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“We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

blogs.scientificamerican.com

361–370 of 613 posts

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the article, and I'm not a party to the 5G debate, but what you're describing in your comment is a meta-analysis, which is a practice that has produced some of the most controversial findings in recent times. If anything is needed to clear up an inconclusive body of studies, it's better and more reliable studies and experiments, not meta-analyses.‎

I knew other grad students who'd say, "oh, it's a meta analysis" and then toss it in the bin. But in recent years I've met people who worked on boards for cities and hospitals where they dug though a lot of papers and wrote detailed meta analysis about the larger body of work. They'd comment on things that seemed consistent and inconstant, and tried to help others make well informed decisions. With a meta-analysis, y…

That's criticizing a weak interpretation of my point and seems to conclude I'm rejecting the use of meta-analyses entirely, which is not the case. The point I make is in the context of the suggestion that a meta-analysis of an inconclusive body of studies is sufficient to yield substantially stronger conclusions.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#362
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the difference there be that the person consuming meat is voluntarily consuming it while even people sticking to older tech phones are exposed to the newer radiation? I am no luddite but this would be my argument from a devil's advocate position

No, because you're only exposed to radiation if you actually use a phone. Google for "inverse square law". Your exposure is orders of magnitude lower from "second-hand cellphones" than from using it yourself; it's not like second-hand smoking.

Not if there's a cell tower every 100 yards putting out 30dB more power than your phone. The inverse square law also doesn't apply when you have phased arrays doing beamforming if you're directly in the path.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#363
post #351
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You conflated ionising and non-ionising radiation (flying/banana/chest x-ray vs. radio waves, wifi, light from lightbulbs). Just so you know. Your point still stands though, although i would say we're bathed in more intense radiation than 5G and have been bathing in it for millenias - sunlight is radiation as well! Better live underground, i guess. Oh, oh, but what about skin cancer you say? That's caused by sunlight…

Humans kinda need sunlight to generate enough vitamin D. So if you live in a cave, that's not going to be good for you either. But sunlight causes cancer too, so what should you do? I think it should be pretty obvious that we can't avoid radiation, and we were evolved to handle a certain amount of it.

Live in a cave and consume copious amounts of fish (oil)! Die of something other than cancer.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#364
post #147

I clicked on a few links and Googled a few names. It's roughly what I'd expect: People with few publications now working in other fields, people without scientific publications, but university degrees, people who regularly speak at events from radiation critics, people who are invested in other fringe theories. People get fooled by "large lists of peer-reviewed publications". Peer review is a lowest level quality mar…

Also the World Health Organization (WHO) is cited: https://www.iarc.fr/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr208_E.pdf "Lyon, France, May 31, 2011 ‐‐ The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer1 , associated with wireless phone use."

The "possibly carcinogenic" declaration is quite weak ("evidence far from conclusive").

Even if it was "carcinogenic to humans", there's a lot of things that are vital to modern society which fall into that category. It's then up to the regulators to guess an "acceptable" limit of exposure.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds horrible. May I ask, what symptoms do you suffer from? Is the condition recognized anywhere? Has anyone explored treatments? Sadly the only other mention I've ever seen is the fictional series "Better Call Saul". And the character's suffering was depicted as entirely mental.

> And the character's suffering was depicted as entirely mental. That's because it is entirely mental. Blind tests were done on people, and their ability to recognise a radiation source was the same as random picking. Anybody claiming to be able to sense radiation can be tested simply by taking two mobile phones, turning one off (leaving one connected to the internet and doing something online), putting both in a bag…

That doesn't sound like a great test since I don't think the apparatus is there to detect where signals are coming from, just (in theory) whether there are any.

I hate to admit it, but I seem to notice effects when I add wireless networks to my home. I think it's probably psychosomatic, but would like to do a blind test. I would situate myself between wireless devices, with all devices within 10 meters either being on or off, the test being to determine if any devices are on. I would feel weird asking anyone to help in this, so perhaps I'll rig something up with smart plugs or a programmable router.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#367

The thing is that there's really ton of evidence that non-ionizing radiation is not significantly harmful to humans at levels that don't cook you. If you want to counter that you can't just pile up small studies that might be hinting at possibility that there might be some other effect. You need a smoking gun. Single study, but bulletproof and large, showing strong effect. Everything else will be dismissed as "maybe,…

This comment explains precisely why the dismissal from so many here. Correlational studies without a plausible causal mechanism are highly suspect. As an illustration, people have used obviously bogus examples like, in the past 100 years, piracy has risen. So has global warming. Therefore, pirates cause global warming. Unless a 5G study specifically addresses the mechanism, and how non-ionizing radiation can cause da…

wouldn't all that depend on tge specific signal transmitted? If you just look at random memory access, you'll find that it's not prone to corruption. That didn't stop rowhammer for example.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#368
post #355
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Between Gamma rays and 3G is UV. Between UV and 3G is visible light. Between visible light and 3G is IR, one of which is the heat human bodies give off. Do warm blooded animals cause cancer? Because they're still a far higher frequency than 3G and the wattage of a human at rest is 100W which is roughly equivalent. Do hugs cause cancer? If yes, then we can start narrowing it down to 3G/5G more after that. But by that…

Microwaves are around 2.4G yet they can pump a lot of energy into water, and that can be an unintended side effect with WiFi. Of course that's one thing that we know about, we can reason about, and that's why people are not getting boiled.

Yes, wattage matters. The comment you responded to covered that.

> the wattage of a human at rest is 100W which is roughly equivalent.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#369

I'd be interested in seeing signatures from people at institutions I recognize and trust. There are a lot of people with degrees FROM credible institutions, but very little in terms of currently being researchers in the field AT credible institutions. It's not hard to find 250 wackos if you pull random scientists working in random fields at random institutions. Most have no better way to know safety of 5G than I do.…

Why is being below visible light a factor? Different wavelengths have different properties that don't necessarily map linearly with frequency, such as the ability to pass through your body.

Re: “We have no reason to believe 5G is safe”

#370
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think making an antenna that can detect an LED shining in a flat miles away is crazy because pockets are transparent?

No. Amateur radio operators have done it, and it’s not difficult to imagine how one would.

That doesn't make it any less amazing.
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