This, however, has -been- discussed here. It isn’t a made-up illness if it’s caused by, say, low-level carbon monoxide exposure instead of the Internet. It isn’t even a made-up illness if it’s “psychosomatic”. You’re still ill. But you should keep an open mind about why.

Theory 1: the word was unfamiliar to Mr. Powerwatcher and the context suggested to him that it would sound effective in this context. For instance if Ben used it cunningly in an e-mail… Maybe they think it means “invisible”, or something.

Theory 2: the intention is to lead the audience to believe that “spurious” is a technical term in electrosmogology, so that if Ben points out that the meter device and its measurements are spurious, the audience thinks, “Why, Doctor, how ignorant you are! Obviously you must use a spurious meter to make spurious measurements of a spurious radiation field!” And confusion reigns.

Theory 3: You are Mr. Powerwatcher and you wrote in the word just now to see if we would get all excited.

“Due to the spurious nature of electromagnetic fields, the only way of knowing exposure levels is to measure the field levels.”

I like collecting poetic physics terminology but am a bit suspicious of it in this case. Can one of you physicists tell me if it’s a genuine technical term or not? I am hoping so, for the good of my soul.

I think Scientologists have their own funny gadgets, they wouldn’t want to draw attention to other people’s. I also was presuming the important documentary on wi-fi was on the shelf next to Scientology waiting for a week when nothing of actual importance happened, but Ben getting a letter saying “the Panorama people and Mister Tin Foil Hat were just here, we threw them out” counts against that.

Yet producing such poorly researched programme, just for the sake of sensationalism degrades the BBC even more and weakens its position against its critics.

Scientologists can quite rightly say Panorama doesn’t research its facts properly and is guilty of scare-mongery. Well done BBC for shooting yourself in the foot!

This should elimanate the primary cause of your dilemma (son spending too much time in front of the computer), while saving you the hassle of moving something for no good reason at all…

Sadly the BBC fails to have realised that David King is a political animal and his views are coloured both by science and politics.

I also disagree that Alisdair Phillips didn’t express a view. ‘Wow, that’s quite spectacular’ – I did hear that coming from the man’s lips didn’t I? Sounds like an opinion to me.

He is talking about the posts here and here.

“If you could post Paul’s piece below online today that would be great.”

I have read the comments expressed about the Panorama WiFi programme and, though often entertaining, I do think much of it is unfair criticism of a programme with a very straight forward thesis. The head of the HPA, who is a well-respected and influential scientist calls for a review of WiFi technology in schools because he feels it is being rolled out too rapidly….isnt that worth reporting?

As many of your readers will know, in 2000 Sir William Stewart carried out a review of the studies carried out into the possible health effects of mobile phones and masts. His key recommendation was that we should take a “precautionary approach”. It is his view that the government has not taken a sufficiently “precautionary approach” in relation to WiFi. I think you will agree this too is worth reporting.

He also recommended against the beam of greatest intensity from a mobile phone mast falling on any part of a schools grounds. Now, you may disagree with his thoughts, but do bear in mind that this view was reached by Sir William’s expert group, and not by him alone. The expert group included Dr Mike Repacholi. If Sir William is concerned about pulsing radio frequency radiation from phone masts, it would follow that he might well have concerns about the similar pulsing radiation from WiFi. He says he does. We went to a school and measured it. We then compared it with a mobile phone mast, which he had expressed his concerns about. Since the outrage expressed on this website, I checked again to ensure this was comparing like with like (even though we did of course check on numerous occasions during the making of the programme). I checked this time with a scientist at University of Bristol, who said that for the purpose of this programme these two sources are comparable. So, put simply, Sir William Stewart is uncomfortable about the main beam of a mast falling on a school…the WiFi had a higher reading. He is concerned about that too. However, it must be pointed out that we interviewed Sir William before we carried out the tests at the school, and so his concern was not as a result of the tests.

Ben compares it, amusingly enough, with the radiation from a light bulb, therefore qualifying himself for his very own Bad Science Award. The bulb doesn’t produce pulsing radiation for a start.

On the subject of Alasdair Phillips, whatever you think about his views, they didn’t impinge in any way on the programme. All he did was take the readings, not express a view.

In terms of interviewees, Professor Henry Lai is well-respected by both sides in the argument. Dr Repacholi agreed with that when I put it to him. Just because he is in a minority of scientists who have found an effect at these low levels of radiation doesn’t mean he can be brushed to one side. Dr Olle Johansson specialises in the field of electrosensitives, and is from the Karolinska Institute and so absolutely worth having in the programme.

Panorama was not trying to suggest there is any new science around, we were merely reporting on the views of the government’s chief advisor in this field. It is the mainstream view, which your readers appear to unanimously support, that there is no evidence of any adverse health effects from this form of radiation. But when we put that quote, from the WHO website, to Sir William he said this:

PK: Is that an accurate reflection of the science do you think?

BS: I think they’re wrong

PK: How are they wrong?

BS: Because there is evidence and the Stewart report pointed out some of that evidence

The fact that the head of the HPA believes the WHO is incorrect in the message it’s putting out to the world seems to me to be a legitimate piece of journalism.

Yours Paul Kenyon

I ought to mention in passing that obviously I didn’t compare electromagnetic signals with lightbulbs, I quoted a funny skit from somebody called Tristan Mills on another blog. He was mocking the use of the word “radiation” in the program (30 times in 28 minutes) to describe electromagnetic signals. It’s quite a funny skit from him, you should read it.

Paul Kenyon Podcast

We also had a long chat on the phone, “stilted” while the tape was on, cheery when it wasn’t. Nice chap. Unfortunately it’s on audio cassette – not posh podcast recorder – because you stingy bastards don’t ever spend anything here or here, and god bless you for it, ideas were meant to be free. I’ll try and transfer it over if I can find a weird enough audio cable, but I warn you it may be only just about audible.

You’ve, er, heard the quality of the previous recordings of course.

http://www.badscience.net/?p=369

http://www.qnoodle.com/public/blog/2396

Strangely, there’s seemingly not much interest compared to past rants (e.g. McKeith), even though the consequences IMHO are bigger.

It’s very similar to the ‘dihydrogen monoxide’ trick, except that that was a joke.