I'd say that if you are angry about a lack of credibility w.r.t. public opinion in your fields, blame Monsanto, not hippies.
No, I'll blame the parties responsible for the problems. Monsanto are dickbags. The guy who owns Stonyfield Organic? Also a dickbag. And the guy who runs Whole Foods? Dangerous dickbag.
One party is responsible for the others having any influence.
That's not entirely true. I've found articles from ~1920 wherein purveyors of raw milk denied the necessity of pasteurization to prevent illness and decried the newly-developed Pasteurized Milk Ordinance. They claim that the raw milk is better because it's more "natural," and talk about the problems of big business farms.
In those days, Monsanto was a chemical company.
Hippie bullshit goes back a long way.
Sure but Monsanto gave them credibility they didn't have before by providing a far reaching and nebulous evil for them to rail and/or "defend" against.
...
The whole point is that the sentiment existed long before Monsanto did anything "evil." The whole "small farmers are heroes" rhetoric predates that. Monsanto gave them more ammo, but the market would exist today with or without their influence.
And I think you're confusing "smug" with "knowing what we're talking about." The reason scientists usually sound like they're lecturing to people is because we have to - there is often so much information underlying a point that there's no other way to convey it.
You can convey knowledge while remaining socially aware. WUB is failing pretty hard at that in this thread. I know this is a forum full of geeks and nerds, and I'm not a social butterfly myself, but c'mon.
I'm not arguing that fear of progress didn't exist before Monsanto. I think that "gave them ammo" is a massive understatement.
A conveyance of knowledge dos not have to be covered with side-notes on the social importance of tangentially related issues. People with social skills just say what they want to say without timid wording and qualifying statements. If you want to talk about something else, talk about it, but don't pretend to be arguing science.
It has nothing to do with timidity or diplomatic couching. It has to do with being a human being. You can be the foremost expert on X with reams of published pages, empirical data, models, corroborating studies, supporting peer review, etc, but if you're a socially incompetent asshole it's going to be very difficult to apply any of that knowledge practically to society.
I'm not talking about anybody in this thread at this point, this is more general.
So your argument is that being a dick is irrelevant to the scientific process, including publishing and peer review? Good luck with that.
Precisely. Look at Pauling's letter to nature refuting the previous suggestions as to alpha helical structure. He literally calls some of his colleagues fools and shortsighted, and he won the Nobel Prize for that letter.
Scientists are dicks to each other pretty much constantly. It's difficult not to be in a field where the empirical data you find can destroy decades of someone's work.
Precisely. Look at Pauling's letter to nature refuting the previous suggestions as to alpha helical structure. He literally calls some of his colleagues fools and shortsighted, and he won the Nobel Prize for that letter.
Scientists are dicks to each other pretty much constantly. It's difficult not to be in a field where the empirical data you find can destroy decades of someone's work.
I can't tell if my point is going over your head or you're being deliberately obtuse, so I give up. :-)
The issue is that you've set a literally impossible standard in your inquiry: "perfectly safe." There's no such thing. The real question is: significantly different than any other practice or not?
You're not being skeptical in the sense of rational inquiry - you're being a reactionary contrarian. There is a difference.
Your story is unfortunately all too common - both because of the near-death experience, and the resultant irrational bias. Natural food manufacturers prey on experiences like yours, convincing you to pay more money for a product that is not functionally distinct from another.
And now the problem is that there's virtually no standard of evdience that could defeat your "skepticism." If you were truly skeptical, you'd have researched pink slime, and found what I did - that there's no difference in ammonia content between pink slime and most other beef, and that ammonia in such low concentrations has no effect on the body.
If you recognize and admit to an irrational standard of proof, then there's no discussion to be had.
It's a classic false comparison. Energy discussions have the same problem.
Nuclear power is superbly dangerous and polluting in practice... compared to nothing. But nothing isn't a valid option. Thus, nuclear power can only be compared to other methods of power generation in quantity, which all have similarly undesirable deleterious effects.
So today, I was examining a jarred sample that came in for testing.
"Hmmm. Moroccan preserved lemons. Never heard of those before. Hey, what's this word? Hal-vees? Is that some kind of unique Moroccan name for this kind of product?"
Well, I do have to eventually leave work and drive home in the afternoons. ;-)
I do have some further comments, but I'm on dad duty for the next several hours and by the time I get back to this thread it will no doubt have moved on.
I have a question that stems from this but is maybe less stupid. If I buy "cage free" eggs, for example, or "happy" beef, what are the odds that I am buying meat and eggs from animals that are treated nicely and what are the odds that I am buying them from animals who were treated in some loophole fashion so they can brand them as cage free, or happy, or whatever? Are there specific words that have specific meanings re: cruelty that you can't end run (or have a harder time end running) with shitty treatment practices?
