Obligatory XKCD link: xkcd: Significant
An event of low probability will occur with a likelihood approaching unity if given enough trials. This is true for anything, even scientific studies. That is, given enough scientific studies, some will make unlikely conclusions.
P-hacking is when you, with or without deceitful intent, engage in unsound experimental and statistical practices that have the result of drastically increasing the likelihood of false positives with the goal of achieving an experimental result that passes some desired statistical significance test.
The XKCD example is a simple one. To be sound, the multiple comparisons need to be taken into account. The simplest (known as a Bonferroni correction) is dividing the acceptable p-value (0.05 in this example) by the number of test ( in this case 20), to obtain a more stringent cutoff of 0.0025. With this correction, the likelihood of obtaining a false positive experience in the XKCD example is much lower. Repeating a experiment until a positive result occurs and promoting that is also called cherry picking, which is exactly what Surreal is doing in this thread.
Other types of p-hacking include deciding on p-value cutoffs or creating hypotheses after instead of before obtaining results (thus opening you to confirmation bias), stopping a pre-planned series of trials once a significant result occurs instead of running all the trials.
Lastly, when scientists report on statistical significance, it means only that the observed result was unlikely (but not impossible) to occur by random chance. It doesn’t mean the observed effect is significant in practical terms (aka effect size)
“Perceived health effects of perceived EM exposure”, i.e. people do report symptoms when they think they are exposed, no p-hacking required. Of course I should have been more explicit about the point of that fact being that these studies do not show a correlation between the symptoms and actual EM exposure.
Another point to keep in mind about significance levels: The statement “this result would only happen 5% of the time if the hypothesis were false” does not mean the same thing as “there is a 95% chance that the hypothesis is true”. That second statement is usually the one you want, but to get a statement like that, you have to have some sort of prior on how likely you’d consider the hypothesis without the data.
And of course, there’s an XKCD for that, too.
5G isn’t a frequency, it’s a technology that runs at various frequencies, including the same ones current cell phones are operating at. T-Mobile, for example, will be starting by deploying 5G on the 600 MHz band, which isn’t “high frequency” by pretty much any reasonable definition.
Now, there is a higher frequency band that 5G can, in theory, run on, I’m not certain how well that will go in practice (given that I believe it requires antennas every couple hundred meters). But if there are health concerns there, I would think it’d have to be specific to that frequency range–that is, broadcasting anything on those bands would be bad, not anything particularly specific to 5G.
Is it fair to say there is not evidence of the safety of 5g tech? From what I gather it seems the data is inconclusive. I’ve read some cites that say it’s negative, hut I can’t follow the discussion so I’m not sure if I’m reading the equivalent of anti vax stuff or it’s legit.
Like the link in the OP that claims 5G is dangerous - is that bunk? If it is, how is that demonstrated?
Applause
The link in the OP is bunk. It’s basically saying flashlights are dangerous because solar power plants can produce so much heat that they can melt salt.
The effects that are listed are absolutely true. Millimeter waves do not penetrate far into tissues, and this has been taken advantage of by RF active denial systems. Basically, they use radio waves to heat up the top layer of your skin which makes you feel a burning sensation.
On a similar note, a 2.4 GHz microwave can explode an egg. 2.4 GHz radio waves can cook meat, so clearly they can cause severe tissue damage. But holding a 2.4 GHz cordless phone next to your ear for long enough to actually reach a live human being at Comcast customer service won’t boil your brain or cause any other damage to your body.
Millimeter waves can cause burns, and, as with other lower frequency radio waves, your eyes and testicles tend to be particularly sensitive to damage. But no one is talking about using that high of a power level with 5G’s higher frequency bands (up to about 85 GHz or so IIRC).
And 2.4GHz is also, of course, the frequency of Wi-Fi.
Here are some of my thoughts on the page linked to in the OP.
This is a networking protocol we’re talking about here, not a weapon. The whole point of this particular sentence seems to introduce an “ooh scary” tone. OH MY GOD THE MILITARY IS LOOKING AT USING THIS! Yeah, the military uses pencils too on occasion. That doesn’t mean a pencil is a deadly military weapon. Adding this sentence was completely irresponsible and misleading on the part of the author.
This isn’t true. The comparatively lower frequencies of 2G, 3G, and 4G are all absorbed by the human body. They just aren’t absorbed as completely in the upper layers of the skin like millimeter waves are.
