[ RadSafe ] A judges' criticism of John W Gofman ? Arthur R Tamplin?

[Perle, Sandy]

Andy,

I agree with your logical and common sense approach. I too don't agree with the ultimate conclusions of these individuals, but I do not question their sincerity. It perturbs me that "we" pro-nuclear entities resort to attacking the individual with whom we disagree, and way too much of that here on Radsafe. Personal attacks do not bring others into your camp, period. It only demeans us as individuals, professionals and society. If one wants to attach ideas, perfectly fine, but not in a caustic manner. We're supposed to be a professional list, and being a member on many other lists, both public as well as private, I have never observed as much non-professionalism that we see almost daily here in this list. The other lists simply debate topics, and there are never any personal attacks.

Time for those who like to sling mud, always resorting to a caustic comment, to grow up.

Regards,

Sandy

-----------------------------------
Sander C. Perle
President
Mirion Technologies
Dosimetry Services Division
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614

+1 (949) 296-2306 (Office)
+1 (949) 296-1130 (Fax)

Mirion Technologies: http://www.mirion.com/
”Protecting people, property and the environment”

From: <KARAM>, PHILIP <ANDREW.KARAM at nypd.org<mailto:ANDREW.KARAM at nypd.org>>
Reply-To: "The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List" <radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu<mailto:radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu>>
Date: Thursday, May 9, 2013 7:14 AM
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Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] A judges' criticism of John W Gofman ? Arthur R Tamplin?

I believe you are being a bit hasty and dramatic in your response to this thread. It is possible to differentiate between the man and the work. And we can impugn a person’s science without casting aspersions against the person.


Gofman appears to have been a man of integrity, standing up for what he believed in. But if what he believed in was scientifically wrong then his personal and scientific integrity, while admirable, does not do much to inform either society or science. The cold fusion guys, for example, seemed to have scientific and personal integrity, but their experiments have come to naught. You can say the same thing about many experiments that once seemed promising or revolutionary. Ken Mossman, during his HPS President-Elect tour, gave a talk on Pathological Science, which was an eye-opener and that demonstrated how easy it is for a person of personal and scientific integrity to still go astray in their work – in my opinion every scientist should have to at least read up on the topic of pathological science. There is a blog posting on this topic that might be worth reading (http://blogs.fas.org/sciencewonk/tag/pathological-science/) and that includes links to a number of web pages related to this topic.


I don’t doubt that Gofman was following what he felt in his heart to be the correct course of action and that he firmly believed he was correct – there was too much passion in his writings for him to have been doing everything simply for the sake of notoriety. But I feel that the weight of scientific evidence comes down firmly against his conclusions.


Finally, I would also suggest that you are mistaken in your assertion that there is not much science to the field of radiation safety. On the contrary, there is a huge body of scientific research that has stood the test of time. There are some areas – the effects of very low doses of radiation is one – in which the results are ambiguous. But there is very little question about the fundamental physics behind radiation dose, radioactive decay, radiation detection, radiation interactions, and so forth.


With best regards,


Andy


P. Andrew Karam, Ph.D., CHP


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Subject: [ RadSafe ] A judges' criticism of John W Gofman ? Arthur R Tamplin?


Re:

http://health.phys.iit.edu/archives/2013-April/subject.html#start

and

http://health.phys.iit.edu/archives/2013-May/subject.html#start



All:


As you malign yet another dead scientist, I find myself commenting once again to the Radsafe group in the defense of those that stand tall beyond the grave, while others living, can only be found to 'stoop low.' How sad.


I knew John Gofman and not one of you folks will ever be able to hold a candle to his life's work regardless of what shameless things you say or do in the name of your own brand of "science." Apologies if that sounds harsh. When you take your blood pressure or cholesterol medication this morning (if you do so), please also think of John W. Gofman, M.D.'s work in that area too.


Maligning the work of these two men (Gofman, Tamplin and others living and dead as I've read on the Radsafe list) is a tacit condemnation of your own industry and business self-interests. At least that's quite transparent to those of us reading in. There are few if any on the Radsafe list that have the publishing "legs," the scientific longevity, the educational background, years in the field, shear experience or accomplishment overall that the two scientists being maligned in your postings have. Anyone? What on earth is scientific about that? The dismissing of any scientific opinion in the supposed discourse of it, is not science at all. Put your CVs up to compare with either Gofman or Tamplin's please!