Quick - theres another bandwagon to jump on! (Mobile phone safety)

Member Name: magpie

Product:	Mobile phone safety
Date:	02/02/01 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, and communicate whereever you are

Disadvantages: Cancer? Fallacious reasoning. Idiots who use them.

News Bulletin: Radiation is emitted from lightbulbs all over your house! Everyone who has died in the last ten years has been a victim of this radiation! Ban the lightbulb!

The sort of fallacious reasoning above is one of the causes of the latest health scare - mobile phones. Mobile phones (and light bulbs!) emit radiation. Having been exposed to too many comics as children, we all know radiation is a BAD THING (TM). Hence mobile phones (and lightbulbs!) must be BAD THINGS.

Similarly, you can be sure that many people with cancer live near masts - but they've also all switched on a lightbulb. The fact is that mobile phone masts, and mobile phones, are now so common, that you CANNOT statistically and ethically investigate their effects on children.

Many of the opinions on this subject shout for more research - these are the same people who are saying we shouldn't do vivisection (but thats another opinion!) - so how do they suggest the research is carried out?

Enough of this though. Given the common fallacious reasoning, many people believe mobile phones and masts to be dangerous. What do I think?

Yes - mobile phones are dangerous. Using one is likely to lead to someone getting very cross with you when you are in the quiet carriage on the train, or you might get injured by someone crashing into you when you use it when you are driving at 70 miles an hour down the motorway.

The point I wish to make is that mobiles are not intrinsically dangerous - it is the people who use them that cause most of the problems

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