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This is, I’ve found, a good way to start a dialogue with people about chemophobia. If you ask someone “Which do you think is safer: artificial vanilla or vanil

This is, I’ve found, a good way to start a dialogue with people about chemophobia. If you ask someone “Which do you think is safer: artificial vanilla or vanilla extract?” they’ll often prefer the “natural” one. But vanilla extract contains exactly the same chemical (vanillin) in addition to hundreds of other compounds, many of which are known to be irritants, hepatotoxins, and carcinogens—in high enough doses. Of course, it’s much harder to break people of the misconception that the provenance of a chemical (synthetic or natural) matters. There seems to be some kind of innate protective disgust reaction at work. For instance, I’ve had conversations with people who say they wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to drink a glass of water if they knew it was purified from sewage. By the same token, they will drink some water that’s been imbued with some healing power by a homeopath.

coldtea 9y ago
>Of course, it’s much harder to break people of the misconception that the provenance of a chemical (synthetic or natural) matters. If one uses contrived arguments like the one about vanilla extract, then I can see why.
- evincarofautumn 9y ago
  Well…of course it’s contrived. Like I said, it’s a conversation starter to make people think more critically about what they mean by “natural”, “synthetic”, “safe”, and “dangerous” chemicals. What I was getting at is that in my experience, people are generally pretty open to rational discussion about that, but not about the underlying visceral squeamishness and distrust.
cname 9y ago
A "good way to start a dialogue" is by starting with a trick question and likely putting the other person on the defensive?
- evincarofautumn 9y ago
  …No? I wouldn’t consider it a trick question, since I’m not trying to “catch” them or anything. The answer doesn’t even really matter. If we’re talking about “chemicals”, I think it’s a reasonable example to bring up. That is, it’s not about being right or wrong, but making people think more deeply about a topic that I care about. Something I used to do that did make people defensive & dismissive was to try to be technically correct, shit like “everything is chemicals”—which is true, but that’s not the meaning of “chemicals” under discussion, so it’s just smug and pedantic.
losteric 9y ago
A better example might be Tang versus cold-pressed orange juice, or Wonder Bread versus Dave's Killer Bread. Tang won't kill you, but one is clearly better. Vanilla is definitely a trick question that exploits a blindspot - tell people about the difference and then ask the question, that's the interesting discussion. Also, to be fair to that homeopath... their axioms are flawed but disgust at purified sewage is self-consistent with their beliefs ("less is more" and all that). I'd probably refuse too, but on the basis of numerous studies showing sewage treatment doesn't adequately remove pharmaceutical waste.
- evincarofautumn 9y ago
  I don’t think it’s terribly tricky, and as I said in another reply, it’s not about “nyah, I’m right and you’re wrong” but having a concrete example to branch out from. So I agree that giving the information up front would probably be better. And there are definitely a lot of good examples to choose from—I’ve tended to go with vanilla because a lot of people are familiar with the fact that it comes in synthetic & extract forms, but aren’t clear on the difference, and may just as well prefer the synthetic because it’s cheaper or the extract because it tastes better to them.
luca_ing 9y ago
> If you ask someone “Which do you think is safer: artificial vanilla or vanilla extract?” they’ll often prefer the “natural” one. This feels like an accidental trick question :-) For me personally, I know I'll prefer vanilla extract (or rather, actual vanilla shoots) simply because it tastes much better -- precisely because of the impurities. I know it isn't what you asked at all, but since the question is meant to uncover emotions: I'm having a hard time taking my emotional preference for natural vanilla aroma out of my reply. It would be better to use an example where people don't have a strong preference for one of the choices for unrelated reasons. Unfortunately I can't think of an example right now.
cameldrv 9y ago
So here's the deal. There are lots of people who don't understand enough about science to have a real opinion that spout off, but you also get people in the skeptic community that rail on about "chemophobia", when they know just enough to be smug. The reality is that there is a significant practical difference between natural and artificial substances. Specifically, organisms on earth have evolved to be able to tolerate substances commonly found in the natural environment. When we introduce new chemicals, organisms may be able to deal with them, or there may be negative effects. If I pick two random chemicals, one natural, and one artificial, and I'm forced to ingest one of them with no other information, I'm going to pick the natural one, because it's much more likely that ancestors of mine have seen them, and survived. Those organisms that didn't survive didn't get to become my ancestor. Now of course this is just an indicator and not a rule, but it's a pretty good indicator if you've got nothing else to go on. If you told me that humans have been ingesting some particular chemical as food for millions of years, I'm going to feel fairly safe, whereas if you told me that some artificial chemical just passed FDA trials, I'm going to be much more skeptical. Many substances that have appeared even in full FDA drug trials to be benign had very negative consequences. BPA is a perfect example. It has a very strong affinity for estrogen receptors. If BPA had been in the environment for millions of years, the estrogen receptor would have changed shape to not bind to BPA, but BPA is a new substance, so evolution hasn't had time to adapt to an environment with BPA in it. Now, we get to how to rationally deal with all of this. We get a lot of benefit from artificial substances, but they can also cause harm. We have to have reasonable cost/benefit calculations. The FDA at least has something like a reasonable framework, where you go from phase I to II to III, and then postclinical surveillance, each step having a greater potential risk with more people under less supervision, and a greater potential reward, after we have data for a smaller group. This sort of thing doesn't exist with industrial chemicals that aren't specifically designed to be ingested, and that's reasonable. If every industrial chemical had to go through FDA approval, we wouldn't have a modern world. However, even chemicals that aren't designed to be ingested do get ingested. For things like endocrine disruptors, even tiny quantities can have significant biological effects, and it's easy to ingest microgram quantities of any chemical we make millions of tons of per year. There should be a lot more scrutiny on chemicals that have endocrine effects, there should be a lot more scrutiny on chemicals that have contact with food or children are likely to put in their mouths, and there should be more scrutiny on chemicals that are produced in very large quantities. Chemicals like BPA and Phthalates hit all three. The problem is that most of the people publicly involved in the debate are either the crazy hippie type that thinks everything should be banned, or the American Chemistry Council that thinks nothing should be restricted in any way. There is a large silent majority that wants reasonable regulation so that their boys don't have deformed penises.

