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Top 10 Junk Science Moments of 2006
HUMAN EVENTS ^ | Dec 22, 2006 | Compiled by JunkScience.com.

Posted on 12/28/2006 10:03:01 PM PST by neverdem

10. California’s Not-so-deadly Air. Bill Clinton and Julia Roberts stumped for California’s Proposition 87 which would tax oil to fund alternative energy research. Mr. Clinton and Ms. Roberts claimed that California’s air is the “worst in the nation” and that it was linked with more asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer, heart disease, lung disease and premature death. But data (as opposed to political rhetoric) indicate that California’s public health is generally better than that of states which fully meet federal air quality standards. Maybe that’s one reason why voters rejected Proposition 87.

9. Food police indict SpongeBob Squarepants. Several anti-fun food activist groups sued Nickelodeon and Kellogg for using cartoon characters to advertise food products to children. “Nickelodeon and Kellogg engage in business practices that literally sicken our children,” the groups claimed. Though the activists attempted to exploit a widely publicized report from the Institute of Medicine concluding that advertising to kids is effective, the IOM report did not examine and, therefore, did not link advertising to kids’ health problems.

8. Woodpecker Racket. The 2005 reported sighting of the thought-to-be-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker in eastern Arkansas raised hopes of bird-watchers everywhere. But a prominent bird expert cast serious doubt on the report in 2006, characterizing it as “faith-based” ornithology and “a disservice to science.” But the debunking may not matter. Environmental groups used the dubious sighting to convince a federal judge in July 2006 to stop a nearby $320 million Army Corps of Engineers irrigation project. Given that the anti-development Nature Conservancy funded the “search” for the woodpecker in the first place, the supposed “sighting” turned out to be quite convenient.

7. Low-fat diet myth busted. The widely-held 30-year old notion that low-fat diets are good for your health went “poof” this year. They didn’t reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease or cancer, according to three large studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Sadly, the lesson of low-fat diet myth seems lost on the media which looked the other way as public health nannies fomented the scientifically dubious trans fat scare.

6. Stem cell fraud and futility. Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi plans to introduce legislation lifting the limits on federal funding of embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. But she ought to pay attention to what did, and what did not happen, in ESC research during 2006. What did happen was the indictment of prominent South Korean ESC researcher Hwang Woo-suk for faking his research. What didn’t happen was any meaningful advance in ESC research. One alleged ESC research advance hyped in the journal Nature (harvesting of ESCs without destroying the embryos) had to be corrected to note that none of the embryos in question actually survived the procedure -- oops.

5. Cosmic ray study fails to penetrate lead-lined media. Swedish researchers provided experimental evidence that cosmic rays may be a major factor in climate change. They calculated that just 5 years of cosmic ray activity can have 85 percent of the effect on the Earth’s climate as 200 years of manmade carbon dioxide emissions. Though the study was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society A, the findings went largely unreported by the Al Gore-smitten media.

4. Day of Reckoning for DDT Foes? It only took 30 years, tens of millions of lives lost, billions sickened and trillions of dollars of economic growth foregone, but the World Health Organization finally ended its ban on use of the insecticide DDT to kill malaria-bearing mosquitoes. It’s great news for developing nations that want to employ the most affordable and effective anti-malarial tool. So what should happen to those environmental activists and government regulators who used junk science to have DDT banned in the first place?

3. What Hurricane Season? The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s prediction for the 2006 hurricane season was about as wrong as wrong can be. NOAA predicted only a 5 percent chance of a below-normal hurricane season -- but a below-normal season is precisely what happened. If NOAA’s experts can be so wrong about an imminent hurricane season, why have any confidence in far more complex predictions of climate change 100 years into the future?

2. Board of Health or Bored of Science? New York City’s Board of Health banned restaurants from serving foods cooked with vegetable oils containing trans fats. It apparently mattered little to the Board that the Food and Drug Administration classifies trans fats as “generally recognized as safe” and that the sort of “science” the Board relied on could also be used to ban potatoes, peas, meat, dairy products and many other food items from restaurants.

1. Some Real Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore whipped the world into a global warming frenzy with his doomsday documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Milloy personally asked Mr. Gore to help arrange a debate between scientists about the purported climate catastrophe. He declined (twice) without explanation -- leaving me to wonder why global warming alarmists are unwilling to explain why they believe in non-validated and always-wrong computer guess-timations of future climate change rather than actual temperature measurements and greenhouse-effect physics that indicate manmade emissions of greenhouse gases are not a problem.

View the complete “Top Ten Junk Science Moments for 2006” report here.





TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: globalwarmingping; junkscience; science
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1 posted on 12/28/2006 10:03:04 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Please note that of the 10 listed, one of them (the DDT hoax) cost the lives of millions of people who could have been helped but weren't because of a bogus study and do-good-ism.


