I get mail:
German physicist Peter Heller wrote a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear power issue, published in German here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/
With Dr. Heller’s permission, I’ve translated it in English. But having gone over the content, I think his plea is worthy of a much wider audience – more than what NTZ can offer. So I send this to you with the kind request that you consider publishing it at WUWT.
Best regards,
P Gosselin
——————————————–
German physicist Peter Heller makes a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear energy issue. He wonders if ignorance and fear will cause us to abandon the legacies of Einstein, Heisenberg and others.
Fukushima
By Dr Peter Heller, http://www.science-skeptical.de
Astronomer, Physicist
There’s no place on earth I would rather be right now than at Fukushima – right in the atomic power plant, at the centre of the event. I say this because I am a physicist and there is no other place that could be more exciting and interesting for a physicist. The same goes for many, if not most physicists and engineers, on the planet.
Already at a young age I knew one day I would study physics. As a boy, I received a telescope for Christmas, and from that point on my view was fixed on the night sky; gazing at star clusters, nebula and galaxies was my favourite preoccupation. It was only later that I learned that these lights and the twinkling in eyepiece were actually the expressions of a chaotic and violent force of nature – the direct conversion of matter into energy during the fusion of an atomic nucleus.
My curiosity carried me, as if on a high, through 10 semesters of study and subsequent graduation. It was a time of discovery that involved the tedious task of understanding. At times I felt exasperation and self doubt with respect to the sheer complexity and breadth of what there was to learn. Yet, there were times of joy whenever the fog lifted and the clarity and beauty of physical descriptions of natural phenomena moved in its place. It was a time that, unfortunately, passed all too quickly and is now some years in the past.
The great minds that accompanied me through my studies were Planck, Sommerfeld, Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, and a host of others who, for us physicists, are still very much alive today. They are great thinkers who contributed to unravelling the puzzles of nature and the forces which keep the world together through the most minute structures. I devoured the stories of Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner, of Enrico Fermi and Edward Teller – to name a few – and on how they created completely new technologies from theoretical concepts, how the energy stored in the nucleus of an atom could be used for the good of man and how it became possible in a single process to tap into this source of affordable, clean and plentiful energy on a large scale as never seen by man. Electricity illuminates our world, drives our machines, allow us to communicate over great distances, thus making our lives easier and more comfortable. It is a source of energy that staves off poverty and enables prosperity.
Electricity: manufactured by splitting atomic nuclei with neutrons, gained through the direct conversion of mass into energy. It is the principle by which (via the reverse process of fusion) the stars twinkle in the night sky, a principle by which our sun enables life on our planet.
As a physicist it fills me with great joy and pride to see how man is able to rouse this force of nature at the most minute structural level, then amplify, control, and use it for our benefit. As a physicist I have the fundamental understanding of the processes – I can imagine them and describe them. As a physicist I have neither fear of an atomic power plant nor of radioactivity. Ultimately I know that it is a natural phenomenon that is always around us, one we can never escape – and one that we never need to escape. And I know the first as a symbol of man’s capability to steer the forces of nature. As a physicist I have no fear of what nature has to offer. Rather I have respect. And this respect beckons us to seize the chances like those offered by neutrons, which can split nuclei and thus convert matter into energy. Anything else would be ignorance and cowardice.
Dark times in history
There were times in history when ignorance and cowardice overshadowed human life. It was a time when our ancestors were forced to lead a life filled with superstition and fear because it was forbidden to use creativity and fantasy. Religious dogma, like the earth being the centre of the universe, or creationism, forbade people to question. The forbiddance of opening a human body and examining it prevented questions from being answered. Today these medieval rules appear backwards and close-minded. We simply cannot imagine this way of thinking could have any acceptance.
But over the recent days I have grown concerned that we are headed again for such dark times. Hysterical and sensationalist media reporting, paired with a remarkably stark display of ignorance of technical and scientific interrelations, and the attempt by a vast majority of journalists to fan the public’s angst and opposition to nuclear energy – pure witch-burning disguised as modernity.
Freedom of research
So it fills me with sadness and anger on how the work of the above mentioned giants of physics is now being dragged through the mud, how the greatest scientific discoveries of the 20th century are being redefined and criminalized. The current debate in Germany is also a debate on freedom of research. The stigmatization and ostracism of nuclear energy, the demand for an immediate stop of its use, is also the demand for the end of its research and development. No job possibilities also means no students, which means no faculty, which then means the end of the growth of our knowledge. Stopping nuclear energy is nothing less than rejecting the legacy of Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr and all others. It is tantamount to scrapping it, labelling it as dangerous – all in a fit of ignorance. And just as creationists attempt to ban the theory of evolution from the school books, it almost seems as if every factual and neutral explanation in Germany is now in the process of being deleted.
