4 ms·

"we shouldn't mess with nature" is also a naturalistic fallacy, fyi

• FooHentai 5y ago
  No it isn't. While the naturalistic fallacy is the belief that natural = preferable, and that does sit very close to 'don't mess with nature', so too does the Precautionary Principle, and I would argue that sits supreme. We can argue about the degree of overlap of course, but it's not clear cut. I believe our scientific understanding in this area is at best partial, and so minimal interference only where strong justification exists is preferable.
  • smhost 5y ago
    yes it is. "we shouldn't mess with nature" and "we should be cautious when we are messing with nature" are two completely different things.
  • tshaddox 5y ago
    The precautionary principle is false though. If you have a good explanation of the dangers of a particular action, then that’s sufficient to argue for caution—there’s no need for an additional principle, because you have an explanation about the dangers involved. If you don’t have a good explanation of the dangers of a particular action, then you definitely don’t need a principle to tell you how cautious you ought to be. Presumably even when abiding by the precautionary principle one must estimate the plausibility of any hypothetical danger (to avoid universal hypothetical dangers of the form “there could be a wizard out there who has decided that they will kill us if we do X”), but developing good explanations for the plausibility of dangers is precisely the work mentioned in the previous paragraph that obviates the need for the precautionary principle.
• selcuka 5y ago
  If you are pointing at me, I have never said that.
  • smhost 5y ago
    i know, i'm just filling in the blanks