Bad Science will lead the way to a better tomorrow. I’m certain of it.

Never mind the children. Won’t someone think of the parents and journalists with learning difficulties?

As far as I’m aware scientists have never assured us that the earth was flat. The Greeks knew it wasn’t, as did Christopher Columbus. I thought the flat earth myth was started by Washington Irvine in the 19th century. Before then, nobody thought it was flat.

Also, I’m fairly sure that pesticides aren’t harmless. Like the atom bomb, they’d be fairly useless if they were useless. They may not be harmful in certain doses…

re. the Stephenson response…where to start… I especially like the claim that scientists believed that the atom bomb was harmless (the atom *bomb* ffs – if a bomb’s ‘harmless’, it’s broke).

If of interest to anyone – and to make this a really loser-length post – here’s the BBC’s response to my complaint about panorama (I’ve edited to remove some personal details etc.) btw, anyone else had a ‘proper’ response?:

Thank you for your further e-mail.

I’ve spoken directly to the programme’s Deputy Editor on your behalf and
enclose his response to your ongoing concerns:

“Thank you for your recent e-mail regarding the Panorama programme “Wi-fi:
A Warning Signal” which has been passed to me for a second response.

Regarding our use of the term “radiation”. We did not feel that the term
“radio waves” was a fair reflection of the step change to microwave
frequencies which some scientists believe can have a biological effect on
human cells. Like it or not “radiation” is the term that has become common
currency in the debate on mobile phone masts and now Wi-Fi. However, at
the opening of the programme we made it crystal clear in the commentary
that we were talking about “radio frequency radiation” and we used the word
“signal” in the title and wherever possible throughout the programme to
keep alive the idea to that what we were dealing with was an inevitable
by-product of active Wi-Fi communication and downloads.

The phrase “official disability” is used by one of our Swedish interviewees
and its how she characterises her condition in her own words and not
something we felt needed challenging.

Regarding your comments on Alasdair Phillips/Powerwatch. We feel the
comparison he helped us make (in the absence of any studies on radiation
exposure levels in Wi-fi enabled classrooms) was valid in the sense that it
visualised a genuine concern that may come to shape public health
protection policy in the future.

We did not cast the mast/classroom comparison as having validity beyond
that. We said in commentary that the signal strength test would need to be
repeated and verified and but that the levels we found were comfortably
within current safety limits.

Panorama told the audience correctly that Alasdair has been trusted to
carry out these sorts of measurements by both the phone companies and
industry regulators. We did not allow him to editorialise on the results in
an interview or promote or use any equipment he markets in taking the
measurements. We also gave the viewers a sense of his provenance in terms
of “running a lobby group called Powerwatch which raises awareness of
electromagnetic smog.”

[...]

However, we were not the first broadcasters to raise this issue and when we asked a
Government Minister to take part in the programme we were directed to Sir
William Stewart of the Health Protection Agency whose concerns shaped our
approach to the whole subject.

Like it or not there is a credible cast of politicians, scientists and
teachers representatives who question the whole basis on which current
radiation safety limits are set and would like to see more research work
undertaken in this area. Once that work is done the industry and the public
will move on wiser and safer.

I hope this covers the points you raised.

Best wishes”

[...]

{Programme Name:} Panorama
{Transmission Date:}22 – 05 – 07

{Comments:}
I am sending this to reply to your response to my complaint (I tried
e-mailing back, but this is apparently not allowed). See below for
details:

Dear Sir/Madam,

As you will see if you read my complaint, I made a number of points
about Panorama and asked a number of questions. Your response does not
address my concerns at all. A quick look on the Internet shows that you
are sending a pre-written letter to all complainants –
http://www.badscience.net/?p=415 This is not an acceptable standard
of service (I would expect a more considered response from the average
call centre, let alone the BBC). Please read my complaint and respond
to my concerns: a ‘boilerplate’ response is not acceptable.

One more point – your disclaimer (“This e-mail (and any attachments) is
confidential and may contain personal views which are not the views of
the BBC unless specifically stated. If you have received it in error,
please delete it from your system. Do not use, copy or disclose the
information in any way nor act in reliance on it and notify the sender
immediately. Please note that the BBC monitors e-mails sent or
received. Further communication will signify your consent to this”) is
very badly written, and does not make any sense to me. I therefore do
not consent to this – I’m not even at all sure what it means – and if
you really want to add a disclaimer to your e-mails, I would suggest
that the BBC writes something more coherent.

