• Question: Is your work ever controversial?

    Asked by lisa to Angeline, Catherine, Luke, Philip, Shona on 15 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Angeline Burrell

      Angeline Burrell answered on 15 Mar 2015:

      To certain people. For example, right now I’m using radio waves that are bent by the plasma in space back to the ground, reflect off of the ground, and then travel back to the radar to estimate the amount of plasma at the top of the radio wave’s path. Some very good researchers don’t think you can do this reliably, so, to them, the data is controversial. It’s not really something that is considered controversial in the news, though 😛

    • Photo: Shona Whittam

      Shona Whittam answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      My field can be.

      2 recent news stories about radiotherapy were the mum who refused her child (Neon Roberts) radiotherapy treatment then the hospital took her to court because she was putting her child’s life at risk. Then there was the family who took their ill son (Ashya King) to Spain & they were arrested for not giving their son treatment but it turned out they just wanted to raise money for proton therapy.

    • Photo: Philip Moriarty

      Philip Moriarty answered on 18 Mar 2015:

      Not in the sense of being controversial to the general public. In terms of within the research field we work in, sometimes. But then if an area of science isn’t controversial and generating debate at times, it’s possibly not that interesting a field of research…

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