Why should we rely on peer-reviewed articles as authority on stuff that peers do not agree to
Ah, you've just discovered the fundamental basis of science for the past 300 years. The best thing about science is nobody is forced to agree with anything you say. But if you, as a professional scientist, carry out due diligence and document your experimental methods and conclusions well, then others in your field will attempt to reproduce your results using the same method. If others can reproduce your results, then your conclusions will gain more and more acceptance throughout the community. Eventually they may be incorporated into theories and such which eventually become part of textbooks. Nothing is ever known with 100% certainty; everything can be questioned.
The problem with many of the studies that I have read on EMF is that the results are not easily reproducible. If someone claims that there is, for example, an effect of neural synapse degradation (completely fictional, I just made it up) caused by EMF, but somebody else is not able to obtain the same results using the same methods, then the validity of the original study is called into question. More and more reproductions would be tried until it could be established with statistical significance that the original conclusions were flawed, or plausible.
If you have somebody random who has published a book on a topic, this system of checks and balances is not present. Sure, somebody else could write a review (+ or -) or whatever, but nobody is under any obligation to publish that, especially not the publisher of the original book. At least with peer-reviewed journals you have the confidence that a number of impartial, anonymous scientists from the same field have reviewed the research and deemed the methods to be reasonable and the conclusions to be logical. Magazine articles are, as you are aware, even less regulated than books.
Anyway, the jury is still quite out on the definitive causes of climate change. I can't speak much to the history of tobacco research, however you can obviously see how science can change over time if something previously known is proven false (if it is true that there were "decades of tobacco studies" that deemed cigarettes to be safe, I don't have time to do the research).
And Travis, who provides you with a paycheck anyway?
I'm currently working in private sector research and development (non-governmental, non-university) and my position has absolutely nothing to do with EMF or electronics or even physics at all. I've simply become interested in the topic of EMF effects on cellular tissues (much closer field), thanks to you. And, given my background, I want to approach it from a scientific perspective rather than an emotional sort of "tin-foil hat" perspective that seems to be common, given what I've read.
Anyhow, I'd like to profusely thank Rod for the numerous excellent resources he has provided. If I get the chance to delve a bit deeper into them and find any additional meaningful information, I'll be sure to post it here.
--Travis
