In the discussion thread arising from the recent unpleasantness here, Craig Weiler and I wandered off on the tangential theme of "World View" or "Personal Values" and how they influence our perception of the world around us. In the course of that I threw out the following comment:

As regards contrary information, I have found that reaching back to original sources and raw data helps. A lot of "factual reporting" is really opinion in disguise.

As I wrote this, I remembered a speech I had attended in the City which had this as its primary theme. I had hoped to cover the speech for Bayosphere as a CJ, but found the recording I was able to make of the presentation and my transcription skills (and patience) lacking. A fortuitous related post on The Belmont Club (I am Spartacus) led me to a subsequent presentation of the same material.

Fear, Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century
Washington DC
November 6, 2005
By
Michael Crichton

I am going to challenge you today to revise your thinking, and to reconsider some fundamental assumptions. Assumptions so deeply embedded in our consciousness that we don’t even realize they are there.

...

[on the actual consequences of Chernobyl as opposed to how they were reported]

The initial reports in 1986 claimed 2,000 dead, and an unknown number of future deaths and deformities occurring in a wide swath extending from Sweden to the Black Sea. As the years passed, the size of the disaster increased; by 2000, the BBC and New York Times estimated 15,000-30,000 dead, and so on…

Now, to report that 15,000-30,000 people have died, when the actual number is 56, represents a big error. Let’s try to get some idea of how big. Suppose we line up all the victims in a row. If 56 people are each represented by one foot of space, then 56 feet is roughly the distance from me to the fourth row of the auditorium. Fifteen thousand people is three miles away. It seems difficult to make a mistake of that scale.

But, of course, you think, we’re talking about radiation: what about long-term consequences? Unfortunately here the media reports are even less accurate.

The chart shows estimates as high as 3.5 million, or 500,000 deaths, when the actual number of delayed deaths is less than 4,000. That’s the number of Americans who die of adverse drug reactions every six weeks. Again, a huge error.

But most troubling of all, according to the UN report in 2005, is that "the largest public health problem created by the accident" is the "damaging psychological impact [due] to a lack of accurate information…[manifesting] as negative self-assessments of health, belief in a shortened life expectancy, lack of initiative, and dependency on assistance from the state."

In other words, the greatest damage to the people of Chernobyl was caused by bad information. These people weren’t blighted by radiation so much as by terrifying but false information. We ought to ponder, for a minute, exactly what that implies. We demand strict controls on radiation because it is such a health hazard. But Chernobyl suggests that false information can be a health hazard as damaging as radiation. I am not saying radiation is not a threat. I am not saying Chernobyl was not a genuinely serious event.

But thousands of Ukrainians who didn’t die were made invalids out of fear. They were told to be afraid. They were told they were going to die when they weren’t. They were told their children would be deformed when they weren’t. They were told they couldn’t have children when they could. They were authoritatively promised a future of cancer, deformities, pain and decay. It’s no wonder they responded as they did.

This level of exaggeration is by no means limited to reporting on Chernobyl nor limited to the decade of the Eighties. This is the level of accuracy one should expect of the MSM when it comes to complex stories and issues reported on by folks who have no background on the underlying math, science, law, and history of the areas on which they report. This is the level of accuracy that a skeptical and informed person should apply against such reporting on such complex issues.

Feed your inner skeptic and your need for facts. Read the whole presentation.

Out Here
Rodney Graves
rodney.g.graves@gmail.com