Re: Aussies moving underground to escape summer heat

From: Mitchell Jones (mjones_at_jump.net)
Date: 07/18/04 

Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 08:22:50 GMT

In article <10fanfmmtv22k9e@corp.supernews.com>,
 "greywolf42" <mingstb@marssim-ss.com> wrote:

> Mitchell Jones <mjones@jump.net> wrote in message
> news:mjones-9F38A6.13135613072004@chiapp18.algx.net...
> > In article <10f7riucj5adoc6@corp.supernews.com>,
> > "greywolf42" <mingstb@marssim-ss.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Mitchell Jones <mjones@jump.net> wrote in message
> > > news:mjones-FD8800.12160412072004@chiapp18.algx.net...
>
> {snip stuff on Coober Pedy and living underground}
>
> > > > ***{I saw a study awhile back (by Cohen, if memory serves) which
> > > > compared the incidences of cancer in homes with high radon levels to
> > > > those with low levels. He found that there was significantly less
> > > > cancer in the homes with the higher levels. The term he used was
> > > > "radiation hormesis," meaning that the health related effects of
> > > > radiation exposure do not scale in a linear way. His finding was
> > > > that longevity at first is enhanced as exposure rises above zero,
> > > > after which it levels off, and beyond that point, longevity declines
> > > > in an approximately linear way as dosage continues to increase.
> > >
> > > Radiation hormesis has been known since the days of the Hiroshima and
> > > Nagasaki databases. However, since everyone 'knows' that radiation is
> > > bad for you, it isn't often discussed. Politicians who set protection
> > > policy (and other simple-minded folks) like to use simple linear
> > > relationships.
>
> There is a decent book on the history of the subject. "Radiation Hormesis,"
> by Luckey.
>
> > > > Such a pattern makes sense to me, because
> > > > levels of background radiation on Earth have been slowly declining for
> > > > billions of years. That means humans evolved under higher exposure
> > > > than is normal today, and implies that the human body is adapted to
> > > > background levels of radiation which are higher than those which are
> > > > normal today.
> > >
> > > This may be theoretically true in a very limited sense. However, the
> > > controlling terrestrial radioisotope on the Earth is Uranium 238 (which
> > > is the source of radon). U-238 has a half-life of over 4 billion years.
> > > The decline in radiation is negligible in the few million years that
> > > plains apes have been evolving.
> >
> > ***{"Plains apes" have been evolving since the first stromatolites
> > appeared on Earth in the Archaean era, 3.5 billion years ago. By that I
> > mean that each new species builds incrementally on the structure of its
> > predecessor, in a chain that stretches back to the first life.
>
> This is a false statement in evolutionary theory. "Life" is not all based
> on some primal, unique entity upon which we base all later forms.

***{Of course, life evolved multiple times at multiple locations
throughout the universe, and, more than likely, on Earth as well. Thus
in the broadest possible sense of the term, there is no "first life."
However, in the context of this discussion, such considerations are
irrelevant. My reference connecting the evolution of man back to "the
first life" was intended to indicate that the chain of incremental
development--i.e., the line of descent--which led to modern man did not
begin a mere "few million years" ago, as per your earlier statement, but
vastly further back in time. The point at issue, remember, was whether
the biological structure used by present-day man is adapted to the
background levels of radiation normally experienced by humans today, or
to much higher levels which prevailed in earlier circumstances, possibly
including influences from billions of years ago. You claimed the former,
and my point was that your claim was incorrect. --MJ}***

> > No
> > species appears full-blown on Earth out of nothing, with traits that are
> > adjusted only to its own narrow niche in time. For example, recent
> > comparisons have shown that the DNA of humans differs by roughly 1% from
> > that of the chimpanzee.
>
> If that differentiation were constant, we'd share nothing with creatures 200
> million years old.

