Ms. Haggerty's work attracted the attention of Wayne Shepperd of the Forest Service's Rocky Mountain Research Station, and she ultimately published a paper in the International Journal of Forestry Research. I have not looked at the actual paper. Ms. Haggerty probably does not think she is a scientist, but I would disagree. She has formulated what my colleague Paul Strode calls a research hypothesis: "If hypothesis X is true, and I perform method Y, then I predict Z as a specific, measurable outcome." Specifically, Ms. Haggerty said to herself, "If radio waves are harmful to plants, and I perform a controlled experiment in which some plants are enclosed in a Faraday cage, then I predict that those plants will produce more biomass than the control plants." She is the first to admit that her experiment is preliminary, proves nothing, and only suggests future experiments. I am frankly very suspicious of the result. It is hard to imagine that electromagnetic fields so weak that we can detect them only with gobs of electrical amplification can have any effect on biological systems, even if there is a cell-phone tower nearby. The point, however, is that Ms. Haggerty used anecdotal evidence to provide a hunch and then followed up on that hunch by formulating and testing a research hypothesis. She did not consider the anecdotal evidence conclusive, nor does she consider the results of a single preliminary experiment conclusive. The contrast between Ms. Haggerty and evolution deniers (not to mention global-warming deniers, vaccination deniers, and HIV deniers) is striking. It is hard for me to imagine, for example, many of our favorite PT trolls ever getting past the "hunch" stage. Instead of saying, "If I believe it, then it must be true," our heroine said, "If I have a hunch, then I must test it." Ms. Haggerty has provided a model for how to do science properly. She is a better scientist than certain creationists with advanced degrees in biology or mathematics."The leaves in the shielded group produced striking fall colors, while the two exposed groups stayed light green or yellow and were affected by areas of dead leaf tissue," Haggerty said. "The shielded leaves turned red, which was a good sign. The unshielded leaves in both exposed groups had extensive decay, and some leaves fell off while they were still green. "It appears that there may be negative effects on the health and growth of aspens from the radio frequency background."
Can radio waves harm trees?
Katie Haggerty, a woman who lives near Lyons, Colorado, thinks it is a possibility. Ms. Haggerty, who claims no academic or scientific credentials whatsoever, has performed some experiments to test this hypothesis.
According to an article by Bruce Leaf in today's Boulder Daily Camera, Ms. Haggerty has thought for years that radio waves might be harming her geraniums. So she put some plants inside a Faraday cage, an enclosure that blocks radio waves, and thought she saw improvement in the growth of plants.
A few years ago, she graduated to aspen trees, which are dying in Colorado. Thinking that the cause might be radio waves, not drought, she performed a controlled experiment in which she placed some aspen seedlings into a Faraday cage and some in a fiberglass cage (which will not block radio waves), and also grew some seedlings in the absence of a cage.
The result was that the seedlings in the Faraday cage outperformed both groups of control seedlings: by the end of June, they had produced more biomass. In addition,
37 Comments
fasteddie · 4 July 2010
I've always thought that science is a verb; it's something you do. Having a phd in scientific field does not make one a scientist; it's the act of formulating and testing hypotheses systematically, being open about ones methods and results, and being willing to modify or abandon failed hypotheses which makes one a scientist.
Leeman · 4 July 2010
Colour me surprised. It's one thing for someone to make claims about emf but another thing for them to actually get off their arse and do the research.
The fact that she used not only a non-caged control, but also a non-conducting cage too, is pretty fantastic.
I agree that the results are... surprising... but it's too easy to speculate without access to the paper.
Mike Klymkowsky · 4 July 2010
I wonder whether the paper contains measurement of actually EMF levels within the various enclosures (as well as levels of water, light, soil biochemistry, etc) in order to rule out more prosaic explanations. anyone know?
Ichthyic · 4 July 2010
The fact that she used not only a non-caged control, but also a non-conducting cage too, is pretty fantastic.
yup, still, the only conclusion that can be made is correlational in nature at this point. There is no causative mechanism of radio wave interaction. I suspect something else entirely is going on.
