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.
Now, I don't believe at all that people can detect radio signals. But, demonstrating that by what amounts to parlor tricks is not going to convince anyone who does not already believe. A real test would not provide any misleading clues.
I disagree. There is no reason at all to show lights if what you are really testing is sensitivity to radio signals.
As the famous 'experiment' down in South Africa showed, where the cell phone tower operators shut the tower off six weeks before a meeting about turning the tower off, where people were STILL expressing the same symptoms, how getting away from the tower decreased them, how it was the radiation from the tower giving them rashes and such, perception is a thing.
By having the lights be visible, it allowed the study to not just test radio sensitivity, it allowed them to test perception of radio sensitivity.
The test essentially showed that the people were getting sick when they thought they were being bombarded with radio waves, not when they were actually being bombarded.
A real test would not provide any misleading clues.
They tested that as well. They had 4 different tests - Radio & lights, Radio & dark, No Radio &lights, No Radio & dark. Symptoms tracked with the status lights on the test device, not the radio waves.
If people were sensitive, but also fooling themselves with the lights, more people would have shown something when the lights were dark but the radio was on.
But the South Africa test and this experiment are both strongly influenced by what the subjects thought. At most, that shows that the power of suggestion overrides any real effect. But that situation is not all that unusual - I gave some examples above.
Why would it not be a stronger experiment if there were no lights at all? Just put them in a room with an antenna and have them indicate when it is on or off. There is no reason to provides any other hints or clues, real or misleading, at all.
Why would it not be a stronger experiment if there were no lights at all?
OK, you run that test and nobody feels ill, on or off. What does that prove? Not much - your signal could be too weak or the wrong frequency, or the room could be interfering, or it need to send data in bursts or cycles, or both the signal and the blinking lights are needed, or... On the other hand, if you can create the feeling of sickness using just lights and with lights and wifi you can be pretty sure that lights are the (indirect) cause - making those 'what ifs' more implausible.
Second, it also gives you a chance to catch non-wifi issues that are making people sick. What if the school's lack of proper ventilation, or an old chemical spill giving off fumes, or the hot plastic of the router creating VOCs really is making people ill? We can catch it now by proving that it's not just not wifi, but also not all in their heads, and start looking for other answers.
You clearly don't want to accept that these people are just fucked in the head.
I'm pretty sure this is a psychological issue. On both their part, and yours.
You do realize the environment is identical in these scenarios. So ventilation, etc. is irrelevant.
Oh, I get it. You were so busy feeling smugly superior to other people that you lost the ability to comprehend English. Let's try this again - if the study had shown that no combination of wifi or lights made these people sick, but they still felt sick in certain places, then it's possible that it wasn't in their heads, and might have some other cause. Wouldn't that be a good thing to know as well?
Why would it not be a stronger experiment if there were no lights at all?
Let me ask this: What are you gaining by testing less?
There have been a number of experiments like you describe. By not telling them whether the wifi is active or not, you do indeed confound them enough that they can't just guess and fake the symptoms.
But as yndrd mentions, by having the lights as additional test groups, it can help zero in on whether it's psychosomatic in nature. And the evidence is that it IS, at least in part.
It also gives you the ability to differentiate between symptoms between two
It depends what your theory is. If your theory is people can detect radio waves, your suggested experiment makes sense. If your theory is it's all in their mind, the original test makes more sense, because it actually tests whether psychological clues are part of the issue. Lo and behold, they can't detect radio waves and it *is* all in their mind, so it sounds like a far more informative experiment was carried out than the one you're suggesting. Yes, it goes an extra step, but it's a revealing extra step.
But the South Africa test and this experiment are both strongly influenced by what the subjects thought
ding, ding, ding!!!!!
Congratulations! You've just stated exactly what the study proves and also confirmed why people who claim EMI-related illness are self-deluded crazies!
The proof of this test is specifically that people's belief that they are being bombarded by radio which they believe makes them sick is what makes people sick. The presence or absence of the radio signal had no bearing on how they f
If people were sensitive, but also fooling themselves with the lights, more people would have shown something when the lights were dark but the radio was on.
I don't understand this. Why is the suggestion that the radio is off (dark lights) not as strong as the suggestion that the radio is on?
I don't understand this. Why is the suggestion that the radio is off (dark lights) not as strong as the suggestion that the radio is on?
It's a matter of ratios, which is why it's good to do all 4 possibilities(in this case) in 1 experiment.
Basically, between the lights on and lights off tests, you can figure out, roughly, how many people are (presumably) responding to the lights, and not the radio. How many are responding to the radio, and not the lights, etc...
Telus does something similar in the larger cities up here. They put in a new cell tower, but leave it powered off/disconnected. Wait a couple of months for the lawsuits and complaints to start pouring in, then reveal that nothing is running yet. All the complaints stop and lawsuits are thrown out. A little while after that, they turn the cell tower on, without telling anyone. Seems to have cut down on the amount of time wasted in the court system for them.:)
Sometimes the mind can be a real jerk. Fear, stress, and anxiety can manifest some pretty bad physical symptoms. Which while illusory, can have a real physical impact on health.
I was recently told a story by my father just the other week about a person he knew that was involved. Apparently he worked in a lab with a bunch of other people, using some pretty dangerous material. In particular a gas, if escaped in enough quantity, could have some serious health impacts and even death. They had a leak, and the mo
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.
Providing misleading cues disjoint from the actual event allows you to build multiple correlations. They showed no correlation between symptoms and EMR, but strong correlation between symptoms and perception of EMR.
You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it!
What does Science have to say about this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re: (Score:1)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re:What does Science have to say about this? (Score:2)
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 people can detect radio signals. But, demonstrating that by what amounts to parlor tricks is not going to convince anyone who does not already believe. A real test would not provide any misleading clues.
