Via Prawfsblawgs, I discover that the paper authored by several "progressive" law professors criticizing Cass Sunstein contains the following extraordinary statement, defending the precautionary principle: "It is difficult to think of a single public health or environmental threat that with the benefit of additional research has not proven even more dangerous over time."
Now that's a fun game! Let's see, off the top of my head, here are some things that turned out to be a lot less threatening than many, including at least some "experts," thought:
Mercury in vaccines; Bendectin; Silicone breast implants (and medical grade silicone in general); PCBs; Asbestos in buildings; Flouride in water; Birth control pills; Occasional marijuana use; High fat diets; Exposure to low level nuclear radiation; New carpet fumes; "Toxic waste dumps"/Superfund sites; Moderate overweightedness; Moderate alcohol consumption; Spermicides; Metal fillings (for teeth); Cancer from physical trauma; Masturbation; Predictions in the 1970s of worldwide food shortages; "Overpopulation"; Global Warming (the predictions of the level of man-made warming have decreased dramatically, even among strong advocates of the theory); Miscarriage from video display monitors; Cancer from electromagnetic field radiation; Radon; Dioxin; Pesticides commonly used on fruits and vegetables causing cancer to "eaters";
Feel free to add more, below.
What they really mean is that policy makers should always respond with the most extreme and coercive regulatory measures available to them. This has nothing to do with caution, and everything to do with arrogance combined with hysteria. It really ought to be called the "chicken little principle," as it directs that government always should adopt the most dire view, and take the most drastic steps, even when based on the thinnest information and most conclusory analysis. This is the opposite of a real cautionary, if not "precautionary," principle, and it bespeaks a deep ignorance of the ways in which, throughout history, people -- including especially people in government -- have so often done great, if unintended, harm by getting things exactly wrong.
Also, Arturito, the black death turned out to be pretty bad.
AFAIK the point of Silent Spring was that spraying DDT indiscriminately over agricultural lands was a bad idea for a number of reasons. For example: "Spray as little as you possibly can" rather than "Spray to the limit of your capacity."
This is because overuse of DDT causes resistance to DDT in mosquitos. This makes it less useful in preventing malaria.
DDT is currently used to prevent the spread of malaria in many parts of the world. There is no total "ban" on DDT.
AIDS from touching the homosexuals
Pluto not being a planet (OK, but the whole saga of Pluto's planetness (planeticity?) shows that even in a field which has minimal impact on humanity politics can change the "science")
And you can't invite her to the party ...
credit default swaps
mortgage backed securities
thalidomide
sulfate (emissions from power plants)
red #2 food dye
It was approved by European "experts" and generally purchased in Europe for use in the US.
Absinthe
Pornography
AR-15s
Mysogenation
Cell Phone Cameras that don't produce an audible "Click"
Alright, who wants to break it to these Profs that they got old, and thus conservative, before they died? Did they also suggest that we get the hell off their lawn?
Indeed, for asbestos that remains in situ. It's only when it is disturbed so that particles get airborne that it becomes hazardous.
Actually, as time goes on the Birchers are starting to look quite prescient. There were a small number of people opposed to that when it was started, but they were shouted down via industry propaganda. Now, it turns out that the studies favoring it were weak, and new studies show problems with its use. Here are some links in random order:
lewrockwell.com/miller/miller17.html
guardian.co.uk/science/2008/feb/09/medicalresearch.health
garynull.com/documents/Dental/Fluoride/fluoride2.htm
fluoridealert.org
Or, a current area that "experts"/politicians are paid to ignore/downplay.
Also, MTBE.
Coal dust.
Mismanaged levee districts.
Sassafras.
Just bein' ornery. I take your point about the precautionary principal, Professor.
It's hard to see how anyone who'd call themselves a "progressive" would ever buy into this "principle".
Going out in cold whether with wet hair.
Eating chocolate causes zits.
Ulcers caused by stress.
Painkillers for childbirth bad (ugh)
Sitting close to a TV
Margarine is healthier than butter.
Don't go out in the sun without being slathered with sunscreen.
No swimming until 1 hour after eating.
Freon.
The ridiculous amount of water we are told to drink.
The food pyramid
Going blind from reading in dim light.