The thing to test further isn't whether radio waves have an affect on plants, but rather what other things could the faraday cages be doing. Changing localized temperatures? Maybe they heat up more during the day (being metal) and provide a slighter warmer growing area? If it were me, I would investigate local micro-climate changes induced by the different types of cages.
simple things like temp and humidity variables can be easily measured.
Ichthyic · 4 July 2010
... btw, people say things like:
Having a phd in scientific field does not make one a scientist; it’s the act of formulating and testing hypotheses systematically, being open about ones methods and results, and being willing to modify or abandon failed hypotheses which makes one a scientist.
which is technically accurate, but there is a REASON we all go and get that PhD. It's because in getting it we are exposed to the knowledge base that makes interpretation of results much more based on things that actually have been proven to make sense, and have predictive and explanatory value.
I spent time working with a lot of non-profit environmental advocacy groups who all had the same issue to a greater or lesser extent:
they were often on hand to observe things, could indeed gather accurate enough data. However, they simply did not have the background information available to them to understand or interpret what the observations might mean.
So, yes, a SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT can be performed by anybody following a good design, but that still doesn't mean you are a scientist.
got nothing to do with arrogance. Hell, anybody can play with a set of legos and learn how to build a bridge.
does that mean you are an engineer?
Ichthyic · 4 July 2010
...and the headline used:
Can radio waves harm trees?
is exactly the kind of thing we often chastise the media about.
Is that REALLY the question you want to ask? Because this experiment doesn't actually address that much.
Instead, a more appropriate headline would read:
Do metal cages make plants grow better?
Improbable Joe · 4 July 2010
I started reading this assuming that we were going to get another funny story of a stupid woo-ster promoting idiotic woo-woo beliefs. As I read further, I started thinking "well... OK, her idea is sort of silly, but she's making a good first attempt at actually looking for a real answer." Close to the end, I got a little angry because I thought you might be just telling another funny story of a stupid woo-ster promoting idiotic woo-woo beliefs. At the end, I was glad to see that our viewpoints were similar.
Whatever else someone might say about Ms. Haggerty, we have to respect that she didn't stop with anecdote. She kept her brain running past a suspicion, and tried to create a way to test whether her suspicion was backed up by reality. Even after her experiment produced the result she was looking for, she did not claim absolute certainty.
She's absolutely a scientist in the truest sense, at least in this situation.
Matt Young · 4 July 2010
Ichthyic · 4 July 2010
but that headline would not reflect Ms. Haggerty’s hypothesis, and you would not have read the article.
I say "so what?" to the first, and "you assume a lot" for the second.
and repeat my point about headlines encouraging reading articles for the wrong reasons.
your assumption indeed bears this out.
Mike Elzinga · 4 July 2010
Mike Elzinga · 4 July 2010
Dornier Pfeil · 4 July 2010
Ichthyic,
Can you at least pay the lady a compliment? The point of Matt's post is that she demonstrated an attitude that is sorely lacking in creotards(among others) and the American public in general and it is the attitude that matters, not whether her experimental procedures met ICHTHYIC'S standards. Sheesh, you would complain if someone cut you with a dull knife.
eric · 5 July 2010
SWT · 5 July 2010
Bravo to Ms. Haggerty! She's demonstrated that she knows how to take an intiition, convert it to a testable hypothesis, actually do the test, and present her results in the scientific literature; perhaps she should take a trip to Seattle and do some mentoring at the Discovery Institute.
CW · 5 July 2010
Ichthyic · 5 July 2010
Can you at least pay the lady a compliment?
I did, you are experiencing reading fail.
Would you also look at a painting and say “Well sure, it’s a great painting but the person who painted it doesn’t have a PhD and is therefore not really an artist.”?
it's not an apt comparison, for exactly the reasons I stated in my second post on the subject.
fuck me, but the posters on this site apparently have extreme reading difficulties.
