Social Engineering Vs Science

Today we find in the news the alarming statistic that 600,000 people died this year from side smoke, not from actual smoking but just from being exposed to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). But virtually no one questions this “fact” because it is based on a “scientific” study. But isn’t the number itself a little suspicious? Couldn’t it have been say 601,000 or maybe 559,000? The even number tells you that this is an estimate and not a real number but as an estimate its accuracy is entirely dependent on the methodology as well as the qualifications of those making the estimate. Who was studied is another key component governing the accuracy of this finding. In the original A Priori study people in primitive conditions using indoor charcoal cooking stoves were included along with survivors of the Hiroshima atomic blast. In addition as an A Priori study all findings counter to the initial assumption were discarded even though many of those studies showed no correlation between ETS and cancer.

In spite of there not being any empirical connection between ETS and cancer the crusade against tobacco and smokers in general continues and is growing in intensity. In fact there is no known cause of cancer. It could be genetic, it could be environmental, it could be viral, but no one knows. What is known is that some people smoke their entire lives and never develop lung cancer while some people die of lung cancer never having smoked tobacco in their lives, but it is these people who are deemed to have died of tobacco related causes. What no one seems to notice or question is that virtually everyone on the planet has been exposed at some time in their lives to “side smoke” be it from tobacco or camp fires. The logical conclusion is that 99.9% of all deaths are smoke related, but that is just statistics or logic -- not science. And that’s the point because the author of the EPA’s report on ETS admitted that there is no science behind the report and that the entire program against ETS is – in his words – a social program.

The fact is that with the death of critical thinking the social engineers have run amok. These social engineers have killed off any semblance of personal responsibility. Teachers can no longer fail students or hold them back for fear of damaging their “self esteem”. This policy has given us high school graduates who cannot read or are functionally illiterate. We have people in college who cannot spell properly or even write a simple declarative sentence with no grammatical errors. But the social engineers haven’t stopped with these simple policy programs, they have actually degraded science to the point that there is no science behind many of these programs.

Perhaps the most egregious example of social engineering masquerading as science is the epidemic of obesity. We are total that obesity is epidemic in the United States and that this is a disease that must be addressed by the government. Social Engineers are very big on government coercion in order to enforce their ideas on how the rest of us should live. Of course the operative word here is “disease” because if a person is over weight it isn’t his fault because he has a disease. How one contacts this disease isn’t noted but it appears to be related to fast food, sugary cereals, tasty high fat foods, and other foods not approved by the social engineers. The solution to this epidemic obesity is to force schools to serve approved healthy foods which the kids won’t eat, to force purveyors of fast food to either go out of business to change their menus so they are only serving approved healthy foods which no one orders. It's much like forcing the auto manufacturers to build electic cars than no one buys. Since these socially engineered programs seemed to have failed no one seems to be calling for more research into how the obesity disease is caught, instead the call is for government intervention. Where is the science behind this epidemic? There isn’t any, but the finger isn’t being pointed at the individual as being responsible for his situation due to his poor decisions – it is pointed at the sellers and advertisers.

Another equally outrageous abuse of science is the disease of alcoholism. People actually die of alcoholism so something must be done to curb this disease. A person doesn’t become a drunkard through irresponsible behavior – he is simply the victim of a disease. Science can demonstrate that consuming alcohol is bad for you and abuse of alcohol can have fatal consequences. But rather than hold the alcoholic personally responsible for his situation the social engineers have decided that the alcoholic suffers from the disease of alcoholism. Unlike tobacco the social engineers aren’t calling for an outright ban on alcohol, after all they do enjoy their wine so banning alcohol isn’t considered. Even though there is a direct and known link between alcohol and several fatal health issues the outrage and call for action focuses on tobacco. The hypocrisy of the social engineers is palpable.

The social engineers are running out of control and it just isn’t about how they are using or attempting to use government to enforce their opinions on how we should live, they are corrupting science. While true empirical science remains it seems to be shrinking while the data miners using statistics are creating the foundation for these social engineers and they are growing in size and power. And all of this is possible because critical thinking seems to be lacking and no one ever seems to question the statistics used by the social engineers.