Re: textbook correct?

[xat@inel.gov (Alden Tschaeche)]

ALEX MITCHELL wrote:

> 
> Well,  it's a signal to noise problem,  isn't it.   We are trying to
> detect 1E-4 lifetime cancer risks due to radiation (the signal) in a
> noise of a 1 in 4 natural incidence of fatal cancer.
> 
> So in this particular case,  no,  I don't agree that because we
> can't detect the risk that it doesn't exist.
> 
> You could say that a 1E-4 risk is insignificant in comparision with
> a natural risk of 1 in 4,  but would you really take a 1E-4 risk
> if there wasn't a good reason to?

If I truly believed that the risk were real, maybe not.  But, in the
case of low doses of ionizing radiation, there are no data that convince
me that there is any risk at all at chronic doses of 5 rem per year or
single acute doses of 20 rem.
> 
> It seems to me that by arguing that low doses of radiation are
> safe all we will achieve is to lose credibility with the general
> public.   

I disagree.  The general public isn't completely stupid when they know
all the facts.  The problem is they have been fed lies by the antis and
don't know what we know about radiation effects.  When one knows the
facts (e.g. we don't know on the basis of human data whether or not, in
general and for all kinds of radition, low doses are harmful, have no
effect, or are hormetic, but, if there are any harmful effects, they
must be very small compared to any other hazardous materials or
activities to which humans are exposed or expose themselves), then one
can exercise one's choice.  The choice, to me, is whether to accept that
low doses are safe, or not.  If safe, there is no problem.  If not,
then, if there still are no data demonstrating harm (and there are not)
I would continue letting myself be exposed until the data demonstrate
harm.  Others might take the opposite view.  It's an individual thing. 
But, unless one knows all the facts, one's choice is likely to not be
one's choice, but the choice of others who are trying to manipulate one.

I think it would be much more profitable to show that
> the risks of many practices,  even computed with the LNT risk
> factors,  are less than the non-nuclear alternatives.   Nobody
> can rationally argue against that one.

That's one possibility.  But, so far, it hasn't worked.  Also, humans
are not uniformly rational.

Al Tschaeche xat@inel.gov