Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan
“What’s the most familiar form of radiation damage? Sunburn. And as we all know, 100 minutes in the sun does not do ten times as much harm as 10 minutes in the sun! Instead, there is a sigmoidal dose-response function. 10 minutes in the sun does zero visible damage to even the lightest-skinned person, but 100 minutes will burn such a person to a crisp. Which is virtually the same effect as 1000 minutes in the sun! … I’ve known about Devanney’s arguments in favor of the sigmoidal model of the harm of radiation for a year or two now. Once I understood the model, however, I started to notice additional applications. Sigmoidal dose-response functions are common not only in the natural world, but in the social world.” (08/05/25)