Opinion
Consensus in a post-truth world Paul Chase looks at “group think” surrounding research into alcohol and its supposed harms
I
have been studying alcohol science and the various claims made about alcohol and its effects on individuals, families and society for almost 15 years. I’ve written two books, one lengthy critique of the revised low-risk drinking guidelines, and more than 1,200 articles on alcohol and society issues since 2005. When I reflect on the welter of claims and counterclaims about alcoholic drinks and the industry that produces and sells them, I am struck by how difficult it is to separate science from politics and truth from opinion. This modern trend to present everything as a “matter of opinion” and deny there’s such a thing as “truth” isn’t restricted to the controversy surrounding alcohol use. We see this tendency in respect of almost every controversial issue that bubbles to the surface of public consciousness – climate change, Brexit, trans-rights. The claim “science is on our side” seems to have replaced “God is on our side” as the means of adducing authority for the most tendentious of viewpoints. Anyone who has studied the history of knowledge knows scientists, researchers and especially apostles of pseudo-science epidemiology aren’t immune to “group think” and the irrational instincts of the herd. This is especially true in relation to alcohol science. The predominant
ethos of those researching and pronouncing on alcohol use is puritanism – the belief pleasure-seeking is bad for you and will result in you or others paying the price sooner or later. What should the public and those in our industry make of the constant litany of research about alcohol and its supposed harms? We can’t all study alcohol science let alone untangle the various claims made by epidemiologists about the links between alcohol and various diseases – here the use of the term “associated with” is often deliberately conflated with “caused by” when in fact they don’t mean the same. How best then to sort the scientific wheat from the pseudo-scientific chaff? Here are some suggestions about what should raise the suspicions of the intelligent sceptic in relation to claims made about drinking alcohol and its harms.
Conflation not separation When a variety of things get bundled together it enables dubious claims to ride on the back of more credible ones. In most scientific controversies there’s more than one claim being disputed. For example, claiming heavy drinking causes liver disease, which is true, but bundling that together with a risible definition of what constitutes “heavy drinking” and linking that to how even moderate drinking can increase your risk factors for various other diseases, such as cancer, where the claim of a causal link is much more dubious. Actually, we are talking about four different things here – heavy drinking and liver disease; the definition of heavy drinking; the definition of moderate drinking; and finally the link between that and cancer. The evidence to substantiate each claim will be different too. By bundling together one credible claim with three dubious ones, activist scientists aim to establish a narrative to ▲
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