Not the ‘cell phones cause autism’ crap again

OMG, babies have thin skulls! They can be pierced!

That’s the kind of nonsense we get in bad popular science articles — a True Fact that is cited as demonstrating a real danger to children. Buzzfeed points to the sensationalist media hype over a terrible article that claims cell phones are warping babies innocent helpless brains.

The journal Child Development published what was described as a “review article” –an assessment of existing literature – by Cindy Sage and Ernesto Burgio. It was titled “Electromagnetic Fields, Pulsed Radiofrequency Radiation, and Epigenetics: How Wireless Technologies May Affect Childhood Development”, and was published in a “special section” of the journal addressing technology risks.

The paper got picked up by the UK national media. An article in the Express, published in May, asked: “Could wireless technology be causing MAJOR health problems in your children?”

It said: “Wireless mobile phones, laptops and tablets could be causing major health problems in children and contributing to autism and hyperactivity, a new study warns,” and said that these devices, “which even include baby monitors, emit radiation and electromagnetic fields that pierce thin skulls, harming memory, learning and other mental skills”.

However, a new paper published in the journal PeerJ by Dorothy Bishop, a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Oxford who specialises in developmental conditions such as autism, and David Robert Grimes, a medical physicist also at the University of Oxford, has issued severe doubts about the study. They said its claims are “devoid of merit” and “should [not be] given a veneer of legitimacy”.

The Child Development paper claimed that phones, Wi-Fi, and other sources of electromagnetic fields (EMFs) “are widely documented to cause potentially harmful health impacts that can be detrimental to young people”.

The actual article in Child Development isn’t quite that sensationalist, but it’s bad in other ways. As is usual in this kind of article about the horrors of electromagnetic radiation, I always wonder if, after they get rid of our cell phones, they’re planning to get rid of that great big thermonuclear-powered source of radiation and electromagnetic fields in the sky — after all, it’s silly to go after the piddling sources of feeble EMR while ignoring the many orders of magnitude greater zapper of rays that is bathing our whole planet in a seething stew of wavelengths and photons and rays and all that sciencey crap.

I wonder what the mechanism might be that causes autism in response to EMFs. This is always the problem with these kinds of ‘studies’ — they’re long on hypotheticals, and weak on the causal links that might be testable and might actually give some substance to the vapor. The Bishop and Grimes paper does a good job on dismantling their arguments there, too, because I was really annoyed when Sage and Burgio trot out their “Plausible Biological Mechanism for EMF/RFR Effects” and it’s…epigenetics. Epigenetics is the new buzzword that gets inserted in place of “magic” nowadays, and it’s getting obnoxious. You have to do real experiments and measurements of epigenetic phenomena to be able to make that claim — and simply noting that DNA repair is slower when your cells in culture are exposed to low-intensity non-thermal radiation, which might make them more prone to cancer, does not imply “epigenetics did it”. I don’t even know what they mean by epigenetics! It seems that whenever they observe an effect for which they have no causal mechanism, they just label it epigenetic and call that the mechanism, as if that explains anything.

Bishop and Grimes summarize it well.

Sage and Burgio make liberal use of epigenetic terminology, but in a nebulous and non-specific fashion, being deployed as an apparent deus ex machina to attribute negative health effects to WiFi in the absence of any evidence. Epigenetics is a term used to refer to the case where environmentally-induced modifications persist across generations, but Sage and Burgio treat it more as a synonym for gene-environment interaction. This usage is common among advocates of complementary and alternative medicine, but unhelpful as it confuses rather than clarifying the role of environmental effects.

Anyway, relax. There is no plausible mechanism for cell phones or WiFi to fry your baby’s brain, so go ahead, pierce their thin little skulls with radiation. I’m a big fan of holding babies close so that the infrared radiation you are emitting from your chest (more wattage than is coming out of your phone!) toasts their little heads with warmth. I think we humans have been doing that for a few hundred thousand years, so it’s probably not harmful. Probably. Studies pending.

Günter who?

I don’t know who Günter Bechley is, but apparently he writes for the Discovery Institute, and he despises me.

