Re: Further comments on my angry reply on Friday

[welch@CEBAF.GOV (welch)]

> Now this is an
> intelligent woman who has had a lot of
>scientific training - how do we reach those who have none?  Still less will
> logic convince them.  I spend a good deal of
>my spare time trying to reduce the fear people have by taking their fears
> seriously and not belittling them because they
>don't understand and go way over the top.  It's an uphill struggle and few are
> very convinced nor convinced for very
>long.

David Walland
Bristol University (UK)

For what it's worth, my experience has not convinced me that "educated", or
even "intelligent" people are easier to convince of something than their
"layperson" counterparts.  We are screwing up if we think that because
scientists are hessitant to accept something that the non-scientist will
never accept it.  After all, scientists are trained - and paid - to be
skeptical.  The key is that as most Radsafers have stressed, when you are
dealing with FEAR, all bets are off.  My own experience has been that most
non-scientists are actually more likely to accept the premisses and
assertions on risk than scientists - because the non-scientists see you (the
HP) as the expert on the subject, and their experience tells them that it's
ok to take the expert's word until you have determined from your own
experience that something different is true.

Problem is, we also have a press which is a self appointed expert - or at
least an omnipresent companion - from which they can usually get a differing
viewpoint.  Yes, it's difficult to convince them after they've been
programmed, but not as impossible as it sometimes seems.  And I agree that
we are our own worst enemy by not being willing to say "this is a safe dose"
or "operation of this facility presents a negligible hazard".

This message is worth what you paid for it.  Standard discalaimers apply.

Keith Welch
CEBAF
KW