John Ray and Amritas link to my post (The Freeholders). John says:
David's view that Leftists advocate what they do because they do not foresee the ill effects of their policies suggests to me that he has been conned, however. Conservatives point out all the follies way in advance but the Left just will not listen. They don't WANT to know about the consequences of their actions. They just want to feel good by sounding big and kind at the time.
I should make it clear that I’m not talking about pathological cases like Michael Moore, but for the rest I think that this gets into the nature of knowledge – I’ve encountered it many times. I frequently run into people who claim things that I think are absurd. Often they have “evidence” to support their claims – and challenge me to check it out. I don’t, because I don’t have time, and I have so much evidence to support what I think is a contradictory claim that I dismiss it out of hand. But sometimes it turns out that the common wisdom is wrong, and the claims that we dismiss out of hand are right. For example:
For most of the 20th century, peptic ulcers were rarely cured. The reigning theory said that ulcers resulted from psychological stress and dietary factors…In 1981, Robin Warren, M.D., a pathologist at the Royal Perth Hospital in Western Australia, discovered numerous bacteria living in tissue taken during a stomach biopsy. Over time, he began to notice a pattern in stomach biopsies…
Later that year, Barry Marshall, M.D., joined Dr. Warren in his research, and together they verified the link between the spiral bacterium—later termed Helicobacter pylori—and the presence of peptic ulcers…
Most doctors were not convinced by the findings, and often, Drs. Warren and Marshall met with extreme skepticism and even hostility…
So, in July 1984, Dr. Marshall decided to swallow a large number of the bacteria himself to test his ideas about H. pylori…
For five days, he noticed nothing. Then, he began to experience nausea and vomiting. Although these symptoms resolved on their own after 14 days, an endoscopy on the eighth day revealed that he had developed severe gastritis. Still, Dr. Marshall’s presentations at gastroenterology meetings did little to convince doctors who proceeded to treat ulcer patients with new acid-reducing drugs…
After more evidence accumulated, the National Institutes of Health recommended in 1994 that people with peptic ulcer and H. pylori infection should receive antibiotics as a first-line therapy…
Ten years after compelling evidence was demonstrated! Most people simply dismissed the evidence because it contradicted their pre-conceived notions!
Amritas applies my thesis to Hawaii, with some interesting results. I’m afraid though, that I might have made it sound like the US and Israel are two peas in a pod – they are not, I’d like to talk about it more but I’m afraid I’ll have to push it off to a future post.
Posted by David Boxenhorn at July 2, 2004 05:59 PM