That’s the impression I’ve gotten as well.
Alright, let’s drop this tangent and just stick to the flax.
Well, there is some overlap between “electromagnetic radiation” and “atomic radiation” (by which I assume you meant “nuclear radiation”): Gamma rays are electromagnetic. But still, visible light is a lot more like gamma rays than microwaves are.
Not to belabor the obvious, but just to put it in more precise terms, the potentially harmful kind of radiation is ionizing radiation, meaning radiation where the photons are energetic enough to knock the electrons out of their atomic orbital shells. This requires high-frequency radiation such as X-rays or gamma rays, and also includes radiation that we typically describe as “radioactivity”,. but not what we normally think of as frequencies in the ordinary radio frequency spectrum. If there has ever been evidence for direct or indirect harmful effects of low-power radiation in the ordinary communications bandwidths, I’m not aware of it and suspect that it would be extremely speculative at best.
True enough, of course, but as you well know, EM radiation continues to be non-ionizing well into and above the visible light range. It starts to become energetic enough to ionize only in the upper reaches of what might still be regarded as the high UV range.
Indeed. I used “atomic” as I was trying to mirror the days of talking of the “atom bomb” and “atomic power” in common use. (It is interesting to think about the time when the change to “nuclear” came into common parlance.)
As @wolfpup notes, ionising radiation is the key term. Always using that term whenever talking about potential damage might help. The trouble with the term radiation is that it could mean nearly anything. There are three kinds of radiation from a phone. Radio, light and sound. The highest energy photons come from the display. But nobody worries about that. Perhaps if anyone starts worrying about damage from cell phones, one could suggest that they turn down the volume. Probably won’t go down all that well.
Same thing is true for nuclear power plants, water treatment plants, factories, etc.
From Scientific American, The Skeptic: Physics shows that cell phones cannot cause cancer
Cell phones cannot cause cancer, because they do not emit enough energy to break the molecular bonds inside cells. Some forms of electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays, gamma rays and ultraviolet (UV) radiation, are energetic enough to break the bonds in key molecules such as DNA and thereby generate mutations that lead to cancer. Electromagnetic radiation in the form of infrared light, microwaves, television and radio signals, and AC power is too weak to break those bonds, so we don’t worry about radios, televisions, microwave ovens and power outlets causing cancer.
Where do cell phones fall on this spectrum? […] A cell phone generates radiation of less than 0.001 kJ/mole. That is 480,000 times weaker than UV rays and 240,000 times weaker than green light!
Since we are in GQ, and dedicated to dispelling ignorance: many important biological processes do NOT require enough energy to break the molecular bonds inside cells. Many important biological processes operate without requiring ionization.
Incidentally, the same is true of semi-conductor electronics. Vacuum Tube Electronics uses ionization (thermally excited electrons). Semi-conductor electronics does not: the electrons are moved between energy states that do not include ionization.
He did not state that no biological process require enough energy to break the molecular bonds inside cells. He said that for an external source of radiation to cause cancer, it would have to emit the type of energy that would do so.
Assuming your statement is true, does it in any way refute that cell phone signals do not cause cancer?
The idea that only ionization can cause cancer is false.
For your second question, I refer you to my first post in this thread.
For those playing at home, it’s post #21.
Yeah, to the best of our ability to determine empirically, it’s an observed fact that cell phones don’t cause cancer. But if it were found that they do, that wouldn’t be an inherent violation of the laws of physics. Or even a violation of what we think we know of the laws of physics (what we think we know has occasionally turned out to be wrong, after all).
Physics certainly leads one to expect that they wouldn’t cause cancer. But the definitive proof didn’t come from physics; it came from epidemiological studies.
Here are two readers’ letters raising some similar points, as well as Shermer’s response. I do not have any expertise in this area so can’t say whether the letter writers or Shermer are correct on any individual points. Excerpts:
[…]Shermer is completely wrong to assert that cell-phone radiation cannot cause damage to DNA through other means or that cancer only arises after such damage occurs.
Shermer may be unaware that those who had used a phone for ten years for half an hour a day—as most of us do nowadays—had a significantly increased risk of malignant brain tumors. In fact, most studies of cell phone users have not followed people for who have used cell phones for more than a few years and every study of heavy cell phone users finds the same thing a decade later.
Shermer has his physics right, but his biology all wrong.
He is correct that there is not enough energy in microwaves or radio frequency (RF) produced by cell phones for communication to cause the breakage of chemical bonds and particular, DNA (which is the source of mutations that lead to cancer). The electromagnetic radiation from cell phones is similar to that found in a microwave oven, though with much less energy, and the main concern should be from thermal heating of the tissue. […] Research does exist, however–I am a co-author on a review article relating to it—discussing the carcinogenic effect of elevated tissue temperature with and without coexisting DNA damage from other causes.
SHERMER REPLIES: Many readers have noted that cancer has many causes, such as epigenetic mechanisms, that do not require the breaking of DNA chemical bonds, but these other causes are not what Davis [author of first letter] and others claim for the alleged connection between cell phone use and brain cancer. Davis agrees with me that “cell phones cannot directly break DNA,” but then, oddly, she cites an E.U.-sponsored study allegedly linking DNA damage to 3G phones. According to Harriet Hall and David Gorski, two physicians who on medical controversies for sciencebasedmedicine.org (where you can read much more on cell phones and cancer), the E.U. study has been discredited, the Swedish studies have not been replicated[…] Furthermore, Hall pointed out to me that the Interphone study that I cited in my column actually found an apparent protective effect against brain tumors from cell phone use, except for the highest use groups, and that in any case the fact that they are conducting further research is not an endorsement of a causal link. […] Finally, I cannot help but wonder in this scenario why no one seems concerned about skin cancers caused by holding cell phones in one’s hand and pressed against one’s ear?
For the first time, I notice today that this software displays a “post number” in the lower right corner of my screen as I scroll down the thread.
Ah. It only displays post number when I am composing a reply.
I researched this for decades. No proof. We sampled SCE workers also.