Weekend Post - Admit you're wrong occasionally

A key component of the scientific method is being able to admit that you were wrong.

In his best-selling book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins describes an occasion when he was a student. An elderly and highly respected professor attended a lecture at which a visiting American academic publicly disproved the professor’s cherished theory. According to Dawkins, who was also at the lecture, instead of arguing with the American, or just ignoring his ideas, the elderly professor walked right to the front of the lecture hall, shook the visitor firmly by the hand and loudly said “My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.”

I’m not going to say that all scientists are as grown up and noble as this. A very good example of scientific conservatism is the reaction from the scientific establishment in the early 20th century to the theories of relativity and quantum physics. These ideas were so revolutionary that the establishment couldn’t accept them. Many “scientists” at the time even thought that they were close to a complete understanding of the universe, that classical science from the time of Newton, Kepler and Copernicus explained everything. The new science, complicated by the fact that much of it came from Germans and Jews, was too revolutionary for the old guard. The resistance was formidable.

However the good thing is that the scientific community realized in the early 20th century that science doesn’t have to be convenient, it has to be correct. Einstein and his colleagues WERE right and progress was necessary.

The rest of the world often seems to find inconvenient evidence hard to digest.

Take the example of nuclear power. Almost everyone in the world thinks that nuclear power production is massively dangerous. Ask people and they’ll think of disasters like Chernobyl and, more recently, Fukushima.

But if you drill a little deeper, it’s not quite as simple as it seems. The biggest risk with exposure to radiation is cancer. It’s obviously impossible to say with any particular cancer victim that a particular thing caused their cancer but you can look at the number of deaths in an area and time and see if they’re different. In the initial explosion at Chernobyl 25 years ago, 57 people were killed but the long-term effects were significant. The International Atomic Energy Agency estimated that the long-term effect might be as high as 9,000 deaths. They also noted that there was no evidence of higher levels of birth defects or “solid cancers”.

The situation in Fukushima is similar but less significant. The Japanese government estimated that the release of radiation was about one tenth of that at Chernobyl. Even today, a year later, there remain some after-effects of the disaster. The BBC reported recently that fish caught in local waters remain contaminated above acceptable levels for human consumption. However that was at least in part due to the Japanese authorities changing the acceptable level to appease local consumers. The generally accepted predicted death toll is expected to be in the low hundreds.

It’s critical to understand how both of these disasters occurred. Both of the reactors were outdated, Chernobyl in particular, and used designs that haven’t been used in new reactors for decades. Although it was initially thought that the disaster at Chernobyl occurred because technicians at the plant were fooling around, it later transpired that the main cause was a combination of design flaws in the reactor and it’s catastrophic misuse. The main problems with Fukushima were its age and, again, operator errors.

No recently built nuclear reactor has any of the design problems that led to these two disasters. Of course new disasters can’t be ruled out but the chances are lower than ever before. There’s also the fact that although radiation can be dangerous, it’s not nearly as dangerous as the so-called “green” lobby would have us believe.

What about “conventional” power production, such as coal-fired power stations? They’re a much safer alternative, surely? There’s another uncomfortable truth we have to face.

Generating electricity by burning coal is by far the most dangerous way to produce power. It’s estimated that over 13,000 people in the USA alone are killed directly by inhaling particles from coal-powered power stations every year. The World Health Organisation estimates that around 3 million people around the world die every year from the results of air pollution caused by the combustion of fossil fuels.

Let me put it another way. For every one person killed by nuclear power, it’s been estimated that 4,000 die from coal. And which type of power production are we investing in? Why are we digging up large amounts of coal instead of encouraging more prospecting for uranium?

Is it possible we’re wrong but afraid to confront the truth?

Weekend Post - Radiation

“Radiation”

It’s a horrible word, isn’t it? It conjures up images of the burnt victims of Hiroshima, their skin peeling, waiting for radiation sickness to kill them. More recently the nuclear disasters at Chernobyl and Fukushima in Japan brought back those images. But how dangerous were these disasters? How many people actually died as a result of both these accidents?

This is where things get difficult. It’s impossible to say with certainty with any cancer victim that a particular thing caused their cancer. However you can look at the number of deaths that’s more than might be expected. In the initial explosion at Chernobyl 25 years ago, 57 people were killed but subsequently the only noticeable effect has been a dramatic increase in the numbers of children with thyroid cancer. The good news is that thyroid cancer is easily and successfully treatable and so far only 15 people have died from thyroid cancer in the area. While that’s 15 tragic deaths too many it’s not much more than would be expected anyway. Similarly there appears to have been no increase in birth defects or other cancers. Nobody is going to say that the radiation leak was a good thing but the effect is much, much lower than everyone feared.

