No, you've been believing what the media tells you science says and I mean this in a non-paranoid "the-liberal-media-is-out-to-get-us" way. Studies, reports etc. are just part of the <i>process</i> of science, you've got to know the context of everthing else to figure out what Science is "saying".

Remember, breathing highly reactive oxygen wears out the body.

Was that first sentence clear? It's not a conspiracy it's just most reporters don't really get science.

You are clearly part of the conspiracy.

To which version of "science" are you referring, Alan? Peer-reviewed hard science? "Intelligent-design"-type science? Subject-to-political-meddling-envornmental-science? Dianetics?

All of the above?

If we keep it at "science" what else can "journalists" not grasp? Anti-journalism is a favourite game of bloggers and, while I am not accusing David of doing that, it becomes a risk to discourse when it is raised in the same way that conservatives are labelled fascists or liberals communists. I think before I accept either science or journalism as a font of truth or, equally, take a blanket condemnation I need to ensure I understand specifically what is lacking or supportable. So, while I find the suggestion that roasted vegetable are bad for you (a contention I respond to with "who cares...they are yummy"), I need to know what part the journalist and what part the scientist played in presenting that information to me. <p>As disclosure, I am more likely in this case to presume the scientist was funded by a toothpaste company than question the BBC's presentation.

The basic problem lies in assuming that because something may cause increased dental erosion that it is in some sense "bad for you". Worse yet, that because you think you know fruits and vegetables are "good for you" that they cannot cause dental erosion, QED. Which is to say David is right to suggest people, journalists included, need to learn to interpret research results in context. Most people having little or no interest in science this places a special burden on journalists - and more importantly editors - to show some restraint in placing a misleading spin on research findings.

<i>If we keep it at "science" what else can "journalists" not grasp? Anti-journalism is a favourite game of bloggers and, while I am not accusing David of doing that, it becomes a risk to discourse when it is raised in the same way that conservatives are labelled fascists or liberals communists.</i>

In which case it would also be nice to avoid risking a discourse in which "bloggers" are a monolithic whole.

I think the implicit meme of "the MSM bad" that justifies this particular admitted broad brush, Mr. Flea, at least in any discussion in which I am a participant. If books are to be written about what the brave new bloggy world of wonder gives us all, we also have to deal with it at an equal level in terms of its faults and anti-journalism (ironically enough giving the cutting and pasting) is one of those entrenched faults.<p>PS: why has McLuhanistic down-side analysis of communications technologies never been applied to blogging with any solidity?

I fail to see how your "blogs bad" "meme" is any better. Who is more foolish? The blogger or the blogger who blogs about how blogging is a waste of time?

/Kenobi-paraphrase

Re. PS: For one thing, because almost nobody outside Simon Fraser reads McLuhan anymore, including the folks at U of T's McLuhan centre.

I am not having a "blogs bad" meme. I may have a blogs not perfect meme but then one has to ask if there is such a thing as a one-man-meme. And as your accusation of my personification of irony, I beat myself with that bat with every key I stroke.<p>And yet...your characterization of the inquiry as about "waste of time" is surprisingly off the mark for one so quick of wit. It is not that it is a waste of time. It is that blogging is a danger to thought and a road to a lowest common denomenator hell due to the unforeseen hazards of slop it brings. I know I speak this in the tongue of a sub-minor Old-Testament-era fifth-rate prophet cut in the very early rounds of Old Testament prophet selections but I hold it tight if only for its blindlingly obvious truth.<p>...ok, maybe I am having a blogs bad meme. And just because no one reads it anymore seems the best reason to embrace McLuhan - buy low, sell high, baby.

I'm not trying to peddle the "MSM bad" meme (although this has me pissed off over the weekend).

However, science is one of these blindly feeling your way around the elephant" type of things — with the difference is science-educated people know there's an elephant there; the MSM -- and I mean the 6 o'clock/headlines news here, there is good science reporting if you look for it -- can't be bothered to mention it because it interferes with the "narrative" ("wine is bad for you this week; story after the break").

Global News is particularly bad offender in this respect, breathlessly reporting every new science story as if that was the first or final word.

I think that is an instructive division as I think TV news is drastically different from NTY/BBC sorts of news who hired specialists in fields. You may not care for perceived bias but at least it is bias laced with resource and intelligence.

NTY = NYT? I'm not worried about the bias on the science pages; I'm more worried about editorials being published as reporting about stuff going in the world with that rag.

BBC. No strong opinion; I enjoyed watching it in Europe. I loved Sky News' reporting on Katrina, where they would just wade over to some community and let some flake ramble on for 25 minutes about what they think is going on. Amusing and surprisingly informative.

