Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Science and Cell Phones

I continue to observe information regarding the safety, or lack thereof, of cell phones. This post describes a current ruckus over a couple of widely cited studies that may have been faked.

My thoughts? Oh for haven's sake, it's science. If the results are valid, they should be replicable. So try to replicate them, preferably with a team of scientists who don't already have a strong opinion about whether or not cell phones are safe and will therefore take a "let's see what happens when we do this" approach.

Faking a study is bad. It's also sadly common. Sometimes it can be more-or-less proven with contextual evidence. But the best way to demolish someone's nonsensical study is to do another one using real science. I'd like to see more data on this topic, and I'd like it to be science rather than propaganda in either direction.
Tags: science
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  • 7 comments
the_vulture

the_vulture

September 5 2008, 15:10:25 UTC 12 years ago

I agree that the most SURE way of discrediting the results of a series of experiments is simply to repeat them. It's not, however, necessarily the easiest. I seem to recall, whilst reading that article, a 3.2 million Euro price tag to the project that one of those experiments belonged to. Therein lies the problem; serious science needs serious money. If one needed to find evidence that the results of a series of experiments were doctored, it would not make sense to it by substantially cheaper means of investigation before resorting to repeating the experiments?
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

September 6 2008, 06:01:35 UTC 12 years ago

Eh ... good point about the expense. I think the importance of the issue merits considerable further study, though, since cell phones are ubiquitous. If they need to made safer, better to find out sooner than later.