You can't explain this.
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Ilona has responded to my latest response in two places. First, in a comment in response to that post, and second in a post on her own blog. Rather than posting response and counter-response as in past entries, I'm going to try and just subdivide this into the issues under dispute so that they'll…
The Paper of Record today features an interview with Eric Mazur of Harvard, a physicist who is probably best known for his pedagogical work. He talks aabout how typical science teaching sucks, and why we need to change it:
From what I've seen, students in science classrooms throughout the country…
In many instances, a well thought-out regular expression can convince most non-technical people in the room that you're a computer genius who's brain possesses more synapses, forming more bridges and firing more rapidly than anyone's ever should.
Oh this is so true. The other day I was working on…
Let me first start by saying that if your doctor tells you that praying is your last hope of your loved ones survival GET A NEW DOCTOR. Now that I've said that let me show you part of this ridiculous article from CNN's medical correspondent, who is clearly in the wrong specialty of journalism (don…
I think it's amazing that the Taiwanese government has established a recommended minimum dose of radiation.
Citation needed.
Here's the citatation I needed:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/will_radiation_hormesis_prot…
This is no different from climate denialism. The anti-science love noise. They worship uncertainty. Except about whatever hobby horse is causing them to be anti-science, of course (usually though not always religious or market fundamentalism). But yes, where cases are few or noise is high, they'll be there ... drawing conclusions.
This applies to many people w/r/t the reactors, of course. Everyone, pro- or anti- nuke who thought that there should be clear information with an obvious moral to it while the place is still an active, hot disaster zone.
An article in Science that surveys scientific evidence on this subject, is
"A Healthful Dab of Radiation?" ($$)
A free copy of the article is here (PDF).
If you read the article, you will find that the subject is more complex and interesting than TPM or Pharyngula let on. Of course, if you consider Pharyngula and TPM more authoritative than Science, don't read the article.
Why did you choose to chicken your @$$ out and hide behind "academia" your whole life grig?? i know why. your lil coeds might not.
The worst part is that she keeps saying "minimums" when she means "maximums". Idiot.
she's a poe.
This applies to many people w/r/t the reactors, of course. Everyone, pro- or anti- nuke who thought that there should be clear information with an obvious moral to it while the place is still an active, hot disaster zone.
John, that article gives a wee bit more detail about the contents of the tiny data set we have on low-dose radiation, but it doesn't contradict anything PZ said at Pharyngula.
Hormesis is something that relates to my work, and I am in the process of writing up the physiology behind it. It is more complicated than the people who wrote the article appreciate.
The definition of hormesis, "positive effects from low doses of harmful things" is problematic because the definition imputes a value judgment on the effects and then imputes that other effects not measured will be beneficial. This is not correct.
Hormesis is a stress response. Physiology has various capacities to deal with various stresses. Those capacities are limited and to some extent coupled. If you use up that capacity responding to one stress, you don't have that capacity to respond to another stress. It is difficult to determine the capacity of a particular organism at a particular time to deal with a particular stress.
Here's the good side to radiation: A big nuclear accident results in a wildlife refuge around where it happened! Like at Chernobyl - I hear wildlife flourishes around there.
I wonder if these possible beneficial effects of low level radiation apply to radon. I haven't bothered to radon mitigate my house, not being a smoker. The people who are so worried about Fukushima radiation should probably be panicking about radon and high-altitude plane travel, to be consistent.
Journalists ought to have basic training in numerical calculations. Since most people take their reality from the news, and innumeracy causes such huge problems in terms of mistaken beliefs.