The media suggests a nuclear catastrophe, a mega-meltdown, and that the apocalypse has already begun. It is almost as if the 10,000 deaths in Japan were actually victims of nuclear energy, and not the earthquake or the tsunami. Here again one has to remind us that Fukushima was first hit by an unimaginable 9.0 earthquake and then by a massive 10-meter wave of water just an hour later. As a result, the facility no longer found itself in a highly technological area, but surrounded by a desert of rubble. All around the power plant the infrastructure, residential areas, traffic routes, energy and communication networks are simply no longer there. They were wiped out. Yet, after an entire week, the apocalypse still has not come to pass. Only relatively small amounts of radioactive materials have leaked out and have had only a local impact. If one considers the pure facts exclusively, i.e. only the things we really know, then it exposes the unfounded interpretations of scientific illiterates in the media. One can only arrive to one conclusion: This sorrowful state will remain so.
In truth, this does not show that the ideologically motivated, fear-laden admonitions and warnings were correct. Fukushima illustrates that we are indeed able to control atomic energy. Fukushima shows that we can master it even when natural disasters beyond planning befall us. Still, at Fukushima the conflict between human creativity/competence continues to clamour against the bond energy in atomic nuclei. It’s a struggle that that shows what human intelligence, knowledge gained, passion, boldness, respect, and capability to learn allow us to do. Personally this does not fill me with apprehension, but with hope. Man can meet this challenge not only because he has to, but most of all because he wants to.
Even though I have not practiced physics for some time now, I will never be anything other than a scientist and researcher, and there would be no other place I would rather be than on site at Fukushima. There is no other place at the moment where so much can be learned about atomic energy, which keeps our world together deep inside, and the technical possibilities to benefit from it. Do we have the courage to learn? Do we accept – with respect and confidence – the opportunities we are confronted with? Fukushima will show us possibilities on how to use the direct conversion of matter into energy in a better and safer way, something that Einstein and others could have only dreamed of.
I am a physicist. My wish is to live in a world that is willing to learn and to improve whatever is good. I would only like to live in a world where great strides in physics are viewed with fascination, pride, and hope because they show us the way to a better future. I would only like to live in a world that has the courage for a better world. Any other world for me is unacceptable. Never. That’s why I am going to fight for this world, without ever relenting.
————————————————–
Translated from the German, with the permission of Peter Heller, by Bernd Felsche and Pierre Gosselin. Original text appeared here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/
Quite an emotional plea by Mr. Hellar. It reminds me of one of my old sayings which states “Beware of the Poet Philosopher for he will sway you with beauty and lies”. Not that Mr Hellar had any bad intentions, it was just that there was all emotion and little substance.
In a general sense I’m technologically predisposed to be pro-nuclear. I have absolutely no fear and in fact support the use of nuclear power plants in naval vessels and such which have had a good track record from cradle to grave. The problem I have is what I have termed the “sociological limits” placed on nuclear technology as the real source of the problem.
We have a tendency to centralize power and put it in the hands of incompetence, in more ways than just in nuclear power alone. We now have three major nuclear incidents and only one is by natural causes. Do you really think the next one will be due to natural causes?
Although I’ve never personally been involved with the nuclear industry, I was a part of a central office telephone switch design some years ago at what used to be call Bell Labs. The analysis of system reliability was quite deep and thorough and I really did believe that they could meet their goal on the #5 ESS project of “no more than 20 minutes total down time in 20 years”. I recall reading a report that cited that although the technology was robust, there was a much greater probability of system outages due to a long list of causes.
One that caught my eye, and still haunts me, was “budget cuts”.
Now we all realize that people don’t usually die when a phone office goes down and the analysis bar is much higher in nuclear power plant design. One really can’t compare the two systems technologically. But they do share one common limitation.
The reliability of complex system that requires monitoring and maintenance, is only as good as the social system that supports it.
I’ve often wondered if it is possible to build much smaller nuclear power plants that are impossible to melt down so that humans can be removed from the safety problem. Instead of having one big reactor (too big to fail?), a power station could have an array of small failsafe ones. Hey, we are willing to array windmills, why not nukes?
One last thought. That central office reliability report did also mention “social dissolution”, “war” and “terrorism” but they were less likely than “budget cuts”, but those were kinder gentler times.
[Reply: The author is Dr Heller, not “Mr Hellar.” ~ dbs, mod.]
