The Trouble with Making Scientific Hypotheses into National Laws

From David Boaz on FEE.org:

As I wrote a few months ago in response to a Washington Post story on the possibility that decades of government warnings about whole milk may have been in error,

It’s understandable that some scientific studies turn out to be wrong. Science is a process of trial and error, hypothesis and testing. Some studies are bad, some turn out to have missed complicating factors, some just point in the wrong direction. I have no criticism of scientists’ efforts to find evidence about good nutrition and to report what they (think they) have learned.

My concern is that we not use government coercion to tip the scales either in research or in actual bans and mandates and Official Science. Let scientists conduct research, let other scientists examine it, let journalists report it, let doctors give us advice. But let’s keep nutrition – and much else – in the realm of persuasion, not force. First, because it’s wrong to use force against peaceful people, and second, because we might be wrong. ...

Today’s scientific hypotheses may be wrong. Better, then, not to make them law. [read more]

Mr. Boaz is exactly right. Science is never complete and even sometimes can be wrong because scientists are not perfect that’s why laws shouldn’t be based on science alone. In the 70’s scientists talked about global cooling not warming. Science is always influx.