5 ms·

more importantly, the use of "natural" to describe a product with the implication that it being synthetic would be a bad thing is a fallacy.

80ProofPudding 12y ago
Agreed. "Organic" is pretty widely abused, too - want to drink some crude oil? It's organic...
- pbhjpbhj 12y ago
  Crude oil is [primarily] organic if your context is [petro]chemistry. It's not an organic foodstuff however. Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things. Why is it that you don't wish people to know where their food has come from and how it has been produced. What is the problem with that for you? If you don't care that your children's food is saturated with growth hormones, fungicides, hormones and pesticides or that the farmers you buy from use so much Tramadol that the environment tests positively for it [as in the current case], fine, but why does it matter so much if other people want to know the conditions their food has been grown in? Say, by looking for organic food certifications. [There see I included "food" in case it confused you, words can be so hard, huh.] There's no great logic to the insistence that words can't be used for multiple well defined meanings - yes even in associated fields like chemistry and food science/agriculture - and AFAICT there's no detriment to you in others choosing to care more about the rearing or growing conditions of their food (which you don't have to eat). So what is your problem?
  - 80ProofPudding 12y ago
    I think you're casting me as a proxy in a larger argument. You're also being pretty insulting about it. Life's too short. I've no time for people like that.
  - alexjeffrey 12y ago
    I'm not the parent (I'm GP), but my position is that organic certification is good, but the universal association of "natural = good, synthetic = bad" is only harmful. Yes, farmers pump animals full of chemicals and this should be documented and, if you are concerned about this, it's a good thing that there are organic food certs out there. However, whole industries fuelled by bullshit have sprung up off the back of this very common fallacy. There are people out there who don't take scientifically-proven medicine because it's "not natural" and lean towards quackery like homeopathy, and this is what I'm opposed to. To reiterate, IMO organic or free-range farm produce is a good thing and I'm sure most people would agree with that. That's not what I was talking about so don't get rude with people based on a misinterpretation of the subject, it's unnecessarily disruptive.
  - tjradcliffe 12y ago
    "Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things." Dunno what his problem is, but my problem is the context in which "organic" gets used with respect to foods: a massively expensive, misleading, anti-science marketing campaign by huge corporations intent on profiting from people's mistaken belief that "organic" products are--by virtue of being "organic"--healthier or better for the environment. Since the people behind this huge corporate marketing campaign are also promulgating lies about GMOs in an attempt to force labeling on them and prevent their development, your claim "there's no detriment" to others from those who support them is false.
    - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
      >an attempt to force labeling on them and prevent their development // Labelling only provides people with the ability to chose. Against choice? Consumers can make uninformed choices, sure, but that choice is central to a democratic system. Who are the corporations that you're referring to? The majority of organic stuff we get in the UK is from small corporations or local farms, it is the bigger corps that stand to lose most from a desire from the public to have organic (and similar ethos) production of food. For example factory farming chicken relies on being able to pump them full of antibiotics. You say it's a mistaken belief that organic food is better - the meta-studies I've seen seem to flip between the two positions pretty rapidly. Can you cite maybe one or two studies that you would say show incontrovertibly that organic production is no better for people, animal welfare and/or the environment? Thanks.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    Can't speak for the GP, but in my case, I object to laws requiring labels on GMO, etc. foodstuffs simply because I don't want to live in California, where literally everything has one or more dire warning labels attached to it. When everything is dangerous, nothing is. The labels end up not being taken seriously, and the consumer ends up less-informed than they otherwise would have been.
