Re: "Scientific Evidence"

["Jerry Cohen" <jjcohen@prodigy.net>]

Glenn.
    I appreciate your comments. A few years ago, while giving a lecture on
risk to a group of college students, I used the punch line that the "death
rate" for people was fixed at exactly 1.0 / person.  During the question
period that followed, one of the students stated that according to
historical evidence, I was wrong! He observed that most of the people who
were ever born are still alive. Therefore, statistically, the death rate for
humans must be something  < 0.5/person. The only response I could think of
is that the reason we don't send donkeys to college is that nobody likes a
smart ass.
    I believe that the increase in the cancer rate is not so much due to
environmental factors than to the fact that we have made advances in
preventing death from other causes such as infectious diseases and heart
problems. I suppose cancer is what you die of  if you don't die of anything
else.  In the mean time. human longevity keeps increasing.





-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Marshall <GMARSHALL@gtsduratek.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thursday, July 27, 2000 10:05 AM
Subject: Re: "Scientific Evidence"


>I put this off as long as I could:
>
>Life involves risk.  What a concept!  People have known this since Adam,
that life would be a constant struggle, the end result of which would be
death.  Ah, but in the last few decades we've become SO SMART that we've
forgotten that.  Despite all of our best efforts, the world death rate
remains 100%, and it is not likely to drop any time soon.
>
>The incidence of cancer continues to increase due to a multitude of
causes-- pesticides, food preservatives, various air and water pollutants,
exposure to chemicals, etc.  If we were really serious about reducing the
cancer rate, we would eliminate ALL KNOWN CAUSES OF CANCER from our society.
But that's not economically or politically feasible, so we'll just blame it
all on minute doses of DEADLY IONIZING RADIATION.
>
>Work causes death.  Eating causes death.  Breathing causes death.
Everything that's enjoyable (or not so enjoyable) causes death.  Birth
results in death.  We're imperfect so therefore we die, and no amount of
human ingenuity is going to reverse it.  We spend billions of dollars trying
to prolong life or at least make dying less painful, but we cannot avoid it.
If we really want to get serious about ending death, then here's one thing
that will work: sterilize everyone at birth.  After a hundred years or so
the global human death rate will drop to undefinably low levels.  Just in
case anyone gets the wrong idea, I'm not advocating it.  I'll leave that to
some anti-everything crackpot.
>
>So the generations to come will do study after study to try to determine
the exact percent contribution to the cause of death for every human being
(and animal, too-- by then they'll be considered equal or even superior).
Then they can assign blame and extract compensation accordingly based on
these percentages-- it's the only fair way, you know.  Then there will be no
more nuclear plants because they might cause a hypothetical death.  There
won't be any coal plants either, for the same reason.  All the farmers will
have been sued out of business because they use fertilizer to grow the food,
and fertilizer also can be linked to hypothetical deaths.  And even the
"organic farmers" plant seeds in naturally radioactive soil.  Cars?  Forget
it.  Medicine?  Look at all those side-effects!  Bicycles?  People fall off
of them and get boo-boos all the time.  So even the lawyers and movie stars
will eventually freeze, starve, and work themselves to death.
>
>Am I advocating any of this?  NO.  Do I think we should ignore risk and
send people to work in death camps?  Again, NO.  We should continue to study
and do research and learn all we can, with the understanding that no matter
how much we study, we will never know everything.  If we have a pretty good
handle on what the relative risks are in life, then we as intelligent beings
should be able to make individual decisions as to which risks we are willing
to accept and which we are not.  Once I accept the risk (by accepting the
job), and my employer gives me the tools and training I need to maintain my
exposure within accepted standards at the time, then I do not have a
legitimate gripe against my employer if things go wrong later on in my life.
Now if my employer wilfully exposes me to some hazardous substance and then
tries to cover it up-- well that's an entirely different story.  I should be
justly compensated and the individuals who made those decisions should be
sent to p!
>ri!
>son.
>
>But the root of the problem is our nature.  Law used to be about right and
wrong, compared to a transcendent Standard.  That is no longer the case.
Law has "evolved" (downward, of course) to it's current condition of "what
can we get the judge and jury to agree to, and how can we do it?"  The
reason?  Simple-- the world owes us a free ride!  So the problem is our
depraved condition.  And until we recognize that it's only going to get
worse.
>
>Disclaimer:  This temper tantrum is mine, not my employer's.  I feel better
now.
>
>Glenn Marshall
>(865) 220-1666
>gmarshall@gtsduratek.com
>
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