BBC Kicked out of School Over Wi-Fi Scaremongering

h2g2bob writes "Ben Goldacre reports that the BBC Panorama team, while scaremongering over the dangers of Wi-fi, were told to leave the school because even the kids could see it was dumb: 'When the children saw Alasdair's Powerwatch website, and the excellent picture of the insulating mesh beekeeper hat that he sells (£27) to protect your head from excess microwave exposure, they were astonished and outraged. Panorama were calmly expelled from the school.' Should we be pleased that the kids can out-think TV producers?"

That was the *WRONG* question

Should we be pleased that the kids can out-think TV producers?"

The right question is: "Should we be surprised that the kids can out-think TV producers?"

Even better, they made a show about it.

Oddly enough, in the U.S., the TV producers have capitalized on their, and a large part of the rest of the world's, own ineptitude [fox.com].

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Also, should we be ashamed that TV viewers still put up with this crap? (or even watch TV anymore?)

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I live in the UK, and I love being able to say I don't pay for a TV licence. I genuinely don't receive TV, and have even had a TV Licence inspector come into my home to verify this.

Which is an awful shame, because many television companies are producin

Re:That was the *WRONG* question

The people enforcing the TV licenses in the UK have nothing to do with the BBC and you are right, they do behave obnoxiously tending to scare people into paying but it is a tax that only applies to those with the means to receive TV programs. However they do enforce the collection of a fee that the BBC mostly benefits from.

I guess you haven't travelled much. Modern programming costs money, lots of it. In Germany you pay for a TV license, actually more than the UK and they still carry advertisements. As for the US, it the ads are intrusive. For most satellite TV you pay for a subscription AND you get the ads. There is a wonderful story about a Top Gear program that was particularly acerbic towards a car where the manufacturer's CEO threatened to pull the advertisements, he was somewhat confused when informed, they carried no advertising. For the Murdoch empire, they tread carefully to avoid offendinfg advertisers. The BBC doesn't have to do this.

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I pay a TV license even though I haven't watched broadcast TV (I still watch TV rented on DVD) for months. I pay it mainly because I felt the news web site was worth funding. Next time it's up for renewal, I will cancel it, however, for two reasons:

1. I d

Re:That was the *WRONG* question

Only in America...

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Should we be pleased that the kids can out-think TV producers?"
The right question is: "Should we be surprised that the kids can out-think TV producers?"

The right question is: "Should we be surprised that the kids have been lulled into a sense of unquestion

Prove it?

No, I don't mean in your own setting, but in a double-blind one with actual scientists. If she could prove that, it might well be interesting.

As for me, I can't detect wifi, but I can hear very high frequencies, and you might be surprised by some of the annoying electronic gear that gives them off. Now *that* can sure cause a headache, but it's just sound, not radio.

Also, does she get like this around microwaves, too? There are more things to detect than radio, y'know, and if she was really sensitive to radio waves, I'd expect her to have gone batty long ago given all the broadcasts. So I'm not the least bit convinced that you've isolated the actual problem, sorry.

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Have you had that verified by scientists in a double blind study? I believe you're just imagining it every time you're around electronic equipment, and only believe you're hearing such noises because you're seeing the equipment.

I hear cathode ray tube TVs

Re:Prove it?

A much more noticable effect is the horizontal scan frequency (15.625 KHz for PAL) - this is in the range that younger people can hear, but older people can't (your hearing gets worse as you age - but at different rates for different people).
So as a teeneger / mid-20s, at some point you'll find yourself in the company of other people of the same age where some of you can hear the (annoying) noise, and some can't.

I think a lot of switched mode power supplies also tend to operate in the same frequency at their standard load (their frequency can change depending on how much current is drawn) leading to a similar effect with all sorts of electronics : including perhaps the circuitry for the 30KV(ish) high voltage part of the CRT (which LCDs don't require)

From your description of the noise as a "whine", it seems more likely to be one of these two effects rather than the 50Hz or 60Hz vertical scan frequency (which most people would describe as a low "buzzing" sound rather than a "whining sound")

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The point being that doctors tell her she's imagining it. That's the impetus for doing the double-blind study. If physicians are saying it's not possible, well, your little experiment in your home isn't going to convince them. They'll say, "oh, that's cute

Studies show that's not EM

Whatever might be causing their symptoms, it's apparently NOT electromagnetic waves. See this [badscience.net] for details. It may be a very real symptom, but you should be more careful when making claims about WHAT caused it and you need a proper scientific study to rule out any other causes.

