Thursday, October 11, 2018

Post Truth, Newspeak and #EpidemiologicalCausality by Jordi Vallverdú in BJSTR

Abstract

During December 2017, arose a polemic about some news which showed as Trump administration has secretly banned some words for their use in the Centers for Disease Control and #Prevention official documents, the following ones: “diversity,” “fetus,” “transgender,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “science-based” and “evidence-based”. It is obvious that there are strong bonds between cultural and political agenda and scientific progress, as well as that no all researches must be automatically allowed without control. Trump is an example (but not the first one, just remind George W. Bush religious ideas that banned most of #stemcells research in the U.S.A., allowing the heading of this field to Sought Korea scientists [1], as he has already put in danger the future of several academic scientific fields [2-6]. If something has been demonstrated is that language occupies a fundamental space in Epidemiological debates: from causality to webs of causation, and, finally, to determinants [7-11]. Due to the social and complex nature of health determinants [12], it is very dangerous the political control over scientific terminology. This Orwellian scientific newspeak pushes epidemiological research to a #dangerousswamp in which only those ‘good’ concepts can be used, undermining the informational richness which allows the existence of a grounded #Epidemiology. The attack and unjustified control over scientific terms is a great mistake not only for political and democratic reasons (consider for example the recent electronic censorship war-as Julian Assange referred to- in Spain against Catalans right to decide peacefully about their future), but because is a direct attack to the heart of a ground and reliable scientific Epidemiology.




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