Many people who recognize LNT's disastrous invalidity are uncomfortable with SNT because SNT does not incorporate hormesis, the theory that too little radiation can be bad for you.
I find that many people who can believe that low dose radiation is not harmful find the concept of radiation hormesis too much to stomach. The claim that radiation may actually be beneficial at some doses/rates stretches their credulity and focuses the conversation on this difficult to quantify claim. For this reason, I like that SNT sidesteps this issue without endorsing or denying it.
In my role as Engineering Editor at Citizendium, I collect the best arguments pro and con on each issue. The most convincing data I have seen refuting LNT is the data on low-level radon exposures in the Debate page of our article on Fear of Radiation. There is also good data from Kerala, India showing no harm from very high cumulative doses of background radiation, spread over many years. The radon data is presented as a scatterplot. The Kerala data as a bar chart with confidence intervals. What I like about the scatterplot is that it is just raw data that even a "jury" can understand. The anti's cannot argue "fudge factors", "confounding variables", or any of the more sophisticated statistical nonsense they resort to. They are reduced to claims that the data must be fake, and our intelligent readers can see through that.
As for the worry that the negative slope in the radon data is too much to stomach, I just say - there is an explanation. Read it if you are interested, but don't deny the data.
I wonder if they would also be unable to stomach the idea that stress from exercise leads to increased fitness and strength. (Obviously within limits.)
Exercise may not be the best analogy - no obvious source of harm. The argument I see most often boils down to "One zoomie can kill you, so two must be twice as bad." What this argument misses, is that one zoomie can save your life. Without getting into the different mechanisms, we could compare zoomies to virus particles. There might be one in a zillion chance that a single virus particle could kill you, but there is a greater chance that it will just trigger a response from your immune system, and that response will kill ten other virus particles that arrive later.
Exercise is an excellent analogy since it involves biological repair processes. We know that exercise causes damage (especially resistance exercise) and that the body responds by rebuilding and strengthening.
I was not aware of the harm done by exercise, but I'll take your word for it. I'm still studying DNA repair, trying to better understand how hormesis works. How can a little extra DNA breakage result in more than a little DNA repair? I understand the mechanism in our immune systems, how that can provide a more-than-proportionate response. I don't understand hormesis.
Jack, hormesis is more than a "theory". It's an observable, undeniable fact, proven beyond any question of statistical significance. Also, I would not say "too little radiation can be bad for you". I would say, in some circumstances, a small amount of sparsely ionizing radiation can reduce your risk of cancer. I am now trying to understand how that works, how the molecules in our cells can behave like our immune systems and provide a more-than-proportionate response to a little extra DNA breakage. I know this is outside the scope of your interest in nuclear power, but I would greatly appreciate your insights on this question.
I find that many people who can believe that low dose radiation is not harmful find the concept of radiation hormesis too much to stomach. The claim that radiation may actually be beneficial at some doses/rates stretches their credulity and focuses the conversation on this difficult to quantify claim. For this reason, I like that SNT sidesteps this issue without endorsing or denying it.
In my role as Engineering Editor at Citizendium, I collect the best arguments pro and con on each issue. The most convincing data I have seen refuting LNT is the data on low-level radon exposures in the Debate page of our article on Fear of Radiation. There is also good data from Kerala, India showing no harm from very high cumulative doses of background radiation, spread over many years. The radon data is presented as a scatterplot. The Kerala data as a bar chart with confidence intervals. What I like about the scatterplot is that it is just raw data that even a "jury" can understand. The anti's cannot argue "fudge factors", "confounding variables", or any of the more sophisticated statistical nonsense they resort to. They are reduced to claims that the data must be fake, and our intelligent readers can see through that.
As for the worry that the negative slope in the radon data is too much to stomach, I just say - there is an explanation. Read it if you are interested, but don't deny the data.
I wonder if they would also be unable to stomach the idea that stress from exercise leads to increased fitness and strength. (Obviously within limits.)
Exercise may not be the best analogy - no obvious source of harm. The argument I see most often boils down to "One zoomie can kill you, so two must be twice as bad." What this argument misses, is that one zoomie can save your life. Without getting into the different mechanisms, we could compare zoomies to virus particles. There might be one in a zillion chance that a single virus particle could kill you, but there is a greater chance that it will just trigger a response from your immune system, and that response will kill ten other virus particles that arrive later.
Exercise is an excellent analogy since it involves biological repair processes. We know that exercise causes damage (especially resistance exercise) and that the body responds by rebuilding and strengthening.
I was not aware of the harm done by exercise, but I'll take your word for it. I'm still studying DNA repair, trying to better understand how hormesis works. How can a little extra DNA breakage result in more than a little DNA repair? I understand the mechanism in our immune systems, how that can provide a more-than-proportionate response. I don't understand hormesis.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8549894/
Jack, hormesis is more than a "theory". It's an observable, undeniable fact, proven beyond any question of statistical significance. Also, I would not say "too little radiation can be bad for you". I would say, in some circumstances, a small amount of sparsely ionizing radiation can reduce your risk of cancer. I am now trying to understand how that works, how the molecules in our cells can behave like our immune systems and provide a more-than-proportionate response to a little extra DNA breakage. I know this is outside the scope of your interest in nuclear power, but I would greatly appreciate your insights on this question.
The most plausible hypothesis I've seen is Feinendegen's micro-burst theory.
It's definitely unproven, and , if something like this is happening, it likely saturates very early in a NPP release dose rate profile.
Feinendegen, L. Reactive Oxygen species in cell responses to toxic agents, Human and Experimental Toxicology (2002), 21, 85-90