Subject: RE Defence (Ross)(Bowman)..
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 182314 -0500
From: Roy Beavers
To: Roy Beavers
--------------------------------------------------
..........Response from EMF-L..........
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: Defence (Ross)..
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 18:42:09 -0400
From: "Bowman, Joseph D."
To: "'guru@emfguru.com'"
I have to disagree with Randy when he says:
> The other issue that I am being challenged on is
> my use of the term "evidence". I do not use it
> in the everyday sense of the word as some of
> you do.
When scientists communicate with the public, they
should use everyday words
in the same way as their audience.
In a court room, "evidence" means the testimony of a
witness or an object
"entered into evidnece". In science, "evidence" should
therefore mean a
finding from a study. When two witnesses disagree
about whether John Doe
shot the victim, that doesn't mean that either
witnesses' testimony is no
longer evidence. It just means that these two pieces
of evidence don't
prove either guilt or innocence without further data.
A good example of this issue is the bottom-line
statement of the 1997 NRC
report that "there is no consistent and conclusive
evidence" that ELF-EMF
causes cancer. I think that their wording was
technically correct at the
time, but misled the public by suggesting there is
nothing to worry about.
There was lots of epidemiologic evidence of a
cancer-EMF association in 1997
(WL, London, Feychting and Ahlbom, etc.), but they
seemed to be inconsistent
and therefore not conclusive. Subsequently, the yet-to-be-published
Greenland meta-anaysis says that they were consistent
after all (although
the animal and mechanistic evidence still makes the
"conclusive" part
debateable). In the real world, corroboration and/or
contradiction between
scientific studies is not nearly as simple as Randy
makes it sound.
Therefore, the NRC saying "there is no .... evidence"
misled scientists as
well as the public. From the viewpoint of the
precautionary principle, the
evidence in 1997 was enough to reduce exposures when it
made sense to the
people affected.
For communicating with the public, I've therefore used
the courtroom
meanings for "evidence" and "proof". Evidence is any
physical item or
testimony that stands up to cross-examination (i.e. a
finding from a study
without serious flaws). "Proof" is when the jury
concludes that the
evidence supports a guilty verdict (i.e. a body of data
make it highly
probable that the hypothesis is correct).
Now I'll let the rest of you debate the evidence on
cell phones.
Joseph Bowman
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Cincinnati, OH
My views do not necessarily reflect the policies of
NIOSH or the U.S.
government.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
-----Original Message-----
From: Roy Beavers [mailto:guru@emfguru.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 5:18 PM
To: Roy Beavers
Subject: Defence (Ross)..
..........Well ... I guess it depends on the meaning
of what "is" ... "is"????.......guru...... (Somehow
th explanation below has a 'deja-vu' feel to it.....)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Defence
Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 13:36:33 -0700
From: "Randy N Ross"
To: "guru@emfguru.com"
Robert I did not say that Roy Beavers is biased. I
said that his list
contains biased information because he is censoring it.
That is totally
different and is not a personal remark. You must
distinguish between
the things that differ. It was not insult, it is a
statement of fact.
Ask Roy yourself.
The other issue that I am being challenged on is my use
of the term
"evidence". I do not use it in the everyday sense of
the word as some of
you do. My understanding of the word is from my
scientific training
were evidence is evidence only when it is proven. For
example, if
someone's experiment can only be done once in their own
lab, and not
repeated by them or if no one else can repeat the
experiment and get
the same result then that is proof that the conclusion
drawn from only
the first experiment in their own lab is not reliable
and should not be
considered "evidence" with which to draw a conclusion.
"Evidence" has
to be proven , i.e., experiment need replication,
before one can use
them to support health effects conclusions. I don't
see the "evidence"
as being reliable, therefore there is no proof (yet).
I hope that helps
clarify some misunderstandings.
Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.emfguru.com