Archive
Please Don’t Build a Cellphone Tower Because We’re “Afraid of the Unknown”
Photo by Joe Ravi
The CBC reports that residents of Surrey and Port Coquitlam, BC are petitioning against the construction of two new cell phone towers in the area.
There is a proposal on the table to build two cell phone towers in the area of Cloverdale, as people often complain of losing their cell phone signal in this area.
Some residents oppose the construction mainly due to fear of health effects from the radiation emitted by the towers.
The CBC interviewed a Coquitlam resident, Andrea Gretchev, and asked what she thought the tower construction would do and why she opposed its construction,
“I can’t say that this causes anything in particular, because I don’t know,” Gretchev said. “But because I don’t know, I don’t want to live next to a cell tower.”
Fear of the unknown is a natural human response and I can’t begrudge the residents this natural instinct.
But for comparison, lets look at the situation of me being afraid of the dark when I was a child.
I was afraid of the dark because I didn’t know what was out there. I was afraid of the unknown. As soon as my Dad turned the light off, there could be monsters, or aliens, or giant-ass bugs waiting to attack me.
Periodically, I would race to the light-switch and turn on the light, exposing everything in the room to electromagnetic radiation (in the visible range, of course).
At once, I realized nothing was there. I was safe. I didn’t have to be afraid anymore.
Eventually, I learned that there really was nothing to fear when the lights went out. Just because I couldn’t see the rest of my room, didn’t mean I had to be afraid of it.
So is there a similar “light-switch” in this situation that we can flip on so the residents of southern British Columbia don’t have to be afraid of cell phone radiation anymore? Why yes there is. And its scientific data.
Seeing as I’ve written on this issue many, many times before, I won’t rehash all my past arguments. But the scientific data is quite clear that there is absolutely no credible evidence that cell phone radiation causes adverse health effects.
You would think that this information would be enough, but I’ve had enough experience debating this issue that I know this is not nearly enough.
“Science has been wrong before,” is the counter-argument I most often hear.
“Well,” I reply, ” should we then also be afraid of broccoli?”
“What do you mean?” my opponent asks.
“Science has shown that broccoli is quite healthy for us. But if science has been wrong before, should we therefore avoid broccoli completely? Just in case?”
So when debating the issues, lets stick to the facts and not logical fallacies.
I know its tough. There are a lot of quacks out there trying to convince us that cell phones and power lines and Wi-Fi are dangerous, in complete opposition to all of the credible scientific evidence.
Hell, if you do a Google search for any of these topics, no doubt you will find more fear-mongering websites talking about the “possible” dangers with electromagnetic fields than references to scientifically valid papers.
Scientists may not have the Search Engine Optimization teams that these fringe websites do, but they have the truth on their side. And the truth continues to indicate that we have no reason to fear our phones.
Still not convinced? Have a look at this map showing all the cell phone towers in the lower British Columbia area (also available as an iPhone app):
Map of all cellular phone towers in the lower British Columbia area.
In this sea of towers already in existence, and all those near your house that you have been living peacefully beside for the past several years, will two more really make a difference?
More than that, with the explosion of cell phone use and cell tower construction in the last decade, isn’t is odd that no increase in cancer rates have been seen?
We should have at least seen a small effect by now if there were any health risks associated with these towers or cell phone use.
But again, I’ve had this argument enough to know that data and common sense won’t convince anybody. Anything new and widespread will inevitably cause people to be afraid. Much like microwave ovens did in the 1950s and 60s.
By the way, no adverse health effects have ever been reported with the proper use of a microwave oven. I guess we will have to wait about 60 years before people will start chilling out about their cell phones.
Homeopathy: There’s Nothing In It
This coming weekend, protesters from 10 different countries and 23 different cities will be overdosing on Homeopathic remedies in the 10:23 campaign.
Don’t worry. They’ll be fine.
The point of the demonstration is not only show that homeopathic remedies are nothing more than sugar pills and are merely placebos, but also to gain some publicity and get the word out that Homeopathy is pseudoscientific nonsense.
There are several Canadian cities participating in the demonstration as well:
- Montreal
- Vancouver
- Toronto
- Ottawa
- Kitchener
- Edmonton
- Winnipeg
For those who don’t know, 10:23 is a reference to Avogadro’s number, which is 6.022 x 1023. It is a number used frequently in chemistry to link the number of atoms of a particular substance to the mass of the substance (specifically it is the number of atoms in 12 grams of the Carbon-12 isotope). In essence it links the microscopic and macroscopic world.