...
here's another one for radio wave junkies. Explain to me what Luc Montaigne thinks he is doing with this:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/nobel-laureate-gives-homeopathy-a-boost/story-e6frg8y6-1225887772305
snaxalotl · 5 July 2010
here's the problem: most readers here will be broadly nerdy and aware that the hypothesis is a bit far-fetched, perhaps too far-fetched to be worth studying. now the reason most people even test a hypothesis is because they believe it (e.g. because of an irrational fear of radio waves). and in amateur and/or crackpot research, there is a long history of people "proving" their pet theories. psychic research is notorious. james randi observed (in the excellent Flim Flam, and probably many other places) that psychic results correlate inversely with the quality of the experimental controls. it would appear that people are very generous about giving their beliefs the benefit of the doubt by relaxing their controls slightly, often without being aware of it (e.g. Clever Hans). an advantage of mainstream researchers is that they have a reputation to protect, so you aren't left guessing about their standards and rigor
so ... it's a nice point that creationists are science parasites who are less inclined to do research than earnest amateurs, but the example here doesn't arouse my interest any more than the perpetual motion machines i see on the internet. lots and lots of people are on a higher plain than creationists
Jimmy · 6 July 2010
Dale Husband · 6 July 2010
chris · 6 July 2010
It seems like a plant with less light would want bigger leaves. Perhaps it is an adaptation that is triggered at 40% shade but not at 35% shade. The next experiment could have mock-shaded plants at 40% and 45% shade.
Better yet, shield everything the same, and put transmitters in each cage, with some turned on and some disabled.
wither · 7 July 2010
Sheesh. She is doing science. It's a team sport. It's up to the curious onlookers to suggest further ideas to examine this possibility professionally or privately. This is no different than any other scientific effort. Perhaps there are better designed experiments, better equipment, or other improvements to the process. Alphabet soups after a name have nothing to do with it- and never have. Curious and capable folks tend to gravitate towards the extra letters, but that's about it. The senators that represent my district work as politicians, but does that make them better at political judgment than anyone else? Really....
wither · 7 July 2010
veritas36 · 7 July 2010
There was a preliminary research report a couple of weeks ago that cell phones or towers are affecting bees adversely. I didn't read details.
Amateurs have made good contributions in many fields. That they can't break into science is a crock. Hannes Alven (missing accent mark) won a Nobel Prize for plasma physics!
Matt Young · 7 July 2010
Alfvén (also missing an "F") was not an amateur -- he had a PhD in electrical engineering. See here.
Tim Nordloh · 7 July 2010
I am confused. I have heard that background radiation from the sun far outweighed the intensity of radiation from manmade items (especially in an isolated mountain town like Lyons). Given that, the effects of radio waves is pretty much moot.
Dornier Pfeil · 7 July 2010
Dornier Pfeil · 7 July 2010
snaxalotl,
Does that mean we should just tell this lady to take a long flying leap into a volcano? The only way what she did was not noteworthy was if she completely ignored her efforts and simply declared her assertions valid. She did not do that. THAT is one of the two commendable things she did(along with testing her hypothesis). Encouraging the explicit testing of ideas, whether originated in irrational fears or not, and a willingness to drop the fears as a result, is a good thing. An excellent way to encourage this is to recognize it as a very good first attempt. Maybe if more people thought recognition would be forthcoming for their effort we could see more legitimately scientific thinking from more people.
Ed Darrell · 7 July 2010
Okay, on my way over to look at methodology, but thinking: Aspen are notoriously difficult to work with in any case. For a very long time no one had succeeded in getting them to grow from seed -- in the wild, they tend to sucker out from one lone beginner, so a stand of aspen can be genetically identical. Consequently, a bunch of aspen will sometimes die off from something that would not be so serious but for the genetic similarity.
Plus, aspen are notoriously short-lived, and they are more sensitive to air pollution of all kinds than most of the other botanical species in their ecosystems. Dust on the leaves will kill an aspen next to an unpaved road.
Very interesting experiment. Lots of questions.
Oclarki · 7 July 2010
Oclarki · 7 July 2010
Ed Darrell · 7 July 2010
Can't say the experiment isn't correct on RF damage -- but I'm not convinced.
