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Study Hints Ambient Radio Waves May Affect Plant Growth
dwguenther writes "A Lyons (Colorado) area woman with no academic pedigree has published a scientific paper in the International Journal of Forestry Research about the adverse effects of radio waves on aspen seedlings. Katie Haggerty, who lives north of Steamboat Mountain, found in a preliminary experiment done near her house that aspens shielded from electromagnetic radiation were healthier than those that were not. 'I found that the shielded seedlings produced more growth, longer shoots, bigger leaves, and more total leaf area. The shielded group produced 60 percent more leaf area and 74 percent more shoot length than a mock-shielded group,' she said." This was not a definitive study, as its author readily admits — it's hard to see how a double-blind study could even be designed in this area — but it was refereed.
I don't see why you'd need a double-blinded study in this? The double-blinded study is to account for patient reporting bias ("I feel a little better today - I think those new Addrexo pills are really working") and patient-selection bias by the doctors.
In this case the plants aren't reporting anything, it is a simple measurement, or series of measurements. And is anybody really calling into question the biases of biology RAs? Once again, take the measurements, report the results, draw conclusions, suggest reasons, conclude: "more research needed".
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
It's a nice enough preliminary study. I'm usually quite skeptical about "OMG teh ebul microwaves are killing us" studies but this one seems sensible enough and it doesn't go overboard in its claims like so many do. Good for the lady for doing things systematically enough to get published in a peer-reviewed journal (that's also serious).
Personally, I think the shielding worked more as a cozy for the plant and gave it a more stable immediate environment upon which to grow.
Read the paper. Haggerty had two cages, one of which was RF-transparent fiberglass which was close to the same air and light blockage as the aluminum faraday cage.
I still think it will come out that something else was the cause.
But as far as personal bias, a good scientist is aware of their own biases and tries to do things that are somewhat antagonistic to their own point of view. This isn't perfect, but that's why you use objective measures and report all your methods. Someone else can try to reproduce the experiment, improve upon it, control for more things, etc.
It is possible that subconcious/unconcious biases in plant care play a role here, but anyone can repeat the experiment, and it's very likely that those repeating it next will be VERY skeptical to the idea that RF is at fault and will be very careful not to baby the RF caged plants.. and if biased they'll be biased the other way. That's a good outcome of such a publication.
Many repeated experiments by people who are skeptical of each other average over personal biases.