Your stated position is “can’t possible be true”. The authors that I have found have all stated “probably is not true but we are just not certain”. You have no first hand knowledge of the subject. The authors do. Your position is in opposition to the position of the people who actual study such things. Which makes your claim a “bigoted personal opinion”.
Communist lightning. The worst kind!
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Apposite, non?
Only if they’re witches.
What I got from your links was that studies have found no conclusive proof that anyone who claims ill effects from exposure to electromagnetism is capable of sensing the presence of the specific forms of electromagnetism for which they claim “hypersensitivity”. Which means, to me, that EMS self-diagnosis is best viewed with extreme skepticism.
Where, exactly, did you see any rigorous attempt to quantify the source of reported symptoms as a psychosomatic effect? I didn’t catch that at all. I saw some speculation and no research.
For example, the conclusion from your last link:
The symptoms described by “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” sufferers can be severe and are sometimes disabling. However, it has proved difficult to show under blind conditions that exposure to EMF can trigger these symptoms. This suggests that “electromagnetic hypersensitivity” is unrelated to the presence of EMF, although more research into this phenomenon is required.
Edit1: added last para quote.
Edit2: Note, I personally do not believe in self-reported EMS, nor do I believe in healing crystals or magnetic knee braces. Just pointing out that your conclusion is a bit overstated, that’s all.
We’ve basically got five hypotheses here:
“It’s related to electromagnetic fields,”
“It’s related to some other cause,”
“It’s psychosomatic,”
“It’s all in their heads,”
“It’s sometimes one and sometimes others.”
The first one is the easiest to test, but excluding it doesn’t necessarily point to any other. The second one is easy to test if we can identify specific possible causes. The fourth one is obnoxious.
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My position is “overwhelmingly likely not true”.
You can never be absolutely certain. But you still can be certain enough for the practical purposes.
I also don’t have to cover my posterior in an academic publication. It is a bit more difficult to openly call crap a crap in such medium.
My position is that electromagnetic hypersensitivity, or more accurately its causal link to EM fields, is about as real as homeopathy. Maybe a bit less, even.
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This is the nature of empirical knowledge and the scientific method. We can never “prove” anything in the absolute sense. Instead all we can do is document when something is shown to be false.
When the author of a scientific publication says they can’t be certain, that’s an acknowledgement of the limit of empirical research. What it isn’t is an excuse to ignore their findings.
Fact is a vast majority of the research on the subject of EMF sensitivity has consistently demonstrated humans lack the capacity to sense EMF from Wi-Fi, Cellphones, etc. How certain of this are they? Perhaps not entirely, but certainly beyond a reasonable doubt. Certainly enough where legislatures needn’t spend their time worrying about possible EMF effects.
That you have to resort to calling someone a bigot for dismissing this thoroughly examined topic really demonstrates just how flimsy the case for EMF sensitivity is.
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Wow, sounds legit to me, I’ll have three. 
…
Psychosomatic literally means it’s all in their heads.
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Uh, not it doesn’t.
In everyday speech, “it’s all in their heads” means “they’re making it up” and that gets used to dismiss invisible disabilities.
In hyper-literal interpretations, “it’s all in their heads” would also include toothaches, multiple sclerosis, pituitary tumors, my sensory issues, etc.
And, psychosomatic symptoms can affect other parts of the body, anyway.
Might be a tad more accurate to say that psychosomatic means it originates in their heads and has (depending on the symptoms) gone out to affect other parts of the body.
Yes. It’s caused by something in the head, not by something in the external environment, like a chemical, a virus, or radiation.
absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence.
unlike homeopathy, where there are no measurable chemical properties and no biological corollaries, even weak im fields are measurable, have real world effects, and can influence the behavior and ( if memory serves ) the reproduction of other species.
until i start hearing about more comprehensive human studies - and not just studies which, in their summary, seem designed to measure one possible effect, and poorly - i’m willing to maintain an open mind.
Really? You are going to use a Donald Rumsfeld quote to try and justify your position?
Rumsfeld said that in an effort to justify an intervention for which there was no intelligence to offer up as reason for going to war. He literally made this statement in an effort to distract from the fact that he knowingly had no proof for his claims.
I’m just attempting to point out that when people become victims of psychosomatic disorders, their symptoms can be very real, even if the supposed initial cause isn’t.
actually, i believe your referring to “known unknowns” which is indeed silly.
i was referring to a question of establishing the truth of a thing, and a phrase that comes up sometimes in science:
Well, there is a plenty of evidence of absence. When the subjects react to a sham stimulus they know about and do not react to a real one they do not know about, the causal link to the stimulus they insist on can be considered to Just Not Be There.
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See also
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WHAT IS THIS I DONT EVEN.
Here’s the Original Rumsfeld:
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always
interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns;
there are things we know we know. We also know there are known
unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not
know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t
know we don’t know.
That is brilliant. Not only does it sound lovely, it parses perfectly. As LanguageLog points out, [t]he quotation is impeccable, syntactically, semantically, logically, and rhetorically. There is nothing baffling about its language at all.
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