[kwlug-disc] To WIFI or not to WIFI

[Steve Izma]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2022 at 12:26:19PM -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] To WIFI or not to WIFI
> 
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2022 at 10:52 AM Federer Fanatic <nafdef at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi, There are various hypothesized issues regarding exposure
> > to wifi
> 
> There is no science behind any of those claims.

The great thing about science and its doctrines is that there are
so many to choose from.

The problem is that most of the choices are expensive, in that
published peer-reviewed science mostly comes out of institutions
whose funding is geared towards commercialization of research. I
have spent nearly fifty years in scholarly publishing (mostly
social science) and I know what kind of research doesn't get
sufficient funds for making it through the process. It's usually
the counter-intuitive ideals that challenge the peers who hold
the reigns of acceptable publishing.

In respect to electro-magnetic radiation, even the capitalists
and militarists are needing to consider a revision of past
assumptions:
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2020/09/14/cockpit-electromagnetic-fields-are-harming-pilots-the-us-military-fears>

Microbiological research has shown that cells of all organisms
use some sort of electro-magnetic radiation for communication
(among other processes, such as chemical signalling and mRNA).
<https://deheynlab.ucsd.edu/research/em-communication/> It's
likely that cells learn to adapt to interference from external
EMR, but obviously such a process depends on many factors, many
of which won't help a lot of people exposed to them.

The problem, as shown by the concern with pilots' cockpits, is
that the accumulation of electro-magnetic energy is such
situations is easy to measure, but the effect of smaller amounts
on particular cells, still living within a human body, is very
hard to measure. Also the kind of effects that need to be
measured on a celluar level isn't well defined. It's easy to
argue that observable short-term damage can give strong clues to
causation, but detecting the connection to long-term damage is
much more expensive research -- and in whose interest would it be
undertaken? Think about how long it took to scientifically
connect cigarette smoking to cancer.

I worry that a statement like "there's no science" assumes that
the only legitimate science is that coming out of well-funded
institutions. There is a great deal of marginalized research that
raises doubts and questions about the dominant theories, and when
the major communications corporations and most governments
denounce such research efforts and ridicule questions about
things like 5G, we would do well to wonder what's behind this
apparent unity of scientific and political thinking.

Anyway, that's one of the reasons I quote from Stephen Jay Gould,
below.

	-- Steve

-- 
Steve Izma
-
Home: 35 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W6
E-mail: sizma at golden.net  phone: 519-745-1313
cell (text only; not frequently checked): 519-998-2684

==
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best – and
therefore never scrutinize or question.
    -- Stephen Jay Gould, *Full House: The Spread of Excellence
       from Plato to Darwin*, 1996