In article ,
paghat wrote:


Monsanto has been caught out lying so many times even in courts of law,
there's just no question but that they are never a source of truth.
Examples on the record: When Monsanto lied to the people of Sturgeon
Missouri about the "safety" of chemical spills, they ended up losing the
court case & paying over $16 million dollars. What did they lie about?
Everything. A deadly chemical gets spilled, they sent in their "experts"
(including Frank Dost) to conduct "tests" and "studies" so that they could
"prove" the chemical spill couldn't possibly hurt anyone, & then they
published as "science" fraudulant studies, & hired spin doctors to
interpret the false science in simpler terms for a population they clearly
regarded as gullible hicks.



As opposed, of course, to the hired guns put on by the plaintiffs.

You know that your scientific case is lost when you resort
to quoting torts as your basis for "truth." The bottom line
is that class action torts are not a test for truth in any
sense of the word. Junk science is much more often introduced
by plaintiffs than defendants in torts, and the courts
are incapable of telling the difference.

In federal courts, the admissibility of "scientific testimony"
rests on the whim of the judge. While the judges are supposed
to use certain criteria (called Daubert criteria for federal
cases), most judges are largely illiterate when it comes those
criteria. One recent study showed, for instance, that only 6%
of judges understood the concept of "falsifiability," only 4%
understood what "error rate" meant, and only 71% knew
what "peer review" meant. (Gatowski, et al. "Asking the
gatekeepers: A national survey of judges on judging expert
evidence in a Post-Daubert World." Law and Human Behavior,
Vol 25, 433-458, 2001). As I have noted, what gets in as
"scientific testimony" has little to do with science (Oliver,
WR, "Truth and Beauty in Forensic Medicine." ACM SIGGRAPH
Special Session "Truth Before Beauty: Guiding Principles for
Scientific and Medical Visualization." 2003).

When it comes to scientific arguments, arguing that
something is "understated" by X% because of a *tort
finding* is ludicrous. It's like malpractice suits in
medicine and the actual presence of negligent care -- there
is no relation. Most malpractice suits are made in the
absense of negligent care (e.g. most suits are baseless,
regardless of the finding), and most people who receive
negligent care do not sue. Put a sick kid on the stand
and somebody will be putting out money -- regardless of
the merits of the case, and regardless of whether it's
a malpractice suit or suit against a corporation.

And, as far as the *science* goes, Monsanto is not lying
about RoundUp. The studies paghat dismisses are not Monsanto
studies, and they are published in peer-reviewed journals.


billo