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      "Literally" applies, by the way, when the whole building you're in has a sign in the lobby that reads "This building contains substances known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and itchy rashes." I'm worried that this is where the slippery slope of GMO labeling will lead.
    - gohrt 12y ago
      So the solution is to label nothing, and actively mislabel everything? That doesn't sound right. https://www.google.com/search?q=john+oliver+food+labels https://www.google.com/search?q=john+oliver+food+labels
      - CamperBob2 12y ago
        No, you label things when there is scientific evidence, of the peer-reviewed and -reproduced kind, that there is a non-obvious risk associated with a given foodstuff or other item. GMO labeling falls well short of that standard.
rjurney 12y ago
Still, there is something nice about a chemical appearing in nature. Gives evidence that it doesn't do batshit crazy things to life.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Cyanide occurs naturally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide#In_nature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide#In_nature
- teekert 12y ago
  Because no naturally occurring substances do batshit crazy things to life? It's all about the dosage.
- freehunter 12y ago
  That idea might make you feel better, but it's not grounded in reality at all. Chemicals appearing in nature do batshit crazy things to life all the time.
- pron 12y ago
  Have you heard of the very natural Oxygen Catastrophe[1] that wiped out much of the life on Earth? Some organisms began dumping a toxic chemical (oxygen) into the atmosphere in such large quantities that it practically killed off everyone except for those weird mutants that evolved to actually breathe that dangerous toxin synthesized by the killers! [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    Yeah yeah it's not 100% but it's still reasonably strong evidence. If you find something in a plant that's eaten by many things then it's probably not very toxic.
    - pron 12y ago
      Maybe that's some evidence, but it's certainly not reasonably strong (in fact, it's very weak evidence). First, some of those "many things" would need to have a metabolism that's close to ours. Secondly, even if those unaffected organisms are similar to us, we would need to consume that molecule at similar concentrations. Most toxins have adverse effect only beyond a certain dosage. Something can be harmless (like cyanide) in it's "naturally occurring" concentrations, and positively lethal in higher doses. Besides, synthetic molecules are tested before they're approved for human consumption, and they are usually tested on animals with similar metabolism to us, and at the appropriate dose. So actually, FDA approval is a much, much, much stronger evidence for a drug's safety than it being extracted from "nature".
teekert 12y ago
Exactly, cyanobacteria are also natural as is tobacco. One can synthesize many natural products in purer and safer forms.
- Gravityloss 12y ago
  Cigarettes are very far from just dried tobacco leaves, as they've been engineered to maximize addiction with additives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarettes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarettes http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/tobacco/en/l-3/5.htm http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_la...

