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

["Howard Long" <hflong@pacbell.net>]

Bill,

LNT CANNOT be "The best we have", if (as now is abundantly clear)

ionizing radiation at higher energies (wave lengths) is an essential trace energy (like a vitamin or sunshine).



Overenthusiastic cleaning of a substance or energy that is damaging in high amounts but essential in small amounts can also be damaging. You are then DEPRIVING.  Clear? 



Dose IS the problem, denied by your standard end-note.

We TRUST you to preserve the needed dose, as well as to remove overdose.

You are NOT conservative, or prudent,  unless you change to this greater security.



Howard Long

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

  From: William V Lipton 

  To: Fritz A. Seiler 

  Cc: Hall, David A. ; 'Kai Kaletsch' ; peter.thomas@health.gov.au ; RadSafe 

  Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 4:34 AM

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





  You are confusing scientific relevance with regulatory relevance.  While searching for truth, with no fixed mind set, is great, as health physicists we have an obligation to protect workers and the public.  This requires a conservative interpretation of consensus data.  At this point, LNT is the best we have.  In my opinion, it would take proof, "beyond a reasonable doubt," to change this.  If you consider this a "fixed mind set," so be it. 

  The opinions expressed are strictly mine. 

  It's not about dose, it's about trust. 

  Curies forever. 



  Bill Lipton 

  liptonw@dteenergy.com 

    



  "Fritz A. Seiler" wrote: 



     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 demonstrationof 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 becauseit 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 indicatea 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 asreasoning 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 amplydemonstrated by the use of the LNT for an exposure to Radon and its daughters and thewrangling 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 

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





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

    "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. 

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





      -----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.