Re:What does Science have to say about this? (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree. There is no reason at all to show lights if what you are really testing is sensitivity to radio signals.
As the famous 'experiment' down in South Africa showed, where the cell phone tower operators shut the tower off six weeks before a meeting about turning the tower off, where people were STILL expressing the same symptoms, how getting away from the tower decreased them, how it was the radiation from the tower giving them rashes and such, perception is a thing.
By having the lights be visible, it allowed the study to not just test radio sensitivity, it allowed them to test perception of radio sensitivity.
The test essentially showed that the people were getting sick when they thought they were being bombarded with radio waves, not when they were actually being bombarded.
A real test would not provide any misleading clues.
They tested that as well. They had 4 different tests - Radio & lights, Radio & dark, No Radio &lights, No Radio & dark. Symptoms tracked with the status lights on the test device, not the radio waves.
If people were sensitive, but also fooling themselves with the lights, more people would have shown something when the lights were dark but the radio was on.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
But the South Africa test and this experiment are both strongly influenced by what the subjects thought. At most, that shows that the power of suggestion overrides any real effect. But that situation is not all that unusual - I gave some examples above.
Why would it not be a stronger experiment if there were no lights at all? Just put them in a room with an antenna and have them indicate when it is on or off. There is no reason to provides any other hints or clues, real or misleading, at all.
Re:What does Science have to say about this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would it not be a stronger experiment if there were no lights at all?
OK, you run that test and nobody feels ill, on or off. What does that prove? Not much - your signal could be too weak or the wrong frequency, or the room could be interfering, or it need to send data in bursts or cycles, or both the signal and the blinking lights are needed, or... On the other hand, if you can create the feeling of sickness using just lights and with lights and wifi you can be pretty sure that lights are the (indirect) cause - making those 'what ifs' more implausible.
Second, it also gives you a chance to catch non-wifi issues that are making people sick. What if the school's lack of proper ventilation, or an old chemical spill giving off fumes, or the hot plastic of the router creating VOCs really is making people ill? We can catch it now by proving that it's not just not wifi, but also not all in their heads, and start looking for other answers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You clearly don't want to accept that these people are just fucked in the head.
I'm pretty sure this is a psychological issue. On both their part, and yours.
You do realize the environment is identical in these scenarios. So ventilation, etc. is irrelevant.
Oh, I get it. You were so busy feeling smugly superior to other people that you lost the ability to comprehend English. Let's try this again - if the study had shown that no combination of wifi or lights made these people sick, but they still felt sick in certain places, then it's possible that it wasn't in their heads, and might have some other cause. Wouldn't that be a good thing to know as well?
Re: (Score:3)
Why would it not be a stronger experiment if there were no lights at all?
Let me ask this: What are you gaining by testing less?
There have been a number of experiments like you describe. By not telling them whether the wifi is active or not, you do indeed confound them enough that they can't just guess and fake the symptoms.
But as yndrd mentions, by having the lights as additional test groups, it can help zero in on whether it's psychosomatic in nature. And the evidence is that it IS, at least in part.
It also gives you the ability to differentiate between symptoms between two
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It depends what your theory is. If your theory is people can detect radio waves, your suggested experiment makes sense. If your theory is it's all in their mind, the original test makes more sense, because it actually tests whether psychological clues are part of the issue. Lo and behold, they can't detect radio waves and it *is* all in their mind, so it sounds like a far more informative experiment was carried out than the one you're suggesting. Yes, it goes an extra step, but it's a revealing extra step.
Re: (Score:2)
ding, ding, ding!!!!!
Congratulations! You've just stated exactly what the study proves and also confirmed why people who claim EMI-related illness are self-deluded crazies!
The proof of this test is specifically that people's belief that they are being bombarded by radio which they believe makes them sick is what makes people sick. The presence or absence of the radio signal had no bearing on how they f
Re: (Score:2)
If people were sensitive, but also fooling themselves with the lights, more people would have shown something when the lights were dark but the radio was on.
I don't understand this. Why is the suggestion that the radio is off (dark lights) not as strong as the suggestion that the radio is on?
Re: (Score:3)
I don't understand this. Why is the suggestion that the radio is off (dark lights) not as strong as the suggestion that the radio is on?
It's a matter of ratios, which is why it's good to do all 4 possibilities(in this case) in 1 experiment.
Basically, between the lights on and lights off tests, you can figure out, roughly, how many people are (presumably) responding to the lights, and not the radio. How many are responding to the radio, and not the lights, etc...
Re: (Score:2)
Telus does something similar in the larger cities up here. They put in a new cell tower, but leave it powered off/disconnected. Wait a couple of months for the lawsuits and complaints to start pouring in, then reveal that nothing is running yet. All the complaints stop and lawsuits are thrown out. A little while after that, they turn the cell tower on, without telling anyone. Seems to have cut down on the amount of time wasted in the court system for them. :)
Re: (Score:1)
Mind over Matter (Score:2)
Sometimes the mind can be a real jerk. Fear, stress, and anxiety can manifest some pretty bad physical symptoms. Which while illusory, can have a real physical impact on health.
I was recently told a story by my father just the other week about a person he knew that was involved. Apparently he worked in a lab with a bunch of other people, using some pretty dangerous material. In particular a gas, if escaped in enough quantity, could have some serious health impacts and even death. They had a leak, and the mo
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=
Re: (Score:2)
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...
Re: (Score:2)
The Nocebo Effect.
Re: (Score:1)
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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Re: (Score:3)
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].
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Providing misleading cues disjoint from the actual event allows you to build multiple correlations. They showed no correlation between symptoms and EMR, but strong correlation between symptoms and perception of EMR.