PartSkeptic’s Thread for Predictions and Other Matters of Interest

[PartSkeptic]

What I have posted in someone who actually knows what he's talking about discussing what we know so far (which obviously isn't much, as this is a new virus) and offering his expert, informed, speculation. In contrast to this thread, in which someone who has no idea what he's talking about offers his uninformed, wild speculation.

(snip)

You know the logical fallacy of an argument from authority? Of course you do. Yet when you use it you are blind to it.

Is his "expert" speculation better than my experience? Especially in an area I have not only studied but been a human guinea pig?

 

[Pixel42]

Is is not blindingly obvious?

No, it is not obvious. That's why we asked.

The test protocol originally discussed was a simple blind test:

1. You are your wife are in separate rooms
2. She tosses a coin and either switches the wifi on or leaves it off, and records which in a sealed, numbered, envelope
3. You decide, based on your symptoms over the next (however long you wish) whether the wifi is on or off
4. You record which you think it is in a sealed, numbered, envelope

Repeat, say, ten times over however many days you need.

Open envelopes and see if you guessed correctly more often than would be expected by chance.

Now tell me at what point in that test protocol anyone takes a measurement, and what difference it makes to the result.

The meter will measure the various aspects of the WiFi. I will record my symptoms and how I feel. Then look for correlation.

The test protocol this describes is not a blinded protocol. It is completely subjective, and the results will be worthless.

And what do I do with the results?

If you do a blinded test as originally discussed, you will use the results to determine whether it is worth doing a formal, witnessed test. If you have guessed correctly significantly more often than would be expected by chance (i.e. well over 50% of the time) it is, if not you'll know you've been barking up the wrong tree and need to look for some other cause of your symptoms.

 

[BStrong]

You know the logical fallacy of an argument from authority? Of course you do. Yet when you use it you are blind to it.

Is his "expert" speculation better than my experience? Especially in an area I have not only studied but been a human guinea pig?

Yes.

 

[JayUtah]

You know the logical fallacy of an argument from authority?

You mean the one you use almost to the exclusion of all other forms of argument?

Is his "expert" speculation better than my experience?

His expert opinion is probably more trustworthy than your non-expert interpretation of your experience. You can stomp and whine all you want, but the problem remains that in order for many of your arguments to be taken seriously, you first have to demonstrate you know what you're talking about. This is because your arguments are almost exclusively from authority -- or rather, attempts at expert judgment without first laying the foundation for the expertise.

Especially in an area I have not only studied but been a human guinea pig?

By and large, the guinea pigs don't understand the experiments performed on them. As for your study, we already addressed this. You appear to have steeped yourself in the polemics of one side of a debate, and apparently feel that you can bluff your way along in the scientific aspects of it, using the cherry-picked material and inexpert analysis provided by your sources. When this fails you, you lash out.

 

[turingtest]

You know the logical fallacy of an argument from authority? Of course you do. Yet when you use it you are blind to it.

Is his "expert" speculation better than my experience? Especially in an area I have not only studied but been a human guinea pig?

An argument from authority is not a fallacy if the authority is backed by expertise in the field in question. What is a fallacy is to set yourself up, through a narcissism that thinks personal experience is a match for that expertise, as an authority that is equal. You're also arguing from authority, you just appeal to yourself as one.

 

[JayUtah]

An argument from authority is not a fallacy if the authority is backed by expertise in the field in question. What is a fallacy is to set yourself up, through a narcissism that thinks personal experience is a match for that expertise, as an authority that is equal. You're also arguing from authority, you just appeal to yourself as one.

This is true, but I want to recast it in more accurate terminology. Argument from authority is a fallacy when the authority of the proponent -- regardless of its legitimacy -- is substituted for logical soundness or factual accuracy in an argument that requires them. That is, if the question is properly a matter of correct logical inference or observation of fact, the eminence of the proponent doesn't compensate for failures of inference or observation that would otherwise undo the argument.

For example, if a doctor tells you that because coffee keeps you awake, avoiding coffee will make you fall asleep, that's a fallacious argument from authority. The way it's phrased -- if you pay close attention to it -- it's an improper conversion of the conditional in one way of logical thinking, or an excluded-middle fallacy in categorical logic. The absence of coffee does not preclude the operation of other keep-awake effects. Sleep is not a foregone conclusion.

In contrast, applying expert judgment to questions where specialized understanding is needed is not a fallacy. That still requires correct observation and inference, but it is likely to incorporate facts and relationships among facts that are known only by experts, and likely to be counterintuitive and misunderstood or misinterpreted by others.

