Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Helen Caldicott explains important skill she learned in school

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I came across the following quote worth sharing.

Another activity I enjoyed was the debating class. We were taught how to develop a case even if it was the antithesis of our belief and how to sway others to our viewpoint. I had been given an important skill that would stand me in good stead for the rest of my life.

Source: Helen Caldicott: A Desperate Passion An Autobiography. W. W. Norton and Company, 1996 pp. 35-36

Considering the career path that Dr. Caldicott has pursued, I wonder if she has been using skills learned as a 15 year old student to build a case to sway people to a point of view that she doesn’t even believe herself.

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Comments

  1. Rod, you should consider the possibility that Helen Caldicott believes her own irrational arguments are true. Possibly the one person most deceived by Helen Caldicott’s mistakes is herself.

    • While she definitely comes across as a nut case, the quote Rod came across could explain her irrational arguments just as well. While I believe her debating skills are questionable, her adoring audiences will believe whatever she says.

    • @Charles Barton

      Abe’s Axiom: “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

      However, the number of people you can fool all of the time is generally a lot smaller than you think it is. But you can always fool yourself.

      • It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. — M. Twain

  2. I could not find a comment button for your Boston conference item. I found you a room for $25 in Boston via:
    https://www.airbnb.com/s/Boston–Massachusetts?af=1922719&c=A_TC%3Dqz3wecw5dn%26G_MT%3Db%26G_CR%3D28487353696%26G_N%3Dg%26G_K%3D%2Bbnb%20%2Bboston%26G_P%3D&gclid=CjwKEAjwtYSsBRCDx6rM1v_uqmsSJAAZgf2qVaflKFO_br5z24SsLpVdNMdBzyMWnPkYxPxIY-FP4hoCR6zw_wcB&dclid=CMek2NLvlsYCFRZ8fgodsQsA6w

    or Google “bnb Boston”
    My wife has used bnb for New York City and had a fabulous time.

  3. Her factual errors have been pointed out to her over and over, and she continues to repeat them. There is a word for a person like that, a liar. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. And, she is a liar.

    • I disagree. I think for Helen, and many, many other people, reward has far greater input in a belief system than either logic or argument. I can’t conceive of an experiment that social scientists can use to prove it, but I nevertheless believe it.

      I think Helen will believe what she is saying, and continue to say it, despite the presentation of clear evidence to her that she is wrong.

    • @SteveK9

      Your statement does not disagree with mine. Numerous professional advocates say things that they know — or suspect — are not true in order to advance their employer’s cause. It doesn’t matter how many times they are challenged or corrected; they continue to spew the party line.

      • This behaviour is actively tolerated. In politics, there is an unspoken rule to not accuse an opponent of lying. This rule is not always followed, but it is an indication perhaps that lies are accepted as a normal part of doing (political/advocacy) business. When confronted with a lie, a politician/activist will typically ignore it and attempt to put forward his own competing lie, if necessary. The public is left with little more than the option of choosing which lies appeal to him/her the most. 😉

      • @Joris Van Dorp

        It takes considerable preparation and courage to get into the business of pointing out lies. One of the preparatory tasks is one that isn’t comfortable for many people who are attracted to the political profession – you have to carefully practice telling the truth no matter how uncomforable it is.

        In other words, only people whose record can sustain counter attacks can use the “liar” accusation with much effectiveness.

      • Interesting, this business of discussing lies. Considering the highly partisan tone that many here assume when addressing a wide range of issues, one could assume that a large number of participants here have chosen to ignore known lies in order to advance a partisan slant on issues being debated. I speak not so much about NE, but about other issues that have been raised here. Sadly, the longer epic governmental lies are ignored by the public, or bandied forth as truths, the more firmly they become entrenched in thr historical record. Note Donald Rumsfeld’s recent distortions and prefarications concerning his motives regarding our invasion of Iraq. A simple five second google search renders his revisionist assertions as complete and utter BS, yet I see some media ( guess who) actually trying to lend credence to his lies. Too bad that we as a nation do not have the good sense to hold our politicians accountable to the truth. Perjuries before Congress, while committed under oath, (as we’ve seen numerous examples of these last two decades), should be prosecuted. But apparently we are a nation that operates with two distinctly different sets of rules; those that the common man must abide by, and those our elite must observe.

      • I don’t believe people contentiously choose to ignore lie, it’s rather a matter of highly effective selective blindness.
        However this is a perfectly normal cognitive process : it’s very strongly disturbing for anybody to have to reconsider what he holds to be true, and the instinctive way to protect against that is to categorically refuse to consider anything which may endanger our beliefs.

        People who use a highly partisan tone show themselves to be very susceptible to this problem, and you poa have shown repeatedly here to be yourself one of them. It’s not because your partisan issues are not aligned with the majority on this site that you don’t have them, quite the opposite.

  4. I heard her speak at a college in 1991. I looked around the hall and saw English and sociology profs. nodding their heads at the weird anti-science stuff she spouted off. According to her, the world was clearly coming to an end within ten years, by 2001,

    I think there are plenty of people like Caldicott who are just incapable of thinking logically about science topics that are too complicated for them.

    I don’t think she is lying. Maybe, but based on her talk 25 years ago, she loves attention and doesnt understand science. There were many just like her reporting and writing on Fukushima.

  5. I’ve heard Dr. Helen Caldicott speaking on nuclear issues many times especially at the Menai Public Hall in Sydney, debating with the CEO of Ansto at that time. From what Helen said, I have no doubt in my mind and others in the audence that she is a genuine “Ratbag” seeking a public forum to gain personal notoriety and probably to sell her books. Giving her more exposure to the scientific and wider community is an insult to the intelligence of all, “a persona non grata”. Helen has been allocated the third place in my mental filing system, for the “Bizarre & Eccentrics” with the likes of Bea Miles and Germaine Greer. I would have thought that after 10 x t1/2 she would decayed away by now.

  6. “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

    Richard P. Feynman

    I think Caldicott is fooling herself & completely deluded

  7. There’s not a single college on Long Island or NYC Metro who’d turn Helen and Arnie away as standing ovation guest speakers regardless of all the falsehoods attributed to her,

    Where’s our guys?

    James Greenidge
    Queens NY

    • @James Greenidge

      I’d happily accept an invitation to speak, probably at a substantially reduced cost.

      If you have any contacts who would be interested, send them my way.