THREE NATION STUDY SHOWS LEUKEMIAS ARE INDUCED BY EXTREMELY LOW DOSES OF RADIATION EXPOSURE

                An important study was reported in the July 2, 2015 issue of Nature, a publication read by scientists.  It was written by Alison Abbott.  She discussed a report carried out in the US, France, and the UK involving 300,000 nuclear industry employees over a 60 year period whose radiometer badges were used to study the radiation received and this was then matched against their health records.  It showed that as claimed by H. J. Muller for low doses of ionizing radiation (mostly x-rays) to produce mutations and by Ed Lewis for Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors of atomic bombs, the linearity of dose to mutation or dose to incidence of leukemia is maintained with no threshold at lower doses.  Those in the nuclear industry, governments engaged in making nuclear weapons, and some health professionals using radiation for diagnosis and treatment of a variety of diseases have sometimes claimed that below a certain low dose there are no mutations induced or no cancers induced by exposure to low doses regardless of many times a person is exposed.  For most of the nuclear industry workers they have an annual exposure of about 1.1 mSV (or in the older terminology O.11 roentgen) above the natural background rate asll humans experience which is 2 to 3 mSv (or 0.2 to 0.3 roentgens).  In this study, the total accumulated dose of each worker was calculated and the medical history for cancers was studied.  The report also supports what Muller and his colleagues found in the 1930s and 1940s – that whether the total dose was received acutely or spread out daily or interrupted by intervals of working with radiation and years of not being exposed, it was the total dose that counted.  The risks, of course are low, compared to high dose exposures of 1000 mSv (100 roentgens) that accidents and nuclear bombs inflicted on relatively few humans over the past 75 years. 

              The study appeared in Lancet Haematology http://doi.org/5s4;2015    The lead author is K. Leuraud.  I have never appreciated the logic of deniers of low dose effects of radiation. The linearity holds for experiments with fruit flies (and many other organisms from bacteria to mice) from doses of 50 to 12,000 roentgens (500 mSv to 120 Sv).  Deniers may fear a public rejection of using radiation for diagnosis and cancer treatment.  During the Cold War, it was the military that tried to convince the public that small doses of radiation (such as worldwide fall out) were harmless or that contaminated soils from nuclear testing grounds were safe to live in if the doses were low.  Physicians quickly recognized the need for safety of both patients and practitioners and they found more effective ways to take x-ray pictures at even lower doses than in the 20^th century. I have welcomed x-rays at such low doses for my own family and myself.  It is a question of weighing risks.  I’d rather have x-rays to rule out an ulcer or cancer in my intestinal tract than keep my fingers crossed that maybe I’ll be lucky and there is no serious problem that gives me symptoms.  At the same time, I celebrate those in the health professions who seek to use the least amount of radiation needed for diagnosis. When tens of millions of people are exposed at low dose there will be a few losers with induced mutations or leukemias.  But if no one had diagnostic x-rays there would be hundreds of thousands of people who would die prematurely because their diseases would not be diagnosed until they are terminally ill.   

     

              

WHY DO THOSE WHO BARELY GET BY BELIEVE RIGHT WING LIES?

Here are seven lies told by right wing candidates which are frequently accepted as truths by those whose lives are barely beyond poverty.

1.       There are makers and takers. In this version the makers are hard working people who live by the work ethic and create jobs. The takers are those who get subsidies like welfare, food stamps, aid to dependent children, those on disability benefits, and those getting “free” health care or social security.  All such benefits have been labeled by the far right as demeaning to those who work for every penny they earn. Mitt Romney used this in his campaign.

2.       The poor have themselves to blame.  According to this view the middle class and wealthy have worked hard and sacrificed to reach their status.  The poor are lazy, waste their money on alcohol and other vices, don’t do well in school because they don’t care, and they only live for the moment and don’t save and don’t plan the way successful people do.  This was commonly used by the eugenics movement of the 1910-1940 era citing families like the Jukes or the Tribe of Ishmael as examples that should be sterilized to prevent spreading “the unfit.”

3.       Recipients of welfare or other benefits from the government are cheats. President Reagan used the “welfare queen” as one of his campaign themes and I still hear people use it. They claim that cheats apply to every program available and then drive around in Cadillacs. 