I have a question that stems from this but is maybe less stupid. If I buy "cage free" eggs, for example, or "happy" beef, what are the odds that I am buying meat and eggs from animals that are treated nicely and what are the odds that I am buying them from animals who were treated in some loophole fashion so they can brand them as cage free, or happy, or whatever? Are there specific words that have specific meanings re: cruelty that you can't end run (or have a harder time end running) with shitty treatment practices?
To my knowledge, no. There is no regulatory definition of "cage-free" or "free-range," except for chickens. Eggs have no labeling requirement.
They could literally be lying to you. The only way to figure it out is to sue.
Yet again, the natural food industry is full of shit.
My brother is on this whole natural food, all-organic, grass-fed, free-range, no-HCFS kick that's been ironically instigated by a high school bio teacher who I consider somewhat of a mentor. A lot of the practices he's picked up (healthy smoothies, balanced diet, less meat) are really good, but a lot (not eating at restaurants without organic ingredients, superfood supplements, etc.) are bullshit. I should use some of these points to bring him the gift of logic.
Also, he mentioned sourcing raw milk the other day and I nearly had an aneurysm.
Yet again, the natural food industry is full of shit.
The only semi-reasonable argument I've heard in favor of the natural food industry being inherently "superior" to conventional food is specific to artificially ripening produce. The argument is that some (all?) modern conventional food producers, in order to speed their product to market, harvest their produce at an earlier stage of ripening than what was traditionally done by both older conventional (as in from the 50's and 60's or so) and natural producers. They they expose the produce to ethylene gas (or whatever other plant hormone is appropriate to the produce in question) to artificially ripen it. As a result, the food has absorbed fewer nutrients from the soil and is therefore less nutritious.
Unfortunately, I heard this so long ago that I can't cite the source. It also isn't so much a condemnation of conventional growers per se -- just a condemnation of some of the large scale growers taking shortcuts that benefit their bottom line at the expense of nutrition. Conventional vine-ripened tomatoes, according to this argument, are just as nutritious as natural ones because of the vine-ripening.
That said, I do often buy produce from Whole Foods, but mostly because it's the closest supermarket that actually has produce of decent quality on a routine basis (the other supermarkets where I live are very hit or miss). Wegmans would be preferred as it also has the same quality, but it's a bit out of the way for me.
As we all know, I'm infallible, that's why I never post in this thread. The same goes for the FRC Forum veterans who are also nigh-infallible, so I usually don't read this thread so as to keep these people nigh-infallible in my own world. You're still awesome people.
Anyways, because I feel like contributing a failure here, I shall contribute one of my mother and her husband. Both devout christians, they don't thump the bible, they're just generally blinded by their faith and anything that claims to have relation to their god and very sceptical about evolution, the big bang theory, and pretty much anything that conflicts with their christian religion. Anyways, I was staying over this past weekend and they were watching a film. I asked what it was about. "Supernatural nonsense with half-gods and such stuff", my mom replied. I had seen before that the film synopsis mentioned Zeus, so that was pretty clear. I replied simply, "So basically just another film based on mythology?" "Yeah."
Well, I do have to eventually leave work and drive home in the afternoons. ;-)
I do have some further comments, but I'm on dad duty for the next several hours and by the time I get back to this thread it will no doubt have moved on.
So your argument is that being a dick is irrelevant to the scientific process, including publishing and peer review? Good luck with that.
This is the funniest shit I've read all day. Your ignorance is appalling to say the least.
Your assumptions are entertainingly inaccurate, I'll give you that. :-)
Wow. Just wow. What a way to be a douchebag muppet. Wow.
If you say so. I may not always articulate my points exceptionally well, but I'm not a big fan of being condescended, so if I seem a bit snarky ITT, it's in response to that.
Your assumptions are entertainingly inaccurate, I'll give you that. :-)
Actually, he's entirely right. (-:
If you say so. I may not always articulate my points exceptionally well, but I'm not a big fan of being condescended, so if I seem a bit snarky ITT, it's in response to that.
Oh? You don't like being condescended? You had me thinking you didn't mind at all when you were being condescended. (-:
Gonna forestall further argument by not addressing those comments. :-)
Anyway, I'm coming off a treatment course for my Crohn's with a drug that tends to make me much more abrasive than usual (and exacerbates an obsessive argumentative streak that normally isn't so prominent), so apologies to any who I've unfairly offended or snarked. Sometimes it takes me a couple hours/days after the fact to realize when I'm being kind of a dick.
Sorry if that's TMI or whatever, too. Just trying to qualify my attitude a bit. :-P
Hey, you're free to come to your own conclusion. :-)
Prednisone ain't funny, though, man. I've been on a lot of it. It will mess you up good.
