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Bad science behind expensive nuclear power + The curse of Toumaï - C C - May 29, 2025
The bad science behind expensive nuclear power
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-bad-science-behind-expensive-nuclear/
INTRO: How a dubious theory of radiation damage based on fruit flies and a secretive weapons testing program came to be — and why its time may now be up...
The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/27/the-curse-of-toumai-ancient-skull-disputed-femur-feud-humanity-origins
EXCERPTS: When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not everyone was convinced – and the bitter argument that followed has consumed the lives of scholars ever since...
[...] Palaeoanthropology is a notoriously disputatious, not to say vicious, field. In part, this is an effect of self-selection: given its prestige, and its philosophical, even metaphysical implications, the study of human prehistory attracts the most ambitious and, as one member of the discipline put it to me, “the most psychotic”, palaeontologists.
There is, additionally, a cultural divide within the field between, speaking very broadly, field workers and laboratory specialists. The former disdain the latter as “armchair palaeontologists”; the latter disdain the former as “fossil hunters”... (MORE - details)
RE: Bad science behind expensive nuclear power + The curse of Toumaï - confused2 - Jun 5, 2025
Re:The bad science behind expensive nuclear power
Difficult to isolate any truth from competing claims.
Aphids are too small to have an effective skin to keep radiation out so are (possibly) a useful model for the effects of ingesting radioactive elements. Unfortunately what might be a good model is claimed to generate the inconvenient result that there is no 'safe' dose of (internal) radiation.
To counter the possible truth about internal radiation the pro-nuclear brigade use Trumpian tactics to direct attention towards external radiation which has relatively little effect on thick skinned animals like ourselves.
While Trumpian tactics work wonderfully for the faithful there will always be some left wondering why a (possible) truth needs to be hidden.
RE: Bad science behind expensive nuclear power + The curse of Toumaï - Syne - Jun 5, 2025
Leftists gonna fear-monger.
RE: Bad science behind expensive nuclear power + The curse of Toumaï - confused2 - Jun 6, 2025
I think you've understood the problem .. by being part of it .. but not the solution.
RE: Bad science behind expensive nuclear power + The curse of Toumaï - Syne - Jun 6, 2025
Where is the evidence that nuclear power plants leak radiation into the environment... that would end up ingested by humans?
Did we skip that step?