***{I didn't say it was constant. Hominid evolution has obviously been
unusually rapid in the last few million years, at least where brain
function is concerned, and it is doubtlessly those changes which account
for most of the 1%. But that is beside the present point. We are here
concerned not with structural changes that enhanced cognitive functions,
but with structural adaptations to radiation, and, in particular, with
adaptations which might lead modern humans to function better when
background counts are higher than is normal today. In that regard, two
types of questions arise:

(1) There is the issue of whether very primitive human progenitors,
perhaps even one-celled creatures living billions of years ago (a) had
to adapt to significantly higher levels of background radiation than are
present now, and (b) whether some of those adaptations may reasonably be
expected to persist in present-day humans.

(2) There is the issue of whether the hominid line itself, which began
roughly 4 to 6 million years ago, may have experienced, and thus adapted
to, significantly higher levels of background radiation than are
prevalent today.

I say that both possibilities are reasonable, and you, apparently, say
otherwise. If my view is correct, then it is possible that the immune
systems of present-day humans work better when stimulated by a higher
background level than is normal today. If so, that would explain Cohen's
finding that cancer levels were lower in homes where radion levels were
higher.

--Mitchell Jones}***

 Which is still a trivial time, compared to the half-life
> of U-238.

***{U-238 is not the only radioactive isotope that exists on Earth.
U-235 and lots of other stuff which has much shorter half lives would
have been much more abundant in the distant past, and would have
contributed to the elevation of the background count in those times.
Here is a relevant statement from a geological paper:

"...the radioactivity of the heat producing elements U, K and Th
decreases with time so that heat production in the Archaean crust is
about three times as great as it is for the modern crust." [Source:
http://wwwrses.anu.edu.au/oregen/Abstracts/Mantle.html.]

Since radiation dosage refers to the quantity of energy emitted or
absorbed, and since it all eventually goes to heat, I would take the
above as implying that the background count in the Archaean was about
three times the present level. If that is correct, then sub-issue (a) of
issue (1), above, is settled--which means: very primitive human
progenitors did, in fact, have to adapt to background levels that were
much higher than is normal today.

--Mitchell Jones}***

> > And, of course, the structure of the
> > chimpanzee differed trivially from that of his predecessor, and so on.
> > Bottom line: the biological structure presently used by humans is
> > adapted to the average background radiation level that existed on Earth
> > during the roughly 4 billion years since life appeared on Earth, not to
> > the average levels which exist today. --MJ}***
>
> That is an unsupported statement. Mammals first arose roughly 200 million
> years ago.

***{Your comment, above, contains precisely the same fallacy which was
implicit in your earlier statement that "plains apes" have only been
evolving "for a few million years." The first "mammal," like the first
"plains ape," differed trivially from his non-mammalian parents.
Biological structure evolves incrementally, not in vast leaps. No
species springs full-blown out of nothing, adapted only to the tiny
niche in time during which its particular species name applies. Even in
the case of a catastrophe--e.g., asteroid X wipes out 99% of the species
on earth--the species that survive will still differ only incrementally
and trivially from their predecessors. If there is one species of rat--a
mammal--which survives the destruction of the dinosaurs, and if that
species in, say, the next 100,000 years, differentiates to fill each and
every niche vacated by the dinosaurs, and in the process produces some
descendants that look like horses, others that look like dogs, others
that look like pigs, others that look like elephants, and so on, that
would not alter by a whit the principle of gradualism: each of those
animals would differ trivially from its parents, and they from theirs,
and so on, in a chain stretching back not just to the catastrophe, but
to their earliest progenitors.

Bottom line: there is no contradiction between gradualism and
catastrophism, and, in the context of this discussion, there is no
contradiction between the statement that "mammals first arose roughly
200 million years ago," and the statement that mammals (including
humans) "are adapted to the average background radiation level that
existed on Earth during the roughly 4 billion years since life appeared
on Earth."

--Mitchell Jones}***
 
 Multicelled fauna began only about 350 million years ago.

