Rob Brotherton in his book “Suspicious Minds; why we believe conspiracy theories” (http://www.amazon.com/Suspicious-Minds-Believe-Conspiracy-Theories/dp/1472915615/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1461690107&sr=8-9&keywords=conspiracy+theory+books) makes the case that some people are more susceptible to conspiracies than others and that we all are susceptible to some degree. The tendency is that if you believe that vaccines cause autism you also believe Kennedy was killed by some mysterious cabal, microwaves cause cancer, fluorine is bad, etc. Brotherton argues these people aren’t stupid, they can give very involved, complex, logical arguments for their beliefs. But they often commit the fallacy (among others) that lack of evidence proves that something is being hidden or covered up. It is very hard to dispel that kind of thinking. The book is a fun read; I recommend it as giving insight into how conspiracists think.
As for microwaves and cell phones causing cancer; if this were true, there would have been a very dramatic and sudden increase in cancers following the widespread introduction of these devices. Historical cancer rates are available from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm and do not show a sudden increase (unless of course, maybe the CDC is covering up something ….!). You CAN see a distinct increase in lung cancer in men in the 40s following the widespread increase in smoking in the 20s and 30s, followed by a parallel increase of lung cancer among women two decades later as it became more acceptable for women to smoke. Most other cancer rates have remained approximately constant since the 30s with the exception of stomach cancer which has dropped significantly since the 40s, most likely due to better diets (fresh fruits and vegetables were only available seasonally until we started importing them year round).
I am no medical expert. Anyone have good websites (or other scientific
studies) to counter things mentioned in the one above? Not sure I will
ever be able to convince my friend otherwise...
I'd love to see citations for many of the statements:
"Higher risk of cancer and the long term effects of malnutrition."
"... there?s been mounting science based evidence, strong evidence,
that it?s time to ditch all use of microwave ovens."
"Most mainstream MDs may agree that direct contact with microwave
radiation ..."
"The two Swiss scientists published their findings and were quickly
sued."
WTF 1: "Check out hospital food as a partial confirmation of this
philosophy."
Regarding the 1992 Swiss study.
1. First, look at the citation for the study. It's not a study at all!
2. If there is a study. It was on EIGHT individuals. Statistics says
*garbage*.
2. It takes around five hours of digestion in the stomach before all
the food passes into the intestines and is absorbed into the
bloodstream. It takes around three hours to pass through the
intestines. Taking blood samples immediately before and after a meal
is meaningless.
If you read Hertel's quote, you can see massive distortions of
science.
Normal cooking includes browning -- Maillard reactions -- which
introduces a host of carcinogens. Browning also introduces flavor.
Mmmm :)
WTF 2: "Hertel went on to explain that the sun?s microwaves are based
on a pulsating direct current (DC)."
WTF 3: "The sun?s type of microwave radiation doesn't shear molecules"
I stopped reading at this point.
You won't convince your friend. Just like YEC's and CCD's.
Dr. Roy Jensen
(==========)-----------------------------------------?
Lecturer, Chemistry
W5-19, University of Alberta
780.248.1808
On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 22:31:36 -0400, you wrote:
A older friend of mine recently told me she does not use microwave ovens
because they are "harmful." A few days later she sent me this article:
I am no medical expert. Anyone have good websites (or other scientific
studies) to counter things mentioned in the one above? Not sure I will
ever be able to convince my friend otherwise...
Debunking myths is problematic. Unless great care is taken,
any effort to debunk misinformation can inadvertently reinforce
the very myths one seeks to correct. To avoid these ?backfire
effects?, an effective debunking requires three major elements.
First, the refutation must focus on core facts rather than
the myth to avoid the misinformation becoming more familiar.
Second, any mention of a myth should be preceded by explicit
warnings to notify the reader that the upcoming information is
false. Finally, the refutation should include an alternative
explanation that accounts for important qualities in the original
misinformation.
The most obvious clue to the clueness nature of the author is
prolonging the myth that microwaves cook from the inside out---they
don't!
In addition to that:
-- There's no reason to believe this "Hans Hertel" ever existed.
-- There's no reason to believe any such experiment was every carried out.
