In my blog two days ago, I report that my nephew Jason was confronted with the data that shows that the global warming story is pure fiction. A fiction contradicted by data but widely held by hundreds of million people, probably billions of people. He wondered how to reconcile this widely held belief with the data.
Jason is young, smart, very good at business, but new to the world of controversy. What would you say to him?
This is my email: The problem with widely held beliefs that are not supported by data is that it applies to every field. Not limited to science. Science sure has many horrible examples ranging from anti-evolution during Darwin's life, earth tectonics pre-1955, astrology, Russian biology, 75 years of believing superconductivity could only occur below 4 degrees of absolute zero, believing outer space was at absolute zero, to global cooling in the 1970s. Contrary evidence and data were ignored and scientists changed their minds at a glacial pace.
I've lived through the 'end of the earth due to the population explosion'.... that purported explosion ended in 1990 based on good data; millions of children were being reported as kidnapped in major media including the NYTimes in the early 1980s, almost uniformly believed by nearly all Americans; hundreds of children in daycare were universally believed to being tortured in the late 1980's; all these were front page in the NYTimes and Time magazine. Completely phony.
Now we have 'blacks are disproportionately incarcerated' reported in all the major media No, not true. Blacks commit 5 times more crimes than everyone else and are actually under represented in prison.
Now we have the widely believed statement that 'GMO in our food is not labeled... so it can't be avoided'. No, 'organic' means no GMO by Federal law. Buy organic if you want to avoid GMO.
Now we're told 'the U.S. has the highest murder rate and the worst income inequality in the world'. No. Every country south of our border has worse numbers.
Many widely held beliefs are contradicted by solid data. It is a fact of life and always has been.
What would you say to your young niece of nephew?