If our doctor instead tells you that avoiding coffee will help you sleep easier, because of caffeine's stimulating effect on the human body, that's not a fallacy. It's expert judgment. A similar conclusion is drawn as in the former example, but here the basis of the conclusion is different and rightly requires someone with knowledge of human biochemistry.

It may be that two experts will still disagree in judgment if presented with identical facts. But they can be expected to articulate the reasons for disagreement that alludes to the specialized knowledge they possess. But if an expert and a non-expert disagree, and the non-expert merely complains because he is not being taken seriously, the critically defensible position to take in that situation is clear.

 

[EvilBiker]

I have not given up on the Wifi testing.

I have sourced a meter that is affordable but has the following features. Range up to 8 Ghz. 0.2uW/sqm up to 9999 mW/sqm. Spectrum analysis. Directional capability on 3 axes. Data logging with USB download. I will double check the manual and then buy one.

I have other people who have other meters (3 other types) and I will be able to compare readings.

Details, please.

I've done my research, and LO! I've found out how the majority of these more recent meters are made up. Clever little IC available from a couple of manufacturers. Actually, there are a few variants on offer, but the 8 GHz points to one or two specific ones.

I know exactly how the ICs work now. I could give you a detailed breakdown, and show you the pitfalls, but I suspect you'll not even read my posts, so I'll just watch you waste your money trying to come up with another obfuscation.

Of course, you don't actually need a meter at all to do the test we proposed like 7 weeks ago.

Spectrum analyser output? Too many laughing dogs.

 

[EvilBiker]

IC. Germany and Israel come to mind as low limits and they do not want WiFi in schools or hospitals. Is it possible that this has helped with lower Covid mortality?

BS. Firstly, Germany goes with the EU recommendation, which is aligned with the ICNIRP. It's specified on this page.

Secondly, the reason Germany has such a low mortality rate is because it has responsible citizens, a very comprehensive healthcare system and a huge ICU capacity.

What is becoming really clear to me is that you cite sources that support your argument (few and far between that they are) without even reading them. A couple of cases in point from your Google doc link:

Regarding Martin Pall, the author of the email: Professor Kenneth Foster, a bioengineer at the University of Pennsylvania has criticised Pall's ideas as using selective evidence that ignores research that finds no link between mobile phone technology and human health.

Here is a nice litte article which debunks another of the points made, that birds were killed off due to 5G, besides other things.

Your musings about 5G and the COVID link are just that, musings. It's getting tiresome.

 

[EvilBiker]

How do you know it is not my experience? How can you make such an unsupported statement? You do that a lot, you know.

Is this an argument from authority? Yours, that is?

It is a bad as me telling you that you only imagining you have been to the toilet in the last week. On what basis could I claim that?

You are clearly not an authority on EM radiation, and yes, that IS an argument from authority - mine. Feel free to rant about how I am not an expert , I'll just laugh in decibels up to and including the dreaded 3rd harmonic. You have not once proven that you know what you are talking about when it comes to even the basics of RF, let alone the test and measurement aspect.

You brag about a long list of achievements, but specifiy none, and only mention that you have done stuff that other people thought impossible. Are you channeling Trump?

 

[abaddon]

Secondly, the reason Germany has such a low mortality rate is because it has responsible citizens, a very comprehensive healthcare system and a huge ICU capacity.

ISTR that you reside in Berlin?

I do not, but my sister has lived in Munich for decades, thus I have been a frequent visitor.

On one occasion, I did happen to be afflicted and laid low by an illness. The way the German health care system cranked into action was astonishing. My feet never touched the floor.

This is yet another example of PS having no clue what he is talking about.

 

[Pixel42]

I am in touch with some people who are EHS.

Two of them found out it was cell towers because there were periods when they felt okay. It took each of them about 2 years to figure out the cause. On person was so sick she lost her career and all her assets. She was a mess when I first met her. But she shields herself now and she is quite a different person.

Now explain this. They found out that the periods they felt okay was when a nearby mast or antennae array was powered down for maintenance.

Do I really need to explain to you yet again why these sort of uncontrolled observations prove absolutely nothing? Why they are only sufficient to form an hypothesis, which then needs to be tested in a controlled, systematic way?

Now you explain this: why is it that whenever that is done, whenever such people are tested under properly controlled and blinded conditions, they are unable to tell whether the source of the EMF they believe is causing their symptoms is on or off?