80ProofPudding 12y ago

Agreed. "Organic" is pretty widely abused, too - want to drink some crude oil? It's organic...

pbhjpbhj 12y ago
Crude oil is [primarily] organic if your context is [petro]chemistry. It's not an organic foodstuff however. Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things. Why is it that you don't wish people to know where their food has come from and how it has been produced. What is the problem with that for you? If you don't care that your children's food is saturated with growth hormones, fungicides, hormones and pesticides or that the farmers you buy from use so much Tramadol that the environment tests positively for it [as in the current case], fine, but why does it matter so much if other people want to know the conditions their food has been grown in? Say, by looking for organic food certifications. [There see I included "food" in case it confused you, words can be so hard, huh.] There's no great logic to the insistence that words can't be used for multiple well defined meanings - yes even in associated fields like chemistry and food science/agriculture - and AFAICT there's no detriment to you in others choosing to care more about the rearing or growing conditions of their food (which you don't have to eat). So what is your problem?
- 80ProofPudding 12y ago
  I think you're casting me as a proxy in a larger argument. You're also being pretty insulting about it. Life's too short. I've no time for people like that.
- alexjeffrey 12y ago
  I'm not the parent (I'm GP), but my position is that organic certification is good, but the universal association of "natural = good, synthetic = bad" is only harmful. Yes, farmers pump animals full of chemicals and this should be documented and, if you are concerned about this, it's a good thing that there are organic food certs out there. However, whole industries fuelled by bullshit have sprung up off the back of this very common fallacy. There are people out there who don't take scientifically-proven medicine because it's "not natural" and lean towards quackery like homeopathy, and this is what I'm opposed to. To reiterate, IMO organic or free-range farm produce is a good thing and I'm sure most people would agree with that. That's not what I was talking about so don't get rude with people based on a misinterpretation of the subject, it's unnecessarily disruptive.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  "Shock, horror, words have contexts which cause them to mean different things." Dunno what his problem is, but my problem is the context in which "organic" gets used with respect to foods: a massively expensive, misleading, anti-science marketing campaign by huge corporations intent on profiting from people's mistaken belief that "organic" products are--by virtue of being "organic"--healthier or better for the environment. Since the people behind this huge corporate marketing campaign are also promulgating lies about GMOs in an attempt to force labeling on them and prevent their development, your claim "there's no detriment" to others from those who support them is false.
  - pbhjpbhj 12y ago
    >an attempt to force labeling on them and prevent their development // Labelling only provides people with the ability to chose. Against choice? Consumers can make uninformed choices, sure, but that choice is central to a democratic system. Who are the corporations that you're referring to? The majority of organic stuff we get in the UK is from small corporations or local farms, it is the bigger corps that stand to lose most from a desire from the public to have organic (and similar ethos) production of food. For example factory farming chicken relies on being able to pump them full of antibiotics. You say it's a mistaken belief that organic food is better - the meta-studies I've seen seem to flip between the two positions pretty rapidly. Can you cite maybe one or two studies that you would say show incontrovertibly that organic production is no better for people, animal welfare and/or the environment? Thanks.
- CamperBob2 12y ago
  Can't speak for the GP, but in my case, I object to laws requiring labels on GMO, etc. foodstuffs simply because I don't want to live in California, where literally everything has one or more dire warning labels attached to it. When everything is dangerous, nothing is. The labels end up not being taken seriously, and the consumer ends up less-informed than they otherwise would have been.
  - CamperBob2 12y ago
    "Literally" applies, by the way, when the whole building you're in has a sign in the lobby that reads "This building contains substances known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, and itchy rashes." I'm worried that this is where the slippery slope of GMO labeling will lead.
  - gohrt 12y ago
    So the solution is to label nothing, and actively mislabel everything? That doesn't sound right. https://www.google.com/search?q=john+oliver+food+labels https://www.google.com/search?q=john+oliver+food+labels
    - CamperBob2 12y ago
      No, you label things when there is scientific evidence, of the peer-reviewed and -reproduced kind, that there is a non-obvious risk associated with a given foodstuff or other item. GMO labeling falls well short of that standard.

rjurney 12y ago

Still, there is something nice about a chemical appearing in nature. Gives evidence that it doesn't do batshit crazy things to life.

Igglyboo 12y ago
Cyanide occurs naturally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide#In_nature http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanide#In_nature
teekert 12y ago
Because no naturally occurring substances do batshit crazy things to life? It's all about the dosage.
freehunter 12y ago
That idea might make you feel better, but it's not grounded in reality at all. Chemicals appearing in nature do batshit crazy things to life all the time.
pron 12y ago
Have you heard of the very natural Oxygen Catastrophe[1] that wiped out much of the life on Earth? Some organisms began dumping a toxic chemical (oxygen) into the atmosphere in such large quantities that it practically killed off everyone except for those weird mutants that evolved to actually breathe that dangerous toxin synthesized by the killers! [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  Yeah yeah it's not 100% but it's still reasonably strong evidence. If you find something in a plant that's eaten by many things then it's probably not very toxic.
  - pron 12y ago
    Maybe that's some evidence, but it's certainly not reasonably strong (in fact, it's very weak evidence). First, some of those "many things" would need to have a metabolism that's close to ours. Secondly, even if those unaffected organisms are similar to us, we would need to consume that molecule at similar concentrations. Most toxins have adverse effect only beyond a certain dosage. Something can be harmless (like cyanide) in it's "naturally occurring" concentrations, and positively lethal in higher doses. Besides, synthetic molecules are tested before they're approved for human consumption, and they are usually tested on animals with similar metabolism to us, and at the appropriate dose. So actually, FDA approval is a much, much, much stronger evidence for a drug's safety than it being extracted from "nature".

teekert 12y ago

Exactly, cyanobacteria are also natural as is tobacco. One can synthesize many natural products in purer and safer forms.

Gravityloss 12y ago
Cigarettes are very far from just dried tobacco leaves, as they've been engineered to maximize addiction with additives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarettes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarettes http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_layman/tobacco/en/l-3/5.htm http://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_la...