Brookhaven National Laboratory this year celebrates its 60th Anniversary. But it also celebrates a more painful anniversary that threatened its existence and reveals just how much the public and its neighbors really are susceptible to misinformation. This piece by Robert Crease is an excellent article describing the issues surrounding this debacle.
I mentioned about the closing of the HFBR in an earlier essay here. The public's support of science is definitely based not on an intimate understanding of science, but rather based on the perceived importance of science. Thus, it isn't built on a solid foundation and can be gone in the blink of an eye.
I was working at the lab at the tail end of this mistrust between the lab and the surrounding neighborhood, so I saw first hand what was going on. People were being swayed by hearsay and by bells and whistles, rather than hard facts, because they were not equipped to understand and decipher hard facts.
To the lab's credit, they have worked very hard to make themselves less mysterious. The Summer Sunday Tour that they organize every summer because a huge hit with large number of visitors. Still, the closing of the HFBR is a major scar of this battle that will remain a lasting legacy of not only the lab, but also on the public that got swayed by scare tactics.
Zz.
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