There have been double-blind tests performed, but the subjects were quite upset when they learned that apparently it wasn't the wifi signals making them sick, but the blinking lights on the wireless devices.
IE lights disabled, radios fully enabled, on highest power, transmitting data: No symptoms. Simulated status light activity, radios completely disabled and unpowered: symptoms. Lights & radio on : symptoms Lights & radio disabled: no symptoms.
Conclusion: Clearly we need to investigate the status l
A double-blind test only ensures that the researchers and the subjects are not aware of any information that may affect their actions during the test. What is being tested has no impact on whether something is double-blind or not, and likewise for revealing that information after the test.
That test is on the contrary quite revealing, since it correctly decorrelates radio signals from symptoms, thus refuting the hypothesis that radio signals are responsible for the symptoms.
I disagree. There is no reason at all to show lights if what you are really testing is sensitivity to radio signals. It is well known that humans are susceptible to suggestion. You can make people feel itchy by showing them pictures of mosquitos. You can make people feel warm by showing a rising thermometer. You can make people misidentify the taste of food by coloring it. Do those tests refute the fact that people can sense touch, temperature, or taste? Of course not.
I disagree. There is no reason at all to show lights if what you are really testing is sensitivity to radio signals.
There's no parlor tricks here. The lights are the placebo in a placebo-controlled study [wikipedia.org].
If you want to determine if a medicine is really the cause of the effect on patient's health - positive or negative - then you use a placebo to rule out the possibility that swallowing a huge pill or getting an injection itself is causing some psychological effect. You have the real medicine (lights+signal), fake medicine (lights + no signal), control group (no lights + no signal), and sometimes an alternative treatment (no lights + signal).
There is a known (or at least claimed) correlation between WiFi signals and reported illness. The test is designed to isolate the effects of perceivable stimulus (lights on the device) with the supposed cause of the illness (the invisible WiFi signals). Intuitively we all "know" that WiFi signals do not cause any physiological effects. But something is apparently effecting these people, and the test is aimed at figuring out what that something is. =Smidge=
Is there a name for an anti-placebo where you are giving them an actual drug but telling them it's a placebo to test if a patient thinking the drug does nothing is overcome by any actual benefits of the drug itself?
Is there a name for an anti-placebo where you are giving them an actual drug but telling them it's a placebo to test if a patient thinking the drug does nothing is overcome by any actual benefits of the drug itself?
You do realise that when you do these tests you don't actually tell the patients that they're placebos? Right?
Right, but scientifically, there might be value in telling a patient they are getting a placebo when administering a drug to see if they get better despite not believing they are getting treatment. It is the inverse of believing they are getting treatment when they aren't. Both might be scientifically valid. Though I think I have read that some people get better on placebos even if they are told it is a placebo. People are funny creatures...
Yeah. Basically, electro-mag sensitivity people have made up their minds that it's wifi, radio towers, etc - and nothing on this fucking Earth will ever, ever convince them otherwise. That's humanity for you.
What does Science have to say about this? (Score:5, Interesting)
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There have been double-blind tests performed, but the subjects were quite upset when they learned that apparently it wasn't the wifi signals making them sick, but the blinking lights on the wireless devices.
IE lights disabled, radios fully enabled, on highest power, transmitting data: No symptoms.
Simulated status light activity, radios completely disabled and unpowered: symptoms.
Lights & radio on : symptoms
Lights & radio disabled: no symptoms.
Conclusion: Clearly we need to investigate the status l
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What kind of double blind test is that? It seems deliberately misleading, which would seem to me to be the opposite of a blind test.
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That test is on the contrary quite revealing, since it correctly decorrelates radio signals from symptoms, thus refuting the hypothesis that radio signals are responsible for the symptoms.
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I disagree. There is no reason at all to show lights if what you are really testing is sensitivity to radio signals. It is well known that humans are susceptible to suggestion. You can make people feel itchy by showing them pictures of mosquitos. You can make people feel warm by showing a rising thermometer. You can make people misidentify the taste of food by coloring it. Do those tests refute the fact that people can sense touch, temperature, or taste? Of course not.
Now, I don't believe at all that
Re:What does Science have to say about this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. There is no reason at all to show lights if what you are really testing is sensitivity to radio signals.
There's no parlor tricks here. The lights are the placebo in a placebo-controlled study [wikipedia.org].
If you want to determine if a medicine is really the cause of the effect on patient's health - positive or negative - then you use a placebo to rule out the possibility that swallowing a huge pill or getting an injection itself is causing some psychological effect. You have the real medicine (lights+signal), fake medicine (lights + no signal), control group (no lights + no signal), and sometimes an alternative treatment (no lights + signal).
There is a known (or at least claimed) correlation between WiFi signals and reported illness. The test is designed to isolate the effects of perceivable stimulus (lights on the device) with the supposed cause of the illness (the invisible WiFi signals). Intuitively we all "know" that WiFi signals do not cause any physiological effects. But something is apparently effecting these people, and the test is aimed at figuring out what that something is.
=Smidge=
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Is there a name for an anti-placebo where you are giving them an actual drug but telling them it's a placebo to test if a patient thinking the drug does nothing is overcome by any actual benefits of the drug itself?
Re: (Score:1)
Is there a name for an anti-placebo where you are giving them an actual drug but telling them it's a placebo to test if a patient thinking the drug does nothing is overcome by any actual benefits of the drug itself?
You do realise that when you do these tests you don't actually tell the patients that they're placebos? Right?
Re: (Score:2)
Right, but scientifically, there might be value in telling a patient they are getting a placebo when administering a drug to see if they get better despite not believing they are getting treatment. It is the inverse of believing they are getting treatment when they aren't. Both might be scientifically valid. Though I think I have read that some people get better on placebos even if they are told it is a placebo. People are funny creatures...
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The Nocebo Effect.
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There's a thing called nocebo which is similar to that.
Believing a thing will harm or diminish help in some way. Works at least as well as placebo.
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Boy, you're really going on that citation thing, you know? Completely missed where I posted sources?
Here, have another [sciencedirect.com] couple [nih.gov].
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