Its amazing how pernicious our tort system is, isn't it?
Letting lawyers advertise on radio and tv would ruin our legal system!
hmmmmmm, nevermind.
Warnings against putting your tongue in a moving oscillating fan. Oh, wait, that warning did pan-out. I'm sowwrey.
The question is not whether the item is dangerous but how congruent the actual danger is with the prior preditions.
concealed carry
Malthusian population disasters (via Erlich)
getting drunk and jumping balcony to balcony in Fort Lauderdaleand so on until you reinvent cost-benefit analysis.
Margarine
Gun Control
Public Education
Step 1: Acknowledge that it has lots of formulations.
Step 2: Take the most extreme formulation.
(It's unimportant whether anyone has actually advocated following it)
Step 3: Show that putting that extreme formulation into action would lead to bad decisions.
Step 4: Conclude that the precautionary principle is dangerous or paralysing.
From the same paper.
Our Response. We recognize that climate change has the potential to be the single most
destructive act that humankind has ever visited upon itself and upon the planet on which
humankind depends. We are convinced, as are the vast majority of the world’s scientists, that
the individuals and the environment that will suffer irreparable harm as a result of even modest
climate change effects have an extraordinary value that cannot be reduced to dollars and cents.
It simply is a matter of odds: the more sexual encouters you have in your life, the greater your chances to get an STD, which are proven to increase the likelyhood of prostatic/cervical cancer, among other diseases.
Thalidomide was never approved by the US FDA for any indication/use. Dr. Frances Kelsey at FDA held up approval because of her concerns about peripheral neuropathy. She did the right thing, thank goodness, but for the wrong reason. She received a medal. As I recall, the attractiveness of thalidomide was that you could not kill yourself with it by overdosing.
I believe it was approved later for the treatment of Leprosy.
I can give you an easy refutation of the 'Precautionary Principle' - opportunity cost. Keeping a necessary drug off the market 'just in case' dooms the people whose lives would have been saved or made better by that drug. Keeping a pesticide or fertilizer off the market 'just in case' it's dangerous raises the cost of vegetables and fruits, which decreases their consumption, and which can then increase cancer rates and obesity.
For example, the U.S. kept the first Beta Blockers off the market in the U.S. for several years after they were widely available in Europe. Beta Blockers are very effective in preventing death from secondary heart attacks for people who have already had a heart attack. After they were approved, it was determined that Beta Blockers save about 10,000 lives per year in the U.S. That means the 3.5 years they were kept off the market when they were available elsewhere caused 35,000 Americans to die needlessly. That dwarfs the human suffering avoided by keeping Thalidomide off the market.
DDT is another example. After DDT began to be heavily regulated, the number of malaria deaths worldwide skyrocketed from almost zero to millions per year.
The ban on CFC's made refrigeration more expensive. This wasn't too much of a burden for us in the west, but the number of food poisonings in the 3rd world increased, and perhaps also the incidence rates of stomach cancer due to improperly stored food.
The bottom line is that all human actions have costs, and they have benefits. The proper course of action is to do proper cost-benefit analysis and accept risk when outweighed by benefit. Simplistic rules like the Precautionary Principle are dangerous and counterproductive, of value only to the lazy, the stupid, and those with a political axe to grind.
Misogyny + miscegenation, no doubt.
Actually, that's kind of genius!
It is snarky to comment on picayune things like misspellings in blog comments, I know, but maybe I'm redeemed a bit because I truly think that the coinage is a bit of genius.
Concealed carry in [name of state] will turn fender-benders into firefights. (About two dozen predictions between the mid 1980s and now.)
Airline pilots that carry will shoot passengers.
If the “assault rifle” ban expires bodies will be stacked like cordwood. (This one is current again.)
Fifty caliber rifles are going to shoot down airliners.
Concealed carry in national parks will lead to poaching.
Off-duty law enforcement officers carrying will cost billions in liability.
Irony alert: HR 45 is the first gun control bill of the 111th Congress. This "gun registration/gun-owner licensing is the solution" bill is named after Blair Holt, a teenager murdered with a banned firearm in Chicago, the most heavily gun-controlled major city in the U.S., which is in Illinois, one of the few U.S. states that already requires firearm owner licensing.