There are people who have appeared on various shows who have to live away from their families in areas that have no EMF.

Do you believe everything someone says on TV?

Why are there no doctors or specialists that explain their symptoms as NOT being cell MW so that they can live ordinary lives. (Why have the Telcos not taken them to such specialists?)

Once again you reverse the burden of proof.

Doctors have tested many of these people to discover if it is indeed EMF that is causing their symptoms using exactly the blind testing protocol just described, the one you still haven't bothered to do yourself, and found no evidence that it is. What more can they do? In order to help such people they would need to find out the real cause of their symptoms, and that would require the self described "EMS sufferers" to consider other possible causes. Which I imagine most of them, if they are anything like you, refuse to do.

 

[EvilBiker]

ISTR that you reside in Berlin?

I do not, but my sister has lived in Munich for decades, thus I have been a frequent visitor.

On one occasion, I did happen to be afflicted and laid low by an illness. The way the German health care system cranked into action was astonishing. My feet never touched the floor.

This is yet another example of PS having no clue what he is talking about.

Yup, I moved here last year from Cape Town. It's been an experience, mostly very positive. It's perhaps a story for another thread one day. If you're ever in this neck of the woods again, let me know.

I have just managed to get into the healthcare system, and yes, it is comprehensive and efficient. I especially like the clicking of heels when the doctors walk into the wards.

(I kid, I kid)

 

[abaddon]

You are clearly not an authority on EM radiation, and yes, that IS an argument from authority - mine.

You can freely add mine and that of not a few others in this thread who actually know what they are talking about.

You can even add some who do not have relevant expertise in the area, but relevant expertise in others.

For example, pixel42 has proposed a perfectly valid initial test protocol to scientifically assess if there even is an effect to give reason for further investigation. AFAIK pixel42's expertise is not in RF, but she sure can science the hell out of anything.

And what do we get? Tumbleweeds and excuses for not following such a protocol.

This tells me that the desired cause must be protected at all cost. The ACTUAL cause is irrelevant.

This latest blind alley of investing in a better meter is just such an irrelevancy. Sure, it might allow better measurement of field strength at whatever frequency or even spectral analysis of some rudimentary sort (I am afraid to even ask for a make or model, but I can guess) but it still gets one nowhere next or near causation.

 

[abaddon]

Yup, I moved here last year from Cape Town. It's been an experience, mostly very positive. It's perhaps a story for another thread one day. If you're ever in this neck of the woods again, let me know.

I have just managed to get into the healthcare system, and yes, it is comprehensive and efficient. I especially like the clicking of heels when the doctors walk into the wards.

(I kid, I kid)

Would love to, German beer is the best. No Idea under current circumstance when such a thing might happen. One can hope.

My own health service is not a patch on Germany, but we are getting there.

For example, my last interaction with EMS here was when I comprehensively shattered an ankle in an unfortunate interaction with a ladder while home decorating. I was unfortunate to do that around the time that the drunks are falling out of pubs so the service was swamped. Triage happened and I went all back of the list. Eight hours I waited. Throughout that time, they kept on calling me with status updates, assessments, instructions and so forth. During that time, I crawled to my front door and made sure it was unlocked. When the ambulance turned up, they knew they could walk right in. Arrive in A&E, skip the queue, straight to X-Ray. From X-ray straight to theatre, have a titanium plate inserts with 9 pins. Follow physio for weeks.

Cost to me? Zero. And I had no health insurance at the time.

So one wonders exactly what the hell happens in South Africa? And why PS assumes it happens everywhere?

 

[EvilBiker]

Would love to, German beer is the best. No Idea under current circumstance when such a thing might happen. One can hope.

It's cool, no rush, I'm not about to shuffle off this mortal coil or anything for the next couple of decades at least, which is surprising, given the amount of RF I've been exposed to I'll DM you contact details for future.

My own health service is not a patch on Germany, but we are getting there.

Ireland? Loved my visits there, but have no insight into the healthcare. From your story I assume it's roughly the same across the UK?

Aside to mods: seeing as this thread is heavily anecdotally biased towards PS, I believe, in my defence, I have the right to rebalance somewhat.

So one wonders exactly what the hell happens in South Africa? And why PS assumes it happens everywhere?