For a couple of summers I worked with the Air Pollution Laboratory of the Engineering Experiment Station at the University of Utah. My job was to put native plants into a gas chamber where carefully controlled concentrations of air pollutants were delivered, to see what the damage looked like on leaves. We gassed the plants in situ, with portable plastic chambers and host of pollutant spreaders, measuring the concentrations of pollutants with the same methods we used for all ambient air sampling. A lot of the work was under contract to power companies, New Mexico Public Service, Arizona Public Service and Utah Power & Light -- but some of the stuff was done with grants, and there were publications by Dr. A. Clyde Hill and others, in journals like the Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association. Frankly, I don't remember if any of the dozens of photographs of the damage made it into publication, but somebody working on this project, or questioning it, ought to go see, and compare the photos of damage. (Perhaps here.) At that time there were people who specialized in looking at damage to plants to determine what sort of air pollution had caused it, or not caused it. (I worked with a Dr. Tom Brown from Arizona State who could quite accurately tell concentrations of SO2 just from looking at the necrotic spots on wild grasses; part of our work was to establish just what such researchers should be looking for.)
The damage on the aspen leaves in Ms. Haggerty's paper looks a lot like NO2 or NOx damage, to me; SO2 damage usually produced red coloring around the necrosis, as I recall (hey, it was more than 30 years ago). Especially with the interveinal damage to the leaves, I'd wonder about some form of air pollution: SO2 and NOxes ought to be limited these days, but ozone could still be a problem -- and depending on the location of the experiment, other pollutants from autos should be considered. Dr. A. Clyde Hill is retired in Pleasant Grove, Utah, as of last year -- researchers may want to contact him for better consultation.
What sort of gaseous pollutants might be reactive with the aluminum mesh, and therefor be filtered out by it? I don't know.
I was also interested in the potting medium. I'm not sure of the soil acidity tolerances of aspen in the Rockies, but the peat moss struck me as creating a medium probably a lot more acidic than the native soils -- which might make the leaves more prone to some sorts of damage from certain pollutants.
I share Bob Park's skepticism for RF damage. If it's RF damage, it should mimic heat damage, most likely -- since that's what RF waves do to living tissue, usually: Cook it. (Right? I'm unaware of studies showing other damage, though there could be, I suppose.) I've never cooked aspen leaves to see how they'd die, especially in the long, slow cook RF waves would deliver.
The author, Katie Haggerty, cites very few air pollution studies. I'd be more convinced if she had done more to rule out plain old air pollution damage.
I'm skeptical of the explanation that ambient RF radiation may be triggering some seasonal or other evolved response to natural RF radiation, since the damage looks like simple necrosis from a pollutant rather than a seasonal or rhythmic response -- at least to me.
Were the trees really seedlings? Greenhouse work with aspen has come a long, long way in 30 years.
Ed Darrell · 8 July 2010
snaxalotl · 8 July 2010
snaxalotl · 8 July 2010
Oclarki · 8 July 2010
Dornier Pfeil · 9 July 2010
snaxalotl,
Thank you for poking me in the gut of my false choice. I should have been more careful.
I would like to believe that the valley between abuse and fawning is sufficiently wide that we can err on the side of fawning a little, at least without smacking into the cliff face of obsequiousness. I could care less about the quality of her work nor do I think her hypothesis is valid anyway, only that she demonstrated a mindset which is so sadly lacking in America today. The internet quackery you cite is exactly symptomatic of it. She is the counter-example of how the public should be thinking how science works. Why discourage it?
Alex · 21 July 2010
People shouldn't be too quick to assume that something has no effect on the ecosystem. We laugh at the ancient Romans for using lead pipes for water; we might do well to imagine that in a few hundred years' time, people (such as they are) will laugh at some of the things we assume are harmless.
A curious example - a friend of mine is convinced that the Wifi being on gives her a specific type of headache. I was highly sceptical, until one day several weeks later I had switched on a Wifi box in my place for the first time, and when she visited me she said, "I'm getting one of those headaches, did you install Wifi?" Many things we do have unknown effects.