Re: "Political Correctness" drives scientific errors
From: Edward Green (spamspamspam3_at_netzero.com)
Date: 03/19/05
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Date: 18 Mar 2005 18:51:57 -0800
jimp@specsol-spam-sux.com wrote:
> Gregory L. Hansen <glhansen@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> > And speaking of the grantsmanship that Tom mentioned, if you've
watched
> > the news lately you'll notice that the words "obesity" and
"epidemic" are
> > typically paired up, some say that obesity is about to surpass
smoking as
> > a leading cause of death, and that a new wave of obese kids will
cause the
> > American life expectency to drop for the first time in history.
More
> > money, please, for the public's own good.
>
> And it will self fullfilling like smoking[*] as anyone that dies and
is
> the least overweight will get an annotation of obesity related on the
> death certificate, thus justifying programs, studies, taxes,
lawsuits,
> etc.
>
> How could anyone oppose spending money to stop an epidemic?
>
> One wonders if the departed was overweight and smoked which cause of
the
> day will get the credit.
>
> [*] When my wife's uncle, who was older than dirt and whose body had
just
> plain worn out from old age died, there was an annotation on his
death
> certificate that it was smoking related because he smoked decades
previous
> to his death.
That's like a traffic accident being "alcohol related" if any of the
drivers involved had a drink in the last several hours.
OTOH, I'm happy with the way the pendulum has swung on smoking, since
went through several times myself when I was obliged to accept exposure
to second hand smoke (jargon free: stank at the end of each day from
other people's f****ing cigarettes) as a (tacit) condition of
employment. I don't much care if second hand smoke is really a serious
risk factor or not -- I'm only too happy to see the tables turned, and
the damn smokers forced to stand out in the cold and rain. A lot their
predecessors cared when my hair, clothing and respiratory tract was
polluted with their foul residue.
And as far as the "obesity epidemic" -- I'm sold on the general idea
that many mass market processed foods are approximately as addictive
and harmful to a segment of the population, as cigarettes.
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