Facts should inform opinion

Opinions are open to debate, but scientific facts emerge from the scientific method after extensive debate between highly trained scientists.  Facebook posts, YouTube videos and editorials claiming the inefficacy of masks in mitigating virus transmission, denying anthropomorphic climate change, blaming vaccines for autism, and purporting adverse health effects of 5G rely on cherry-picked data to confirm biases, give credence to ideologues who are delusional or falsely claim expertise, advance conspiracy theories, and apply willful ignorance to credible evidence.

Reliable sources are non-partisan non-ideological experts in their fields who take pleasure in learning the truth and who publicly change their minds in light of new evidence.  Many career government employees fit the criteria, such as Dr. Fauci, who can be trusted to translate complex science to the public.  Serious journalists and geeky fact checkers, who carefully qualify their statements, can be found working for the major news outlets.  Facebook and Youtube, on the other hand, are populated with quacks, nutjobs and ideologues who spew nonsense that should be ignored.  Media outlets that provide only one political viewpoint are also untrustworthy.

In other words, Fox News argued that everyone knows that Tucker Carlson is not purporting to be reporting facts and his viewers know it.

Nightly programs on Fox News are unreliable.  As reported in the New York Times, a libel case against Fox was dismissed because: In reaching her decision (see tinyurl.com/Y55ecbvq), Judge Vyskocil relied in part on an argument made by Fox News lawyers that the “general tenor” of Mr. Carlson’s program signals to viewers that the host is “engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘nonliteral commentary.’” The judge added: “Given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’” about the host’s on-air comments.  In other words, Fox News argued that everyone knows that Tucker Carlson is not purporting to be reporting facts and his viewers know it.  Based on what I have read on these pages, many of you believe these programs and some act on the disinformation, like those who believe the lie that the presidential election was stolen and stormed the Capitol.

Turn to Scientific American magazine for trustworthy coverage of science and technology.  The authors are top scientists and journalists who are specialists in science and writing, and all articles are vetted for accuracy.   Errors in print that later come to light are promptly corrected, and a letters section offers informed exchanges.

Scientific American has published articles on COVID that show the physical structure of the virus, describe how scientific detective work found a bat cave in China where SARS-CoV-2 most likely originated, explain how the disease is transmitted, provide an appreciation for how researchers have learned its impact on the immune response through vast studies of samples collected from critically ill patients, etc.  Compare these nuanced narratives to those who arrogantly dismiss COVID as a hoax.
An article in the January 2021 issue of Scientific American describes how the number of COVID deaths determined from death certificates can be checked against excess deaths over the incredibly constant background death rate.  375,000 excess deaths were reported over the period from the first US COVID death through mid-November 2020 when US death certificates showed 250,000 lost lives due to COVID.  Researchers explain that these additional deaths are attributable to unreported COVID deaths and to preventable deaths from other causes that were untreated or under-treated because of stresses to medical resources during the pandemic.  So directly or indirectly, COVID has resulted in more deaths than reported.  If not COVID, what is the cause of these deaths?

So directly or indirectly, COVID has resulted in more deaths than reported.  If not COVID, what is the cause of these deaths?

Rather than debating the efficacy of masks – it’s been established that they reduce the spread, let’s debate our opinions on acceptable death rates.  Are some lives more valuable than others?  Let’s argue for appropriate levels of research funding.  The fast development of COVID vaccines relied on decades of research funded by the agencies that Trump consistently wanted to cut.  Let’s recognize the complexity of the world.  The choice is not between fighting COVID and saving the economy; the two are intertwined.  Let’s debate the right balance needed to attain the desired outcome and not allow ideology to stand in the way.  Let’s debate how much we should spend now compared with investing in the future to empower our children to deal with their challenges of climate change and future pandemics as our parents invested in us.  Let’s preserve our democracy by making the effort to learn the truth and base policies on facts, not lies.  Let’s accept Biden’s legitimate victory and move forward together.  And let's not fight over the facts, but instead, we would expend our energies on debating how best to implement solutions to the serious existential problems that are just around the corner.

