Top Ten Junk Science 2006

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Top Ten Junk Science Moments for 2006

Thursday , December 14, 2006

By Steven Milloy


It?s time again for JunkScience.com?s review of the most notable junk science events of the year ? a ?top 10? list that may sometimes make you think that the year 1007, rather than 2007, is just around the corner.

1. Some Real Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore whipped the world into a global warming frenzy with his doomsday documentary, ?An Inconvenient Truth.? I 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.

Click here to read more?

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.

Click here to read more?


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?

Click here to read more?


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?

Click here to read more?


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.

Click here to read more?


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.

Click here to read more?


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.

Click here to read more?


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.

Click here to read more?


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.

Click here to read more?


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.

Click here to read more?


So despite the relentless march of junk scientists, particularly with respect to global warming, let?s be grateful that the DDT ban has finally been lifted. We?ll tackle Al Gore and his climate groupies next year.


Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRWatch.com. He is a junk science expert , an advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute .

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236598,00.html

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

We report, You decide

:mj07: :142smilie :mj07:

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

It is Wikipedia, but, my God . . .


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Milloy


Criticism
Milloy has been criticized both for making misleading and false claims, and for presenting himself as an impartial journalist on health and environmental matters while accepting funding and editorial input from tobacco and oil companies.


False biographical claims
Milloy's biography on his junkscience.com website claims that he was a member of the judging panel for the 2004 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Journalism Awards.[2] However, the AAAS website does not list him among the 2004 judges.[24] Journalist Paul D. Thacker reported that the AAAS initially invited Milloy as a judge at random, as he is listed in a media directory of journalists as a "science editor". However, Milloy was disqualified as an AAAS judge after the conflict of interest inherent in his position with the partisan Cato Institute was revealed.[25]


Journalistic ethics
Milloy is a paid advocate for Phillip Morris, R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and ExxonMobil.[5][26][6][10] The content of junkscience.com, which is represented as independent, has been reviewed, revised, and edited by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.[6]

In January 2006, Paul D. Thacker reported in The New Republic that Milloy, who is presented by Fox News as an independent journalist, was under contract to Philip Morris through the end of 2005.[5] Philip Morris documents reveal that Milloy was budgeted hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments while writing for FoxNews.com.[10] In the May/Jun 2005 issue of Mother Jones, Chris Mooney reported that non-profit organizations operated out of Milloy's home have also received large payments from ExxonMobil during his tenure with Fox News.[27][5]

A spokesperson for Fox News stated, "Fox News was unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed."[5] Regarding ties to ExxonMobil, a Fox News spokesperson stated that Milloy is "...affiliated with several not-for-profit groups that possibly may receive funding from Exxon, but he certainly does not receive funding directly from Exxon."[27]

Milloy's association with the Cato Institute has since ended; however, as of October 2006, he continues to write for FoxNews.com, where he is described as a "junk science expert".[28]

Other journalists who were found to have taken money to write pieces favorable to corporate interests or the Bush Administration have been fired when their conflicts of interest came to light, including Armstrong Williams,[29] Doug Bandow,[30] and Michael Fumento.[31] Such activity is widely considered a major breach of journalistic ethics.[32][33][34][35] However, while Fox News stated that Milloy's conflict of interest "should have been disclosed", he remains employed by the network. The New Republic's Paul D. Thacker wrote that:

Objective viewers long ago realized that Fox News has a political agenda. But when a pundit promotes this agenda while on the take from corporations that benefit from it, then Fox News has gone one disturbing step further.[5]


Reaction to death of political opponents
In 1999, David Platt Rall, a prominent environmental scientist, died in a car accident. Milloy celebrated Rall's death on junkscience.com as the "Obituary of the Day", writing: "Scratch one junk scientist who promoted the bankrupt idea that poisoning rats with a chemical predicts cancer in humans exposed to much lower levels of the chemical ? a notion that, at the very least, has wasted billions and billions of public and private dollars."[36][37] Cato Institute President Edward Crane called Milloy's attack an "inexcusable lapse in judgement and civility", but Milloy continued his attack on Rall, writing: "As far as David Rall is concerned, he was a bad guy when he was alive ? shamelessly promoting the bankrupt notion that human cancer risk can be predicted by poisoning rats with chemicals. ?Death did not improve his track record ? no matter how many letters the Environmental Working Group sends to the Cato Institute." Since that time, Milloy has removed the attacks from his website, although he has not apologized.[36]

