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CasioTheSane comments on How to use human history as a nutritional prior? - Less Wrong Discussion
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I've certainly seen several politicians argue that "radiation is actually good for you," but I've yet to hear any actual radiation health physicists argue that point...
Well, one doesn't usually see any actual radiation health physicists argue anything. I sure seen various engineering type people argue its good, and there are entire countries (Japan) where the linear-no-threshold model is evidently not adhered to.
Plus there is something weird going on with wikipedia articles on the subject all trying to present the pre-LNT views as something new that's challenging the LNT, complete with editing out of highly relevant historical references. Then there is "radiation hormesis", a hypothesis, that the radiation is good for you. Not "because of such and such specific response, radiation is good for you" - just a hypothesis that it is (which incidentally is the first "hypothesis" that comes up when a new exotic poison is found: someone hypothesises it to sell it in small amounts as a cure). Except that its presented as something new. Complete with a laundry list of rationalizations of how it might be so. That's terrible, and misleads people a fair lot.
I dunno if I should go ahead and write article on the topic.
Is this a fair description of the history and science behind hormesis?
See for yourself:
Is it more like some new outcome like 'ohh, there's new method by which the cell would know the radiation doses at low near background level, even for alpha particles a single of which does giant damage! Some new exciting physics discovered - the quantum probability can be measured before event happens!. That got to be useful for something, maybe for defence response. Ohh, there is the defence response, and its so strong.... I wonder if low doses of radiation are good for you?'
Or is it more like like 'okay, suppose the radiation is good for you, let's think and come up with justifications, okay, the untapped powers of organism that will be'.
The former is the process of scientific enquiry, the latter is the process of pseudoscience - start with desired effect, make up vague cause, later on perhaps think up a zillion specific causes, good luck proving them all wrong. I wonder why we even take obvious products of entirely backwards reasoning at face value as if they were not fundamentally different from products of forward reasoning?
Also try calculate how many people are required to find LNT-predicted dose effects at 10x the background. There aren't going to be direct evidence. There will be very strong indirect evidence, such as difficulty for the cell to measure doses near background, and generally low prior probability for some magical untapped powers of organism.
I have seen for myself. And I've also read about all the other hormesis effects like cold, caloric restriction intermittent fasting, exercise etc, which make a potential hormetic effect from radiation quite plausible (regardless of your sarcasm about 'magical untapped powers').
I don't think it's backwards at all.
You're a very dismissive person, I think. I give you a link with all sorts of modern results and mechanisms, and all you do is speculate wildly about ulterior motives.
It is entirely implausible that there would be a potential hormetic effect from 'radiation', because there isn't single such thing.
There's the beta radiation. There's the gamma radiation that mostly knocks off electrons (works a lot like beta, but wavelength-dependent in how the damage is delivered at cellular scale). There's the alpha radiation, that is massive, stops very quickly, and generates immense damage in a short path. That's like a hypothesis that 'fruits' are good for you, right here. Under the linear no threshold, you can bin all radiation types into one box (after you apply scaling factors). Under hormesis you can't.
You give me a link to wikipedia article with a non labelled 'graph' near top. Is it logarithmic scale? Is it linear scale? What are proposed dose values, even approximately? What is the proposed type of radiation, is it all types, is it one type, what energy range? [note that those are only abstracted out, after applying scaling factors, under linear model]
A hypothesis follows from a theory regarding the mechanism, not other way around. When different theories generate same conclusion, that's still different hypotheses, because the explanations differ. When an observation is made, it's called fact. A fact can generate multiple theories, that may generate other testable hypotheses, that would allow to discern between theories.
When a hypothesis is generated from the argument about all the other hormesis effects (never mind all the other non-hormesis effects!), which is the only explanation as of why this hypothesis would be so broad as to include all radiation types, and then multiple independent ostensibly 'mechanisms' aka theories are generated, that's called pseudoscience. Especially if unlabelled graphs are produced. A hypothesis has to be testable, i.e. possible to be shown wrong, that means the hypothesis has to specify some particular dose range, where if it is not found, the hypothesis (along with theory that produced this hypothesis) is put to rest as false. And note, the pseudoscience is not just cranks who are obviously wrong. They are non-science. Pseudo-science is something that looks like science, to anyone who lacks domain knowledge, and often, even to those who do have domain knowledge.
