RE: If you do Science, use the Scientific Method!

["Fritz A. Seiler" <faseiler@NMIA.COM>]

Dear Bill,



    I must disagree with you on your remark that supporting or contradicting

the LNT

is "largely irrelevant".  I think that your opinion, that an experimental

demonstration

of a threshold for radiation effects  "beyond all reasonable doubt" would be

more

relevant than an interpretration of the data as a parabola or some other

model, is

actually quite unscientific.

    We do not tell natural systems how to react to an insult by radiation,

just because

it would be easier to write regulations for that case.  We do an experiment,

observe,

and try to interpret the findings, make a model and test it. If there are

data that indicate

a treshold then so be it. It there are no such data, then something else

will have to do.

To fault Bernie that his data does not give a value for a threshold is not

acceptable as

reasoning in the spirit of the Scientific Method.

    What is bound to happen when we approach an experiment with a fixed mind

set

like "we would be better off with a threshold value (so go find one!)", is

more than amply

demonstrated by the use of the LNT for an exposure to Radon and its

daughters and the

wrangling about Bernie Cohen's data.

    Let us all remember that we have come way beyond Leonard Euler's

attitude, who --

when told that the experimental data contradicted one of his mathematical

models -- is

supposed to have said:"All the worse for the data!"



Now, I will get off my computer, and be done with it.



Fritz



*****************************************************

Fritz A. Seiler, Ph.D.

Sigma Five Consulting:       Private:

P.O. Box 1709                   P.O. Box 437

Los Lunas, NM 87031         Tome', NM 87060

Tel.:      505-866-5193         Tel. 505-866-6976

Fax:      505-866-5197

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*****************************************************

"This is the hour when democracy must justify

itself by capacity  for effective decision, or risk

destruction or desintegration. Europe is dotted

with the ruins of right decisions taken too late."



"America's Responsibility in the Current Crisis"

Manifesto of the Christian Realists. May, 1940.

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  -----Original Message-----

  From: William V Lipton [mailto:liptonw@dteenergy.com]

  Sent: Friday, September 19, 2003 1:29 PM

  To: Hall, David A.

  Cc: 'Kai Kaletsch'; peter.thomas@health.gov.au; Fritz A. Seiler; RadSafe

  Subject: Re: If you do Science, use the Scientific Method!





  It's important to keep in mind that LNT is generally not presented as a

"fact," simply as a prudent precaution for planning purposes, e.g. setting

radiation protection standards.  Thus, "proving" or "disproving" LNT,

whatever that means, is largely irrelevant.  What would be relevant is

someone proving, "beyond a reasonable doubt," that there is a threshold for

radiation effects.  I don't see Cohen's study coming close to that.