Puritan Economics

"At last after much debate of things, the governor gave way that they should set corn everyman for his own particular... That had very good success for it made all hands very industrious, so much [more] corn was planted than otherwise would have been ... The experience that has had in this common course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst Godly and sober men, may well evince the Vanities of the conceit of Plato's and other ancients, applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of propertie, and bringing into commone wealth, would make them happy and flourishing, as if they were wiser than God." - William Bradford, on the 17th c. Plymouth Plantation

Round One - Socialism Loses, 228-205

If anyone ever thought that national politics is not completely rigged, I predict that the next two weeks should decisively disabuse them of that illusion. This country is run by bankers, for bankers. "We the people" were solidly and overwhelmingly opposed to this legislation, probably as has never before happened in the last hundred years. But it was barely defeated. Congressional offices were flooded with angry calls, letters and emails protesting the bailout. They knew their constituents didn't want it, but almost half voted for it anyway. What made them decide whether they should vote for or against it? Everyone who voted against it is facing a close race in one month. They know if they vote for it they will lose, because their constituents don't like it. Everyone who voted for it is not facing a close race in one month. They voted for it in full knowledge of the fact that their constituents overwhelmingly oppose it. Yet they claim to represent their constituents. They in fact represent the power elites and their financial interests. Starting yesterday, the members who voted against it will be overwhelmed with bribes, threats, promises of huge campaign contributions and huge salaries for private sector jobs if they lose their elections in one month due to their having flipped off their constituents in full view of everyone. The bailout will pass. It was too close. The House is the most "democratic" of the branches of government. The Senate cares far less, and the Executive and the Supreme Court don't care whatsoever what voters think. The Boston Globe reports:

"But could there be a simpler explanation for the 228-205 defeat -- the power of money?

A nonpartisan watchdog group calculated that US House members who voted yes received 51 percent more in campaign contributions from the finance, insurance, and real estate sector in their congressional careers than those who opposed the emergency legislation.

The Center for Responsive Politics found that the gap was particularly noticeable among House Democrats. In this election cycle, Democrats backing the bailout proposal collected 78 percent more from the financial sector than those who opposed it, and 88 percent more over their careers."

Surprise, surprise!

A Nation of Pick-pockets

"The Bush administration used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse for the biggest increase in military spending and police power since WWII. Now it is using the market correction (caused largely by its own interventions in the credit industry) to expand state power in the financial area. Half of all Americans pay their mortgages, directly or indirectly, to the federal government. Most older Americans depend, in whole or in part, on money from the government to live. Now, Americans depend on the government to keep house prices up – by subsidizing demand for mortgage backed securities – and to keep up stock and bond prices too – by buying up Wall Street’s mistakes. Homeowners want protection from their own bad judgment. Investors want protection from Mr. Market. The old want free medicine. The young want free schooling. The unemployed want jobs and money. The rich want politicians in their pockets. The poor want the rich’s money. Investors, homeowners, pensioners – is there anyone left in America who isn’t trying to pick someone else’s pocket?" - Bill Bonner, The Daily Reckoning

Birthday!!

This year once again the 4th of June came around at exactly the same time of year it always has, so we were not taken by surprise. Water has gone under the bridge in the past year. Several developments stand out in their significance. In October the Red Sox celebrated their 2nd World Series victory of the 21st century, beating the Colorado Rockies in 4 games. Terry Francona is now 8-0 in the World Series, the only manager ever to achieve that. Our odds this year look to be about as good as anybody's.

There is a presidential election going on in the U.S., but no one has been able to figure out why. For a few months Dr. Ron Paul came out in a fist of fury, generating excitement and hope among the disillusioned, confusion and incomprehension among the sheep, and a vague sense of unease, possibly even the first tinges of panic, among the professional liars and thieves in Washington and their Establishment cronies.

