Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything. Part 2.

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http://www.mercola.com/2001/aug/15/perception2.htm

 

The Doors Of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything

 

Page 2 of 2 (Page 1, References)

Science For Hire

 

PR firms have become very sophisticated in the preparation of news releases.

They have learned how to attach the names of famous scientists to research that

those scientists have not even looked at. (Stauber, p 201)

 

This is a common occurrence. In this way the editors of newspapers and TV news

shows are often not even aware that an individual release is a total PR

fabrication. Or at least they have " deniability, " right?

 

Stauber tells the amazing story of how leaded gas came into the picture. In

1922, General Motors discovered that adding lead to gasoline gave cars more

horsepower.

 

When there was some concern about safety, GM paid the Bureau of Mines to do some

fake " testing " and publish spurious research that 'proved' that inhalation of

lead was harmless. Enter Charles Kettering.

 

Founder of the world famous Sloan-Kettering Memorial Institute for medical

research, Charles Kettering also happened to be an executive with General

Motors.

 

By some strange coincidence, we soon have the Sloan Kettering institute issuing

reports stating that lead occurs naturally in the body and that the body has a

way of eliminating low level exposure.

 

Through its association with The Industrial Hygiene Foundation and PR giant Hill

& Knowlton, Sloane Kettering opposed all anti-lead research for years. (Stauber

p 92). Without organized scientific opposition, for the next 60 years more and

more gasoline became leaded, until by the 1970s, 90% of our gasoline was leaded.

 

Finally it became too obvious to hide that lead was a major carcinogen, and

leaded gas was phased out in the late 1980s. But during those 60 years, it is

estimated that some 30 million tons of lead were released in vapor form onto

American streets and highways. 30 million tons.

 

That is PR, my friends.

 

Junk Science

 

In 1993 a guy named Peter Huber wrote a new book and coined a new term. The book

was Galileo's Revenge and the term was junk science. Huber's shallow thesis was

that real science supports technology, industry, and progress.

 

Anything else was suddenly junk science. Not surprisingly, Stauber explains how

Huber's book was supported by the industry-backed Manhattan Institute.

 

Huber's book was generally dismissed not only because it was so poorly written,

but because it failed to realize one fact: true scientific research begins with

no conclusions. Real scientists are seeking the truth because they do not yet

know what the truth is.

 

True scientific method goes like this:

 

1. Form a hypothesis

2. Make predictions for that hypothesis

3. Test the predictions

4. Reject or revise the hypothesis based on the research findings

 

Boston University scientist Dr. David Ozonoff explains that ideas in science are

themselves like " living organisms, that must be nourished, supported, and

cultivated with resources for making them grow and flourish. " (Stauber p 205)

 

Great ideas that don't get this financial support because the commercial angles

are not immediately obvious - these ideas wither and die.

 

Another way you can often distinguish real science from phony is that real

science points out flaws in its own research. Phony science pretends there were

no flaws.

 

The Real Junk Science

 

Contrast this with modern PR and its constant pretensions to sound science.

Corporate sponsored research, whether it's in the area of drugs, GM foods, or

chemistry begins with predetermined conclusions.

 

It is the job of the scientists then to prove that these conclusions are true,

because of the economic upside that proof will bring to the industries paying

for that research. This invidious approach to science has shifted the entire

focus of research in America during the past 50 years, as any true scientist is

likely to admit.

 

Stauber documents the increasing amount of corporate sponsorship of university

research. (206) This has nothing to do with the pursuit of knowledge. Scientists

lament that research has become just another commodity, something bought and

sold. (Crossen)

 

The Two Main Targets Of " Sound Science "

 

It is shocking when Stauber shows how the vast majority of corporate PR today

opposes any research that seeks to protect

 

public health

 

the environment

 

It's a funny thing that most of the time when we see the phrase " junk science, "

it is in a context of defending something that may threaten either the

environment or our health.

 

This makes sense when one realizes that money changes hands only by selling the

illusion of health and the illusion of environmental protection. True public

health and real preservation of the earth's environment have very low market

value.