It is a fitting name for this campaign since homeopathic remedies are diluted to the point that virtually (or literally) no atoms or molecules of active ingredient remains. The products are, in fact, only sugar pills.
The event is being organised by the Merseyside Skeptics Society. The event will culminate on February 6th when more than 300 people will overdose on homeopathic “medicine” at the QED conference in Manchester.
This comes at a particularly good time in Canada. The recent episode of Marketplace on CBC about Homeopathy (called “Cure or Con”) has raised quite a stir. In that episode, a small group of skeptics in Vancouver gave a demonstration of an overdose of homeopathic medicine. Nothing happened.
So hopefully this weekend’s events will garner some strong media attention and help expose this practice for what it is: nonsense.
We’ve All Wondered It: How Long Can You Wear Jeans Without Washing Them?
When I was in first year university, living in rez, I probably wore the same pair of jeans for about a month before washing them. I thought it was a little gross, and my mom would have my head if she ever found out, but I did it.
Yeah they smelled a little bit, but laundry just takes so long and I had this paper due and that girl wouldn’t call me back…
But I digress.
So how long can you really wear a pair of jeans without washing them? One student from the University of Alberta put it to the test.
As reported on the CBC, Josh Le wore “skin-tight” jeans for 15 months (did we need to know they were skin-tight?) without washing them, from September 2009 to December 2010.
But he actually did do a bit of science here. After 15 months he swabbed the jeans for bacteria. Then, he washed the jeans, wore them for 2 weeks and swabbed them again, and compared the results.
Josh Le, with his pair of skin tight jeans that he wore for 15 months straight. (John Ulan/Canadian Press)
And wouldn’t you know? The results were about the same!
“They were similar,” [Le’s Professor Rachel McQueen] said of the bacteria count of the freshly washed pair, compared to the pre-washing levels. “I expected they would still be much lower than after 15 months.”
So although the jeans were technically not infested, they did start to smell a bit.
“I triple-bagged them and put them in the freezer,” [Le] said.
Ok, so you COULD wear your jeans for months and they wouldn’t be any more infected with viruses or bacteria than a usual wear of a week or so. But the real question is: should you?
Whether Josh had a date in those 15 months was not mentioned. And frankly, his professor is kind of cute, so I don’t think he should have shown her those jeans.
But, anything in the name of science. Good for you Josh! I admire your gumption.
Thanks To CBC Marketplace’s Erica Johnson
A few days ago, I wrote a post about the CBC Marketplace episode on Homeopathy called “Cure or Con?”
I was quite pleased with the episode, and made that known. I also decided I would send my appreciation to the host of the show, Erica Johnson via Twitter.
I didn’t expect a response, but to my surprise she was kind enough to this nerdy little internet blogger a message back.
There certainly is a lot of animosity towards her and the episode from homeopaths, mainly because they are running out of options on how to defend their practice. The evidence is quite clear that homeopathy is nothing but a placebo, and homeopaths are bilking honest consumers out of their money.
Perhaps more importantly, they are putting people at a huge health risk if they choose homeopathic remedies rather than real medicine.
Just know that you have lots of supporters Erica, and don’t let the Homeopaths nonsense get to you!
CBC Marketplace Crushes Homeopathy
Homeopathy is bull. 100% pure organic bull.
And for once, reality TV delivered everything I had hoped for.
An episode of CBC’s Marketplace aired tonight puts homeopathy to the test. I watched it, and I still can’t believe how happy I was with the episode.
I was expecting some science with mostly woo trying to make a “balanced” view for the story. Boy was I pleasantly surprised.
In this weeks episode, CBC Marketplace host Erica Johnson heads out to try and find the evidence of efficacy behind homeopathy. What she finds is excuses, loopholes and shrugging shoulders.
One homeopath even went so far as to warrant the treatment of stage 1 breast cancer with homeopathy. A claim met with (unexpected) skepticism from this TV show. How does it work? “We’re not really sure” she replied. Are you freakin’ kidding me!?!
The episode also featured a piece about a group from the Canadian group from the Centre for inquiry, a skeptic group, who went outside a Vancouver hospital and purposefully overdosed on a variety of homeopathic medicines. The result? Yeah they’re fine.
But as one of them pointed out, the real tragedy would be if someone gave their child homeopathic medicines instead of real medicine. In fact, homeopaths are selling “vaccines” for a huge range of diseases, including whooping-cough and, yes even polio. Are you freakin’ kidding me!?!
Homeopathic remedies have no active ingredient. None, whatsoever. They have been diluted to the point that no single pill has any active ingredient in them. To think that these pills could actually have any effect on the body is ludicrous. Yet because of tradition, these medicines have been given credence and even legitimacy by the Canadian government.