Health Effects From 5G Networks

5G is a high bandwidth cellular service that is coming to our area, so our local government is holding hearings for community input.  One can argue that the new antennas are ugly, but those that are vehemently opposed to the upgrade on arguments of purported ill health effects don't have evidence on their side.

I wrote an op ed piece for our local paper on the topic, but the corona virus is getting all the attention so my piece might not appear.  I am pasting a copy below for those of you who may be interested in the topic or who are concerned about their health.  In a nut shell, don't worry!

My piece (submitted to the Moscow-Pullman daily News):

Important policy decisions about 5G need to be informed by the science.  Rather than debating the science, we should use the scientific consensus, or better yet, consilience.  But how can the average citizen determine what is true?  What is the scientific consensus?  Which “expert” should we believe? 

The most reliable experts are those whose own scientific careers are dedicated to research areas that have bearing on the topic.  Highly regarded scientists produce knowledge that forms the foundations on which future researchers or technologists build.  The least reliable sources are those that cheery pick data to support their desired conclusions, claim that the consensus view is wrong without proof, or call upon conspiracy theories.

Why do I discount claims that 5G has adverse health effects?

First, I apply the smell test to see if the claims make sense.  In high-density population centers, all human-made sources of electromagnetic waves add up to a mere 1/1000 the light intensity of the sun (also an electromagnetic wave) at the earth’s surface.  Man-made electromagnetic sources don’t have that much oomph.  Or consider cells in our body that are kept at a toasty 98.6^o F or so.  The energy imparted to cells and molecules due to thermal buffeting at this temperature is huge compared with the energy of electromagnetic waves produces by technology.  How huge?  Like a freight train barreling down the tracks compared to a bee leisurely searching for nectar.  How can 5G have adverse health effects if other ambient influences are so huge in comparison?

Next, we can go to the literature.  However, individual papers can be unreliable, and many of the studies report only on correlations.  But, correlation does not prove causation, as can be Illustrated with examples such as the near-perfect correlation with the diagnosis of autism and organic food sales; or the more humorous one of deaths due to falling televisions being correlated with undergraduate enrollment at US universities.  Talking an arithmetic average of the results of such correlational studies also makes little sense.  The task of interpreting the literature as a whole is compounded by the fact that journals are biased against null results; “a black hole is found at the center of our galaxy,” is a much more exciting headline that is more likely to be published than “researchers cannot find any black holes.”

The best summary of the literature can be found in meta studies, which aggregate the results from many publications to extract a more reliable connection between cause and effect.  These studies start by setting criteria for selecting a paper for inclusion, such as requiring a minimum sample size to improve statistics, demanding double-blind studies to remove bias, and excluding work based on surveys in which variables are not well controlled.  These criteria must be chosen BEFORE the researcher looks at any specific paper to avoid introducing a selection bias that favors a particular result.  Such studies show no adverse health effects of 5G.

Finally, I look for experiments that control the cause and observe the effect directly.   Hyperelectrosensitivity, a purported sensitivity to electromagnetic waves, is simple to test in double-blind experiments.  In such studies, subjects are exposed to electromagnetic stimuli at random times and their reactions recorded.  Both the subjects and the researchers are unaware of the timing of the stimulus to avoid cues that are perceived by the subjects and prevent the scientists from applying their own biases.   There is no observed correlation between the presence of an electromagnetic wave and the subjects’ reaction.  But show the subject a cell phone, and they react.  No well-controlled double-blind studies shows hyperelectrosensitivity (see tinyurl.com/rumdkvv).

In response to my letter of February 7^th, George Bedirian points to Americans for Responsible Technology (ART) as “a science-based grassroots organization.” Their website cherry picks publications that support ART’s position and ignores the rest.  One of their founding principles is, “We reject the rush to roll out 5G technology across America.”  No individuals are associated with the website and no reasoned arguments are offered.  The only input accepted from a visitor is a monetary donation.  This is not a science-based organization.

The real benefits of 5G in telemedicine, information and entertainment far exceed the health risks, which are almost certainly non-existent.