2 posted on 12/28/2006 10:10:41 PM PST by Laptop_Ron
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To: neverdem

It's shocking, if true, that low fat diets have no impact of cardiovascular disease. Is cholesterol purely a matter of heredity, now? Maybe that's why the doctor didn't put me on any special diet when starting me on Lipitor. I eat what I always did. Thank Zeus for my stent, though.


3 posted on 12/28/2006 10:13:13 PM PST by gcruse (http://garycruse.blogspot.com/)
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To: Laptop_Ron

Rachael Carson's "Silent Spring." Faux science at its worst.


4 posted on 12/28/2006 10:16:01 PM PST by hsalaw
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To: hsalaw

And all the liberals can say is "oops", or conveniently ignore the whole thing. Good thing they care about those third world countries. Imagine how many might have died if they DIDN'T care.


5 posted on 12/28/2006 10:18:40 PM PST by Laptop_Ron
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To: neverdem

I just saw on CNBC that Bill Gates' foundation funds 1/3 of the world's malaria research. I wonder how the foundation feels about the use of DDT? I think he's smart enough not to fall for the junk science -- but on the other hand I hear his foundation's philosophy is liberal-minded.


6 posted on 12/28/2006 10:22:10 PM PST by zipper
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To: Laptop_Ron
I take issue with #2.

Hydrogenated vegetable oil has solid science saying it is a serious health risk.
7 posted on 12/28/2006 10:38:31 PM PST by DB
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To: gcruse
It's shocking, if true, that low fat diets have no impact of cardiovascular disease. Is cholesterol purely a matter of heredity, now?

IMHO, I believe so.

Low-Fat Diet Myth Busted

low-fat diets

You might have to register at JAMA.

8 posted on 12/28/2006 11:00:11 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: DB

It's not fat per se. It's the kind of fat.


9 posted on 12/28/2006 11:00:21 PM PST by TheConservator (Confutatis maledictis flammis acribus addictis. . . .)
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To: gcruse
Fat wont kill ya IMHO. Trans Fat however has been modified by man to have a long shelflife. Its pretty nasty stuff and I think a lot of other "processed food" is probably bad for us.

That said I dont think it should be illegal. I remember as a kid when the first DQ came to town, a kid dropped an icecream cone in the parking lot in july and a week later I marveled that it basically still retained its shape. I dont eat that stuff generally. Give me good old frozen custard

My great grandparents ate eggs and bacon or sausage for breakfast all thier lives and lived into thier late 90s.

10 posted on 12/28/2006 11:08:20 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: DB

Is that the same solid science that first said hydrogenated vegetable oil was the best choice for you?


11 posted on 12/28/2006 11:14:09 PM PST by Calvin Locke
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To: DB

I agree its like one molecule away from being plastic


12 posted on 12/28/2006 11:14:32 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: TheConservator

Agreed.


13 posted on 12/28/2006 11:17:32 PM PST by DB
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To: Calvin Locke

Have you noted that all those margarins have quickly and quietly REMOVED trans fat from thier concotions? Give be butter please.. I dont see cows keeling over fron heart disease L0L


14 posted on 12/28/2006 11:17:38 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: Calvin Locke

The same science that said smoking was "healthy"...


15 posted on 12/28/2006 11:21:29 PM PST by DB
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Oh Yeah. You wanna see some fat? Try "cornfed" That'll fatten you up real good. Starches and carbs in excess will fatten you up BIGtime and raise your cholesterol. particularly highly processed carbs and starches.

Clean a pheasant thats been raised naturally and youll find it lean. Clean a phesant thats farm raised "cornfed" and you find its heart engulfed in fat

16 posted on 12/28/2006 11:25:32 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: mylife
No. I hardly ever buy margarine. My father told me that when margarine first came out, it was illegal for manufacturers to color it yellow. He said they included a coloring that you could mix-in yourself.
17 posted on 12/28/2006 11:26:00 PM PST by Calvin Locke
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To: Calvin Locke

Ive never been a fan of food that doesnt go bad left at room temperature for months. thats my empirical science


18 posted on 12/28/2006 11:28:05 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: El Gato; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Robert A. Cook, PE; lepton; LadyDoc; jb6; tiamat; PGalt; Dianna; ...
Low-Income Preschoolers Prone to Obesity

Popular heartburn drugs linked to hip fractures

Long-term Proton Pump Inhibitor Therapy and Risk of Hip Fracture link to JAMA abstract

Check out the comment from the link in comment# 8, "Low-Fat Diet Myth Busted."

"But in the much-vaunted Framingham Heart Study involving 5,200 men and women who have been extensively studied in over 1,000 published reports since 1948, high cholesterol levels were not associated with increased heart disease risk after age 47."

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

19 posted on 12/28/2006 11:29:38 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: Calvin Locke

Thats probably a good idea.
I dont want to sound like a health freak because Im not. I drink and I smoke and I drive to fast.


20 posted on 12/28/2006 11:33:02 PM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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