Sunday, August 31, 2014
Don Prothero Again
I had a post yesterday of him in a video, and today you have the written version.
Libertarian Ideology Is Anti-Science
Which is why the manufacturing of much of the anti-science propaganda originates with Libertarian stink think tanks.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
The Mind Of A Science Denier
With geologist Donald Prothero (health physics not mentioned! Pooh.). Science deniers have minds???:
Fukushima - UNSCEAR vs Mousseau
I don't think this article will help the average person understand science.
It is basically describing the difference between primary research (Mousseau) and meta-analysis (UNSCEAR), which is combing through primary research in order to reach conclusions. Meta-analysis always lags what primary research shows, but isolated bits of primary research could lead one to erroneous conclusions (which is why we do meta-analysis).
Here's a related Fukushima piece.
It is basically describing the difference between primary research (Mousseau) and meta-analysis (UNSCEAR), which is combing through primary research in order to reach conclusions. Meta-analysis always lags what primary research shows, but isolated bits of primary research could lead one to erroneous conclusions (which is why we do meta-analysis).
Here's a related Fukushima piece.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
NRC Lifts GA Probation
I didn't know that their regulatory program had been put into probation (the first time the NRC has done so!). Apparently they've made some improvements.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
"Name & Shame" Greenhouse Gas Emitters
A political strategy required due to Redumblican science denial.
I Didn't See That One Coming!
Just kidding....MI legislation introduced to stop radwaste importation and disposal.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
ANS Nuclear Cafe Allows More Propaganda
It's a blog (intentionally no link) of the American Nuclear Society (I quit because they have no discipline) and it's Rod Adams again with the Ed Calabrese fabrication that H.J. Muller lied about LNT.
It is the DeNiArs verion of the IDiot's (Intelligent Design proponents) Haeckel's embryos.
It is the DeNiArs verion of the IDiot's (Intelligent Design proponents) Haeckel's embryos.
Monday, August 25, 2014
The End Of Tanning?
I doubt it, but tan responsibly.
The computer generated image of the female face, reminds me of this earlier post's image.
The computer generated image of the female face, reminds me of this earlier post's image.
How Science Deniers Delude Themselves
False equivalence.
Science is the process of NOT fooling oneself....whatever one thinks one knows, one submits for peer review.
Scientific consensus bodies review the peer-reviewed literature and draw conclusions which are also open for peer review and comment. They then make those conclusions public.
Any other process isn't as good as the scientific method.
Science is the process of NOT fooling oneself....whatever one thinks one knows, one submits for peer review.
Scientific consensus bodies review the peer-reviewed literature and draw conclusions which are also open for peer review and comment. They then make those conclusions public.
Any other process isn't as good as the scientific method.
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Don't Waste Money On CAM Trials
Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAM) is pseudo-science and let's call it what it is.
And don't waste money on it!
And don't waste money on it!
They Should Have Consulted A Health Physicist
Residents file a lawsuit claiming radioactive contamination from a St. Louis area landfill.
Case dismissed.
Case dismissed.
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Who Are The Koch Brothers?
They fund the Cato Institute & Heritage Foundation.
They are also billionaire fossil fuel executives.
Is it any surprise that Cato & Heritage manufacture climate denial propaganda?
They are also billionaire fossil fuel executives.
Is it any surprise that Cato & Heritage manufacture climate denial propaganda?
Friday, August 22, 2014
Science Deniers - You Can't Ignore Facts Forever
It's Bill Nye, the Science Guy, addressing climate change denial and denial of a few other scientific areas (but he doesn't mention health physics!):
Thursday, August 21, 2014
C-Span Does The U.S. A Disservice
They are covering a portion of the Heartburn Imbecile's pseudo-scientific global warming conference, at 8 p.m. EST tonight. They're referring to it as "Climate Change Skeptics", when "Climate Change Deniers" would be more accurate.
To James Hollow And His Audience
(This is in response to a Youtube video comment section)
James:
I hope what you are about to read will anger you, because you have been intentionally misled. You have been used by Allison as an accomplice to spread his misinformation around. If you have a pro-nuclear power bias, you are particularly susceptible to this mis-information due to what is called "confirmation bias" and "motivated reasoning".
Let's get into some detailed facts:
There are two international scientific consensus bodies on radiation health effects. They are the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).
