Author Topic: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?  (Read 18419 times)

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Offline Ben321Topic starter

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Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« on: July 08, 2021, 07:56:52 pm »
According to a new study (which has been reported by various news outlets) cellphone RF has been linked to an increase in brain cancer. How accurate is this study? And what exactly would be the cancer causing mechanism from non-ionizing radiation? Specifically, the results of this study are that cellphone use in excess of 17 minutes per day over a period of 10 years, is associated with a 60% increase in risk of getting a brain tumor. Here's a couple articles about it.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/07/01/health-risks-of-cell-phone-radiation/
https://www.dailycal.org/2021/07/06/uc-berkeley-professor-links-cellphone-radiation-to-increased-risk-of-brain-cancer/

I notice that the study doesn't outright claim it causes it, but rather claims that such cellphone use is "associated with" such an increase in the risk of cancer (though the implication seems to be that it causes it). I don't understand exactly how RF could cause brain cancer though. The mechanism couldn't be through the direct breaking of atomic bonds, because RF is not ionizing radiation. I suppose it could be from heating, or induction. If from heating, even a slight increase in temperature, because heat is by definition a vibrating of atoms and molecules, it could be that atoms in the cells bang into each other more if the vibrations are strong enough, and this could result in some unintended chemical reactions being triggered that should not be happening, or disruptions of normal chemical reactions that should be happening. Also with the induction possibility, the RF drives a small electric current in the body. Such current could interfere with normal chemical reactions in the body (as  lots of chemicals in the body are ionic compounds), or in some cases trigger undesired chemical reactions. DNA damage isn't necessarily the only cause of cancer. The DNA just provides instructions for how the cell should operated. If the normal operations of the cells is disrupted through other means, it could also theoretically cause cancer, thus the unintended chemical reactions I described above could theoretically trigger cancer.
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2021, 08:22:30 pm »
That's still a question that has inconclusive answers so far.
A summary can be found here: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposure/radiofrequency-radiation.html

As you said, the probability of RF radiation of this kind causing direct DNA damage is very low, so if there is anything, this must be through another mechanism. That nobody seems to know yet. But yes, there are a number of studies showing increased risk of cancer. Some of them are not recent either. Correlation is not causation though, so it's pretty much impossible to draw a conclusion from them.

Just a thought here,  but the damage mechanism, if it indeed exists (which I just don't know), could be triggered by a complex loop. Possibly involving the immune system. That could be why experimenting on isolated cells in vitro would not show us anything much...
 

Offline Ben321Topic starter

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2021, 08:43:55 pm »
That's still a question that has inconclusive answers so far.
A summary can be found here: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposure/radiofrequency-radiation.html

As you said, the probability of RF radiation of this kind causing direct DNA damage is very low, so if there is anything, this must be through another mechanism. That nobody seems to know yet. But yes, there are a number of studies showing increased risk of cancer. Some of them are not recent either. Correlation is not causation though, so it's pretty much impossible to draw a conclusion from them.

Just a thought here,  but the damage mechanism, if it indeed exists (which I just don't know), could be triggered by a complex loop. Possibly involving the immune system. That could be why experimenting on isolated cells in vitro would not show us anything much...

I gave 2 possible mechanisms in my above post, heating, and induced current, and explained why I thought they might be able to cause cancer. What do you think about those possibilities?

Also, I just thought of another one. A strong enough electric field (such as that generated by a Tesla coil) actually CAN ionize gases at low pressure. That's why a fluorescent tube will light up when you hold it a couple feet from a Tesla coil, without any wired connection to the coil. The mechanism though is different than ionizing radiation. The concept of ionizing radiation is based on the particle model of light, with each photon having enough energy to knock an electron out of its parent atom's electron cloud. With RF generated by a Tesla coil, the amplitude of the electric field component of the RF radiation has an amplitude that exceeds the breakdown voltage of the gas (which is lower at lower pressures). If the gas in a fluorescent tube has a breakdown voltage of lets say 1000V-per-meter then a radiated RF signal only needs to have an electric field amplitude that's greater than 1000V-per-meter.  It doesn't matter the per-photon energy of the RF signal.