To be fair, healthcare in SA is not bad, but it all depends on area. If you have no medical aid you can go to a State hospital, but you will wait. Hospitals like Groote Schuur (Chris Barnard's old stamping grounds) give excellent service, but if you try a hospital in, say, Johannesburg, it's a different story. The problem is that the medical systems were not designed to cater for the greater population (pre-apartheid), and have since got swamped, seeing as the majority of the population cannot afford medical aid.

Private medical schemes in the main are hospital plans, so you are covered for medical emergencies, and pay for day to day stuff. There are varying degrees of cover, depending on what you are prepared to pay. It's a bit complex, and I don't want to go into it in detail here, it would need a completely different thread.

I will say this, though, with feeling: I think SA doctors are probably the best trained in the world.

 

[p0lka]

Is is not blindingly obvious?

Your original claim was as follows

My wife now tells me when she turns on her WiFi modem so I can go to the garage and work there and use shielding. I get a headache within 15 minutes if in the house with no shielding.

I see no reason to involve a meter in testing that claim.

Your headache should tell you whether the wifi is off or on.

 

[JayUtah]

Your headache should tell you whether the wifi is off or on.

And if it fails to correlate with just the on-off setting, then we can examine whether the "on" state requires additional variables. PartSkeptic is trying to commit the classic misdirective error in pseuso-science whereby one assumes that a particular quantity, just because it can be measured as part of the experiment, must be considered in it.

 

[abaddon]

It's cool, no rush, I'm not about to shuffle off this mortal coil or anything for the next couple of decades at least, which is surprising, given the amount of RF I've been exposed to I'll DM you contact details for future.

Will respond in kind.

Ireland? Loved my visits there, but have no insight into the healthcare. From your story I assume it's roughly the same across the UK?

Oh the NHS is roughly similar, but they were also funding homeopathy up until fairly recently. The NHS of the UK has some startling oddities. And side note, the ROI is not part of the UK. We fought and died to rid ourselves of those shackles.

Aside to mods: seeing as this thread is heavily anecdotally biased towards PS, I believe, in my defence, I have the right to rebalance somewhat.

If PS can shovel anecdotes, so can we. The difference is that we have evidence.

To be fair, healthcare in SA is not bad, but it all depends on area. If you have no medical aid you can go to a State hospital, but you will wait. Hospitals like Groote Schuur (Chris Barnard's old stamping grounds) give excellent service, but if you try a hospital in, say, Johannesburg, it's a different story. The problem is that the medical systems were not designed to cater for the greater population (pre-apartheid), and have since got swamped, seeing as the majority of the population cannot afford medical aid.

Will take your word. Seems to mee that no health system is perfect, but it is possible wiht some effort to be at least good.

Private medical schemes in the main are hospital plans, so you are covered for medical emergencies, and pay for day to day stuff. There are varying degrees of cover, depending on what you are prepared to pay. It's a bit complex, and I don't want to go into it in detail here, it would need a completely different thread.

Comparitives are likely way off topic. Suffice it to say that my country and indeed the NHS in the UK endeavours to provide free health care for all. Sometimes they are great, and sometimes they fail dismally. The point here is that the US system is built to fail. Any system that predicates access to medical care on the basis of ability to pay up is borked. The poor can do...what exactly? Just go die in a corner, below an underpass? What?

But that seems to be the american way.

I will say this, though, with feeling: I think SA doctors are probably the best trained in the world.

Yep. I have zero argument with that. Can you imagine how pant wettingly scary the first ever heart transplant must have been?

Barnard was one courageous ....I lack superlatives. His work gave my long dead mother ten more years of life.

 

[EvilBiker]

You know the logical fallacy of an argument from authority? Of course you do. Yet when you use it you are blind to it.

Is his "expert" speculation better than my experience? Especially in an area I have not only studied but been a human guinea pig?

"Study" is a far cry from "research". I can study the bible, for example - this limits my knowledge to that tome. However, I can also "research" the bible, and then gain insight into the knowledge that is presented in said tome, and make rational, nay, critical decisions on its contents.

You may be the human guinea pig, but I'm one of the experts making you run through the maze. You and I both know the effects, but I understand them, whereas you just feel them.

 

[p0lka]

And if it fails to correlate with just the on-off setting, then we can examine whether the "on" state requires additional variables. PartSkeptic is trying to commit the classic misdirective error in pseuso-science whereby one assumes that a particular quantity, just because it can be measured as part of the experiment, must be considered in it.

The original claim was a simple 'if wifi, then headache', no mention of any other consideration at the time.

If PartSkeptic wishes to add things that were not in the original claim, then they need to retract that original claim and add a new claim, then that can be tested.