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Scientific Method
Sounds hairy eh? But really it means writing stuff down, keeping a record as some clever old geezers realized a few hundred
years ago. Otherwise we keep on doing the same things, right or wrong, over and over, because nobody knows its been done-and
sorted- or not.
Recording it means others can examine your effort very easily and think about it too, share in it, so science is sharing and
checking. If they want they can do it too and see if you are right or maybe where you went wrong, try one thing at a time.
Refine what was done, like adding detergent to the dog's bath, or doggie shampoo.
Knowing more and more about less and less.
Yup, OK its a bit of a disrespectful cliche but that is the scientist of today. A graduate usually with a good degree becomes
the doctor of philosophy or PhD when he has done years at books in big libraries, learned his lectures and experiments and
knows a whole lot about a very small area.
Very specialised indeed, not always that clever, and rarely communicates with
other specialists from different fields, very industrious though and off he/she marches into their narrow career.
WHERE?
Most often to industry, where they have the money. Some big organisation, where they are told what to think about and only
paid if they do. Also the fact is that trying stuff out can take years and often needs really pricey gear, computers or cyclotrons
(don’t ask, but billions of pounds) and then we are into laboratories and white coats, oh yes.
But Science is still only a method, a way of looking i.e. very carefully, and thinking a lot. Observing you might say, showing
it to others who are interested and understand, see what they think. When everyone agrees some say:
"Well that's a fact, hooray; we now know that ‘a’ (whatever it is) causes ‘b’ (whatever that is)”
Well, cheers and drinks all round, off to ‘The Eagle’ pub; we’ve just discovered ‘DNA’ the secret
of life."
Not so fast.
Read below about Georgie Porgie, you remember him. He stuck in his thumb and pulled out
a plum but this time nobody wanted to see.
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| The Vader Corporation |
Today it’s Big Bucks when Business meets Science
Pounds, Euros, Remnimbi, Marks or Yen. For George and all.
Fido, the stinky pooch, is OK as an example, a cartoon picture of experimentally trying something out in an amateurish way,
but science has moved on, grown. It is now very professional after a few hundred years of development and it is now a fantastically
powerful tool.
The fact is, it is simply so very good, it’s like a great big gold mine and everyone is piling
in. DNA is a fine example; the importance of understanding our genetic inheritance is so enormous that the applications i.e.
putting the new knowledge to work, are worth millions and billions, squillions over time.
The application of science is often called technology, so Hi-tech just means new science applied, so it is able to be used
in the everyday world, like microprocessors in computers.
So when science meets big business it is not
“Hello Big Biz, we are science, nice to meet you, lets have some money and we’ll do some science work.”
Oh no, it may have been briefly, but now in the post-atomic age it’s more Little Red Riding Hood meets the Big Bad Wolf
and as we know it’s the gaping jaws, the fangs and
“Awoh,Gulp!” The sound of swallowing up.
PROFITS,PAYOLA,second homes, third homes, bonuses, yachts, holidays, cars, fat pension pots, the whole shebang!
As the
song goes, "Its money makes the world go round"
Most science, outside universities, and even quite a lot inside, is owned by business, and used for their interests.
That
is: Making Big Bucks.
To be fair it is really synergy, putting together the two things lets loose a whole lot more than was possible when they were
apart. Science gets its necessary toys to play around with and a salary while they do it and think. It works, but there are
complications and dangers.
A fine recent example of risks of new technology being played right down is found in:
'CELLPHONES, INVISIBLE HAZARDS IN THE WIRELESS AGE.'
Written by Dr George Carlo ‘Chief Scientist of the World’s Largest Research Effort into Wireless Safety’
as it says on the front cover, is helped by Martin Schram a ‘veteran journalist’.
“Dr George Carlo…ran the (U.S.A.) cell phone industry’s research program for six years until he quit
in a pique of conscience. The industry – worth $200 billion a year – wanted him to continue saying all was well.
He couldn’t.”
From the back cover.
Yes, the big boss of all the research effort, the actual Chief
Scientist backs out, some dodgy-doos here, the strong smell of rats, nevermind dogs.
