Indira Nair

Nobel laureate Irving Langmuir coined the term “pathological science” as the “science of things that aren’t so”. Pathological science and pseudoscience are similar; however pseudoscience merely uses the trappings and jargon of science while making no attempt to actually use the scientific method, while pathological science starts out scientific and then goes off the rails. Examples of pathological science are N-rays, polywater, and electrosensitivity – the last being the subject of this report by the Office of Technology Assessment.

In the late 1980s there were claims that exposure to electromagnetic fields caused all sorts of health problems – “electromagnetic hypersensitivity”, or EHS. Originally EHS was blamed on power lines; later cell phone towers became a popular target. This OTA report dates from 1989, the power line era. The OTA authors express considerable skepticism, noting that natural electric fields – generated by cellular biological activity – are two orders of magnitude stronger than fields induced by power lines, and household appliances – coffee makers and electric blankets – expose users to much greater electromagnetic fields than power lines; it’s noted that power lines are easily visible and vaguely ominous, thus attracting attention, while most people would be reluctant to attribute malevolence to their coffee maker. However, the OTA dutifully went about reviewing the literature and came up with a number of studies purporting to show effects.

Langmuir noted a number of signs of “pathological science”:

• The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
• The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the very low statistical significance of the results.
• There are claims of great accuracy.
• Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
• Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses.
• The ratio of supporters to critics rises and then falls gradually to oblivion.
The OTA report authors home in on the first criterion – specifically that the magnitude of various claimed effects are independent of the intensity of the electromagnetic field – i.e., weaker fields supposedly cause greater effects than stronger ones. It’s noted that this reversal of “more is worse” would make it very difficult to set regulatory levels for electromagnetic field exposure. They end up recommending “more research”.
Eventually, of course, real science gave up on EHS; the crucial experiments were double blind challenge tests – EHS “sufferers” couldn’t tell if they were being exposed to electromagnetic fields or not. Still, there are still plenty of people out there who blame their problems on electromagnetic fields.… (mais)