As for whether my arguments can stand, aggravation and annoyance plays a part in eloquence. And I typically argue more philosophically than scientifically, which naturally gets eaten alive on forums like this. Empirical data is not all there is. I guess we can fight about that next. :-)
I think fundamentally it's simply that you seem to believe that your ignorance is as valid as somebody else's expertise. The fact of the matter is that people tend to have very narrow fields of experience and knowledge, and one or two areas of deep knowledge. The key to maximizing your effective knowledge is, when confronted with people who have deeper experience than you, to shut up and listen. If a first-year biology student disagrees with me about biology, I will not argue with him because he's got one year of studying biology to my none. I'll go and seek verification after the fact, or during if I have access to the internets, but straight up, my knowledge and intuition against his, I'll concede regardless of the tone or content of his argument because that's his field. He tries to tell me who to vote for, I'll tell him to bugger off.
If you state something and somebody who is an expert disagrees, guess what, it's not the expert who needs to change. Only idiots have convictions.
Comments
I'm not talking about anybody in this thread at this point, this is more general.
Scientists are dicks to each other pretty much constantly. It's difficult not to be in a field where the empirical data you find can destroy decades of someone's work.
You're not being skeptical in the sense of rational inquiry - you're being a reactionary contrarian. There is a difference.
Your story is unfortunately all too common - both because of the near-death experience, and the resultant irrational bias. Natural food manufacturers prey on experiences like yours, convincing you to pay more money for a product that is not functionally distinct from another.
And now the problem is that there's virtually no standard of evdience that could defeat your "skepticism." If you were truly skeptical, you'd have researched pink slime, and found what I did - that there's no difference in ammonia content between pink slime and most other beef, and that ammonia in such low concentrations has no effect on the body.
If you recognize and admit to an irrational standard of proof, then there's no discussion to be had.
Nuclear power is superbly dangerous and polluting in practice... compared to nothing. But nothing isn't a valid option. Thus, nuclear power can only be compared to other methods of power generation in quantity, which all have similarly undesirable deleterious effects.
"Hmmm. Moroccan preserved lemons. Never heard of those before. Hey, what's this word? Hal-vees? Is that some kind of unique Moroccan name for this kind of product?"
"Pete, it's 'halves.' Halves of lemons."
Holy shit, brain.
I do have some further comments, but I'm on dad duty for the next several hours and by the time I get back to this thread it will no doubt have moved on.
They could literally be lying to you. The only way to figure it out is to sue.
Yet again, the natural food industry is full of shit.
Also, he mentioned sourcing raw milk the other day and I nearly had an aneurysm.
Unfortunately, I heard this so long ago that I can't cite the source. It also isn't so much a condemnation of conventional growers per se -- just a condemnation of some of the large scale growers taking shortcuts that benefit their bottom line at the expense of nutrition. Conventional vine-ripened tomatoes, according to this argument, are just as nutritious as natural ones because of the vine-ripening.
That said, I do often buy produce from Whole Foods, but mostly because it's the closest supermarket that actually has produce of decent quality on a routine basis (the other supermarkets where I live are very hit or miss). Wegmans would be preferred as it also has the same quality, but it's a bit out of the way for me.
That's how we found out that the BEST HOT DOGS EVER were constructed by Argentinian slaves in some basement.
Do not Google "Hot dogs made by Argentinian slaves in a basement" at work
Anyways, because I feel like contributing a failure here, I shall contribute one of my mother and her husband. Both devout christians, they don't thump the bible, they're just generally blinded by their faith and anything that claims to have relation to their god and very sceptical about evolution, the big bang theory, and pretty much anything that conflicts with their christian religion. Anyways, I was staying over this past weekend and they were watching a film. I asked what it was about. "Supernatural nonsense with half-gods and such stuff", my mom replied. I had seen before that the film synopsis mentioned Zeus, so that was pretty clear. I replied simply, "So basically just another film based on mythology?" "Yeah."
I returned upstairs depressed.
I do have some further comments, but I'm on dad duty for the next several hours and by the time I get back to this thread it will no doubt have moved on. Your assumptions are entertainingly inaccurate, I'll give you that. :-)
Anyway, I'm coming off a treatment course for my Crohn's with a drug that tends to make me much more abrasive than usual (and exacerbates an obsessive argumentative streak that normally isn't so prominent), so apologies to any who I've unfairly offended or snarked. Sometimes it takes me a couple hours/days after the fact to realize when I'm being kind of a dick.
Sorry if that's TMI or whatever, too. Just trying to qualify my attitude a bit. :-P
Prednisone ain't funny, though, man. I've been on a lot of it. It will mess you up good.
As for whether my arguments can stand, aggravation and annoyance plays a part in eloquence. And I typically argue more philosophically than scientifically, which naturally gets eaten alive on forums like this. Empirical data is not all there is. I guess we can fight about that next. :-)
If you state something and somebody who is an expert disagrees, guess what, it's not the expert who needs to change. Only idiots have convictions.