The position is made clear on page X111 in the introduction:
‘If a mobile phone was something that was taken orally, like a pill or a capsule, the government would have required
that it be premarket tested to assure its safety before it ever reached the hands of consumers. And if the testing had turned
up evidence such as the findings produced by a number of studies, including those in Carlo’s program, cell phones would
have been withheld from sale to the public…’
On another page on the Navigation Bar there is a good pen-picture of our old friend, your new one perhaps, ‘electrosmog’:
“Visit any public building, college classroom, courthouse, or commuter train, and look around: you’ll see people
not just using wireless phones but also wireless laptop computers and miniature palm tops. What you won’t see are the
microwaves that are criss-crossing a confined space where a number of people who are not even using these instruments are
bombarded with these waves. What is happening..is..the waves from wireless instruments cannot be seen. And whether or not
they will cause any damage, near-term or long-term, is unknown. Society was not really prepared for the wireless revolution
– nor was politics or science. There was no policy in place anywhere in the world to safeguard the public as these instruments
of unknown potential risk were suddenly available to all.”
So when damage began to be suspected the Government pressured the industry who turned to George Carlo, a public health scientist,
to head a $25 million research and surveillance program. Big Bucks. His programs produced findings that
"raised red
flags of warning that cell phone radiation could indeed lead to the development of brain tumours, other cancers, or other
adverse health effects."
So what happens next?
Wait for it and think for a moment. Obviously they said ‘Damn
fine man, we needed to know that, this must be taken seriously and looked at more closely,’.
After all this
is the industry that brought him in, paid and employed him to find the facts.
Well, no, not at all actually, because ‘Hey
there is gold in them thar microwave hills’:
“The industry reacted by treating him as an enemy – to be ostracised in public and discredited in private.”
Read
on in next column.
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Serious Science click here
So the dog is dead, but it’s no longer stinking. The stupid guy had an idea, he tried it out with water and the result
was no good, so he souped the water up with washing up liquid, strong stuff that is, it removed the offensive odour and eventually
the dog too. Mixed results on that one you could say. Gotta refine this operation a bit, Ding! The blinding light:
“Honey, I shall try dog shampoo next time”
Made for the job and tested already, if it’s made by someone reputable.
So the point is, we all do science, the main difference is those who are serious about it are very methodical, if they do
stuff in a way that kills the dog, or doesn’t stop the smell, they get laughed at and jeered at as stupid, and no-one
likes that.
Science is just an approach
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| Trying is the first step towards failure |
Step two follows right on here...
With writing stuff down it piles up, lots more stuff, a whole library begins to accumulate, books and articles on who did
this with what effect and who did that and blew himself to kingdom come.
Ah, but his records survived, so I doubt anyone is daft enough to mix nitro-glycerine and shake it around violently to see
what happens again. Not in those quantities anyway. Maybe do just a little and do it at a distance, that way you might invent
dynamite, very useful for mining and quarries, boom-bang! A pile of broken rock. A lot of hard digging work saved by using
brains instead. The brains of Alfred Nobel of Nobel prize fame in this instance.
Continued: The Rise and Assasination of Dr Carlo's unwelcome scientific report:
It
ought to be a good read, but funnily enough it is hard to get hold of a copy, you may wonder why. It was published by Carroll
& Graf Publishers, inc. in 2001 ISBN: 0-7867-08182-2 but the biggest academic and science bookshop in Cambridge was unable
to get a copy, curious is it not? It is hilarious in the final scene when George Carlo is presenting his ‘final report
of his Wireless Technology Research program before the board of directors of the trade association.’ After six years
work telling them what they do not want to hear. What they do not want to understand because their salaries depend on not
understanding it, as Upton Sinclair said. Which basically the entire book has been about, how the science pulls one way and
big bucks business the other, how not to hear what threatens your great big fantastic life-style and big big bundle of boodle.
It’s a saga of the power of the purse strings and egotistical infighting of overpaid and over-budgeted American executives,
from p257, Epilogue:
“Upon arriving at the designated meeting room in the convention center on the banks of the Mississippi River, Carlo
and his two colleagues, Cindy Perno and Lisa Joson, were intercepted by a security force of two big beefy men in plainclothes.
Their job was clearly to make sure the man who seven years earlier had been Tom Wheeler’s handpicked insider was now
secured and watched every moment he was inside the hall. The two plainclothesmen, all muscle and girth and no necks –
The larger explained he was ex-Secret Service – escorted Carlo and his colleagues to a waiting room. They told Carlo
to go inside and stationed themselves at the door, apparently to keep reporters – including a CBS camera crew and producer
– from interviewing the man who once helped plan the CTIA’s press conferences. Fifteen minutes later, Carlo was
escorted to the boardroom. He entered to a reception of absolute silence and briefly presented his final report which told
the industry’s top executives the bad news they already knew. Wheeler rose extended his hand and said “Thank-you
George” and Carlo left as he had arrived, under security escort, with the board of directors staring at him silently
as he walked out of the room. The security guards remained at Carlo’s side until he had left the hall and hailed a curbside
taxi.”
