TMI 29 years later: Lies and Damned Lies

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Categories : History, Shoddy Science, Engineering

Editor : Joy

published: mercredi 31 janvier 2007 21:07:22

We here at TT often make light of the outlandish 'emo' [emotive] gloom and doom prophesies of the many erstwhile spokespersons of big-s Science in their attempts to sell failed or highly debatable theories to the public for ideological or political reasons. We focus primarily on the stalwart defenders of Neodarwinian Orthodoxy, but the tendency for groups of like-minded scientists to propagandize in favor of their pet theories and projects as if there were no alternatives - or simple facts - to get in the way, crosses all the disciplinary borders.

This blog is intended to highlight how this propagandizing - a.k.a. "spin" - works in other areas of science, engineering and government, on an issue I am familiar with. It's a bit of a departure from the usual biological focus, but the information herein may serve to promote a little skepticism of "authority" in the perennial science wars that Telic Thoughts so often challenges.

As the new century's propaganda push to re-invest in "clean, safe, too-cheap-to-meter" nuclear energy kicks into high gear, a new PR effort to address issues related to the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island has also taken flight. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology held a 2-day seminar on January 22-23 entitled Three Mile Island - failure of science or spin?

Science, Laws,