[kwlug-disc] To WIFI or not to WIFI

[Steve Izma]

On Tue, Sep 03, 2024 at 07:20:08PM -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
> Subject: Re: [kwlug-disc] To WIFI or not to WIFI
> 
> On Tue, Sep 3, 2024 at 6:07 PM Steve Izma <sizma at golden.net> wrote:
> 
> > The discussion I participated in had nothing to do with brain
> > cancer. It was about the effects of electrical magnetic fields on
> > one of the ways in which biological cells communicate among
> > themselves. This has nothing to do with ionizing or non-ionizaing
> > radiation but more with overall body health and things like brain
> > fog.
> 
> 
> Brain cancer was certainly mentioned and discussed in the original
> thread, for example:
> 
> http://mail.kwlug.org/pipermail/kwlug-disc_kwlug.org/2022-October/021630.html

Okay, I worded it poorly. I was irritated that the issue of
safety was diverted into a narrow discussion of brain cancer, as
if that was the only issue to consider.

Doug's message (the above link) only mentioned brain cancer as an
example, but his message was essentially about broader health
concerns, which included what I thought was good commentary on
the interaction of several factors on biological injury. You
can't look at just one of them.

But the subsequent discussion veered toward a rather reductionist
argument about whether or not a single factor -- electro-magnetic
radiation -- causes cancer. Given that most of us on this list
spend a lot of time in buildings and rooms with equipment
emitting a wide variety and intensity of such radiation, I don't
think it says much about our prospects for health if we only
study one factor: brain cancer.

I was also trying to talk about the problem of who funds research
and how funding biases results -- which is an issue that not only
affects how confident we can (or cannot) be about health factors,
but also about the equipment we buy. This list is pretty good at
sharing lived experience about the technology we use. Such
observational data is usually derided by professionals, but I
think it's served us well, even though "there's no science behind
it."

	-- Steve


-- 
Steve Izma
-
Home: 35 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W6
Temporary residence: 36 Locust St., Kitchener, Ontario, Canada  N2H 1W7
E-mail: sizma at golden.net  cellphone: 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