From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Aug 30 2002 - 16:04:13 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> On Friday, August 30, 2002, at 12:44 pm, Charles Hixson wrote:
>
>> A) I am not saying that the Monarch butterfly isn't in any danger.
>> I'm saying that it isn't the only thing in danger. And that of those
>> in danger, it was selected because it was photogenic.
>> B) Political plot? Sort of. PR campaign would be a better description.
>> C) The scientific data that I've seen was both 1) equivocal and 2)
>> focused entirely on the Monarch butterfly, ignoring the other
>> insects, e.g. honey bees, wasps, earthworms, etc. So we have no idea
>> whether they are endangered or not.
>> D) You;re right. You don't know what a conspiracy theory is. May I
>> suggest that you read "Illuminatus!" by Robert Anton Wilson for a
>> humorous and fictional description of what a conspiracy is. He tries
>> to be sufficiently unreasonable so that you will recognize his
>> conspiracies as fictional creations.
>
>
> Wow. This seems so different than what your original post seemed to
> imply. You no longer seem to be saying that they deliberately
> distorted the scientific facts to meet their agenda.
>
> On Thursday, August 29, 2002, at 10:30 am, Charles Hixson wrote:
>
>> The problem is... butterflies were picked as the species to worry
>> about because they were photogenic, not because they were the one
>> most endangered. There may or may not be good reasons to discourage
>> the transgenic BT plants. We don't know. The news media sell what
>> sells, they don't even seriously try to inform. The pop-ecologists
>> use a popularized (read emotional) version of ecology. They push
>> what it's politically effective to push. Ditto for the corps.
>> Actual ecology pretty much gets neglected. And there may, indeed, be
>> real dangers lurking here. We can't tell, and the information that
>> we would need to use to make an informed decision is systematically
>> obscured by both sides. They're both more interested in pushing what
>> they want, than in what the facts actually say.
>
>
> --
> Harvey Newstrom, CISSP <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
> Principal Security Consultant <www.Newstaff.com>
Of course they deliberately distorted the scientific facts. Selective
emphasis is one of the primary forms of distortion. Selective exclusion
is the other. Both were being practiced here. Everyone does it, you
can't avoid it, but it's done more intensively when you are trying to
put forward a political agenda (e.g.: "Stop the planting of BT corn!").
Don't assume that everyone involved had the same goals. One of the
uses of selective attention is to increase group cohesiveness, so the
entire group speaks with a single voice. People find this more
impressive than if each member voiced his or her own concerns, so people
tend to use the tactic when trying to convince either each other or
themselves of something. I would wager that the main interest of 1/3 of
the members being spoken for had nothing to do with Monarch butterflies,
or even BT corn. ("Can I get that cute chick to give me a date?" is one
of the common main interests.) So? But this has nothing to do with
whether the actions that they were proposing are proper or not. And
*THAT* is what isn't being printed. Probably because PR & Media people
both find emotional messages to be more useful.
P.S.: Scientific journals also distort the facts. Even lab notebooks
practice selective inclusion and selective exclusion. So does memory,
yours as well as mine.
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:16:34 MST