Better Science, Please

There's nothing wrong with cholesterol in your diet.  After four decades of admonitions to the contrary, federal authorities are reportedly about to withdraw recommended limitations on cholesterol in the diet.  Lovers of eggs, shrimp and shrimp omelettes can rejoice. 

But, if dietary cholesterol isn't bad for you, why were we badgered for decades about eating more than two egg yolks a year?  The answer is bad science.  Researchers weren't careful enough to separate the consequences of high cholesterol in the blood (which can be a real medical issue) from the consequences of a lot of cholesterol in food (which is not proven to be a risk factor). 

This isn't the only instance in recent years of bad science.  Three decades ago, it was often claimed (although not by federal authorities) that high doses of antioxidant supplements would be beneficial to health.  Now, we know that some antioxidants, like Vitamin A, can increase cancer risks if you take large doses of supplements. It's nice that the truth finally emerged, but what about the people who might have increased their cancer risks through mistaken reliance on this advice?  How do you explain to a man dying of prostate cancer that he shouldn't have taken Vitamin A supplements even though various supposedly knowledgeable medical researchers said that Vitamin A in large doses was a good thing?

Then there were the lobotomies.  Some decades ago, there were physicians who believed that a crude and imprecise surgical procedure that involved pushing a surgical instrument into the brain and making various cuts was an appropriate way to treat mental illness.  If this sounds horrendous, well, it was.  There were often some reductions of the symptoms of mental illness, but many patients were left with intellectual and personality deficits and some had to be institutionalized.  Lobotomies produced change, but it was debatable in many cases whether they made the patient truly better off.  Lobotomies haven't been done in 40 years and today are generally regarded as abhorrent.  Yet, the 1949 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to a doctor for helping to develop lobotomies. 

And, before World War II, there were many scientists who seriously claimed that science could prove that some peoples were superior or inferior to other peoples.  These claims contributed to the ethnic and religious cleansing of millions, a scale that would seem beyond contemplation in any civilized nation--except that it wasn't.

The vaccination deniers have it wrong.  Vaccines are a good thing and kids should be vaccinated.  The climate change deniers are being pressed hard by the recent and ongoing snowmageddon in New England and the record cold now sweeping the Southeast and Midwest.  But scientists--and those that evaluate their work--need to do better.  If you do a little channel surfing on cable TV, you might find people who would prosecute teachers for teaching evolution.  The dietary cholesterol goofup involves much more than what you should have for breakfast or an hors d'oeuvre.  It undermines belief in science, which is one of the foundations of modern society.  Science is the reason we have the comfortable lives and wondrous technological conveniences we now enjoy.  We don't want to go back to a world without electricity where people are prosecuted for contending that the Earth is round.  Ignorance is an everpresent threat, even in the most techologically advanced nations.  If science loses its credibility, it will be replaced by far worse alternatives.  Scientists should be careful, cautious, and above all, accurate.  Pride goeth before the fall.  The incautious scientist can do more harm than good.