While this won't work for ionizing atoms in a liquid like the body's insides (which is like 70% water I think), the same basic mechanism is at work. In a gas, a strong enough electric field can yank electrons out of their parent atoms. Likewise, any electric field, can move already charged particles (ions, electrons, etc) without having to first ionize anything. Our body is full of electrolyte chemicals (that's something you need to replenish along with water when you are dehydrated), which of course are very much vital chemicals. These are ionic compounds, and when dissolved in water (such as inside your body) they are freely floating charged particles, that could be moved by an external electric field. Such movement of charged particles by an external electric field, could trigger undesired chemical reactions, or interfere with correct chemical reactions, inside our body's cells.

So while to an average person RF may seem safe as it's technically "non-ionizing radiation", once you actually understand how it interacts with the body, you will suddenly see several possibilities for how it could be harmful, potentially even something that could trigger cancer.
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2021, 09:10:14 pm »
That's still a question that has inconclusive answers so far.
A summary can be found here: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposure/radiofrequency-radiation.html

As you said, the probability of RF radiation of this kind causing direct DNA damage is very low, so if there is anything, this must be through another mechanism. That nobody seems to know yet. But yes, there are a number of studies showing increased risk of cancer. Some of them are not recent either. Correlation is not causation though, so it's pretty much impossible to draw a conclusion from them.

Just a thought here,  but the damage mechanism, if it indeed exists (which I just don't know), could be triggered by a complex loop. Possibly involving the immune system. That could be why experimenting on isolated cells in vitro would not show us anything much...

I gave 2 possible mechanisms in my above post, heating, and induced current, and explained why I thought they might be able to cause cancer. What do you think about those possibilities?

They could make sense. But my comment above was for a good reason: in vitro studies on cells have already been conducted. If the mechanism involved cells and their internals alone, at least cells from the tissues that would typically develop cancerous cells, I guess we would have been able to prove it by now. This is why I suggested that it could involve much more than just individual cells.

Now the possible effect on the immune system that I suggested could itself come from heating, or induced current. One possibly interesting in-vitro experiment (that I don't think has been conducted, but it may have been!) would be to work on different kinds of immune cells, and observe stuff like, for instance, possible cytokine production... instead of observing any possible direct effect on cells from specific tissues, such as brain cells.

I certainly don't mean to claim that I know everything that has been studied on this topic though. Maybe all of this has already been thoroughly investigated. But I'm just under the impression that we have done relatively little due to very inconclusive real-world data and thus very low suspicion of potential threat.

Another point is that cancer is still a very complex issue, and most often develops over very long periods of time. It's still extremely hard to find experimental models that can mimick the same process while being much shorter.
 

Offline Ben321Topic starter

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2021, 09:24:43 pm »
That's still a question that has inconclusive answers so far.
A summary can be found here: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/radiation-exposure/radiofrequency-radiation.html

As you said, the probability of RF radiation of this kind causing direct DNA damage is very low, so if there is anything, this must be through another mechanism. That nobody seems to know yet. But yes, there are a number of studies showing increased risk of cancer. Some of them are not recent either. Correlation is not causation though, so it's pretty much impossible to draw a conclusion from them.

Just a thought here,  but the damage mechanism, if it indeed exists (which I just don't know), could be triggered by a complex loop. Possibly involving the immune system. That could be why experimenting on isolated cells in vitro would not show us anything much...

I gave 2 possible mechanisms in my above post, heating, and induced current, and explained why I thought they might be able to cause cancer. What do you think about those possibilities?

They could make sense. But my comment above was for a good reason: in vitro studies on cells have already been conducted. If the mechanism involved cells and their internals alone, at least cells from the tissues that would typically develop cancerous cells, I guess we would have been able to prove it by now. This is why I suggested that it could involve much more than just individual cells.

Now the possible effect on the immune system that I suggested could itself come from heating, or induced current. One possibly interesting in-vitro experiment (that I don't think has been conducted, but it may have been!) would be to work on different kinds of immune cells, and observe stuff like, for instance, possible cytokine production... instead of observing any possible direct effect on cells from specific tissues, such as brain cells.

I certainly don't mean to claim that I know everything that has been studied on this topic though. Maybe all of this has already been thoroughly investigated. But I'm just under the impression that we have done relatively little due to very inconclusive real-world data and thus very low suspicion of potential threat.

Another point is that cancer is still a very complex issue, and most often develops over very long periods of time. It's still extremely hard to find experimental models that can mimick the same process while being much shorter.


