THE BELL CURVE:

Some years ago, I was asked by a national magazine to attempt to explain in lay language the acrimonious debate then going on between physicist Edward Teller and chemist Linus Pauling on the dangers of testing atomic weapons in the atmosphere.

I spent a day separately with each of these scientists, asking questions from the perspective of a layman cribbing for an exam. Although both were responsive, Teller was testy, while Pauling was patient. And as I was packing up my tape recorder to leave, I said to Pauling: “I’ve spent many hours with you and Teller, and I’ve come away with two completely opposite solutions to the same problem. So who, in God’s name, am I supposed to believe?’

And Pauling, with a mischievous glint in his eyes, said, “Who did you like the best?”

This is frequently what we technological retards are reduced to in such matters. And I can’t think of a better example than the current local debate, playing out in the Pilot, over the Metropolitan Water District’s decision to fluoridate our public drinking water. Limited lay people like me who don’t approach such questions from a religious or ethical perspective have no idea how to evaluate the technical and historical evidence being cited by both sides.

That quest is further complicated when science is on one side and emotion is on the other.

When this separation is clear and acknowledged, science clearly has the upper hand. So to negate this advantage, the people acting from emotion try to counter with pseudo-science, and the lay person — not knowing the difference — has a problem since it is always possible to find an “expert” or two to support even the most outrageous position.

The media, scrambling for at least the appearance of balance, tends to treat opposing arguments equally in both space and respect. The result, as Edward R. Murrow once noted, is a false notion of journalistic fairness that concedes “the word of Judas equal weight as that of Jesus.”

So given these complexities, what is a technologically retarded layman to do? I would suggest taking Linus Pauling’s advice. Find out who you like the best and throw in with them.

That’s where your computer comes into play. If you have already looked up fluoridation, you know that there are hundreds of pages of dense data and information that require a Nobel laureate to translate. This is also true of virtually every controversial issue that comes before the public. So in this dilemma — and after discounting built-in bias — we must look to see where people and organizations capable of interpreting this data are coming down.

Seeking light on fluoridation, for example, brings us to this statement: “The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has recognized the fluoridation of drinking water to prevent dental decay as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.”

Or this one in Chemical and Engineering News: “In the United States, fluoridation is endorsed almost universally by medical and dental associations and many scientific bodies including the U.S. Public Health Service and every Surgeon General since the early 1950s as an effective and perfectly safe way to reduce cavities.”

This not only puts me in good company but makes me wonder if Linus Pauling’s suggestion, made in jest, might actually be the best path to reason. How, for example, would it apply to the Global Warming debate?

In my computer, the Environmental Defense Action Fund says, “The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which the White House called ‘the gold standard of objective scientific assessment’ has issued a joint statement with 10 other National Academies of Science saying, ‘The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions.’ The only debate in the science community about global warming is about how much and how fast warming will continue.”

That seems clear enough to prompt local citizens to ask themselves whether they would prefer Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, an outspoken opponent, or the National Academies of Science to prevail in setting our global warming policies.

“Experts” have even been found on the fringes of self-hypnosis to testify that the Holocaust never really happened, an aberration that needs to be addressed by a psychiatrist more than an historian.

This is a long leap from our fluoridation dispute. But as technology and science become more sophisticated, we will increasingly need expertise to understand the nature of choices being made by us and for us. Maybe the Pauling Rule can help bridge that gap.

JOSEPH N. BELL lives in Newport Beach. His column runs Thursdays.