Following the death of Senator John Chafee (R-R.I.) in 1999, Milloy highlighted Chafee's death as the "Obituary of the Day", writing: "Unfortunately, Sen. Chafee too often acted like a Democrat on environmental and regulatory reform issues. The good news is his replacement as Committee chairman will be Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) who has shown courage in opposing the Kyoto protocol and the EPA air quality proposals."[38]


Exploitation of World Trade Center tragedy
Milloy drew criticism for immediately blaming the collapse of the World Trade Center on the anti-asbestos movement. Laurie Kazan-Allen of the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat wrote:

It takes a certain kind of person to capitalize on a human catastrophe such as the attacks on the World Trade Centre. While the rest of us remained desperate for news, some were plotting how these events could be used to maximum advantage. ... The fact that Milloy chose to make this and other such statements as ground zero was still smouldering shows an insensitivity that is hard to fathom. What decent human being could do anything during those early days but watch and wait as the emergency services worked 24/7 to locate survivors?[39]


Free Enterprise Action Fund
Milloy's mutual fund, the Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF), has been criticised by investment analyst Chuck Jaffe as being "an advocacy group in search of assets." Jaffe concludes "Strip away the rhetoric, and you?re getting a very expensive, underperforming index fund, while Milloy and his partner Thomas Borelli get a platform for raising their pet issues."[40]

Similarly, Daniel Gross, in a Slate magazine article, wrote that FEAF "seems to be a lobbying enterprise masquerading as a mutual fund."[41] Gross noted that Milloy and Tom Borelli, the former head of corporate scientific affairs for Philip Morris, lack any money management experience; he also noted that FEAF had badly underperformed the S&P 500 during its first 10 months of existence.[41] Gross concluded that "...in the short term, it looks like Borelli and Milloy are essentially paying the fund for the privilege of using it as a platform to broadcast their views on corporate governance, global warming, and a host of other issues."[41]

 

[kosar]

blaming the collapse of the World Trade Center on the anti-asbestos movement.

:mj07:

This guy appears quite credible, Wayne.

 

[shamrock]

unbelievable, all I can say is unbelievable. Now I know where you get your quite incredible information.

"A paid advocate of Philip Morris & Exxon Mobil", never mind the environment shit, this guy probably still tells you most doctors smoke unfiltered camels because they are actually healthy.:mj07: :mj07: :mj07: :mj07:

 

[Eddie Haskell]

Bobby:

Thank you,
thank you,
thank you.

You said in one post what I've been saying about Wayne for years. You can apply the same logic to Wayne's position on the malpractice crisis and all the other garbage he's been spewing on how lawyers are responsible for all of the ills of society.

I know these are not your words but thank you for exposing this fraud.

Eddie

 

[IntenseOperator]

:bump:

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Hmm --and I thought you might try and disprove some of the claims--but apparently not.


--and what do you when you can't--change the issue of course.

--will be waiting to see which of these you prove false and why--and your sheep may assist you

of course Edward is problbly busy as I here there are 27,000 cases against Vioxx pending and this last one didn't fare to well--

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061214/vioxx...rial.html?.v=2

Dedrick's lawyer, Andy Birchfield, acknowledged in his closing statement that Dedrick had other risk factors for his heart attack, including tobacco use, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and cocaine use.:mj07:

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

You're about as predictable as the sunrise, retort with accusations of "changing the subject", and then pulling out the Vioxx claim and not think that you're, in fact, changing the subject.

There's no way that I can or have the desire to refute these claims as your mind is made up when you believe the science of the hired guns like Milloy so he's served his purpose.

My point was that Fox is, never was and never will be fair and balanced. And your "article" proves that, only you can't see it. Do you care to respond the objectivity of this article? or are is your next post going to talk about the temperature of McDonald's coffee? or Pardons? or blow jobs?

