Boffins, the Media and Scaremongering.

Further to tya's thread on global warming/climate change. I said I was sceptical with regards to some of the figures, and felt that it was an excuse for the government to bring in a raft of stealth taxes. It got me thinking as to just how often we've seen scientists publish data quickly followed by mass hysteria.

I don't know how many of these apply to Australian or Asian forummers, but most in Britain will be aware of the following:-

1. We saw it with AIDS - boffins and statisticians predicted that millions would become infected and we'd die in the hundreds of thousands. Result - didn't happen in the developed world, although I do recognise the disease has ravaged some parts of Africa.

2. We saw it with Salmonella in eggs & poultry - boffins again predicted vast numbers of under-5s and pensioners were at risk of serious illness and that hospitals wouldn't have the beds to cope. Result - large reduction in sales of eggs & poultry with resulting damage to industry. Predicted epidemic didn't happen.

3. We saw it with Listeria in milk & dairy products. same predictions and same result, only the damage trashed our dairy industry as people avoided milk & associated foodstuffs. Again, both our infants and the old folks came through relatively unscathed.

4. We saw it in BSE/ vCJD. Like AIDS, the boffins extrapolated figures to the Nth degree and the media jumped on the bandwagon ........ by now, about one in three of us should have brains like wet porridge. Result - decimation of our beef industry which has barely recovered to this day. The fact is that vCJD has killed maybe 200 odd people in the UK, and that BSE a couple of hundred thousand cattle - although almost 4,500,000 were culled out in an attempt to eradicate it.

5. We saw it with contraceptive pills - boffins discovered that some of the latest pills carried double the risk of some side effects. Result - doctors surgeries were overwhelmed with women convinced they were developing breast cancer. The government and media made a big thing of "twice the risk" rather than stressing that they were still safe, and that the risk was (for sake of argument as I don't have the actual figures) 1 in 125,000 where older pills were 1 in 250,000.

6. Last year we saw it with bird flu - again hospitals would run short of beds, and that we'd be keeling over left right and centre. Result - do I need answer ?

7. Now it's swine flu. Earlier this summer, it was reported that - in the worst case scenario - some hospital wards would become no more than "dying rooms" as the NHS couldn't possibly cope. What have we seen? Deaths in the dozens rather than hundreds. What will we see, IMHO ? Between now and April - a few dozen more deaths from swine flu (many of which will be found to have unrelated health problems), and a couple of thousand from normal flu, which we've had every winter for many years.

Its the same with global warming & climate change. Nobody with any sense dismisses out of hand that we are damaging the planet to some degree, as technology advances. A thousand acres of rainforest which took 500 tears to mature can be cleared in a couple of months by industrial loggers, to use one example. I simply don't buy the doomsday scenario.

Exaggeration, spin, bullshit and bollox, every single time. They're like the boy who cried wolf .... ordinary people have seen it all too often before, and are becoming immune to the scaremongering. It's almost impossible to take most of the pronouncements seriously, so many people just don't bother. They know they're more likely to be killed in a car crash going to work than by anything scientists predict.

I'm sure there are more examples, but I can't think of them offhand. One thing I'm sure of though - the train of events will be just the same. Discovery - exaggeration - panic - prediction proved wrong - wonder at what all the fuss was about.

Absolutely nailed it Growls.
Comprehensively put.

However, when it comes to scepticism and excuses for Government's to fire up hysteria and have the taxpayer fork out yet more unnecessary subs .... may I also add ...

(9) We saw it with WMD in Iraq.

The cruel irony was that, in this instance, the boffins/scientists denied any existance of the WMD's ... yet, 180 dead men and a few £billion later, the charade continues!
No, this is not a party political broadcast, merely a statement of fact.

Using your summary :

"Discovery" - exaggeration - panic - prediction proved wrong - wonder at what all the fuss was about.

Don't get me going on the Grinning Liar, mate.

Modern Satellites can read a car number plate from 50 miles above earth. Its beyond credibility to think America hasn't had a few sat over Iraq, and they'd have known exactly what was being built, and where.

