[ RadSafe ] FW: Wikipedia and other bizarre debates

[Roger Helbig]

This is but one example of where there has been a concentrated effort to make Wikipedia favor positions that are not science, but are politically based, on science topics.  Members of the AmericanDUST list have discussed doing a similar approach to Alpha Particles and other entries associated with depleted uranium.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Falo, Gerald A Dr KADIX" <Jerry.Falo at us.army.mil>
To: <radsafe at radlab.nl>
Sent: Monday, June 25, 2007 7:58 AM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] FW: Wikipedia and other bizarre debates (UNCLASSIFIED)


Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED 
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All,

FYI

Jerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Bramhall [mailto:bramhall at llrc.org] 
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 4:42 AM
To: info llrc
Subject: Wikipedia and other bizarre debates

Wikipedia and other bizarre debates: how we at LLRC have to spend some
of our time. 

 

Wikipedia

When we first became aware of Wikipedia's Low Level Radiation Campaign
entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Low_Level_Radiation_Campaign) it
was a flat out attack on us and in particular on our science man Chris
Busby. It contained much that was inaccurate, tendentiously reported, or
plain irrelevant (not to mention the spelling). Bearing in mind
Wikipedia's reputation for fiction, at first we thought it too far
beneath contempt to be worth bothering about. But over the last few
months people who know the truth about LLRC told us This is bad. We have
been persuaded that, fiction or no fiction, so many people use Wikipedia
as a first point of enquiry that we'd better do something. We have spent
A LOT of time negotiating with the person who got his blow in first by
writing the original entry; that's what you're supposed to do -
negotiate. The entry is now much less objectionable. Far from perfect,
but ... . If you want to see how far we've come, check out the
Discussion page (there's a link to it at the top of the Wikipedia entry
itself) or see the original entry copied on Answers.com
http://www.answers.com/topic/the-low-level-radiation-campaign. That's
one of the problems with Wikipedia - other "information" sources use
Wikipedia articles but don't update them and they don't link to the
Discussion page where the casual enquirer could at least see the
arguments that rage behind the scenes.

 

Sunday Herald comment page

Following last week's article on the cover-up of high leukaemia rates in
Dumfries and Galloway, a debate developed on the Sunday Herald's Comment
section. It's still there, at the bottom of the report. Mercifully it's
over and done with in a few days, rather than the weeks Wikipedia has so
far consumed; our protagonist, "Nick" from London, has given up. Have a
look at it to see the kind of personalized assassination attempts our
critics will launch at us instead of facing up to the substance of what
we do -
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.1460572.0.0.php.

(New material on our site http://www.llrc.org <http://www.llrc.org/>
tells, in some detail, what's wrong with the Scottish Cancer Registry
leukaemia study. Later, this material will move from our front page to
http://www.llrc.org/epidemiology/subtopic/dundrennan.htm )

 

Nuclear Nightmares

A Horizon documentary called Nuclear Nightmares was broadcast on BBC2 TV
on July 13th 2006. Produced by Nick Davidson, it dismissed as hysteria
all fears that the Chernobyl accident would cause perceptible health
problems. The BBC's Editorial Standards Unit received an unknown number
of complaints, including a 30-pager from us in which we concentrated on
various aspects of the programme's bias. We don't know what happened to
the other complaints, but every aspect of ours was rejected in January
in a letter which revealed even more bias than the Horizon documentary
itself. We appealed to the BBC Trust, who have yet to make a decision.
It has been put back from May to June, then til July. It's now too late
for the Trust to send us the paperwork in time for the July deadline,
and we expect that in August they'll all be off on their hols, so
September's probably the earliest for an outcome. But we can wait
(though of course we can't go off on our hols in case the paperwork
arrives while we're away and we miss the deadline for returning
comments). Meanwhile we think it's unwise to publish any of the detail.
You'll hear about the decision when it happens. 

 

So that's how we spend a lot of our time. No-one pays us for it, unless
you do.

 Low Level Radiation Campaign needs your support. Please consider a
donation. http://www.llrc.org/donation.htm
<http://www.llrc.org/donation.htm>
tells you how you can give money - cheques, Standing Orders, transfers,
or Paypal or click here to go to our Paypal account. You can do this
even if you don't have a Paypal account of your own
- when the payments page opens, scroll down to find where you can pay
with plastic

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people who are concerned about low level radiation and health. This
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