…
info@bbc.co.uk wrote:
> > Dear Mr J
> >
> > Many thanks for taking the time to get in touch following our show,
Wi-Fi – A Warning Signal.
> > I’m sorry if you believe the programme lacked the hard evidence you
wanted to see. Unfortunately, the truth is that as things stand, there
is no hard evidence regarding the effects of long term exposure to Wi-Fi
which is why we made the programme.
> > Wi-Fi is being rolled out into classrooms around the country by the
Government contrary to the precautionary approach recommended by the
head of its own advisory body Sir William Stewart – chair of the Health
Protection Agency. As you will have seen in the programme, he believes
that where radiation is concerned we should base policy on the
precautionary principle particularly when it comes to children. This
therefore raises questions as to whether Wi-Fi should be rolled out into
the classroom without any long term health research being carried out.
> >
> > Many scientists criticise the way in which the radiation exposure
limits are set in this country. The programme featured both the WHO
position and ICNIRP who base their limits on what they term a “thermal
effect”. It is this view that courts criticism from some scientists,
including those featured in our programme, because the safety limits do
not take into account a biological effect which some scientists say they
have found evidence of. The reason why these positions were not
represented by different people is that Dr Michael Repacholi is perhaps
the most qualified person to answer such questions given that he was the
founding chair of ICNIRP (and continues to be Emeritus Chairman) and
because he set up and headed the WHO EMF project for ten years.
However, he was given the opportunity to make his position clear in the
programme.
> > The other scientists in the film are all experts in their fields who
have concerns that we are rushing forward into something before it’s
been around long enough to know what the long term effects could be.
> > The fact that the Swedish government recognises radiation sensitivity
as a disability that affects 3% of the population was, we felt, of
interest given our Government’s publicly stated view that this condition
does not exist.
> > The programme attempted to raise concern without causing alarm –
always a difficult balance to strike but one which we believe we
achieved.
> > Please continue to let us know your views on the programmes as they
are always welcome and we hope you keep watching.
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > BBC Panorama
> >
> > —–Original Message—–
> >
> > [...]
>> >> {Comments:}
>> >> I was appalled by the Panorama programme on electrosmog. This
appeared to uncritically accept the agenda of groups such as Powerwatch
(which have a vested interest in selling ‘treatments’ for
electrosensitivity and electrosmog) while at the same time smearing
scientists who challenge scaremongering about electrosmog by focusing on
their links to mobile phone companies. I am sure that you will have
received a number of e-mails about this programme, so I will just list a
few mistakes which jumped out at me. Why didn’t you give a proper
explanation of what ‘radiation’ means (everything from light bulbs to TV
masts emit radiation)? Just referring to wifi equipment emitting
‘radiation’, without contextualising this, sounds unnecessarily scary.
>> >> There is no such thing as an ‘official disability’ in Sweden, so why
did the programme refer to such ‘official disabilities’?
>> >> Re. the woman who could ‘detect’ EMR two thirds of the time – was
this statistically significant? Did the programme-makers check? If so,
why didn’t they tell the viewers? If it wasnÔt statistically
significant, then the fact that she could ‘detect’ this EMR 2/3 of the
time was irrelevant.
>> >> Why did you allow Powerwatch to advertise their ‘electrosmog
detector’ and their ’shielding’ products, without testing these products
for efficacy or utility?
>> >> Why did you imply that hard-wiring a classroom is risk-free? Aside
from obvious risks (e.g. tripping over a wire) I’m sure you know that
running a current through a wire will generate an electromagnetic field.
If you want to be paranoid about this stuff (I don’t, but it seems
Panorama does) then how do we know this is risk free? Where are the
long-term studies? Nothing in life is risk-free (though many things are
sufficiently low-risk that the benefits far outweigh the risks).
>> >>
>> >> [...]

>> >> Anecdotally, a number of schools have been having to deal with
requests from parents to disable their wireless networks after the
Panorama broadcast. Did you think about how your programme would impact
on provision for students with learning difficulties?

Er – say what now?

Julia Stephenson has produced a cast iron response to the criticism she’s been getting. Naturally all our questions are now answered.

http://environment.independent.co.uk/lifestyle/article2624123.ece

A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.

So much for tobacco once having been thought to be harmless.

Why worry about pesky things like facts, though…

Yep, typical NIMBYism – he wants to use his ‘protected’ mobile phone, but have mobile phone masts sited well away from him. In other words, he doesn’t want to lose the (minor) convenience of a mobile phone – and is quite prepared for others to suffer from the supposed risks of the mobile phone masts this requires, so long as this ‘danger’ is kept away from him.

Nice bloke, isn’t he – as bright as he is altruistic.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1815884563738845754

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=1815884563738845754