On Bad Information and the Internet

[Joyce Davis <JOYCED@DNFSB.GOV>]

>>> ERIC GOLDIN <goldinem@songs.sce.com>  12/3/96, 09:48am >>>
     I agree with Pete Darnell's comments.  However if you want to
see 
     just how far you need to go or want to find out where those
vocal 
     minorities stand, take a look at the opposing points of view:  
     While surfing the net recently, my wife came across the website 
     below.  All our debates about LNTH and adequate safety standards
     for workers and the public, pale in comparison to the 
     misrepresentation and outright fabrication that we face.
     See:  http://www.ratical.com/radiation/
 _________________________________________________________________   

Those who are concerned about the quality of information in today's
world might want to read an article by Joel Aschenbach in Dec. 4,
1996 Washington Post (Style section) headed "Reality Check".  It
starts out "The Information Age has one nagging problem:  Much of the
information is not true.  We live in a time besotted with Bad
Information.....  It's lurking in the dark recesses of the Internet. 
It's in the newspaper.  It's at our dinner table, passed along as
known fact, irrefutable evidence, attributed to unnamed scientists,
statisticians, studies."
     It quotes Mark Twain on science:  " One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."  
      And on "stat wars":  "There's so much data out there, it's easy
to argue basically any point".
      It quotes a message from cyberspace describing the Internet as
information superhighway: " A highway hundreds of lanes wide.  Most
with pitfalls for potholes..."[It goes on, very insightful]

I think it is a well written and interesting commentary on an issue
of interest to us Radsafers, who are indeed, at least sometimes,
besotted with information, trying to distinguish the Good and the
Bad.

For those who don't live in the Post readershed, it can be found on
the Internet at www.washingtonpost.com
 
Only the opinion of J P Davis
joyced@dnfsb.com