***{There is sharing of traits down lines of descent. Multicelled fauna
began when their single celled predecessors remained stuck together
after cellular division was completed. Just as man's line of descent did
not begin 4 to 6 million years ago when the first hominids appeared, so
it did not begin when man's multicellular progenitors appeared. The
first member of each species differs trivially from his parents, despite
the fact that they were of the prior species. Thus the first hominid
differed trivially from his parents, despite the fact that they were
non-hominids. And similar statements apply all the way back down any
person's line of descent, as we go from one individual to his parents,
and thence to the parents of the parents, and so on, back to primitive
mammals, then to reptiles, then to fish with bony skeletons, then to
those with cartilaginous skeletons, and on, and on, and on, until we
come finally to some single celled predecessor in the Archaean Era.
(Actually, the evolutionary process extends even further back, because
the cell wall itself was the culmination of a lengthy adaptive process,
but there is no need to go into that at the moment.)

The implication is that each person living today stands at the end of an
unbroken line of descent which stretches back to the earliest and most
primitive life on Earth. (Or, in the event our ancestors came from some
other planet, then back to the earliest and most primitive life there.)
To suppose otherwise is to suppose nonsense--i.e., that some advanced
species appeared full-blown out of nothing, and began evolving from that
point forward, without any ancestors who were more primitive stretching
out behind him. While plenty of that sort of silliness is proposed in
religious tracts, it is notably and correctly absent from the writings
of knowledgeable biologists.

I would add that if, as it appears, you intend to deny such a state of
affairs, what you are denying is Darwinism itself--which means: you are
denying the premise upon which biological science rests, and upon which
it must rest.

--Mitchell Jones}***

> (Stomatolites are built by single-celled cyanobacteria.) There is little
> sharing across biological kingdoms.

***{It is true that there are considerable differences in cell structure
between present-day bacteria and modern humans, but it is also true that
there are significant commonalities. More important, however, is the
relationship between the cell structures of our one celled ancestors,
and our present-day cell structures. Specifically, is it reasonable to
suppose that some of the adaptations made by our single-celled ancestors
to help them cope with high levels of background radiation were passed
down to us?

To try to find the answer, let's start at the beginning, and work our
way up the chain of descent:

(1) Did our single-celled ancestors adapt their structures to the high
background radiation levels that prevailed when they lived on Earth?
Clearly they did. (Those who did not did not survive.)

(2) Did they pass those adaptations on to their descendants? Clearly
they did. (If not, their offspring would not have survived.)

(3) When at some distant remove some of those descendants remained stuck
together after cellular division, thereby forming multi-celled
organisms, did they start over anew, with cell structures bearing no
resemblance to the cell structure of their single-celled parent? The
answer is that they differed trivially in their cell structures from the
structure of their single celled parent.

What that means is that adaptations--i.e., genetically encoded,
beneficial structural changes--are carried forward along the line of
descent, and disappear only when they become maladaptive. Such
disappearances, however, require time, and the amount of time required
is a function of two major considerations:

(1) The longer an adaptation has been in place, the harder it is to
remove, because more and more secondary adaptations that are dependent
upon it accumulate as time passes. Hence the cost of removing it
increases over time.

(2) Removal time is inversely proportional to the extent of the
maladaptation, when it arises. If, for example, an adaptation becomes
invariably lethal, due to environmental change, then it will be removed
much more quickly than if it merely causes occasional harm.

Thus it seems entirely plausible that present-day humans are in the
process of shedding their dependence on a higher background count, or,
alternatively, that they are in the process of discovering that they
would be better off living underground, like the so called "cave men"
who were their not-too-distant ancestors.

It may be, in short, that Cohen's findings are telling us that radiation
is, in a sense, a nutrient, and that because of our modern lifestyles,
we have become deficient in that nutrient.

Maybe the folks in Coober Pedy have it right, and the rest of us are the
ones who are out of step! :-)

--Mitchell Jones}***

> And 350 million years is still trivial compared to 4.4 billion year
> half-life.

***{I repeat: U-238 is not the only isotope contributing to background.
--MJ}***

  One would expect the terrestrial radiation level to be reduced
> by roughly 8%.