I think that any given RF exposure is VERY unlikely to cause the damage needed to trigger cancer, but multiple exposures increase the chance that the exact right set of events will be triggered by the RF. I think that it may involve multiple cells, but no reason to assume immune cells. Since the chemical reactions I mentioned being triggered by RF may not turn a single cell cancerous, you are right it may require multiple cells. But if one of those cells is disrupted by the RF in a way that causes it to have improper interactions with adjacent cells, that then may very well result in some of the surrounding cells to become cancerous, especially if they too had various incorrect chemical reactions due to RF exposure. It may require just the right set of bad reactions in each cell, in a cluster of several cells, in order for one of them to become cancerous. But when it does become cancerous, it will then do what defines it as a cancer cell. It will rapidly multiply and develop into a tumor, that encroaches on and damages surrounding tissues. All it takes is one cell becoming cancerous to develop a cancer tumor. So I would not at all be surprised to learn that strong enough RF in certain frequency ranges can trigger the formation of some kinds of cancer.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, that's why old microwave ovens need to be checked for leaks before being used. Even a small leak, which results in a weak signal escaping from the microwave oven, while it won't lead to burns, could give cancer to anybody within a few feet of the device.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2021, 09:26:38 pm by Ben321 »
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2021, 10:16:17 pm »
When investigating the biological effects of high-frequency RF, there are two quite different physical conditions you encounter, and you must interpret the results with a biological target accordingly:
1.  When you are several wavelengths away from the transmitter (either the cell tower or phone), you are in the "far field", where you actually have radiation and a transmission of power.
2.  When you are very close to the transmitting antenna (e.g., holding the phone up to your skull), you are in the "near field", where there is no actual radiation but energy is stored in the local field.
The relationship between these two limiting cases depends on the antenna.  A conductive medium (like your brain) in the near field will dissipate power due to conduction and dielectric loss, heating the tissue.  In regulations and measurements, this is called "SAR", measured in W/kg.  It is used in regulations for cell phones and MRI systems, both of which are near-field conditions.  There are hypothetical effects of the E-field (either radiated or near field) itself on biological systems (other than heat), but I'm not familiar with the current state of this research.  There are well-documented accidental doses from high-power military radar exposure (far field), including cataracts (again, probably thermal).
Anyway, when investigating possible harm, the situation is different for a relatively high-power antenna on a pole high above a schoolyard, and a relatively low-power antenna and other electronics very close to your head.
A muckraking article in the Chicago Tribune a couple of years ago took several current-model cell phones to an independent lab, who measured the SAR and found that several were over the US legal limit.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2021, 10:25:08 pm by TimFox »
 
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Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2021, 12:21:52 am »
I think that it may involve multiple cells, but no reason to assume immune cells.

There's no reason to assume anything generally speaking.
I'm no specialist of cancer whatsoever, but from the little I know, the immune system may play a much bigger role than one may think.

Of course we do know that being exposed to some form of radiations can damage DNA - and there are other external sources of DNA damage, and that damaged DNA can lead to cancer. That's the process we know best at the moment, and that is relatively easy to understand. What I'm saying here is that there are many other triggers, many of which we still don't really understand. But we know that chronic inflammation can also lead to cancer, for instance. Note that this is merely an hypothesis here, I'm not claiming anything, but I think we may be underestimating the role of the immune system in some forms of cancer. We tend to mainly consider its "positive" role - which here, would be to detect and kill defective cells - and certainly, this role is major, and immunodepression could lead to a situation where damaged cells can reproduce and create tumors. But, we rarely consider its "negative role", and my hypothesis is that it may play a negative role in some forms of cancer. We already know this "negative" role in the case of auto-immune diseases. What if some cancers were actually, at least partly, an auto-immune disease? Take all this with a pinch of salt!
 

Offline vk6zgo

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2021, 01:20:11 am »
An equally silly explanation could be outgassing of plasticisers from the materials used for the case of the phone.

An important point is that these stories all assume that people are holding cellphones in the traditional position used for phone handsets, &, indeed, that is how OFs like myself use them.

Young people hold the phone out horizontally in front of them & yell at it!
It seems the "scare stories" have already had a result with those demographics.
 

Offline AVGresponding

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2021, 10:17:21 am »
An equally silly explanation could be outgassing of plasticisers from the materials used for the case of the phone.

