4 ms·

It's weed killer. Literally poison. Can we just curb our faith in science just a little bit and use some common sense. It's incredibly likely that ingesting poi

by Zarath 9y ago

It's weed killer. Literally poison. Can we just curb our faith in science just a little bit and use some common sense. It's incredibly likely that ingesting poison is bad for you. Let's leave open the possibility that it isn't, but I personally require that people prove it's safe rather than continuing to ingest it until proven otherwise. It's honestly just baffling to me that people find it surprising that consistent, low doses of poison may cause cancer.

stouset 9y ago
Just because something is poisonous to the biology of plants, in doses typically used as a weed killer, doesn't make it toxic to humans. That's not to say this doesn't cause cancer. Whether or not it does is irrelevant to the point that plant biology is not human biology — hell, other mammals' biology isn't human biology (see: cats and chocolate, grapes, macadamia nuts, and onions) — and making inferences based upon this hypothesis is not particularly likely to result in correct assessments. Further, "the dose makes the poison". Alcohol is a poison. Oxygen is a poison in high enough doses. Is weed killer a poison? In some arbitrarily high dose, certainly. In some arbitrarily small dose, no. In the dose you're likely to encounter on the surface of produce? Possibly, perhaps even probably. But again, making inferences based on the fact that it kills weeds is faulty thinking. By that logic, one would be forgiven for avoiding onions at all cost; after all, they're cat poison.
- jacobr 9y ago
  If my cat is poisoned I would definitely avoid what it ate until there's overwhelming evidence that it's not harmful for me.
rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakon_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakon_(philosophy) > "the ambivalent quality of pharmakon is more than purely a matter of ‘wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong route of administration, wrong patient’. Drugs, as is the case with anti-retroviral therapy, have the capacity to be beneficial and detrimental to the same person at the same time."

by Zarath 9y ago

stouset 9y ago

Just because something is poisonous to the biology of plants, in doses typically used as a weed killer, doesn't make it toxic to humans. That's not to say this doesn't cause cancer. Whether or not it does is irrelevant to the point that plant biology is not human biology — hell, other mammals' biology isn't human biology (see: cats and chocolate, grapes, macadamia nuts, and onions) — and making inferences based upon this hypothesis is not particularly likely to result in correct assessments. Further, "the dose makes the poison". Alcohol is a poison. Oxygen is a poison in high enough doses. Is weed killer a poison? In some arbitrarily high dose, certainly. In some arbitrarily small dose, no. In the dose you're likely to encounter on the surface of produce? Possibly, perhaps even probably. But again, making inferences based on the fact that it kills weeds is faulty thinking. By that logic, one would be forgiven for avoiding onions at all cost; after all, they're cat poison.

jacobr 9y ago
If my cat is poisoned I would definitely avoid what it ate until there's overwhelming evidence that it's not harmful for me.

rcMgD2BwE72F 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakon_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakon_(philosophy) > "the ambivalent quality of pharmakon is more than purely a matter of ‘wrong drug, wrong dose, wrong route of administration, wrong patient’. Drugs, as is the case with anti-retroviral therapy, have the capacity to be beneficial and detrimental to the same person at the same time."