How do you prove a negative?
How do you prove that something will never ever happen? Or that something will not have an effect somewhere for someone at some point?
This is one of the great conundrums for science as scientists can't prove that things will not occur - only that it is highly unlikely based on the laws of science as we presently understand them.
Trying to prove a negative is an issue that seems to have arisen over the past 30 years around electrical transmission.
The whole effort to scare people about power lines started with some very bad epidemiological analysis that showed a correlation between power lines and cancer clusters in one American city. It has turned into its own industry.
The original study has now been widely discredited. It did not take into account issues such as socio-economic status nor access to and quality of health care for the people living near the power lines. Turns out that when these factors are taken into account, the clusters arising from power lines disappeared.
That is not to say that the incidence of cancer in these neighbourhoods was not higher than normal. These were "cancer clusters" but the reasons had nothing to do with power lines.
And, in fact, the focus on power lines resulted in all sorts of economic hardships and many people chasing a red herring. The unfortunate victims in all this were the very people who were living near the power lines because they could not sell their homes - no one wanted to buy them. After all, prospective buyers were told that power lines cause cancer.
At the same time lots of money and energy was spent pursuing a supposed connection between power lines and cancer. This money and energy that could have been better spent dealing with a whole range of societal and economic reforms that might have had a more significant and real effect. IT would have also saved a whole lot of scientists time and energy spent pointing out the errors in the supposed science.
There are many individuals and organizations which have carried on the fight against modern technology. "Luddites," they have been called but that is inaccurate as their purpose is not to prevent the loss of employment inherent in the use of mass production machines.
No, they simply don't like modern devices.
The latest round is "cell phones" and their electromagnetic radiation. And by extension, the ubiquitous WiFi networks that we find throughout our towns, homes, and businesses.
The fight over cell phone emissions has been going on for some 20 years.
The argument seems to come down to "Well, you know that cell phones have to be doing something. Can you prove that they aren't?"
And the simple answer is "no." As I said at the beginning, you can't prove a negative. It is impossible to prove that cell phones will never cause any problem.
Instead, all you can answer with is "probabilities." That is, the probability that cell phones are the cause of a number of medical conditions is "low." Indeed, I would argue "infinitesimal."
But, from a scientific point of view, you can never argue that the probability is "zero." You can't prove a negative.
However, study after study has shown no ill effects from this form of communication. At least, all of the rigorous, peer reviewed, independent studies but one.
That one found a very significant increase in gliomas in one particular class of heavy users. Only those individuals that are using their cell phone for hours per day were observed to have an increase in cancer rates.
This is one of the troubling things about this study. One of the hallmarks of toxicity and carcinogenicity is a progressive response. That is, a little exposure causes a few cases. More exposure causes more cases. And a lot of exposure causes a lot of cases. This doesn't appear to be the case in the study correlating cell phones with gliomas.
But, in any case, and in keeping with the precautionary principle, WHO has now classified cell phones emissions as potential carcinogens.
However, that does not mean that WiFi has similar effects. Certainly not at the level of output and the frequency of output put out by a Smart Meter. Smart Meters don't even come close to mimicking the heavy use of a cell phone.
Arguing that Smart Meters are an invasion of privacy is possibly valid, although personally I don't care if BC Hydro knows when my refrigerator turns on and off. But arguing against Smart Meters because of fear over exposure to electromagnetic radiation is not valid.
If we are going that route, we would need to shut down every electrical device in our homes - including refrigerators - because they are all a source of electromagnetic radiation. And that is something that can be proven.
