Use of nonlinear dose-effect models to predict consequences

The linear dose-effect relationship was introduced as a model for the induction of cancer from exposure to nuclear radiation. Subsequently, it has been used by analogy to assess the risk of chemical carcinogens also. Recently, however, the model for radiation carcinogenesis has come increasingly under attack because its calculations contradict the epidemiological data, such as cancer in atomic bomb survivors. Even so, its proponents vigorously defend it, often using arguments that are not so much scientific as a mix of scientific, societal, and often political arguments. At least in part, the resilience of the linear model is due to two convenient properties that are exclusive to linearity: First, the risk of an event is determined solely by the event dose; second, the total risk of a population group depends only on the total population dose. In reality, the linear model has been conclusively falsified; i.e., it has been shown to make wrong predictions, and once this fact is generally realized, the scientific method calls for a new paradigm model. As all alternative models are by necessity nonlinear, all the convenient properties of the linear model are invalid, and calculational procedures have to be used that are appropriate for nonlinear models