***{Not that it matters, but the linear approximation you used, if done
correctly, yields an answer of 4%, not 8%. (Only half of the U-238
decays in 4.5 billion years, not all of it.) --MJ}***

  But the cosmogenic contributions (primarily cosmic rays)
> would be unchanged. And cosmic rays provide the bulk of exposure to
> ionizing radiation to land-surface-living critters.

***{That is incorrect. Here is what the Center for Disease Control has
to say on the subject:

"Approximately 82% of the radiation dose is from natural sources: 55%
from radon, 8% from cosmic radiation (from the sun and stars), another
8% from terrestrial sources (radioactive material in rocks and soil),
and 11% from internal sources (radioactive materials, primarily
potassium-40, from food and water consumed in the daily diet). The
remaining 18% of the dose comes from anthropogenic (man-made) sources
such as medical x ray exposure (11%), nuclear medicine procedures
exposure (4%), consumer products (3%), and other sources (<1%)."
[Source: www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp149-c6.pdf.]

Radon, in short, is the biggie, and what that means is that our not very
distant human ancestors doubtlessly experienced (and adapted to) much
higher radiation exposure than is normal today. (What background levels
do you think the "cave man" was exposed to, while living and sleeping in
caves? :-)

Bottom line: in Coober Pedy, people live like humans, whereas the rest
of us live like idiots. :-)

--Mitchell Jones}***

> > > > It is therefore reasonable to suppose that there very well
> > > > might be health benefits associated with increased exposure, providing
> > > > that it isn't increased too much, and this hypothesis was in fact
> > > > massively confirmed by Cohen's data. --MJ}***
> > >
> > > It has been my experience that most environmental studies are poorly
> > > controlled for confounding variables.
> >
> > ***{That's because the vast majority of "environmental" studies are
> > pure, unadulterated, left-wing horse manure. They are concocted rather
> > than designed, and are intended to further the leftist political agenda
> > (i.e., the enslavement of mankind) rather than to find, and reveal, the
> > truth.
>
> There are many 'environmental' studies that I do consider horse manure.
> However, the odiferous nature is not linked to a particular political
> persuasion. It seems rather to be linked to vested interests of humans
> involved. Political views are only a minor vesting. Money is much more of
> an indicator. (Getting grants, pleasing the sponsor, etc.)

***{There are, at root, only two political persuasions: there are those
who advocate freedom, and those who advocate slavery. The political
agenda of the left, admitted or not, is the enslavement of mankind. And
the instrument by which they intend to acomplish that goal is, in a
word: government. For every problem that humans encounter, leftists
advocate a new power for the government, and when the impacts of their
various proposals are added together, the result is universal slavery.
As for money, well, when government money is ladled out in the form of
grants to researchers, it virtually never goes to investigate hypotheses
that, if confirmed, will support a reduced role for government. When,
for example, Dr. Joseph Price suggested that the chlorine (not the
fluorine) which local governments add to our drinking water causes
cholesterol to adhere to the inner surfaces of our arteries, he had no
chance of obtaining a grant: if his hypothesis were confirmed, the
government would have been found guilty of killing a million Americans a
year for the better part of a hundred years. Hence that was a question
they wanted to suppress rather than investigate. Thus there was no
chance whatever that government money would be available to anyone who
would give the idea an unbiased appraisal. And that example captures the
essential thrust of government funded research: it is spent in
furtherance of the agenda of the left, or on matters which have no
political implications one way or the other, rather than being dispensed
in a politically unbiased way. --MJ}***

> In the case of your weblink, below, the following quote is the telling one:
>
> "Most of the post-Chernobyl epidemiological studies reviewed in the NCRP-136
> report, in fact, are of the 'ecological' type. But, in the case of B.L.
> Cohen's studies (1995), showing that high levels of residential radon are
> associated with lower lung cancer incidence, the report condemns the data as
> 'not trustworthy' (...). However, when arguing that thyroid cancers are
> caused by low doses of Chernobyl radiation, this condemnation is forgotten,
> and the results of these ecological studies are defined as 'convincing,' and
> 'conform[ing] reasonably well to the magnitude of dose by region.' "
>
> The failings of environmental efforts are universal.