Absolutely true for the frequencies that 5G uses. Not so true for the power levels that they are planning on using. Millimeter waves are too low in frequency to be ionizing, so the concerns for the human body are exactly what are listed - heat damage to skin, and damage to eyes (and testicles, but they don’t mention that - for women, ovaries are too far internal to be easily damaged, so it’s only us guys that have to worry). Safety standards for radio waves are built around how much they heat the human body.
Crank up the power, and that’s basically how active denial systems work. They use millimeter waves to heat up your skin to the point of causing pain, and possibly minor burns.
So? Some on Congress have seriously questioned the theory of evolution. This is another strongly misleading statement implying that there is something bad here when it’s not actually saying anything bad at all. Again, irresponsible and misleading on the part of the author.
The bit about peak-to-average is meaningless. Maybe it is based on something real, but as written, it doesn’t say anything useful. Overall, this paragraph is saying that someone thinks they are allowing the power levels to be too high, and maybe someone should look at the standards again. Note that it isn’t saying conclusively that the power levels are too high, just that someone thinks they might be and they should take a closer look at it. Again, written in such a way as to imply something much worse than what they are actually saying.
What evidence?
Complete and utter bullshit.
Of course it’s more complex. We aren’t sending signals with two hamsters using semaphore flags. Technology is always improving.
Privacy concerns? No more so than wi-fi. The author seems to be grasping at straws, throwing anything scary-sounding into the mix.
Faster data rates do tend to equate to more energy used, but painting this as somehow being devastating to the earth’s climate is downright laughable.
No shit, Sherlock. Pretty much any frequency of electromagnetic radiation can damage the human body if you crank the power level up high enough. Just because you can fry an ant with a magnifying glass doesn’t mean that flashlights are inherently dangerous.
Hey, they finally mentioned testicles! Well, sperm at least. They missed an opportunity here. If you have the power level cranked up high enough to damage your eyes, your testicles (and not just the sperm) can also be damaged.
That is an accurate list for the dangers of millimeter waves, but to put it in perspective, wi-fi frequencies have pretty much the exact same list of risks. That’s why they keep the power level low.
Absolutely true. And that even larger mix of frequencies is basically harmless. Sunlight, on the other hand, is significantly more harmful.
That’s as far as I feel like going, but that should give you an idea of the level of bullshit on that page.
I’ve seen breathless claims that 5G USES THE SAME FREQUENCY AS MICROWAVES ZOMG!!!111.
Yeah, and red traffic lights use the same frequency as Dr Evil killer “laser” beams.
It’s not the frequency you want to worry about, it’s the power. And 5G uses considerably lower power transmitters than previous generations of mobile phone signals.
Thanks, ECG! This is really helpful. Since it’s well outside my comfort zone it’s hard to determine how accurate what I’m reading is and this contextualizes it really well.
I read an article about the 5G rollout (and why you shouldn’t rush to buy a 5G phone just yet) and it said that the major carriers are deploying 5G using millimeter wave spectrum but that this doesn’t penetrate buildings well, so indoor antennas will be needed. What I’m wondering is what happened to the analog television spectrum that was auctioned off a few years ago? My experience was that this spectrum was pretty good at penetrating buildings (judging by the fact that a cheap pair of rabbit ears gave a pretty good picture). Wouldn’t that spectrum be useful for mobile communications?
Ha! This purported danger from 5G communications will never come to pass because we’ve already caused it through other means! So there!
You are correct, of course.
But I would totally sign up for HamsterG communications.
You can, however, send Internet traffic via carrier pigeon.
Not for high bandwidth communications, which is the only advantage that 5G is offering. The higher the frequency, the higher the bandwidth. UHF is 0.3 GHz to 3 GHz. 5G can reach far beyond that–the AT&T version is at 39 GHz. And yes, 5G has enormous technical problems, and unless future phones support dynamic switching between 5G and 4G, I expect 5G to be a boondoggle on a beyond New Cokeian magnitude. Tiny coverage map. Constantly dropped signals. The phones themselves have to have multiple antennas distributed throughout the phone because holding the phone blocks it from receiving the signal!
Has any research been done on the health impacts?
You know they have, they’re just not telling us the results. You KNOW what that means.