One of the problems we face in an increasingly interconnected global society is that bombarded as we are by competing opinions it can be difficult to properly distinguish between perception and reality, falsehood and truth.
This is especially so when well-qualified professionals - scientists, for example - take divergent tacks and make misleading or downright erroneous statements in support of some favoured hobby-horse.
As we in Hawke's Bay have witnessed with the Ruataniwha dam saga, when it comes to maintaining water quality and making the best use of that resource emotion and self-interest can quickly overwhelm fact, regardless of "sides".
Certainly farmers are not helped by sweeping generalisations that are (or should be) easily seen as non-factual responses to these issues - far less so when someone like the recently-appointed chief scientific adviser to the Environmental Protection Authority, Jacqueline Rowarth, is the one making them.
Dr Rowarth, a professor of agribusiness at the University of Waikato but also a dairy farmer and Fonterra shareholder, was reported as cherry-picking data to make the outrageous claim that the Waikato River is one of the "five cleanest" rivers in the world in terms of nitrate concentrations, and moreover was improving in quality thanks to changing farming practices.