I've been recieving a number of emails recently, pointing to the website junkscience.com as a good source of information.

Needless to say, none of them have been considered as suitable material for group

consumption. There is a sound saying "Consider the source". When it comes to right-wing writings of almost all kinds, this is particularly useful advice. The website "junkscience.com" is a good example: it has been thoroughly discreditited time and time again. This article by the reliable, well-researched site sourcewatch.com, spills the beans on this site quite nicely. I concur heartily, having read several articles on this particular website.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=JunkScience.com

JunkScience.com

From SourceWatch

JunkScience.com is a website maintained by Steven J. Milloy, an

adjunct scholar the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise

Institute - right wing think tanks with long histories of denying

environmental problems at the behest of the corporations which fund

them. Milloy is also a columnist for FoxNews.com.

Milloy defines "junk science" as "bad science used by lawsuit-happy

trial lawyers, the 'food police,' environmental Chicken Littles,

power-drunk regulators, and unethical-to-dishonest scientists to fuel

specious lawsuits, wacky social and political agendas, and the quest

for personal fame and fortune." He regularly attacks environmentalists

and scientists who support environmentalism, claiming that dioxin,

pesticides in foods, environmental lead, asbestos, secondhand tobacco

smoke and global warming are all "scares" and "scams."

Milloy's attacks are often notable for their vicious tone, which

appears calculated to lower rather than elevate scientific discourse.

That tone is noticeable, for example, in his extended attack on Our

Stolen Future, the book about endocrine-disrupting chemicals by Theo

Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski and Peter Myers. Milloy's on-line parody,

titled "Our Swollen Future," includes a cartoon depiction of Colborn

hauling a wheelbarrow of money to the bank 1 (her implied motive for

writing the book), and refers to Dianne Dumanoski as "Dianne

Dumb-as-an-oxski." 2

Prior to launching the JunkScience.com, Milloy worked for Jim Tozzi's

Multinational Business Services, the Philip Morris tobacco company's

primary lobbyist in Washington with respect to the issue of secondhand

cigarette smoke. He subsequently went to work for The Advancement of

Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), a Philip Morris front group created

by the PR firm of APCO Worldwide. 3

Although Milloy frequently represent himself as an expert on

scientific matters, he is not a scientist himself. He holds a

bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences, a law degree and a master's

degree in biostatistics. He has never published original research in

peer-reviewed scientific journals. Moreover, he has made scientific

claims himself that have no basis in actual research. Following the

terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, for example, he claimed that

greater use of asbestos insulation in the World Trade Towers would

have delayed their collapse "by up to four hours." In reality, there

is no scientific basis for claiming that asbestos would have delayed

their collapse by even a second, let alone four hours.4.

edit

Contact Information

Steven J. Milloy

c/o The Cato Institute

1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.

Washington D.C. 20001-5403

Phone (202) 842-0200

Fax (202) 842-3490

mailto: milloy@cais.com

Cheers,

Ross Mayhew.

> Please folks stop buying the hype!

> Check out a little sane thinking: www.junkscience.com

>

> --- In ClimateConcern@yahoogroups.com, baselic@... wrote:

> >

> > I am sorry I don't believe anyone would flee the coast in

> pandemic

> > porportions. New Orleans is a case and point, while many people

> moved away from the

> > area after the Katrina disaster, many stayed and new people

> > will come with government and state incentive plans. As long as

> there is

> > beauty in the coasts, people will be drawn to it. Even with rising

> levels of the

> > oceans. I am sorry, I won't buy into pandemic......

> >

Cheers,

Ross mayhew.

posted to ClimateConcern