I do not like wireless

[KickAss]

No offence and please do hold on to and be proud of your beliefs.

Belief in pseudo-science is nothing to be proud of.


- Neelix

And who are you to judge?

There's lots of science labeled bullshit all around us.


Just because we believe an approach of a possible solution might look somewhat scientific its not automatically of any quality or even valid.


Can you truely say you can correctly grasp "scientific" results by their significance and impact in every case? Only few can.


A man is free to believe whatever he wants. Give a guy some peace.

 

[Neelix]

I have no problems with belief in and of itself.   Belief in pseudo-science however is nothing more or less than gullibility,  being willing to believe what any snake oil salesman is willing to sell you.   If you value that so highly I have a bridge to sell you....

- Neelix

 

[Binky]

There's belief in science - which is grounded in experiments and propagated by people who want to know the truth

There's belief in religious teaching, which is grounded in cultural history and propagated by people who think they already know the truth.

Then there's belief in pseudoscience, which is grounded in profiteering and propagated by people who don't give a tiddlywink about the truth.

 

[KickAss]

I do value freedom.

I also do value criticism. Just as you do. "Pseudo-science" is just as superficial as "science".

Talking about snake oil we might stand on equal terms, as it is obvious to us now (prolly might not have been 100 years ago).

2+2=4 also seems obvious.

Talking about long term health issues based on wifi and/or other radio signal exposure is a totally different game. Simply because we dont have the data to analyze, yet. Available results in that matter can very well be both: science or pseudo science.

You are right of course: if something turns out to be clearly wrong, theres no point in believing its still right (i.e. being proud of pseudo science). But to be honest, can we really tell at the time being?

As soon as religion comes into play educated ppl tend to go down the pseudo science road as if science was a means to describe personal beliefs. You said you dont do that, so im not accusing you of doing so.

Actually i do believe we have a similar point of view.

As we agree on freedom and criticism, i do value freedom a lot more.

(A lot more than criticism, that is. NOT more than you do value freedom.)

 

[Klumpen]

Heisenberg principle, Gödel's incompleteness theorems and Chaos theory

show us, that science as we knew it for hundreds of years can rather not explain and predict everything sometime in the future like it was promised,

therefore it crumbles as well, like the religious thought model back in the old days.

But at least it's a step ahead of the very old model (that does not need any proofs)

which still seems to be preferred by some people...

 

[Binky]

we dont have the data to analyze, yet

 This wikipedia quote, again:

Seven studies were found which did report an association, while 24 could not find any association with electromagnetic fields. However, of the seven positive studies, two could not be replicated even by the original authors, three had serious methodological shortcomings, and the final two presented contradictory results. Since then, several more double-blind experiments have been published, each of which has suggested that people who report electromagnetic hypersensitivity are unable to detect the presence of electromagnetic fields and are as likely to report ill health following a sham exposure, as they are following exposure to genuine electromagnetic fields.%5B24%5D%5B25%5D%5B26%5D

---

In January, 2010 Rubin et al. published a follow up to their original review which included 15 experiments done since the last original review, bringing the totals up to 46 double-blind experiments and 1175 individuals with claimed hypersensitivity. The study confirmed the results of the original, claiming "no robust evidence could be found" to support the hypothesis that electromagnetic exposure causes EHS. The review also found that the studies included did support the role of the nocebo effect in triggering acute symptoms in those with EHS.[28]

We do have the data.

 

[KickAss]

We do have the data.

That's what we thought concerning x-ray. Or smoking.

How is testing the ability to sense the presence of an electromagnetic field and hypersensitivity during that test long term?

 

[WizardStan]

That's what we thought concerning x-ray. Or smoking

No, that is so wrong I don't even know where to begin.

 

[KickAss]

Could you elaborate?

 

[hedwards]

This whole thing is bullshit. If you are afraid of all these things then go live under a rock or something

I've yet to see any credible evidence that WiFi is strong enough to have any meaningful impact. And last I checked the radiation coming from it was non-ionizing anyways, so it's not going to cause cancer.

