By Steve Browne
Columnist

This year began badly for the reputation of science.
Bad news from the global warming front. First came the scandal of the hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, which revealed systematic manipulation of data and attempts to silence critics of the global warming hypothesis.
Now research by computer expert E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo revealed the National Climatic Data Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has been cherry-picking data to support the claim of man-caused global warming.
From the 1960s to 1980s, the data center used measurements from about 6,000 stations worldwide for calculating global temperatures. In the 1990s, the number of stations dropped by almost 75 percent to about 1,500. Strangely enough, the stations chosen as a representative sample always seemed to be in warmish places.
Still worried about vaccinating your children?
The British medical journal The Lancet just issued a full retraction of a study it ran in 1998 linking measles-mumps-rubella vaccines to autism. There was strong evidence against the purported link all along, but in 2004 it was revealed Dr. Andrew Wakefield was paid to conduct this study on children who were clients of lawyers (surprise! surprise!) preparing a lawsuit.
Britain’s General Medical Council ruled last week Dr. Wakefield had acted “dishonestly and irresponsibly.” He may lose his license. Only then did The Lancet finally cave in and issue a retraction.
In the meantime, vaccination rates in Britain plummeted to all-time lows and waves of measles outbreaks followed.
Is this depressing? Want a pill?
A study by psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University, the University of New Mexico and the University of Colorado, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found antidepressant drugs were not appreciably better than a placebo for people with mild or moderate depression.
It turns out many studies sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry excluded patients with mild depression, even patients who went to doctors looking for help.
Sometimes you’re not depressed, you’re just unhappy. But you can’t make billions of dollars selling pills for unhappiness.
What the heck is going on? Isn’t science, like journalism, supposed to be all about the disinterested pursuit of truth with a capital T?
Would be nice. But unfortunately, a lot of scientific research is agenda-driven. People whose self-image is tied with being a world-saver don’t want to hear the world gets along just fine without them.
Furthermore, modern research can be very expensive and scientists have to eat like everyone else.
A pharmaceutical company definitely wants to know if their product is going to kill people whose relatives might sue them. They don’t want to hear their product probably won’t do much at all for people shelling out money for a pill to make the pain of living go away.
A lot of research is government-funded, and politicians who campaign on promises to “do something about” don’t want to hear what they want to do is likely more harm than good.
Tort lawyers want to hear harm was caused by somebody with deep pockets. Their clients want to believe their misfortune makes sense and was somebody’s fault, rather than a random accident in an uncaring universe.
Scientists don’t like ugly facts that poke holes in their beautiful theories. Nobody does.
Now that you’re really depressed and wanting a pill that’ll really do some good, let me point out something.
What all these scandals have in common is that they were eventually revealed. Though, often in the face of pretty formidable opposition afterward, considerable harm was done.
And it is my strong impression it’s getting harder to hide scientific fakery and easier to expose it via the Internet.
Scientists are human like the rest of us, but the scientific methods and protocols still work and are still our best hope of keeping science honest.

 
Mary Simonson of the Open Door Center, center, stretches a wooden craft as Eagles Nest Book Store Manager Elaine Walls and HI Soaring Eagle Ranch resident Rhonda Ivers, a store empoyee, look on. Open Door Center clients work at the store.
Photo by Jean Schlegel/Times-Record

Ten years ago, a grant from the North Dakota State Council on Developmental Disabilities established the Eagles Nest Book Store.
It provides vocational services for residents of the HI Soaring Eagle Ranch, a basic-care facility serving people with brain injuries. It’s about five miles south of Valley City on County Highway 21.
Five of the 11 residents at HI Soaring Eagle Ranch come into Valley City to work at the book store, which also sells a variety of gifts. The book shop and HI Soaring Eagle Ranch are both owned by the Open Door Center in Valley City.
“It’s rewarding to have a work environment which provides jobs for individuals with head injuries,”  said Elaine Walls, who has managed the book store for two years. The book store has three other employees.
“We have a good staff here,” Walls said of the employees, including those from the ranch, who are paid for their work. “We want to foster awareness of our store and to encourage people to shop locally.”
Mary Simonson, executive director of the Open Door Center, said about 75 people with disabilities are employed around Valley City and get paid weekly. The center serves about 120 people.
Other Open Door Center clients are paid for cleaning at Valley City locations City Lights, Sabir’s, Valley City Country Club, the National Guard Armory, Foell Chiropractic Clinic, All Saints Episcopal Church, Valley Crop Insurance, MarketPlace Foods, Sodexo Food Service at Valley City State University and several apartment houses.
They also mow lawns, water flowers for the city and remove snow.
About 10 people work at The Arc Thrift-E-Shop. Another resident from the ranch has a job at the Times-Record, delivering newspapers.
One resident of the ranch who works at the book store is Randy Reiser. He is happy to have a job there.

For the full story, see the Friday, February 5, 2010, print edition of the Valley City Times-Record. 

