Re: AW: regulatory purpose vs. WILL kill

[Ted de Castro <tdc@XRAYTED.COM>]

Franz,



You are of course right!  All I really meant to say is that to the

average "joe" on the street - a statement like that made by the EPA is a

prediction of real deaths.  Just like the numbers are big enough in the

traffic situation that the stats work - the "man in the street" can be

expected to take populational risk estimates in this same way.  The fact

that you can never know WHAT caused the cancer  - or that the background

rate is much more than the predicted increment - in their minds - just

leaves room for them to be right.



Franz Schoenhofer wrote:

> 



> Ted,

> 

> I admit that my example was probably not clear enough or even wrong, because

> the risk of being killed in a traffic accident is given by statistics and in

> this case statistics work, because the numbers are big enough to apply

> statistics. In the case of exposure the numbers are not big enough to

.

.

. 

> I noticed that there is a big difference between US legislation and many

> mails to RADSAFE. We in Europe have to follow the rules - whether it is good

> or bad.



That's called "conditioning".  Fortunately we are not so civilized - but

unfortunately I see us heading more in that direction every day.





> 

> Franz

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