We celebrated our 2nd anniversary this year, meaning we can no longer consider ourselves newlyweds. We went to Carraba's for dinner in accordance with an ancient tradition. Mom & Pa visited for two weeks, and it was a great time while they were here. We shot the monthly silhouette match and the Arizona State Championship. We won nothing by skill, but a surprising among by luck, including the grand door prize of a .22 hornet barrel for a T/C contender(Pa), a pair of binoculars (BC), and a knife (Pa).

Research picked up a little, with a new project on quasicrystal QW structures, news of Josh's graduation, vague allusions to my graduation, a paper submitted to and rejected by Nature, Nature Photonics and Nature Materials. We are hoping to settle for an Optics Express.

There was ordination into the office of Deacon, a high honor and responsibility. We oversaw the three main goals of the year for our missions committee: mission trip to Brazil, short-term trip handbook, and missions conference.

We started Jiu-jitsu again, and hope to be able to continue in that endeavor. By this time next year, we better have a blue belt.

The housing bubble burst in dramatic fashion, shaking our economy to its roots. The politicians repeatedly promise us more of the same intervention, mismanagement, higher taxes, forcible wealth redistribution, regulation, subsidization and reward of failure, oppression of success, and incompetence that we have come to be able to depend upon from our elected officials.

Of our reading, the Best Book Award was a tie between Bavinck's Philosophy of Revelation and Schlossberg's Idols for Destruction. They had a lot in common. The latter got me interested in economics, the last but one subject of which I had never had the slightest interest (the other being biology). So much to learn, so little time.

Besides that, life marches on. Who can tell where we will be a year from now? The biggest questions that will possibly be answered in that time concern children, career, and economy, roughly in that order. Soli Deo Gloria!

Kuyper concurs

Interestingly, I just came across this from Kuyper one day after I wrote the previous post:

"In fact, the study of the Juridical faculty will always be governed by the principles professed with reference to authority. If authority is considered to have its rise from the State, and the State is looked on as the highest natural form of life in the organism of humanity, the tendency cannot fail to spring up to deepen the significance of the State continuously, and even to extend the lines of authoritative interference, which Plato pushed so far that even pedagogy and morals were almost entirely included in the sphere of the State. Indeed, more than one sociologist in the Juridical faculty is bent upon having his light shine more and more across the entire psychical life of man, in the religious, ethical, aesthetical, and hygienic sense. If sooner or later the chairs of this faculty are arranged and filled by a social-democratic government, this tendency will undoubtedly be developed. If, on the other hand, it is conceded that authority over man can rest nowhere originally but in God, and is only imposed by Him upon men with regard to a particular sphere, this impulse to continuous extension is curbed at once, and everything that does not belong to this particular sphere falls outside of the Juridical faculty." - Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology: Its Principles, p. 203

The things which are Caesar's

" . . . they brought Him a denarius.
And He said to them, 'Whose image and inscription is this?'
They said to Him, 'Caesar's.'
And He said to them, 'Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.'" (Mt. 22:19b-22)

In the circles I travel, the church is always reluctant to speak on political issues. There are some good reasons for this, some legal, some theological. One of my most admired professors in college once told me that the Bible is absolutely apolitical. I agree with this. No system of government can be derived from the Bible as superior to others. Why not? Because any system of government, no matter where it lies on the continuum between democracy and monarchy, can only be as good as the people and rulers that constitute the nation. So a godless republic is no better in Biblical terms than a godless, tryrannical dictator. Both are an abomination to God. This does not mean, however, that the Bible contains no principles relevant to politics. Unfortunately, the church has failed to speak on the Biblical principles of politics. This, I believe, has been a deadly mistake.

