Anyone can think like a scientist, and I urge you to try it because there is precious little good scientific thinking around.
By Ted Mitchell
Jun. 16, 2005
As part of mainstream society, science is being marginalized, not only from the various groups that see it as a threat, but from within the field itself. To demonstrate, I will work through some recent attention given to pesticides and the science behind this.
A scientist requires only two real characteristics:
The ability to be well versed in technical understanding is secondary and can actually detract from the two key attributes. You might call it not seeing the forest for the trees.
In the pesticide debate, the scientific community itself is guilty of the first point: addressing the right question.
Currently, the government pest management review agency (PMRA) is releasing a statement on the use of the herbicide 2-4-D for control of nuisance lawn weeds. They review a bunch of observational studies and conclude there is no evidence of harm: therefore, it is okay to use the chemical as directed. With this conventional approach, you have to agree with the conclusion.
But wait a second: they didn't ask the right question. In order to prove safety, you need something more statistically robust than observational studies. You have to use humans as guineau pigs in order to really prove the effects of this chemical are completely benign.
Anyone for signing up their children? As you might guess, studies like this would never pass ethical review. That means they cannot be done, which leads to a permanent lack of proof of safety for this or any other similar chemical.
The default then becomes use of the chemical. This is not a scientific issue, but an ethical one. The scientists have dropped the ball: either they have not noticed this, or not bothered to mention it. In this instance, the argument for use is entirely vain: the cosmetic appearance of your lawn. Is that worth any sort of risk to human health? This is the bottom line, and it is not a scientific question.
Enter the pesticide lobbies for a blunt example of the second point. When pesticide people start quoting science, be very scared. Here you have severe bias, since much of their business depends on using chemicals. Do you think they will quote a balanced review of the scientific literature, or even understand it?
Whenever there is bias, there is pseudoscience. You should just walk away. It is difficult enough to find scientists who are honestly open to all possible outcomes and who will not taint experimental findings with their own shades of preconception.
Then there is marketing deception. The euphemistic "healthy lawns" means keeping only a couple of non-native grasses in your lawn to the exclusion of all other species. If you have taken a biology course, you should realize that such a situation is highly unnatural and unstable, and will take serious effort to keep it in this state. Tons of water, and frequent manual or chemical weed removal.
Anyone can think like a scientist, and I urge you to try it because there is precious little good scientific thinking around. You don't have to understand the technicalities, and it has a certain benefit not to: this enables you to see the big picture more easily. Sometimes the little voice asks the most important question of all, like the little boy, the emperor, and his new clothes.
Lastly, don't just think it, but do it. Ask the simple question that perhaps nobody else has asked.
We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape our lives." -- Winston Churchill
NewsfeedsISSN: 1715-1554
Transit IS Pedestrian-Friendly (Aug. 25, 2008) - I really hope McMaster University will reconsider its decision to move the B-Line express buses off-campus, particularly given that the justification is to make the campus more pedestrian-friendly
Hamilton Lost 20% of Farmland since 1991 (Aug. 25, 2008) -
The Toronto Star has published an interactive map of lost farmland across southern Ontario.
Hamilton alone lost 20 percent of its farms in the 15 years between 1991 and 2006. Click on a high
Fringe Festival Review: I Am Not Neil Young (Aug. 22, 2008) -
What does it mean to live in the shadow of greatness? How can a talent made famous for his ability to impersonate demonstrate or even discover his own true self?
Frank Wilks is not Neil Y
Fringe Festival Review: New Talent (Aug. 22, 2008) -
The emotionally harrowing tale of a young woman driven by circumstance into the escort business, New Talent is simply a tremendous performance.
Interweaving a personal tragedy with a public
Fringe Festival Review: Lear's Shadow (Aug. 22, 2008) - The tragic Lear's Shadow boils Shakespeare's King Lear down to its essence: not the conflict between an insecure father and his treacherous daughters but rather the interplay between a foo
Fringe Festival Review: Because I Can (Aug. 21, 2008) -
Written by Allison McWood and directed by James Henderson, Because I Can is a screwball comedy that parlays a simple premise into a lively hour of very funny entertainment.
Karina Berschteyn
PRINT EDITION