An item for discussion: is it morally acceptable to lie about a technology (i.e., to make statements that are materially false instead of simply omitting complex or irrelevant information from an introductory discussion), when that lie gives the public a generally better picture of how something works?
I have to say I don’t think it is, but there’s a difference that I can’t emphasize enough between lying and effective communication with a non-technical audience, defined as that which doesn’t involve a mathematical ton of bricks dropped upon said audience. It frustrates me to almost no end to hear scientist after scientist say that talking to people in an honest manner violates their professional ethics: nothing could be more absurd. I believe that rhetoric (the presentation) is independent of the content. We can package the facts in a way that a non-technical audience can understand: an extremely non-technical audience can understand the concepts of nuclear engineering with no prior knowledge and reasonable intelligence, a technical but non-nuclear-engineer audience can understand how a reactor works if they can figure out how e.g. a carburetor works, and children can be familiarized with nuclear physics from an early age (it works for paleontology, and it can work for us: there are plenty of five-year-olds that can talk endlessly about the difference between an Apatosaurus and an Ultrasaurus, and that’s no less arcane than the difference between Three Mile Island and an AP-1000–and has the major side effect of installing a Nuclear BS Detector in the leaders of the future; I became familiar with especially radiation at an early age and, even while I was a fire-breathing leftist and officially anti-nuclear, I became more and more uncomfortable with my fellow socialists’ opposition to nuclear power until I felt I had to do something). The fact that we are packaging the facts does not, in my view, detract from the veracity of those facts. Some might be repelled from this position by the idea that I’m even willing to consider the question posed by this post, but I bring this topic up only as a straw poll on advocacy tactics among some of those active in the pro-nuclear cause.
Comments? Ideas? Derisive Laughter?
Filed under Activism
Posted on March 31, 2007 by Stewart Peterson |
Obviously any outright fabrication is not acceptable under any circumstances. The fact is that our opponents have damaged their own credibility with such tactics is proof enough.
Now I cannot claim to have read or heard every pro-nuclear supporter, but those I have by in large have not exaggerated the benefits or minimized the problems of atomic energy, in fact if anything as a group we have not engaged in a rhetorical war with the antinuclear crowd even when the latter has been at its worst.
Now that’s not to say I don’t use a few stock comebacks to deal with an antinuclear heckler, or to dismiss some of the FAQ’s that come up from a non-technical audience, and maybe it’s a bit off the wall to answer the shibboleth about “too cheap to meter” by saying; “And we probably could have if we hadn’t had our hands tied,” but I do think that falls within acceptable rhetorical license in the heat of a debate.
Not that I doubt you, but could you post an example of the sort of exaggeration that you are talking about?
The biggest problem that I can identify with pro-nuclear advocates is that we by and large perceive advocacy to be a slippery slope to lying, which it isn’t.
I definitely agree that stock comebacks aren’t lying if they’re factually accurate; they really aren’t related to the accuracy of the content, and that’s something that needs to be made clear to most scientists and engineers IMO.
An example of lying would be to say that nuclear power will eliminate the US’s dependence on foreign oil (without a coal-to-liquids program concurrent with a coal phaseout). I am aware of how much mileage we could get out of a lie like that, but it’s still a lie, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with simply proposing the coal phaseout and CTL program instead of lying about nuclear power’s effectiveness. One could even say that nuclear power already eliminated dependence on foreign oil for electricity and now it’s time to synthesize gasoline from coal for transportation–and that the only way to do that without trashing the environment is to replace existing coal plants with nukes.
While it’s a fact that some ‘true believers’ envision an all nuclear future complete with EV’s powered off the grid, we have to remember that they are not really lying as much as they are ignorant of the ramifications of what they are claiming. On the other hand projects like the nuclear tarsands effort will in fact help deal with oil imports from politically unstable regions, assuming you all consider Canada to be a reliable trading partner.
But on the whole your caution is pertinent given that we are attracting more non-technical supporters to are side of the fence, and we have to make sure they don’t get carried away.
I’m not talking about people who envision EVs running on nuclear electricity as liars–I’m talking about people who know that the US does not get significant amounts of electricity from oil and still use the argument that nuclear power plants displace oil capacity.
If anything, as a group, we need less “caution” in the conventional sense.