Friday, March 11, 2011

Toxicology, Peer Review and Singularity

Toxicology has long left the bench and its vapor pots to develop new skills unique to product safety questions and environmental impact discoveries. Very often the environmental concerns for cleaners had never been thought about prior to the 1970's Clean Water Act. Dilution was the learned response. Now, because of the advances in chemical analysis, the need for hazard risk assessments and green standards were raised.

So how does "peer review" expedite the concerns of society for public safety and the maintenance of environmental health when modeling programs provide more powerful and profound predictive analysis? A mere technological singularity, if we dare say.

"But sheer processing power is not a pixie dust that magically solves all your problems" (Steven Pinker 2008). So we wait and wait for a peer review which is always irrelevant when the net result is the same regarding aquatic toxicity.

Let's quickly move on and reduce toxicity in our waterways.