Steven Milloy - Junk Science

Junk Science

Milloy has popularized the use of the term "junk science" in public debate, which he defines as "faulty scientific data and analysis used to advance special and, often, hidden agendas." According to Milloy, "the junk science 'mob' includes: The MEDIA, may use junk science for sensational headlines and programming…PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS, may use junk science to bamboozle juries into awarding huge verdicts," and others. Milloy frequently applies the term to climate change science and certain health controversies.

Scientists and science writers have argued the term is used, by Milloy and others, almost exclusively to "denigrate scientists and studies whose findings do not serve the corporate cause," in the words of David Michaels. In an editorial in Chemical and Engineering News, Editor-in-Chief Rudy Baum called Milloy's junkscience.com website "the best known" example of "a right wing effort in the U.S. to discredit widely accepted science, technology and medicine." He went on to label Milloy "a tireless antiscience polemicist" who applies the term "junk science" to "anything that doesn't match his right-wing concept of reality." Along similar lines, an editorial in the American Journal of Public Health noted that "... attacking the science underlying difficult public policy decisions with the label of 'junk' has become a common ploy for those opposed to regulation. One need only peruse JunkScience.com to get a sense of the long list of public health issues for which research has been so labeled."