From: kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Nuke Stupidity Rebuttal
Organization: I can't see any in the immediate vicinity...
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 17:04:09 GMT

In article <53981@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>In article <1992Sep25.211427.23513@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> zika@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Michael Zika) writes:
>>In article <53927@dime.cs.umass.edu> yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu (victor yodaiken) writes:
>>>In article <1992Sep24.202053.26914@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> millerj@gn.ecn.purdue.edu (Snide Pucker) writes:
>>>
>>>There is a common belief among some technical workers that real world 
>>>problems should be as amenable to simple calculations as were the problems
>>>in their textbooks.
>>
>>And the tacit assumption is that those engineering doing PRA are only looking
>>for a solution as amenable as those as simple (? not the problems in _my_
>>textbooks) as "textbook" answers.  Give them a little credit here -- there
>>_are_ engineers that act on a different motivation than simplification
>>(like an attempt to model reality!)
>
>Not my assumption, tacit or otherwise. I've been arguing that people who
>actually know something about this problem are not as enamored of 
>over-simplified models as are some of our friends here on the net.

This may be the case, but are they as unwilling to use these models as you
seem to be?

Are they as insistent on concentrating on the worst-case scenario as you are?

I doubt it, but that is mere speculation on my part.

>>So, do you suggest that a more complicated model based on the same
>>_imperfect_ probabilities is better?  What is this model?  I find your
>>criticism difficult to swallow when no better solution is presented (or at
>>least a suggestion on the direction that PRA _should_ be going)
>
>From my, limited, readings of the PRA literature, I have the impression
>that there is a lot of reasonably  clever research going on and that
>people are experimenting with models. I don't claim to have any special
>insight into what models should be used. I do claim that, contrary to
>what some people have claimed here, PRAs  are limited tools which should be
>regarded as data points, but not as definitive answers. And I claim that
>it is a grave error to imagine that a linear risk model can be used to 
>obtain an objective answer to the question of whether or not it is a good
>thing to develop nuclear power.  

You have made a stronger claim than this.  You have claimed that *no* risk
model can be used to obtain an objective answer, since you have claimed that
no objective risk model exists.

>This debate features repeated assertions that
>we are in the midst of a battle betweenationalists who are convinced
>by the results of certain nuclear risk estimates, and anti-rationalists
>who are not persuaded by these magical numbers. These arguments rest on
>a fundamental ignorance of the limits of PRA methodologies and a naive
>faith in numerically presented estimates. 

This is incorrect.

It is not a question of whether we should be using nuclear power.  It
is a question of how nuclear power fares when compared with viable current
alternatives, e.g. coal power.  The need for power generation is there.
*Something* has to be used to generate that power.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.  If you *insist* that linear
models don't apply to nuclear power, then you must also insist that they do
not apply to the alternatives, unless you have a good, solid argument to
back you up for the coal power case (one which *cannot* apply to the nuclear
power case, i.e. the two must be somehow fundamentally different in a
significant, with respect to the choice of risk models, way).

We are debating the decision of which form of power generation meets our
needs best.  That decision has to be based on *something*.  If you insist
that a linear cost/benefit analysis is inappropriate to the discussion,
then don't just stand on your hands, SUGGEST SOMETHING TO USE THAT IS
BETTER SUITED.  If you cannot do this, then you have NO BUSINESS complaining
that the models being used are somehow inadequate.

>yodaiken@chelm.cs.umass.edu


-- 
Kevin Brown					kevin@nuchat.sccsi.com
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