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Looks like Mycle Schneider, the lead author, is a founding member of WISE-Paris, which is the French branch of the anti-nuclear group WISE, which he directed fr
by agarttha 6y ago
Looks like Mycle Schneider, the lead author, is a founding member of WISE-Paris, which is the French branch of the anti-nuclear group WISE, which he directed from 1983 to 2003. [wikipedia]
- pydry 6y agoIs it particularly noteworthy that an anti nuclear article was written by an anti nuclear author or am I missing something?
- sneak 6y agoI believe that GP intended to imply ideological bias.
- fuzzfactor 6y agoCould be true. but from an above comment: >Not disputing, but in the interests of full disclosure, the presenter is (per YT About): >* Professor David Ruzic >* Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering >* Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering >* University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professors usually don't gain these qualifications because they started out anti-nuclear. Something must have reversed his opinion somewhere along the line, no doubt he has greater domain expertise than all but a few others sharing similar deep knowledge.
- ingsoc79 6y agoYes, as it establishes the potential bias of the article author. If this article was written by typically a pro-nuclear author it would be much more noteworthy.
- pydry 6y agoThat was the idea behind this nuclear industry PR piece from a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26213984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26213984 Predictably, it didn't bring up the costs (though of course the first comment on HN did) but it tried to play the "environmentalist who has seen the light" angle pretty hard. It's actually kind of weird how many articles like this do get submitted to hacker news. Link says "it's safe & making a comeback", comments say "it's just not economic and no" <- this has happened quite a few times.
- lamontcg 6y agoIt is possible to be both biased and correct. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_bias https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_bias
- mamon 6y agoBroken clock shows the right time twice a day. Biased people being correct is an exception, not the rule. We should be suspicious of people with know biases.
- lamontcg 6y agoWell that's interesting in light of the obvious pro-nuclear bias of HN.
- treesprite82 6y agoNoting an author's biases/motives, like agarttha did, is useful. It's not the same as asserting that a conclusion is logically false because of the biases of the person who argued it.
- pydry 6y agoIn this case I thought it was rather obvious what the author's bias was and he doesnt't try to hide it. It might be useful if they tried to conceal it. E.g tried to present themselves as an objective researcher at a think tank that takes money from general dynamics/lockheed or a journalist who clearly hastily rewrote a press release.
- StavrosK 6y agoIs it bias when you have an opinion and share it? The article can contain some of the reasons he's anti-nuclear, instead of the other way around, where his bias causes him to write the article.