NPWittList(wassomethingPynchonrelatedatsomepointmaybe)

[Sojourner]

At 11:37 AM 8/13/97 +0000, Mark Smith wrote:

>OK, so I know this doesn't always work in principle, because "scientists
>are human".  But the big problem arises when the man in the street fails
>to detect the competing motives of differing scientists, and uses that
>confusion as an excuse for doing nothing.  We are hamstrung by bad
>science.  My dad, for instance, after years of not eating eggs because
>of the cholesterol scare, was really pissed off a few years ago to
>discover that the "scientists" had changed their minds on the egg
>issue.  Bunch of bums!  What do they know!  He uses that mix-up to
>justify eating whatever he wants now, because scientists disagree.  It
>suits him fine to be able to discount their advice.
>

Yes it does work in principle.  I ate tons and tons of liver for the very
same reason, which proves my point (below):

Neither I, nor your father, nor most of the people who rely on these
"scientific" guidelines ever read any of the science!! We get this info
from non-scientific sources, such as TV and newspapers.  Not to say
that USA Today and the CBS Evening News makes up their stories
on how "Science Finds New Ways to Give You Super Sweetness 
Without Resorting to that Awful and Prodigious Substance Known
as Sugar So That You Can Live Better (And Of Course, More 
Cheaply) Through Chemistry".  

Not at all.  

What IS happening is that some science/health/medicine correspondent
leafs through the well-circulated mainstream journals (Nature and Science
the two biggest ones quoted in my opinion) on a study which has
an "angle", people repeat it, you hear it, you consider it "scientific" fact,
and then you lay off the eggs for 20 years.  Science is only involved
at the very root, where over several years a few men and/or women
of science conducted an experiment, otherwise known as the common
rite of science.

It isn't the science which fails, its the middle man.

If your father, and myself, and others took the time to read these journals
(available even in small-town libraries) they would be able to make their
own decisions.  Was it a 20 year study on 2000 people or just 10 fat guys
who were also being studied for their bone marrow?  See what I mean?

Even NPR, whom I greatly admire and listen to avidly, tends to do this.
"Researchers find that eating 20 Egg Whites a day reduces ocular 
pressure" turns into "Egg Whites Linked to Glaucoma Cure".  Etc. Etc..

Science is a wonderful religion but relying only on the priests to find the
meaning of God is what Luther got so damn angry about in the first place.
Read your Bible.  Study the meanings.  You don't have to be a theology
major to get meaning out of scriptures and you don't have to be a biologist
to read journals like Nature and Science.  For chrissakes, this attitude
drives
me INSANE.

Ala independent vs. chain book stores etc.  Jesus... turn off the damn TV
and read more than one newspaper and start finding out things for yourself.
If you CARE about an issue, like eating eggs, find out what you can for
YOURSELF.  I'm not angry at your dad, I mean I ate liver for years for
the same reason, but no more.  The internet is only one more powerful
tool to help you help yourself.  

Let's fight this trend of dependence on others for values and morals.



	"Was it over when the Germans bombed
	 Pearl Harbor?  Hell no!

	 Come on, whose with me?"

	    ---Animal House