Regarding Fukushima it’s really too early to say but the initial number of deaths was minimal and those few deaths were nothing to do with radiation. It’s impossible to predict future deaths but the news is not nearly as bad as was suggested by the press at the time.

On the subject of the danger of nuclear power production you also have to consider the dangers of other ways of producing power. According to the American Cancer Society between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans might die each year from the pollution caused by conventional, mainly coal-based, power stations. That’s a risk we should all be worrying about.

But what about other types of radiation? Are they dangerous? Well, that depends. “Radiation” covers a number of things. Ask a scientist and you’ll discover that radiation is divided into two main categories: ionizing and non-ionizing. Ionizing radiation has enough energy to ionize, or break down atoms. It’s ionizing radiation that causes radiation burns by breaking down the atoms in skin cells. Ionizing radiation can also break down the atoms in DNA that might result in cancer. It’s this type of radiation that is often released by radioactive sources like those found in nuclear power stations. However, as we’ve found from the experience at Chernobyl the risk isn’t nearly as high as we all fear.

The other type of radiation, the non-ionizing type, typically has much less energy, not enough to actually damage any atoms it might meet. That doesn’t mean that it can’t cause damage but the types you and I are likely to encounter are almost all perfectly safe because the energy levels and frequencies are so incredibly low.

The best example of non-ionizing radiation is the one we see every day, just by opening our eyes. Visible light is all around us all the time, even at night, it’s what we use to see things. Visible light is not ionizing. It doesn’t have enough energy to break atoms. A common misunderstanding is about sunburn which people often believe is caused by the light of the sun. In fact it’s the ultra-violet light from the sun that is ionizing, that causes the burns.

What about the most controversial of all the non-ionizing radiations: the radio waves that are used to transmit cellphone calls? Let’s start with a simple fact. The radio waves used by cellphones and cellphone masts use a frequency that is 10 million times lower than the level required to ionize. Unless radiation can ionize atoms it simply can’t cause cancer. This isn’t an assumption, it’s just physics. The radio waves used by your cellphone are as safe as the radio waves used by your chosen radio station.

But what about that World Health Organization report that was published earlier this year that everyone read, the one that said there WAS a risk from cellphones and that they might cause cancer? Unfortunately their report was selectively quoted. They reported just one study that suggested such a link but the papers neglected to report the vast number of other studies that showed there was no relationship between cellphone use and cancers of the brain or central nervous system. Perhaps the most telling fact is that the global levels of such cancers hasn’t changed a bit since the world started using cellphones. In fact the only widely accepted risk from cellphone use is falling in a fountain while texting. Do a search on YouTube for “fountain texting” and see if you can stop laughing.

The lesson is not to believe what you read in newspapers. Do some research, be skeptical and just because someone says it, that doesn’t mean it’s true. And yes, that DOES go for me as well.

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Sources:

My initial source for this was an excellent episode entitled of the Skeptoid podcast by Brian Dunning called "Rethinking Nuclear Power" [transcript here]. It was there that I found the report from the American Cancer Society which suggests the number of deaths from fossil-fuel energy production.

For a general overview of radiation see the Wikipedia page on radiation, in particular the distinction between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation.

The WHO report on cell phone radiation effects is here and includes the following paragraph:

"A large number of studies have been performed over the last two decades to assess whether mobile phones pose a potential health risk. To date, no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use."

There's also a good summary of the facts on the Cancer Research UK site here. Read carefully the section on Category 2B risks (which currently includes cellphones). They describe this group as:

"a bit of a catch-all category, and includes everything from carpentry to chloroform."

For a good overview see the always useful Skeptics Dictionary. In particular see the page on electro-magnetic fields and radiation here and comments on the WHO story here.

Regarding the coverage of the cell phone mast in Mochudi that was destroyed by an outbreak of mass hysteria see the Mmegi story here. See also the appearance of the charlatan called Barrie Trower here. Barrie Trower is not all that he seems.

To see what can happen when you text while walking click here but remember that if you laugh at someone else's misfortune you're a bad person.

Corrections:

In the printed version of this article I referred to the American Cancer "Association", not Society.