Talk:Advancement of Sound Science Center

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I've had a go at cleaning this article up, removing various tendentious statements and material better placed in the article on Steven Milloy, while retaining the factual substance. If others think I've done a reasonable job (or no-one comments at all), I'll remove the cleanup tag.

82.43.213.28 13:03, 29 May 2006 (UTC)This draws heavily on two 'hostile' articles, and the Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber article no longer has working links to their source material. It needs a lot more work before it can be considered as neutral in tone and of enyclopedic quality.

This article should properly be titled "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition" or "Advancement of Sound Science Coalition." (Normally, we wouldn't include "the" in the title, but this group's preferred acronym is "TASSC." Since there is already an existing article for "The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition," this article should be merged with that one. --Sheldon Rampton 17:09, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

For additional reading on this topic, see: Heat, by George Monbiot, published by Allen Lane. An article excerpting the book was published in the British newspaper, The Guardian on September 19, 2006. It starts: The denial industry ... For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three extracts from his new book, George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new story. Source: The Guardian, Tuesday September 19, 2006.

[edit] This Article does not meet the standards for neutrality

An objective look at the first sentence of this article is enough to call into question its neutrality.

“The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) was an tobacco-industry-funded lobby group which promoted the idea that environmental science was "junk science", which should be replaced by "sound science" more favorable to corporate interests.”

The phrase “tobacco-industry funded” is an ad hominem attack. How this center is funded may be a fact (the links from the article sited to the supporting documents are broken) but the author fails to show that it has affected the output of this Center. He just considers it axiomatic that tobacco money equals false science. If the scientific criticism of the ETS (in this case) is valid what does the source of the money matter?

Second, the redefining of “sound science” away from its generally accepted meaning is a rhetorical device to win an argument before it even starts, not the neutral presentations of facts.

I am sorry if my formatting is weak. I am new to the talk page.

Dc6482 04:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Your formatting is fine, and thanks for commenting. I think the basic problem is that this article is poorly sourced in its current incarnation. Sources exist, and they're lumped together at the bottom, but specific assertions should be referenced more clearly. I also agree with you that the tone is not as neutral as it should be - in general, the article needs a lot of work. I've been meaning to get to work on it, but haven't gotten around to it yet. If you're interested, I'd encourage you to take a shot at editing the article to improve it. A word of advice - don't take it too hard if others change your edits around - it happens to all of us. Finally, about the "tobacco-industry-funded" issue, I think the issue is that TASSC was clearly listed as a "Philip Morris Tool" to influence legislative debates - its primary focus was not scientific, but political. That said, I agree with you that it may not need to be mentioned in the very first sentence as it's likely prejudicial. Finally, the link from the "References" section was working for me - I got the Philip Morris budget slides - but let's go through as I'm sure there are probably a few broken links in the article. MastCell 18:32, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just proposed a merge into The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition which is the correct title, I think. These problems could be addressed as part of the merge. JQ 03:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I think a merge is definitely a good idea. MastCell 04:26, 29 November 2006 (UTC)