Criticism
There has been a negative response to Issue 6 - Hidden Horrors in the Home in the magazine adaption of the book series. The article named "Loony Lab" in this Horrible Science Collection had a section called "Grow your own manky microbes". A compainant, a biology teacher and parent, described it as "irresponsible in the extreme". A plastic petri dish and sachet of agar powder are provided as a ’free gifts’, and children are encouraged to sample areas which may harbour disease-causing organisms (pathogens), such as a toilet handle, a dog's ear, or a "bogey". Under certain circumstances, contact with these substances is potentially life-theatening. The complainant added "The potential for real harm is jaw-dropping. Even in school, under supervision of trained staff, we would not be allowed to do much of what the article suggests, namely for health and safety reasons. How can they be sure that every child will follow even the meagre and woefully inadequate safety advice given?" .
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Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige through being mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)