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We went from a blind trust in experts and authority (WWII generation) to a complete distrust of experts and authority (baby boomers). Unfortunately, blind faith in experts was replaced with blind faith in crystals, voodoo or whatever your favorite actor or priest says. Currently, we seem to make our decisions using a strange combination of the above. For example Mad Cow disease: Some actor, priest (or whatever) was against GM foods, but some bureaucrat (what made him an "expert"?) was allowed to decide that it was perfectly OK for cows to eat cows. As a result, it was not acceptable to feed cows genetically modified legumes for protein, but feeding them ground up cows and sheep was perfectly OK. The rest is history. Personally, I think we probably have no choice but to trust experts to a certain extent. (Skepticism is good, but we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water.) We can probably improve on the accountability of our "experts". We should also make it more transparent how we decide who is an "expert". I think professional societies like the HPS are reasonably transparent. . (Of course that’s no guaranty that they can’t be wrong.) We know how its leaders are chosen and we know how its position statements come about. I’m not so sure about the rest of the alphabet soup out there that deals with radiation. Kai
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