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Imagine you've heard some chocolate
contains the toxic metal
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Lead - which some does by the way.
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As an avid chocoholic you do a quick google
search and come across "Lead Watch."
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Lead Watch is a device that plugs into your
smartphone and tells you whether the
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Lead in your chocolate is above the
acceptable level.
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(Lead Watch doesn't actually exist, but it
could in the future.)
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Using Lead Watch, you are happy that your
chocolate habit isn't leading to
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excessive Lead consumption, and all is
good with the world.
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A year later,
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"Lead Watch 2.0"
is released.
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This version warns you when your
chocolate Lead content is one hundred
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times lower than the acceptable level.
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Eager to consumer as little Lead as
possible, you purchase Lead Watch
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2.0.
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Some of your favorite chocolate products
you previously thought were okay now
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show the presence of Lead. You quickly
ditch these, but are comfortable in the
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knowledge that the rest are safe.
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Then "Ultimate Lead Watch" comes out.
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This latest iteration claims to
detect even a single atom of Lead in the
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chocolate you are eating.
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To your dismay, every piece of chocolate you
test now appears to contain Lead.
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Disaster!
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You have just hit the "Measurement Conundrum."
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The chocolate you've been eating
hasn't changed. All that's changed is
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your ability to measure what is in it.
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Does this mean that what was assumed to
be safe is now not safe?
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Not at all.
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Just because you can measure something
doesn't necessarily mean that it presents
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risk.
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The Measurement Conundrum is real -
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when we can measure something we couldn't
measure before, we need to know what to
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do with the new information. In some
cases this might mean re-evaluating what
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a safe level is. In others it might mean
recognizing the difference between what
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we can measure and what is okay.
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In both cases though, we need to know
what the measurements mean, not just
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what they are.
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For more information on Lead and
chocolate, check out the links below, and
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stay safe
.
