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The fact that these are man-made is irrelevant to their harmful effects and framing it as if it was contributes to the persistence of the natural fallacy.
by epgui 4y ago
The fact that these are man-made is irrelevant to their harmful effects and framing it as if it was contributes to the persistence of the natural fallacy.
- acdha 4y agoThe natural fallacy application doesn’t seem appropriate: the problem isn’t where they were produced but rather that they’ve never before been part of the ecosystem. We’d have the same concerns if these novel chemicals were introduced by meteors or something but that’s extremely rare whereas chemists produce a wide range of compounds every year.
- epgui 4y agoThat’s exactly what I’m saying. But the context is that most people operate with heuristics of the natural fallacy type. Hence this is not mere pedantry for pedantry’s sake, the intention is to provide an actually-helpful clarification/correction.