Both of these consensus bodies have concluded that LNT is the best explanation of radiation health effects. You can find this in ICRP Report 103 (which you have to buy) and in UNSCEAR 2010 (which you can read online).
In the U.S., we also have the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' BEIR VII (I've already provided a link) and the National Commission on Radiological Protection & Measurement (NCRP). The NCRP Report 136 (which you have to buy) details their conclusions.
All four consensus bodies are in agreement, that LNT is the best theory of radiation carcinogenesis. And that is one of the remarkable facts about science....we can't have consensus bodies in disagreement! Any areas of disagreement are worked out! And more broadly, we can't have a theory in biology contradict a theory in physics....or a theory in health physics contradict a theory in cosmology!
Science works well because of the filtering methodology of peer reviewed publication, meta-analysis, and scientific consensus bodies. The vast majority of scientists appreciate and respect this process. The vast majority of scientists are careful to stick to their own area of expertise and to educate the general public on what the scientific consensus is within their own area of expertise.
Sadly, there is a small minority of people with science degrees (I don't refer to them as scientists because they have abandoned the scientific method) who don't like the conclusions of scientific consensus bodies, and manufacture propaganda to confuse the general public. One of those people is Wade Allison.
Note in your video (just before 3:00) he states he came to his own conclusions. That should be a warning bell to everyone! No one should care what his own conclusions are. You should only care what the conclusions are of an appropriate scientific consensus body. Note that prior to making that statement he describes his credentials...he is inducing his audience to fall for the fallacy of argument from authority.
From there he proceeds to misinform (we can get into technical details, but I'm avoiding doing that for the moment).
ASIDE - At 1:58 in this video, Allison says he's not an expert. If he's not an expert, shouldn't he be paying attention to the experts? I'm reminded of the creationist dentist who doesn't like the scientific consensus of evolution within biology. (Someone has to stand up to the experts! HA!)
So, to be crystal clear, the scientific consensus has been and continues to be LNT and Allison is intentionally misinforming the public. The reason you think LNT is based on the precautionary principle is because you have been led to believe it. It is possible that LNT overestimates the risk of radiation, but it is also possible LNT underestimates the risk of radiation. As of today, the evidence suggests that LNT is the best model.
Allison is engaged in the same behavior that evolution deniers, climate change deniers, tobacco deniers, etc. engage in. It is narcissistic, intellectually cowardly and unethical. If a medical doctor decided to pray to cure a disease rather than provide the consensus medicine, that doctor would be banned from practice. If an attorney, advised his client to ignore a court ruling because he didn't agree with it, he would be banned from practice. Sadly, we don't have a similar mechanism within the physical sciences.
Now Allison is not the only unethical science person. You have given us another one, Jane Orient. She is the President of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. As you can see if you read that webpage, they engage not only in LNT denial, but also in climate change denial. They are a bunch of Libertarian (don't like government regulations) medical doctors who are associated with the Libertarian Marshall Institute (mostly physical scientists). The Marshall Institute was the subject of the book, "Merchants of Doubt".
These organizations take donations from corporations and other Libertarians, and pay people with credentials to manufacture arguments against the scientific consensus. They do this to delay, minimize, or overturn regulations which may be a consequence of the scientific conclusions. Very unethical.
So, if you look at the references in her paper, you find the same cherry-picked group of people who have attacked health physics over the decades. One example is T.D. Luckey. Here is a paper by him, in which he promotes hormesis (that radiation is good for you) by comparing it with the pseudo-science of homeopathy! That's like comparing it to astrology in order to promote it!
Here is Luckey at a 2000, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness meeting giving a talk called "How Health Physics Lost the 20th Century". Well, health physics didn't lose the 20th century nor the 21st. However, Luckey passed away this year.
Creationists repeat the same, tired old arguments attacking evolutionary biology. They'll claim evolution is just a hypothesis, it's an atheistic conspiracy, it's about to be overturned, etc.
You will find the same dozen or so people using their credentials to attack health physics (I call them DeNiArs). You will also find a different group, consisting of another dozen or so people with credentials, exaggerating radiation risks. Both groups are engaged in unethical conduct.
Stick with the scientific consensus bodies' conclusions on any issue....don't seek out individuals with science degrees who are telling you what you want to hear.
