Gordon et al:

Your posting opened intellectual doors I hadn't even noticed before. The
issue of who dictates our processes and the scientific grounds on which
those dictates are based deserves our complete attention. Well done.

Jim Smith
Managing Director
Cambridge Management Sciences, Inc.
4285 45th St. S.
St. Petersburg, FL 33711-4431
Tel: (727)866-6502 ext. 21
Fax: (727)867-7890
eMail: [log in to unmask]

"Davy, Gordon" wrote:
>
> Mike Fenner has suggested that I may have over-reacted in my previous
> postings concerning the risk from using nickel and noble metals. I hope so,
> but in the present environment, it's hard to tell. I first heard of the move
> to lead-free solder from the late Roger Wild of IBM about fifteen years ago.
> At the time, I under-reacted. I dismissed it as frivolous and without
> technical merit. Roger was more prescient than I in getting an early start -
> just in case something were to come of it. What I failed to anticipate was
> how others would construe the "get-the-lead-out" movement, and how people
> would associate lead in electronics with lead in paint and gasoline. I was
> genuinely shocked to learn of the draft WEEE directive and the level and
> breadth of support it had. I was shocked to see that a company would claim
> on its web site that it was altruistically removing lead from its electronic
> products to protect the water supply (when the real reason was to increase
> market share). I was shocked to see that the IPC did not take stronger steps
> to resist, even though the position statement acknowledged that there is no
> technical merit to removing lead from electronic products.
> It was then that I started thinking, "if powerful people can force the
> removal of lead from electronic products with no good reason, what is to
> keep them from forcing the removal of anything else they don't like?" I
> posed that question on this forum over a year ago. And sure enough, just as
> I feared,  we are now starting to see calls for removal of other metals,
> based on guilt by association and appeals to emotion. (I wonder whether some
> day this forum will have to be renamed to the "metalfree" electronics
> forum!) I don't want to make the same mistake of downplaying the threat that
> I made before just because it doesn't make sense. Reason is no longer a
> necessity. It has been replaced by political correctness, and those who
> object to irrationality are not noble or courageous, they are
> environmentally challenged for not knowing the facts, and "unpragmatic" for
> not meekly acquiescing to the new reality in which the "frogs" (to use Brian
> Ellis' term) have already won.
> To find out whether I am over-reacting, let me invite forum participants to
> state which metals they think will continue to be permitted in electronic
> products for the indefinite future, which will probably have to be phased
> out, the basis for their predictions, whether they think that attempts to
> forestall such phaseouts would be pragmatic, and whether they agree that the
> phase-outs will be a good thing. In spite of the messiness of mining,
> without much more compelling arguments than have so far been offered I for
> one regard any such abandonment as the wrong response to the stimulus. It is
> to offer a technical solution to a political (or economic) problem. Who is
> "over-reacting"?
> (Mr. Fenner says he reads my post as a plea for the status quo. That is
> partly true - at least, I don't want things to get worse than they are, and
> I don't trust everyone who offers to "improve" things. I have observed that
> the second law of thermodynamics often applies to cultures as well as phyics
> and chemistry. Left to itself, a culture will deteriorate, and people
> struggling to make things better, not understanding the law of unintended
> consequences, as pointed out by Werner Engelmaier in his welcome comments,
> may well make them worse.)
> Mr. Ellis has explained that his posting was a reaction to my having implied
> nickel is harmless, that he tries to be reasonable (I am glad for his - and
> Mr. Fenner's - support for retaining lead in electronics), and that we need
> to look at the whole problem and not just a part of it. My reaction is
> simply to repeat what I've said before, that before banning the use of a
> metal in electronic products, what has to be shown is exactly what the
> problem is and how the proposed solution is going to ameliorate it. Reports
> of human allergy to nickel and anecdotes about mines are interesting, but we
> need to know whether anyone is suffering because of the use of nickel in
> electronic products, and that no less-stringent remedy is available. Unless
> we are to stop building electronic products, one or more metals is going to
> have to serve as the finish on component terminations, and for the
> forseeable future much of those metals is going to have to come out of the
> ground. It is the responsibility of the person who wants us to stop using
> nickel and noble metals to look at the whole problem and convince us (not
> just claim) that the world would be a better place if we were to mine less
> nickel and more tin.
> Mr. Fenner also commented that "if Doctoral theses were a min requirement
> for postings to this forum then debate would be somewhat stunted." That
> seems like an over-reaction to me. All I have requested is that if a person
> offers an opinion in an effort to convince the readers, he also offer
> relevant facts, solid reasoning, and a willingness to have them critiqued.
> The stakes here are immense - it's important that we get it right, even if
> that means disagreeing in public. I see this (and I hope others do, too) as
> a conflict, not among people, but of ideas expressed by people. The
> appropriate attitude is concern without anger, and I haven't detected any
> anger.
> Mr. Fenner has stated that I am wrong to assume that because of his posting
> he thinks tin is the best alternative to tin/lead, and I can see that I did
> over-react in lumping his comments with the others. Instead of offering an
> opinion without supporting facts, he offered facts without an opinion, and
> that's fine. All he did was to point out the mess that platinum mining
> makes. I incorrectly inferred that he thought that as a result, platinum and
> related metals should not be used in electronic products. I am sorry for
> expressing that assumption and happy that he does not want to convince us of
> that.
> Finally, he appealed for a "return to a pragmatic discussion and exchange of
> views". I do not agree that my comments are not pragmatic, because it is not
> pragmatic but wasteful to work on a solution that may at any time be
> "frowned at" by Ms. Wallstrom
> (http://europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/wallstrom/cv_en.htm) or Greenpeace
> (Who elected them? How did they get the ability to be always right?) or some
> other opinion maker, and prohibited as unacceptable. It is pragmatic to work
> on those things that have a high probability of success (assuming one is
> able to judge that probability correctly). (Sometimes the situation demands
> working on something just because you believe it is the right thing to do,
> regardless of the prospects of success - I'm sure on that matter Greenpeace
> agrees with me.)
> I would think that there must be many forum participants who have been
> working on finishes other than tin who are very upset to be told that
> they've been backing the wrong solution to the leadfree problem. They have
> read the discussion, and now they have an important decision to make.
>
> Gordon Davy
>
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