I despise the dogmatic and sometimes even fanatical stance of some evolutionists like P.Z. Myers (Pharyngula blog), Laurence Moran (Sandwalk blog), Jeffrey Shallit (Recursivity blog), Jerry Coyne (Why Evolution is True blog), freelance writer John Farrell, the anonymous coward behind The Sensuous Curmudgeon blog, and other infamous web activists against Intelligent Design and religion.

If you follow the link, you’ll discover he’s one of those people who thinks the theory is in imminent danger of collapsing, because scientists keep learning new things, and babbles about new discoveries in hominid evolution. Just two little problems there: the details of the timeline of human history are not the theory part of evolution, and a willingness to accommodate new evidence is a good thing.

I guess he’s just going to have to keep on despising me, but it’s OK when the despisers are so absurdly wrong.

Suspension of disbelief caught fire and exploded

I didn’t like the premiere episode of the new Star Trek at all. I was so repelled that I felt no desire at all to see the second — but I know, other people feel otherwise. Even some scientists are still enthusiastic. For instance, Jeremy Yoder lists all the bad biology in past and present episodes of the show, and still recommends it, even after the galactic fungus and space-hopping tardigrade story, which makes me nauseous to even listen to the video clip explaining it with outrageous technobabble. I guess his ability to suspend disbelief is far more robust than mine.

So, honestly, it’s hard to watch almost any episode of Star Trek without my biology-sense tingling. But here’s the thing: the bio-bollocks is often deeply entangled with what makes Trek great. The episode of Voyager in which two characters are temporarily transmuted into one touches on questions of personhood, and what makes us unique, self-determining individuals. The shape-shifting villains of Deep Space Nine created innumerable opportunities for stories about paranoia and power in wartime and the risks of trading freedom for security. The biological impossibility of Mr. Spock’s parentage makes him a touchstone for anyone who’s lived with dual identities or a sense of alienation from their community. The de-evolution virus … well, okay, that one I can’t justify. But by and large, when Star Trek has stretched and often broken the limits of biological realism, it’s done so to tell stories that are worth the telling — and that inspired many a nerdy kid to stick with science long enough to learn how fictional Star Trek really is.

I agree that the pseudoscience isn’t the point of a Star Trek story. I just feel like, if the writers cared, they could take the time to get the science right, and that good science wouldn’t detract from a good story.

Halloween explained…with Chick tracts!

Here’s a roundup of the best Chick tracts to hand out on Halloween. You know you’re an awful person when you think these are a good idea.

Everyone knows you’re supposed to hand out full-size candy bars — none of this ‘fun-size’ nonsense, and no, candy corn is not a treat — because we’re supposed to fatten up children with gluttony and sloth, both so they’re juicier for the barbecue and because they’ll meet our Dark Lord Satan even sooner.

Hmm. Now I have to think. What would be the most sweetly lethal kind of candy I should give out on Halloween night, that would most thoroughly serve the Evil Atheist Agenda? If feminist candy were richer chunks of chocolate, that might work.

This is an ad for CNN?

I guess it’s supposed to be a sneaky critique of the “alternative facts” crowd, those Trump surrogates who appear on TV to twist the facts and lie — people like Kellyanne Conway and Jack Kingston and Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh McEnany and Omarosa Manigault and Sarah Huckabee.

But now I’m confused. Who gave those folks plenty of airtime? CNN. Who loves to throw one of those clowns into a panel to watch the sparks fly? CNN. Who has their own collection of in-house apologists for the status quo, like Wolf Blitzer and John King? CNN. Who has a point of view that is barely distinguishable from that of Fox News? CNN.

Who promotes banana propagandists in their own programming? CNN.

I am not impressed. I’m not persuaded by someone announcing, “we state only the facts,” but would be more favorable towards someone who actually states the facts and criticizes the lies.

Would centuries of oppression be OK if Jesus would only forgive us?

This guy, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, has a weird take on Ta-Nehisi Coates. Coates would be less pessimistic if he weren’t an atheist, and that pessimism, somehow, is a problem.

