Nothing drives academics crazier than when the right-wing ignores,
undermines or misuses scientific evidence to achieve ideological public
policy goals that they favor, whether the issue in question is global
warming or abortion. But as a new paper
by tobacco control proponents Ronald Bayer and Kathleen E. Bachynski of
Columbia’s School of Public Health, in the respected journal
Health Affairs shows,
the left can play games with science too. And when it does, it needs to
be called out for doing so since shaping science to fit moral goals,
even laudable ones, weaken the trust and credibility of the most
respected source we have for facts in public policy debates—science.
Bayer and Bachynski examined bans on smoking in public. These bans
began took off in the late 1970s and now include more than 840 parks and
150 beaches across the United States alone, according to the American
Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. California has bans in 155 parks and on
46 beaches; Minnesota, 118 parks and 25 beaches and New Jersey, 83 parks
and 18 beaches. France, Australia and New Zealand have enacted bans as
well.
In getting these bans enacted three justifications were used: Smoking
on beaches and in parks posed a health hazard to nonsmokers, especially
children; cigarette butts were toxic to humans and animals and
constituted an unacceptable form of litter; and public smoking by adults
provided a dangerous model that threatened the future well-being of
children and adolescents.
Galaxy cigarettes online.
The problem is that the scientific evidence supporting each of these
arguments is exceedingly weak. Consider the comments of some of the
toughest anti-smoking groups in the nation about the best rationale for
bans–the hazards of smoking in public to others. An official of the
American Lung Association, concerned that efforts to ban smoking on
beaches and in parks might deflect attention from more effective public
health interventions, told Bayer and Bachynski in an interview, “I don’t
think we should be making claims that are not supported by the data. If
you try to tie it [banning smoking on beaches and in parks] to a health
outcome, that’s where you get in trouble.” A representative of the
Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids was even more direct in another
interview: “There is not a lot of science around outdoor smoking bans….
There is some science, but you have to be very close to the smoke in an
outdoor setting…. The last thing we want to do is put our credibility on
the line with regard to the science.”
There is nothing wrong with making an argument that smoking is a
filthy, costly, lethal habit that ought to be discouraged. There is
everything wrong with saying that smoking cannot be tolerated in parks,
beaches, and other public places because science shows it is dangerous
to others if the available science does not convincingly show
that. By hiding their motives in banning smoking in public places behind
statements like “there is evidence,” the anti-smoking crowd advances
its short-term goals at the cost of a lost in trust for others.
Politicians and policy makers have shown often enough they will do
just fine without science in making important policy decisions. Many
already use it when it serves their cause and otherwise mock it and its
practitioners. Anything that erodes trust must therefore be quickly
identified and corrected. This is especially important when you
consider that people don’t think of physicists, doctors, sociologists,
geologists and biologists as different, but rather part of a single
community: science. The erosion of trust in one field affects all
members of the that community.
Science is nearly all we have to bridge the ideological divides that
are paralyzing our politics. No one should be allowed to get away with
grounding policy on weak, bad or fringe science, even when their overall
aim is worth achieving.
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