Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

[Phys-L] Re: The West Wing



How refreshing! - Someone citing an instance of bad science being forced
upon us all without the slightest hint of Bush bashing.

Bob at PC

-----Original Message-----
From: Forum for Physics Educators [mailto:PHYS-L@list1.ucc.nau.edu] On
Behalf Of Leigh Palmer
Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 1:04 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: The West Wing

Last evening I watched my favorite soap opera, "The West Wing", on
NBC television. The episode's focus was on a catastrophic incident at
a nuclear rector "near San Diego", presumably at San Onofre, though
it was fictionalized to "San Andreo" in the story. The events that
transpired at the reactor during the episode were only reported in
Washington; there was no effort made to simulate the incident itself.
Many distortions of scientific fact followed during the few hours
between the first report of the incident and its final resolution,
including a death from "radiation sickness" of an engineer,
ostensibly from a dose of radiation of order of magnitude 10 rem
(roentgen effective man*). (The script didn't seem to discriminate
between radiation dose, dose rate, and quantity of activity, so it
would be difficult to justify the calculation which led me to that
conclusion.) I won't belabor the details, too numerous to recount,
but it is very clear that the series pays no attention whatsoever to
verisimilitude when it comes to science. The message which was
delivered is the PC liberal dogma that anything nuclear (or should I
say "nuculer"?) is evil, and scientific accuracy could be justifiably
sacrificed given the unquestionable nobility of that message.

I was not at all unhappy to read in this morning's paper that NBC
will cancel "The West Wing".

Leigh

* I wonder if the writers know that the "m" in "rem" stands for
"man"? A PC scientific advisor might have steered them to grays and
sieverts, or else invented on the spot a new gender neutral unit, the
"rep"!
_______________________________________________
Phys-L mailing list
Phys-L@electron.physics.buffalo.edu
https://www.physics.buffalo.edu/mailman/listinfo/phys-l