In talking to Christians, I have so far failed to find anyone who can answer my political question. It's not that I've asked people and they've all given me answers I disagree with. That would be a step in the right direction. That would be a basis for discussion. I have asked many people, and so far no one at all has given me any answer to what I consider most fundamental political question: What is Caesar's? Or, as I usually phrase it, what are the limits of the legitimate exercise of power by the state? It appears that not only do we not have a consensus here, we do not have any answer at all. And this is truly a disastrous state of affairs when we live in a world of ever-increasing encroachment by our civil magistrates against our civil and religious liberties. If we can't answer this question among ourselves as Christians, how will we take a stand against the idols of our culture?

I suggest, if we don't have an answer to my question, we can't possibly make any sense of the Scriptural passage quoted above. How can we understand what Jesus means if we don't even know what is Caesar's? The passage, of course, is well known. The standard interpretation is that Jesus here teaches submission to the civil magistrate. Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Lawful submission to the political authorities is beyond dispute. But that is not all the passage says. Give to God the things that are God's. This means that not everything lawfully belongs to Caesar. In the ancient world, this was a perfectly revolutionary concept: Caesar is not God. Caesar's authority is derivative, not original, and therefore the legitimate extent of his power is not unlimited. If he were God, it would be unlimited, but he is not. He is also not the source of law. Caesar's laws are to be obeyed, but there is a higher law, the law from God, and Caesar's is subservient to God's law, and is only legitimate to the extent that it is compatible with God's law.

The fact that almost no one at all is asking this question, and as far as I know, no one is able to answer it, means that what we implicitly believe, not only in our culture at large, but in the church, is that there are no limits to the legitimate exercise of the State’s power. The State is god. Even for many Christians, I am firmly convinced that while they would never explicitly affirm that the State is god, yet implicitly and functionally in their political views, they believe that the State is god. Surely our culture at large believes that the State is god. Neither major political party in the U.S. recognizes any limits to the power it may legitimately exercise. And if we don’t know what those limits are, that means they don’t exist as far as we’re concerned. So the State becomes God. Its authority is absolute. It is the source of law, and it is above the law. The State gives, and the State takes away. The State is expected to protect us in every way, to provide for us, and to take care of us. In pursuing these ends, it believes it can legitimately seize, under threat of violence and imprisonment, any amount of money from anyone it sees fit. The State makes some rich, and others poor. It redistributes wealth as it sees fit. In the Bible this is called stealing. It doesn’t matter if I steal from you to put money in my own pocket (confiscation) or I steal from you to put money in someone else’s pocket (ideal socialism) or I steal from you to put most in my pocket and what’s left in someone else’s pocket (actual socialism). It also doesn’t matter if I hire (or elect) someone else because they promise to steal from you and give it to me. All is stealing under Biblical law. But in a State that conceives of itself as the source of law, it is not possible for the State to steal, because stealing only has meaning by definition of the State.

In the ancient world, the State was god, but this is not unique to the ancient world. The idolatry of fallen man is always setting up a created thing to take the place of the creator. In all pagan cultures the State is god, explicitly or implicitly. Even as late as World War II in Japan the emperor was officially considered a deity. This is because apart from a Biblical worldview, the State must possess absolute authority and be the ultimate source of law, attributes which in reality only belong to God. The United States had a lot going for it. In a short period of time, primarily due to the genius of our political system, we became the most prosperous and free society in recorded history. But in what consists the genius of the American political system? Most people probably think that the genius consists in democracy. George W. Bush does. That’s why, we’re told, we go to war with countries that have not aggressed against us, to give them democracy (whether they want it or not). But the Greeks had democracy 2500 years ago. The genius of the American political system is not democracy. The genius of the American political system was a firm conviction that the God of the Bible, not the State, is the only source of law and the only absolute authority. There were limits to the legitimate exercise of power by the State, and these were set down clearly in the law (the Constitution), and the State itself was under the law. It was not allowed to set aside or ignore the law when it seemed convenient. This is the genius of the American political system, and this is what made the American experiment an unprecedented success. But the idea is no longer compelling to our culture. After all, we have to have some kind of God.

