SOMETHING REALLY NEW TO WORRY ABOUT

[摘要] We live in mortal danger of being struck dead by watermelons inadvertently dropped from passing airplanes. Technology is obviously to blame for this hazard to life, because, if technologists had not developed airplanes, we would not have to worry about the danger of falling watermelons. However, when we examine the probability that a person will be struck by a falling watermelon, we must conclude that this environmental danger is not worth worrying about.It is not easy to compute the probability of rare and unlikely events, such as death from eating mercury in tuna fish, cancers in human beings due to DDT ingestion, or the likelihood that polychlorinated biphenyls will have a deleterious effect on the environment. But many people prefer to conclude that new methods and new substances "may" be harmful and therefore should be banned until—if ever—they are proved innocuous.The belief of many that the environmental impact of new chemicals and processes be studied before being released into the environment is commendable in theory. But more than a million products now result from man's activities. There are at least two million species of fauna and flora on the earth. Assuming that a team of biologists can assess the environmental impact of a man-made product on a species in one-year's time, it would require some two trillion biologist-person years to complete this worthy evaluation.

[学科分类] 儿科学