They talk about weapons being buried in the desert to avoid detection. If that were true, the convoys would have been tracked to within a yard, and said weapons found 5 years since.

" Saddam has WMD which he could activate and use against British interests within 45 minutes" - or words to that effect - was a downright lie and everyone knows it. That was his pretext for sending troops to die, and for that I'd be happy to see him clapped in irons and stood in the dock defnding a charge of waging an illegal war.

clapped in irons and stood in the dock defnding a charge of waging an illegal war

And we all know that won't happen!

What's the difference between Tony Blair and Slobodon Miloshevich ?

Not a lot ...
Both condemned people to die using blatant falsehoods.
Both were 'legalised' criminals.
Both headed respective governments.

Except .......
One is a free-to-roam multi-millionaire whilst the other faces a noose!
The irony was that they confronted each other 14 years ago!
Ain't life strange, eh!

**Okay, soap-box put away, lest PeteyC climbs in arms flaying**

Merlin wrote:

clapped in irons and stood in the dock defnding a charge of waging an illegal war

And we all know that won't happen!

What's the difference between Tony Blair and Slobodon Miloshevich ?

Not a lot ...
Both condemned people to die using blatant falsehoods.
Both were 'legalised' criminals.
Both headed respective governments.

Except .......
One is a free-to-roam multi-millionaire whilst the other faces a noose!
The irony was that they confronted each other 14 years ago!
Ain't life strange, eh!

**Okay, soap-box put away, lest PeteyC climbs in arms flaying**

Oh come off it. People can dislike Blair, and call him wrong, but he's not a genocidal dictator. If you want to compare him to Milosevic, I can only conclude you need to read more about Milosevic.

180 dead men? No, I think the death toll's much much higher than that.

doremi wrote:180 dead men? No, I think the death toll's much much higher than that.

He means British casualties.

Even so, when talking about the number of overall deaths, you can play counter-factual history suggesting how many people would have died had nothing happened. It has a tendency to reduce history to a beancounters record.

The point is Shoey, that had we not poked our noses in, any deaths would have been the responsibility of Saddam Hussein. and only Saddam. He was doing us no harm whatsoever. GW Bush was wrong to wage war under false pretences, and Blair was no more than his lap-dog doing his masters bidding with our soldiers lives and bodies.

To anyone who suggests that we invaded to secure oil supplies, I respond that we could have done that by continuing to pay market price to him, as we were doing right up to the invasion.

To anyone suggesting that the invasion was justified anyway on moral grounds due to Saddam's treatment of his people, 2 questions .....

1. Who appointed us World Policeman, and when?

2. Accepting the "moral" argument, why aren't we even yet storming through Zimbabwe and putting Mugabe on trial?

There's a stronger case for invading Zimbabwe than there's ever been for the Iraq adventure.

Growler wrote:We saw it in BSE/ vCJD. Like AIDS, the boffins extrapolated figures to the Nth degree and the media jumped on the bandwagon ........ by now, about one in three of us should have brains like wet porridge.

You might be onto something, Growler.

Growler wrote:The point is Shoey, that had we not poked our noses in, any deaths would have been the responsibility of Saddam Hussein. and only Saddam. He was doing us no harm whatsoever. GW Bush was wrong to wage war under false pretences, and Blair was no more than his lap-dog doing his masters bidding with our soldiers lives and bodies.

To anyone who suggests that we invaded to secure oil supplies, I respond that we could have done that by continuing to pay market price to him, as we were doing right up to the invasion.

To anyone suggesting that the invasion was justified anyway on moral grounds due to Saddam's treatment of his people, 2 questions .....

1. Who appointed us World Policeman, and when?

2. Accepting the "moral" argument, why aren't we even yet storming through Zimbabwe and putting Mugabe on trial?

There's a stronger case for invading Zimbabwe than there's ever been for the Iraq adventure.

I don't disagree that there's a case to answer, or that you have perfectly valid points. To have opposed it is a perfectly legitimate position. i would say you're entirely wrong about Blair being a lapdog though - rightly or wrongly, Blair believed. He wasn't doing someone's bidding.