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 21, 2011 at 9:18 pm
“Do you have a link to the the Chernobyl Ministry in the Ukraine study that isn’t linked through a Greenpeace website? I’m looking now. Haven’t found one yet.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=g34tNlYOB3AC&pg=PA53&lpg=PA53&dq=Chernobyl+Ministry+in+the+Ukraine+study&source=bl&ots=O15TiVUYcc&sig=fRv2u3gcyxtJayBdPiCfHshAlmQ&hl=en&ei=by6ITffXH5G4sAPcxoz7Cw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=Chernobyl%20Ministry%20in%20the%20Ukraine%20study&f=false
or
http://tinyurl.com/6d7f7hb
John Whitman says:
March 21, 2011 at 7:07 pm
………..The other struggle is to achieve the freedom of thought and action from those closed societies and authoritarian structures based on supernaturalism;..”
No, this isn’t correct. I offer, as proof, this website. No one can say this is a site of theists. But, it exists. Not, as an antagonist to “supernaturalism”, but as an antagonist to a closed and authoritarian structure based on human knowledge and man’s interpretation of such, and dare I say, science.
I stated, “I do not gain my faith from any science. And I don’t come to an understanding of science by faith.” Apparently, this isn’t true for many here. Both ways.
If one can’t see the truth to that statement or the folly of doing otherwise, then I am at a loss. Which is to my failings and none other.
James Sexton
The effect Ann Coulter was remarking upon and reported on by the New York Times and other publications is radiation hormesis. Hormesis is the effect of the body’s defenses responding to the presence of low does of a toxin which results in overall of differential health benefits. The validity of radiation hormesis, however, is in dispute. Some scientists are investigating the issue and are publishing papers about reported instances of radiation hormesis.
Did you know that sleeping next to the body of your wife or husband for one year exposes you to something like 2,000 to 5,000 times more radiation than you would currently be exposed to within 20 kilometers of Fukushima in one hour?
Another question on the “low cost” of nuclear power. Since nuclear power is so very “low cost” can anyone point me to a public utility’s request for a rate change (a General Rate Case Application in California terminology), in which they requested to REDUCE their rates because they built one (or more) nuclear power plants? This would be in the United States, where 104 reactors are currently operating. There have been a few shutdown also, so that would present just over 100 opportunities for public utilities to request a rate reduction.
It seems that would have been the logical thing to do, since some nuclear advocates insist that the nuclear plant should sell power at 2 or 3 cents per kWh, far below the average price of electricity of 7 or 8 cents.
If any of the current crop of contenders proceeds that far, we can therefore expect the specific utility to request a rate REDUCTION because the nuclear power plant will be producing power for 2 or 3 cents per kWh. The average rate in most states is around 10 or 11 cents per kWh these days, and will likely be higher by the time the new power plants come on-line. Please, in all seriousness, would someone point out the rate request where such a reduction is requested.
From Standard and Poor’s, re new US nuclear power plants economics, in light of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster:
“. . .the [Japanese nuclear plant] failures and their consequences raise the likelihood of greater costs and enhanced regulatory oversight for existing U.S. [nuclear] facilities. A renewed public focus on the inherent risks of nuclear power will demand as much. This could result in delays in license-extension approvals and deteriorating economics for new plant construction.” [bold added]
S&P opinions carry great weight in the financial markets. The South Texas Nuclear Project expansion has been placed on hold as a result of this.
http://www.standardandpoors.com/products-services/articles/en/us/?assetID=1245300452844
suyts,
I am a little confused because I noticed in your comment @ur momisugly (March 21, 2011 at 10:23 pm) that you signed as James Sexton at the end of your text. I thought James Sexton always commented under the name of James Sexton in the past.
Anyway, below are some item by item responses to your comments. By the way, I appreciate your comments, thanks.
suyts says:
March 21, 2011 at 10:23 pm
“No, this isn’t correct. I offer, as proof, this website. No one can say this is a site of theists. But, it exists. Not, as an antagonist to “supernaturalism”, but as an antagonist to a closed and authoritarian structure based on human knowledge and man’s interpretation of such, and dare I say, science.”
suyts,
I do not think that it matters whether there are what you call theists at this website or any other representatives of any conceptual processes.
All participation here appears to be voluntary and this indeed is an open venue within the very broad limits set by our gracious host. Please note that the people I have dealt with every day of my life are mostly supernaturalists, my upbringing was in a very dominant Christian supernaturalist setting.
I was saying that, in Western civilization, science has struggled to free itself quite successfully so far from political or societal or educational coercion by proponents of supernaturalism. There were some dark times for science and maybe there will be reversions back to those dark times in the future. With the skeptical people I see here and at other blogs, I do not have realistic concerns that the dark times involving coercion on science by adherents to supernaturalism will happen again.