It is incredibly irresponsible of our government to give this kind of credibility to a product that, well, has no credibility! Its crap!
Homeopathy has been debunked time, and time, and time again. It has no credible science behind it, no logic behind it, and now it doesn’t even have the CBC behind it (whom I have criticized of late).
So great job CBC. Hopefully Ontario takes the hint and will get rid of its plans to regulate the sale of homeopathic medicine and call it “witchcraft” like the British government.
Update: You can now watch the full CBC Marketplace episode of “Cure or Con” here.
Be Afraid of Your Wi-Fi! Be Very Afraid!
Wow. I cannot believe this is still in the news.
Its one of those things you hope only happens once and you never hear about it again. Like the Star Wars Holiday Special.
But unfortunately, the Wi-Fi hysteria remains in the news. This time with a couple of new foot soldiers. They include a drama teacher from Brock University, and a self-proclaimed specialist named Barrie Trower.
And perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but the reporting of this story in the CBC is really starting to irk me. Lets explore shall we?
I wrote previously about the parents in Simcoe county in Northern Ontario were claiming that Wi-Fi was making their children sick. The supposed dangers of Wi-Fi has been dismissed by teachers, the World Health Organization, Health Canada and scientists worldwide; as it should be.
But proponents of the evils of technology continue to drag the story out and spread fear throughout the community. With a little help from their friends, the news media.
Take, for example, this audio clip of an interview on CBC with Barrie Trower.
Barrie Trower on CBC Metro News
Trower claims to have worked for the British military in the 1960s on experiments dealing with low-level microwave radiation. He claims that they caused adverse health effects; everything from affecting the blood brain barrier to the immune system. He is quite vague and never explains what frequencies or power levels of microwaves he studied.
A couple of my favourite quotes from the audio file are these:
I have a document here…it lists all of the illnesses that children and adults can get from very low-level microwave radiation. And it specifically says on the top…this must be kept secret…the ordinary general population must not be told because it will affect industrial profit.
What is this document? Who wrote it? There are no specifics given about the origin of this mysterious document. Trower claims he gets it from the freedom of information act, but if that were true he should have given us the specifics so we could look up the document for ourselves. I am skeptical…
When I saw Wi-Fis being put in schools at the same powers and the same levels that were used in the 1960s for experiments, I knew straight away that there were hidden dangers to the young children.
You knew straight away, did you Mr. Trower? What about when Wi-Fi was being put into offices, Universities, laboratories, airports, and coffee shops? Did you not think there was a danger then? It seems interesting to me that only when the story about the Simcoe area parents came out, did Mr. Trower decided that he should reveal to everyone about the secret 50 year old experiments that he did with microwaves.
Nor has Mr. Trower provided and clear arguments or evidence (at least, to the news outlets) that Wi-Fi poses any sort of threat to anyone.
And what about the other British scientists that performed these experiments? I find it odd that they all wouldn’t want to come out and save chidren’s lives if they thought that Wi-Fi was dangerous.
While the interviewer sounds slightly skeptical, he fails to ask the right questions to point out the weaknesses in what this man is saying, so thats YOUR fault CBC.
Now lets move on to the drama teacher from Brock University, one David Fancy. Said Fancy,
It’s not necessarily up to me to say that they cause harm. I think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that they do. But we certainly can’t say with any conclusive level that they’re safe.
Actually David, yes we can. There is a large body of literature which has studied and reported the effects of exposure to microwave radiation. The conclusion is that at the frequencies and powers associated with cellular phones, cell phone towers and Wi-Fi, the exposure level does not pose any danger.
In fact, 1 years worth of exposure to a wireless signal is roughly the same exposure as you would get in a 20 minute cell phone call. And in a recent large scale study, the long term effects of cellular phone use has not shown any mal-effects over the past 10 years.
Now, just to be fair, there is a small smattering of studies which suggest a health effect from low level microwave exposure, which these fear-mongerers can spout of the top of their heads. However, one has to take into account the entire volume of literature, not just a few isolated studies (most of which have had their conclusions contested).
You see, when a subject is studied as much as RF radiation, there is bound to be some random noise in the results of individual studes; particularly if the studies involve small sample sizes. This is completely expected. What is important is what the overall picture of the studies is, and that picture is that Wi-Fi is safe.
You can all relax now.
This all would be clear in the news stories, if the news outlets bothered to get an actual expert opinion. Why haven’t the CBC gone and interviewed physics Professors or doctors or biologists or RF engineers? Doesn’t this seem like an obvious thing to do?
