When No One Can Be Believed

Outside In quotes Jim:

The climategate files not only give us reason to disbelieve “Climate Science”, but discredit all peer reviewed science. Peer review means you don’t get the actual evidence, but rather the consensus about what the evidence should show if it was not so wickedly prone to evil heresy. Peer review means that a consensus is quietly established behind closed doors, and then the evidence is corrected to agree with the consensus. This maximizes the authority and prestige of official science, at the expense of disconnecting it from reality.

This principle has been on my mind lately. At my day job, our industry has just gone through another federally-mandated materials change. Without getting too specific, one of the materials has had a tiny amount of a toxic substance. The "safe" level of this substance was set most recently about twenty years ago. This year, the manufacturers were forced to include an even smaller amount of that substance.

I won't go into the hours of conversation I've heard about how the old level is no more dangerous than the new level. What has happened is that, due to the law's specificity, parts with the old level are still available for sale. They can't be used in all applications, but they are still out there.

Naturally, the change in materials required a lot of research and development, followed by retooling. The new parts are more expensive than the old. I'm sure that there are a large number of end-users who continue to use the old products in now-prohibited applications--it's just cheaper.

Here's the thing:  Now we have a product that the government has labeled "Unsafe." A year ago, it was "Safe." Scientifically, there's no real difference in the dangers between the two levels. Those in the know have no problem using the products labeled "Unsafe."

The sign saying, in effect, "Danger! Danger!" is now meaningless. The line between "safe" and "dangerous" is so far within the safety zone that no one is paying attention to it. Which means that the real danger is unmarked. If people have no hesitation using "unsafe" products that are actually safe, how will they know when they come across something that really is dangerous?

Jim's quote points to this from a different direction. If scientific consensus is so easily manipulated, then what scientific information can we believe?

I've been trying to project what this phenomenon becomes. I think that America's most prominent example is vaccine truthism.

This brand of skepticism comes from progressives. Hippie values say that the medical industry's goal is to pump us full of chemicals, driven by profit and unconcerned with the long-term consequences. Some parents still believe there's a link between vaccinations and autism. Others are concerned with the particular chemicals used to preserve the vaccines.

If a significant portion of the population rejects vaccination, then the public becomes a breeding ground for vaccine-proof diseases. The disease always has a safe zone from which it can mutate and re-attack the general public--and re-attack as many times as it takes to be successful. The danger is increased for all.

But we should be distrustful of the medical industry and the government that regulates it. The days of WASP paternalism are over; persuasion is no longer accomplished by cautious logic but by hysteria and/or money.

This is end-stage democracy--no authority can be trusted. Not just because they are dishonest but also because they don't know what they're talking about. The warning signs are meaningless--the whole terrain is wilderness.