Down The Sewer Pipe – Politically Speaking

When making public policy it is always a wise thing to pay attention to bad science.  Bad science is science in which the out come of a test is predetermined, and then the science is made to reflect the predetermination.   

I had a teacher in Junior High, a log time a go, who reminded us all to find the food supply.  Animals eat things be they vegetable or meat which they follow from place to place. At some point what they eat will be absent from their area or territory so they move to follow the food.

The Spotted Owl controversy has never been about the Spotted Owl, it remains about not logging the woods.  When in the grand scheme of things it appeared that there was no way to shut down logging, on the vast amount of public lands, the environmental groups came up with a protection plan for an animal. The Spotted Owl lives on the West Coast with their habitat covering most of the areas deemed to be – Public Lands.  Plans were launched, science created, governments bludgeoned into submission, and thousands lost their jobs.  Absolutely no one traced the food base that the Spotted Owl eats.

At this juncture communities across the West are wondering why they cannot log the woods on the Public Lands because there is not a Spotted Owl to be found.  Where o where have they gone?  Not an unreasonable question but an easily answered one, if one does good science and follows the food. 

The Owl is still around feeding its young food that it hunts but since the food supply became exhausted, at the previous territory, they moved to where the food supply actually is.

This is just a single example to point out a simple fact.  When others come to you with scientific studies, or quoting them, request the raw data.  Any reasonable person can interpret the raw data; even a non-rocket scientist can understand raw data.  Ask the very important question about the preconceptions that drove the data.

Then make a determination based on the data, not the study, to avoid setting aside large tracks of land for a purpose that in five years is obsolete.  Every politician and bureaucrat, local and national that voted for the Spotted Owl preservation now looks like a blundering idiot.  The reason is that the legislation and polices are based on bad science, always a good thing to avoid Going Down The Sewer Pipe.

Sherman