Otherwise they'll play you like a fiddle.
I hope you are very angry.
James:
I hope what you are about to read will anger you, because you have been intentionally misled. You have been used by Allison as an accomplice to spread his misinformation around. If you have a pro-nuclear power bias, you are particularly susceptible to this mis-information due to what is called "confirmation bias" and "motivated reasoning".
Let's get into some detailed facts:
There are two international scientific consensus bodies on radiation health effects. They are the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR).
Both of these consensus bodies have concluded that LNT is the best explanation of radiation health effects. You can find this in ICRP Report 103 (which you have to buy) and in UNSCEAR 2010 (which you can read online).
In the U.S., we also have the U.S. National Academy of Sciences' BEIR VII (I've already provided a link) and the National Commission on Radiological Protection & Measurement (NCRP). The NCRP Report 136 (which you have to buy) details their conclusions.
All four consensus bodies are in agreement, that LNT is the best theory of radiation carcinogenesis. And that is one of the remarkable facts about science....we can't have consensus bodies in disagreement! Any areas of disagreement are worked out! And more broadly, we can't have a theory in biology contradict a theory in physics....or a theory in health physics contradict a theory in cosmology!
Science works well because of the filtering methodology of peer reviewed publication, meta-analysis, and scientific consensus bodies. The vast majority of scientists appreciate and respect this process. The vast majority of scientists are careful to stick to their own area of expertise and to educate the general public on what the scientific consensus is within their own area of expertise.
Sadly, there is a small minority of people with science degrees (I don't refer to them as scientists because they have abandoned the scientific method) who don't like the conclusions of scientific consensus bodies, and manufacture propaganda to confuse the general public. One of those people is Wade Allison.
Note in your video (just before 3:00) he states he came to his own conclusions. That should be a warning bell to everyone! No one should care what his own conclusions are. You should only care what the conclusions are of an appropriate scientific consensus body. Note that prior to making that statement he describes his credentials...he is inducing his audience to fall for the fallacy of argument from authority.
From there he proceeds to misinform (we can get into technical details, but I'm avoiding doing that for the moment).
ASIDE - At 1:58 in this video, Allison says he's not an expert. If he's not an expert, shouldn't he be paying attention to the experts? I'm reminded of the creationist dentist who doesn't like the scientific consensus of evolution within biology. (Someone has to stand up to the experts! HA!)
So, to be crystal clear, the scientific consensus has been and continues to be LNT and Allison is intentionally misinforming the public. The reason you think LNT is based on the precautionary principle is because you have been led to believe it. It is possible that LNT overestimates the risk of radiation, but it is also possible LNT underestimates the risk of radiation. As of today, the evidence suggests that LNT is the best model.
Allison is engaged in the same behavior that evolution deniers, climate change deniers, tobacco deniers, etc. engage in. It is narcissistic, intellectually cowardly and unethical. If a medical doctor decided to pray to cure a disease rather than provide the consensus medicine, that doctor would be banned from practice. If an attorney, advised his client to ignore a court ruling because he didn't agree with it, he would be banned from practice. Sadly, we don't have a similar mechanism within the physical sciences.
Now Allison is not the only unethical science person. You have given us another one, Jane Orient. She is the President of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. As you can see if you read that webpage, they engage not only in LNT denial, but also in climate change denial. They are a bunch of Libertarian (don't like government regulations) medical doctors who are associated with the Libertarian Marshall Institute (mostly physical scientists). The Marshall Institute was the subject of the book, "Merchants of Doubt".
These organizations take donations from corporations and other Libertarians, and pay people with credentials to manufacture arguments against the scientific consensus. They do this to delay, minimize, or overturn regulations which may be a consequence of the scientific conclusions. Very unethical.
So, if you look at the references in her paper, you find the same cherry-picked group of people who have attacked health physics over the decades. One example is T.D. Luckey. Here is a paper by him, in which he promotes hormesis (that radiation is good for you) by comparing it with the pseudo-science of homeopathy! That's like comparing it to astrology in order to promote it!
Here is Luckey at a 2000, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness meeting giving a talk called "How Health Physics Lost the 20th Century". Well, health physics didn't lose the 20th century nor the 21st. However, Luckey passed away this year.