 

[Eddie Haskell]

So the last verdict was in favor of Merck. Now the civil justice system works just fine huh Wayne. When a victim loses to a corporate giant alls well with Waynes world. When a victim recovers against Merck its because of shyster lawyers and bogus science right Wayne.

Wonder how much these plaintiff lawyers lost on this case in expert fees and other expenses? Wayne and his fair and balanced information sources will have you believe its a giant conspiracy between lawyers and hired gun experts.

Its funny how Wayne seems to differentiate Plaintiffs experts as advocates of "junk science" and experts who support Merck and others in corporate America (especially tobacco and the administrations anti global warming group) as real science.

Fraud.

Eddie

PS: Forgot to thank IO for the bump.

 

[SixFive]

I'd love to read the link about ddt, but I can't find it. The only thing that comes to mind for me about ddt is that we quit using it because it made the bald eagles eggshells too thin (that's an old memory; not sure where it comes from??) That would be great if it could be safely used now. Anybody who's been to a third-world country can attest to that. The schedule is spray down with repellent and go to bed in a bug proof as possible house/tent with your citronella candle burning beside you, wake up, bathe, then spray down with OFF again. Spray down again around lunch time and again at supper. Bathe again before bed and repeat. Malaria is bad, but dengue feve,r yellow fever, and west nile virus are no treat either. I've taken care of patients with all 3, and they all suck and are mosquito bourne.

the low fat diet thing intrigues me as well.

global warming is a fraud??? Shocking!!

Ivory billed woodpeckers. This story was very interesting to me when it first came out. We have Pileated Woodpeckers here, and when I was a kid, they were very rare and quite cool to see in the wild. The Ivory Billed and Pileated are extremely close relatives and nearly impossible to tell the difference unless u have a very trained eye. Anyway, Pileated Woodpeckers are now off the endangered list, and I see them on a regular basis. It's distressing to me think that the environmental wackos might have planted a sighting of the Ivory Billed woodpeckers in order to stop the Corps project (the Army Corps of Engineers has done more for wildlife than any bs group like the Sierra Club or Fund for Animals ever has).

Hurricane season. I'm glad they were wrong, but aren't all weathermen?? Is that news??

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

I'll tell you whats as predictable as sunrise BBC-
----being unable to seperate opinion from fact--hype from reality--emotion from logic ect are generally indicative in handicapping--if you get my drift.

Clint Would be in agreement with you on DDT
--sure wouldn't want any around me and certainly believe that it is very harmful to wildlife in general--but believe his point was in malaria ladden countries where deaths by same offsets use.You can go to -read more here- at intial link for more info on each--here is what was under DDT topic--

Day of Reckoning for DDT Foes?

Thursday , September 21, 2006

By Steven Milloy


Last week?s announcement that the World Health Organization lifted its nearly 30-year ban on the insecticide DDT is perhaps the most promising development in global public health since? well, 1943 when DDT was first used to combat insect-borne diseases like typhus and malaria.

Overlooked in all the hoopla over the announcement, however, is the terrible toll in human lives (tens of millions dead ? mostly pregnant women and children under the age of 5), illness (billions sickened) and poverty (more than $1 trillion dollars in lost GDP in sub-Saharan Africa alone) caused by the tragic, decades-long ban.

Much of this human catastrophe was preventable, so why did it happen? Who is responsible? Should the individuals and activist groups who caused the DDT ban be held accountable in some way?

Rachel Carson kicked-off DDT hysteria with her pseudo-scientific 1962 book, ?Silent Spring.? Carson materially misrepresented DDT science in order to advance her anti-pesticide agenda. Today she is hailed as having launched the global environmental movement. A Pennsylvania state office building, Maryland elementary school, Pittsburgh bridge and a Maryland state park are named for her. The Smithsonian Institution commemorates her work against DDT. She was even honored with a 1981 U.S. postage stamp. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of her birth. Many celebrations are being planned.

It?s quite a tribute for someone who was so dead wrong. At the very least, her name should be removed from public property and there should be no government-sponsored honors of Carson.

The Audubon Society was a leader in the attack on DDT, including falsely accusing DDT defenders (who subsequently won a libel suit) of lying. Not wanting to jeopardize its non-profit tax status, the Audubon Society formed the Environmental Defense Fund (now simply known as Environmental Defense) in 1967 to spearhead its anti-DDT efforts. Today the National Audubon Society takes in more than $100 million per year and has assets worth more than $200 million. Environmental Defense takes in more than $65 million per year with a net worth exceeding $73 million.