As for Zimbabwe, that's a simple matter of logistics I'm afraid. We couldn't get there - no coastline for a navy, and no neighbouring states willing to host landings and an army - indeed they expressed total opposition, so any force would have had to fight their way through Mozambique or South Africa - not I'm sure everyone would agree, an ideal means of doing it. Getting there was simply impossible.

Shoeshine wrote:

Growler wrote:The point is Shoey, that had we not poked our noses in, any deaths would have been the responsibility of Saddam Hussein. and only Saddam. He was doing us no harm whatsoever. GW Bush was wrong to wage war under false pretences, and Blair was no more than his lap-dog doing his masters bidding with our soldiers lives and bodies.

To anyone who suggests that we invaded to secure oil supplies, I respond that we could have done that by continuing to pay market price to him, as we were doing right up to the invasion.

To anyone suggesting that the invasion was justified anyway on moral grounds due to Saddam's treatment of his people, 2 questions .....

1. Who appointed us World Policeman, and when?

2. Accepting the "moral" argument, why aren't we even yet storming through Zimbabwe and putting Mugabe on trial?

There's a stronger case for invading Zimbabwe than there's ever been for the Iraq adventure.

I don't disagree that there's a case to answer, or that you have perfectly valid points. To have opposed it is a perfectly legitimate position. i would say you're entirely wrong about Blair being a lapdog though - rightly or wrongly, Blair believed. He wasn't doing someone's bidding.

As for Zimbabwe, that's a simple matter of logistics I'm afraid. We couldn't get there - no coastline for a navy, and no neighbouring states willing to host landings and an army - indeed they expressed total opposition, so any force would have had to fight their way through Mozambique or South Africa - not I'm sure everyone would agree, an ideal means of doing it. Getting there was simply impossible.

Similar to tackling Somalian pirates, very tough thing to do.

Shoeshine wrote:

doremi wrote:180 dead men? No, I think the death toll's much much higher than that.

He means British casualties.

Even so, when talking about the number of overall deaths, you can play counter-factual history suggesting how many people would have died had nothing happened. It has a tendency to reduce history to a beancounters record.

I know he means british casualties. I don't.

Would people have died had nothing happened? Probably. As many? Open to speculation, but I doubt it. Is Iraq a better place now than before? No. Are Iraqis happy that the invasion happened? No. Was the invasion justified in any way at all? Hell no. Was Bush (and the others who joined in with him) a big lying piece of shit? Yes.

I don't understand a lot, but I just can't fathom how you can liberate a people by dropping bombs on them and killing them by the thousands.

Oh I agree entirely regarding Zimbabwe - I was rebutting the moral argument for invading Iraq.

As for Blair believing in the WMD, he's just about the only person in the UK who did. Even as I type, the news bulletin is qouting "our man in Washington" at the time giving evidence to the Iraq enquiry. He maintains both UK and US were desperate to find the "smoking gun" evidence as to posession of WMD. As he said, the situation changed from Saddam having to prove his innocence, to us having to prove his guilt.

We failed in the most spectacular fashion to do so. Revisit my first reply to Merlin as to why. We haven't found evidence because they never existed. It was proved beyond reasonable doubt that Blair & Co frigged the available intelligence to suit his agenda. Not sure whether I'm right? I think Professor Kelly would have thought so, had the government not hounded the poor man to death.

Whilst Blair may not have been a genocidal dictator in the mould of Milosovic, he's got the blood of innocents on his hands to the same extent.

Growler wrote:
As for Blair believing in the WMD, he's just about the only person in the UK who did.

I believe that Saddam had some nerve gas.

I don't believe he had a delivery system for them.

I believe that the nerve gas canisters are out in the sand somewhere, and might turn up next year or in 100 years, given a big enough storm.

Valid viewpoints Rob, which I wouldn't dismiss out of hand.

You'd agree though, I'm sure, that believing isn't proof - and certainly not a validation for invasion of a country that is not posing a direct threat to either our people, security or even interests

I genuinely haven't got a clue about British Foreign policy and why Blair took us into Iraq.... perhaps it was unfinished business.

