Re: The TFP: Belief vs. knowledge

["William G. Nabor" <wgnabor@uci.edu>]

Bjorn,

   Please excuse me if this is the second copy you get of this e-mail.  My
computer burped when I sent the first and I have no idea if it got through
or not.

   By Galileo's time the flat Earth theory was as dead as it is now.
Magellan's crew had circled the globe more than 40 years before Galileo's
birth.  The church people who refused to look in Galileo's telescope did so
because they thought Galileo was faking the whole thing and/or the infernal
device was the work of the devil.  Come to think of it this has even more
parallels with today.


In Message Mon, 14 Aug 2000 12:48:59 -0500 (CDT),
  "Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com> writes:

>>If the tooth fairy project is convinced that nuclear
>power plants are emitting Sr90 at such levels, why  do they not sample the 
>water, air, soil and vegetation around  all nuclear power plants?   >
>>Well, one possible answer is that the search is for publicity, not the 
>>truth.
>---
>Since the "radiation injured" children from Chernobyl arrived to (northern) 
>Sweden last week I have had contacts with several other people. As some of 
>you remember the eight "Chernobyl children" measured about 7 years ago had 
>an average of about 6.9 Bq Cs-137/kg.
>
>Now, I earlier today I discussed this topic with a friend on the Swedish 
>west coast (southwestern Sweden) and he told me that "Chernobyl children" 
>had been there too about two years ago. Some people who understand 
>radioactivity had then suggested wholebody Cs-137 measurements of the 
>children (at the Univ. of Gothenburg (rather than Ringhals NPP to get a 
>"neutral and trustworthy" evaluation). It turned however that the organisers 
>did not want to have the children measured.
>
>This reminds me of the time some four-five hundred years ago or so when one 
>of the astronomers (Galileo?) tried to explain to some church people that 
>the Earth is a sphere. The priests refused to look into the telescope 
>however - because they knew that the Earth was flat (some people still 
>believe that).
>
>My personal reflections only,
>
>Bjorn Cedervall   bcradsafers@hotmail.com
>
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William G. Nabor
University of California, Irvine
EH&S Office
Irvine, CA,  92697-2725
WGNABOR@UCI.EDU
mailto:wgnabor@uci.edu
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