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I'm not sure why you're so critical. This is how science works. No one wants to do (or pay for) a huge survey if you have no idea what the results will be. So y

by judofyr 11y ago

I'm not sure why you're so critical. This is how science works. No one wants to do (or pay for) a huge survey if you have no idea what the results will be. So you start out with a smaller survey and see if it's worth investigating more. Right now there's no consensus about the effects of RF-EMF on semen quality. The proper solution is to continue doing research, not ignoring it all together because "it can only harm us in a way that QM disproves". But yes, this is not a "this will change your life"-paper, it's just "another data point which we should investigate"-paper. Anyway, I found it interesting that their survey did discover another variable: > A multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed a strong independent effect of two variables on the risk for abnormal sperm concentration: talking while the device is being charged and smoking. There seems to be quite a consensus that smoking does indeed have a negative effect on sperm quality. Their survey did manage to pick that up.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
That's fine, but this study (or the effect it measured) is vastly too small for us to significantly raise our prior estimate of an effect. There is consensus (among physicists who know QM) that non-thermal effects of RF radiation on the body are negligible. Simple calculations and easy experiments show that thermal effects are tiny, vastly smaller than turning up the thermostat by one degree or walking out in the sun. The fact is that the results of this study are not even particularly suggestive of being worth of investigation. Concretely, based on this study and my prior knowledge, I'm willing to offer bets at 1000:1 that a sufficiently large study [1] will show that cell phones have a smaller effect than turning the thermostat up 1 degree. [1] This number assumes a perfect study; adjust this drastically downward for small studies with high p-value cutoffs like 5%. If the study is underpowered, then offering 1000:1 odds on outcomes is like offering 1000:1 odds on`if (Math.random() < 0.05)`.
- drostie 11y ago
  Speaking as a physicist who knows QM, this is almost-correct. More precisely, the chemical effects of microwave photons are restricted to being the sort of effects that routinely happen within your body all the time due to the thermal jiggle of atoms. Obviously this is not "nothing", because your body does a lot of cool stuff with all of that jiggling. Obviously, chemical effects can also happen due to accumulated electric potential, as when a metal fork causes sparks in a microwave, but cell phones only have one hundredth or thousandth of that much power going through them at any given time, and the most visible effects of this in the human body seem to be negligible. (These effects do exist -- witness what tasers do to people, or what a 9V battery feels like on the tongue -- but nobody really reports these feelings when holding a transmitting cell phone near their tongue.) So the possibilities are certainly there but it does seem like if cell phones caused the calamities that are sometimes attributed to them, it would probably change our understanding of one of these two spaces.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    "These effects do exist -- witness what tasers do to people, or what a 9V battery feels like on the tongue -- but nobody really reports these feelings when holding a transmitting cell phone near their tongue." I liked the comment in the beginning but it's problematic here. I come from a system engineering background with some knowledge on hardware side. For our chips, the effects of an electrical surge are totally different than the effects of electromagnetic radiation. The interface point and nature of materials make them respond differently to each. The machinery of the human body might do the same thing. I cited the Frey effect as an example of non-melting-point effects in a previous comment. Also, I found something very interesting about your claim to support my hypothetical parallel between chips and the bodies. Let me show you instead of trying to explain it: "witness what tasers do to people, or what a 9V battery feels like on the tongue -- but nobody really reports these feelings when holding a transmitting cell phone near their tongue." Witness what a surge does to the CPU or how dropping an electricity source onto its I/O pins results in detectable activity. Yet, no users or monitor software reports detecting something like this when you hold a cellphone next to it. Your claim would be true and readers would think cellphones/radiation had no effect on computers. Yet, they actually do have an effect that ranges from undetectable leaks to failures of the system from components made faulty due to long exposure. In later case, users not aware of attacks believe the components were faulty for other reasons. Here's a nice timeline on the leak side: https://cryptome.org/0001/tempest-time.htm https://cryptome.org/0001/tempest-time.htm Matter of fact, they banned cellphones in secure facilities because bringing certain ones within 20 or so ft of a secure phone compromised it. The background radiation of the phone bounced off the inside of the chip in a way that was modified by the circuits holding the master key. What bounced out could be caught, analyzed, and keys re-assembled. All conversations compromised without anyone ever knowing. Just because you walked in with a cellphone on your waste. But, "nobody really reports these [compromises] when holding a transmitting cell phone near their [computer]." ;) What do you think of that parallel? Something to it possibly or just a fun thought experiment?

