The lies that businessmen tell

The other day I was asked by a good friend and ex colleague whether, by some remote chance, I’d kept a copy of a report we’d written – 20 years ago …

Well, he stood a chance as I’ve always been quite hot on backup.  Sure enough, there was the relevant backup folder – on an old CD, my standard procedure in those days.

As I hunted for a USB CD drive, it crossed my mind that back in the early ’00s there was a scare, naturally promoted by someone selling another kind of data storage solution, that CDs were destined somehow to degrade over time, and fairly quickly too.  So, getting the little drive whirring into action, I waited with mild misgivings for the old familiar sound-pattern to run its course … and lo! the report [i] – easily read, thanks to the wonders of backwards compatibility.  

These bloody liars, eh?  Which led to a further train of thought.  I started my energy career in a big old household-name oil company, and at the time the public debate over lead in gasoline was raging.  We had several refineries and some very fine labs, and we were assured – by technical folk one was inclined to believe – that there was no way on earth to make gasoline of suitable octane, economically, without the addition of lead.  Well, the lead limit was reduced from (IIRC) 0.64 g/l to 0.43 [ii] … then a few years later to 0.15; and thence, without fuss, to zero.  Was this possible without extravagant extra cost?  Oh yes it was! 

In other words, these sage technical types were lying through their teeth, not only to parliamentarians and newspapers etc but even to their own colleagues!  [iii]

It is really difficult to “follow the science” with any confidence.  As Hugh Laurie’s character in House  frequently said: everybody lies …  

Caveat emptor?  How do you stand a chance, hmm?  Follow the money is often a better principle.

ND

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[i] It is quite good, actually!  We wrote it for the European Commission.

[ii] I may have mis-remembered the decimal.  Or the units.  It’s a while ago, and nowadays nobody talks about lead at all !

[iii] The whole story of lead in gasoline is pretty interesting – see this BBC article.  Be sure to read right to the very unexpected end!