In a February 25, 1971, media release, the president of the Sierra Club stated that his organization wanted ?a ban, not just a curb? on DDT, ?even in the tropical countries where DDT has kept malaria under control." Today the Sierra Club rakes in more than $90 million per year and has more than $50 million in assets.

Business are often held liable and forced to pay monetary damages for defective products and false statements. Why shouldn?t the National Audubon Society, Environmental Defense, Sierra Club and other anti-DDT activist groups be held liable for the harm caused by their recklessly defective activism?

It was, of course, then-Environmental Protection Agency administrator William Ruckelshaus who actually banned DDT after ignoring an EPA administrative law judge?s ruling that there was no evidence indicating that DDT posed any sort of threat to human health or the environment. Ruckleshaus never attended any of the agency?s hearings on DDT. He didn?t read the hearing transcripts and refused to explain his decision.

None of this is surprising given that, in a May 22, 1971, speech before the Wisconsin Audubon Society, Ruckleshaus said that EPA procedures had been streamlined so that DDT could be banned. Ruckleshaus was also a member of ? and wrote fundraising letters for ? the EDF.

The DDT ban solidified Ruckelshaus? environmental credentials, which he has surfed to great success in business, including stints as CEO of Browning Ferris Industries and as a director of a number of other companies including Cummins Engine, Nordstrom, and Weyerhaeuser Company. Ruckelshaus currently is a principal in a Seattle, Wash., -based investment group called Madrona Venture Group.

Corporate wrongdoers ? like WorldCom?s Bernie Ebbers and Tyco?s Dennis Kozlowski ? were sentenced to prison for crimes against mere property. But what should the punishment be for government wrongdoers like Ruckleshaus who, apparently for the sake of his personal environmental interests, abused his power and affirmatively deprived billions of poor, helpless people of the only practical weapon against malaria?

Finally, there is the question of the World Health Organization itself. What?s the WHO been doing for all these years? There are no new facts on DDT ? all the relevant science about DDT safety has been available since the 1960s. Moreover, the WHO?s strategy of mosquito bednets and malaria vaccine development has been a dismal failure. While the death toll in malarial regions has mounted, the WHO has been distracted by such dubious issues as whether cell phones and French fries cause cancer.

It?s a relief that the WHO has finally come to its senses, but on the other hand, the organization has done too little, too late. The ranks of the WHO?s leadership need to be purged of those who place the agenda of environmental elitists over the basic survival of the world?s needy.

In addition to the day of reckoning and societal rebuke that DDT-ban advocates should face, we should all learn from the DDT tragedy.

With the exception of Rachel Carson (who died in 1964), all of the groups and individuals above mentioned also promote global warming alarmism. If they and others could be so wrong about DDT, why should we trust them now? Should we really put the global economy and the welfare of billions at risk based on their track record?

 

[WhatsHisNuts]

Back to your source Dogs....looks like the secret is out.

5 Dec 2004
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment
Filed under: Climate Science Paleoclimate Arctic and Antarctic? stefan @ 8:23 pm
In early November 2004 the results of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) were published, a uniquely detailed regional study compiled by 300 scientists over 3 years. The study describes the ongoing climate change in the Arctic and its consequences: rising temperatures, loss of sea ice, unprecedented melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and many impacts on ecosystems, animals and people. The ACIA is the first comprehensively researched, fully referenced, and independently reviewed evaluation of arctic climate change and its impacts for the region and for the world.

Sadly, in recent years we have become accustomed to a ritual in which the publication of each new result on anthropogenic climate change is greeted by a flurry of activity from industry-funded lobby groups, think tanks and PR professionals, who try to discredit the science and confuse the public about global warming.


An example of this is the article ?Polar Bear Scare on Thin Ice? by industry lobbyist Steven Milloy , featured on Fox News. Milloy claims in his polemic that the ACIA ?debunks itself? based on one graph of the 1,200-page study. This graph shows the evolution of Arctic temperatures over the past century, and the fact (well-known to climatologists) that in the 1930s similarly warm temperatures where reached in the high Arctic as at present. Milloy concludes from this that both warmings are due to a natural cycle.

