is the foundation for our modern civilizations' physical reality, screwing with that, in so many ways is madness. You know in "Metropolis" the actions of a few near bring the city to ruin....