Operator’s Manual: Issue Obfuscation
The acknowledgment of a disagreement or dispute of facts need not result in failure for one’s interests so long as the core issue remains obfuscated. Information consumers are rarely equipped to resolve controversy without external guidance.
Detractors may have physical evidence and supporting theories, however, no evidence is irrefutable wherein doubt can be cast. Principle logical fallacies (to include argumentum ad hominem) retain a great deal of emotional sway when executed within the pretense of fact-finding and ostensibly scientific pursuit.
Tactic: Preserve the status quo with diversion from proof of veracity. Confuse the issue with noise/chatter and opinion. Present fact as a matter of opinion. Assign ultimate judgment to information consumers.
Counter-tactic: Insist upon authoritative findings. Direct attention to attempts at obfuscation and the event of logical fallacy. Present the issue’s resolution as a matter of immediate concern to affected information consumers and assign ultimate judgment to the scientific method over punditry.
Case in point: Carcinogenic effects of residual pesticides in food supply.
Man-on-the-street defendant of pesticide use: “I think it’s taking chemicals off the market which, if they are used properly, are not a problem. It’s a little bit like in our kitchen – if we use too much salt, or ate too much salt, it would either do us a lot of harm or actually kill us. These chemicals have a hazard, but if they are properly used under a risk basis, and there are proper withdrawal periods, then we can grow our crops.”
Detractor: “It’s difficult to prove that one pesticide is causing you to die in 20 years’ time from cancer because you’re not only eating one pesticide. You’re eating a lot of different pesticides. You have a combination of pesticides. On average, there are 50 different pesticides in a bunch of grapes.”
Editorial (sides with defendant): With both sides accusing the other of overstating the dangers there is still no agreement on the balance between total consumer protection – and acceptable risk.
- Balance elusive in EU pesticide debate
by Dominic Hughes, BBC News
The title of the piece echoes the tactic – confuse the issue, present a conundrum instead of a clear-cut case.
Do pesticides in the food supply harm everyone? Perhaps, though it is most likely that the harm will be distributed disproportionately (we are, after all, genetically-diverse). If the harm is distributed disproportionately and adequate scientific discovery is withheld or cannot be undertaken, debate of the issue will continue (and farmers will continue spraying their crops so long as the debate remains muddled).
The answer to the question of whether pesticides may cause mutation in some individuals should be as simple as exposing human cell cultures to trace amounts of pesticides regularly for several months to observe a change in cell composition or function – there is hardly any real need for debate – though, as evinced by tobacco companies as recently as a few decades ago, the debate will rage on so long as real scientific inquiry can be suppressed and misrepresented.
