An inconvenient mosquito

Seems Al Gore has been telling lies about mosquitos and malaria, and all his buddies have been swearing to the lie.

A commenter points us to Michael Chrichton’s underappreciated Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect:

Briefly
stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the
newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s
case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the
journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the
issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story
backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets
cause rain" stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple
errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international
affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper
was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the
story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

Tip from the Instapundit.