According to studies, cell phones do not cause cancer. (1)
So reassuring.
In the same way the old days science was not sure whether smoking caused cancer, or was even convinced that in some cases it was even beneficial! (2)
On one side, there is the ridiculously slow pace at which science crawled towards the obvious (yes, if you put smoke in you something bad will happen). Even though smoking was around for years, official science starting to realize the connection between smoking and cancer only in the 1950’s. (3) (6) Surely science tries to reach a certain degree of certainty to say something, but this should never conflict with common sense.
“Putting tar inside your organism causes nothing”.
Does that make sense?
“Putting radiation inside your brain causes nothing”.
Does that make sense?
Scientists should be clear when making statements and they should clarify what the lack of evidence for correlation does not necessarily mean that there is no correlation. Not clarifying this is certainly not a result of stupidity. After all, scientists should know better right?
And now we come to the other interesting point: How science and scientists can be manipulated by money. It had happened before with smoking. (4) Scientists of respectable positions we also part of a specific “council” for research on the subject of smoking with clean instructions not to actually find any connections with cancer. (5) (7)
You may say that these scientists did not represent science.
But what is science except the scientists who practice it?
Would you say that Pope does not represent Catholicism?
Many claim that science is all about methodologically and systematically analyzing something. Any errors related to its practice do not relate to science per se. It is a beautiful childish opinion. And as all childish opinions, it is very appealing. But it is wrong.
Not because a bad scientist represents science.
This is indeed false.
But exactly because science is all about the systematic analysis of things. This makes it void of any ethical obligation to follow any common sense outside its own methodological constraints, thus leaving room for research which claims that “we do not know” even in the face of the obvious. And there is where money comes in.
You see, no scientist will even admit that he is doing wrong or insufficient research. But what he will never admit is that given the proper statistics, almost anything can be supported. Give some funds on top of those inherent limitations of science and statistics and you will get this research paper stating “No evidence for cell phones related to cancer”.
At the end, a slight connection will be found.
Then some more serious evidence will ‘arise’.
And at the end, scientists will be certain that cell phones are dangerous.
Not sure it will be like that?
Well, you may be right.
Like the scientists who claimed that things heavier than air will never fly. (8) Now we laugh at those scientists. But their analysis and conclusions were not to be laughed at.
At the end, you are allowed to believe what you wish.
Put a cell phone next to your head and speak for hours.
Are you willing to testify for what you believe?
Do you believe that science puts anything in the line for you? And yet, you believe in science and not in those who did actually put everything in line for you. (who are they? find out yourself)
Science today is cut from ethics and the obvious ever since it claimed was against religion. Because religion is the art of the obvious and the ethical. You can read Harmonia Philosophica for more on that, but in any case it is easy to see that in the case of smoking science feel in the trap of its own convictions. Seeking certainty is not always the way to go when lives are at stake. And taking money while doing it does not make it look prettier. It happened with smoking. It had happen before (yes, science has been about money and corruption for many years now). And the same story seems to be repeated now with cell phones. Radiation had been constantly seen as a source of problems when it comes to mutations, but now for a magical reason there seem to be “no evidence” for problems.
Yes, science continually
questions itself. And that is a good thing. For science.
But life and common sense
cannot question themselves.
Yes science needs and seeks
certainty.
But life does not offer certainty. (let alone the fact that science has anyway proved that it will never find it)
Yes science is not the experiments done by Mengele.
But he did make those experiments in the context of science. (and papers were published and research – from which you may even benefit today – was conducted based on them)
And humanity cannot accept
that.
Yes scientists are just
humans.
So why not admit that
instead of playing God?
Yes science is cold and
systemic.
But life should not be
anything like that.
Yes, you can “prove” with
proper assumptions and statistics that infinite parallel universe exist.
But smoking killed people
down here, in this universe.
Hang up the phone.
Wait for science to decide.
Take a walk.
Do you need science to tell you that?
PS. And yes, there is research which shows that cell phones are linked to cancer. See here for one recent example.
