Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Sort of interesting but sloppy science
Via Eurekalert, a study tries to link the patterns of lightning discharges to the frequency patterns in living things, especially neural frequencies.
"Neither biologists nor doctors can explain why the frequencies in living organisms (0-50 Hz) are similar to those in the atmosphere caused by lightning," adds Prof. Price. "Most of them are not even aware of the similarity we presented in our paper."
Well, that's not a similarity or even a correlation worth pursuing. All sorts of electrical and magnetic wiggles are in the range under 50 cps.
If you want to talk about natural patterns driving evolution, you need a natural pattern that is ALWAYS PRESENT EVERYWHERE**. Sunrise, moon phase, seasons. Nearby lightning happens only during thunderstorms, which are a tiny segment of time even in the stormiest places; and many parts of the world never have thunderstorms.
The sound of near and distant lightning is familiar to shortwave listeners, and it's emphatically not periodic or even quasi-periodic. It's random by the strictest definition. The miniature lightning discharges in a Zener diode are often used as the BEST random generator. You can't call it a frequency or a range of frequencies.
Everything in the nervous system is at least quasi-periodic. Most of the important action is chordal, a complex mix of harmonics, and many of those harmonics and formants are WAY above 50 cps.
This is a classic example of statistical thinking without a time axis leading scientists astray.
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** Well, always present everywhere is too extreme. I should say often present in widespread areas. Rain isn't always present, but it's daily in some parts of the world and some seasons. Likewise snow in other parts of the world. Animals in those areas know how to deal with rain and snow.
Update: Here's a much earlier experiment on lightning and nerves, which recognized the broadband nature of both.
Labels: Blinded by Stats
¶ 4:44 AM