-- The alleged result was never published in any journal. Indeed there
are no contemporaneous reports of any kind.
-- The alleged result has never been replicated.
-- If such a brief experiment on such a small sample produced such
a large effect, the vast majority of the population would have
died of cancer already.
However, that speaks to the /evidence/. There is no reason to
believe that evidence matters in cases like this. People believe
that they want to believe, and make up "evidence" to support their
position. People are highly proficient at this, and always have
been. Cain cooked up a "reason" why it made sense to slay Abel.
This is related to the "cell phones cause brain cancer" conspiracy
theory. Once a guy sued AT&T. The theory was that microwaves from
the phone raised the temperature of his brain, leading to cancer.
AT&T won the case after it was revealed that the guy often wore
a hat ... which raised his brain temperature orders of magnitude
more than the phone did. This persuaded the jury, but did not
persuade the plaintiff, not even a little bit.
The "backfire effect" as discussed in the Debunking Handbook
explains a lot of what we see in politics these days. Certain
highly-skilled politicians have figured out how to cultivate
this effect. They've been laying the groundwork for years and
years. There is no way to fix it in the short term; any
attempted short-term fix can be expected to backfire.
To say the same thing another way: We can apply the scientific
method to itself:
Q: What is the evidence that the scientific method actually works?
A: For persuading your fellow scientists, it works great.
For the other 99.9% of the population, it doesn't work.
People believe what they want to believe.
According to "Hertel":
Atoms, molecules and cells hit by this hard electromagnetic radiation
are forced to reverse polarity 1 to 100 billion times a second.
There are no atoms, molecules or cells of any organic system able to
withstand such a violent, destructive power for any extended period
of time, not even in the low energy range of milliwatts.
Uhh, actually /red light/ has a frequency of 500,000 billion cycles
per second ... much "harder" than microwaves. Ordinary molecules
withstand red light just fine, and withstand microwaves vastly better.
Food in the microwave cooks because it gets hot.
It's just that simple. Really.
Since the microwave heats more evenly, it produces less /browning/
of the food via the Maillard reaction. Browning has some advantages
in terms of flavor ... but it has the disadvantage of producing a
small amount of acrylamide, which is a toxin and a suspected carcinogen.
So if I were going to bet, I would bet that microwaved food is /less/
carcinogenic than baked or broiled food.
It's an interesting open question of how to produce desirable
browning while minimizing the acrylamide byproduct.
If you smoke cigarettes, that's a larger source of acrylamide than
any dietary factor.
Hi Phys-L,
- So far everyone has dropped economics out of the picture.
- In the present case rational articles were probably turned away by the
medical journals which instead might INCLUDE irrational articles just to
help indirectly "prove" a false point when they got condemned by scientists.
- A case in point is the "controversy" about vaccines and autism. Virtually
all of the parents and all of the professionals are on opposite sides.
- - Do not believe what anyone says or writes until you spend plenty of
hours thoroughly examining both sides of this "controversy."
- - I have done my homework on this as it occupied much of my thinking for
I guess a year. Just search < Autism: Made in the USA transcript norwood >
Also see other vaccine documentaries.
- - Also see the articles by the proponents of vaccines.
- - One article, believed to be qualified, honest and truthful by many
scientists, was "unpublished" from a medical journal when the pressure from
the vaccine industry mounted.
- - As I say, don't believe me or anyone else until you have done your
homework.
Bill Norwood
U of MD at College Park
On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 8:43 AM, Richard Tarara <rtarara@saintmarys.edu>
wrote:
I doubt anything you can find (and just do a Google search for that) will
convince your friend, but the web site below is a good argument for
shutting down the Internet! The most obvious clue to the clueness nature of
the author is prolonging the myth that microwaves cook from the inside
out---they don't!
rwt
On 4/25/2016 10:31 PM, Anthony Lapinski wrote:
A older friend of mine recently told me she does not use microwave ovens
because they are "harmful." A few days later she sent me this article:
I am no medical expert. Anyone have good websites (or other scientific
studies) to counter things mentioned in the one above? Not sure I will
ever be able to convince my friend otherwise...