Are Right Wingers REQUIRED To Be 'Science Ignorant' Or Is This Just An 'Ann Coulter' Thing?
Right wing world view, for many, seems to require believing that the Earth is only 6000 years old AND that climate change is not impacting us. But now we have another example of how Right Wingers are completely ignorant when it comes to matters of 'science'. Here we have the Diva of the Right, proclaiming that exposure to radiation isn't so bad .. in fact, radiation may actually be GOOD for you!
"With the terrible earthquake and resulting tsunami that have devastated Japan, the only good news is that anyone exposed to excess radiation from the nuclear power plants is now probably much less likely to get cancer.
This only seems counter intuitive because of media hysteria for the past 20 years trying to convince Americans that radiation at any dose is bad. There is, however, burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine.
As The New York Times science section reported in 2001, an increasing number of scientists believe that at some level -- much higher than the minimums set by the U.S. government -- radiation is good for you. "They theorize," the Times said, that "these doses protect against cancer by activating cells' natural defense mechanisms.
Among the studies mentioned by the Times was one in Canada finding that tuberculosis patients subjected to multiple chest X-rays had much lower rates of breast cancer than the general population."
Ann Coulter the scientist
It's not specifically required but it certainly helps when you have to keep swallowing that stuff.
Posted by
The Mound of Sound |
10:52 am, March 18, 2011
She's probably talking about radiation hormesis. (Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I am not going to bother actually watching her.)
This is an interesting theory, and may well be correct.
However, this theory applies over all small cumulative doses over time. It is not about large doses.
It is also acts as a counter to the LNT theory. The validity of the LNT theory is a scientific one, and so is scientifically questionable. It is an important question, not so much for the issue of nuclear accidents, but because CT scans and other low dose health procedures (like dental scans) involve balancing the risk of cancer with the help they can provide in medical diagnosis.
wikipedia on radiation hormesis
Posted by
crf |
7:01 pm, March 18, 2011
But Coulter is once again way over the top and off the deep end. With her, everything is snark and condescending criticism based on no 0% fact and 100% her idiotic.
Posted by
leftdog |
9:02 pm, March 18, 2011