quote:
risk estimates themselves are extremely conservative and undoubtedly overstated, because they are based on the “linear hypothesis” that posits equal risk to small doses accumulated over time to large doses taken all at once. This is clearly false. For example, a person can drink a glass of wine every night for a year without harmful effect, but drinking 100 glasses (let alone 365) in one night would be fatal. Yet, based on the linear hypothesis, one would falsely predict a 1 percent chance of death from a single glass. The linear hypothesis makes the same wild error in purposely overestimating radiation risk. [emphasis added]
comment:
That irrational way of looking at risk is also present with respect to radiation from power plants. People seem to go nuts over this.
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