Donald, Donald. I've always experienced you as the bastion of
correctness in the area of the philosophy and ethics of science. Yet
here you are defending that schlock TV show.
First of all my complaint wasn't that the show wasn't "scientific"
whatever that is. I didn't want a scientific lecture, I wanted a
balanced, repeat balanced presentation.
Next, you defend the show by saying that it was OK because Stossel
wasn't as bad as Rather. Isn't that like saying that Stalin wasn't as
bad as Hitler because he didn't kill as many people? And what about the
wonderful editing as the camera pans in on the face of the very
uncomfortable government employee and lingers there?
As to the limit set for salt, many of the RDA's are conservative. But so
it the amount of radiation that the public may be exposed to. And our
RDA's and limit differ greatly from other countries. So we are
conservative in our salt intake. As a person with bordorline high blood
pressure (maybe brought on by too many mail lists) I have benefited from
a restricted salt diet.
I happened to have watched the Court TV broadcasts on the defective
breast implants. There was much good, solid medical evidence to support
the claims of the plaintiffs. Did ABC show even one of them. No, they
trotted out a few of the extreme cases. It's a wonder they didn't bring
out a few alien abductees to prove their point.
The courts are beginning to take a hard stand on scientific evidence and
are beginning to reject what is called junk science. But this show was
so far one sided. And really, you defend it by saying it was better than
"the usual fare in TV wasteland..." (see my comment above about Hitler
and Stalin. Can you really defend this piece of pseudoscientific
clap-trap (the ABC TV show) because "it's what the public wants?"