“Teach the controversy” works for climate deniers and creationists, might as well work for the greens who aren’t big at follow up.
Jill Stein is a fearmongering crank who thinks Wi-Fi harms children's brains
chromakey
#26
This isn’t faith vs science, it’s science vs science, and I think it’s fair to say that’s different.
Space_Monkey
#27
It really doesn’t. Speaking as someone who voted for her last election, and donated to her campaign this time around, this really pisses me off, enough that there’s no way I’m voting for her again. Looks like Republicans don’t have a monopoly on physics denialism. As a physicist, this pisses me off way more than backwards views on social issues, because it’s not a matter of opinion.
chromakey
#29
What’s not? I haven’t said how science works. There are plenty of examples of controversial issues that later turned out, upon further research, to be worthy of deeper scientific scrutiny. Case in point, fluoridation of water has been shown to have anticholinergic effects and may be associated with lower IQs in populations of children. (e.g.: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-childrens-health-grandjean-choi/ )
Who am I to say which scientific controversy involving modernity is not worthy of consideration? If I think something isn’t, maybe I’m just not asking the correct scientific questions of mother nature. This state of affairs can last decades, if prior examples are any guide. It hasn’t been proven that GSM transmissions from beside one’s brain are without long-term potential risk of harm. I’m not personally too concerned, but I won’t dismiss others’ concerns out of hand, either.
mewyn
#32
But it’s not controversial anywhere but in the media and with cranks. https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/no-a-rat-study-with-marginal-results-does-not-prove-that-cell-phones-cause-cancer-no-matter-what-mother-jones-and-consumer-reports-say/
This horse keeps getting beaten and the only thing that shows “results” is poor studies or marginal results in okay studies. If there were a link, even the faintest link, there would be an increase in instances in the population, and boy-howdy with 30 years now of lots of people having cell phones, we’d have seen it by now. We’ve been bathed in EM radiation of various intensities for well over a hundred years and there’s yet to be any evidence.
Jim_Kirk
#33
As far as cell phones, here’s the best I found:
Basically, some studies showed some correlation but the overall thinking is that there’s no risk. (And if there is, it’s likely thermal, not ionizing; physics works in many ways. I’ve got an infrared laser in my basement you wouldn’t want to get in front of 
.)
WiFi, unless you’re using your wireless router as a pillow would be even lower exposure.
Say what you will about Stein (and obviously everyone is 
), and yes, I disagree with the WiFi comment, but would (will) she change her mind upon learning more/new information about the issue? That, I think, would be more telling as far as I’m concerned.
And really, bOINGbOING, that title, “fearmongering crank”? Puh-lease.
chromakey
#34
Maybe so, maybe not. Not many people were using cell phones thirty years ago, and they operated on different frequencies with different kinds of modulation at different power levels with different antenna configurations. Digital wireless modes are relatively recent, and cellphones (as opposed to large bulky ‘car phones’) have only been in really widespread usage for about fifteen years. Again, just playing devil’s advocate here. (Full disclosure: I own and use a CDMA cell phone.)
I do agree the study is controversial, and I said so. But I’m certainly happy to wait for some further replication of the study before I dismiss its concerns as impossible. We simply don’t have a track record of people using a particular type of cell phone from youth to old age, so there are certainly use cases that don’t match prior harm and safety research in long-term scenarios.
timstellmach
#36
Why even have a Green Party, though, if you haven’t already said “screw this coalition-building business, anyway?” If she chooses to throw in with anti-science nutjobs, she’s got to own it.
bizmail_public
#39
I am working from memory.
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If you plot the incidence of brain cancers over the last 40 years, you get a very boring roughly flat plot. If you plot cell phone use over 40 yeas, you get a steeping rising plot. Thus, there is essentially no “dose-response” effect like one would expect for a purported carcinogen.
-
If cell phones were a source of cancer, shouldn’t the brain hemisphere closest to the cell phone be more likely to develop cancer? In which had do most people hold a cell phones? (reminder: ~90% of humans are right handed). Folks have looked, and the ratio of right- versus- left hemisphere brain cancers has stayed roughly 50-50 for the last several decades.
If cell phones are causing brain cancers, they are doing so in a very sneaky way.
But I understand the precautionary principle, so instead of embracing cell phones, I instead encourage you read up on the emissions from standard hair blowdryers. The cheap motors used are quite “dirrty” and often produce emissions up and down the electro-magnetic spectrum.
You are afraid of hairdryers, too, right?
Boundegar
#41
Still, vaccines should be treated like any medical procedure–each one needs to be tested and regulated by parties that do not have a financial interest in them.
Such as the hundreds of scientists at the NIH? Or is every single one of them beholden to corporate masters? If you go one step down that road, there is no possible evidence that will change your position. You may as well be a young-earth creationist.
anon68952647
#42
Yeah, well, it actually does beat the alternative.
Nobody really wants a nation run by the Greens. But they would provide a great balance on the other party (the Republocrats).
chromakey
#43
No “too” about it, I already said I own and use a cellphone to preclude exactly your sort of smear, there. Sorry, I’m not the flat-earther or the Luddite you are apparently looking for.
