SJ said:

It’s not good business to research this scientifically – the big money’s with the telecommunications industry, not with the so called quacks and weirdos,

Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. There are few subjects like trumped up claims of RF field dangers to attract grant money and get attention for researchers. Not to even mention the potential litigation money it could mean.

No, anecdotal evidence is very bad! It’s misleading, it’s completely unreliable. It’s not even evidence.

The rise of modern medicine is entirely based on learning that anecdotal evidence is worthless. The birth of science based medicine occurred when we finally began to realize how worthless it is. The cornerstone of both science and medicine is the understanding that evidence needs to be of an empirical nature, with observations that remove human bias.

It is if you care about actually getting the facts and being accurate. To say science “doesn’t always get it right” is to completely misunderstand what science is. Science is not a collection of knowledge or a single test or experimental result. Science is a methodology, a way of making and interpenetrating data and a means of making sense of the world.

There is much we do not know or understand about how the brain and body work. Yet there is much we do understand. Saying that we don’t know everything is much different than saying we don’t know anything. We are learning more all the time. However, we don’t learn more or advance knowledge through anecdotal evidence or claims made by one person of their own experiences.

        SJ said:

We’re really very ignorant about the workings of the brain and body and the way that knowledge advances is through curiosity, an open minded attitude, a willingness to consider new ideas.

‘We’, are not SJ, but you are. I am willing to bet you any sum of money you are willing to wager that you cannot consistently pass a double-blind test in a shielded room, to detect a wifi signal, at common field strengths.

It’s not good business to research this scientifically – the big money’s with the telecommunications industry, not with the so called quacks and weirdos, which is one possible reason why one has to rely on anecdotal evidence – same with herbal medicine. Anecdotal evidence isn’t necessarily bad you know. It’s people saying how they feel, what they experience. You can always dismiss if you’re so inclined, but it’s a bit narrow minded, and you miss out on most knowledge. Scientific research isn’t the only way to know things, and doesn’t always get it right anyway.

We’re really very ignorant about the workings of the brain and body and the way that knowledge advances is through curiosity, an open minded attitude, a willingness to consider new ideas.

Yeah, I read a lot but I’ve been heavily involved in empirical skepticism and bad science stuff for years and picked stuff up along the way. A lot of it is the same stuff old reused and the same kind of things come up over and over.

What I mean especially is your note above about sources of scientific information. I think you are right, of course, that attention seeking individuals are not a good sign and I know you know a lot about peer review and science in the media and how facts get twisted. How are you so familiar with these things? From the way you talk about it, it seems like you’re an insider or an expert in science reporting.

Just how do you know so much?

It look to me like the frauds have been spinning this out as proof of their idiotic notions.

        Electra said:

One more question. So if firefighters say they experienced negative symptoms such as migraine headaches, extreme fatigue, disorientation, slowed reaction time, memory loss, attention deficit amidst life threatening emergencies that they can attribute to onset when towers were activated, then they’re lying?

Ah here we go again. Siting a sympathetic group and using their perceived heroics and good status to back some kind of woo by implying that disagreeing with it insults them.

It could just as easily been: veterans, 9/11 widows, cancer survivors, police officers or little Johnny in his Iron Lung. It doesn’t matter.

Sure firefighters run into burning buildings, get up at 2 AM to rush to the scene of a fire and risk their lives and for that they have our eternal gratitude. BUT that does not make them any better observers or any less prone to the placebo effect or bias than any other human being.

So are they lying? I don’t know. Some of them might be. Being a firefighter does not automatically make a person 100% honest. More likely though, most or all of those claiming to be effected by this stuff are just manifesting psycosomatic symptoms or are attributing real symptoms to something unrelated as the cause. This being the case, it’s the liars who convinced them of this who are guilty here.

        Electra said:

One more question. So if firefighters say they experienced negative symptoms such as migraine headaches, extreme fatigue, disorientation, slowed reaction time, memory loss, attention deficit amidst life threatening emergencies that they can attribute to onset when towers were activated, then they’re lying?

I have yet to see evidence of this phenomena that is not anecdotal. I do know that on more than one occasion, people have claimed that they where experiencing symptoms when in fact the antennas in question were not radiating, and that these same people reported that their symptoms disappeared when they were told the towers had stopped working, when in fact they were still producing an RF field.

This evidence suggests that the issue is by in large psychosomatic.

I am impressed however with your questions Electra, you seem to be honestly searching for the truth, a rare POV in this argument.

        Electra said:

Have you read the Evidence for Effects on the Immune System by Olle Johansson? or seen the information on blood brain barrier by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority?

Do you mean this:

Present knowledge on health effects of RF radiation

The biological effects of radio waves have been studied for decades. The known direct health effects of RF radiation are due to absorption of energy from the radio waves into the body causing warming- up of tissues. Health hazards emerge if the human temperature regulation cannot eliminate the excess heat. RF exposures of this magnitude occur, however, only in exceptional working conditions, like in mast operations, radar mounting and industrial high-frequency heating.

The effects of mobile phone radiation have been examined, for example, using cell studies. It has been observed that the RF radiation emitted by a mobile phone can temporarily change the activity of certain proteins in cell cultures and also in the human skin. The observed biological changes do not however indicate a health risk.

At Turku University in Finland, among others, the scientists have made neuropsychological studies to determine whether mobile phone radiation could have an influence on e.g. memory and deduction. In these studies, they have not found any reproducible evidence that mobile phone radiation would have any cognitive influence.

When examining the exposure of children, the calculations demonstrate that a mobile phone held against the ear causes an exposure on the brain surface double of that for adults. The difference is due to children’s thinner skull bone and more elastic earlobe. The exposure is however focused to such a small area that the warming-up of children’s brain tissue is not any heavier than with adults. Approximately 20 general population studies concerning the causal relation of possible tumour risk and mobile phone use have been carried out. On the grounds of the studies to date, it is not possible to make such a conclusion that mobile phones would cause a health risk.

From: Statement of STUK (Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority) on Effects of mobile phone radiation