Then, when you're done, compare E to the
+2 NAD+ + 2 ADP + 2 Pi -> + 2 NADH + 2 H+ + 2 ATP + 2 H2O
(simple glycolysis reaction and synthesis of NADH and ATP).
Hint: The amount of ionizing energy of a 5GHz signal is noise in the amount of energy created by normal biological processes. Ars is careful not to say "it can't happen," but I'm going to come out and say -- it can't happen.
What I'm trying to demonstrate is how certainty can vanish when faced with actual consequences.
The implication being that while it's possible, if it were true it would require fundamental changes in our understanding. This is so unlikely to be incalculable.
So in your alternative world of logical meaning what does "it can't happen" equate to anyway? Does it simply mean less than 50% probability or what? If you aren't prepared to put an actual mathematical meaning to probabilistic statements then they are worthless. I certainly am and I am prepared to back them up with cash. What about you? Do your statements mean anything or are they just worthless oratory?
At the start of my thermal physics class, my professor spent a lecture to define what a thermal physicist means when they say "never." We spent time calculating things like the likelihood of Hamlet emerging from 6 billion monkeys banging on keyboards for 13 billions years. This sort of understanding is important when talking about entropy and the laws of thermal dynamics.
For example, a thermal physicist would be comfortable saying all of the molecules in a room will never spontaneously exist on only one side of that room. With simplifying assumptions, we can calculate the probability of that happening. While it's non-zero, it's so infinitesimal that physicists are comfortable saying "never", and we have the second law of thermodynamics.
Your insistence on putting a dollar number on my confidence is strange, since even in your case it's rhetorical. No one is asking you to put money up, nor does the infrastructure or even rules exist for how to handle it. Further, my entire point was to demonstrate that certainty in science is impossible. All we have is confidence in something.
Yes but if you can't define what confidence is what does it mean? When I studied physics we learned to provide confidence intervals for each measurement and subsequent calculation so every variable was of the form X +/- Y. From memory the confidence was a specific number of deviations from the mean. That meant something. Saying 'roughly X' doesn't.
All the examples you provided are so improbable that 'never' is of course appropriate in most contexts. But what do you think 'it can't happen' means in a case like the existence of a phenomena like EM-sensitivity?
10% probability, 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, 0.001%?
None of these are at all appropriate to describe as 'it can't happen' in this context. I think that in your heart of hearts you know that chances of EM-sensitivity existing could well be better than 1%.
> No one is asking you to put money up, nor does the infrastructure or even rules exist for how to handle it.
Check out http://longbets.org . Otherwise I'd settle for a proof of ID from whomever wants to take the bet and a public and signed statement to the effect that they'll pay up if the conditions are met within a certain time period. I'm pretty sure this type of bet is legal in most jurisdictions.
I've just described a method for quantifying probability. How hard is this to understand? Neither really exist. The measure of X is some exact amount just as a clearly defined proposition is either true or false.
You can actually simplify the confidence interval case to a boolean proposition (e.g. is X greater than 7).
For example, I am confident that special relativity is correct and that the speed of light is the unreachable-ceiling for the speed of matter with mass. A century's worth of observations and experiments support this. However, trying to quantify that subjective confidence is meaningless.
However the main point is that probabilities are required for decision making. Whether you like it or not, any statement must be interpreted probabilistically to be incorporated into decision making. You need to multiply the probability by the risk/reward differential to have basis to work things out. You do this internally without realising it. 'What are the chances that this movie will be good versus the cost of going to see it'. Exaggerated statements can hurt people's decision making capabilities. That is why I oppose them.
You need to replace the Booleans in some of your mental constructs with fractions.
But in order to come up with that number, I had to assume my experiment was correct. I very well could have had a systematic error in the experiment such as misusing my ruler, accidentally holding the rope such as to artificially shorten it, or completely misunderstood the concept of length. My confidence that my experiment is correct is both independent of the confidence interval I reported, and not quantifiable.
Is there a certain class of proposition that is too complicated to be called objectively true? Are all medical theories, for example, simply subjective and have no real meaning in terms of predicting likely future outcomes?
Any statement or theory that does not have predictive power is meaningless. Predictive implies probability. Probability implies odds. Put up or shut up up.
What is know is that electromagnetic energy can and does effect the human body, it is just a question of what thresholds we are talking about. It would stand to reason that some people are effected at different levels than others for various reasons. (Hydration, PH balance, even height could be a factor when talking about specific wavelengths).
All that is to say, the wifi thing may very well be bollocks, but I still would love to see more rigorous research done.