

“Dihydrogen monoxide” joke gets DJs suspended - sreeix
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/dihydrogen-monoxide-joke-gets-djs-suspended/

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addandsubtract
"If the public can't even understand a basic chemical formula, then it's
probably hopeless to think they'll understand the more complex issues that are
typically involved in public health, like complex dose effects and ambiguous
epidemiology."

The general public doesn't understand any complex subjects, wether it's
chemistry, health, technology or politics (just to name a few). This is why
anyone in a suit or lab coat can use field specific terms to assure the public
to keep calm and carry on - or panic.

The mainstream media acts as a catalyst to this problem by also not having
experts in the required fields reporting on the subjects. And who is to point
out the flaws in the those media stories? Blogspot? Twitter? Facebook? Good
luck getting anyone to read those that aren't already following of the
subject.

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nikcub
Another example of chemophobia in the general public. The perception that all
chemicals are bad for you is commonly accepted, although far from the truth.

Slate magazine did an excellent teardown on this issue, I share this link
frequently:

[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/02/curing_chemophobia_don_t_buy_the_alternative_medicine_in_the_boy_with_a.single.html)

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Retro
This was either planned or well handled by the radio station, announce a
suspension to generate news and traffic to their website, get people talking
about it on facebook, and the DJs were back on the air on Wednesday. It's
almost more of a prank on news outlets which will repeat any non-story.

~~~
niggler
DJ got publicity, Ars got page views, and we get an opportunity to demonstrate
basic chemistry competency. Everyone wins.

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mikecarroll
The big issue here is not that "the public can't even understand a basic
chemical formula"--it's that so many people are willing to take something they
hear in a morning radio show at face value (and panickedly call up the local
utility, rather than search online for verification).

~~~
Yver
What you are saying is that the problem is that people assume that radio shows
fact-check their claims and don't actively try to deceive their audience.

~~~
hnal943
Why would you trust that what anyone (DJ or not) is telling you is the
unbiased truth, especially when it includes a specific call to action?

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obviouslygreen
It's hard to know what to say to this.

No, you can't reasonably expect everyone out there to both 1. understand
chemical formulas and 2. understand their long form names (which is a
significantly different case, as people here seem to be forgetting).

In my opinion, you also can't blame a couple of DJ's for making what to many
of us is just a dumb joke without first considering what many of us would also
call an illogical, ill-informed, totally unfounded backlash. They put together
a lot of material very quickly and part of their job is being, to a point,
controversial.

That this could be construed, through misunderstanding, as something that
could be called a felony and termination-worthy... while you can see it (if
not agree with it) in hindsight, to suggest that they should have known better
seems a bit out of step with reality.

This could and should have been dealt with by way of a mild reprimand and an
on-air explanation and apology. That they were fired and that people are
discussing litigation (if not pursuing it, which is not clear from the
article) is a severe and dangerous overreaction of the sort that's becoming
painfully common everywhere.

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jakobe
It's amazing how everybody is so quick to dismiss the general public as
"stupid" just because they are not familiar with some domain specific
terminology.

~~~
schabernakk
I don't think anyone says the public is stupid because they don't know what
Dihydrogen Monoxide is. The problem is that no one saw the need to do a one
minute wikipedia search for the term before panicking and calling the local
authorities. Because that is stupid.

~~~
learc83
I'm sure most people did.

How many people actually called in? I'm betting a few dozen out of thousands
(maybe hundreds of thousands) of listeners.

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niggler
"My understanding is it is a felony to call in a false water quality issue"

Is this a local or state or federal issue?

~~~
avar
Also, how does essentially saying: "The water supply is full of water" qualify
as calling in a false water quality issue?

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nonamegiven
The nose in the tent is that they didn't say it's full of water, they said
it's full of [something I've never heard of], and presented in a newsy-
alarming way, in venue where people are accustomed to getting snippets of news
while they're doing something else. "Traffic on the freeway, be careful."
"It's cold today, dress warm." "Something you've never heard of in the water,
take precautions."

Suspension and disavowal probably went too far. A corporate and DJ apology
would have been enough.

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kiba
What percentage of people recognize first glance off the bat what hydrogen
monoxide is? Europeans versus Americans?

Instead of proclaiming Americans are a bunch of uneducated idiot, maybe one
should find out the base rate for knowing basic chemistry fact like dihydrogen
monoxide.

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lifeisstillgood
Oh stop being so high and mighty. Chemophobia! Really?

H2O is probably the most widely known chemical formula - go out and ask twenty
random people what it is and you will get 19 answers for water.