Scientifically, this argument holds no water: it is simply not possible to draw conclusions about the causes of climate variations by just looking at one time series. Only considering the time series of Arctic temperature, it is impossible to tell what the cause of the 1930s warming was, what the cause of the recent warming is, and whether both have the same cause or not. Milloy?s specious argument is a characteristic example for a method frequently employed by ?climate skeptics?: from a host of scientific data, they cherry-pick one result out of context and present unwarranted conclusions, knowing that a lay audience will not easily recognise their fallacy.

In fact, the conclusion of the ACIA study that the recent warming is due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases is of course not based on one particular time series, but on a host of further scientific data. For example, looking at all the temperature data rather than just one time series reveals that the pattern of warming of the 1930s was very different from the recent warming. In the 1930s, warming was localised to the high latitudes, consistent with this warming being the result of a natural oscillation (the so-called "Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation"). Very similar natural oscillations are also found in climate models. The recent warming, in contrast, encompasses most of the planet; this is consistent with it being the result of a global forcing. A very similar pattern of warming is found in climate models as a result of rising greenhouse gases. (For full details, see the publication of Johannessen et al., Tellus 2004). Many other lines of evidence demonstrate convincingly that anthropogenic forcing was very likely the dominant factor in the warming of recent decades.

Milloy further claims that the observed global warming of 0.6-0.8 C over the 20th Century is ?well within the natural variation in average global temperature, which in the case of the Arctic, for example, is a range of about 3 degrees Centigrade?. This is another misconception frequently promoted in skeptics articles: it confuses global-scale with local changes (note Milloy?s delicate phrasing of this), and hence compares apples with pears.

Local climate variations are generally much larger than global ones. The reason is simple: it is easy to generate large localised temperature changes simply by changing the atmospheric circulation patterns (as happens for example in the North Atlantic Oscillation, NAO) ? this will steer the winds along a different track, causing some regions to warm and others to cool. In a global or hemispheric average, in contrast, this kind of redistribution of heat cancels out. To get global-scale variations, you need to add heat overall, not just shift it around to a different place. Global-scale variations are therefore much smaller, and they reflect changes in global climate drivers, for example in greenhouse gas concentrations or in solar activity. For this reason, an anthropogenic warming trend can only be clearly identified in hemispheric or global averages or in pattern studies. It can neither be demonstrated nor debunked by looking at individual local time series. Even as the global average temperature is rising, some regions have been cooling in recent decades (e.g., the Labrador Sea region or the Antarctic).

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=22

 

[WhatsHisNuts]

Wow, Milloy is really respected in the scientific community. Not only have I found articles that call him out, but there is a website dedicated to refuting his BS. (http://info-pollution.com/milloy.htm)

Sat 14 Feb 2004
Steve Milloy, shill
Posted by Tim Lambert under Milloy
[7] Comments

Apart from the one or two posts about John Lott I?ve also posted about ozone depletion denial, creationism and astroturf. All these topics, as well as Lott, come together in the person of Steve Milloy. Milloy runs a website junkscience.com that purports to debunk ?junk science?.

Unsuspecting visitors might think that Milloy?s site is devoted to criticizing shoddy science, but they would be wrong. If you look at what he ?debunks? you will find that the real criterion for deciding what is ?junk science? is not the quality of the work, but the political agenda that it might support. Studies that support a right-wing agenda are endorsed, while studies that don?t are harshly criticized. John Quiggin noticed the same thing, while Milloy almost admits it in his definition of junk science:

?Junk science? is bad science used to further a special agenda, such as personal injury lawyers extorting deep-pocket businesses; the ?food police,? environmental Chicken Littles and gun-control extremists advocating wacky social programs; overzealous regulators expanding bureaucratic power/budgets; cut-throat businesses attacking competitors; unethical businesses making bogus product claims; slick politicians; and wannabe scientists seeking fame and fortune.
He no longer uses this definition (too much of a give away?) but archive.org has preserved a copy.