4.       The myth of the self made man.  There is a romantic view of the rugged individualist.  He is the hero of Horatio Alger stories.  He is a Teddy Roosevelt type of outdoors, gun-loving, God-fearing man who takes no hand outs and meets every set back through hard work.  Roosevelt, of course, was not a “rags to riches” person. Unfortunately many self proclaimed self-made men are like the character Bounderby in Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times,  who brag of their struggles but are phonies using fake stories to keep workers from protesting about low wages and poor work conditions.

5.       Libertarianism in the Ayn Rand version condemns all other forms of capitalism as corruptions. Ayn Rand advocated a laissez faire capitalism very different from that of Adam Smith who was a moral philosopher and who never believed in exploiting workers.  Rand’s libertarianism was a “winner takes all” system with winners (hard workers with ideas) and losers (shiftless masses and conformists with no incentive to better themselves). For Ayn Rand types, any deviation from her Libertarianism is socialism or communism.  That smear has been used against labor unions and any federal program attempting to help those who are victims of hard times or just being unlucky because they were born in slums or economically deprived neighborhoods.

6.       Trickle down economics is the only way to spread wealth.  This argument is trotted out by billionaires and millionaires claiming any money used to subsidize the poor or middle class leaves little money to trickle down to the poor in the form of new jobs.  Conveniently omitted are the hiding of their wealth in foreign banks which of course prevents any trickling down from that stash of wealth. Also omitted are the never refused subsidies to the rich in the form of depletion allowances, start up exemptions from taxation, and tax cuts largely benefitting the wealthy and rarely the poor.

7.       Giving employees raises is a job killer. Except of course to the top management where it is applauded. Have you heard any billionaires and millionaires applauding Henry Ford for giving a hefty salary to his factory workers so they could afford to buy his cars?  Ford adopted that outlook because rather than making a few cars for fellow rich cronies, he made millions of cars so virtually everyone could buy a family car. I’d call that a “trickle up” economic philosophy and it worked far better than his contemporary competitors who felt they would go out of business if Ford paid his workers so generously.

These seven lies will be repeated at every election campaign.  Why do those who most could benefit from a government that served their interests believe that a government that allows Ayn Rand type economics is what they should support?  I am talking about working class people who believe unions (not their bosses) are the takers.  Why do so many blue collar workers think criticism of the people who are cheating them or exploiting them is communist propaganda?  Some may feel that they have no hope of ever getting out of their lower class status and resent those who do, such as unionized workers. Some may be told that it is not this life that is important but an afterlife in Heaven that counts so they consider this their cross to bear.  Rarely do you hear churches that support the status quo question the double standard of the wealthy.  Let us hope Pope Francis has more luck in raising concern for the injustices done to those struggling to get by. 

The next time you hear one of these seven lies, send that person a copy of this.

CREATION SCIENCE IS AN OXYMORON (AT LEAST TO SCIENTISTS)

I was nursing a croissant and a cup of coffee at the Barnes and Noble Starbucks in Bloomington, Indiana, when my alter ego, Foley showed up.  “What are you reading, Elof?” he asked.

“A new biography of August Weismann,” I replied.

“What did he do?”

“He was a major contributor to biology in the nineteenth century. He promoted Darwin’s theory of evolution in Germany.” 

“You still believe in that, Elof?  Don’t you know that Creation Science demolished the theory of evolution?”

“And how, Foley, did it do that?”

“It found an eye witness account of the Creation.”

“Really?  Who was that?”

“God.  He dictated the Pentateuch or Torah in the Old Testament to Moses”.

“Foley, the oldest known written Bible was written about 800 BCE. If Creation Science claims the universe is only 8 to 10 thousand years old, how did Moses get all of those books of the Bible transmitted for the next eight thousand years?”

“No problem, Elof.  They used griots.”

“Griots?”

“Yeah, you know those guys in Africa who passed on centuries of genealogy so Alex Haley in Roots could write about his ancestors who came over as slaves.  There were Hebrew griots, too.  The Greeks did the same thing for the Iliad and the Odyssey.”

“Foley, I could say the same is true  for the history of the Gilgamesh epic. Do you accept that fight between Gilgamesh and Enkidu actually happened?”

“No, because God is real and Enkidu and Gilgamesh are myths.”

“What makes you claim that?”

“God.  He won and nobody worships Gilgamesh or those Greek and Roman Gods. Winner takes all says I. And that means the Book of Genesis is an eyewitness account of Creation.  Evolution loses”.

“Doesn’t it bother you that Genesis says plant life (including seed-bearing vegetation and fruit trees) is created on day three and that the sun, moon, and stars are created on day four?  Do you really believe that the earth is older than the sun and the stars?”   

