I grew up trusting the authorities. I was taught to respect my elders. I was told that I could always confide in a policeman if I needed help. We took ABC, CBS and NBC news anchors at their word. I trusted that pastors and professors and business owners and scientists and our political leaders had our best interests in mind.
It took a third of my life to disabuse me of my naïveté and I still catch myself uncritically accepting what I’m told by “the authorities.”
I bring this up because I remember hearing about the “snail darter,” a small, endangered fish that shut down Tennessee’s Tellico Dam in the 1970s, when I was a kid.
In the annals of environmental law, no creature is more famous than the Snail Darter, the endangered species that shut down completion of the Tellico Dam in the 1970s. It required congressional legislation to allow the dam to be finished after years in the courts where judges maintained that the species had to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. According to the New York Times., the species may turn out to be as mythical as a unicorn.
The controversy began in 1967 when the Tennessee Valley Authority started constructing a dam on the Little Tennessee River, roughly 20 miles outside Knoxville. Environmentalists and locals opposed the project and, in 1973, a zoologist at the University of Tennessee named David Etnier went snorkeling with his students and found a possible solution. He spotted a small fish and called it a “snail darter” because of its movements and eating habits. He reportedly announced “Here’s a little fish that might save your farm.”
Dr. Zygmunt Plater, an environmental law professor at Boston College, represented the snail darter before the Supreme Court. He did an excellent job and, in 1978, the Supreme Court ruled that “the Endangered Species Act prohibits impoundment of the Little Tennessee River by the Tellico Dam” to protect the endangered snail darters.
That was then.
The Times now quotes Thomas Near, the curator of ichthyology at the Yale Peabody Museum who leads a fish biology lab at the university, that “there is, technically, no snail darter.” Worse yet, it was actually just another member of the eastern population of Percina uranidea, or stargazing darters, which is not considered endangered.
Near and his colleagues have published the results in Current Biology.
In other words, years of litigation and millions of dollars were spent on what was a false claim, and the courts accepted the claims hook, line, and sinker.
Got that? Some eco-nuts found a fish and labeled it “endangered” for purely political purposes. In other words, they lied. All these years later, we find out that it was a faked crisis.
Sort of like the January 6 “insurrection” narrative.
A newly released systematic review and meta-analysis of past studies found a link between fluoride levels and IQ in children.
A comprehensive federal analysis of scores of previous studies, published this week in JAMA Pediatrics, has added to those concerns. It found a significant inverse relationship between exposure levels and cognitive function in children.
Higher fluoride exposures were linked to lower I.Q. scores, concluded researchers working for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
None of the studies included in the analysis were conducted in the United States, where recommended fluoridation levels in drinking water are very low. At those amounts, evidence was too limited to draw definitive conclusions.
Observational studies cannot prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Yet in countries with much higher levels of fluoridation, the analysis also found evidence of what scientists call a dose-response relationship, with I.Q. scores falling in lock step with increasing fluoride exposure…
For every one part per million increase in fluoride in urinary samples, which reflect total exposures from water and other sources, I.Q. points in children decreased by 1.63, the analysis found.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is a vocal opponent of fluoride in our drinking water and is considered outside the mainstream on this (and many other) health-related issue. But who is “mainstream” and what makes them “mainstream”? Well, if you’re considered an authority, and you agree with the generally accepted consensus, you’re “mainstream.”
Fluoride is one of those things where I’ve trusted that experts have our best interests in mind and would never recommend something that would harm the people.
Would they?
Of course they would! Covid-19 vaccinations, anyone?
So, there are two examples of the government getting it wrong (for sure in the case of the “Snail Darter” and now, more credibly, perhaps in the case of fluoride).
But, then again, why should I trust the new “experts”?
Our expert class has lied to us so often about matters so important that they no longer have my trust. I don’t believe a word that Democrats say, as I explained here. I sure as heck don’t trust the mainstream media. I don’t trust my physician because I know he’s incentivized to get me on medications. I don’t trust my mechanic because he tries to upsell me on things I know nothing about (do I really need the air filter changed right now?). I don’t trust the public schools because they’ve become progressive indoctrination centers filled with grifters (apologies to those few good teachers who make it a labor of love).
It takes a lot of effort to remain skeptical, to always be on guard.
Micah 7:2-3 expresses my disappointment.
The faithful have been swept from the land;
not one upright person remains.
Everyone lies in wait to shed blood;
they hunt each other with nets.
Both hands are skilled in doing evil;
the ruler demands gifts,
the judge accepts bribes,
the powerful dictate what they desire—
they all conspire together.
The only one you can trust is God.
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. Deuteronomy 7:9
Have a great weekend.
With the horrific wildfires in Southern California and the incompetence of the local and state politicians, there is greater distrust in our authorities. I pray they resign. I also pray CA will wake up from their wokeness and far left ideology and elect qualified competent leadership, not just those with a “D” after their name.