However, some devices that emit radiation do cause problems in some people. I could never go into the TV section of a major electronics retailer because it would cause my tinnitus to act up. Same goes with some of those tag detectors that retailers use to figure out if people are smuggling things out in their coats. But, that's been years, so I think they figured out how to turn the juice down so that it's no longer an issue.

 

[hedwards]

I have no problems with belief in and of itself.   Belief in pseudo-science however is nothing more or less than gullibility,  being willing to believe what any snake oil salesman is willing to sell you.   If you value that so highly I have a bridge to sell you....

- Neelix

I agree.

But, there's an awful lot of pseudo-science that even mainstream people believe in. Psychology is a good example. There's very little credible evidence to back any of that. And some of it is outright contradicted by work being done in terms of behavioral neurology. Probably the best example is the choice of the APA to link an inability to enjoy things with an unwillingness to go out and get things that would improve ones situation. They're both considered to be depression by the psychologists, but they're known to be on different neural circuits.

 

[FBnil]

I read this thread from the top, wow... it really goes places... Ill try to make a fun comment and stay offtopic (in a non-sequitur type of way) as possible...

There cyanide in apples. The seed in the clock-house contains some to prevent it from being eaten by bacteria.

>>with two choices: either it is magic and not bound by the laws of nature, or it is a lie.
Advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

>>Notably, the part about (almost) everything being made up of electrons, neutrons and protons.
Those things do not exist. Now, quarks, however...
Or even, if you beleive in the fractal universe, then quarks are divisible too...

>>2+2=4

This is not obvious at all; this is pure math, but you need to give it a reference (applied science, empirical science is, well, empirical).

Two ducks plus two foxes.... is four ears total! (either the ducks do not have ears, or have been eaten by the foxes...)

Outside of a Hamiltonian field space, two plus two not always equals four....

Sorry, I learned this stuff in spanish, so I'm not acquainted with the english terminology: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuerpo_%28matem%C3%A1ticas%29

In there, a+b <> b+a and such...

>>However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.
If a slave gets ill, you had to take care of him/her. Now, you can just fire them.


>>That if everything is made of frequencys then there will be truths that hold true to everything
Ah, m-brane theory. All is sound/vibration/verb. Yes, some frequencys are disruptive, for example a high-power line induces leukemia, especially in children.
The nearer (and more powerful) the source, the worse. So do not sleep on electric blankets (when powered), or have bluetooth phonethingies in your ears.
You can amplify the frequency of quartz by using a small current. The quartz starts vibrating so evenly, that you can measure time with it.



>>"Pseudo-science" is just as superficial as "science".
Nope, Pseudo-science, or quack science gave birth to this mirikal tonic called Coca-Cola (which could cure all ailments)... unfortunately, now a days it does not contain coca, and is more of just a cola.
Science gave you blackholes... what would you rather have? a Cola or a black hole?


Stuff to look up yourself:

Everybody knows what a propeller is, now an impeller, that is fascinating!

There are over 16 studies concluding that smoking does not cause health problems. Why did they not believe and kept on making studies?

Steam. You can tap energy out of it because the volume of steam is so much higher than water. So, if your engine is hot after 10-20 minutes of running, then you can use a small amount of water to replace part of the gasoline and the engine will keep on running... on less fuel, with the same power.

>>But, there's an awful lot of pseudo-science that even mainstream people believe in. Psychology is a good example.
Yes! The depraved village idiot called Freud... burn all his books!

Got some time to listen to this?

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YWoHLcHC0oM?feature=oembed

 

[Binky]

So, if your engine is hot after 10-20 minutes of running, then you can use a small amount of water to replace part of the gasoline and the engine will keep on running... on less fuel, with the same power.

But...

Water is more dense than petrol.

And fuel feeds generally take petrol from near the bottom of the tank.

