8 ms·

Ockham's razor reasoning is that a gigantic profit driven structure with a huge lobbying activity, and high financial stakes should probably not be trusted with

• bkkssnn 10y ago
  Don't forget when Lead was claimed to be "safe" enough to put into gasoline - . -
  • sametmax 10y ago
    In France we had this wonderful scandal about donated blood that was provided by aids infected patients... but declared safe. It's been used to make transfusion to other people that were already plagued with hemophilia, so that they could really enjoy the benefit of having both diseases at the same time. I'm wondering what will be the next stuff like that. Will we learn in 30 years that milk is actually unhealthy and that "got milk" was a blatant lie ? Will we discover that too much computer activity reduce IQ while we all though we were getting so clever learning online ? "Don't worry, teleportation is totally safe. We are absolutely not copying your body and destroying the original" The future is going to be fun.
    • bkkssnn 10y ago
      I get to angry even thinking about it. Imagine your day job is to convince the public spreading poison globally is not dangerous only to make a marginal profit. And to give decision makers some excuse with some bullshit "proofs" that lets them stay "ignorant". Alot of enviormental issues comes to mind where this is happening today.
      • sametmax 10y ago
        There is cool movie about a guy having exactly this job: thank your for smoking (http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=58839.html http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=58839.html). Great actors, and it's good from the beginning to the end.
      • Gravityloss 10y ago
        I've been astonished that so many people think it's okay. I think it's related to the tribal mindset, how cheering for your team has been more important in evolution than critical thinking.
        • sametmax 10y ago
          http://extrafabulouscomics.com/comic/200/ http://extrafabulouscomics.com/comic/200/
    • cies 10y ago
      > Will we learn in 30 years that milk is actually unhealthy I do not know if you are joking, but we know for some time now that regular consumption of dairy as an adult human increases risk for many health complications. (similarly evidence builds up against meat and eggs for some time now) http://nutritionstudies.org/12-frightening-facts-milk/ http://nutritionstudies.org/12-frightening-facts-milk/ http://www.peta.org/living/food/reasons-stop-drinking-milk/ http://www.peta.org/living/food/reasons-stop-drinking-milk/ http://www.pcrm.org/health/diets/vegdiets/health-concerns-about-dairy-products http://www.pcrm.org/health/diets/vegdiets/health-concerns-ab...
      • deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      • reitanqild 10y ago
        I know you are serious and I have actually heard this for years and was of the understanding that recommendations was now changing towards "milk and dairy more healty than previously though". Full disclosure: grew up on a dairy farm. Like milk. Might be biased.
        • cies 10y ago
          This whole recommendations thing is a battle ground for corporate interests. It is better to do your own research (find doctors that argue in favour and against) and weight the evidence yourself. > Full disclosure: grew up on a dairy farm. Like milk. Might be biased. Dunno if yr biased. Only after to gather enough info and are ready to pass a judgment by yourself, then bias might show. Currently I expect your are merely uninformed. Some of the bigger "abandon milk" doctors grew up on dairy farms themselves. And enjoyment is different story from health-impact. Some claim to enjoy smoking :)
      • arethuza 10y ago
        On the other hand, the BBC were running this story yesterday about the risks of a low dairy diet for young people: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39557687 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39557687
      • 10y ago
  • x0x0 10y ago
    BTW, lead gas additive was known to be pretty dangerous at the time see eg https://www.wired.com/2013/01/looney-gas-and-lead-poisoning-a-short-sad-history/ https://www.wired.com/2013/01/looney-gas-and-lead-poisoning-...
    • Noseshine 10y ago
      The point is not that someone knew something was/is dangerous - in retrospect you always find them (see financial crisis too). The point is what/who actually impacted the real large-scale actions.
• gadders 10y ago
  You can't trust charities either. They have a vested interest in maintaining their world view in spite of contrary evidence. For instance, the banning of DDT in Africa despite the fact that using it to control malaria saves lives.
  • sametmax 10y ago
    I actually have very little faith in charities. I did missions for find, the earth institute, the gates foundation, MVP and WHO. Money is wasted/stolen, politics everywhere, ego, incompetence... It's business as usual, except the people I worked with a the bottom of the pyramid were awesome.
    • Noseshine 10y ago
      There is nothing special about charities. You describe most human organizations. Whose nature also depends on their environment - I posit that in a less cut-throat world humans and their organizations would be less cut-throat too. I also don't believe that the way it is is "inevitable" and/or "human nature" (http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/survival-of-the-friendliest http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/survival-of-the-friendlies...). Think about this: At least in the western world we have achieved wealth and productivity where the word "unimaginable" from a point of view of even 500 years ago would be a gross understatement. And yet, to many people daily life still feels full of threats, while many work what they themselves recognize are meaningless jobs (see the popular Dilbert cartoons). It doesn't make sense, it is artificial. It doesn't need to be this way. We force people - and organizations - to live in a "stress and survival mode" that is completely unnecessary.
