A brief rant on evidence and debate quality - wind turbine edition

The ABC's 4 Corners has just broadcast an episode on wind farms and the people who claim they're hazardous to human health.

I knew it was going to annoy me and it did.

Even ignoring the people who say inane tripe like "What if a piece the size of a Commodore broke off?" (gee, what if a Commodore ran into someone? Or they, you know, like, built it properly?), the entire debate is, no real surprise, emotional and really, really poorly informed and generally lacking in any sort of science or, sadly, journalistic investigative rigour.

Here's the thing:

Lots of people are claiming they have health problems caused by wind turbines.

Nobody with any sense is claiming there are *no* health problems..

However, the central issue here is: Why? What is the causative factor? Is there any evidence?

Consider this:

1. There is no solid evidence health problems are caused by wind turbines.
2. There is some evidence wind turbines don't cause health problems.
3. There is some evidence that earning rent from wind turbines is correlated with no health problems, which is an entertaining result.
4. There are three health/causal possibilities:
1. Health problems are caused by wind turbines (direct physiology - pressure waves, sound, infrasound, something like that)
2. Health problems are caused by stressing about health problems that may be caused by wind turbines (psychotropic/psychogenic/psychosomatic - stress, most commonly).
3. You have menopause, or an infection, or a pulled nerve, or something else completely unrelated to the wind turbines but the turbines get blamed anyway (probably a case of confirmation bias).

Now:

1. If you are not interested in considering possibilities 4.2. and 4.3., you have nothing to contribute to this debate. However:
2. If you are not interested in considering possibility 4.1, you have nothing to contribute to this debate.
3. If you think "psychogenic" is an insulting term indicating weakness, go and say that to someone with severe PTSD. Preferably a former special forces soldier living on a disability pension.
4. If you think "psychogenic" is impossible, go and say that to someone with severe PTSD. Preferably a former special forces soldier living on a disability pension.
5. If you are just going to shout at me, piss off. You have nothing to contribute to this debate.

You may now enter the debate.