Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Ah, if only…

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the internet world wide web (although we all know that Iain Dale really did it) has called for some reason and sense to be put into the coverage of science stories.

The use of the web to spread fears that flicking the switch on the LHC could create a Black Hole that could swallow up the Earth particularly concerned him, he said. In a similar vein was the spread of rumours that the MMR vaccine given to children in Britain was harmful.

Hmm. I think Mr Berners-Lee will be disappointed if he thinks that it's just whoop-whoop web nuts who wilfully distort science for the purpose of scaremongering, giving far too much weight to people at the fringes of science and not enough to those who actually know what's going on.

Because I can think of a national newspaper that inflated the risk of MMR-autism and scared the shit out of parents. It's the same national newspaper which twittered all last week about the Hadron experiment in Doomsday terms.

Would TBL be in favour of scientific accreditation for newspapers as well as websites? Because I'm pretty certain I know which newspaper wouldn't be top of the list...

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