Scientists And Agendas

GIThruster · Post by **GIThruster** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 1:32 am

I'm not as familiar with you as regards the data. I sincerely hope you're right. Certainly, if the linear model is wrong, both air and space travel stand to gain hugely. Might also mean these cigars I smoke aren't nearly as bad for me as people present.

palladin9479 · Post by **palladin9479** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 5:16 am

It make sense, biological things tend to adapt over time and build resistance to external attackers. The immune system is a perfect example, another is micro-evolution. I'm not a physicist and am barely qualified to speak on such matters, but the concept of "no safe level of exposure" doesn't sound very convincing since we evolved under constant exposure to low level radiation. That he knowingly concealed (deliberate omission is concealment) empirical test results that didn't agree with his hypothesis really tarnish's his credibility. If we caught this one incident, then how many incidents did he successfully hide?

Just means someone else is going to have to redo all this work and do it transparently.

Tom Ligon · Post by **Tom Ligon** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 11:51 am

We evolved surrounded by creatures that wanted to eat us and diseases that kill us, too. And frequently did. Still do. Those effects are real enough, and certainly swamp out the hazards of low dose radiation. The point being that the arguments here are misguided ... even if there is a strictly linear relationship between radiation and harm, right thru zero, in the vicinity of zero radiation the harm is about zero. Once the level of harm drops to trivial against the other hazards of life, it may as well be considered zero for all practical intent.

Cue the jokes about "good engineering approximation".

We should remember this when considering other threats such as terrorism, as well.

For one scientist to have strong feelings on a subject is human nature. Peer review is supposed to be the cure. Typically, science will put ideas such as this to the test, but once you push the job off on a committee composed Peter-principled rejects, don't expect great peer review. Another problem here is something Jeff Kooistra used as a topic for a recent opinion piece in Analog ... the "Intellectual Proxy." What is an intellectual proxy? Acceptance of the idea that there is no safe dose of radiation without doing your own critical analysis of the evidence is an example. In this case I think it is largely a matter of training radiation professionals from the start to be overly cautious, and always try to stay far below the established safe standards, which themselves are usually highly conservative. Good practice, but it tends to discourage independent analysis of actual hazards.

Diogenes · Post by **Diogenes** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Tom Ligon wrote:A couple of nights ago my wife and I watched an interesting PBS show on Chernobyl, particularly on wolves living in the evacuated zone.

In this particular case they can document very clearly that the radiation is very good for the wolves. While there probably are some negative health effects, in fact the area is recovering to essentially natural population levels of all species, due to humans bugging out.

At some low level, regardless of any threshold below which there is either no effect or an actual beneficial effect, ionizing radiation must necessarily vanish into the noise of causes of mortality. If, for example, not having nukes gets you overrun by a neighbor with a huge population armed with conventional weapons, the mortality caused by the invasion will certainly dwarf any effects due to nuclear testing.

RWB actually bragged to me about the doses of radiation he received during his cancer treatment. It far exceeded anything he had been exposed to as a nuclear scientist, and probably did help prolong his life a little.

I saw that show. It was pretty good. As you said, Radiation is good for the wolves because it keeps humans away from them.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 9:36 am

The linear model does after all, make perfect sense.

Nope. It depends on the repair rate. That would say that low dose response is non-linear. i.e. below a certain threshold (knee of the curve) there is not much effect. Above that it would be approaching linear.

And we are not even counting hormesis. Which says that a body under "attack" spends more on defense.

Still. The standard is conservative. Which is more expensive to be sure but it also lowers the probability of larger accidents.

choff · Post by **choff** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 3:45 pm

There are places in the Rockies you can go for a walk in the hills and get a dose of radiation higher than from some nuclear waste sites, but it's always better to avoid large scale accidents, speaking of which.

http://news.ca.msn.com/world/japan-nucl ... ear-fix-41