John
– – – – –
suyts says:
March 21, 2011 at 10:23 pm
“I stated, ‘I do not gain my faith from any science. And I don’t come to an understanding of science by faith.’ Apparently, this isn’t true for many here. Both ways.”
suyts,
I think we are not totally in disagreement, although not starting with the same premises. My position on supernaturalism is that it is not even ‘nothing’, based on my view of science.
Also, when I used the word ‘faith’ I was thinking contextually of the very strict concept of faith used by the Christian Apostle Paul in his mid to later years.
John
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
March 21, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Do you have a link to the Chernobyl Ministry in the Ukraine study that isn’t linked through a Greenpeace website? I’m looking now. Haven’t found one yet.
It’s probably somewhere under the section of untranslated – I’ll look for it too. Not able to get back to this until the evening, but if I can’t find it in the next days I’ll try Ukrainians I know who might be able to help search.
Meanwhile I found this in English – http://www.euradcom.org/publications/chernobyleflyer.pdf
“In 20 years it has become clear that not tens, hundreds or thousands, but millions of people in the Northern hemisphere have suffered and will suffer from the Chernobyl catastrophe..”
The book can be downloaded free on http://euradcom.org/publications/chernobylinformation.htm
It might have contact reference to original studies.
Ah, the Ukrainian Weekly might be able to help search – http://www.ukrweekly.com/old/archive/1996/459616.shtml
“the magnitude of the increase in thyroid cancer was not expected, he said. The onset so soon after the Chornobyl accident also was not expected. There is something profoundly different about the Chornobyl experience because the increase is so large and so soon.”
Their search engine brings up articles through the years for Chernobyl (208 results found), also, type in Chornobyl, the alternative spelling, there’s more under this (1128 results).
Ah, typed in Chernobyl Ministry Ukraine and it couldn’t find anything, it suggested “Chornobyl ministri ukrain”, the alternative spelling Chornobyl, and came back with 1051 results containing all search terms. Tried 1996 and the first link is to a decade look at Chernobyl.
“Human costs of Chornobyl disaster
“Following are excerpts of the Ukrainian Weekly’s first editorial on the Chornobyl nuclear accident. It was published on May 4, 1986
“The figures are astounding. It is believed that up to 15,000 are dead and buried, that the hospitals in Kyiv are filled with thousands of bloodied and bandaged people, and the situation is becoming increasingly volatile.”
Anyway, must go, will help look later.
LS’s comment about not building on the coast is iggerant. Japan is all coast, except for mountains. Access to cooling water means near the sea. As for tsunamis and quakes, that’s the first in that coastal area in recorded history. There is some geological evidence of a previous tsunami there in the 9th C or so.
And the little radiation that escapes this accident is likely to result in lengthened lifespans. See the Hormesis studies.
Chernobyl: possible contribution to some fraction of the 4000 subsequent thyroid cancers downwind (an area known for chronic iodine deficiencies). 9 deaths, total.
We evolved in a sea of natural radiation. Keeps the cell and DNA repair mechanisms toned up. Like Climate Science, radiation safety standards are based on invalid linear extrapolations of rare extremes.
Walter Schneider: I really applaud your effort and like your web site. A few corrections and additions if you don’t mind me offering them. I am old school, so I think in terms of Rads (100 Rads = 1 Sv) and REMs (100 REMs – 1 Gy) but I’ll try not to confuse the issue too much and hope I do not glaze too many eyes.
Remember this: the measurement of radiation is the measure of energy deposition in air or in our bodies. The more energy you absorb, the greater the chance it will harm you. We absorb energy in all kinds of ways, e.g. food, sunlight, heat, etc. We need that energy and it always causes some change in our body – normally good changes but maybe some bad. This may depend a lot on the dose. Too much food can be bad. Too much heat can be bad. Same with radiation (as from radioactive materials). Too much can be bad, but there is a growing body of evidence that a little radiation may be good for us. With that said…
A Sv(Rad) is a measure of exposure. I can be exposed to a source of radiation, but it may not necessarily be my dose. It is a measure of how much energy is deposited in air by the radiation. Most radiation detectors are really reading this, though algorithms are applied when the type and energy of the emission is known (or assumed) and the meter can then read in Gy (Rem).
A Gy(REM) is a measure of dose. In other words it measures how much energy my body absorbed with the exposure to radiation. Determining the Gy a person gets from the radiation exposure can be no small task. The first thing that needs to be known is: is the exposure strictly from an external source or was there ingestion of the radioactive chemical? If the source remains external, alpha and beta emissions basically have little or no effect, except beta emissions can cause burn-like destruction to the skin if in very high doses such as fall-out from an atomic bomb. If the source of radiation remains external, then a Gy = a Sv.