coldtea 9y ago

>Of course, it’s much harder to break people of the misconception that the provenance of a chemical (synthetic or natural) matters. If one uses contrived arguments like the one about vanilla extract, then I can see why.

evincarofautumn 9y ago
Well…of course it’s contrived. Like I said, it’s a conversation starter to make people think more critically about what they mean by “natural”, “synthetic”, “safe”, and “dangerous” chemicals. What I was getting at is that in my experience, people are generally pretty open to rational discussion about that, but not about the underlying visceral squeamishness and distrust.

cname 9y ago

A "good way to start a dialogue" is by starting with a trick question and likely putting the other person on the defensive?

evincarofautumn 9y ago
…No? I wouldn’t consider it a trick question, since I’m not trying to “catch” them or anything. The answer doesn’t even really matter. If we’re talking about “chemicals”, I think it’s a reasonable example to bring up. That is, it’s not about being right or wrong, but making people think more deeply about a topic that I care about. Something I used to do that did make people defensive & dismissive was to try to be technically correct, shit like “everything is chemicals”—which is true, but that’s not the meaning of “chemicals” under discussion, so it’s just smug and pedantic.

losteric 9y ago

A better example might be Tang versus cold-pressed orange juice, or Wonder Bread versus Dave's Killer Bread. Tang won't kill you, but one is clearly better. Vanilla is definitely a trick question that exploits a blindspot - tell people about the difference and then ask the question, that's the interesting discussion. Also, to be fair to that homeopath... their axioms are flawed but disgust at purified sewage is self-consistent with their beliefs ("less is more" and all that). I'd probably refuse too, but on the basis of numerous studies showing sewage treatment doesn't adequately remove pharmaceutical waste.

evincarofautumn 9y ago
I don’t think it’s terribly tricky, and as I said in another reply, it’s not about “nyah, I’m right and you’re wrong” but having a concrete example to branch out from. So I agree that giving the information up front would probably be better. And there are definitely a lot of good examples to choose from—I’ve tended to go with vanilla because a lot of people are familiar with the fact that it comes in synthetic & extract forms, but aren’t clear on the difference, and may just as well prefer the synthetic because it’s cheaper or the extract because it tastes better to them.

luca_ing 9y ago

> If you ask someone “Which do you think is safer: artificial vanilla or vanilla extract?” they’ll often prefer the “natural” one. This feels like an accidental trick question :-) For me personally, I know I'll prefer vanilla extract (or rather, actual vanilla shoots) simply because it tastes much better -- precisely because of the impurities. I know it isn't what you asked at all, but since the question is meant to uncover emotions: I'm having a hard time taking my emotional preference for natural vanilla aroma out of my reply. It would be better to use an example where people don't have a strong preference for one of the choices for unrelated reasons. Unfortunately I can't think of an example right now.

cameldrv 9y ago

So here's the deal. There are lots of people who don't understand enough about science to have a real opinion that spout off, but you also get people in the skeptic community that rail on about "chemophobia", when they know just enough to be smug. The reality is that there is a significant practical difference between natural and artificial substances. Specifically, organisms on earth have evolved to be able to tolerate substances commonly found in the natural environment. When we introduce new chemicals, organisms may be able to deal with them, or there may be negative effects. If I pick two random chemicals, one natural, and one artificial, and I'm forced to ingest one of them with no other information, I'm going to pick the natural one, because it's much more likely that ancestors of mine have seen them, and survived. Those organisms that didn't survive didn't get to become my ancestor. Now of course this is just an indicator and not a rule, but it's a pretty good indicator if you've got nothing else to go on. If you told me that humans have been ingesting some particular chemical as food for millions of years, I'm going to feel fairly safe, whereas if you told me that some artificial chemical just passed FDA trials, I'm going to be much more skeptical. Many substances that have appeared even in full FDA drug trials to be benign had very negative consequences. BPA is a perfect example. It has a very strong affinity for estrogen receptors. If BPA had been in the environment for millions of years, the estrogen receptor would have changed shape to not bind to BPA, but BPA is a new substance, so evolution hasn't had time to adapt to an environment with BPA in it. Now, we get to how to rationally deal with all of this. We get a lot of benefit from artificial substances, but they can also cause harm. We have to have reasonable cost/benefit calculations. The FDA at least has something like a reasonable framework, where you go from phase I to II to III, and then postclinical surveillance, each step having a greater potential risk with more people under less supervision, and a greater potential reward, after we have data for a smaller group. This sort of thing doesn't exist with industrial chemicals that aren't specifically designed to be ingested, and that's reasonable. If every industrial chemical had to go through FDA approval, we wouldn't have a modern world. However, even chemicals that aren't designed to be ingested do get ingested. For things like endocrine disruptors, even tiny quantities can have significant biological effects, and it's easy to ingest microgram quantities of any chemical we make millions of tons of per year. There should be a lot more scrutiny on chemicals that have endocrine effects, there should be a lot more scrutiny on chemicals that have contact with food or children are likely to put in their mouths, and there should be more scrutiny on chemicals that are produced in very large quantities. Chemicals like BPA and Phthalates hit all three. The problem is that most of the people publicly involved in the debate are either the crazy hippie type that thinks everything should be banned, or the American Chemistry Council that thinks nothing should be restricted in any way. There is a large silent majority that wants reasonable regulation so that their boys don't have deformed penises.