I refuse to believe Blair just being a lapdog though, the Americans have been screwing us over since WW2.

Shoeshine wrote:

Oh come off it. People can dislike Blair, and call him wrong, but he's not a genocidal dictator. If you want to compare him to Milosevic, I can only conclude you need to read more about Milosevic.

You missed the point.

No one's saying Blair is/was genocidal ... a dictator perhaps... his one act of duping the electorate with lies in order to throw British troops into a country where Britain had no business whatsoever (other than to bolster the six-gun toting Dubya Bush's vengeance against sadaam) is convincing enough.

Blair will escape justice from his lies and misleading of the populace and the actions which ultimately lead to the 180 Brit deaths - but I'm sure he really doesn't give a f**k.

You will note, I hope, that one of the issues of discussion on this thread is scaremongering.

Growler wrote:You'd agree though, I'm sure, that believing isn't proof

Agreed. I'm going on the word of a retired USMC Colonel - a man whom I trust, who is absolutely convinced that his men found some by aerial reconnaissance.

Which begs the question - where is it now?

and certainly not a validation for invasion of a country that is not posing a direct threat to either our people, security or even interests

On balance, I would have allowed him to stay in power. He was a total bastard, but also a bastion against al-Qaida, and an enemy of the Iranians.

i would say you're entirely wrong about Blair being a lapdog though - rightly or wrongly, Blair believed. He wasn't doing someone's bidding.

It's only Day 2 - and It has already emerged in the Chilcot Inquiry that Blair had been told several times by the heads of the secret services, through Sir William Ehrman the director of security at the FO - that the alleged WMD's had long since been dismantled and therefore were of no threat whatsoever to the UK.

Can it get any plainer than that?!

Despite this information, the coalition invasion was given the go- ahead!

If you still honestly believe that Blair acted without any influence from Washington keep tuned into the Chilcot Enquiry, Shoey ... the fan's on high speed and the excretia (if Brown allows relevant documents into the Enquiry) is in a bucket in readiness!

Is that gareth chilcot leading the inquiry? mad farking nutter that he is . . .

doremi wrote:

Shoeshine wrote:

doremi wrote:180 dead men? No, I think the death toll's much much higher than that.

He means British casualties.

Even so, when talking about the number of overall deaths, you can play counter-factual history suggesting how many people would have died had nothing happened. It has a tendency to reduce history to a beancounters record.

I know he means british casualties. I don't.

Would people have died had nothing happened? Probably. As many? Open to speculation, but I doubt it. Is Iraq a better place now than before? No. Are Iraqis happy that the invasion happened? No. Was the invasion justified in any way at all? Hell no. Was Bush (and the others who joined in with him) a big lying piece of shit? Yes.

I don't understand a lot, but I just can't fathom how you can liberate a people by dropping bombs on them and killing them by the thousands.

I agree wholeheartedly doris. I think you've summed it up pretty nicely. What rankles with me is that I was right on it early, that the WMD was bollocks, that the war was going to be an illegal one but on C4 let me tell you there wasn't many Brits on my side. They'll probably jump up now saying the opposite. My point being that now the war has come to nothing, now that we've lost an amount of troops they suddenly feel they have carte blanche to act all precious about the war. Most people admonishing it now are doing it from a selfish, lop-sided perspective. Ooh, I couldn't sound more self-righteous if I tried.

Brass Monkey wrote:on C4 let me tell you there wasn't many Brits on my side.

There aren't any here on FB either.

Irwin, I was on about my stance on the war, as you well know, not to say you aren't right in the context you have put it. You're a bit of a paradox really aren't you? The archetype of pseudo-intellectualism and quasi-maturity mixed in with the ostentatiously simple.

Am I imagininining things, or is that Monkehh on way past his bedtime?

tac wrote:Is that gareth chilcot leading the inquiry? mad farking nutter that he is . . .

Arrr duwwnt yew be robbishin arrrr Wesscun'reee ledgins loik thaaaat, Juhnny Furriner!