NYT - find a paper not doing it that has half the intellectual rigour and you win a prize. As far as I can see, we all carry our biases into things we read we as well - its makes one sort of reporting or another look like editorializing to someone according to the pre-misconception we each have. I can't read a National Post front section without finding the same thing, imagining the post writing process of making the story fit the corporate bias. <p>So, I am not really concerned about a little bias in reporting as long as it is not my own bias seeking homogenized unchallenging approval from all around me. That is a sure road to stunnedness. I prefer someone giving me the story they see and forget the idea that there is neutral observation. The more important thing is the resources and time that a journalist can put to a topic. Especially with science reporting or that Bridge column in the NYT.<p>But I think you and I are not describing the ding-battery of "MSM evil" which is up there with "Bush is Hitler" or "Nazis were left-wing" or "Objectivism is not a syndrome".

I think the BBC did a reasonable joy reporting on these roast veg/tooth decay findings. But the Beeb cannot account for a readership that will decide these findings mean "vegetables are bad for you." At some point audiences have to be responsible for making sense of the facts presented to them.

Off on a tagent, at your behest ... since you bring it up; the Nazis were left wing in the same way they were right wing -- i.e. not at all, in any meangiful relationship to the political spectrum as we've ever experienced it. They were xenophobic totalitarian thugs and made no bones about it; communists, as we've seen in the 20th century, were xenophobic totalitarian thugs who painted a pleasant face on it.

But isn't there a plain horrific meaning of "dental erosion"? Or am I being culturally insensitive to those of the land of the mouths of little yellow forests?<p>You know, "dental erosion" is one of those phrases that makes you glum to be an organic being.

David: Tangentialize away. I think that both reasoned but not the full story. The Nazis created a complex parallel society based on thuggery which included nice eight hour work days, moms at home and bizarro church-like organizations and social clubs based on the wacko-wacko pure-truth, tapping into those nationalistic and capitalistic excellence measurements that has been practiced by most rightist totalitarians before and since. This is quite rightly said to be as far from non-militarian normal suburban capitalism but communist leftist totalitarianism is also far from social welfarism of your average Sweden, Manitoba or Vermont. I also would say both paiinted a pleasant face to a certain audience.

Speaking of tangent, I have just had the first rhubarb squares of the season and I am now renewed in my glee at being an organic being. Dental erosion be damned.

"rightist totalitarians"? Care to name a few ... Ronald Reagan? Bob Rae? ;-)

Rhubarb's a vegetable? For some reason I always thought it a fruit. Actually, I never really thought about it in that way at all; it's always been on its own - fruit, veg, rhubarb.

Jeese, David - it is difficult discussing something with you if you are going to unscrew that bit of your brain from time to time. <p>CM: rhubarb is a vegetable as you do not eat the seed and its housing but the plant itself. Conversely, tomato is a fruit.

Who's Jesse?

Not getting trying to get into it, but an obsession with moral purity is as much (well, more) a phenomonia of the left.

You are mostly right. George F. Will captured the pre-neocon proper role of the right in his book on baseball <i>Men At Work</i>:<blockquote class="smalltext">Think about that Umpires are carved from granite and stuffed with microchips. They are supposed to the dispassionate dispensers of Pure Justice, icy islands of emotionless calculation. In short umpires should be natural Republicans - dead to human feelings.</blockquote>I do you recall Mulroney coming back to Ed Broadbent in a 80s debate? Something to the effect of "you, sir, do not have exclusive right to morality". I think that was something of a turning point in Canada if publicly. The neo-con and fundamentalist combo developed in the 60s to inject a form of morality (Old Testament style) into the moral argument. If you go farther back you have the 1930s tent revivalists and eugenicists that morphed into western Canadian Reform through two generations of Mannings. So while you are right that there is a continuing moral tone to good old Marx that went a little off here and there, there is also the rightist morality of purity from the Nazis at the totalitarian end to the neo-cons somewhere nearer the miggle of things.

Perhaps you're living in a different Canada than I, not remembering any neo-con or fundementalist incarnation of Canada in my lifetime, except perhaps in the rhetoric of the permamently marginal opposition.

However, I'm not referring to the moral tone of Marx or his "just-one-more-camp-it's-got-work-eventually" modern day followers; I'm referring to modern progressive left wing politics which is obsessed with physical and moral health -- banning cigarettes, junk food, sugar taxes, transfats, hatred for suburbia and suburbians, stopping the convenience of throwing out garbage without rooting through itens like a 13th century peasant, self-controlled transortation, the banning harmless cosmetic chemicals, and so forth.

You are living in another world obviously or at least not south-west Ontario or Alberta or other blue tie spots. List the intended bannings of the marching neo-con pampheteers. [There's one out my window just now.] Start with the little wishes of my rural overlords like judges. You can do it. I am sure you can see both sides. I know you can.

