Modern Science Writers Leave Science Behind

Pacific Standard ^ | December 28, 2012 | Alex B. Berezow

[Strategerist]

But this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Scientists see water fluoridation, which particularly benefits the poor, as a major public health triumph. But not progressive activists in Portland, Oregon, who fought to prevent the fluoridation of their city’s water supply.

The Jon Birch Society thought fluoridation was a fiendish Commie plot.

Go far enough to the Left and Right and you end up in the same looney-tunes science-hating place.

[cripplecreek]

They’re doing a great deal of damage on both sides.

They’re causing conservatives to simply discount good science and causing liberals to have “faith” in junk science.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

If you support fluoridation, what other pharmaceuticals would you support the government adding to your water supply?

[taxcontrol]

Fiendish Flouridators - power 3 / resistance 5 / fanatic

[bump for the card game Illuminati]

[terycarl]

If you support fluoridation, what other pharmaceuticals would you support the government adding to your water supply?

Iodine in your salt has been there for years...prevents goiter.....seen anyone lately with a growth in their neck???

[terycarl]

If you support fluoridation, what other pharmaceuticals would you support the government adding to your water supply?

VIAGRA would be helpful!!!

[palmer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcHNYenN7OY

[dsc]

“Go far enough to the Left and Right and you end up in the same looney-tunes science-hating place.”

A popular notion, but, unfortunately, incorrect.

Firstly, the Birchers were right that a number of fiendish communist plots were in play. They were wrong about fluoride, but that doesn’t mean either that they hated science or that suspicion of fluoridation is particularly right-wing. The original article noted that it is the leftards who are fighting fluoridation in Portland.

Secondly, our Aristotelian model, with the golden mean in the middle and decreasing merit as one proceeds in either direction therefrom, is also incorrect.

The spectrum stretches from God on the right to Satan on the left. There is no “center,” and no one could possibly get far enough to the right.

[GeronL]

If you deny that a baby in the womb is human, then you are a science hater.

[Gene Eric]

>> Mooney’s book [explains] why Republicans are “smart idiots” and reality deniers. Herbert found Mooney’s book “convincing,”

This registered Republican would like to know 1) how these tools scored on their SATs, 2) their college grades in physics and mathematics, and 3) their IQs.

[JohnBovenmyer]

seen anyone lately with a growth in their neck???

In The Hobbit, the Great Goblin has a Great Goiter.

[cripplecreek]

I’m a regular old rabid right wing extremists and I love science.

[cripplecreek]

As an outdoorsman, I am pro-environment (for real, not the Park Avenue liberal anti-American version of environmentalism)

Yup, there's a reason I live in the country.

[webstersII]

“Iodine in your salt has been there for years...prevents goiter.....seen anyone lately with a growth in their neck??? “

You are seriously confused.

Iodine is a necessary nutrient. Flouride is toxic to humans.

Flouride is not used in most of Europe and parts of Canada. Those areas have no more problem with cavities than the U.S.

[palmer]

Yep, and they are tacitly admitting their superstorm and superdrought claims are bogus. They don’t admit (and some don’t realize) that environmental protection is made possible only by economic growth. They don’t admit (or understand) that their “atmospheric commons” that has allegedly been filled with heat trapping gases by the evil capitalists (mostly the US) is actually a heat engine. Heat trapping gases have a role but not a very big one.

[Lurker]

I object to the fluoridation of water because it is a mass medical experiment done without the consent of th subject.

[Lurker]

I have the ability to purchase salt without iodine. I do not have that option with my municipal water supply. Nice try.

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

I'm aware of the iodine in table salt, and I take it willingly. (I remember a lot of older people having goiters, when I was young.) However, I also have the option of buying salt without iodine (e.g. pickling salt).

I'm also aware of the benefits of fluoridated water -- having grown up on well water. The municipal water here isn't fluoridated, so I use fluoridated mouth wash twice daily. The issue isn't whether or not fluoridation is beneficial -- the issue is the government medicating our drinking water. It's a slippery-slope issue. People should have the right to chose whether or not to take a medicine.