Armed with this knowledge we can predict the junkscience.com verdict of any scientific result without having to even look at how the study was carried out. Here are some examples:

The ozone hole? Completely natural:

The same seasonal (and localised) depletion was actually discovered in the 1950s and recognised as an interesting natural phenomenon (interest then was centred on the massive increase in ozone levels over the south pole in late spring, early summer as the massive high concentrations from the adjacent temperate regions penetrate the weakening polar vortex). In the misanthropic ?80s it was given significant publicity and a character change - this time it was big, bad and (you guessed it) man-made while the parallel build up of ozone outside the polar vortex no longer rated a mention. Stratospheric ozone levels are volatile and seasonal, whether there has been any unusual change in ozone levels over the period is moot. There is only one certainty and that is that perceptions changed purely because the great ozone ?hole? got a new publicist.

Oh really? Look at this graph, which shows ozone levels in October at Halley Station in Antarctica. (from this page). Pretty obviously there was no hole in the 1950s. Anyone writing about ozone depletion who is unaware of this fact has to be actively avoiding learning the facts about ozone depletion.



The Theory of Evolution? A plot to promote atheism. (OK, Milloy didn?t write that article, but it was endorsed as the ?Commentary of the Day?).

Laws that require safe storage of guns? A study by Cummings et al used a pooled time series design similar to Lott?s ?More Guns, Less Crime? to study the effect of laws that make gun owners criminally liable if someone is injured because a child gains unsupervised access to a gun. They found that the laws were associated with a 23% reduction in unintentional shooting deaths of children.

Here?s what Milloy writes about Cummings study:
This was an ecologic epidemiology study, meaning the conclusion is based on very ?macro? comparisons of groups of people. The study involved no data about individuals, just groups. Traditionally, these studies are only useful for forming hypotheses for further testing, not irrefutable facts.

In particular, no data was collected on compliance with these laws and the relationship of compliance to the decrease in injuries. There may have been fewer unintentional firearm-related injuries in states with safe storage laws, but this study assumed compliance with the laws and assumed that compliance is responsible for the decrease in injuries. A big assumption considering the result.

The reported 23% decrease in injuries is a pretty weak result-probably beyond the capability of the ecologic type of study to reliably detect. Even in the better types of epidemiology studies (i.e., cohort and case-control), rate increases of less than 100% (and rate decreases of less than 50%) are very suspect.

So how much stock can be put in a weak result based on inadequate data?

Now this criticism applies equally to Lott?s ?More Guns, Less Crime?, only more so, since the crime decreases found by Lott were much less than 23%. (For the bit that reads ?assumed compliance with the laws? you need to read ?assumed frequent encounters between criminals and permit holders?.) So what is Milloy?s take on ?More Guns, Less Crime?? Does he call it an even weaker result based on inadequate data? No, he endorses it

I emailed Milloy and asked him to explain his inconsistent treatment of the Cummings and Lott studies. His reply:

That wasn?t my summary? but quotes from the article.

The weakness is the article is that there is no direct link that it is gun ownership that is causing the decline in violent crime. But the statistics cited are actuarial, not estimated or hypothesized.

Yes, he didn?t write the summary that praised Lott?s work, but he did endorse the summary instead of treating Lott?s study like that of Cummings. And actually Cummings? study used actuarial statistics while Lott did not, so his ?explanation? is nonsense. No, it is clear that to Milloy, Cummings is junk science, while Lott is to be endorsed.

Given all of the above, it should come as no surprise that junkscience.com is another astroturf operation. As part of the Tobacco Settlement Agreement Philip Morris agreed to release millions of documents about their operations. These detail how TASSC (The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition) was a front secretly created and funded by a PR firm acting for Philip Morris. Here is the key document (with annotations by Stewart Fist). TASSC and junkscience.com shared the same address and were both run by Milloy. Studies that find harmful effects from tobacco smoke seem to attract particularly venomous attacks from junkscience.com. PR Watch has the full story of Milloy?s history.

And this conduct by Milloy is absolutely disgraceful.

 

[WhatsHisNuts]

No shortage of background info on your source. He sounds like a class act.