If the radioactive chemical is ingested and the emissions from the material are beta and gamma, then for all intensive purposes a Gy = a Sv. However, if the material emits alpha particles, then we have to throw in some fudge factors. This is when the use of Gy and Sv gets complicated.
Alpha particles cause more changes that are likely to be harmful for two reasons: they have a lot more energy than beta/gamma, and they deposit all their energy in a very short distance. Here’s a poor analogy, but it kind of gives the idea regarding the distance issue. You have a choice, at 100 mph, to drive your car into a four foot concrete wall or into a 100 foot wall of marshmallows. All the energy of stopping about 3 inches into the concrete is transferred into your car and you will be toast. So go for the marshmallows! Alpha particles are like hitting the wall.
For internally deposited alpha emitters, we use a factor of 20 times the Sv reading to obtain the Gy measurement. Neutrons can be somewhat the same as alpha particles, though they are not a wory for the general public in this Fukashima accident.
This isn’t the end of determining the dose when the radioactive material is ingested. Now you need to look at the chemical form (soluble/insoluble), how the material was ingested (swallowed or inhaled), and how that chemical form will distribute within the body. For example, if you swallow insoluble uranium you may take up at best about 1% of it. The rest is pooped out. If you inhale it, it will likely lodge in the lung with very slow excretion from the lung. The reverse is true if the uranium is in a soluble form. The uranium in a power plant is insoluble.
Don’t try to convert counts per minute from a geiger counter into Sv or Gy unless the efficiency of the detector for alpha, beta and gamma emissions is known. You need calibrated radioactive sources to determine the efficiencies. You can do a ballpark conversion if your meter comes with calibration curves, but there are a bunch of other factors you have to consider. The radiationnetwork Geiger counter information is nice, but doesn’t really tell us much. It would take some serious contamination from Japan before these detectors would be able to tell us anything. If my Geiger counter started going off as a result of Japan, I would be taking some serious radiation safety measures. It isn’t going to happen. I principally use these types of detectors as go/no go detectors. If you know how to do it you can also determine if there is fixed or removable contamination and you can determine what type of emission you are seeing. I seriously doubt the folks in this network really understand how to use the meter.
The highest dose rate you posted from the Hitachinaka City readings was 2.04 uGy/hr (204 uRem/hr). Presuming there is no change in the dose rate, that means you need to sit in this field of radiation for nearly 500 hours to get the limit (1 mSv or 100 mRem) allowed in the US to the public from a radiation source, be it radioactive materials or X-rays. Your normal background is 3-5 mSv. There is absolutely no evidence that adding an extra mSv to your normal background radiation causes any kind of harm. The most stringent theory of radiation risk predicts a very small potential of risk, but other radiation risk theories predict no harm whatsoever and there are a number of studies that indicate there may be a benefit with small doses like this.
Hope this helps. If you want some advice on your blog site, let me know here and I’ll try to jump over to your blog.
Brian H says:
March 22, 2011 at 3:19 am
LS’s comment about not building on the coast is iggerant. Japan is all coast, except for mountains. Access to cooling water means near the sea.
There are many nuclear power plants far from the sea, see e.g. http://www.radiationnetwork.com/GGFTPMap.jpg
The real issue is perhaps where the power for the cooling water is located. It could have been e.g. on the roof. Reminds me of when tropical storm Allison flooded Houston and the Medical Center was shut down, because the emergency power was in the basements.
P.Laini says Let’s easy your job… As I sad, just as an introduction to those topics, and not only about Galileo, I indicated the author Tom Woods, a very well Known and respected one, and not the other two authors. In his site you can find his bibliography. Look for “How the Catholic Church built Western civilization“ …
I’ve read a good deal of “How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization.” It’s in my bookcase in the room I’m sitting in right now. The trouble, if Google can be trusted, is what I said: None of the websites that you linked make any mention at all of the fact that there was no question of Catholic dogma in the Galileo affair. Only two of them so much as mention him, and one of those uses him stupidly.
John Whitman says:
March 22, 2011 at 1:50 am
suyts,
I am a little confused because
=================================
John,
Sorry about that, “suyts” is a pseudonym I use on the net. I started using my name here, when Anthony went on one of his rants about people not willing to put their name to their words. Every once in a while, WordPress forgets to read my mind and keeps me as suyts when I’m here. Sorry about the confusion.
“I think we are not totally in disagreement, although not starting with the same premises. My position on supernaturalism is that it is not even ‘nothing’, based on my view of science.
Also, when I used the word ‘faith’ I was thinking contextually of the very strict concept of faith used by the Christian Apostle Paul in his mid to later years.”