Ask those same 19 people what dihydrogen monoxide is at 8am on a Tuesday when
they are trying to get kids dressed and out the door, then say "contaminated"
and the answer will be "I don't know but it sounds nasty"

Yes it's true - half of the population is below average intelligence, but
amazingly they still seem to hold down jobs, pay mortgages, drive complex
journeys and raise children. And when a public policy issue crops up - don't
play silly in jokes but use plain English (like water) and explain - the IPCC
has succeeded there.

OpEd politics is like programmin puzzles - it appeals to people who like
puzzles. If you don't get a kick out of puzzles you won't concentrate on them.
And the latest political oped piece, education or science understanding will
just seem to most people as vital to existence as fix buzz. But no one here
has a convincing explanation or solution to say US education policy - and
neither will the people who did not recognise dihydrogen monoxide - but I will
bet dollars to doughnuts they can all tell the difference between a good and
bad teacher and want their children to go to the school of the former.

A comment recently mentioned how poor the voter turnout was - but given a
introspective and mostly deadlocked congress, apathy is _a_ rational response.
Even those below average intelligence can work that one out. Those who refuse
apathy are above average I other ways, emotionally, optimistically and more.

~~~
ruswick
You're asserting that, simply because people are capable of holding down jobs,
owning homes and producing kids, that the general stigmatization of sciences
and pervasive anti-intellectualism is insignificant because people can still
intuit what constitutes as good and bad education and policy? This is absurd.
Just because people may be capable of functioning in the real world without
access to scientific knowledge does not meant that we shouldn't pursue the
proliferation of such knowledge. Whether people _need_ to know what Dihydrogen
Monoxide is is largely inconsequential. Insofar as scientific knowledge is,
unto itself, a good thing, policymakers should strive to promote it,
regardless of its practical implications.

It's preferable to be an informed functioning citizen than an uninformed
functioning citizen, despite the fact that they are both capable of doing
their jobs every day.

As an aside, "Half of the population is below average intelligence" is false.
Half of the population is below the _median_ intelligence.

~~~
learc83
>As an aside, "Half of the population is below average intelligence" is false.
Half of the population is below the median intelligence.

Not false. Median is a type of _average_. He never said half the population is
below the arithmetic mean.

~~~
Karunamon
>Not false. Median is a type of average

?? I thought those were two distinct things. The median is the "middle" amount
in a set of numbers, while the average or mean is the sum of all the numbers
in the set, divided by how many numbers there are.

~~~
learc83
Arithmetic mean, geometric mean, median, mode etc... those are all specific
methods of finding the average.

The most common average in ordinary use is the arithmetic mean, but they are
not the same thing and the word average is much more general.

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Justonius
This demonstrates how many people get their news from radio DJs...

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DanBC
How many calls did the water plant get?

Depressingly, how many would they have got if the presenters used H20 instead
of dihydrogen monoxide?

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davebees
H twenty?

~~~
afandian
Yes.

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68y4g_look-around-you-
modu...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68y4g_look-around-you-
module-2-water_fun&start=95)

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ck2
The not-so-funny part is water quality around the US really is rapidly
diminishing.

So they will call in about the water but will say "oh well" to pollution that
doesn't immediately affect their morning.

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mschuster91
As an European, all I can say is "Fuckin' stupid American rednecks".

Jeez, do the US have at least A BIT chemistry lessons in their education
system?

~~~
Vivtek
Yes, of course. But the overall cultural assumption that science is something
dangerous that Washington is pushing on the Real Americans is pretty powerful.
And since that cultural assumption is a power base and a profit base, there
are a lot of entrenched interests keeping it right where it is.

But this particular issue isn't even that. This particular issue is the fact
that Americans have been trained for decades to jump at shadows, to worry
about every possible threat. This is partly because frightened people are easy
to control, and partly because hidden corporate powers really _are_ allowing
their health to be at risk to make a slightly quicker buck.

It's easy to be alarmed about a technical term you've never heard before, and
"monoxide" sounds like "carbon monoxide", which everybody knows is an
undetectable gas that can kill your children in their sleep.

It's not as simple as just "stupid". It never is.

~~~
mschuster91
True about the "it's not as simple" point - but why did the people call the
water department first instead of a quick Googling of the term?

I mean, it should be widely known that US news organizations often have a
massive bias _cough_ Fox News _cough_ , so it should be the first thing to do
to do at least a bit of fact checking.

~~~
visakanv
"If people Googled before believing what they see or hear, I wouldn't have so
many quotes misattributed to me." - Albert Einstein