Creationists repeat the same, tired old arguments attacking evolutionary biology. They'll claim evolution is just a hypothesis, it's an atheistic conspiracy, it's about to be overturned, etc.
You will find the same dozen or so people using their credentials to attack health physics (I call them DeNiArs). You will also find a different group, consisting of another dozen or so people with credentials, exaggerating radiation risks. Both groups are engaged in unethical conduct.
Stick with the scientific consensus bodies' conclusions on any issue....don't seek out individuals with science degrees who are telling you what you want to hear.
Otherwise they'll play you like a fiddle.
I hope you are very angry.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Another DeNiAr Video!
It's Wade Allison again. He appoints himself to be the scientific consensus on radiation effects on YouTube.
Narcissism anyone?
Narcissism anyone?
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
ANS Nuclear Cafe - Oh Woe Is Me!
There is a blog there in response to the EPA's request for feedback on some regulatory changes.
The author, Jim Hopf, seems to think that LNT only applies to radiation associated with the nuclear power/nuclear weapons industry.
Of course, he's wrong.
It applies to all genotoxic carcinogens, radiation being one. And it applies to many industries...chemical industries, tobacco industries, and even fracking (because the waste is radioactive).
Jim really should get out more.
Note: My comment is being held in moderation. I wonder what he's scared of?
The author, Jim Hopf, seems to think that LNT only applies to radiation associated with the nuclear power/nuclear weapons industry.
Of course, he's wrong.
It applies to all genotoxic carcinogens, radiation being one. And it applies to many industries...chemical industries, tobacco industries, and even fracking (because the waste is radioactive).
Jim really should get out more.
Note: My comment is being held in moderation. I wonder what he's scared of?
Monday, August 18, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Friday, August 15, 2014
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Lucky For Burrus - He Can't Be Sued For Being Stupid
Another genius Forbes "contributor" has a piece called, "Hopefully Dr. Michael E. Mann Doesn't Sue Me For This Column".
In a nutshell, some right wingers wrote some insulting things about climatologist Michael Mann. According to the contribution, these things included the phrase "academic and scientific misconduct" and three more.
Now if Dr. Mann did engage in misconduct, that might not be libelous, but if he did not, then broadcasting those phrases about a private professional would be libelous.
Burrus tries to hide behind the smokescreen that it's all a part of the climate change debate.
No, it's libel.
Science isn't done by blog or by National Review Online.
(P.S. Burris is associated with the Koch-funded, science denying Crapo (Cato) Institute)
In a nutshell, some right wingers wrote some insulting things about climatologist Michael Mann. According to the contribution, these things included the phrase "academic and scientific misconduct" and three more.
Now if Dr. Mann did engage in misconduct, that might not be libelous, but if he did not, then broadcasting those phrases about a private professional would be libelous.
Burrus tries to hide behind the smokescreen that it's all a part of the climate change debate.
No, it's libel.
Science isn't done by blog or by National Review Online.
(P.S. Burris is associated with the Koch-funded, science denying Crapo (Cato) Institute)
Friday, August 8, 2014
Be Prepared! These Doctors Are A Disaster!
They are the Libertarian medical equivalent of the Marshall Institute's physical science "experts".
They're called Doctors For Disaster Preparedness.
I'm not going to link to them (you can easily find them), but on their website is an e-book dealing with surviving radiation and other emergencies.
They're called Doctors For Disaster Preparedness.
I'm not going to link to them (you can easily find them), but on their website is an e-book dealing with surviving radiation and other emergencies.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
Atomic Ideologies Hormesis Propaganda
Atomic Ideologies Insights blog has a couple of guest bloggers promoting homeopathy hormesis. I'm not even going to link to it. It's the same tired old arguments that have been made for decades.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
DeNiAr - Lack of Self Awareness
James Conca has a piece in the scholarly scientific journal, Forbes.
It's actually a good piece, called, "Science Is Not Democratic", which is true, it's a meritocracy.
It's actually a good piece, called, "Science Is Not Democratic", which is true, it's a meritocracy.
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Shame On S. Carolina
Trying to promote doubt about evolution.
Good teachers will take advantage, though, and point out why creationism and intelligent design are wrong.
Good teachers will take advantage, though, and point out why creationism and intelligent design are wrong.
Friday, August 1, 2014
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