I get emails from Fact Check. Today this item came:
Louisiana Republican Rep. Ralph Abraham falsely claimed there are “thousands of studies” that refute the Environmental Protection Agency’s conclusion that ground-level ozone, a component of smog, exacerbates asthma attacks. A relationship between ground-level ozone and asthma exacerbation is well-documented in the scientific literature.
Lying that such studies exist is par for the course for GOP politicians. Claiming there are thousands of such studies gets a few points for hyperbole and perhaps more for the unrealistic notion that anyone would bother to fund or do thousands of studies to prove the same thing. But the idea that anything could prove this negative, that ground-level ozone does not cause asthma, shows some spectacular ignorance. With a few exceptions (I can think of some things in mathematics) it’s impossible to prove a negative.
I’m ashamed to admit that my own Congressman is Lamar Smith, the chairman of the House Science Committee. I’m very slightly less ashamed now that I realize Smith is probably not the most flagrantly, proudly ignorant person on that committee.
