3 ms·

Is there a proposed mechanism by which non-ionizing radiation is said to be harmful? I am willing to believe it could be (I would guess at certain wavelengths m

by plorg 2y ago

Is there a proposed mechanism by which non-ionizing radiation is said to be harmful? I am willing to believe it could be (I would guess at certain wavelengths more than others if so), but absent any statistical evidence of such an effect and without a testable mechanism of action it is just as unreasonable to believe the contrary assertion. I haven't heard of either, so I default to the position of if this was such a significant problem we would be able to prove it by now. Unless or until that happens it's not something we need to worry about. But absolutely keep doing research. So one thing a person could do would be to identify radio emitters and compare the rates of, say, cancer among people living within a certain radius. Even if the planet is awash in electromagnetic radiation the intensity drops off significantly according to the distance to the emitter. Large emitters are well-documented so it shouldn't be hard to find this information.

kjkjadksj 2y ago
It doesn’t really matter to me if there is a proposed mechanism already or not. Phenomena exist before we are able to describe it mechanistically after all. There are assumptions to that setup as well. There’s the assumtion that this effect is dependent on magnitude that you could measure easily within a certain drop off. Maybe the drop off point is quite far from these emitters or doesn’t even exist, and any such exposure is enough like a binary condition. Then there is the assumption that people living near large emitters today are always around them, and the assumption that people not living around large emitters never go off and spend time around them. I think there are many interesting questions like this where you just can’t ever get a reasonable design that is truly powered enough for all the potential latent variables involved. Modern science works well when the fruit is low hanging statistically, but thats not always the case for every question.
- kergonath 2y ago
  > It doesn’t really matter to me if there is a proposed mechanism already or not. Phenomena exist before we are able to describe it mechanistically after all. Right. But then you’re talking about something that could happen, or that could not. If you are thinking about something you do not observe, then not having any hypothesis as to how it could work makes the whole endeavour useless, to the level of the Russell teapot. You could just as validly speculate that the pink colour is harmful because of Venus’ influence resonating with the water memory and justify your point of view with the same “there are things we don’t know” argument. Two observations specifically on electromagnetic radiation: - if this were actually a thing, we’d have seen the signal in epidemiological data, considering that WiFi has been around for 25 years and is used by ~billions of people, and cell phones are even older and more used - we do know quite a lot about the effect of radiation on matter. We might not know everything there is to know, and biology adds a layer on top, but e.g. the energy transfer from some microwave radiation to biological tissue is limited by very well-known Physics. We know that occasionally an atom gets knocked out of its position, and that even though most of the time it’s fine, it can occasionally cause problems, which is why UV sunlight is bad. We know how X or γ radiation interacts with matter and is more likely to affect molecules. Saying that “there are things we don’t know” is misleading in that the subject is actually very well known, even if we don’t know everything, particularly on the biology side. It is perfectly valid to be skeptical by default. But in face of evidence and a solid body of knowledge, we should also be skeptical about our own skepticism. > Modern science works well when the fruit is low hanging statistically, but thats not always the case for every question. That is quite far from the truth. In reality it’s quite the opposite. Science is incremental, with occasional breakthroughs. But most of its progress is through constant grinding on tiny subjects, very far from low-hanging fruits. You have lots of different people, each one exploring their own ideas and hypotheses. In a field so important and popular as the effect of technology on human biology, there are thousands upon thousands of researchers competing, each one trying to find a better idea than their colleagues. This system is actually very good at exploring weird, goofy-sounding hypotheses because the reward is so important.
LorenPechtel 2y ago
That will identify if EM energy in general is harmful--and I think it's pretty clear that it is not. But what happens if 1 person in a million responds to Wi-Fi frequencies like nails on a chalkboard? It wouldn't need to actually be directly harmful.

by plorg 2y ago

kjkjadksj 2y ago

It doesn’t really matter to me if there is a proposed mechanism already or not. Phenomena exist before we are able to describe it mechanistically after all. There are assumptions to that setup as well. There’s the assumtion that this effect is dependent on magnitude that you could measure easily within a certain drop off. Maybe the drop off point is quite far from these emitters or doesn’t even exist, and any such exposure is enough like a binary condition. Then there is the assumption that people living near large emitters today are always around them, and the assumption that people not living around large emitters never go off and spend time around them. I think there are many interesting questions like this where you just can’t ever get a reasonable design that is truly powered enough for all the potential latent variables involved. Modern science works well when the fruit is low hanging statistically, but thats not always the case for every question.

kergonath 2y ago
> It doesn’t really matter to me if there is a proposed mechanism already or not. Phenomena exist before we are able to describe it mechanistically after all. Right. But then you’re talking about something that could happen, or that could not. If you are thinking about something you do not observe, then not having any hypothesis as to how it could work makes the whole endeavour useless, to the level of the Russell teapot. You could just as validly speculate that the pink colour is harmful because of Venus’ influence resonating with the water memory and justify your point of view with the same “there are things we don’t know” argument. Two observations specifically on electromagnetic radiation: - if this were actually a thing, we’d have seen the signal in epidemiological data, considering that WiFi has been around for 25 years and is used by ~billions of people, and cell phones are even older and more used - we do know quite a lot about the effect of radiation on matter. We might not know everything there is to know, and biology adds a layer on top, but e.g. the energy transfer from some microwave radiation to biological tissue is limited by very well-known Physics. We know that occasionally an atom gets knocked out of its position, and that even though most of the time it’s fine, it can occasionally cause problems, which is why UV sunlight is bad. We know how X or γ radiation interacts with matter and is more likely to affect molecules. Saying that “there are things we don’t know” is misleading in that the subject is actually very well known, even if we don’t know everything, particularly on the biology side. It is perfectly valid to be skeptical by default. But in face of evidence and a solid body of knowledge, we should also be skeptical about our own skepticism. > Modern science works well when the fruit is low hanging statistically, but thats not always the case for every question. That is quite far from the truth. In reality it’s quite the opposite. Science is incremental, with occasional breakthroughs. But most of its progress is through constant grinding on tiny subjects, very far from low-hanging fruits. You have lots of different people, each one exploring their own ideas and hypotheses. In a field so important and popular as the effect of technology on human biology, there are thousands upon thousands of researchers competing, each one trying to find a better idea than their colleagues. This system is actually very good at exploring weird, goofy-sounding hypotheses because the reward is so important.

LorenPechtel 2y ago

That will identify if EM energy in general is harmful--and I think it's pretty clear that it is not. But what happens if 1 person in a million responds to Wi-Fi frequencies like nails on a chalkboard? It wouldn't need to actually be directly harmful.