The Continuing Collapse of Scientific Authority [updated]

Alan Caruba has a nice short summary of recent scientific scares that saturated the media but turned out in the end to be much less than the scientific/journalistic establishment made them out to be. They include global warming, the vaccine/autism linkage, the alar scare, the allegation that saccharine causes cancer, and the anti-BPA campaign.

He writes:

Aside from the fact that these claims always begin with a dubious “scientific” study and then escalate as other “scientists” climb on the funding bandwagon, the other element is always the role that the mainstream media plays in keeping the fraud alive until the sheer weight of evidence makes it impossible to do so.

Ultimately, this destroys the trust we normally accord to legitimate scientists, exhausting our ability and willingness to embrace the science that has prolonged and protected the lives of millions. 

Indeed! Read it here.