We have now given up on the God of the Bible, and so we are slipping back into the darkness and superstition of all the rest of pagan history, and once again the State is god. And the true God will judge us for our idolatry. He will give us the government we want. We already have it now.

The futility of their thinking.

Here is something the antitheists would not want to see getting around - Russell is still one of their most hallowed patron saints.

"Hard, in fact, were the problems which Bertrand Russell faced in 1950 in his lecture series at Columbia University. 'The Impact of Science on Society', the topic on which Russell lectured, must have appeared a painfully hard impact indeed for anyone aware of the impending race from atomic to hydrogen bombs and beyond. What made that infernal race appear even more hellish was the hatred animating it. The racial hatred which had almost ruined the world was followed by class hatred, of which there is no end in sight yet. Trapped in that race of destruction and hatred man could but feel, regardless of his science, or rather partly because of it, completely at a loss about the meaning of his existence. Since the recovery of meaning could not be had without an escape from hatred, Russell could assign as a remedy only a love which was strong enough to cope with hatred. The only such love was Christian love, the only love which ceases to be itself when it ceases to be a love of one's enemies. To propose that love as the only solution must not have come easily to Russell. Forty years earlier he had made the philosophical and literary scene with his panegyrics of the blind world of atoms with no room for honesty, purpose, and love. Now he had to face the cynicism of all those whom he had entertained for forty years with his gospel of agnosticism and atheism: 'The root of the matter is a very simple and old-fashioned thing, a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to mention it, for fear of the derisive smile with which wise cynics will greet my words. The thing I mean, please forgive me for mentioning it, is love, Christian love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.' [The Impact of Science on Society, Russell, 1953, p. 92]" [The Origin of Science and the Science of its Origin, Jaki, 1978]

It would probably be difficult to find a situation that more compellingly exposes the "futility of their thinking" than someone of this worldview having to ask forgiveness of his audience for mentioning the idea of Christian love and compassion.

Legalism

For several years now I have off and on given serious thought to the question of legalism. This thought was provoked by a number of situations, including me being accused of legalism and of me suspecting it in others. Discussions with respected parties led me to conclude that what really is lacking when we talk about legalism is a good definition of it. Of course, if we cannot define a word, then we probably don't know what we're talking about. In any case, it will be of tremendous help to have a definition, and so I have sought one. It has taken me approximately three years now, thinking off and on, having many conversations, and reading a good deal, to arrive at a definition I feel is satisfactory. I have identified four ideas which I believe to be legalism, all of which seem prevalent in the church today. Two of them will probably be familiar, and one or the other of these seem to be what most people think of when you talk about legalism. These four ideas do not to my mind constitute such a coherent system that I would say with confidence that I have exhausted the definition of legalism, but I think I have made a good start, and it is certainly a better definition than I was able to discover anywhere else. The following ideas, therefore, I take to each be a variant of legalism:

(1) Obedience to the law comprises some part of the basis of salvation.

This is classic works-righteousness, a universal human tendency, that our standing before God is dependent in some way upon our obedience to the law. Paul says that “by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.” (Gal. 2:16b) The Westminster Confession of Faith says that, “By breaking the first covenant [of works] through sin, mankind was made incapable of life through that covenant” (WCF vii.3) This was the chief part of the legalism of the Pharisees, who believed that they would be acceptable to God on the basis of their obedience to the law.

(2) There are moral requirements which are not prescribed in Scripture.

This is adding commandments to God’s law that He did not give. It is fundamentally a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture. James says that, “He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law” (James 4:11). James is obviously talking about unlawful judging rather than lawful judging. Why does someone who unlawfully judges his brother speak evil of the law and judge the law? Because if we require something of our brother and judge our brother on the basis of a law not given by God in Scripture, we implicitly assert that God’s law is not good enough, and that He has not therein communicated all that we need to direct our faith and life. “The Word of God, which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him” (WSC Q2). “. . . good works are only such as God hath commanded in His holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men out of blind zeal, or upon any pretence of good intention” (WCF xvi.1). “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are in anything contrary to His Word, or beside it in matters of faith and worship: so that to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commandments out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience” (WCF xx.2).

