"Sandy Perle" <SANDYFL@EARTHLINK.NET
wrote on Wed, 1 Sep 1999 20:05:41
Radiation Panel Makeup Protested
By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP)
<snip>
"Both sides agree much is at stake in the three-year study....the panel's findings are likely to have tremendous impact on radiation levels the government will allow at abandoned nuclear power plants, in the cleanup of nuclear weapons production facilities and at nuclear waste disposal sites."
<snip>
Comment: in the past, when such panels have included quacks like Rosalie Bertell, to appease the antinuclear activists' complaints, the only "tremendous impact" was that these people gained notoriety with the media, simply because they can claim that they took part.... that's how we end up having "two sides" in this "scientific controversy."
One reasonable standard that could be applied to discriminate between "experts" and "quacks" would be a minimum number (say 10?) of authored reports published in peer-reviewed journals concerned with the relevant topic. That would have easily excluded people like Bertell in the past. I recall that Prof. Bernard Cohen suggested this type of criterion some years ago, as well as another one involving a poll of professional HPs, etc.
jaro
frantaj@aecl.ca