A Checklist for Healthy Skeptics; D. L. Durante

e in the United States are becoming ter rified of our own technology. Nuclear energy will zap us into early graves. Alar and DDT will give us cancer. The greenhouse effect will melt the polar ice caps, and Manhattan will be submerged. Wouldn't it be better to live "in harmony with nature," that is, without all our high tech devices but in peace and health and security? Or would it, perhaps, be better to ask first how much truth there is in the media hype that bom bards us with such dire predictions every day? Few of us know how to evaluate predictions of high tech doom. We must learn, if we are to keep the technological achievements that give us one of the highest standards of living in the world. Before accepting the media's forebodings of imminent disaster and screaming for the government to charge to the rescue, consider the following points. 1. What are the facts? Get specific facts, with places, dates, amounts, and sources; don't accept emotional tirades or vague generalities. If, for example, a movie star says Alar causes cancer, ask when and where and by whom and on what was the study done that reached that conclusion. Have other studies supported those findings? How much Alar would you, a human, have to eat to get the same effect? According to Dixy Lee Ray, to get the amount of Alar fed to the mice who developed tumors, you would have to eat 28,000 pounds of apples every day for 70 years.1 Mice fed smaller doses didn't develop tumors: eating a mere 14,000 Dr. Duranteisafree-lanceresearcherlivingin Brooklyn, New York.

pounds of apples a day wouldn't do it. Further examples: • How much radiation was released from Three Mile Island in March 1979,in what is widely referred to as the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history? Answer: about one millirem in the sur rounding area, and a maximum of 80 to 100 mil lirems within the plant. Let's put that into perspec tive. The average "background" exposure to a resident of the U.S. is about 350 millirems a year. By flying from New York to Los Angeles, you would expose yourself to about five additional mil lirems; by choosing to live in Colorado or in the radon belt of eastern Pennsylvania, you might get a couple hundred millirems more than the average yearly dose. Comparison with these exposures from normal background sources reveals that the one millirem released at TMI was actually a very minor amount. 2 • Precisely how many cases of cancer can be traced to DDT? None. In fact, the National Can cer Institute declared in 1978 that DDT is not a carcinogen. For a debunking of every horror story you've heard about DDT, from the soft-shelled birds' eggs (they were occurring before DDT came into use) to the idea that DDT never breaks down (it does, within about two weeks in most cases), see Ray's chapter on pesticides.3 2. Check your sources. Don't assume that any one who has made a movie or landed a job as a reporter has taken the time to research the matter in question. The news reporter, because he must frequently condense his presentation to a twominute slot, often may not have a strong incentive to thoroughly investigate the matter. He does, however, have a strong incentive (his ratings, and ultimately his job) to grab your attention and hold it, and may not hesitate to exaggerate, ignore, or distort the facts in order to make his story more attention-getting. As for "celebrity authorities,"

their occupations require acting ability, not scien tific training. Suggestions for checking sources: • Find out where the reporter got his informa tion. If he gives no source, that's a serious short coming. In fact, when the question is one of scien tific evidence, if no source is given, you can and should simplydismissthe statement as arbitrary, as if the speaker had said, "Pluto is composed entirely of rum raisin ice cream." Unsubstantiated emotional diatribes are unacceptable, no matter who the speaker is. • If an authority is cited by name, what are his credentials? Is he in a field that is applicable to whatever he's talking about? For example: few biologists know in detail how nuclear power is gen erated and what its risks and safeguards are. Being a scientist rather than a piano teacher is not en0tlgh to qualify one to speak on all scientific issues. • Find out where the authority who is cited has been published. A sensation-seeker may manage a mention in Time, but not an article in a well-estab lished scientificjournal that requires review of the article by other scientists before publication.

• Check the date of the statement. Often one vague statement, if dramatic enough, will be picked up and cited over and over again, despite any evidence to the contrary that was known at the time or has become known since. A good example: prompted by an extremely hot and dry summer in the continental United States in 1988, NASA's James Hansen told a Congressional hearing that year that he was 99 percent sure the greenhouse effect was drastically changing the climate. He is stillcited very frequently. How many people know, remember, or mention the fact that the winter of 1989was the coldest on record in Alaska?4 3. Put potential risks into perspective; look at the forest as weD as the trees. No technology and no element in nature is 100percent risk-free: while drinking a quart of water may save your life, putting your head into a bucket of water may kill you. If there is solid evidence of a harmful effect, 407 how does the amount of risk compare with the benefits gained from the product?

• The Three Mile Island accident, the worst mishap in 35 years of nuclear power generation in the United States, resulted in no deaths.sContrast the record of electricity generation by coal. Mostly because producing one megawatt of electricity requires much more coal than uranium, using coal leads to about 100 times more deaths in mining coal than in mining uranium for a nuclear power plant, and leads to more than 20 times as many cas es of industrial diseases among coal miners than uranium miners.6 • DDT did not result in any proven fatalities or cancers, but while in use it saved millions of people from disease and death. DDT was the most effective weapon against the mosquito that spreads malaria, a disease that has caused mil lions of deaths in Asia and even in the United States, and is doing so again now that DDT has been banned. 7 4. Play devil's advocate with the facts, once you have them. It's a useful method of self-defense to become familiar with how some facts can be dis torted and how other equally important facts can be completely ignored.8 Two common techniques to watch out for: • Ignoring the larger picture, while citing only facts sure to alarm the listener. A mock advertise ment in Petr Beckmann's book (p. 77) reads, "Foods advertised in Reader's Digest are radioac tive." In small print, he points out that virtually all foods have trace amounts of radioactivity.

• Confusing cause and effect with correlation. Many people die while they're sleeping; therefore sleeping is a leading cause of death. Some people got sick after ingesting PCBs, so PCBs must be dangerous chemicals. (In fact, in the case cited as evidence of this, the liquid mixed in with the food had come from air conditioning equipment, and contained, aside from PCBs, chemicals known to be highly toxic.)9 S. What to do? If a hazard to human health exists, what is the best way to deal with it? There are basically two alternatives: government action, or action by individuals. They depend on two very different views of man: that he can't be trusted to look out for his own welfare, and must therefore have a paternalistic government tell him what's 408 THE FREEMAN • NOVEMBER 1991 A lunchtime jog at Three Mile Island Despite the media scare, there was no evidence that human or animal life was threatened by the accident at TMI.

good for him and force him to do it; or that man is a rational being, to be dealt with through persua sion, who ultimately must be left alone to plan his own course of action. The evidence is overwhelming that government economic planning is an abysmal failure. It fails because no central agencycan process, or even col lect, all the details that, in a free market, each indi vidual considers in order to make the best choices for himself. The same is true for environmental regulations, which are just another form of eco nomic intervention. At present, the government has severely re stricted the use of DDT. In a free market, a person in a tropical climate might decide that he is willing to risk whatever minor hazards come from using DDT, in return for dramatically decreasing his chances of getting malaria. At present, the govern ment has imposed such stringent controls on nuclear power plants that many utility companies cannot afford to build them. In a free market, a utility company might persuade the residents of New York City that a nuclear plant (whose con tainment vesselcan withstand the impact of a jet at landing speed) is safer in a crowded urban area than huge, flammable gas tanks, or gas lines that can be ruptured (and have been) by a backhoe operator. Individuals working and cooperating within the free market must be left to deal with environmental problems, as they deal with prob lems of supply and demand. Only individuals have the knowledge to make the decisions proper to their own welfare.

*** We feel pity for a man who's "afraid of his own shadow." To be afraid of one's own mind is worse, and fearing the technology we've created is pre cisely that: fear of the efforts and products of the human mind. The mind is man's means of survival. It is his only way to make the earth, often so in hospitable, a wonderful place to live. To reject the products of the mind on the grounds that they are not immediately perfect or 100percent risk-free is to condemn man to perpetual fear, backbreaking labor, and premature death.10 I called this article a checklist for "healthy skep tics." The reason should now be clear. To remain healthy, we must learn to approach predictions of environmental doom critically,not accepting them unless or until the doomsayers meet basic stan dards of proof. Isn't this being a bit harsh? Shouldn't we give A CHECKLIST FOR HEALTHY SKEPTICS 409 environmentalists some credit because they have good intentions? Aren't they working for clean air for all of us to breathe and open spaces for our chil dren to play in? Aren't they fighting technology for our benefit?

Let me answer these questions with two quotes from prominent environmentalists. The first is from John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, addressing alligators: "Honorable representatives of the great saurians of older creation, may you long enjoy your lilies and rushes, and be blessed now and then with a mouthful of terror-stricken man by way of a dainty!"ll Does this sound like a man who has good intentions toward you and the rest of humanity? And from Stephen Schneider, one of the leading spokesmen for the greenhouse theory: "We need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails get ting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have.... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. "12 Does this sound like someone who is interested in presenting you with the truth, and nothing but the truth, so that you can make your own informed decision?

Such people don't simplywant clean air for man to breathe or open areas where children can play. They rank clean air and open spaces above any concern for man. They consider nature (which has come to mean anything on earth that's not human) good in itself, not good for any benefit it might bring to man. If man suffers so that the snail darter and the spotted owl can prosper, so be it. This idea that man is a disfiguring blot on the face of the earth is the reason that many leading environmen talists wish for alligators to have us as appetizers.13 Granted, the above quotes are from only two members of the environmentalist movement, but Muir and Schneider have been prominent leaders of it, and one must judge rank-and-file members by the fact that they have accepted these men as leaders. Technology-man's tool for shaping his environ ment to suit his needs-improves man's livingcon ditions and ultimately prolongs his life expectancy.

For evidence of that, you need only look at the high level of disease and the low life expectancy in any period before the Industrial Revolution. It is imperative, if you want to remain a healthy human being, that you refuse to accept any claim that tech nology or specific technological achievements are going to kill or maim you, unless such claims are proven beyond reasonable doubt. D 1. Dixy Lee Ray, Trashingthe Planet:How Science Can Help Us Deal with Acid Rain, Depletionof the Ozone, and NuclearWaste (Among Other Things) (Washington,D.C.: Regnery Gateway,1990),pp: 78-79.Ray, the former Chair man of the Atomic Energy Commission,provides a clearly and vividlywritten analysisof the evidence concerningthe greenhouseeffect,acidrain,pesticides,Alar,asbestos,diox ins, PCBs, nuclear energy,and so on. The book is aimed at the laymanand has substantialfootnotes. 2. Ray, p. 126. For a good discussionof normal exposure to radioactivity, as well as a detailed description of how nuclear power plants operate and how they compare in terms of safety with other types of energy generation, see Petr Beckmann, The HealthHazardsofNOT GoingNucle ar (Boulder, Colorado: Golem Press, 1976). Beckmann is ProfessorEmeritus of ElectricalEngineeringat the Univer sityof Colorado.

3. Ray, pp. 68-74. See also Elizabeth Whelan, Toxic Ter ror (Ottawa, Ill.: Jameson Books, 1985),pp. 59-85.Whelan has other chapters on PCBs, dioxins, nuclear energy, and acid rain, each organized in sections: the charges made againstthe substanceor process,the facts, the background, variousstudieson the subject,and concludingremarks.The book is heavily annotated. Whelan has doctoral and master's degrees in epidemiologyfrom the Harvard School of PublicHealth and a master'sdegreein publichealth from the Yale Schoolof Medicine;she is president of the Ameri can Councilon Scienceand Health. 4. Ray, pp. 32, 34-35. 5. Whelan,p. 239.Shenotes that President Carter'sinves tigatory panel (the Kemeny Commission) concluded that there was no evidence that human or animal life had been threatened by the accidentat TMI. 6. Beckmann,pp. 83-85. 7. Whelan,p. 69, with a chart on Ceylon,where reported cases of malaria dropped from 2,900,000in 1948 to 17 in 1963,when DDT was widelysprayed in homes.The spray ing was stoppedin 1964, and by 1969 the reported cases were back up to 2,500,000.

8. For more on this, see Darrell Huff and Irving Geis, How to Lie with Statistics(New York:W. W. Norton, 1954). 9. Ray, p. 87. 10. See Ayn Rand, "The Anti-Industrial Revolution," in The New Left: The Anti-IndustrialRevolution(New York: New American Library,1971),for an enlighteningdescrip tion of what would happen if technology were abolished, why we cannot restrict just some technology, and the motives of those who want to. This essay, written 20 years ago, is remarkable for its insightinto the principlesbehind the ecologymovement and for where that movement must inevitablylead. 11. Quoted in George Reisman, "The Toxicityof Envi ronmentalism" (Laguna Hills, Calif.:The Jefferson School of Philosophy,Economics,and Psychology,1990),p. 4; also forthcoming in Rational Readings on Environmental Concerns,ed. Jay Lehr. An excellentanalysisof the driving force behind environmentalism. 12. Quoted in Reisman,p. 10.

13. This premise is developed at length by Reisman and Rand in the essayscited above.