What I've been doing

Since I got a cushy government job several months ago after graduating from college, I've been living stress-free and catching up on leisure reading in both fiction and nonfiction. I've been learning a lot, and most of it is highly bloggable. Why, then, haven't I been blogging?

I've begun to seriously worry about my digital identity. It's apparent from several comments that there are people who know who I am, and I don't know who they are. Some people might wonder why this might be a problem. The problem is that this site was intended to be a place where I could truly speak my mind and voice controversial opinions. In many cases these opinions will not be correct, and sometimes they may sound absurd. I'm an intensely private and self-conscious person and I can't stand to have my mistakes archived in the Wayback Machine for all to see for the rest of my life. I've played fast and loose with my identity on this site, and at some point I plan to cultivate a new internet identity more carefully. Statements signed by my real name will ideally be carefully-researched and screened for neutral wording.

In my last post I mentioned that I was reading The Skeptical Environmental, a book which is overwhelmingly researched. While I can't say that I've fact-checked it thoroughly, on the surface it appears accurate to call it, as one Amazon reviewer says, a tour de force in environmental science. It's admittedly shaken my "ecowarrior" philosophy to the core. Prior to reading it I read a Worldwatch State of the World book, which I found disappointing. Lomborg heavily criticizes the Worldwatch books and exposes in some cases what appears to be scientific dishonesty on the part of environmentalists, even global warming theorists. My thoughts on the issue are still developing, but while my convictions were shaken, I still disagree with Lomborg on his major conclusions and remain concerned about biodiversity, global warming, persistent pollutants, farming, and water. Yet I highly recommend the book for the one of the best available monographs on the statistics and theory behind environmental issues.

I'll skip some of my other reading aside from mentioning that it relates to medicine, scientific controversy, and corporate conflicts of interest (eg Marcia Angell's The Truth About the Drug Companies). Today I saw a section (p. 145) in The Money Culture (a humorous book on Wall Street) which related my thoughts on some of these issues:

Like about half of America, my father believes he can systematically beat the stock market ... shallow pretenders ... bother him ... it pleases him to see Rukeyser embarrass the various hemline theorists, 75-year cyclists, Elliot Wavers, and druids ... he watches Louis Rukeyser for the same reason every right-thinking, sexually repressed, country club Episcopalian lingered long and hard over the delicious defrockings of Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker. It confirms his skepticism about alternative forms of belief. (emphasis mine)

Ultimately, I'm not right-leaning. I probably rate high on the psychological "openness" score. However, I try to be rational. I'm willing to investigate implausible claims before writing them off. That's perhaps wasted a lot of my time, but it's also helped me learn a lot. Ultimately I've tentatively concluded that fringe scientists and theorists are more likely to engage in scientific dishonesty. But they don't have a monopoly on such improprieties, and rationally one cannot come to firm conclusions without investigation and empirical evidence. There are, for example, ways to make a lot of money trading stocks. It's not nonsense. But it doesn't have anything to do with Elliot Wave theory -- which, I'll admit, I haven't investigated and have little regard for.

Administrative law, the environment, and mercury

21 CFR 25.34 (Code of Federal Regulations) is eye-opening. It allows the FDA to basically ignore the environmental implications of certain things in that list, such as Class II medical devices and electronic products (Class II means that they could be unsafe, but probably aren't).

In 67 FR 7620 (enjoy the ugly document, courtesy of the federal government!), the FDA made its move to finally reclassify dental mercury from a Class I medical device (completely safe) to a Class II medical device.

In section VII, it states this:

VII. Environmental Impact

The agency has determined under 21 CFR 25.34(b) that this action is of a type that does not individually or cumulatively have a significant effect on the human environment. Therefore, neither an environmental assessment nor an environmental impact statement is required.

How cute. Meanwhile, in 2005 the WHO stated that mercury from dental amalgams + laboratory and medical devices contributed 53% of total mercury emissions.[1]

For those curious as to how I ended up reading the CFR, I was reading an article[2] from the Journal of Law and Health.

Worldwatch Institute's State of the World 2007

I'm browsing through this book, and it is generally pretty good. It seems to focus on cities, however, and it is not as heavy on the facts and graphics as I sort of expected it to be.

I read the first half more closely, and now I'm more browsing. I was interested to read about eucalyptus as a cash-crop in Timbuktu, which lead me to the Wikipedia page. Apparently the tree is mainly native to Australia, and there's some major concern that it is an invasive species in South Africa.[1] Yet Worldwatch made no mention of that! The plant they mentioned next as helping to revitalize rural Africa, bourgou, seems more solidly ecological, and the National Research Council mentioned it favorably in a book on "Lost Crops of Africa". Apparently it can survive for months under water,[2] making it somewhat unique, and thus can be planted and harvested in areas where nothing could be grown previously.