An important point is that these stories all assume that people are holding cellphones in the traditional position used for phone handsets, &, indeed, that is how OFs like myself use them.

Young people hold the phone out horizontally in front of them & yell at it!
It seems the "scare stories" have already had a result with those demographics.

No, that's just because they have the attention span of fruit flies, and need to hold the phone like that so they can see the name of the person they are talking to.
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Offline Gyro

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #9 on: July 09, 2021, 12:18:44 pm »
According to a new study (which has been reported by various news outlets) cellphone RF has been linked to an increase in brain cancer. How accurate is this study? And what exactly would be the cancer causing mechanism from non-ionizing radiation? Specifically, the results of this study are that cellphone use in excess of 17 minutes per day over a period of 10 years, is associated with a 60% increase in risk of getting a brain tumor. Here's a couple articles about it....

I developed a brain tumour without any significant use of a cellphone (I was a very late adopter, in fact I got my first smartphone in November). Did that make me 60% less likely to err.... :-/O  - or just a witness for the defence?

Luck and statistics are odd bedfellows. Trust in one and have a healthy distrust of the other!
« Last Edit: July 09, 2021, 03:50:54 pm by Gyro »
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Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #10 on: July 09, 2021, 06:18:44 pm »
An equally silly explanation could be outgassing of plasticisers from the materials used for the case of the phone.

An important point is that these stories all assume that people are holding cellphones in the traditional position used for phone handsets, &, indeed, that is how OFs like myself use them.

Young people hold the phone out horizontally in front of them & yell at it!
It seems the "scare stories" have already had a result with those demographics.

No, that's just because they have the attention span of fruit flies, and need to hold the phone like that so they can see the name of the person they are talking to.

 ;D
 

Offline BrokenYugo

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #11 on: July 09, 2021, 06:50:54 pm »
An equally silly explanation could be outgassing of plasticisers from the materials used for the case of the phone.


Doesn't seem too silly to me, given all the cheap aftermarket cases in use made of rubberized mystery plastics, and how people handle them constantly.
 

Offline esepecesito

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #12 on: July 09, 2021, 07:26:14 pm »
My personal opinion... after 25 years of massive use, you would really note by now an incredible increase in cases. AFAIK was not the case.
 
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Offline TimFox

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #13 on: July 09, 2021, 08:36:18 pm »
I tend to agree with you.  Epidemiology found that the incidence of lung cancer in the population tracked the popularity of cigarette smoking, especially after World War I.
 

Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #14 on: July 10, 2021, 05:26:10 pm »
My personal opinion... after 25 years of massive use, you would really note by now an incredible increase in cases. AFAIK was not the case.

If we consider brain cancer only, then actually there's been a very slight decrease in the last 25 years according to this: https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/brain.html
(the decrease is not spectacular, but at least you can say it's been pretty stable.)

Now, I do not agree with your "25 years of massive use" statement. Even in developed countries, people have not been massively using mobile phones for 25 years.
25 years ago, I think mobile phones were barely starting to take off. And up to the early 2000's, people were not using them a lot, at least compared to what we do now.
That all really started to be *massive* in both use and numbers in the last 10 years, I would say. Maybe you can stretch that to 15 years, but not much longer than this.

As figures show, and also in-vitro experiments show (as we discussed a little bit above), what we can probably safely say is that there is no conclusive short-term effect whatsoever.
Problem is more with any potential long-term effects. Those are of course very hard to analyze and often even harder to understand. I'd think in this case, we should probably wait another 10 to 15 years before we can actually analyze relevant data. Yes that's a very long time. But as long as we are not able to show anything in lab experiments, any observation we could make will remain inconclusive. Even if cases of brain cancer do eventually increase, how will we ever be able to tell what exactly from our daily life has caused it, unless we took two large groups living in the same areas, one NEVER using any mobile phone, and another using them, and observe them for a decade or two. That's almost impossible. So point is, if there is any real effect, only relevant lab experiments will be able to tell. Observation alone is a lost cause IMHO.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #15 on: July 10, 2021, 05:41:05 pm »
I would volunteer for the control group that never uses mobile phones, but I'm not sure that my normal life expectancy suffices for a 20-year study.
 

Online Bud

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #16 on: July 10, 2021, 07:14:57 pm »
There's no reason to assume anything generally speaking.
I'm no specialist of cancer whatsoever, but from the little I know, the immune system may play a much bigger role than one may think.

