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Comment by asix66 | Hacker News Reader

Cell phones use Radio Frequency (RF) signals, and so emit RF "radiation". This is non-ionizing radiation, which cannot strip electrons from your cells, ergo cannot cause cancer.

RF can burn you, physically because of heat, if the RF signal is strong enough and you're next to the source. Cell phones are not powerful enough to do this.

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Of all the critiques I've read, this one is most arrogant. "We found this great way to cause cancer. Cell phones can't do it this way, so they must not cause cancer." Cancer may be caused, or abetted, by yet undiscovered mechanisms, and it's hubris to presume we know enough about cancer, or the human body, to say these mechanisms can't exist. Cell phones might inhibit DNA repair mechanisms, for example.

and for all we know, there's a teapot, too small to be observed by telescopes, in orbit right now between Earth and Mars.

1. I don't expect anyone to believe me just because I say this and 2. I don't expect anyone to spend time or money proving me wrong, either.

you aren't responding to someone proposing that cell phones cause cancer. they were refuting a weak argument that it is impossible, with an example of one kind of unanticipated interaction that could cause such an effect.

ie, saying that cell phone radiation doesn't cause cancer (or other negative effect) because the radiation is not ionizing, is a straw man- like saying that cigarettes cannot possibly cause cancer because the red glow of the cherry is also of sub-ionizing frequency.

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