Department of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA.
Environ Res. 2019 Sep;176:108528. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2019.108528. Epub 2019 Jun 8.
This paper evaluates the significant historical paper of Muller and Mott-Smith (1930), which successfully disputed the proposal of Olson and Lewis (1928) that background ionizing radiation is the driving mechanism of evolution. While the present analysis supports the general conclusion that background radiation is not a quantifiable factor affecting evolution, the paper reveals methodological errors and questionable conclusions in the Muller and Mott-Smith (1930) paper, which may have impacted the acceptance of the linear non-threshold (LNT) model. Most importantly, this paper reveals that in Muller's (1927) Nobel Prize research he used a treatment exposure (total dose) that was 95 million-fold greater than the average background exposure, a value far greater than the 200,000 fold reported by Muller and Mott-Smith (1930). Such a large exposure rate discrepancy may be historically important as it may have led to the over-reliance on Muller's research in support of the derivation and use of the LNT single-hit model.
本文评估了 Muller 和 Mott-Smith（1930）的这篇重要历史论文，该论文成功反驳了 Olson 和 Lewis（1928）的观点，即背景电离辐射是进化的驱动机制。虽然目前的分析支持这样一个普遍结论，即背景辐射不是影响进化的可量化因素，但该论文揭示了 Muller 和 Mott-Smith（1930）论文中的方法错误和有问题的结论，这些错误和结论可能影响了线性无阈（LNT）模型的接受度。最重要的是，本文揭示了 Muller 在 1927 年获得诺贝尔奖的研究中使用的处理暴露（总剂量）比背景暴露高出 9500 万倍，这一数值远远高于 Muller 和 Mott-Smith（1930）报告的 20 万倍。这种巨大的暴露率差异在历史上可能很重要，因为它可能导致过度依赖 Muller 的研究来支持 LNT 单击模型的推导和使用。