***{"Universal"? You go too far. Some good work is done, even though
almost all of the government funded research is transparently biased
trash. --MJ}***

 What you see is a bias
> on the part of report to ignore some studies and to embrace others ... based
> upon political need to maintain the status quo.

***{Maintaining the status quo is what conservatives do. The grant
givers, however, are not interested in keeping things as they are, but
in endless expansion of the power of goverment. Hence they are of the
left, not of the right. --MJ}***

> > Because leftists control the grant-giving process of the federal
> > government,
>
> You've been listening to Rush too much.

***{That's ad hominem.

For the record, I seldom listen to Rush. He is an apologist for the
status quo--i.e., a conservative--and the status quo is in a constant
state of motion in the leftward direction. It floats like a boat with
the conservatives standing on it. Advocates of freedom push it one way,
and leftists push it the other. Since the leftists are more numerous,
they win.

As for the conservatives, they aren't in the fight at all. The proof:
the status quo which conservatives defend today is the very same
leviathan that, when proposed by leftists thirty years ago, they
denounced and abhored.

Bottom line: conservatives, including Rush Limbaugh, are a waste of skin.

--Mitchell Jones}***

  Over 90% of Federal grants in
> science are controlled by the military (DoD and DoE). The bulk of the rest
> are controlled by corporations (NIH).

***{The only point that matters is that the grant givers are part of the
government, and, thus, tend to work for the expansion of whatever part
of the government they are in. Since the expansion of government is the
means by which the left seeks to enslave mankind, it follows as surely
as day follows night that leftists are in control of the grant giving
process in the federal government. A leftist is nothing more or less
than a person who acts persistently to expand the size and authority of
the government. --MJ}***

> > opposing them tends to be a career killer,
>
> Yes. Championing views that oppose the views of those awarding grants is a
> career killer. Which is one reason why most real science is done by people
> outside what is erroneously called the scientific establishment.

***{Yup. --MJ}***

> > and studies which
> > would threaten their hegemony are seldom done.
>
> Hello, Glaxo? I'd like to obtain funding to reexamine the toxicity of your
> chemotherapy drugs. ..... Hello? Hello? ....... buzzzzzzzzzzz.

***{And the same applies to government grants. If your hypothesis, if
confirmed, will provide an impetus for yet another expansion of
government, your grant is likely to be approved. But if your hypothesis,
if confirmed, will provide a reason for reducing the size of government,
then the odds are very high that the money will go to someone else.
--MJ}***

> > Taking note of who has
> > done such studies is therefore an approximation method by which we may
> > begin to separate the real scientists, who pursue the truth, from the
> > pseudo-scientists who are primarily focused on fitting in.
>
> Follow the money is usually a good starting point.

***{Following the money will lead mostly to pseudo-scientists who are
focused on fitting in. Such "scientists" do what their patrons in the
federal government want them to do, and say what they want them to say.
If you want to find the real scientists, you need to focus on those who
have done studies that tend to undermine the authority of the
government. In most cases, such studies are denied grant money, and are
funded by the scientists themselves, or else are sneaked in using money
or equipment borrowed from other projects. --MJ}***
 
> > Once such a
> > person has been identified, of course, the next step is to see if his
> > work can withstand reasoned criticism; but the first step is always to
> > see whether he is willing to take real risks in order to stand up for
> > the truth.
>
> The ethical purity of the lead experimenter can only go so far. I have
> simply noted that there is a high correlation between financial or political
> interest and horse manure.