Until then, I'm going to have to go with all the published studies showing that, whatever might cause people to feel "EM sensitive", it's not actually EM that's causing it.

Re:That was the *WRONG* question

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=384 [damninteresting.com]

*GASP*

You mean children might actually be able to differentiate truth from fiction? But that's unpossible, how can their schools control them then?

*Sigh*

I've seen similar situations -- namely when some high school students saw Bowling for Columbine. Teacher couldn't believe they might actually be able to see flaws in the reasoning...

Re:*GASP*

An intelligent child can certainly possess a measure of critical-thinking ability, one which is unadulterated by the learned preconceptions of their elders. Adults are often blinded by their own mental programming, by their own expectations of reality: children have had no such limitations imposed upon them yet.

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You mean children might actually be able to differentiate truth from fiction? But that's unpossible, how can their schools control them then?

Not to worry, they're only 5th graders. By the time they "graduate" from high school, most of them will have wha

Re:*GASP*

While I generally agree, I do strongly oppose home schooling. What your kid would miss out is the contact with other kids, not just their friends but actually finding a way to work together with people they didn't choose but that were "forced" onto them. Much like they'll later encounter in business life.

Rather, I'd suggest schools that actually encourage pupil creativity and that promote the use of their intellect. Those schools exist, though you'll hardly find any public schools that are run like that. There, your kids would probably rather be dumbed down so they don't mess up the class average.

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From my personal experience, I must disagree. I was homeschooled through grades 3-12, having no major lack of friends or teamwork situations. For example, I've just completed the second of two college courses in software practice, requiring collaboration

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Its the problem of parents worldview,in ideal world homeschooling would be the best option for the kids.
Besides the kids of creationist parents are likely to go to christian private school which would indoctrinate them more then their parents could.

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"While I generally agree, I do strongly oppose home schooling. What your kid would miss out is the contact with other kids, not just their friends but actually finding a way to work together with people they didn't choose but that were "forced" onto them.

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While I generally agree, I do strongly oppose home schooling. What your kid would miss out is the contact with other kids, not just their friends but actually finding a way to work together with people they didn't choose but that were "forced" onto them.

This is not an issue with homeschooling, as these issues still persist (or are significantly worse) in public schools. For example:

• The social structure in public schools bears no resemblance to either a realistic or healthy society. Problematic childre

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While I generally agree, I do strongly oppose home schooling. What your kid would miss out is the contact with other kids, not just their friends but actually finding a way to work together with people they didn't choose but that were "forced" onto them. M

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insert comments on home schooling, or at the very least, teaching your kids how to think

Glad to! We pulled our kids out of public school seven years ago, in part because no sort of critical thinking was being taught. Older one's in college now, younger o

While the BBC

normally is an icon of good journalism, I see a tendency worldwide that scaremongering for the sake of getting more viewers takes more and more over. Call it how you will but Michael Moore basically brought this excellent into perspective in bowling for columbine.

This scaremongering is one of the causes why people are more concerned over a handful of dead people in the western world per year caused by terrorism than thousands and thousands of people dead caused by traffic. I personally think this scaremongering is a misuse of free speach and the problem is, if a system or right is misused too much in it will end up dead...

Re:While the BBC

normally is an icon of good journalism

No, the BBC used to be an icon of good journalism. They've gone downhill dramatically the past few years. What really saddens me, is that the same is true of "The Economist". I was a long time subscriber, but finally gave up about a year ago.

Information was yesterday, today is infotainment

People don't want to listen to information. Information is like school, and school was boring, right? People want to be entertained, at best they can be convinced to sit through some spectacular show that gives them a few tidbits of "information" between the explosions and stunts.

I can see it in our TV program. About 20 years ago, we had talk shows (no, not the Springer kind. Talk shows where experts discussed controversal topics. And with discussed I don't mean "support the official opinion and nod heads", but real discussion), we had news that deserved the name (with reporters that did dig deeper, and didn't only bring up dirt but real information), and we had entertainment above the pie-in-the-face level.

Then we got private TV and the quality of our public stations went where the viewers are: Basement level.

Columbine paradox

Bowling for Columbine: a film scaremongering about scaremongering!

WRH!

Michael Moore? I think you give the man too much credit! What about William Randolph Hearst [wikipedia.org], whose scaremongering successfully helped start a war, and for whom the term "Yellow Journalism" was coined? I agree that it's a significant problem, but it's ha

So I guess that means...

