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This idiotic article from the groan is another example of the entirely political agenda behind the belated concerns with science noted in earlier posts, here and here. It is worth noting that this is a loony left broadsheet published in U.K., an embarrassment to thoughtful and sincere leftists, from a nation where science is totally subsumed by politics and has been so for a very long time.
Professor Kaare Norum, leader of the World Health Organisation... tells of his grave concern over American opposition to the WHO's blueprint to combat obesity. He accuses the US of making the health of millions of young Americans 'a hostage to fortune' because it has failed to take action over the fat epidemic as a result of its business interests, particularly the sugar lobby.A little history might help see the wisdom of successive US governments in ignoring WHO matronizing. The world is fat and getting fatter as a direct result of advice from governments backed by various "experts" working in health related industries which was not just wrong but totally contrary to good human health. See this post for a useful account. The diet guidelines drummed into the minds of decades of school children have no scientific basis at all though, as with the current crop of agitators, "leading scientists" took public positions in support.Since 1990, successive US governments have blocked WHO calls for action, claims Norum, professor of medicine at Oslo University.
'Obesity rates have risen so that now one in three Americans bears the burden of the very high health risks associated with this condition, with the poorest and most vulnerable worst affected,' he says. 'Obesity rates among American children have risen by 50 per cent.'
Governments have done a spectacularly bad job in attempts to regiment societies. They succeeded with the regimentation part but had nothing but bad advice which increased disease and death while degrading the quality of life for those not experiencing diagnosable ailments. A significant amount of the current levels of distrust of science and scientists results from those politicized scientists who allied themselves with political power in the past and continue to do so today.
The U.S. public is currently in full rebellion against government scientists and health guidelines that have been shown to be so very poor and resulted in a generation of health troubles. Their guidelines were contrary to cultural traditions, tastes, desires and tacit wisdom and, as we should expect, wrong.
With the decline of totalitarian government the world as a whole is emerging from the command and control trance that darkened the twentieth century and realizing that people should think for themselves, listen to their own judgements, heed the tacit wisdom encoded in cultural norms and celebrate diversity rather than mindless conformity.
There is useful science about human diet and nutrition which scientists should, and do, communicate in an even handed manner. Seldom do they have useful general advice that is not abstracted so severely that it descends to the all-cats-are-grey level. People are physically different from one another, especially in a country with such a diverse population drawn from every part of the world. They are also behaviorally different from one another. They are different ages and genders. The combination of physical and behavioral differences further expand diversity. Scientists are publishing results that confirm this diversity regularly. Even their neurochemistry is diverse. Guidelines are not useful. Information is useful to assist people in developing their own personal dietary behaviors. Nothing is more personal than diet.
The groan is even idiotic in their political attack masquerading as science based health concern.
The President insists fighting fat is a matter for the individual, not the state. But today The Observer reveals how he and fellow senators have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding from 'Big Sugar'. One of his main fundraisers is sugar baron Jose 'Pepe' Fanjul, head of Florida Crystals, who has raised at least $100,000 for November's presidential re-election campaign.The small amounts of money are irrelevant. Jose Fanjul is a leader of the US Cuban community with great influence over the votes of that community and so has a king maker role for local and state politicians and can swing the state as a whole in national elections. It's not about money, it's about the demands of a voting constituency, a force no politician can ignore nor that any democratic politician should even want to ignore. This is a self ruled country.
Each instance of political attack on the current US government that attempts to claim scientific high ground is as empty as earlier attempts to claim moral or ethical high ground. The sad fact is that it is politicians such as professor Kaare Norum that continue the decades old politicization of science. They are squealing not because science is being politicized but because it is being de-politicized. The pseudo-science these politicians peddle to provide a fig-leaf of concealment for their political agenda is increasingly excluded from US government. Real science provides information used to reach justifiable conclusions but seldom is so clear that it can determine policy or provide guidelines. It is too narrow in scope and too ignorant of the larger issues to perform such a role.
Sensible and proper behavior for scientists isn't to seek the power to compel citizens or persuade them. Their proper role is to inform, to teach what they have discovered. Each person can use this information as part of their decision making processes. They will necessarily reach different conclusions. Some will reach bad conclusions and suffer, but we won't end up with the current problems of massive error created by political power.
We need to be very clear about the gross errors of the past century, about the ignorance and arrogance of a naive culture that so profoundly misunderstood natural systems in general and human systems in particular that they thought they could take control and optimize societies and even larger systems. They failed spectacularly and destructively. They didn't just make mistakes, get a few things wrong that we can now correct, their whole world view was mistaken. They don't know what to do or how to do it. They can't know. The lesson we learned is that their whole idea was bunk, that we are laughably ignorant and totally inadequate to the tasks they attempted. Their pathetic steam age ideologies couldn't use information age technologies to implement their childish desires. It's time to grow up a bit. It's time to name and shame the reactionaries who attempt to cling to the failed habits of the past.