AW: AW: AW: AW: [ RadSafe ] Fears promoted by anti-nuclear Greens

[Rainer.Facius at dlr.de]

"Unfortunately, the non-scientists may not grasp the significance of this aspect of the arguments. Rather, they [only!] hear that there is a risk."

Dear John:

 

You hit the nail on its head: This exactly is the crux!
                              *************************

Combine the LNT postulate with the outright asinine (ab-)use of collective dose as a prognostic tool and the news greedily will distribute the horror stories kicked off by papers like e.g.

Berrington de Gonzalez A, Darby S, Risk of cancer from diagnostic X-rays: estimates for the UK and 14 other countries. The Lancet 363(2004)354-351

that in Germany 2049 persons (7587 in Japan, 5695 in the US) will contract cancer each year due to (to a large degree unwarranted) diagnostic X-ray exposures! They really did that!

Such 'scientific' conclusions could not be published if committees like BEIR would differentiate more strictly between data and fit paramters, between facts and 'model' results.

So yes, your above remark describes the heart of the problem. Since this appears to be unsolvable, isn't it reasonable to expect scientific committees to take into consideration the inevitable abuse of their statements whenever they do not most meticulously guard against it?

Best regards, Rainer

 


________________________________

Von: John Jacobus [mailto:crispy_bird at yahoo.com]
Gesendet: Mi 15.03.2006 22:52
An: Facius, Rainer; franz.schoenhofer at chello.at; tom.mohaupt at wright.edu; maurysis at ev1.net
Cc: radsafe at radlab.nl
Betreff: Re: AW: AW: AW: [ RadSafe ] Fears promoted by anti-nuclear Greens



Rainer,
Thanks for the reply.  If you look carefully at
reports such as BEIR VII, I do not believe that they
say that the risks of radiation are significant.  One
thing that they do say is that there are uncertainties
that make a definitive statement on risks to be
unlikely.  This is the nature of science.

Unfortunately, the non-scientists may not grasp the
significance of this aspect of the arguments.  Rather,
they hear that there is a risk.  

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