***{Those who seek purveyors of horse manure should simply follow the
path marked out by social expediency--i.e., "follow the money." But if
real scientists are what is sought, the first indication will be social
*inexpediency*--which means: a willingness to do work that threatens to
reveal truths which persons who can hurt you will oppose and revile.
Work of that sort which is competently done, hence defensible, is what
separates the men from the boys, where science is concerned. --MJ}***

> Regardless of the intent of the researcher, the only scientific basis for
> evaluating the work is the scientific method itself. Which requires looking
> at the study .... not at the person doing the study.

***{Yup. --MJ}***

> > Based on such a criterion, Cohen passes with high marks.} ***
>
> I've enjoyed reading Bernie Cohen's prior works. He is quite good at
> skewering silly theory. However, no matter how good he is, he still cannot
> get around the fundamental limitations of an environmental study.

***{And those limitations are? --MJ}***

> > > I haven't read Cohen's work. There
> > > is very rarely 'massive' confirmation in any environmental study
> > > (none to my knowledge).
> >
> > ***{As I indicated, it has been awhile since I read his stuff, but my
> > impression at the time was that he was a brilliant scientist who had
> > made an overwhelming case in support of his conclusion. Just now, I did
> > a web search on "Cohen radiation hormesis," via Altavista, and found
> > the following:
> >
> > "The results of Cohenıs 1995 study, which directly contradict the LNT
> > 'predictions,' were statistically much more robust than results of any
> > other study on the relation between lung cancer and residential radon,
> > and the study meets the most rigorous methodological criteria. For
> > example, the graph plotted of this relationship, as found by Cohen, is
> > inconsistent with the LNT predictions of BEIR IV by more than 20
> > standard deviations. (BEIR IV is the National Academy of
> > Science/National Research Councilıs 1988 report by the Committee on the
> > Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, titled 'Health Risks of Radon
> > and Other Internally Deposited Alpha-Emitters.')" [Source:
> > http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/Spring03/radiation.html.]
> >
> > Note: the LNT is the "linear no threshold hypothesis", which essentially
> > holds that the demonstrably bad effects of very high doses of ionizing
> > radiation can be extrapolated downward to low doses without loss of
> > accuracy. By this hypothesis, hormesis is impossible. LNT holds that as
> > dosage decreases, no threshold is ever reached at which the bad effects
> > cease and below which radiation exposure becomes beneficial.
>
> Had you read BEIR IV, you would have found that radiation hormesis was
> discussed. (I was peripherally involved in some of those discussions, back
> in those days. Mostly writing comments.)
>
> However, radiation hormesis was deemed politically unacceptable. And the
> final LNT conclusion was merely maintaining the status quo. {Which your
> weblink basically concurs.}
>
> > Wouldn't you agree that finding hard data which is inconsistent with LNT
> > "by more than 20 standard deviations" qualifies as "massive"
> > confirmation that radiation hormesis is real? :-)
>
> Not in the least. The problem again is the use of environmental studies.
> Because the real bugaboo in such attempts is the elimination of confounding
> factors. Real humans move. They change jobs. They change geographical
> locations. Diet fads change. Etc, ad nauseum. Quite simply, there is no
> such thing as 'hard data' in environmental studies. There is a major
> problem distinguishing correlation from causation.

***{All fields of rational endeavor have such problems, not merely those
dealing with the environment. Physicists investigating the microcosm,
for example, find that their instruments affect the variables they are
attempting to measure. Historians find that they cannot do experiments
at all, because their subject matter is in the past whereas experiments,
of necessity, are in the here and now. Astronomers find that they
usually cannot do experiments because their subject matter is "out
there" whereas they are here on Earth. Psychologists, whose proper
subject matter includes events in the stream of consciousness, have
access to only one stream of consciousness: their own. And so on. Thus
each field has its problems, and diverse approaches have been identified
for dealing with them, with some approaches being suited to the
perpetuation of biases, and others being suited to finding the truth. In
all cases, a majority of dullards embraces methodologies that free them
to believe what they want to believe, while a minority of exceptionally
bright individuals embraces methodologies that further the pursuit of
objective truth. --MJ}***

> --
> greywolf42
> ubi dubium ibi libertas

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