Well, yes and no. This has been a rather laborious conversation, so I’ll attempt brevity. (Yes, much of the labor has been of my own making.) When I stated, “I do not gain my faith from any science. And I don’t come to an understanding of science by faith.” , the first use of the word “faith” is in the concept of the Apostle Paul’s. The second use of the word faith, is an indictment towards some thoughts expressed in this discussion. In my view, many people who espouse the view of Darwinism, haven’t intellectually nor scientifically come to this view,(indeed, much of the theory, like CAGW, is unfalsifiable) instead they’ve reached it through believing first, that there must not be a creator. Which is, an act of faith. Wrongly placed, and wrongly thought, but an act of faith nonetheless.
Thanks,
James
That’s not quite what I said. Evolution is a fact, evidenced by the fossil record, in the same way that gravity is a fact, or the curvature of the Earth is a fact. Darwin’s hypothesis of natural selection was an attempt to explain how evolution occurred. It has achieved the status of a theory because the more we learn about the underlying biochemistry, the more explanatory power the concept of natural selection has.
I’m flattered that you find my comments ‘cerebral’—if that’s a compliment. The problem with Creationism/Intelligent Design is that they attempt to explain everything with a deus ex machina, and so explain nothing. They are versions of the Argument from Ignorance. They produce no falsifiable hypotheses, and so are not science.
As I pointed out earlier, there is nothing “random” about natural selection. Dr. Svalgaard (March 21, 2011 at 12:56 pm) says it well:
A couple of commenters have complained about the discussion of Creationism/ID in this thread, e.g.:
I too was surprised that the moderator(s) allowed the topic in, since it is usually off-limits on this board, but it was brought up, if tangentially, in the lead essay by Dr. Heller. In general, I agree with proscribing the topic here, as it comes down to science versus religion, and that is a swamp best avoided. Dave Springer has (in another thread) argued that it is no different, in that respect, from Climate Realism versus Alarmism. But while the Climate Alarmists often resemble an ecclesiastical hierarchy, climate is a debate within science, ultimately about the facts. The Evolution/Creation debate is different: you can argue about the mechanism of evolution, but to deny the fossil record is to elevate blind faith over evidence, and that takes you right out of the scientific domain.
/Mr Lynn
Leif Svalgaard says: Should enough new facts be discovered, the theory would be abandoned and possibly replaced by a better theory. The notion that a theory has been ‘proven’ is nonsense.
Many claims in fields other than science would (or should) be abandoned should enough disconfirming facts be discovered, but this is not to say that they have not been proven, because the claims in question are not analytic, rather they are synthetic (empirical), and “proven” means “proven to be true so far as we know.” It is not nonsense to say that a claim of fact about the real world has been proven, so that’s not the trouble. The trouble is that, arguably, a theory is not a claim of fact. But I say that’s far too weak. For example, once upon a time, heliocentrism was theory, but no one nowadays would deny that, in fact, the earth goes around the sun. I think the idea that a scientific theory can not be proven is only a way of giving prestige to science by highlighting the idea that scientists abandon a theory when disconfirming facts are discovered. This is not enough to make it “nonsense” to say that a theory has been proven or disproven.
Secondly, the “nonsense” idea plays mind games with the fact that scientific theories are not analytic, so they are not provable as claims in mathematics and formal logic are provable. The trouble with this is: So what? Many claims are provable but not in the sense that analytic claims are provable.
James Sexton says:
March 22, 2011 at 6:56 am
In my view, many people who espouse the view of Darwinism, haven’t intellectually nor scientifically come to this view,(indeed, much of the theory, like CAGW, is unfalsifiable) instead they’ve reached it through believing first, that there must not be a creator.
Evolution is eminently falsifiable [finding a human skeleton in Triassic sediments would do it], but what you are claiming should be applicable to Creationism as well, namely the belief that the must be a creator and that Creationism then follows. Could you have Creationism without a Creator? I think not. Can you have Evolution [and don’t call it Darwinism, because it is not] with a Creator? Absolutely, yes.
dpatterson writes:
<blockquote cite="If you and your family contemplate going to within 20 kilometers of Fukushima, you may want to skip one or two meals to compensate for your increased exposure to the radiation. In particular, you may want to avoid bananas, broccoli, potatoes, peanut butter, and brazil nuts. It appears the increased exposure has gone up markedly from one twenty-fifth of a banana equivalent dose to a whole 1.6 bananas in your numbers for Fukushima. If you elect to stay in the Tokyo area, feel free to eat all of the bananas and broccoli you desire."
Your comment doesn't really deserve a response, but it occurred to me that you and a few others might actually be gullible enough to believe this nonsense. Let's take a moment to examine your claims. According to you, being exposed to even much higher levels of radiation than we currently find in and around Fukushima is no more dangerous than eating several bunches of bananas.
