Reply #8: Good question. The mothers of Love Canal who did the initial surveys were told ...

[Hekate]

... they had "housewife statistics," as though women with deformed and dying children were too dumb to see what was in front of their eyes, as though women who in other parts of their lives were capable of going door to door asking pointed questions and taking surveys somehow weren't capable of planning and carrying out these actions when it was their children's lives at stake. Of all the dismissive things a government and a major corporation were capable of saying, that was probably the most revolting to me, a woman.

The current layperson in question is also a woman. She is also a science teacher, which means she knows a thing or two about observation and keeping records. Beyond that, she has spent 30 years dismembering wildlife, which even for an ordinary butcher in a shop means observing whether the internal organs are healthy or diseased, much more so for someone who has studied dissection in college science (elementary school science teacher = someone who has a college degree = someone who took some college science classes).

This goes beyond anecdotal evidence. She's asking for help from professionals in confirming what she has found. She is being dismissed, although probably not as "a housewife."

Back to the question I started asking shortly after Bush the Lesser took office: Who does it serve? In this case, who does it serve to dismiss her findings?

Hekate