PrintJanuary 9, 2011
Clarice's Pieces: Be Scientific (Skeptical) about Scientific Research
David Suzuki said, "Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism." His observation is proven right every single day.I remember when I first learned that lesson at my mother's knee. It was November 1959, and the first major food scare I can remember was set off by a report by the secretary of HEW, who, just before that Thanksgiving, warned that cranberries were "contaminated" with a weed-killer called aminotriazole.Without paying much attention to the fine print of the reports about the chemical, consumers shunned cranberries, which remained heaped up at supermarkets even with drastic price cuts.I had come home from college and was horrified to see my mother unloading the grocery bags, which contained several packages of cranberries. I asked if she was unaware of the report. She said she was not, but the cranberries had been grown in the very same way for years, they were...(Read Full Article)