That's a remarkable discovery. The US Navy, a panicky bunch to say the least, ordered their ships away from the Fukushima plant once higher radiation levels were detected. If only their nuclear engineers knew what you know. Bet they'd feel silly. But according to you, they are.
If you are right, then eating bananas is as risky, or perhaps more dangerous, than receiving radiation produced by x-ray machines or the sun. In your world, there are no meaningful differences between x-ray machine radiation and eating bananas and other foods that contain high levels of naturally produced celsium.
If you do believe that all types of exposure to radioactive material are equal, that eating bananas and x-ray radiation are the same, and that US Navy badly misunderstands the science and risks of exposure to radiation, I suggest you take a long time-out and try to find somebody to explain the science to you. Really.
Leg says:
March 22, 2011 at 5:48 am
Low dose radiation risk is highly correlated to the age of the exposed individual where increasing age lessens the risk. The most vulnerable are germ cells where any damage to the cell propagates through every cell in the body. Next comes an embryo which incurs stem cell damage which then propagates through all the tissue types which descend from the stem cell. Next comes young children whose cells are rapidly dividing and any damage in a cell propagates to all its descendents. Last comes the aged who aren’t going to live long enough for the damage to propagate very far. Another dependency is on the tissue type which incurs the damage. Some tissues such as skin cells reproduce rapidly and other types, such as nerve cells, reproduce slowly or not at all. It is also dependent upon the specific damage done to the DNA molecule. Somatic cells have various mechanisms in place which sense cell damage and when they do they undergo apoptosis (programmed cell death). It appears there is a wide range of kinds of DNA damage which causes apoptosis initiating mechanisms to become inoperable. The result is uncontrolled reproduction of the damaged cell i.e. malignant tumors. When you think about it apoptosis is almost unnatural. The cells in our body are ostensibly descended from free living single celled organisms which reproduce rapidly and don’t commit suicide for the greater interest of a larger cooperative group of cells the comprise multi-cellular organisms. Apoptosis mechanisms are thus fighting against billions of years of evolution geared toward rapid uncontrolled cell reproduction. Adding to the difficulty is that non-suicidal mechanisms which regulate cell reproduction rate must be turned off and then back on at the right times in the right tissue types during the development process from germ cell to mature adult. It’s little wonder why so many environmental and internal insults to DNA integrity result in malignant tumors once you get the perspectives lined up right.
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nanny_govt_sucks says:
March 21, 2011 at 4:40 pm
My feeling is that nuclear reactors can be built in complete safety, but not by humans. Not at this point anyway.
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As the plant maintenance superintendent used to rightly say to us maintenance engineers — “I don’t want to hear the word can’t“.
nah, don’t tell me not extracting watts from fission is the same the inquisition is. So much bullshit. Nerdy qualified one, I give you that, but is bullshit anyway.
So, the guy is basically saying that that the dream of a bunch of nerds is worthy the risk (and trillions in taxes (not private loans) by the way) of a gazillion people that this guy decided they don’t understand?
How one can find that moral?
How? I mean how here?
Of course you can study all the nuclear shit you want as long as you just don’t poison your neighborhood. Nor pretend is safe to mess with it because it fundamentally isn’t safe.
Why?
Because shit will happen (like tsunamis after earthquakes).
The japanese have insanely good engineers and they didn’t paid attention to post earthquake events. What will happen in the next glaciation with the current reactors?
The thing is to design things in ways that even with shit happening (soft or hard) you can be happy anyway the next day.
Hominids already survived glaciations but there weren’t nuclear meltdowns around to “help” them in they journey. We are going to ensure that ther will be. For us or for our grand-grandchildren or our grand-N-children, question: will they be proud of us?
How can people be happy with plutonium around?
Not here.
If you’re so desperate to nerd that stuff, here is an idea: go do it in the dark side of the moon or in venus or in mercury (tip: is better in the shadow side).
Or in a space station so we can eject you from orbit when your can’t control your poisonous shit. We promise to try hard rescuing you first.
Ok, here is the more realistic idea:
Use half you nerd brain to do boring stuff but that’s useful and not risky today. Like extracting energy from the waves of the sea or other “boring” way to get it done sustainably. A way that has “boring” problems to solve like dealing with simple oxidation or corrosion…
..ah no… I forgot… plutonium is so much fun.
We have to stay “open minded” so you can have your joy (and a part of our taxes), sorry I’ve forgot that
Smoking Frog says:
March 22, 2011 at 7:08 am
The trouble is that, arguably, a theory is not a claim of fact.