 

Stauber thinks it ironic that industry's self-proclaimed debunkers of junk

science are usually non-scientists themselves. (255) Here again they can do this

because the issue is not science, but the creation of images.

 

The Language Of Attack

 

When PR firms attack legitimate environmental groups and alternative medicine

people, they again use special words which will carry an emotional punch:

 

outraged sound sciencejunk science sensible scaremongering responsiblephobia

hoaxalarmist hysteria

 

The next time you are reading a newspaper article about an environmental or

health issue, note how the author shows bias by using the above terms. This is

the result of very specialized training.

 

Another standard PR tactic is to use the rhetoric of the environmentalists

themselves to defend a dangerous and untested product that poses an actual

threat to the environment. This we see constantly in the PR smokescreen that

surrounds genetically modified foods.

 

They talk about how GM foods are necessary to grow more food and to end world

hunger, when the reality is that GM foods actually have lower yields per acre

than natural crops. (Stauber p 173)

 

The grand design sort of comes into focus once you realize that almost all GM

foods have been created by the sellers of herbicides and pesticides so that

those plants can withstand greater amounts of herbicides and pesticides. (The

Magic Bean)

 

Kill Your TV?

 

Hope this chapter has given you a hint to start reading newspaper and magazine

articles a little differently, and perhaps start watching TV news shows with a

slightly different attitude than you had before.

 

Always ask, what are they selling here, and who's selling it? And if you

actually follow up on Stauber & Rampton's book and check out some of the other

resources below, you might even glimpse the possibility of advancing your life

one quantum simply by ceasing to subject your brain to mass media.

 

That's right - no more newspapers, no more TV news, no more Time magazine or

Newsweek. You could actually do that. Just think what you could do with the

extra time alone.

 

Really feel like you need to " relax " or find out " what's going on in the world "

for a few hours every day? Think about the news of the past couple of years for

a minute.

 

Do you really suppose the major stories that have dominated headlines and TV

news have been " what is going on in the world? " Do you actually think there's

been nothing going on besides the contrived tech slump, the contrived power

shortages, the re-filtered accounts of foreign violence and disaster, and all

the other non-stories that the puppeteers dangle before us every day?

 

What about when they get a big one, like with OJ or Monica Lewinsky or the

Oklahoma city bombing? Do we really need to know all that detail, day after day?

Do we have any way of verifying all that detail, even if we wanted to? What is

the purpose of news?

 

To inform the public? Hardly. The sole purpose of news is to keep the public in

a state of fear and uncertainty so that they'll watch again tomorrow and be

subjected to the same advertising.

 

Oversimplification? Of course. That's the mark of mass media mastery -

simplicity. The invisible hand. Like Edward Bernays said, the people must be

controlled without them knowing it.

 

Consider this: what was really going on in the world all that time they were

distracting us with all that stupid vexatious daily smokescreen? Fear and

uncertainty -- that's what keeps people coming back for more.

 

If this seems like a radical outlook, let's take it one step further:

 

What would you lose from your life if you stopped watching TV and stopped

reading newspapers altogether?

 

Would your life really suffer any financial, moral, intellectual or academic

loss from such a decision?

 

Do you really need to have your family continually absorbing the illiterate,

amoral, phony, uncultivated, desperately brainless values of the people featured

in the average nightly TV program? Are these fake, programmed robots " normal " ?

 

Do you need to have your life values constantly spoon-fed to you?

 

Are those shows really amusing, or just a necessary distraction to keep you from

looking at reality, or trying to figure things out yourself by doing a little

independent reading?

 

Name one example of how your life is improved by watching TV news and reading

the evening paper.

 

What measurable gain is there for you?

 

Planet of the Apes?

 

There's no question that as a nation, we're getting dumber year by year. Look at

the presidents we've been choosing lately. Ever notice the blatant grammar

mistakes so ubiquitous in today's advertising and billboards?

