RE: If I were an Atheist
May 1, 2015 at 11:20 am
(This post was last modified: May 1, 2015 at 11:22 am by Hatshepsut.)
(May 1, 2015 at 11:03 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: You do realize the actual studies and data are entirely separate from the marketing and publicizing of that data, right?
Yah, and most of the time I don't have truck with modern methods for data collection and analysis. In fact, these have never been so good as they are now. Even so, various factors such as pressure from a study's financial sponsor can influence the results. The plaintiff's bar has alleged this in connection with the FDA approval studies for Vioxx and other drugs later pulled from the market.
I don't think the problem affects cosmology and evolution too much. These topics aren't matters of great political controversy and few organizations fight battles for ascendancy over them (Ken Ham's Kentucky sideshow aside).
Climate change is probably somewhere in the middle. H2O, CO2, and CH4 are all greenhouse gases and their concentrations have gone up since 1960. There's enough evidence to be concerned about, and attempt to plan for, possible adverse impacts. Yet I often see climate change presented as an apocalypse bound to destroy civilization and kill all the world's poor, when poor people are more resilient than Westerners, if not being hounded or shot at by armed groups and governments.