Richard Ness : Blog : Technical Team’s Report Makes it to the Hall of Fame for Pseudoscience

Technical Team’s Report Makes it to the Hall of Fame for Pseudoscience - 01 Aug 2006
by Eric

The Government of Indonesia should disown the Technical Team’s report on Buyat Bay because it has so many embarrassing mistakes that it risks jeopardizing the reputation of the national scientific community. The government should also investigate the Technical Team to identify the individuals who have deliberately misled the government and the public through misinformation.

Recently a bright Indonesian kid won the Physics Olympiad and he showed to the world the tremendous scientific and technical potential of the country. While a high school kid is a source of immense pride for the country, certain members of the Technical Team are only going to bring disgrace to the nation. Before this happens, the Government should quickly move to dismiss this report and conduct a thorough investigation to identify and punish the individuals who are responsible for damaging the reputation of the Government.

The centerpiece of the Technical Team’s report on Buyat Bay is the conclusion that the consumption of fish from Buyat Bay creates the risk of arsenic poisoning to humans. This is quite a landmark finding because it makes Buyat Bay the first ever case of arsenic poisoning from fish consumption in the history of this world. Therefore it is not surprising that this conclusion raised several eyebrows, and it led to a meticulous verification of the Technical Team’s calculations.

It didn’t take long to conclude that the Technical Team’s report failed the test of due diligence, and that their conclusions were completely and embarrassingly wrong. There are several errors in the report that cumulatively inflate the risk of arsenic exposure from fish consumption by nearly 5000%. But what was most appalling is the nature of these mistakes.

The most noticeable error in the Technical Team’s calculations of the average daily intake of inorganic arsenic is the data on the average daily consumption of fish by the Buyat Bay community. According to the Technical Team, an adult eats 5 kg (11 lbs) of fish per day, and a child consumes 2 kg (4.4 lbs) of fish per day.

For the readers to understand how ridiculous these numbers are, it is important to visualize what it means for an adult to eat 5 kg of fish per day or a child to eat 2 kg per day. The first picture shows an adult holding two large fish that would together give 5 kg of ingestible fish. The second picture shows the quantity of fish a child consumes according to the Technical Team. And finally, if we were to believe the Technical Team, a family of four (two adults and two children) would eat a total of 77 cans of tuna per day, each containing 180 gms of fish (see picture here). These numbers imply that a typical Buyat Bay family of four spends around US$ 3,000.00 per month just on fish. It is easy to see that the Technical Team’s errors are beyond explanation. After you have overcome your shock and awe from viewing those pictures, lets ask one simple question: How could the Technical Team chaired by Ms. Masnelliarty Hilman, whom Jane Perlez of the New York Times calls the star witness with a graduate degree from Colorado School of Mines, make such an obvious mistake?

In the field of mathematics there is a term called Innumeracy developed by the mathematician John Allen Paulos that refers to the inability to deal with simple mathematical concepts, and is a mathematical equivalent of illiteracy. Perhaps, certain members of the Technical Team suffer from this handicap. Or it could be a case of Dyscalculia, a disorder affecting a person's ability to understand numbers. Or is it simply a case of willful manipulation of data to mislead the public for personal political benefits. Whatever may be the reason, it is clear that the Technical Team’s report is one of finest product of pseudoscience one would find on this planet.

Fortunately, the Technical Team also had several members who publicly offered their dissenting opinions and distanced themselves from the politically motivated individuals who wanted to enforce pre-determined conclusions on everyone. Therefore the Technical Team’s report does not represent the opinion of Indonesia’s scientists, but it is simply a fabrication by a few politically driven individuals.

There is enough evidence to initiate an inquiry to identify the individuals who have deliberately misled the public, wasted public resources, caused economic hardship on local fishermen and manipulated the government into the decision to relocate some villagers from Buyat. And however unbelievable it may sound, these consequences are based on the fabricated data that an adult consumes five kilograms of fish per day. Some members of the Technical Team have committed a crime and must be held accountable for their actions.