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?"

Comments

That was the *WRONG* question

[zappepcs]

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?"

Re:That was the *WRONG* question

[noidentity]

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

Re:That was the *WRONG* question

[morari]

Only in America...

Re:That was the *WRONG* question

[siodine]

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

Re:That was the *WRONG* question

[celardore]

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 producing quality entertainment worldwide, but I'm not allowed to view it because the BBC need the UK population to fund them directly through taxation.

*sigh* BBC, you command no respect from me. I like your news site, but as a British citizen, I don't appreciate the heavy-handed, guilty-until-proven-innocent tactics you adopt with regards to licensing. BBC, you are never going to get a penny out of me. I promise you.

Do I miss TV people ask. No, I have bittorrent.

Re:That was the *WRONG* question

[hughk]

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.

*GASP*

[VE3OGG]

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*

[ScrewMaster]

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.

Re:*GASP*

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:*GASP*

[Salmar]

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 on a multi-team scale, and not only was I in several respects the leading figure of our four-man team, but we were able to consistently impress the faculty. The proposal that lack of a more public schooling environment eliminates social interaction and collaboration is flawed.

While the BBC

[MemoryDragon]

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

[rlp]

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.

So I guess that means...

[Overzeetop]

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

Even better, they made a show about it.

[Kadin2048]

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.

Good on ya

[Jayemji]

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.

Am I the only one?

[Opportunist]

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

Outraged?

[wumpus188]

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

Good Work on the Schools Part

[Dulcise]

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 :)

Information was yesterday, today is infotainment

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Applicable to the evolution debate...

[VonSkippy]

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

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

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

[belmolis]

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.

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

[lixee]

Uh, did anybody read the article?

You must be new here.

*sigh*

[Ant P.]

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

[21st Century Peon]

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.)

Prove it?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Prove it?

[Confuse Ed]

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")

Re:Prove it?

[loganrapp]

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," and then move along to referring you to a psychiatrist.

So, no, it's not silly at all to suggest it, sir.

Studies show that's not EM

[Xenographic]

Whatever might be causing their symptoms, it's apparently NOT electromagnetic waves. See this 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:mobile phone near to my reproductive organs

[chmod a x mojo]

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 you should be able to pick that station up on the other side of the planet.

As for the 100K WATTS, that is reasonable, ONE of the local stations here broadcasts at approximately that and has roughly a 3 state radius ( wisconsin upper michigan and minnesota, and parts of upper illinois)