(3) The law can make us holy.

One of the most critical and most misunderstood distinctions is in the function of the law, which is the substance of holiness, but not the source of holiness. In other words, the law tells us what holiness is, but it cannot give what it requires. This is also expressed in the popular phrase “you can’t legislate morality.” But this can only be understood if we recognize that you can’t make someone moral by giving them a law, but you can certainly tell them what morality is. This is the mistake that I fear the theonomists of my acquaintance are susceptible to making. For while they might not explicity say it, they certainly can and often do give the distinct impression that our society would be much more upright and moral if only we had the right laws in place. Even on Sinai the law of God only came in the context of God’s redemption (Ex. 20:1). I do not believe that anything conclusive can be said about how God’s law should be related to the laws of society until we have squarely faced the fact that the law cannot produce holiness. Paul repeatedly urges this in his epistles: “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son . . .” (Rom. 8:3). “. . . if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Gal. 2:21). “Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law” (Gal. 3:21).

(4) We have the power in ourselves to produce the obedience required in the law.

This point appears to be by far and away the most widely ignored aspect of legalism. In fact, I have almost never heard it addressed from a pulpit. What I repeatedly hear is to “try to obey your parents” or, “it is difficult to obey the law”. It was observed to me that almost all who are reformed in their doctrines of regeneration and justification turn into Arminians when it comes to sanctification. The Bible never once tells anyone to try anything. It only tells us to do. It would tell us to “try” if the source of the trying was ourselves. However, as Christians we must trust in the active obedience of Christ, as well as the passive obedience, for it is in His active obedience that He provides the holiness of life that God requires of His people. It is a pagan notion that nothing can be required that is not within the power of the agent to execute. It is a Christian notion that there is nothing that God does require which we have within our power to obey. Hence Augustine prays, “Give what you command, and command what you will”. God promises the grace of holiness in Ezekiel: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them” (Ezek. 36:27); and Paul says that “it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

She must have been a psycho.

This week at my university, the University of Arizona, a female freshman bought a knife, wrote a fake suicide note, and stabbed her roommate to death in her sleep. While we are steadily growing more and more accustomed to events like this, it still brings with it a sense of shock. But what should bring an even bigger sense of shock is that we are, in fact, growing accustomed to it. Since this fact is of course rooted in the profound antitheism of our culture, it always is curious to find out how these events are interpreted by those who are proponents of and participants in, as well as victims of, this worldview.

As we sadly have had the opportunity frequently to encounter these reactions and interpretations, I have certainly noticed an interpretive trend: "She must have been a psycho"; "she was crazy"; "she must have snapped." I heard this explanation again this week, as I have heard it many times before regarding events from the WTC bombings to the Virginia Tech murders. From now on I am determined to strongly challenge this interpretation, for I now recognize it as the way in which the proponents of the antitheistic worldview evade facing the questions and consequences that their worldview entails.

How so? Surely anyone who flies airplanes into buildings, shoots dozens of classmates, or stabs her roommate to death in her sleep is a crazy psycho, right? Well, I am certainly not qualified to comment on the psychological status of any individuals, but neither is anyone I have heard making these claims. We don't know anything else about her yet, but they know she must have been a "psycho." And in saying so, they are relegating the action to the sphere of anomaly, and they are making a clear and decisive distinction between themselves and the other person. For the implication is that normal people don't do things like that; I do not do things like that.

