4 ms·

The problem is that I haven’t seen safety studies, and the null hypothesis is that a technology is mildly unsafe: most of the neat science technologies have bee

The problem is that I haven’t seen safety studies, and the null hypothesis is that a technology is mildly unsafe: most of the neat science technologies have been. The reasoning of “its not ionizing radiation so it can’t possibly impact biological systems at continuous low, structured doses!” wouldn’t pass in an advanced high school class — so it’s deeply concerning that’s what underlies the safety of a widespread technology.

detuur 8y ago
Given the ridiculous complexity of our biological systems, it would be of course very naive to assume that there's no interaction. But nearly everything in our environment interacts with our biology. And for almost all of those interactions it's very hard to specify what exactly the effects are. Depending on which lens you study it through, you can arrive at a nearly random conclusion, if you even manage to get a "statistically significant" result through all the noise a biological system generates. And that last point highlights one of the major gripes I have with research of this kind. "Statistically significant" does not mean what you think it means. A lot of people see it as a license to draw conclusions from a set of numbers, which it isn't. Remember that even the standard p-test has an absurdly high cut-off of 5% chance that the data is pure randomness. And even then, even if some divine oracle rejects your null, you still have to deal with the fact that intrinsic error in research is still pretty much impossible to quantify. There's a reason that in particle physics they don't consider something truly proven unless there's a five-sigma confidence. The fact that so many of these health studies show no hope of ever reaching a five-sigma confidence interval, only confidently proves one thing to me: whatever harmful or benevolent effect it is they're studying, its harm or benefit isn't going to be significant. Biological systems are just too unpredictable to make sweeping statements about the harm or benefit of many, many things. Even ionising radiation, the one thing we can all agree is super harmful in significant doses, becomes equally harmless in background-level doses. So in the absence of reliability of single studies on cell phone radiation harm, I have to fall back on the next best thing: meta studies. And given that the overwhelming majority of research fails to establish a link, and the significance argument I made earlier, makes me very carefree and comfortable about the phone that sleeps right next to my head every day.
- FakeComments 8y ago
  Can you show any quality meta-studies which investigate the issue? I’m unaware of any research into the effects of long term exposure to structured non-ionizing radiation. A meta-analysis of situations in which people make arguments like yours shows that they’re often problematic: pesticides, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc. All of these have understated first order effects which have been masked by questionable research and fallacious arguments, and ecologically devastating second order effects which weren’t accounted for until decades later. I think it’s telling you made ad hominems, like implying I don’t know statistics, but didn’t bother to cite these meta-analysises that support your position and refute mine. It doesn’t seem a settled issue, as you portray: https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/2013/12000/Wi_Fi_and_Health__Review_of_Current_Status_of.19.aspx https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/2013/12000/... https://www.saferemr.com/2015/09/recent-research-on-wifi-effects.html https://www.saferemr.com/2015/09/recent-research-on-wifi-eff...

detuur 8y ago

Given the ridiculous complexity of our biological systems, it would be of course very naive to assume that there's no interaction. But nearly everything in our environment interacts with our biology. And for almost all of those interactions it's very hard to specify what exactly the effects are. Depending on which lens you study it through, you can arrive at a nearly random conclusion, if you even manage to get a "statistically significant" result through all the noise a biological system generates. And that last point highlights one of the major gripes I have with research of this kind. "Statistically significant" does not mean what you think it means. A lot of people see it as a license to draw conclusions from a set of numbers, which it isn't. Remember that even the standard p-test has an absurdly high cut-off of 5% chance that the data is pure randomness. And even then, even if some divine oracle rejects your null, you still have to deal with the fact that intrinsic error in research is still pretty much impossible to quantify. There's a reason that in particle physics they don't consider something truly proven unless there's a five-sigma confidence. The fact that so many of these health studies show no hope of ever reaching a five-sigma confidence interval, only confidently proves one thing to me: whatever harmful or benevolent effect it is they're studying, its harm or benefit isn't going to be significant. Biological systems are just too unpredictable to make sweeping statements about the harm or benefit of many, many things. Even ionising radiation, the one thing we can all agree is super harmful in significant doses, becomes equally harmless in background-level doses. So in the absence of reliability of single studies on cell phone radiation harm, I have to fall back on the next best thing: meta studies. And given that the overwhelming majority of research fails to establish a link, and the significance argument I made earlier, makes me very carefree and comfortable about the phone that sleeps right next to my head every day.

FakeComments 8y ago
Can you show any quality meta-studies which investigate the issue? I’m unaware of any research into the effects of long term exposure to structured non-ionizing radiation. A meta-analysis of situations in which people make arguments like yours shows that they’re often problematic: pesticides, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc. All of these have understated first order effects which have been masked by questionable research and fallacious arguments, and ecologically devastating second order effects which weren’t accounted for until decades later. I think it’s telling you made ad hominems, like implying I don’t know statistics, but didn’t bother to cite these meta-analysises that support your position and refute mine. It doesn’t seem a settled issue, as you portray: https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/2013/12000/Wi_Fi_and_Health__Review_of_Current_Status_of.19.aspx https://journals.lww.com/health-physics/Abstract/2013/12000/... https://www.saferemr.com/2015/09/recent-research-on-wifi-effects.html https://www.saferemr.com/2015/09/recent-research-on-wifi-eff...