At least the number will be easy to remember, since I carry a .45.
It's like some evil genius has gone and turned my own rules against me! Luckily there's people like Dan H willing to fight the good fight...
Can you back this statement up? It's news to me.
(I don't mean to start a global warming flamewar--I mean to speak only to the accuracy of the proposition that predictions about the level of likely man-made warming have decreased over time.)
And a Corvair 500, which I'm glad I don't still have.
However, still being ornery, there are innumerable things that were sold as safe that turned out not to be, for one reason or another. My favorite example would be Jarts.
Considered so by whom? I don't doubt that conventional wisdom agrees with your position, but both of these claims are under question. For a contrary opinion on the merits of a high fat diet, I would suggest this blog. For sunscreen try here.
Voting rights for women and minorities
Hydrogen monoxide ;)
Argument by reductio ad absurdum, eh? Okay, try this: "People who support the Precautionary Principle would be OK with forcing every pregnant woman to have an abortion, just in case her child grows up to be a murderer!"
Does that advance the debate? If not, how about keeping the discussion on the plane of the reasonable?
Then it would have been bad for you.
At least in experimental programs, it's part of the chemo regimen for mutliple myeloma. Don't know if it's approved for such outside those programs.
Funnily enough, that's the basic argument most critics of the principle use. They just don't use that particular example, because it'd force them to confront the fact that they're attacking a straw men.
I think we really need to stick to peer reviewed articles if we're going to talk about anything resembling scientific consensus. You can't just claim that high fat diets are healthy, contrary to previous findings, because there is a random veterinarian who states it in a blog. There will always be dissenters from scientific consensus, and that's a good thing, but we shouldn't confuse dissenting with debunking.
Those who tried Galileo had "scientific concensus" on their side.
Another puzzle for cost-benefit analysis is how people value gains less than losses, so the results of any cost-benefit analysis depend on how the question is framed. If you ask New Yorkers how much they would need to be paid to get rid of Central Park, it will be a lot more than they would be willing to pay to create it if it wasn't already there.
This doesn't "refute" cost-benefit analysis of course. But out of the two of us, the only person who has said you can quickly settle this debate with a single example is you.
They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
See? A much tougher proposition to crack, eh?
For white asbestos, yes - far less dangerous.
Well I suppose we are going offtopic a bit - but if you look at the front page of that blog there are 20+ links to peer-reviewed articles (notice the links that look like: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/...). Were you expecting a single, apocalyptic paper that demolished the conventional wisdom? That's not how science works either (in general). Also, since you like 'peer reviewed articles' and mention previous findings - would you care to cite the peer reviewed papers that you think lend support to the idea that a high fat diet is bad? The problem here is that you are sort of *assuming* that the CW is based on a vast edifice of peer review and experiment, when it's actually pretty damn flimsy (based largely on feeding rats large amounts of corn oil).
I would also take exception to Bob Hawkins' comment about the real examples cited above not counting because "they were shown to be less dangerous by mere observation of the facts" and that "nothing is ever found to be less dangerous by further highly funded research". Research is "mere observation of the facts". Sometimes scientists manipulate the system that they are studying and sometimes they just observe/measure it, but it is all science.
Having sex with mushrooms?
Now, as usually put, the "Precautionary Principle" is not that caution is a good idea but that before something is unleashed for out-of-the lab use it must be shown to cause no harm. Which is why it is distinguished by having a capitalized name, rather than just being "care should be taken" as has been wise since the advent of the single-cell organism. Under the "Principle" aspirin would never make it even to doctors, never mind the gas station convenience store.
I get your point, but the authors attacking Sunstein use this "principle" in quite the opposite way: that the regulatory state should shoot first and ask questions later whenever faced with the slightest indication that something - a new drug, a traditional food or customary practice of the sheep, er, citizens -- might pose some statistical harm to someone. It's essentially a calculus that's rigged always in favor of state intervention. But under the "precautionary principle" the state should never be cautious about the unintended consequences of its actions, or the collateral harms it imposes on its way to relieving the perceived harms it's taking "precautions" against. The regulatory medicine will be applied at full dose -- as a "precaution" -- without any regard for the patient's wishes, discomfort, or side effects. That the word "caution" appears in this "principle" is Orwellian.
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