By Lee Morris
News editor

Journalists pursue truth by trying to be objective and fair. Yet last month, this newspaper printed
two front-page articles that were written with the goal of public relations.
Those stories came from the North Dakota National Guard. The Guard’s 116th Public Affairs Detachment is on a Kosovo peacekeeping mission with U.S. troops, including about 20 who are from Barnes County. The Guard e-mailed the articles right to us, along with photos.
I see negative affects with this practice. But ultimately, we think it’s important to tell about the troops – even if the information contains a blatant bias.
Here’s why I think the articles from the Guard fail to give a complete view of what our troops are doing in Kosovo, and why they may even mislead readers:
The National Guard writes these articles to make the Guard and the troops look good. And that’s understandable. The stories stick to positive topics using positive quotes and sometimes lack specifics.
For example, an article we printed Jan. 28 focused on North Dakota National Guard State Command Sgt. Maj. Gerald Miller’s visit to Kosovo. He “wanted to hear what questions (troops) might have had about concerns back home and any other issues they wanted to talk about,” the article reads.
“Miller talked to the soldiers about the weather in North Dakota, deer hunting, the importance of the National Guard re-integration program for soldiers returning from deployments,” the article continues.
Although I’m sure our soldiers are interested in “concerns back home,” I’m sure those thoughts extend beyond “the weather” and “deer hunting.”
And the “importance of the National Guard re-integration program” only skims a complex slew of issues troops will have to deal with when they return.
The other article, about Sgt. 1st Class Arnold Gulka of Valley City, was also written with the goal of National Guard publicity.
Indeed, calling these collections of words “articles” may mislead in itself. More accurately, they are news releases.
Now, as it is for any reader in the United States, it’s hard for me to say how accurate or inaccurate these stories are. I don’t know if they captured the spectrum of emotions and obstacles our troops are facing. But I can guess. Then of course, again, I’m not in Kosovo.
So we printed the articles. We should have. We receive many others from the Guard on North Dakota troops, but we have only published those that relate specifically to Valley City and Barnes County soldiers.
The Guard’s articles perhaps give false impressions, but our troops are honorable; they deserve our respect. And families and friends who want to know what their loved ones are doing overseas should be able to read the Public Affairs Detachment’s take, even if it’s never going to be as accurate as it would if a well-trained reporter covered the mission.
The Guard’s articles are not dissimilar compared to others in the Times-Record that are written by our readers. We accept articles from our community as a service to you, and those are primarily printed on our Community Page. Those articles are rarely if ever printed on our front page and are not presented as news.
By comparison, the Guard’s articles did appear on our front page. In either a byline or editor’s note preceding the story, a label stated that the article came from the Public Affairs Detachment.
As a final note, the Times-Record has been working on talking to Barnes County soldiers in Kosovo for our own article. We haven’t yet been able to connect with them and will continue to pursue this. Even then, though, we are not in Kosovo and will not be able to achieve the fullest scope of reporting.
But we’ll take that. It’s information on our troops.

 

By Richard Betting
Valley City

About a month ago, a regional gossip column took issue with folks who opposed degrading the Sheyenne River with water from Devils Lake. The writer called those who criticized the Devils Lake outlet “a handful of prevaricators.” He went on to say that the outlet has not had “any discernable effect” on the river.
No “discernable effect”? Since when does glancing at the Sheyenne River tell you about water quality?
Let’s assume that one “lie” might be that Devils Lake water will degrade the Sheyenne River. If that is false, why is the North Dakota State Water Commission helping pay for a new Valley City water treatment plant, one that will help deal with the increase in sulfates from Devils Lake?
Even the North Dakota Department of Health admits that water high in sulfates will taste bad, though that’s merely an “aesthetic” issue, they claimed.
More serious than aesthetics are the other contaminants in Devils Lake water. Higher levels of phosphates, nitrates, chlorides and total dissolved solids, among others. Don’t forget the arsenic, which will increase from about 5 milligrams per liter in the river to 12 to 15 mg/L with Devils Lake water. Devils Lake doesn’t use water from Devils Lake.
(See www.nd.water.usgs.gov/devilslake/science/hydrology.html.)
The ground water wells from which Valley City gets its water are recharged from the Sheyenne River. What happens to the river happens to the city’s drinking water.
When the outlet is pumped at 250 cubic feet per second, it could remove about 100,000 acre-feet per year from the lake. About 7 to 8 inches. Since Lake Ashtabula holds about 70,000 acre-feet, all of the water in the lake will be replaced every year with that from Devils Lake. Where are the studies that show the effects on the hydrology and the ecology of the river and the lake?
How many fish species will remain, how many mussels, and how will that water affect cattle? Who is responsible for the extra bank erosion and flooding that the added 250 cubic feet per second water flow will produce?
Where are the studies that describe all these effects?
As Sen. Byron Dorgan said when he scheduled a Feb. 19 hearing on the Devils Lake water issue, he was “not interested in transferring the problem from one region of our state to another.” And that’s exactly what outlet operation has done and will continue to do.
It’s time to separate the prevarication from the facts so that North Dakotans can make responsible, long-term decisions about the best ways of dealing with Devils Lake water.
Taste tests prior to the river becoming contaminated with Devils Lake water don’t count.