by judofyr 11y ago

yummyfajitas 11y ago

That's fine, but this study (or the effect it measured) is vastly too small for us to significantly raise our prior estimate of an effect. There is consensus (among physicists who know QM) that non-thermal effects of RF radiation on the body are negligible. Simple calculations and easy experiments show that thermal effects are tiny, vastly smaller than turning up the thermostat by one degree or walking out in the sun. The fact is that the results of this study are not even particularly suggestive of being worth of investigation. Concretely, based on this study and my prior knowledge, I'm willing to offer bets at 1000:1 that a sufficiently large study [1] will show that cell phones have a smaller effect than turning the thermostat up 1 degree. [1] This number assumes a perfect study; adjust this drastically downward for small studies with high p-value cutoffs like 5%. If the study is underpowered, then offering 1000:1 odds on outcomes is like offering 1000:1 odds on`if (Math.random() < 0.05)`.

drostie 11y ago
Speaking as a physicist who knows QM, this is almost-correct. More precisely, the chemical effects of microwave photons are restricted to being the sort of effects that routinely happen within your body all the time due to the thermal jiggle of atoms. Obviously this is not "nothing", because your body does a lot of cool stuff with all of that jiggling. Obviously, chemical effects can also happen due to accumulated electric potential, as when a metal fork causes sparks in a microwave, but cell phones only have one hundredth or thousandth of that much power going through them at any given time, and the most visible effects of this in the human body seem to be negligible. (These effects do exist -- witness what tasers do to people, or what a 9V battery feels like on the tongue -- but nobody really reports these feelings when holding a transmitting cell phone near their tongue.) So the possibilities are certainly there but it does seem like if cell phones caused the calamities that are sometimes attributed to them, it would probably change our understanding of one of these two spaces.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  "These effects do exist -- witness what tasers do to people, or what a 9V battery feels like on the tongue -- but nobody really reports these feelings when holding a transmitting cell phone near their tongue." I liked the comment in the beginning but it's problematic here. I come from a system engineering background with some knowledge on hardware side. For our chips, the effects of an electrical surge are totally different than the effects of electromagnetic radiation. The interface point and nature of materials make them respond differently to each. The machinery of the human body might do the same thing. I cited the Frey effect as an example of non-melting-point effects in a previous comment. Also, I found something very interesting about your claim to support my hypothetical parallel between chips and the bodies. Let me show you instead of trying to explain it: "witness what tasers do to people, or what a 9V battery feels like on the tongue -- but nobody really reports these feelings when holding a transmitting cell phone near their tongue." Witness what a surge does to the CPU or how dropping an electricity source onto its I/O pins results in detectable activity. Yet, no users or monitor software reports detecting something like this when you hold a cellphone next to it. Your claim would be true and readers would think cellphones/radiation had no effect on computers. Yet, they actually do have an effect that ranges from undetectable leaks to failures of the system from components made faulty due to long exposure. In later case, users not aware of attacks believe the components were faulty for other reasons. Here's a nice timeline on the leak side: https://cryptome.org/0001/tempest-time.htm https://cryptome.org/0001/tempest-time.htm Matter of fact, they banned cellphones in secure facilities because bringing certain ones within 20 or so ft of a secure phone compromised it. The background radiation of the phone bounced off the inside of the chip in a way that was modified by the circuits holding the master key. What bounced out could be caught, analyzed, and keys re-assembled. All conversations compromised without anyone ever knowing. Just because you walked in with a cellphone on your waste. But, "nobody really reports these [compromises] when holding a transmitting cell phone near their [computer]." ;) What do you think of that parallel? Something to it possibly or just a fun thought experiment?