Reply #13: Are you denying that there is such a thing as "special interest science" ? [View All]

[kristopher]

Both the ethanol and nuclear industries have proponents in the academic community that will produce research that, while technically accurate, are crafted in ways that lead people to false conclusions about the larger truths involved.

Unless you are skilled in how to read academic research for both internal and external validity, and unless you are able to fit that research into a larger body of research that serves to help define what the parameters of the problem being studied are, then it is at least as likely you will mistake the significance of the information as it is that you will get it right.

For example, can you explain why this information on ethanol's energy balance is "special interest science"?

Paper: "Updated Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emission Results of Fuel Ethanol"
Author: Michael Wang, Center for Transportation Research Argonne National Laboratory
Presented: The 15th International Symposium on Alcohol Fuels 2005
Download: http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/375.pdf