4 ms·

Of course I'm making assumptions - the biggest one is that quantum chemistry works. If you are now retreating to thermal effects, they a) can be easily measure

Of course I'm making assumptions - the biggest one is that quantum chemistry works. If you are now retreating to thermal effects, they a) can be easily measured and b) are vastly smaller than effects like wearing tighty whities or walking past a radiator in winter. Is your sole claim that using a cell phone might have an effect 1/100th as large as blow drying one's balls after a shower? Let me reason by analogy, to explain the probabilitistic intuition here. Study: we threw golf balls at aircraft carriers and cargo vessels, and concluded that they are an effective naval weapon. The probability of observing this result by random chance, assuming golf balls don't sink aircraft carriers, is 2%. Would you draw the conclusion that golf balls are likely to sink aircraft carriers from such a study?

dekhn 11y ago
No, my sole claim is not that using a cell phone would have 1/100th the effect of blow drying ones testicles after a shower (why????) After all, the phone stays around a lot longer (temporal effect) and I have certainly noticed that when the phone is using lots of bandwidth it stays warm for hours at a time. Many effects in biology can occur from extended exposure (cumulative dosage effects) when they don't have an effect from acute exposure. And vice versa, of course. Anyway, reasoning from probabilistic intuition here is probably a mistake: the epi studies show stuff that doesn't agree with our intuition (this is common) and that leads theorists and experimentalists to go search for other causes. In the history of science, we have a long list of things that weren't intuitive but ultimately were figured out. Finally falling back on "I assume QC works" isn't really informative in this case. I assume QC works to and I don't see why that negates the possibility that cell phones can have negative health effects caused by physical mechanisms.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  QM rules out non-thermal effects. Once you retreat to thermal effects you have conceded that a cell phone is vastly less dangerous than turning the thermostat from 74 to 75 (if you want to think about extended exposure) or blow drying one's balls (if you want to think about acute exposure). Now those things probably do have some measurable effect - certainly temperature effects sperm count, which is why men are advised not to wear tighty whities. Computing the size of cell phone effects, relative to things like moving from NY to slightly warmer DC is just a simple thermodynamic calculation. If the study is concerned about such tiny relative risks, they are both a) wildly underpowered to detect them and b) certainly aren't making that clear in the abstract. Now, it's possible that our physics-based priors are wildly wrong. But as the calculation I did notes, this study is too underpowered to significantly change our views on that.
  - Retric 11y ago
    Outside temperature is less important than you might assume we can lower or pull back our boys to regulate temperature. Airflow and being physically pushed back into the body is a major factor so your boys can overheat when it's 55 or be fine when it's 95.
  - CuriousSkeptic 11y ago
    For a layperson, like me. How does QM rule out non-thermal effects? Some hypothetical causes you might refute: Could resonance be involved? At the right frequency maybe it doesn't take much to shake things up. In a similar manner, could precise timing interfering with som finley tuned process be an explanation. Or, could something in the body detect it, and respond excessively? Like how we get stressed from noise, even though the auditory system filters it out.
- snowwrestler 11y ago
  It's fine for researchers to go look for other causes. It's not fine to expect that they will disregard what we already know. Well-supported scientific theories should be used to constrain the search space when addressing new problems, otherwise we'll get stuck re-proving the same basic things over and over again. If every epidemiological study causes us to question everything we thought we knew, it's going to be hard to make any progress on health improvements. This is certainly not the first study to find health correlations with cell phones, and it won't be the last.
  - dekhn 11y ago
    "Well-supported scientific theories should be used to constrain the search space when addressing new problems, otherwise we'll get stuck re-proving the same basic things over and over again." I think QM showed this was pretty much not an acceptable position to take.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      The reason QM rejected existing classical theories is because various experiments were wildly inconsistent with classical theory. I.e., if you repeat photoelectric experiments enough times to rule out experimental error, you've pretty much refuted classical physics with p < exp(-N) (where N is O(# of particles)). This study has p < 0.02. It makes an highly unlikely hypothesis about 50x more likely, i.e. still extremely unlikely.
    - snowwrestler 11y ago
      Could quantum mechanics be wrong? Yes. Are we going to discover that by surveying 100 infertile guys? No.

dekhn 11y ago

No, my sole claim is not that using a cell phone would have 1/100th the effect of blow drying ones testicles after a shower (why????) After all, the phone stays around a lot longer (temporal effect) and I have certainly noticed that when the phone is using lots of bandwidth it stays warm for hours at a time. Many effects in biology can occur from extended exposure (cumulative dosage effects) when they don't have an effect from acute exposure. And vice versa, of course. Anyway, reasoning from probabilistic intuition here is probably a mistake: the epi studies show stuff that doesn't agree with our intuition (this is common) and that leads theorists and experimentalists to go search for other causes. In the history of science, we have a long list of things that weren't intuitive but ultimately were figured out. Finally falling back on "I assume QC works" isn't really informative in this case. I assume QC works to and I don't see why that negates the possibility that cell phones can have negative health effects caused by physical mechanisms.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
QM rules out non-thermal effects. Once you retreat to thermal effects you have conceded that a cell phone is vastly less dangerous than turning the thermostat from 74 to 75 (if you want to think about extended exposure) or blow drying one's balls (if you want to think about acute exposure). Now those things probably do have some measurable effect - certainly temperature effects sperm count, which is why men are advised not to wear tighty whities. Computing the size of cell phone effects, relative to things like moving from NY to slightly warmer DC is just a simple thermodynamic calculation. If the study is concerned about such tiny relative risks, they are both a) wildly underpowered to detect them and b) certainly aren't making that clear in the abstract. Now, it's possible that our physics-based priors are wildly wrong. But as the calculation I did notes, this study is too underpowered to significantly change our views on that.
- Retric 11y ago
  Outside temperature is less important than you might assume we can lower or pull back our boys to regulate temperature. Airflow and being physically pushed back into the body is a major factor so your boys can overheat when it's 55 or be fine when it's 95.
- CuriousSkeptic 11y ago
  For a layperson, like me. How does QM rule out non-thermal effects? Some hypothetical causes you might refute: Could resonance be involved? At the right frequency maybe it doesn't take much to shake things up. In a similar manner, could precise timing interfering with som finley tuned process be an explanation. Or, could something in the body detect it, and respond excessively? Like how we get stressed from noise, even though the auditory system filters it out.
snowwrestler 11y ago
It's fine for researchers to go look for other causes. It's not fine to expect that they will disregard what we already know. Well-supported scientific theories should be used to constrain the search space when addressing new problems, otherwise we'll get stuck re-proving the same basic things over and over again. If every epidemiological study causes us to question everything we thought we knew, it's going to be hard to make any progress on health improvements. This is certainly not the first study to find health correlations with cell phones, and it won't be the last.
- dekhn 11y ago
  "Well-supported scientific theories should be used to constrain the search space when addressing new problems, otherwise we'll get stuck re-proving the same basic things over and over again." I think QM showed this was pretty much not an acceptable position to take.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    The reason QM rejected existing classical theories is because various experiments were wildly inconsistent with classical theory. I.e., if you repeat photoelectric experiments enough times to rule out experimental error, you've pretty much refuted classical physics with p < exp(-N) (where N is O(# of particles)). This study has p < 0.02. It makes an highly unlikely hypothesis about 50x more likely, i.e. still extremely unlikely.
  - snowwrestler 11y ago
    Could quantum mechanics be wrong? Yes. Are we going to discover that by surveying 100 infertile guys? No.