Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacobolus | Hacker News Reader

Food pyramid:

> The first chart suggested to the USDA by nutritional experts in 1992 featured fruits and vegetables as the biggest group, not breads. This chart was overturned at the hand of special interests in the grain, meat, and dairy industries, all of which are heavily subsidized by the USDA.

Calling this the recommendation of the “scientific community” is ridiculous.

View on HN

Yes, I'm well aware of the history of the food pyramid. It was in my science books in school. It was taught and talked about in the public sphere as if every expert on the planet agreed that the grain based food pyramid was undisputed among the scientific community. If that example is too far away for you, how about WMDs in Iraq. Do you remember how "every expert" said they existed and how if you were skeptical you were a national heretic?

Every party-affiliated "expert". IIRC the intelligence community didn't actually present the case itself. Just people like Colin Powell going up and lying to Congress.

You're missing my point in the same way the person arguing that the food pyramid wasn't valid science is missing the point. The food pyramid, Iraq WMDs, peak oil, and climate change all look exactly the same to the average citizen. If you're not a climate scientist yourself and you believe you can tell the difference, I'm skeptical of that. There is no category of argument you can make about climate change that was not similarly made for the food pyramid, WMDs, peak oil, etc. during their heydays. The way climate change is presented to the public is exactly the same way those previous scams were presented to the public.

FWIW, I am not a climate change denier.

Edited: removed something that unintentionally sounded like an insult.

Public opinion about most of these topics seems to me to be much more driven by well-organized well-funded propaganda campaigns than anything to do with public support for science per se.

The problem is that everyone believes they are somewhat uniquely capable of telling the difference, but statistically that simply isn't true.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com