Some people who was at the time of the disaster at Chernobyl nuclear plant in 1986 have died within a few months/years, but some are still alive today.
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Offline TimFox

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #17 on: July 10, 2021, 07:16:30 pm »
The same with victims of the Hiroshima A-bomb attack.
 

Offline babysitter

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #18 on: July 10, 2021, 09:16:26 pm »
Eating one entirely, together with some smelly 3rd market case, might. Statistically speaking.
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Online Halcyon

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #19 on: July 11, 2021, 06:31:37 am »
Really? This again? The answer is no. Everyone can now get on with their lives.
 
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Offline Cyberdragon

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #20 on: July 11, 2021, 04:30:12 pm »
An equally silly explanation could be outgassing of plasticisers from the materials used for the case of the phone.

An important point is that these stories all assume that people are holding cellphones in the traditional position used for phone handsets, &, indeed, that is how OFs like myself use them.

Young people hold the phone out horizontally in front of them & yell at it!
It seems the "scare stories" have already had a result with those demographics.

No, that's just because they have the attention span of fruit flies, and need to hold the phone like that so they can see the name of the person they are talking to.

Or it must be this newfangled videophone stuff. They've somehow mananged to miniaturize it down to the palm of your hand, it no longer requires a box of electronics and a CRT on your desk. It's amazing what these whippersnappers come up with these days.

 >:D
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Offline vk6zgo

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #21 on: July 11, 2021, 11:13:14 pm »
An equally silly explanation could be outgassing of plasticisers from the materials used for the case of the phone.

An important point is that these stories all assume that people are holding cellphones in the traditional position used for phone handsets, &, indeed, that is how OFs like myself use them.

Young people hold the phone out horizontally in front of them & yell at it!
It seems the "scare stories" have already had a result with those demographics.

No, that's just because they have the attention span of fruit flies, and need to hold the phone like that so they can see the name of the person they are talking to.

Or it must be this newfangled videophone stuff. They've somehow mananged to miniaturize it down to the palm of your hand, it no longer requires a box of electronics and a CRT on your desk. It's amazing what these whippersnappers come up with these days.

 >:D


I didn't mean hold it up, like unto taking a selfie, rather more like holding it flat, so the screen is gazing up into the heavens.
They then proceed to yell.
 

Offline ebastler

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #22 on: July 12, 2021, 08:11:37 pm »
[...] the results of this study are that cellphone use in excess of 17 minutes per day over a period of 10 years, is associated with a 60% increase in risk of getting a brain tumor.

Too bad that there is no control study with a group which used conventional wired phones for the same duration. Maybe it's listening to too much BS which increases your risk of a brain tumor, or listening to BS with the same ear all the time...  ::)
 
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Offline bson

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #23 on: July 23, 2021, 02:12:57 am »
Joel Moskowitz is a well-known crank around here.
 
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Online SiliconWizard

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Re: Do cellphones actually give you cancer?
« Reply #24 on: July 23, 2021, 04:43:09 pm »
Really? This again? The answer is no. Everyone can now get on with their lives.

As anything else, this topic needs to be evaluated and studied using rigorous methods, and using logical fallacies should be avoided at all costs. On both sides.

I'm sorry, but nobody can't bluntly claim "the answer is no". There is no proof of that. If you're claiming it, then you're not being honest.
Now, the fact there is no proof the answer is no doesn't make the opposite true. It's basic logic really, but it seems to elude most people for some reason. So, as we said in this thread, there is also no conclusive proof that cellphone use increases the risk of getting a cancer.

Just saying. Humility never hurts, and at this point, the claim "cellphone use doesn't increase the risk of getting cancer" is just unknown. All we could say this far is that the probability looks pretty low with the (relatively short) hindsight we have. This has nothing to do with the corpus of scientific knowledge we otherwise have on a number of fundamental topics. This one is clearly not an established scientific knowledge. Oh, and the fact many lunatics are claiming the opposite - which, as another blunt claim, is also plain stupid - doesn't make this wrong per se. This is a logical fallacy commonly used these days.

There's nothing wrong saying that we just don't know, but that the risk so far looks pretty low, so we accept it and move on. Which shouldn't in itself prevent further *rigorous* research being done on it until we get something conclusive.
 
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