Steven J. Milloy
From SourceWatch

Steven J. Milloy is a columnist for Fox News and a paid advocate for Phillip Morris, ExxonMobil and other corporations. From the 1990s until the end of 2005, he was an adjunct scholar at the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute.

Milloy runs the website Junkscience.com, which is dedicated to debunking what he alleges to be false claims regarding global warming, DDT, environmental radicalism and scare science among other topics.[1] His other website, CSR Watch.com, is focused around attacking the corporate social responsibility movement. He is also head of the Free Enterprise Action Fund, a mutual fund he runs with tobacco executive Tom Borelli, who happens to be listed as the secretary of the Advancement of Sound Science Center, an organisation Milloy operates from his home in Potomac, Maryland .

Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences from the Johns Hopkins University, a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws from the Georgetown University Law Center.[2]

In January 2006, Paul D. Thacker reported in The New Republic that Milloy has received thousands of dollars in payments from the Phillip Morris company since the early nineties, and that NGOs controlled by Milloy have received large payments from ExxonMobil [3]. A spokesperson for Fox News stated, "Fox News was unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris. Any affiliation he had should have been disclosed."

[edit]Milloy the lobbyist
Milloy has spent much of his life as a lobbyist for major corporations and trade organisations which have poisioning or polluting problems. He originally ran NEPI (National Environmental Policy Institute) which was founded by Republican Rep Don Ritter (who tried to get tobacco industry funding) using oil and gas industry funding. NEPI was dedicated to transforming both the EPA and the FDA, and challenging the cost of Superfund toxic cleanups by these large corporations.

NEPI was also associated with the AQSC (Air Quality Standards Coalition) which was devoted to emasculating Clean Air laws. This organisation took up the cry of "we need sound science" from the chemical industry as a way to counter claims of pollution -- and Milloy became involved in what became known as the "sound-science" movement. Its most effective ploy was to label science not beneficial to the large funding corporations as "junk" -- and Milloy was one of its most effective lobbyists because he wrote well, and used humour (PJ O'Rourke was another -- but better!)

He joined Philip Morris's specialist-science/PR company APCO & Associates in 1992, working behind the scenes on a business venture known as "Issues Watch". By this time, APCO had been taken over and become a part of the world-wide Grey Marketing organisation, and so Milloy was able to use the international organisation as a feed source for services to corporations who had international problems.

Issues Watch bulletins were only given out to paying customers, so Milloy started for APCO the "Junkscience.com" web site, which gave him an outlet to attack health and environmental activists, and scientists who published findings not supportive of his client's businesses. Like most good PR it mixes some good, general criticism of science and science-reporting, with some outright distorted and manipulative pieces.

The Junkscience web site was supposedly run by a pseudo-grassroots organisation called TASSC (The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition), which initially paid ex-Governor Curruthers of New Mexico as a front. Milloy actually ran it from the back-room, and issued the press releases. Then when Curruthers resigned, Milloy started to call himself "Director" (Bonner Cohen - another of the same ilk also working for APCO - became "President")

Initially all of this was funded by Philip Morris, as part of their contributions to the distortion of tobacco science, but later they widened out the focus and introduced even more funding by establishing a coalition -- with energy, pharmaceutical, chemical companies. TASSC's funders include 3M, Amoco, Chevron, Dow Chemical, Exxon, General Motors, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lorillard Tobacco, Louisiana Chemical Association, National Pest Control Association, Occidental Petroleum, Philip Morris Companies, Procter & Gamble, Santa Fe Pacific Gold, and W.R. Grace, the asbestos and pesticide manufacturers.

TASSC was then exposed publicly as a fraud. And so Milloy established the "Citizens for the Integrity of Science" to take over the running of the Junkscience.com web site.