  • huxley 10y ago
    This is a zombie lie that never ever stops. You can't trust whatever psycho-website you got that misinformation from. DDT was NEVER banned for public health purposes in Africa or anywhere in the Developing World. It was restricted for use in agriculture to ensure --in part-- that it continued to be useful for public health. As far back as the late 1950s it was known that mosquitos easily developed resistance to DDT and other insecticides.
• dnautics 10y ago
  pardon, but how is this ockham's razor reasoning?
• 2skep 10y ago
  I don't recognise that as Ockham's (Sic) razor reasoning. In fact it may be the exact opposite of that
• alevskaya 10y ago
  I'm not asking you to believe anything from Monsanto. There is a vast field of researchers that care deeply about what causes cancer and what can be done to prevent and treat it. Most of us aren't for sale. There are sensitive, objective and simple tests for determining whether or not a compound causes genetic mutations in cells (Ames test). There are tests for whether or not a compound induces chromosome abnormalities in mammalian cells. There are lifetime feeding tests for determining whether or not any cancers can be induced with wildly unrealistic dosing regimes. Lastly, there are epidemiological studies that monitor whether workers using glyphosate demonstrate increased occurrences of particular cancers. For glyphosate, there is no evidence of mutagenicity or genotoxicity, there is no evidence of teratogenic potential in mammals. There are no statistically significant epidemiological correlations with exposure. Glyphosate is poorly absorbed by human guts, poorly absorbed by human skin, and does not accumulate in tissues. This is the scientific consensus: there is no good evidence that N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine is a carcinogen, there is a mountain of evidence that it is not. But at the end of the day, whether I'm arguing with GMO-skeptics or climate-change-skeptics, I can't prove that this scientific consensus is worthy of your respect. You can always retreat into a more hardline epistemological skepticism, you can always cast aspersions at the entire enterprise.
  • sametmax 10y ago
    I'm not arguing against the science, I'm arguing against the people. E.G: I think GMO have a fantastic potential. It's a powerful technology. And like any powerful technology, it has a huge potential of destruction as well. And I don't trust the people making money with it to take the necessary precautions to avoid a catastrophy. There are so many past and present events where money won over the benefit of the human specie. I trust people like you, that are dedicated to analyze things and share conclusions. But between you and the public, there is an army of people whose job is to hide/distort informations that will make them loose money, and show off informations that will make them win money. And they are better are it that the public is at critical thinking. You talk about climat skepticism, and it's a good example of a generalized propaganda that entities with an interest in fossil fuel and live stock keep pushing. And it works. There are people that doubt climate change. There are leaders that act on it. When there is an obvious conflict of interest in an entity of huge influence, one should ALWAYS be suspicious by default. The entity has to prove, over, and over again that it's doing the right thing. Right now entities are usually, as they grow, turning into systems that buy PR campaign to tell you they are doing the right things instead of doing it. Let me pull out this little gem from the WHO archives: http://www.who.int/tobacco/media/en/TobaccoExplained.pdf http://www.who.int/tobacco/media/en/TobaccoExplained.pdf In there you can read the statment from the tobacco industry: 1. That medical research of recent years indicates many possible causes of lung cancer. 2. That there is no agreement among the authorities regarding what the cause is. 3. That there is no proof that cigarette smoking is one of the causes. 4. That statistics purporting to link smoking with the disease could apply with equal force to any one of many other aspects of modern life. Indeed the validity of the statistics themselves are questioned by numerous scientists. Like I said, they are very good at controlling the story. Defending them because that's the intellectually moral thing to do - while I understand that's something intelligent reasonable people wants to do - is not working in our favor. Now you tell me that up to now, nothing is hinting that N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine is dangerous. But Monsanto still decided to have research about it ghostwritten. Such behavior is an alarm signal to me, and should trigger new investigations and tests for the next 10 years.
• DanBC 10y ago
  > terminator seeds Monsanto has a legitimate tricky choice here. One lobby group was very concerned about cross contamination, about GM seed escaping from GM farms and getting to other places. Terminator genes help fix that. And sterile crop isn't new thing from GM, it's common for hybrid crops to do this too.
  • rusk 10y ago
    F-1 Hybrid is the term. Cross a tasty tomato with a high-yield one, and you get a tasty high-yield tomato - but you can't use the seeds. This has been around for years.
• coin 10y ago
  > Agent Orange What's the issue with this? They (the former chemical company) were a DOD supplier.