Dentistry Overthrown!
But not really.
Each year, despite the risks of any surgical procedure, millions of healthy, asymptomatic wisdom teeth are extracted from young patients in the United States, often as they prepare to leave for college. Many dental plans cover the removal of these teeth, which have partly grown in or are impacted below the gum.
So, here’s my question: If the idea that some wisdom teeth should be left alone does not turn into “Dentistry Overthrown! Leave Those Wisdom Teeth In” headlines by noon tomorrow, then I want to confiscate ALL of the press credentials of everyone who has ever reported anything about Global Warming being not real becuase a piece of research done on global warming found something new, no matter what that was.
It was recently discovered that cosmic rays have a vague and strange connection to the formation of water droplets around dust particles. It was also found that this effect was minor and mostly irrelevant to cloud formation. Yet, “Cosmic Rays Cause Global Warming, Climate Science Overthrown” was the headline. I just heard a rumor from Amanda that some new and interesting research on sources of Nitrogen for use by forest plants was out there, and in the reporting something was mentioned about forests as a carbon sink. Does this mean that tomorrow morning I’m going to see a headline like “Nitrogen Causes Global Warming, Climate Science Overthrown”
Well, yes, I fully expect that.
So, here’s the deal: I want reporters to pick one method or the other and freakin’ stick with it. Either enter into full hyberpolic mode with every new item, and start screaming about how dentistry is overthrown RIGHT NOW, or start reading the papers you are supposedly reporting on and otherwise STFU unless you have something INFORMED AND CONSIDERED to say.
If you decide on the former, that would be the end of you ever being taken seriously again. I hope you choose the latter.
I partly blame the scientists for all this. Scientists can be lousy communicators. Want proof? Read the well meaning but seriously misguided comments on this post. I partly blame the press offices. With the recent Cloud Gate maneno, the University of Alabama, Huntsville press office was apparently over the top in their Climate Science is Overthrown rhetoric. Or at least, enough so that the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Remote Sensing, while resigning his position because they published that paper felt moved to mention said press office.
Two of my wisdom teeth had to come out, as they were growing upside down. Those were mandibular. The maxillary teeth were fine but with no opposing teeth to grow against the would have eventually become tusks and curved out of my mouth and back into my skull penetrating my brain.
No, wait, that’s not me, that’s the Babirusa Pig. Never mind.
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I had 3 wisdom teeth removed because they were coming in a 45° angles. The first because it hurt, the next 2 before they hurt. The fourth one never showed up.
Yes, is sorta off topic.
Are wisdom teeth part of ‘intelligent design’?
BTW: That’s a fine skull.
How about applying it to economic and political science as well?
“Consumers Not Perfectly Rational; Capitalism Overthrown!”
“Unclear Which Side of Laffer Curve We’re On; Trickle-Down Voodoo Economics Overthrown!”
“New Discovery of a ‘First Amendment’ to Constitution; Dominionism Overthrown!”
My orthodontist (I had gum surgery and braces in my twenties and paid for it out-of-pocket) told me I don’t have wisdom teeth. I must be a mutant.