The key that distinguishes scientific propositions, from pseudo-scientific ones, is testability. The hormesis is pseudo-testable - you have to search over giant combinatorial space of 3 radiation types, different energies, and many orders of magnitude of doses, before you can falsify it.
It's perfectly plausible; why are you making some assumption like 'all forms of radiation in all tissues have the same hormetic effects?' Such strawmanning does you no favors.
...Which the article prominently discusses as part of the French review. Not trying very hard, are you.
So it's just as much a point against the simple linear model as it is against hormesis.
That graph is explicitly labeled as hypothetical and a visualization! Holy cow. Do you never visit Wikipedia? They use diagrams all the time to explain stuff (and not as primary source material & proof...)
You want numbers for particular setups with particular organisms, that's what the studies section is for!
/ignores naive philosophy of science and name-calling
The hypothesis goes as following: fruits are good for you. Find 1 always-poisonous fruit, that disproves the hypothesis. That's how science disposed of this particular form of mindless arguing over what is, and isn't, a strawman. Now, 'there is at least one kind of fruit, that is good for you, in at least one specific amount', that's entirely different hypothesis, and must be stated as such.
edit: but that hypothesis should leaves you wondering, how do you know that there is at least one, rather than some specific one.
With regards to the listed cellular repair mechanisms, they are each a separate scientific hypothesis, testable one.
edit: also, for your information. I've added some of the cautious-sounding parts of the article myself a while back. So thanks for compliment.
anyhow, i guess i came off wrong there. Let me explain. The issue here is the technical one. The 'hormesis' is wannabe policy change motivated proposition. The specific cellular response mechanisms and such, are scientific hypotheses, plural, testable, and none of scientists who are genuinely studying radio-biology are eager to reduce his study to a hypothesis that repair overcomes the direct damage by radiation, or that the whole mechanism results in the net benefit for the organism. That is important distinction here. Hormesis is complete pseudoscientific BS. Those things, are genuine hypotheses, and make testable predictions that at a specific dose, of specific type of radiation, there would be some particular mechanism activating, and that strength would be such and side effects such and such. Eventually it can be found in which conditions we should expect net benefit, and what side effects there may be (e.g. immune system stimulated, less cancer, more auto-immune disorders). Those folks aren't eager to show most 'benefits' and hypothesise in the benefit direction. Their theories may be most directly testable via negative results other than cancer. The Hormesis cherrypicks out of those studies some net benefit. It may still turn out, that we will be willing to trade the negative effects, if any, for reduced cancer rate, if ever - or not. That is up to real science to decide. Not up to 'hormesis' studies.
Indeed it is. Since you are aware of this, one wonders why you choose to uncharitably interpret hormesis in the broadest simplest possible way.
So your disingenuousness is all the more irritating and willful.
So to rewrite what you are saying, "Hormesis - as anyone but me defines it - exists as an effect in studies, but it's still all pseudoscience and 'real science' needs to investigate it."
Go read "biological effects of ionizing radiation" or some mainstream knowledge on the topic, please, before asserting that my opinion is not mainstream, and what is the mainstream view of hormesis is, and rewriting what I am saying.
Especially, do some homework assignments so you have some idea of e.g. how often a cell is hit by 'radiation' at near background level, so you see how plausible it is that the low doses - which affect things stochastically - have any sort of nonlinear effect.
Then delve into controversial stuff like hormesis.
That's actually a great heuristic: do not learn science from controversial stuff. Learn topic properly first. Before learning radio-biology, learn some physics, and biology. I'm pretty sure I seen an article to this sense on lesswrong. The reports like BEIR, that's the summarization of knowledge by experts. Wikipedia is a lack-of-scholarship bias. The wikipedia article on the topic would of been best balanced and most accurate by citing precisely 1 mainstream meta-report. Any balancing has already been done by far more qualified experts than Wikipedia editors.