Critical Error 6 Not Anticipating the Audience’s Bias

Abstract

The legend goes that in the 1980s a committee of U.S. scientists was assigned to determine which areas of the country would be finalists for the location of a nuclear waste repository. Most of these places under consideration were rural. After carefully considering the local geography and other criteria, the committee made its selections. Before these selections were to be made public, the Department of Energy requested that these scientists go to the various sites, inform the local residents of the decision for that site, and answer questions that the people had.