Scientific Process and Denialism

One side effect of living in an internet connected age is that irrationality seems to be spread more readily. I suppose this should be expected, in the sense that there are very few experts in any field as compared to an almost limitless number of loud people shouting via the internet (OK, so the possible number is <= current planet population < 8E9).

Example: a web search on microwave cooking will find some sites with a logical discussion of benefits and concerns but there will be others with "thin edge of wedge" rants that are designed to scare a reader and not necessarily to inform them. In the first group:

• In The safety of microwave ovens (http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/Food-and-Agriculture/safety-of-microwave-ovens.aspx), updated 14 October 2011, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation report that "If correctly used, microwave ovens can be a safe method of food preparation, without any detrimental effects on consumer safety or nutrition". They also report that there is less damage and leeching of some nutrients when using a microwave oven.

• In Microwave cooking and nutrition (http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/Microwave-cooking-and-nutrition.shtml), this brief review states that "as a general proposition, cooking with a microwave probably does a better job of preserving the nutrient content of foods because the cooking times are shorter".

Meanwhile, the other group has scary pseudo-papers such as http://www.facts-are-facts.com/magazin/1-microwave.ihtml where there are a variety of strange claims e.g. microwave energy is apparently "inductively transmitted to the blood via the food" or that microwave energy is emitted by the oven even when the external power supply is disconnected.

As an electrical engineer, I could build an energy storage device with electronics to convert stored energy into emitted electromagnetic waves but an off-the-shelf microwave oven is not that system (it might be part of it).

How should someone with knowledge of Physics or an understanding of logic respond to these pseudo-science outbursts? Here are links to discussions that I find helpful:

• European Journal of Public Health 2009: Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?, http://eurpub.oxfordjournals.org/content/19/1/2.full, Pascal Diethelm and Martin McKee (contact details: 1OxyGenève, Geneva, Switzerland, and2London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK respectively; Correspondence: Martin McKeemartin.mckee@lshtm.ac.uk).
• New Scientist 2009: Living in denial: Why sensible people reject the truth, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627606.100-living-in-denial-why-sensible-people-reject-the-truth.html (has paywall).
• Discover magazine June 2013, The Very Thick Line Between Raising Concerns And Denialism, Christie Wilcox, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/science-sushi/2013/06/19/the-very-thick-line-between-raising-concerns-and-denialism/

Another approach might be to just read dilbert...