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Freedom Book of the Month
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Edited by Thomas L. Knapp. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this and
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October, 2001
JUNK SCIENCE JUDO
Self-Defense Against Health Scares and Scams
by Steven J. Milloy
Cato Institute 2001, hardcover, 150 pages
Someone -- it may have been Mark Twain -- once referred to
three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics. Most
of us can identify with that sentiment, but it's still easy
to be blind-sided by what purport to be "scientific"
evaluations of facts or events and to make erroneous
judgments based on those evaluations.
"Junk Science Judo: Self-Defense Against Health Scares and
Scams" is the kind of book that should be kept within arm's reach.
It's a literary vaccination against the temptation to let others
do one's thinking.
Divided into twelve "lessons" (ranging from "Know Thine Enemy"
to "Know Your Friends," with little gems like "Statistics Aren't
Science" and "Epidemiology is Statistics" in between), "Junk
Science Judo" takes apart fraudulent health claims and shows
what makes them tick.
It's one thing to realize that statistical correlation and real
causation aren't the same. It's another to be able to look at
a claim and determine whether that claim is the result of
a potentially flawed statistical study alone or of real science.
The latter may use statistics to point itself at likely targets,
but it ultimately requires independent reproducibility of its
results and a narrowing of scope to the point where hypotheses
perfectly explains reality.
Author Steven J. Milloy gets right to the heart of the matter
when he targets "the precautionary principle" as a favorite tool
of politically or financially motivated junk science. The
precautionary principle reverses the burden of proof. Rather
than leaving that alone which has not been proven unsafe, it
demands that claims of danger be taken as true -- for the
purposes of action -- unless they are _disproven_. "Just in
case," you know. "Better safe than sorry."
The precautionary principle, the acceptance of often irrelevant
statistics as "science" and the natural tendency of media to
hop onto "stories" with a saleable angle of crisis or tragedy,
combine to produce the majority of illegitimate health scares.
Case in point: A statistical study showing a correlation between
massive consumption of the pesticide Alar and a rare cancer in
lab rats, combined with a manufactured media scare and the
application of precautionary principle by legislators and
manufacturers, served to remove a patently safe pesticide from
the market.
In an increasingly complex world, most of us simply don't have
the time to tear apart every claim of a new health hazard or
threat to our safety. To do so would require the investment
of massive amounts of our time. What "Junk Science Judo"
offers is a basic toolbox for recognizing and rejecting
the most specious claims, separating signal from noise so
that we can limit our worries to that which is worthwhile.
And that, of course, makes the book itself worth its weight
in gold.
o Order "Junk Science Judo" ($13.26 from Amazon.Com):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1930865120/ref=ase_freemarketnetthe/104-6307976-9748706
o Visit Steven J. Milloy's JunkScience.Com:
http://www.junkscience.com
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