[edit]Radioactive Junk
In August 2005 Media Matters for America reported that Milloy (who is not a scientist himself) had self-published a deceptive "study" purporting to show that radiation levels at the U.S. Capitol Building were 65 times higher than the proposed standards for the federal government's planned high-level radioactive waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain. [4]

[edit]Funding
Milloy also runs the Advancement of Sound Science Center and the Free Enterprise Action Institute. Those two groups?apparently run out of Milloy?s home?received $90,000 from ExxonMobil. Key quote: The date of Kyoto?s implementation will "live in scientific and economic infamy." Connections to ExxonMobil-funded groups: at least five. [5]

Writing in The New Republic in January 2006 Paul Thacker noted Milloy's long-term, close relationships with corporations, including ExxonMobil and Philip Morris. "According to Lisa Gonzalez, manager of external communications for Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, Milloy was under contract there through the end of last year," Thacker wrote. "But, whereas Scripps Howard fired Fumento and apologized to its readers, Fox News continues to look the other way as Milloy accepts corporate handouts," Thacker writes. Fox's Paul Schur told Thacker, "Fox News is unaware of Milloy's connection with Philip Morris." [6]

Milloy is also the co-founder, with tobacco industry executive Thomas Borelli, of the Free Enterprise Action Fund, which claims to be an investment fund that seeks "long-term capital appreciation through investment and advocacy that promote the American system of free enterprise." According to a January 26, 2006 report in the Chicago Tribune, "The fund's advocacy stance boils down to opposing many of the things supported by traditional 'social investment funds,' because issues like global warming or corporate governance distract business from its real role of operating in the best interests of shareholders." However, its performance as an investment has been less than stellar. The Tribune called it the "Stupid Investment of the Week ... Strip away the rhetoric, and you're getting a very expensive, underperforming index fund, while Milloy and partner Thomas Borelli get a platform for raising their pet issues. ... An expense ratio capped at 2 percent--ridiculously high for a portfolio of corporate giants--makes stock market returns unrealistic. From inception on March 1 of last year through Dec. 31, Free Enterprise Action returned 2.32 percent; the S&P 500 returned 4.72 percent. That's ugly."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Steven_J._Milloy

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

Edward---last statement I had on matter was

"--will be waiting to see which of these you prove false and why--and your sheep may assist you "

---and I'm still waiting

 

[kosar]

Edward---last statement I had on matter was

"--will be waiting to see which of these you prove false and why--and your sheep may assist you "

---and I'm still waiting

Gotta give you *some* credit.

You put the most ridiculously biased 'source' up here and you come back for more. A 'source' that blamed the anti-abestos movement on the collapse of the towers.

You obviously don't care about his 'bought and paid for' 'credentials?'

Did you read any of that?

It only goes one way with you.

Your 'source' is pathetic.

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

While most would be embarrassed, Dogs actually brings it to the top.

It's this kind of steadfast, "stay-the-course" myopia that can cause someone to watch "The Other Iraq" commercial by an organization created "To promote, facilitate and establish business and investment opportunities in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq" and come away that this is the reason that our troops should stay another 4 years in Iraq.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

BBC If your not embarrassed about trying to pass yourself off as a handicapper I'm certainly not embarrassed on this post.

P.S. I see your girls back---

Fonda Reprises A Famous Role At Peace Rally
The Actress Speaks Out Against the War in Iraq

By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 28, 2007; D01

For her next act, Jane Fonda has entered the war against the Iraq war. At the tail-end of yesterday's on-the-Mall rally, organized by United for Peace and Justice, Fonda stood onstage with the Capitol behind her and addressed the sun-drenched thousands. "I haven't spoken at an antiwar rally in 34 years," she said. But, "Silence is no longer an option."

I'll see if I can find donation link for Code Pink for you.

 

[BobbyBlueChip]

BBC If your not embarrassed about trying to pass yourself off as a handicapper I'm certainly not embarrassed on this post.

At least you stopped being a pussy and beating around the bush. You've kind of been alluding for months, but never came right out and said it. Outside of being a tout, I'm not sure if there is a lower form of a poster than a basher of picks, so I'm glad you finally came around and showed your true colors. I've had two losing college foots seasons and one losing baseball season since 2000.

Take a look at the last two NFL handicapping contests this site has had and take a look whose got the highest win percentage.

http://www.madjacksports.com/forum/showthread.php?t=173989

http://www.madjacksports.com/forum/showthread.php?t=212072

Y'Know - Back to Back

And this is in the game of -110 where 60% means something, not the game of -115 and -125 that you play in and pat yourself on the back.

So, in summary, we have just one more post where you're completely, absolutely,100% wrong.

Let's get back to discussing transfat - The jury's still out