...the UK version of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? will be a big hit.

Good on ya

Those kids are alright. They were skeptical of something that was total baloney. Granted, it may have been obvious drivel, but the fact that they spoke up at all indicates that they will at least speak their minds.

Extraordinary Claims...

Show me a rigorous, controlled, double-blind study or smegg off.

Quick!!

Somebody forward this to Jack Thompson!!! His claim that children cannot differentiate reality and fiction from video games is now null and void!!

Conspiracy gear

That hat seems to me like it'd make a nice tinfoil hat alternative.

Should we be pleased

We should be pleased from the standpoint that these kids could clearly see bullshit for what it is. TV news & documentary producers no longer care about accuracy, so long as they can scare their audience and get them worked up over imagined fears.

Am I the only one?

Am I the only one who misread that as the "BBC Paranoia team" after reading the headline?

Outraged?

I would be too. £27 for beekeeper hat when tinfoil one is free. Damn scammers.

Good Work on the Schools Part

What makes me pleased about reading this article, is that the school protected it's pupils from the producers pseudo-science, and didn't allow them to continue. Hopefully this will mean in the future these children will know to be weary of sensationalist TV shows & films.

I hope all schools are instilling the same sort of thinking (looking for scientific method) in their pupils, it might result to a smarter tomorrow :)

"kids can think" - "science teachers can think"

Uh, did anybody read the article? I don't find anything in it about the kids detecting the BS. It was the science teacher who realized that the Panorma crew was pulling a scam and threw them out. Kudos to him, but this episode doesn't tell us anything about the ability of the kids to detect nonsense.

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The summary really doesn't reflect the story at all. Plus, the article itself takes a few factual statements and then adds a large amount of speculation on the matter also.

Ironic that an extremely misleading program should be examined in an extremely misle

Re:"kids can think" - "science teachers can think"

Uh, did anybody read the article?

You must be new here.

Emperor, new clothes, etc.

Anyone who lisens to the BBC world service is already used to this. Biofuels will cause deforestation and starvation, hydroelectric dams cause the release of greenhouse gases, etc., etc.

Are you being ironic?

Or are you genuinely comparing reportage of the verifiable doubling of corn prices because of US bioethanol policy and resultant riots in Mexico, the verifiable destruction of rainforest to grow palm oil and soy beans for fuel feedstocks [biofuelwatch.org.uk] and the verifiabl

Doesn't work?

What do you mean doesn't work? I wear mine all the time and I still haven't gotten any excess microwave radiation in my head. Also, no bee stings.

*sigh*

This is the same BBC Panorama that sent one poor bastard out alone to do a report on Scientology. Maybe it's the same person, and they made him crack.

The Beeb used to fill me with British pride

While I still think that the TV Licence is a great way to pay for my TV, and can often produce splendid telly (Life In The Undergrowth, The Day Today, Doctor Who, What The Victorians Did For Us to name but a few), the dragging down of the once-great Corporation to the level of the lowest commercial channels (yes, Reality TV - I'm also talking about you) brings a mournful tear to my eye.

Britain used to make really good documentary shows, too - Dispatches, anyone? Q.E.D.? Channel 4's Equinox, I seem to recall, could also be counted on for a refreshing brain-jiggle. You wouldn't catch 'em making anything like that anymore, of course - not when there's slaggy morons to build into role models.

And if they produce a "Deal Or No Deal"-aping enormobrowed-yahoos-receive-unearned-prizes celebration of dimwittedness, I'm fairly certain my head will explode. (Man Alive, I sound old.)

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"Look up the relevant Mark Twain quote about school boards."

I went to public school - can you look that up for me???

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I also wonder why they put up huge fences, and warning signs around transmission towers?

it's a matter of the power level. the most powerful consumer wi-fi access point I've seen puts out 500 milliwatts. the local FM radio station puts out about 100,000 M

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it's a matter of the power level. the most powerful consumer wi-fi access point I've seen puts out 500 milliwatts. the local FM radio station puts out about 100,000 Megawatts.

I would assume that you actually mean 100K WATTS because at 100,000 Megawatts

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Read a book or something, poser. Ya can't PROVE anything is "safe" - but a few EVENTS can prove concrete risk. See the difference ??

Poser? Posing as what? Or was he simply posing a question you are offended by?

Interestingly, you are right; he should read