<blockquote>
List the intended bannings of the marching neo-con pampheteers
</blockquote>

Where did I say this, or even imply it? Let me restate slightly: lefties are obsessed with physical and moral health. As much as I didn't like the NDP in power in Ontario and would positively be sucking lemons for 5 years if they ever got in power federally, I'm not at all worried about being dragged out of my house for thought crime. I.e. back to our middle topic, I <i>don't</i> think there's any relationship between Nazi Germany, the USSR and Jack Layton. I <i>do</i> think that Jack would find himself quite at home with the way Jesuits thought in acted in the 1960s.

Compare and contrast to all the people in the states who were talking about moving to Canada (some my cousins, for example) if Bush won a second term.

Just so we are not going too far off, you have stated above that the left is more involved with moral argument and gave a list. I say the current state of the right in North America is more involved with the morality (and gace some history of that trend then started a list. Personally, I really could not care a hoot about cultural, health and fitness regulation compared to fiddling with fundamental political rights and personal autonomy in matters of important questions.<p>But maybe it is our personal upbringings. I do no know so do not care so much how the Jesuits acted in the 1960s. I did, however, have Annapolis Valley Baptist teachers by times during the early and mid-70s and trust they would be comfortable with the new rural overlords and their plans for us all.

The right parties have had a pretty consistent moral agenda: don't screw outside marriage or your gender, don't do drugs, and don't expect an entitlement to other's stuff because you're a failure or you're jealous. Excepting the last point, I don't particularly agree with that agenda. However, since only the middle point has every been criminalized in any sort of serious way, I'm prepared to put up with government making frowny faces about the other ones _if_ the option is you feeling society has an unlimited untitlement to control my interactions with other human beings and my things.

You are being far too kind to your own. Rightist parties also like to snoop on us all, allocate state resources to the few corporate welfare bums, regulate in favour of cost effective pollution and other outsourcing of expense.

You mean welfare bums, like car companies that employee tens of thousands of unionized employees. Or pollution like what comes out of the cars they drive, or water pollution like rots Hamilton's harbor (NDP/Liberal) or air pollution like Inco spews out in Sudbury (Liberal)? And watch that outsourcing talk; that sounds suspiciously like xenophobia!

I mean corporate welfare bums that do not make a move based on competition and demand until risk is removed by grants and excusable loans in the amount of at least the budgetted profits and retirement packages for principals.<p>But, aside from that, the interesting thing is placing your dillusions beside my dillusions to see if there is actually shared dillusion of any sort in which a workable policy on these sorts of things can be formulated.

It's amazing what people think corporations work like -- the number of people in corporations who get "comfy", i.e. extravagant" retirement packages (or packages of any sort) is vanishingly small. Compare and contrast to the government, where citing "private industry" as reference, where we constantly here about 5 year contracts that have to be bought out in completion, and having several friends who work in government, vacation allowances unheard of in industry, competitive or better wages in management positions, and pensions.

That is all totally off topic, I know.

Between your position and my position, I would consider these points to be fairly large spans to gap:

- recognition and respect property rights
- respect for freedom of association
- respect for autonomy of the individual, as I think you understand it

Note that I'm not saying "property rights should be in the constitution"; rather, simply the government should hestitant to act in situations where they think they would infringe upon PR because they believe that's the right think to do.

The middle point has to do with press-gang unionization, payment of union dues which go to clearly non-union activites (i.e. political work), or the ability to freely trade your property for services.

The latter point is about "if I have the autonomy in [X]" then I believe government should get out of the reeducation and cooersion business with regards to X.

It is not amazing what I think it is like as I am quite aware but your point is really that there is a difference between private buraucracies of the smaller struggling sort and governments. That is not so much the case anymore either if the number of contract positions in the public service is any measure. I think we are still dealing with belief on that point.<p>On property, I think that my lack of respect is only in light of an over-respect you may give it. In the big picture, I am not overly impressed with my own works or those of others so why would I be impressed with the material rewards. Plus I suffered from an undergrad with the sons and daughters of inheritence. Framing that sloth-makery into a constitutional principle is problematic. Yet it is quite correct to say that expropriation without compensation is utterly unfair. I am miggling about the importance of it all as something key to society. I have never paid dues so I am not able to speak from that angle but I have paid taxes, UIC deductions and I have paid NHL ticket prices so the idea of overpaying for something controlled by someone else beyond of my control is not something I worry about too much. It is inherent in the community, the trade off you were born into. I think we agree on the last point but maybe not always what "X" is. If you think autonomy is form of comprehensive personal statehood that requires folk to worry about what you think in making their collective decisions is a vanity of rare proportions.

I've always felt that the rich kids will take care of themselves and we'll get the last laughs: witness the Eatons, for example.

Well, even then "poor little rich kid" was what was said.

Not me. I said "ha ha ha take that you protestant bastards".

Hmmm, I hadn't though of that: protestants' protestants.