“Democracy is an abuse of statistics.”
Jorge Luis Borges
Following on from the last post (Evidence? What evidence?) on the lack of depth and rigour in much of what passes for scientific analysis these days, we veer back again into the dirty tricks department.
This from George Monbiot writing in The Guardian, Tuesday May 14:
The Fake Persuaders
Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the internet
Persuasion works best when it’s invisible. The most effective marketing worms its way into our consciousness, leaving intact the perception that we have reached our opinions and made our choices independently. As old as humankind itself, over the past few years this approach has been refined, with the help of the internet, into a technique called “viral marketing”. Last month, the viruses appear to have murdered their host. One of the world’s foremost scientific journals was persuaded to do something it had never done before, and retract a paper it had published.
What is even more interesting is the extent to which this form of ‘marketing’ seeems to have acquired tacit acceptance even amongst those who are holding it up to us as a shining example of corporate immorality. The thing is, we already have a perfectly good term for ‘viral marketing’. It’s called fraud, and there’s pretty clear and long-standing legislation available in most countries for dealing with it.
Further reading on Monsanto’s style of doing business:
The Ecologist