So you'd need an emulsion of water and petrol in you fuel tank for this to have a chance of working.

How are you going to manage that?

There are over 16 studies concluding that smoking does not cause health problems. Why did they not believe and kept on making studies?

More info needed!

How well conducted were those studies?

Were they contradicted by a large number of contemporary studies?

Were they funded by tobacco companies?

Science gave you blackholes... 

Nonono.

Science told us about black holes. they were there all along.

 

[Klumpen]

Science gave you blackholes... 

Nonono.

Science told us about black holes. they were there all along.

Did you ever see and touch one?

 

[Binky]

Why do I get the feeling you aren't taking this seriously?

 

[WizardStan]

Could you elaborate?

I just said I can't. What you said has so many things wrong I don't know where to start, nor which points would actually be relevant to you. The comparison just doesn't even begin to work and I can't figure out how to say it in a way that doesn't sound like rambling. I could explain, it would just go on for quite a while and be very difficult to put together unless you already had a firm grasp on all the details, and I honestly don't care enough about your education to put that much effort into something that would be such a complicated mess.It's a very vague assertion, maybe if you made a more specific statement? Instead of just a general "this is like that" maybe something more specific like "this is like that because whatever which means blah"?

 

[_wb_]

I'm not concerned about wifi, but I do think more investigation is needed into cellphones. All kinds of radiation follow an inverse square law, so distance matters a lot, and cellphones you tend to hold close to your brain. It is never easy to study long-term effects of anything, but this could very well be like smoking tobacco - smoking one cigarette or even a pack a day for a few years is not going to have much measurable effect, but a life time of smoking will increase your chances of getting lung cancer significantly. There currently is nobody who has been using a cell phone for an entire life time.

Anyway, I think these matters should be studied in a scientific way, independently of the major stakeholders (not funded by them), and using the principle of precaution: not immediately finding evidence that something is dangerous, is not a definitive proof that it is safe. Now in most cases the required research to pass safety regulations is rather short term (and of course it's easy to see the reason why; nobody wants to delay new technology too much), while we know that many potential dangers work in a cumulative way and require long term research to be discovered -- but that is obviously expensive, hard, and takes a long time.

Tinfoil hat paranoid religious nutjobs like the OP make it easy to dismiss legitimate health concerns as being unscientific quackery (and what they're saying of course invariably is), but we shouldn't let the pendulum swing too much in the other direction. Yes, science works well as a method for discovering truth about natural phenomena. I'm ready to defend it anytime. But it's a never-ending story, and the scientific consensus can change based on new investigations. It's never a bad idea to investigate something more closely. It's rarely a good idea to say "this issue has been completely sorted out, here is science's final answer".

So can the tinfoil hats, tree-hugging hippies, new-age mysticists and religious nutjobs please shut up? All they're doing is giving real scientists, who are concerned about real potential dangers, a bad name, and making it even harder for them to get their research funded.

 

[moxie]

What he says

Yes, science works well as a method for discovering truth about natural phenomena. I'm ready to defend it anytime. But it's a never-ending story, and the scientific consensus can change based on new investigations. It's never a bad idea to investigate something more closely. It's rarely a good idea to say "this issue has been completely sorted out, here is science's final answer".

 

And in a way that is the point of science - To never say "This is the final answer". Everything is always up for reevaluation.The point of science is continually discovering that we were wrong before.

 

[Klumpen]

And in a way that is the point of science - To never say "This is the final answer". Everything is always up for reevaluation.The point of science is continually discovering that we were wrong before.

At first, in theory and in some places still, yes.

Since science is commercialized more and more, the point of it is to create stuff that you can sell and statistics to say, that you need this and it does not harm you.

Pharmaceutical companies seem to make most money out of it in collaboration with chemical, psychological and medical "science".

"Science" without free research should get another name,

the term gets abused every day.

 

[moxie]

"Science" without free research should get another name, the term gets abused every day.

 

Won't argue with that, mate.