Radiation and its Perception

Role of the Media
This week I had a two-day-seminary about radiation protection and how this whole topic is perceived by “normal people”. Currently I'm studying Laboratory and Processing Technology specialized in radiation technology. That's why I attended the seminary.
It was really alarming what big gap is between the scientific knowledge and the perception of this topic in public. Most people know that radiation is “something bad”. Chernobyl, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and recently Fukushima were catastrophes caused by the usage of nuclear technology.
But from what sources did you know what happened? The reports of various media are the main source of our half knowledge of everything. The problem is that a journalist need a compelling headline to trigger your interest. This is mostly done by an unconscious or conscious emotional response. “Radiation from Cell phones is dangerous!” seem worthier to read than “Cell phones emit Radiation” because the first example is alarming and causes fear. This is how journalism works, cause an emotional response with the headline and people will read it and act accordingly. Of course it is very hard to filter out the relevant information and sometimes it is pretty well covered and hart to find out even if you know the topic.
The problem, especially in this field, is that most headlines cause fear and the more dramatic it is the more people read it.

So my first appeal to you is to scan headlines of any article for this and not be biased by it. Read the article with a clear mind.

Ionizing Radiation
Most people fear these words because of certain events and the media. Even in my own family they really fear it because they have no accurate knowledge of facts. We can't see, feel or smell ionizing radiation and need measuring devices to recognize it. So there is another uncertainty about this topic. It is normal in our world to fear what we don't understand and I don't say you should not be suspicious of such topics. But I want you to lay this fear aside for a moment.
Radiation is as natural as breathing and it surrounds us every time and everywhere. Radiation is not only “this dangerous thing from nuclear power” plants but also warmth, the light of the sun, sound waves of music and microwaves to heat the lunch.
Now I want to lead your attention to ionizing radiation: alpha-, beta- and gamma radiation (for example). Its use is often discussed and criticized because of the dangers and misuse but nobody seems to acknowledge the positive effects of this research. I'm sure you know the examples like medicine, clean energy, fuel for satellites and ships. But as it happens often, 1 bad event destroys 1000 good events.
Each day you don't hear that a nuclear power plant has exploded, everything works exactly as it is supposed to be. Isn't that something good? Always look at a topic from both sides.

I don't want to discuss the need for nuclear power here and I don't want to beautify the existing risks but I want you to think about your viewpoint.
What do you know and what are tricks of journalists to make you read their articles? How dangerous are 5 mSv per year? Is the estimated number of 15.846 (or whatever number) of deaths in Fukushima caused by the ionizing radiation of the nuclear station?

My point
In various other fields these misunderstandings occur and do more damage than the actual risk from the research itself. I beg you to rethink your attitude towards such topics and to analyze if your fear comes from grounded knowledge or the lack of it.
As “radiation protector” it is my task to make people aware of the reality of this topic and to protect radiation from ignorance of people. It is a big and important task and I think this is also a task of Jedi. Not to teach people about radiation but to clarify misunderstandings of any field of science in discussions with others, if you feel you have the appropriate knowledge about a topic.

Thank you for this post. It's a good reminder on just about any topic out there.

Keep an open mind. Question everything.

(As as indirect aside, I work for a large credit-card transaction processing company and our up-time is about 99.8% But we are rarely thanked when the systems are up and working fine. It's that .2% when we're down when all the attention is on us; from Wall Street to our Relationship Managers. If you just read media reports on that .2%, you'd think we're a terrible company!)

I use to be afraid of radiation, but after seeing the truth about it in the Hulk films I thought it was awesome! :woohoo:







/joke

We are all creatures of energy, thus radiant.

I love the post and the message to keep an open mind about things and how the media can distort facts. But I also believe that some forms of radiation are dangerous and that just becuase it might give the whole feild a bad rap doesn't mean it should be ignored. They use radiation in medicine, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing or even wise to use in such a way.

Though, I did hear that now in Chernobyl, after all the people left the area, that nature took it back over and that it's really very pretty.

But I also believe that some forms of radiation are dangerous

and I think it is true but the dose is the crucial factor. It is every time a matter of the right measure. Have you ever eaten 1 kg of salt? It is deadly however we need a certain amount of salt to sustain all body functions. It is believed that this is also true for ionizing radiation for there are examples of people living with it all of their live without increased health risks.

Nature has taken back the area around Chernobyl and has formed a new ecosystem. Nevertheless I would not recommending striving through the forests there because we have not adapted to this environment.

But I also believe that some forms of radiation are dangerous

That is such a situation-dependent statement. Put an alpha source on my skin? Sure thing! have me eat it? :S :sick:..... dead... But eating a gamma source? Ok then! Go on a plane journey all the time? That's a nice big healthy dose! But I don't want to eat any of those slow neutrons!

Pretty generally, and I don't mean to apply this completely to you Wendaline, but people, as Adhara said, are simply completely ignorant of it...

Interestingly, Green Peace are greatly responsible for damaging the earth's ozone layer! They were wholly against nuclear power stations because of the various accidents (Chern, 3 mile etc...) so what did we do instead? We said "Ok Green Peace, you hate this form of non-CO2 producing power? Ok! Now since we still need power we will build coal, oil and gas instead...

The 'dangerous' nuclear power, after taking into account all the disasters (including chern), is still the safest power source in terms of deaths/kilowatt energy produced

http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html

Balance, moderation, in everything...

Radiation, salt, aspirin, water..

Even water, you can actually drink too much water too....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
+++++++
Thanks Adhara...

Great post!

I always heard "one 'aw shit' erases a ton of 'atta boys'"...

I thought these might help

I like what you both are saying but you completely misinterpreted me. I said some forms, people. The keyword is some...it was meant to be situation dependent. It wasn't an all inclusive statement.

And my example was medicine. Okay, so not all radiation exposure is going to kill you, or kill you quickly. But some kinds can do weird things to the body. Why else do they make people wear those lead jackets when the dentist x-rays your mouth? And in cancer treatments it's even nuttier...and not very helpful from what I've seen. You may think I'm ignorant (and I probably am when it comes to all radiation) but I'll stand by my first post.

But clearly I'm in the minority and my statements are not welcome so I'll just leave this thread alone. Sorry for kicking up the silt. :blush: