[extropy-chat] (health) risks and benefits along a bell curve ?

[Ensel Sharon]

I have a little theory that I have been nursing for a while.  It's
something I have been thinking about in relation to scares about cell
phone radiation, or microwaving plastic bowls, etc.

The thinking is this:

My hunch is that if you make a graph of a potential "killer" (like cell
phone radiation), and plot time on the X, and incidence on the Y, it would
follow a bell curve, of sorts.  The idea is, if "expusre to X" is really
going to be a killer, there are going to be small numbers of people that
experierience the negative effects almost immediately, and a larger
(small) number that experience them shortly thereafter, and so on,
describing the traditional bell curve.

The converse of this is, if we don't see people dropping dead from cell
phone usage (or microwaving gladware, or refilling plastic water bottles,
etc.), then probably it isn't a big health problem after all, otherwise we
would see the beginnings of the bell curve.  It would lead me to conclude:

"If I don't see people dropping dead, and I havea  globally
connected-media lifestyle that would presumably _allow me_ to see them,
then I can conclude that the health problems related to activity X are _at
most_ very marginal, in a very marginal (potential) part of the
population."


But the longer I thought of it this way (mainly to just reassure myself
that using a cell phone was benign, and I really could eat non-organic
apples from time to time) the more I started to see it in its opposite
form, as relates to longevity efforts like vitamin supplements and
antioxidant regimens, etc.

If the previous assumption is reasonable, then why not the same assumption
and the same bell curve applied to things like antioxidant regimens and
vitamins ?

"If I don't see at least a few poeple experiencing immediate and drastic
improvements in health, or living to be 150, and I havea  globally
connected-media lifestyle that would presumably _allow me_ to see them,
then I can conclude that the health benefits related to activity X are _at
most_ very marginal, in a very marginal (potential) part of the
population."

... and to anyone that would reply "but _this is_ the generation that will
live to 150 because of all the green tea and berries and yoga" ... I have
to say, in all the billions of people that have walked on the earth, and
the abundance of these natural products and vitamins and antioxidants, if
my assumption regarding bell curve representation above is correct, we
would have at least noticed it a few times...


Comments ?  My common sense has been proven wrong a great many times, so I
am not particularly attached to the above armchair theories .. but they do
seem to make some good sense...