Re: Political correctness

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 12/24/01 1:04:36 AM Mountain Standard Time, muckerheide@MEDIAONE.NET writes:



> Are we too sensitive to offending the ICRP (and the many nuclear regulatory
>
> organizations and the other LNT stakeholders and the anti-nuclear
>
> organizations) to denounce the LNT hypothesis? 


Jim's question struck a chord with me.  I went from graduate school straight into the academic world, where I was for decades.  My graduate training was such that I blurted out what I believed to be the scientific fact (or in some cases, what I believed to be the ethical stance) and expected that if someone took issue with me, they would argue the facts or the ethics in a straightforward way.  Well, folks, it doesn't happen that way, at least not now, at least not in the U.S., and this is the point of my story.  Offend an agency like the NCRP and you don't get appointments and you might even lose your job if it's not a tenured one.  You are branded forever, apparently, as a "loose cannon" by those you have offended.  For example,  I once was on a NAS panel, and I made the PC error of asking an anti-nuke how many members there were in the organization he represented.  I got dressed down in executive session and have been passed over f!

or such panels ever since, though I am eminently qualified.  Another example: because I spoke up at a public workshop, I was verbally worked over by a contractor and a DOE person and a "facilitator" for being "intimidating" and using "intimidating language."  How's that for an accusation?


Just a word from the old "loose cannon" herself.



Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com