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That’s just the naturalistic fallacy. I’m sure there are some places in the world with lead or cadmium or whatever in their water - does that mean we should be

That’s just the naturalistic fallacy. I’m sure there are some places in the world with lead or cadmium or whatever in their water - does that mean we should be adding it to our water supplies if we found out it was good for our teeth at the detriment of our brains?

Retric 1y ago
No, there’s a difference between something being rare and it being common. Fish species living in the ocean don’t have issues drinking salt water, because if they did their ancestors wouldn’t have reproduced. If half of the world’s water supplies had lead levels of X you’d expect evolution to make that specific level a non issue. Obviously lead levels above that can and are still problematic.
- elcritch 1y ago
  > If half of the world’s water supplies had lead levels of X you’d expect evolution to make that specific level a non issue. Obviously lead levels above that can and are still problematic. Not necessarily true if the effect is relatively small compared to other evolutionary pressures. A few points drop in IQ might not be bad for ancient hunter-gatherer tribes but does have a much larger impact in our modern age. Every point increase of average IQ at the population level generally leads to better societal outcomes overall. To your earlier question, filtering flouride might be beneficial then. We can do flouride teeth treatments at dentists or switch more to nano-hydroxyapatite [1]. Though it'd seem nano-hydroxyapatite needs more safety studies as well. 1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747619/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747619/
  - Retric 1y ago
    The underlying biochemical problem would show up long before hunter gatherers, the equivalent of a 2-3% drop in IQ across billions of years is massive pressure to find a solution. Brains are a major calorie sink that’s a big enough difference to matter. If it’s a 0.0001% drop then sure evolution would ignore that, but so should we.

Retric 1y ago

No, there’s a difference between something being rare and it being common. Fish species living in the ocean don’t have issues drinking salt water, because if they did their ancestors wouldn’t have reproduced. If half of the world’s water supplies had lead levels of X you’d expect evolution to make that specific level a non issue. Obviously lead levels above that can and are still problematic.

elcritch 1y ago
> If half of the world’s water supplies had lead levels of X you’d expect evolution to make that specific level a non issue. Obviously lead levels above that can and are still problematic. Not necessarily true if the effect is relatively small compared to other evolutionary pressures. A few points drop in IQ might not be bad for ancient hunter-gatherer tribes but does have a much larger impact in our modern age. Every point increase of average IQ at the population level generally leads to better societal outcomes overall. To your earlier question, filtering flouride might be beneficial then. We can do flouride teeth treatments at dentists or switch more to nano-hydroxyapatite [1]. Though it'd seem nano-hydroxyapatite needs more safety studies as well. 1: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747619/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6747619/
- Retric 1y ago
  The underlying biochemical problem would show up long before hunter gatherers, the equivalent of a 2-3% drop in IQ across billions of years is massive pressure to find a solution. Brains are a major calorie sink that’s a big enough difference to matter. If it’s a 0.0001% drop then sure evolution would ignore that, but so should we.