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This article makes me think of Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis), who wrote thi
by slantyyz 16y ago
This article makes me think of Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kary_Mullis), who wrote this book called
"Dancing in a Mind Field" years ago, and it brought up some interesting points when talking about "scientific research" and the reporting behind it.
The one takeaway from the book.. "follow the money". Fact checking, of course, is much harder than it sounds, which is probably why a lot of news organizations don't do as much as they should when reporting stuff like the bee colony collapses, etc.
Mullis has some interesting (almost conspiracy theory-esque) ideas about AIDS research, etc. One of the more memorable anecdotes in this book - he found it amusingly coincidental that there was a huge movement to ban Freon for environmental reasons right before Dupont's patents were about to expire.
- carbocation 16y agoKary Mullis is a great example of why you should only consider scientists to be experts in their specific, narrow domain.
- slantyyz 16y agoYou definitely have to take him, and anyone proclaiming to be an expert or analyst, for that matter, with a grain of salt.
- ursablanco 16y agoAnd his particular domain is exquisitely narrow ... as further evidenced by the breadth and depth of his ignorance. Sorry to rant, but there's a guy that gets on my nerves.
- slantyyz 16y agoBut his points, at least as he wrote them in the particular book I mentioned aren't invalid or interesting because he's a jerk (his chapter on wanderlust had my head spinning). "Follow the money" is a guideline that makes sense. I even thought his reasons for -not- dismissing astrology outright were somewhat interesting, although I see in his wikipedia entry that he now 'believes' in astrology.