And I, a sinner who has been raised to life by the Holy Spirit of God on the basis of the saving work of Jesus Christ, know better than this. This action is so far from being anomalous that I can confidently say that it is perfectly rational and consistent with the antitheistic worldview. Furthermore, I recognize that the only distinction between me and people who stab their roommates to death in their sleep, is the sovereign grace of God. Apart from the grace of God, I personally have all the resources within me to stab people to death in their sleep. The source of this wickedness is sin, and it is everyone's problem. And if we studiously ignore the source of scenarios like this, as we do, then we will continue to see them occur with increasing regularity and visciousness. Our culture is profoundly bereft of any explanation of where actions like this come from, as well as why they are even bad actions instead of good actions. It is only the Biblical worldview that can correctly identify the source, as well as the solution, to these deeds. We must not let our non-Christian friends evade the questions which are screaming for answers by a simple shrug of the shoulders and the exhausted cliche "she must have been a psycho." Here is our chance to offer the hope of the gospel to our friends. There is obviously no hope in the four-hour cleansing ceremony by a Native American medicine man that took place in the residence hall on the day after the murder. But this is the best our university can offer.

Up and running

We are now on the air in cyberspace with a sweet blog domain name, which is the primary obstacle to getting started with a blog. Many thanks to Mike Tong in Minnesota for kindly giving me this blog.

I have a theory about cell phones. . .

I have a theory. I have not done any experimental research to back it up. I’m willing to call it a guess. It is a very well educated guess. Here is my guess: In my lifetime, cell phones will kill more people in this country than cigarettes ever did in my grandparents’ generation.

My grandfather started smoking in the army in Europe during WWII. When he found out it was bad for him, he quit, probably in the early 1960s. He lived to be 86, and did not die of lung cancer. My other grandfather had a friend who started smoking (with her mother!) when she was fourteen years old. She smoked like a champ for 60 years, then quit. She died when she was 94, and the doctors said her lungs were in perfect condition. As you know, most people of their generation who decided to smoke did not have such a good outcome. Many others never did smoke at all, because they weren’t interested, or thought it was disgusting, or because of social or religious pressures. The question we always wanted to ask our grandparents growing up is this: “What kind of insanity did everyone in those days have that made them think that filling their lungs with smoke tens of thousands of times for decades would not eventually kill them?” It seems so obvious in hindsight. Undoubtedly there were some people in those early days who predicted that smoking would kill millions. But no one remembers them. What did my grandparents say? “No one in those days knew it was bad for you.”

I am not very old – under 30. In 2000 when I left college, (a small, private school of about 1000 students), I’ll bet not more than half a dozen students there total had cell phones. I had a lot of friends in college. As far as I ever knew only one of them had a cell phone, and then only the last year we were there. Her dad bought it for her for emergencies while she was driving back and forth between school and home. It was a pay-as-you-go phone, and I think she had 30 minutes a month. I don’t know that she ever used it, and we never knew the number.

In 2003, three years later, I started graduate school. For several months I had a land line and no cell phone. After missing an important research group meeting, I gave in, cancelled the land line, and bought a cell phone. I am sure that now I don’t know anyone under 40 who does not have a cell phone. Most high school students have cell phones.

If I walk across my campus (a major research university) today between classes, I’ll bet at least half of all the students I pass who are not walking with friends have a cell phone clamped to the side of their head. It would be very interesting to find out if it really is half. I don’t have time to run the experiment, but someone should. An average cell phone plan is 600-1000 minutes per month. Most people run out of minutes. That means they are using their cell phones for around 10-15 hours per month.

I am a physicist, almost finished with my PhD. My field is optics. That means I study radiation for a living, specifically radiation-matter interactions. I know a lot about radiation. The radiation I know the most about is optical, meaning it is short wavelength, either in the visible or the near-infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Cell phones transmit and receive long wavelength radiation. All electromagnetic radiation obeys the same laws, but different parts of the spectrum interact much differently with matter. Here is my theory: lots people who clamp cell phones against their heads for 10-15 hours per month for twenty to thirty years will get brain tumors. Almost everyone who gets a brain tumor will die. I am not aware of any medical condition more deadly and hopeless than a brain tumor. As I said earlier, many people in my grandparents’ generation who smoked didn’t die of lung cancer. The fatality rate due to cell phones will be much higher. Many people in my grandparents’ generation didn’t smoke at all. No one in my generation doesn’t have a cell phone.

