Flowers and Bees and … Global Warming?!
Reader kai shared this interesting story: Why Flowers have Lost their Scent (making it more difficult for bees to find them), and points out that perhaps the most interesting bit of the story is the deluge of irate comments denying global warming. Global warming denialism is of course nothing new, but it’s interesting that the denialists feel compelled to attack even a story that doesn’t even mention climate change.
People are accusing the story of being a sloppy bit of - well, either science, or science journalism, or both. They seem entirely incapable of separating the original study from the dumbed-down media version. Someone said that the stupid scientists should’ve moved away from their ivory towers universities and instead gone to the countryside to do the study, as apparently in the countryside there’s no pollution at all. Someone else snorted derisively about the scientists magical ability to sort out pollution from car exhausts from all the other kinds of pollution (planes, factories, what have you) - as if it cannot possibly have crossed the minds of the scientists to find out exactly what these different pollutants actually are and how much they contribute to average pollution.
In short, many commenters display an absolutely baffling lack of respect for these working scientists, seemingly assuming they’re paid off by liberal politicians who want to make people feel guilty about driving cars. When all the scientists have really done, as far as I can tell, is figure out that scent molecules from flowers are easily degraded by pollution. They claim there is “no separation between science and politics”, which is clearly a case of projection, as they themselves are unable to look past their denialist agenda to consider the actual science behind the story.
Pollution in various forms is affecting the world around us. One study isn’t going to tell us exactly to what extent. But to discount the effect of pollutants on flower scents entirely just because you can smell the roses (the people who said this must have missed that the flowers haven’t stopped producing scents, the scent just doesn’t reach as far as it used to - you’ll still be able to feel it if you’re standing in the damn rose garden!) … I don’t know whether to blame this on scientific illiteracy or just plain stupidity.
flowers, bees, science journalism, pollution, global warming
I vote stupidity. *nod*
Comment by Arokka — April 28, 2008 @ 23:26