Coates’s belief that white supremacy is fundamentally woven into the fabric of the United States is built on a larger metaphysical assumption that without the existence of God the entire world bends towards injustice. He points to the egregious history of racial injustice in this country, and the atrocities committed by the Nazis and Soviets, through the books of Judt and Snyder, to prove his point.

The real problem for Coates, then, might ultimately not be white supremacy, but rather the non-existence of God. It is the non-existence of God, according to his argument, that rules out the possibility of any collective redemption not just in the United States, but the world writ large.

Hang on there, Dan. You got an explanation already — there is an “egregious history of racial injustice in this country”. Coates is aware of this history, and it is that history that leads him to understand that white supremacy is part of the fabric of the United States. His atheism is irrelevant to that specific understanding, since, after all, non-atheists like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X also came to the same conclusion.

Steinmetz-Jenkins harps on “collective redemption” a lot, without bothering to explain it. I think he means something like a savior washing away the sins of the past; if only we believed in a magical being who magically blessed America and forgave it its deeply rooted bigotry, then the stain of the KKK, of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, of centuries of slave ships anchoring on our shores, of the extermination of native peoples, of every crime perpetrated in the name of Whiteness, would disappear, and all the neo-nazis would be allowed to dance in heaven, and our healing would begin.

It’s true, I don’t believe in collective redemption either. I think it’s superstitious ju-ju that tries to paper over serious problems with lies, and that we have to spend all of our lives working to atone for our errors…and that the errors never end. That’s not nihilism, though. Our goal, and the virtue of our goal, is in the process of living and working and striving to better ourselves. The myth that there is a “collective redemption”, where the problems of the individual can be eliminated with a snap of the fingers by a single person or single act, is one of the worst notions to come out of Christianity. It’s popular with people who want instantaneous absolution, and are willing to believe a lie that perpetuates the problem, as long as it makes them feel good.

He’s better off out of the Cub Scouts

A young man got to participate in some civic engagement with his scout troop, and was given an opportunity to ask a question of Colorado state senator Vicki Marble. He asked, “An issue that I’m concerned about is common sense gun control. I was shocked that you co-sponsored a bill to allow domestic violence offender to continue to own a gun. … Why on Earth would you want somebody who beats their wife to have access to a gun?“

Man, that kid did his research ahead of time, looked into the legislation Marble sponsored, and actually asked a cogent question. Do they give badges for that?

I guess not. The scout leader kicked him out of his cub scout den.

How is this guy popular?

Did you know the way to deal with a man? Debate is only a prelude to punching his lights out.

I know how to stand up to a man who’s unfairly trespassing against me, and the reason I know that is because the parameters for my resistance are quite well-defined … We talk, we argue, we push and then it becomes physical. Right?

You see, if that’s how an argument is supposed to reasonably progress, then it becomes problematic to argue with a woman, because you know that eventually, according to the rules, rational dissent must culminate in socking her in the jaw, and that’s not nice to do to a woman. Perfectly OK to do that to a man, of course.

In case you’re wondering who would make such a ludicrous argument, it’s from Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist, darling of the alt-right, and Canadian. I’ve never been in such a situation, except for that time in 7th grade when I was beat up for my lunch money, and even then, I didn’t get to do any punching because I was on my back with the wind knocked out of me.

I don’t know, man, that’s such an un-Canadian attitude Peterson has got, they might have to revoke his citizenship.

Speaking of horrible people, you might want to read this post about Joshie Berger, formerly a popular participant at the Amazing Meeting, loud skeptic, and apparently an acolyte of Peterson. It seems his way of dealing with his girlfriend was to smash her face. If that has already ruined your breakfast, here’s another problem person: DJ Grothe. Grothe didn’t punch anyone, fortunately, but in his role as the TAM organizer at the time, he reportedly silenced people who complained about Berger’s general behavior. Because, I guess, that was his job, to keep everything running smoothly for abusers.

Fuck it. I’m going to Minneapolis today, to hang out with good people and get off the internet for a while.