“Your problem, Elof, is that you’re stuck with a theory of evolution by natural selection, and a theory of cosmology that has stars forming from nebulous gasses.  You have theories.  I have the facts.”

“How can you call that biblical sequence factual, Foley?  Angiosperms on day three before all the animals existed?  The fossil record shows that angiosperms were among the last of the plant groups to evolve long after the earth was crawling with animals. The sun and stars after the earth is formed?  Among 100 billion stars in our galaxies each with one or more planets, our earth was the first object to be created  in what became the Milky Way?  And no mention that the Milky Way is just one of 100 billion galaxies in the universe!   And you call that Creation Science?”

“Sorry Elof.  You lose.  In a court of law, I would have an eyewitness, God.  And He is the one unimpeachable witness.  You swear on His book, don’t you, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

 

  

THE LINE UP BEGINS FOR PRESIDENTIAL MUG SHOTS

I was surprised to see my friend Foley at this week’s Freethinkers meeting that I attended at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington.  “What’s on your mind?” I asked.

“The 2016 elections worry me, Elof”

“Do you expect the Republicans to lose?”

“No, at least I hope not.  But my favorite candidate might not get the nomination.”

“Who is your favorite candidate?”

“Governor Christie.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said.  “Christie is a union-busting bully.”

“That’s good,” Foley smiled.

“He’s an obnoxious loud mouth.”

“The better to square off with European wimp leaders and Dictators who hate America,“ Foley  pointed out.

“He’s corrupt and under several investigations for criminal behavior as a governor, dispensing financial favors and meting out illegal punishments to critics,” I counter-pointed out.

“What’s he supposed to do?  Kiss his enemies and blow off his friends?  Politics is not for sissies.”

“His fiscal policies have depleted New Jersey of income and caused damage to its credit rating.”

“Elof, those who sponge off the government seeking handouts don’t like being told to get off their rear ends and find a job.”

“What about the Democrats, Foley, which candidate do you fear most?” 

“I don’t fear any of them.  Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren are out because guys don’t want to salute a skirt.  Joe Biden is out because a cloud of doom is always hanging over his head. Bernie Sanders?  Are you kidding? A socialist has less chance of being elected than a fascist in this country.”

“If Christie is indicted before the Republican convention, who is your next choice?  Donald Trump?”

“Nah, he comes across as a snake oil salesman.”

“Bobby Jindal”?

“No, he acts like a frightened deer staring at headlights”.

“Rick Santorum”

“No, he takes his orders from the Vatican”.

“Jeb Bush?”

“Too many Bushes, ask his Mom”.

“Mitt Romney?”

“Never repeat a loser”.

“Scott Walker?”

“No way.  He takes his orders from the ghost of Ayn Rand.”

“Rand Paul?”

“Ditto, he’s cursed with her name.”

“Ted Cruz?”

“Who’s going to vote for a guy who looks like Dracula?”

“So, Foley, what will you do after 2016 if Christie isn’t President?”

“I guess I’ll be saluting a skirt.”

UNDERSTANDING LIFE FROM MOLECULES TO ECOSYSTEMS

              Before the twentieth century, if you asked a biologist what life was, you might have gotten several answers.  Some biologists believed that is something only God could answer because he created life and no science would be able to duplicate this.  Life, for those scientists, involved vitalism in which a non-material essence, soul, or spirit-like supernatural component was introduced to make living matter.  Most biologists in the 1890s would have rejected this.  They would argue that the organisms we see on earth, plant and animal, are composed of cells and that cells contain a nucleus with chromosomes and a surrounding cytoplasm that contained organelles.  They would argue that studying the cell’s organelles would reveal a lot about how life worked. They would also argue that events in the nucleus suggest a mechanism for cell division and for the formation of reproductive cells—sperm and eggs.

               In the first half of the twentieth century biologists studying heredity identified genes as units of   inheritance found in chromosomes in the nuclei of cells and mapped them.  They knew some of the properties of genes and the mutation process.  What they did not know was the way genes functioned at a biochemical or molecular level nor did they know the chemical composition of genes and chromosomes.  That changed in the last half of the twentieth century.  Genes were shown to be composed of nucleic acids, especially DNA in chromosomal genes.  They worked out the structure of DNA and worked out the way nucleotide sequences in DNA specified corresponding sequences of nucleotides in RNA and in the proteins that the genes made.  The making of proteins took place in organelles of the cytoplasm.  Science became very specialized for biochemists and molecular biologists so most of the public has little understanding of how genes work. 