I have been saying this for five years now. I have said it to lots of physicists, and lots of non-physicists. No one has ever disagreed with me for scientific reasons. They think it’s an interesting point, but then they get distracted because they have to answer their cell phone. When I first came to grad school I walked into the office of my Electricity and Magnetism professor and asked him. His response was this: “I don’t think so – they wouldn’t be allowed to sell them if they were dangerous.” (Right. You can probably guess his political orientation: a tenured professor at a major research university, and he’s from the UK. The government will take care of us, won’t they? What else are they there for?). He did not address the physics of the question.

OK then, here’s my practical advice: don’t clamp a cell phone against your head for 10-15 hours per month. Should you get rid of your cell phone? Probably. I haven’t, but I’d like to. What can be done? In some good approximation, a cell phone is a point source of radiation. That means the intensity of its field decreases as the inverse of distance squared. In other words, if you move the source twice as far away, the intensity of the field decreases by a factor of four, not by a factor of two. Use the speaker on your cell phone. Better yet, use the wired headset and put the phone as far away from you as it will reach. (Don’t put it in your pocket if you are still young enough to want to have kids).

Here are some common questions I am asked:

What about carrying the cell phone in your pocket when you’re not talking on it? This is probably not as big a deal, because the cell phone is a transmitter and a receiver. It is only transmitting (emitting radiation) significantly when you are talking on it.

Aren’t land lines dangerous too? No. The signal is pretty much confined to the wire (just don’t wrap the cord around your head while you’re talking).

Aren’t cordless phones in the home just as dangerous? Probably not, because they are so much shorter range that the fields they emit don’t have to be as intense. The base for your cordless phone will usually be in your home. The tower your cell phone is communicating with may be miles away. Your cell phone is emitting a field that reaches the closest tower.

But everyone around me has a cell phone, so there’s no way to be safe anyway, right? Remember, the intensity falls off as the inverse of distance squared. Everyone else’s cell phone doesn’t have to be clamped to the side of your head. Maybe it’s like second-hand smoke.

Could I be wrong? It’s possible. Like I said, my specialty is optical radiation. Cell phone frequencies are much lower. They go right through most things, or else your cell phone wouldn’t work indoors. But some of that radiation is absorbed. If it’s clamped to your head, it’s absorbed by your head. How much is absorbed? I don’t know. I don’t know the attenuation coefficient of water at that frequency, which would give a good idea. One thing is for certain, and that is that the higher the intensity, the more absorption. I think cell phones are pretty high intensity, because they have to reach towers that may be miles away.

Radiation is all around us. We can’t escape it. The sun emits lots of visible, IR and UV radiation; the universe is full of cosmic “background” radiation; all bodies of everyday temperatures emit infrared radiation. Most of this doesn’t kill us because it’s not very intense. I think cell phone fields are intense, especially if you integrate the intensity over 10-15 hours per month for 20-30 years and it’s clamped to the side of your head.

I wish I had written this five years ago when I started talking about it. Then maybe I could say you heard it here first. If you read the news, perhaps you heard it from these guys first, less than a month ago:

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ET_Cetera/Cellphones_more_dangerous_than_cigarettes/articleshow/2945977.cms

Most people aren’t interested in thinking about this, because they don’t want to know or they don’t want to be inconvenienced by having to give up their cell phone. Also, remember the amount of money at stake for the cell phone industry. I already know what my grandchildren will be asking me in 40 years: “Grampa, what kind of insanity did everyone in those days have that made them think that clamping an intense point source of radiation to the side of their head for thousands of hours over the course of decades would not eventually kill them?” I guess most people will answer what my grandparents answered about cigarettes: “No one in those days knew it was bad for you.” I won’t.