Yup, beautiful, that’s the way to do it. After years Carlo writes of prevarication, slander, writs and lawsuits, accusations
of insanity and corruption and all manner of threats and dirty tricks the report they did not want was delivered. Cell phones,
mobiles and masts, their microwaves, especially when mixed in with other electropolluting sources are hazardous to health.
Of us, of insects and probably much of nature, just like lead. And no-one wants to look at it.
Since then? Well a new business friendly government has got in its stride and…nothing.
The science is there, and it goes on to some extent and…….hello? it sounds very hollow in here…..hello...is
there anybody there….?
As it can be hard to come by we will repeat here what it tells you on the book jacket that it is all about.
"Are 100 million Americans and 500 million people worldwide exposed to potentially harmful radiation every time they use a
cellphone?" Much higher figures now of course in 2008.
"This book is a gripping narrative of scientific detection that answers this and other troubling questions, while also
telling a disturbing tale of governmental neglect, corporate manipulation, and personal tenacity and courage. It is essential
reading if you are among the millions of Americans who hold a cellular telephone against your head everyday, if you are beguiled
by the newest wireless Internet gadgets, or if you just want to know whether government is truly looking after the public's
health.
No appliance of our time has found more consumer acceptance than the cellphone, yet an undercurrent of concern about possible
health effects has pervaded public awareness since 1992, when reports began appearing of people who'd developed brain tumours
after using the device. The wireless industry quickly appointed an independent scientist, Dr George Carlo, to study the issue.
Though industry officials claimed that "thousands of studies" already demonstrated cell phone safety, Carlo vowed to follow
the science wherever it might lead him.
In fact, he soon discovered that few studies had ever been done, and there was
certainly no consensus on the vital question of whether we're exposed to dangerous radiation each time we place a cell phone
to our head.
One by one, alarming signs appeared in Dr Carlo's research: that cell phones interfere with heart pacemakers; that the developing
skulls of children are penetrated deeply by the energy emitted from a cell phone; that the blood brain barrier, which prevents
invasion of the brain by toxins, can be compromised by cell phone radiation; and that most startingly, that radio frequency
radiation creates micronuclei in human blood cells, a type of genetic damage known to be a diagnostic marker for cancer. Yet,
in 1999 the industry debuted cell phones emblazoned with colorful cartoon characters - designed to appeal to children.
As Dr Carlo continued turning up scientific findings that cell phones may pose health risks, the industry responded by not
renewing his research funding, and sought to to discredit him personally among reporters and other scientists. Undeterred,
he redoubled his efforts to learn the truth and discover what critical safeguards can still be devised to protect the public
health.
Dr Carlo and veteran journalist Martin Schram's book is a clarion call for more research to develop wireless devices that
do not harm consumers and for more aggressive supervision by congress and Federal regulatory agencies. It will leave readers
angry and incredulous that a device about which so many unanswered questions still hover is being marketed to an unsuspecting
public.
The authors also provide the most thorough presentation offered anywhere of preventive safeguards consumers can adopt right
now. Their fascinating and troubling examination of the collision between science and politics, presented in an ingenious
format that directs readers to alternately "Follow the Science" and "Follow the Politics," is an accessible and enlightening
primer for which concerned members of the public will be deeply grateful and which policymakers will ignore at our peril."
Good luck getting a copy. You are not getting mine, and anyway I borrowed it, says Mystic Messiah who read this for us so
you don't have to.
Burn the book, modern style, buy up the publishers, delete it from the lists. Is that how it's done? Enough money and its
easily possible.
We are all the 'canaries in the mine' this time around, being used to detect invisible environmental toxins.
Or for Thomas Saunders in 'The Boiled Frog Syndrome' (ISBN0-470-84553-8) 'Your Health and the Built Environment', we
are nearly all gently simmering, like unaware frogs in an electromagnetic electrosmog soup. The most sensitive are noticing,
painfully, and jumping up and down trying to climb out. The rest suffer a few symptoms but know not why, yet...
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