              But understanding molecular genetics was not enough.  Additional findings showed how genes were turned on or off.  They showed how RNA could enhance or diminish the activity of genes.  They showed there was a category of genes that led to body plan symmetry or to the shape and location of organs.  In addition to DNA activity governed by these genes and by mutations, there were RNA molecules that enhanced or diminished the activity of genes.  New fields of epigenetics and genomics opened as the century came to an end. For epigenetics genes could be silenced or activated by coating genes with methyl groups.  This was often reversible.  As the twenty first century began, epigenetics was supplemented with a variety of small RNA molecules acting as regulators of gene activity especially for timing when genes go on or off in the cell and how much product a given gene puts out. The genomics started in the late twentieth century has created evolutionary histories of the complete sequence of all genes in a species and comparative genomics allows biologists to study evolution at a molecular level. 

              What is not known is the composition, organization, and function of the cytoplasm and nuclear fluid that are not associated with membranous organelles in the cells. In the nineteenth century this would be called protoplasm.  How it works and how it differs from species to species is not yet worked out.  In all likelihood it will be worked out first in bacteria which have very few cellular organelles. The history of biology has been a retreat for vitalists who moved from the whole organism, to the organs, to the cells, and to the organelles as the bastions of vitalistic life.  They are now embedded in the non-organelle protoplasm hoping science will not work out the complex and dynamic system that surrounds the organelles and which is essential for the functioning of these cellular components.  If you are a holist but not a vitalist, you will accept a material basis for protoplasm but you will argue the complexity of life is beyond human capacity for analysis.  If you are a reductionist you will believe it is a matter of time, very likely in this century, when this last bastion of ignorance will fall.

              

PERSONHOOD IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

              My alter ego, Foley, showed up at a park bench in front of the Great Tabernacle in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.  “Hi, Foley,” I greeted him.  “What’s new to talk about?”  Foley grumped, “Personhood.”  “What about it?” I asked.

              “It begins at conception,” he said.

              “Do you mean implantation into the endometrium of the uterus from the oviduct or do you mean fertilization in the oviduct?” I asked.  “Don’t get smart,” Foley said.  “You know what I mean -- when an egg gets poked by a sperm.  That’s when a soul enters and personhood begins.”

 “Oh,” said I, “So that means identical twins, who form after the egg gets ‘poked’, sometimes as late as implantation in the uterus, have identical souls?” 

 “Damn you, Elof, you always try to twist a simple clear answer into these nutty situations.” 

              “I’m sorry, Foley.  I just don’t think of personhood as an event.  I think of it as a process.”

              “What’s that supposed to mean?”

              “A baby slowly acquires a vocabulary in its first year.  It also begins to recognize parents and others in the household. The personality of a toddler differs as much from the newborn, as the child shifting into pre-school.  The seven year old differs from the teenager. I am almost 84 and differ from myself at 21 when I was a young adult.”

              “Tell me, Foley, if personhood is an event that occurs at fertilization, how do you respond to the Supreme Court that conferred personhood on corporations?”

              “That was a good thing, Elof.” 

  “Why so?” I asked. 

 “Because corporations should have the same political rights as individual citizens,” he replied.

              “Isn’t that stacking things in favor of the corporation’s power over the individual’s power?” I asked. 

              Foley scoffed, “That’s your liberal problem Elof.  You just don’t respect the intelligence of people. If you don’t like the candidates that corporations support, don’t vote for them.  It doesn’t matter if it’s one ad or one hundred ads, you’ll still vote who you prefer.”

              “And tell me Foley, how does the individual distinguish distortions and lies from facts presented in political ads?”   

              “That’s the voters’s choice.  The voters can go the library and do their own fact checking.”

              “And how, Foley, does a candidate run for office if the candidate represents the people’s interests over the corporations interests?”

              “You liberals want it handed to you on a platter, don’t you?  Why don’t you just ring a lot of doorbells and get your message across?  Don’t pick on corporations.”

              “So let me get this straight.  Personhood begins with fertilization for the individual and personhood begins when incorporation takes place for corporations.  For individual people you say that personhood is identified with the soul. Is there a corporate soul that coexists with the personhood of a corporation?”

              “Why should I bother answering that, Elof?”

              “I thought you might claim that corporate souls are endowed with original sin.”