"Take first a prior - due to my knowledge of physics, my prior on microwave/RF/visual radiation having any biological effect is 10^{-5}. Multiphoton ionization has simply never been observed to happen except under extremely intense (read: it'll melt you) fields and there are strong theoretical reasons to believe it won't happen."
He we go again. The assumption that microwaves won't have biological effects because it would have to be at a melt you level. Or focusing on one aspect where this might be true. That's despite plenty of work in the past showing otherwise. Example:
Now, since microwaves can affect us, what effects do they have and how? This piece of research claims one. So, the question becomes: is it producing good data from good methodology? If so, then we duplicate that data from a few groups unlikely to collude to forge it. If it checks out, especially eliminating other variables, then cell radiation is probably killing sperm and we find out why.
"if this effect is real, it'll require new physics to explain."
Another common line of nonsense dropped often when people push the envelope in science. Most of the time, we find that existing physics explains a new phenomenon but scientists were just looking at the problem wrong. My favorite example is always how gecko's cling to walls: neither suction nor sticky hands but van der Walls force. We knew it existed but people's existing beliefs delayed understanding the truth.
That's not multiphoton ionization or any chemical effect at all. The microwave auditory effect is caused directly by inducing thermal expansion in the skull due to rapidly heating tissue from extremely intense microwave pulses. I've never disputed that a microwave oven can heat you up.
Microwave heating is also well understood. So the question now is "how much energy can be deposited into testicles from a cell phone?" This is an easy question to answer, either theoretically or experimentally. The answer is "not much".
As retric noted, it's far more likely that if any effect exists it's caused by the cell phone making your pants tighter.
No, the question is, "Can heat cause any effects on any aspect of our machinery for sperm production or maintenance that reduce sperm quality? Or the same for the sperm itself?" See how that broadens one's perspective above "Can heat produced by X microwave energy do damage with Y effect?"
This is what I'm talking about with assumptions making people think too narrow. You know enough about one phenomenon that you're casting the entire problem in that light. This may turn out to be justified here but it's also one of top sources of scientific mistakes or delays in understanding. So, I have to call it immediately as an unnecessary risk to force people to clarify their own position and make their own assumptions explicit.
Unfortunately, my knowledge of biology is too limited to help past noticing you were dismissing a broad phenomenon or range of possibility based on a narrow set of data or theory. A pattern that exists in many claims that are dismissed later. I wish I could do more than spot the problem here as it's an important research area. But I'm out of my depth if we start talking the molecular or cellular machinery itself. (shrugs)
He we go again. The assumption that microwaves won't have biological effects because it would have to be at a melt you level. Or focusing on one aspect where this might be true. That's despite plenty of work in the past showing otherwise. Example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_auditory_effect
Did Frey's subjects all die? No? QED.
Now, since microwaves can affect us, what effects do they have and how? This piece of research claims one. So, the question becomes: is it producing good data from good methodology? If so, then we duplicate that data from a few groups unlikely to collude to forge it. If it checks out, especially eliminating other variables, then cell radiation is probably killing sperm and we find out why.
"if this effect is real, it'll require new physics to explain."
Another common line of nonsense dropped often when people push the envelope in science. Most of the time, we find that existing physics explains a new phenomenon but scientists were just looking at the problem wrong. My favorite example is always how gecko's cling to walls: neither suction nor sticky hands but van der Walls force. We knew it existed but people's existing beliefs delayed understanding the truth.