Bayesian inference about nuclear disasters and press coverage

Via Brad DeLong, Clive Crook writes:

From the start of this calamity I have wanted to know, “What is the worst that can happen at these nuclear sites? Suppose everything that could go wrong does go wrong: what then?” I still don’t know the answer. In what I have read so far–dozens of articles–nobody who knows what he is talking about has spelt this out carefully.

I have had this same frustration.  The question is what to infer from this gap in the coverage.  Is it that newspapers have been asked by a government not to panic people?  Is it that newspapers are simply feckless?  Is it that we are in “uncharted waters,” relative to previous knowledge and previous nuclear disasters?  Or could it be “all of the above”?  Is there any hypothesis where this gap in coverage indicates the problem soon will be solved?  I don’t see it.

By the way, major evacuations are very difficult to pull off.  Nonetheless, will it be considered a moral failing that the Japanese are not currently trying to accomplish one?

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