Mis-information
by Bernard McGrath, Inspection Validation Centre

In a recent book review in the pages of a Sunday newspaper magazine, the headline review was about a book entitled: ‘Green Philosophy: How to Think Seriously about the Planet’. Half the page was taken up with a photograph of the author and the other half was spilt in two, with the written review starting in the bottom quarter and a picture in the top quarter. This latter picture was quite impressive, showing the cooling towers of a power station, and the associated water vapour, backlit by a rising or setting sun. As you can probably imagine the colours were quite striking.

However, I had two relatively strong objections to the use of this picture in the review. The first is the showing of the water vapour from cooling towers with the implication that it is the large visible plumes that are pouring contaminants into the atmosphere. This fallacy is also perpetuated by TV. I understand that the actual pollutant from the stacks is not readily as visible, but that does not excuse this deception. The ironic thing is that on the next page the reviewer writes that the author “…derides scaremongering and pseudo-science…”! The other strong objection I had was the caption on the image: ‘a power station in the north of England’. Now, I know it is grim up ‘ere, but the only reason for mentioning the north was from some sort of discriminatory viewpoint. But that is by the bye. The dismal lack of scientific understanding was illustrated further when we had the recent gales.

Now, anyone with a smattering of scientific knowledge and a little bit of curiosity would have known that wind farms don’t generate if there is no wind and have to shut down if the wind is too strong. Obviously, not many people believed this until they could see with their own eyes a wind turbine in flames due to the high wind. Then, and only then, when they were able to actually see a media picture, could this be accepted as fact, and the City traders who specialise in the future of energy prices then decide to factor-in the possibility of future wind farm outages for the first time!

Of course, this paucity of scientific knowledge starts at school. Recently, there has been a lot in the press about how the British education system should be overhauled and one idea reported was to follow the lead of far eastern countries and give primary school children lessons in basic scientific concepts, such as how machines work and how plastic is made. The need for something to be done was highlighted by a recent survey of scientific misconceptions performed by the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Evidently, one in seven people believes that the periodic table is arranged alphabetically. Only one in 20 people was aware that humans use all of their brain capacity, with almost a third misguidedly thinking we only use 10%. Almost half (46%) believe that oxygen, rather than nitrogen, is the main component of air. But the survey designers also showed a misunderstanding of what constitutes scientific knowledge: the report states that almost a third of us think that TV’s Dr Christian Jessen performed the first ever lung transplant, with 9% thinking it was Dr Nick Riviera, the inept physician in The Simpsons. I’m sorry, but knowing who did something is a history question not a science one. What is the white stuff coming out of a cooling tower? That is a science question! Oh, and I won’t have a word said against The Simpsons: a lot of my children’s general knowledge was gleaned from them.

Science and engineering are the basis of all NDT techniques and they underlie the mechanisms by which NDT output is acted upon. So, it would benefit the profession, as a whole, if the level of scientific knowledge in the wider population was raised. But could we make a start within the profession? The PANI project showed that operators who scored higher on mechanical comprehension performed better on the ultrasonic task. Knowledge is gained and developed through asking questions, through open debate on issues and through challenging anything we are not convinced about. Do we do this enough? I know I don’t and I don’t do it outside of NDT either – I haven’t called the Sunday newspaper to task over the cooling tower photograph.

Yet we need to beware. Applying Edmund Burke’s maxim to this situation: “All that is necessary for the triumph of pseudo-science is that good scientists (and engineers and institutions) do nothing.”

Please note that the views expressed in this column are the author’s own personal ramblings for the purpose of encouraging discussion within the NDT Newspaper. They do not represent the views of the IVC, Serco Assurance or the HSE who funded the PANI projects.

Letters can be mailed to The Editor, NDT News, Newton Building, St George’s Avenue, Northampton NN2 6JB. Fax: 01604 89 3861; Email: ndtnews@bindt.org or email Bernard McGrath direct at Bernard.McGrath@sercoassurance.com