Re: Gam Address & Healthy survivor effect

[FRAMEP@ORAU.GOV]

Dr. Cohen wrote in part:

> In my long career, I have had much more difficulty with journal
>referees when I report evidence contrary to what is expected, than
>when I report evidence confirming what is expected.
>F A SCIENTIST BELIEVES WHAT HE WANTS TO BELIEVE RATHER
>THAN WHAT THE DATA
>TELLS HIM, HE IS NOT ACTING AS A SCIENTIST.

I agree. This seems to support my position. The referees are unfairly
giving you trouble because your results contradict what they chose to
believe. Some folk have a vested belief that radiation at low doses is
harmful, others have the opposite view.  When I said that the tendency is
to dismiss the studies that indicate effects at low doses, I was referring
to what one sees on RADSAFE.  We should be equally outraged when
Bernard Cohen's work and John Goffman's work is dismissed for
political rather than scientific reasons.

Scientists (although I never specifically referred to scientists in my
original post) are people, and different scientists often come to opposite
conclusions when confronted with the same data.  I can't believe that 
politics don't often influence these conclusions.  That scientists see what
they want or expect to see was what Thomas Kuhn was saying in the
Structure of Scientific Revolutions where he introduced the concept of
scientific paradigms (he might have even coined the term paradigm)

How many times has a report appeared on RADSAFE of a study
indicating harmful effects of radiation (or electric fields) at low doses
that was not followed by any number of criticisms from people who had
not seen the study.  All that is often needed to dismiss a study seems to
be the name of one of the authors.  When I said that people believe what
they want to believe, I am simply stating the obvious.  People are not
always logical and scientists often don't act like a scientist should.  

Regards

Paul Frame