Apparently not, and its having an effect. On a CBC poll about 1/3 of parents are concerned about Wi-Fi and its health effects. Kudos CBC on causing fear in these parents minds.
Sadly, talking to Physicists doesn’t boost ratings (unless maybe its Phil Plait) so we won’t get those opinions in the news. You have to go and search them out yourselves.
Wi-Fi the New Danger to Children…Apparently
Well, as if we didn’t have enough to be afraid of in the pseudoscientific world, now we have to be afraid of our wireless internet connection.
Parents in Barrie and other northern Ontario towns have called the public school board to remove its recently installed Wi-Fi system because, they claim, it is making their children sick.
The symptoms include memory loss, trouble concentrating, skin rashes, hyperactivity, night sweats and insomnia.
These are extremely non-specific symptoms, and most of them can describe pretty much every young child I know at some point in their lives.
Said one of the parents:
“I’m not saying it’s because of the Wi-Fi because we don’t know yet, but I’ve pretty much eliminated every other possible source.”
Really? You’ve eliminated EVERY possible source? Thats quite a bold statement when it comes to environmental factors.
Now, its hard to blame these parents for looking out for their kids, but this is a clear cut case of poor understanding of technology and media hysteria.
Oh yes, I’m talking about YOU CBC!
For example, take the “expert” they got to comment on this story, one Professor Magda Havas from Trent University (in my hometown of Peterborough, Ontario, incidentally).
So what does this professor say? From the CBC article:
Claims by Health Canada that Wi-Fi is safe provided exposures to radiation are below federal guidelines are “outdated and incorrect,” based on the growing number of scientific publications reporting adverse health and biological effects, Havas wrote.
Havas did her Ph.D in Botany, so what makes her an expert electromagnetism, I have no idea. But from her website (note the advertisement to her book at the bottom), it seems she is involved in fear mongering for just about every junk science theory about electromagnetism affecting humans, including the dangers of power lines and cell phones (all these technologies have repeatedly been shown to be safe).
It amazes me that they couldn’t find an actual expert in electromagnetism to comment on this story. But then, it wouldn’t increase readership would it?
But shall we interrupt this exercise in bad science and bad science reporting for some REAL science?
The energy deposition from a typical wireless signal is roughly 100 times less than exposure to a cell phone (which remember, has been shown to be a perfectly safe level). It is also thousands of times less than current government regulated safety levels, AND is less than normal background radio frequency radiation. Maybe that rat-bastard Ryan Seacrest and his Top 40 crap is making us all sick!
Now how about a bit of logic? The parents claim that these symptoms go away on the weekends. This makes no sense as children are exposed to wireless signals at their home, at the mall, the airport, restaurants, pretty much everywhere. If it was the Wi-Fi and these children are truly sensitive to it, they should be sick virtually all the time.
And what about children living in an apartment building, where there are literally dozens of wireless signals in their vicinity. Shouldn’t they be affected at home as well? Shouldn’t this be more widespread?
Ok, so when I start freaking out about stuff like this, my lovely girlfriend invariably asks “So what COULD it be, if not the Wi-Fi?”
My Lovely Girlfriend. Yes, I have one!
Well, remember these symptoms: trouble concentrating, hyperactivity, insomnia, night sweats. This sounds like me when I was a kid. I was always having trouble sleeping and running around like a madman. These tended to go away on the weekend though, when I could just relax and play video games. Also, kids don’t like school; they could get stressed out and cause these symptoms, which would of course go away on the weekends and in the summer. They may be staying up too late on weeknights, so sleep deprivation could easily cause some of these symptoms.
Want to know what I really think is happening? I think a child got sick with something, and an over-zealous parent read something about Wi-Fi being dangerous on the internet. They heard that the school had recently installed Wi-Fi and BAM! you got yourself the perfect storm of fear.
If you take nothing else from my blog, please take this: Correlation does NOT equal causation.
Just because these children got sick after (several months after, which is kinda weird. Shouldn’t they have gotten sick right away?) the school board installed wireless networks, does NOT mean wireless networks made these children sick.
I could just as easily say the sun rose after my alarm clock went off this morning, therefore my alarm clock caused the sun to rise. It is a logical fallacy and stories like this are riddled with them.
So don’t worry folks, your internet is just fine. Continue using your laptop (to read this blog, hopefully) and your cell phone without fear. With every new technology there will be those who try to convince you its bad. And unfortunately, there will also be protective parents to make a fuss over it.
A Quantum of Knowledge 