Re: Negative Media Coverage -Reply

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 10:52 AM 6/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Not being an academic or maybe not even a professional in your eyes, this may
>have little value to you. But in my humble opinion  the worst Anti-NUKES,
>spreading the most untruthful propaganda are in the perception of the Public
>are very important persons in the  ACADEMIC and PROFESSIONAL FIELDS THAT
COUNT.
>
>Examples Sternglas, Nader, Caldicott, ......... my apologies to the "EXPERTS"
>if I misspelled your name..

Actually, I see a mixture of two sets in your example - two people who may
have academic credentials (I confess to not know the academic backgrounds
of Sternglass and Caldicott) and the other with no credentials of merit.

Ralph Nader is famous for being opposed - pick a subject, it doesn't seem
to matter. He came to fame fighting the automoblie industry, writing a book
critiquing the design and manufacture of automobiles in general and one in
particular, and has since moved on to arenas involving environmental
engineering and radiation safety. He's a lawyer. No technical training that
I know of or that I've heard him claim. I find it difficult to accept the
claims of a person with no academic or professional background in a
particular subject over those who have such credentials.

Care for an absurdity? All through those years of sound bites and evening
news appearances criticizing the auto industry and the DOT about various
technical and engineering considerations, Ralph Nader, a lawyer, not an
engineer or scientist of any type, did not possess and had not possessed a
driver's license and did not know how to drive a car! I do not know if this
is still the case. I understand being motivated to improve traffic safety
and can see how someone who doesn't drive can care enough and be part of
the process to bring about changes, but to pose as a valid critic of auto
design, manufacture, and operation with zero personal knowledge of the
subject is a pretty amazing idea to me.

As for Sternglass and Caldicott, every profession has its dissenters, and
they are ours. There are physicians that disagree with standard practices
and other such examples. I think their success is more a function of the
press' willing to run with the story than the quality of their message, but
that's just my view on the subject.

---------
Bob Flood
Dosimetry Group Leader
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
(650) 926-3793
bflood@slac.stanford.edu