 

Literacy is marginal in most American secondary schools. Three fourths of

California high school seniors can't read well enough to pass their exit exams.

(SJ Mercury 20 Jul 01)

 

If you think other parts of the country are smarter, try this one: hand any high

school senior a book by Dumas or Jane Austen, and ask them to open to any random

page and just read one paragraph out loud. Go ahead, do it. SAT scales are

arbitrarily shifted lower and lower to disguise how dumb kids are getting year

by year.

 

At least 10% have documented " learning disabilities, " which are reinforced and

rewarded by special treatment and special drugs. Ever hear of anyone failing a

grade any more?

 

Or observe the intellectual level of the average movie which these days may only

last one or two weeks in the theatres, especially if it has insufficient

explosions, chase scenes, silicone, fake martial arts, and cretinesque dialogue.

 

Radio? Consider the low mental qualifications of the falsely animated corporate

simians they hire as DJs -- they're only allowed to have 50 thoughts, which they

just repeat at random.

 

And at what point did popular music cease to require the study of any musical

instrument or theory whatsoever, not to mention lyric? Perhaps we just don't

understand this emerging art form, right? The Darwinism of MTV - apes descended

from man.

 

Ever notice how most articles in any of the glossy magazines sound like they

were all written by the same guy? And this guy just graduated from junior

college? And yet he has all the correct opinions on social issues, no original

ideas, and that shallow, smug, homogenized corporate omniscience, which enables

him to assure us that everything is going to be fine...

 

All this is great news for the PR industry - makes their job that much easier.

Not only are very few paying attention to the process of conditioning; fewer are

capable of understanding it even if somebody explained it to them.

 

Tea In the Cafeteria

 

Let's say you're in a crowded cafeteria, and you buy a cup of tea. And as you're

about to sit down you see your friend way across the room. So you put the tea

down and walk across the room and talk to your friend for a few minutes.

 

Now, coming back to your tea, are you just going to pick it up and drink it?

Remember, this is a crowded place and you've just left your tea unattended for

several minutes. You've given anybody in that room access to your tea.

 

Why should your mind be any different? Turning on the TV, or uncritically

absorbing mass publications every day - these activities allow access to our

minds by " just anyone " - anyone who has an agenda, anyone with the resources to

create a public image via popular media.

 

As we've seen above, just because we read something or see something on TV

doesn't mean it's true or worth knowing. So the idea here is, like the tea, the

mind is also worth guarding, worth limiting access to it.

 

This is the only life we get. Time is our total capital. Why waste it allowing

our potential, our personality, our values to be shaped, crafted, and limited

according to the whims of the mass panderers?

 

There are many important issues that are crucial to our physical, mental, and

spiritual well-being. If it's an issue where money is involved, objective data

won't be so easy to obtain. Remember, if everybody knows something, that image

has been bought and paid for.

 

Real knowledge takes a little effort, a little excavation down at least one

level below what " everybody knows. "

 

Visit the author's website at: www.thedoctorwithin.com.

 

References

 

 

 

DR. MERCOLA'S COMMENT:

 

As I said in February when I posted an earlier piece on Trust Us We're Experts:

 

One of the reasons I write this newsletter is to provide you, the reader, with

the truth so you can weed through much of the nonsense that the media throws at

you.

 

I know that it is difficult to do and that is one of the main reasons for the

newsletter. This book will help explain the details of how the media deceives

you through the manipulation of PR by the large corporations who do not have

your best interest at heart.

 

My goal is to change the entire system. The way that will be done is through the

Internet, which is the world's cheapest printing press. By passing this

newsletter on to as many of your friends and relatives as possible along with a

strong endorsement to , you will play a major role in helping to lift

the veil of deceit that these corporations try to hide the truth with.

 

We can change the traditional paradigm and in the process save hundreds of

thousands of people from premature death and disability.

 

 

 

Related Articles:

 

How the Media Deceives You About Health Issues

 

 

 

 

Gettingwell- / Vitamins, Herbs, Aminos, etc.

 

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