Decent Review of the Skeptical Environmental

I've been looking for a nice, concise little review of the notorious book for a while. It's by Frank Ackerman; type hit ctrl-f and then type "Tree-Huggers" and you'll find it.

Reply To a "Science Debunker"

I wrote this as a comment in reply to this post. It really irritated me, especially with all the posts expressing vacuous agreement.

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You'd get along well with Steven Milloy (the founder of junkscience.com) -- in fact, I wonder if you've been influenced by him.

Check him out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milloy

A choice quote:

"In 1993, Milloy dismissed an Environmental Protection Agency report linking secondhand tobacco smoke to cancer as "a joke". When the British Medical Journal published a similar study in 1997, Milloy said, "it remains a joke today." When another researcher published a study linking secondhand smoke to cancer, Milloy wrote that she, "…must have pictures of journal editors in compromising positions with farm animals. How else can you explain her studies seeing the light of day?"[4] While at FoxNews.com, Milloy continued to attack research on the harms of secondhand smoke.[5]

During the time that Milloy was attacking the credibility of secondhand-smoke research, his junkscience.com website was receiving editorial oversight and content directly from the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.[6] Milloy's supposedly independent organization TASSC was funded and coordinated by Philip Morris[7] with the goal of "utilizing TASSC as a tool in targeted legislative battles."[8] A confidential 1994 Philip Morris memo listed Milloy's organization under "PM Tools to Affect Legislative Decisions".[9] Milloy himself was listed on Philip Morris' payroll, being budgeted over $180,000 in payments in the years 2000 and 2001.[10]

On June 27, 2006, summarizing over 10 years of scientific research, the United States Surgeon General issued a comprehensive scientific report concluding that secondhand smoke is a carcinogen with no risk-free level of exposure, refuting Milloy's claims.[11] The Surgeon General's report also stated that secondhand smoke exposure is a known cause of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), respiratory problems, ear infections, and asthma attacks in infants and children.[11]"

There are plenty of other similar examples. You would also be a global warming denier, I'm betting, who believes that the synthetic chemicals pervading our environment are getting a bad rap and hurting business.

Mind pointing out some real examples besides alluding to some book with a flashy name?

What's interesting is that in the past "science" (influenced by government) scammed the public into believing things like something like marijuana is harmful and things like DDT are not. Today we've got scientists telling us the opposite.

Today we also have the irrational Christians on the defensive. Coincidence? I think not.

When you discount the danger of synthetic chemicals (enjoy your Teflon fumes and volatile plasticizers with a good dose of cadmium, I'm guessing?) and drugs you serve as a corporate apologist, just like Milloy.

Today health problems are rampant among the masses, yet people who cook their own meals and avoid chemicals tend to go to the doctor sparingly, if at all. That should be encouraged. Many of the chemicals we use today are not actually very necessary, and the more information that people have about their risks the better.

Health effects is one of those areas that we say in economics is dominated by imperfect information, which leads people to make bad choices. If you care more about your health, choose juice instead of soda. The only people you'll be hurting really is the soda companies.

Parkinson's has been linked to pesticides. This is simply a strong statistical correlation. Take of it what you want.

Genetically engineered foods pose significant health risks. Many people are unaware of that, and at first glance it would seem that genetically engineered foods pose little risk. After all, genetic changes happen naturally. But these major changes can produce unexpected side affects. The most blatantly unhealthy modifications get caught in the lab (GM peas cause allergic lung damage in rice), but the others can have slower, long-term, insidious effects, as the researcher Arpad Pusztai has shown.

In conclusion, you are very wrong. The new millennium calls for a different kind of science - but that science should be more cautious, not less, when it comes to potential health effects. After all, what do we have to lose? A few less cans of soda, or rice with human proteins in it?

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I'll add something that isn't on the comment: of course, there is potentially more to lose than the lost opportunity to taste human-rice. There is an argument that GM (genetically modified) foods are necessary to food the world's growing population. I think that's false; we can obviously more than feed the world right now. The poor in developing nations right now don't even accept GM foods (they refuse to take much of that food anyway), and when they do accept GM foods, their farmers are forced to pay pharmaceutical companies. The poor need money and livelihoods. That would be best served by helping them sell their own food; that means we need to reduce trade barriers and food subsidies in the US, as well as do what we can to build basic infrastructure (water and energy) and put pressure on despotic governments.

PAN Pesticides Database

Check out the PAN Database. I'm tempted to donate to them, in the interests of supporting free and open information.