As I said many times: a theory is a shorthand for a [n overwhelming] body of facts. What one considers a ‘fact’ depends on many things and may change over time. E.g. it is a fact [to most people] that the Sun [and the stars and all the rest] rises in the East, traverses the sky, and sets in the West. A shorthand for that could be that all the heavens are rotating about the Earth. Another shorthand is that the Earth is rotating. It is a fact that a Foucault Pendulum [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foucault_pendulum ] turns during the day. That fact does not follow from the first shorthand, but does from the second. So we consider the latter to be better, as more phenomena are embraced by the same shorthand than before. This has nothing to do with proof, analytical, or other mumbo-jumbo.
@Leg
Yet another dependency on ill effects of low dose radiation are the species which are exposed. The canaries in the coal mine are typically those which have not lost the ability to regenerate severed body parts. These organisms appear to have a hair trigger which reverts differentiated cells back into rapidly reproducing stem cells following an early developmental pathway to properly replace the missing parts. It is thought that animals who’ve lost the ability to replace severed limbs (a great survival advantage) have benefitted more from a lower rate cancer rate and thus natural selection favored the latter over the former for most species.
Yet another mechanism that can be damaged by low dose ionizing radiation is DNA repair mechanisms. DNA undergoes damage all the time from lots of sources and most of the time that damage it is detected and repaired. The detection and repair mechanisms themselves can be damaged and become inoperable.
The immune system also seems to be a weak link in the chain. An active immune system is a relatively late entrant into vertebrate evolution. It appears to easily sustain damage which compromises its ability to distinguish self from non-self and then starts attacking the tissues it should be guarding. All sorts of ailments result from improperly functioning immune systems. It’s thought that immune system aggressiveness is connected with longevity. Dogs have very aggressive immune systems which is why they can happily eat and drink stuff all day long that would make you dealthly ill if you ate it. The tradeoff is dogs only live 10-20 years where you with your less aggressive immune system, as long as you’re careful about what you eat, have a lifespan several times longer than a dog. The dog’s more active immune systems is also why so many of them get rheumatoid arthritis after just a small number of years and why very very few humans develop rheumatoid arthritis in the first several decades of their lives.
Biology is fascinating, isn’t it?
And don’t forget that the next great advance in technology equivalent to developments like fire, writing, agriculture, and metallurgy is synthetic biology. Once we reverse engineer the machinery of life in the simplest prokaryotes and can re-program the little beasties to do our bidding the world is our oyster. The engineering opportunities for exploitation are staggering and almost boundless. Cheap, abundant, clean, renewable energy is just the tip of the iceberg and the opportunity nearest to practical exploitation even as we speak.
We may even be growing our houses, instead of building them!
Cf. Jack Vance, The Houses of Iszm, (Ace Books, 1964).
/Mr Lynn
Mr Lynn says:
March 22, 2011 at 7:07 am
“That’s not quite what I said.”……… Mr. Lynn, if I came to a misunderstanding of your statement, then I apologize.
“I’m flattered that you find my comments ‘cerebral’—if that’s a compliment.”…… Well, in spite of the left-handed nature of the statement, it was indeed, a compliment.
“They produce no falsifiable hypotheses, and so are not science.” This, is correct. And I’ve never argued that my view of creationism was founded in science. It isn’t. Nor, should it be. Without going too deep into theology, it is, or rather it should be well known that for the many that hold similar views to mine, it is by faith and by faith alone that we come to know we are intelligently designed. I could no more prove to you creationism than I could define the boundaries of the universe, or explain all that is necessary to fully understand our weather and/or climate.
I’ve never denied the fossil record. Nor do I today. Obviously, there has been some misinterpretations of the fossil record, and I’m sure there will continue to be some, but in general, I don’t dispute the fossil records. I would take care as to leaning on Leif’s examples, as that they don’t follow very well. For example, “If the mutation gives a calf on the steppe fins rather than legs, the calf dies.” And my response is yeh, ’cause we see that all the time. Sorry, it begs for sarcasm. And I can think of about 100 different lines to satisfy the sarcasm. (Yes, I know he was over simplifying.) But, no matter how many times you guys state this, it boils down to being “randomly selective”.
And, finally, I too was surprised that the moderator(s) allowed the topic in, since it is usually off-limits on this board,……”
It is a trick to be able to discuss such matters in a calm and rational tenor and even more difficult to be able to maintain the tenor.
I don’t raise the discussion here, but do respond when I deem it warranted. These periodic discussions here only serve to lend WUWT, Anthony, moderators, and those that frequent here more credibility and validity. Can one imagine such a diverse grouping of people all in the same (virtual) place, most here for one common purpose? There must be a very compelling issue to have people of diametrically opposing views to join together in a common goal. Maybe we can use this formula for peace in the mid-east?