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>Human waste in coffee country has unknown effect on marine life. I hate statements like this. It denies the possibility that there is no effect. If the effe

>Human waste in coffee country has unknown effect on marine life. I hate statements like this. It denies the possibility that there is no effect. If the effect is unknown, then there is no proof that it exists.

mhurron 14y ago
If it is unknown that it has no effect, the effect that it has is unknown. 'has [an] unknown effect' does not preclude there being no effect.
- lostlogin 14y ago
  It is unknown if there is any effect.
chimeracoder 14y ago
> It denies the possibility that there is no effect. "No effect" could be interpreted as the null effect, which is covered by "unknown effect".
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Technically yes, but that isn't how they mean it to be read, and that isn't how readers will read it.
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    It's exactly how I read it, and it seems others too. It makes no sense to assert "there absolutely was an effect; we just don't know what it is". Unless you're a trader dealing in long straddles.
CamperBob2 14y ago
These articles can usually be traced back to some professor or postdoc researcher whose lab got a shiny new toy with impressive specifications. Being able to detect caffeine at 45 nanograms per liter is pretty cool, but I'd say the burden of proof is on anyone who claims that such a concentration could possibly have an effect on anything except the sensors inside a FrobozzCo 8566B Mass Spectrometer. 45 ng/l = about one grain of salt in a 1000-liter tank.
- gvb 14y ago
  Hey, that isn't nearly scary enough. According to Wikipedia, there are 1.94E+02 grams per mole 6.02E+23 atoms per mole which works out to 3.22E-22 grams per atom Found in the seawater were 4.50E-08 grams per liter which means there were 1.40E+14 atoms per liter Put in "national debt" units, that is 140 trillion atoms. The current U.S. national debt is only 16.5 trillion[1], so that is 8.5 times as many molecules per liter as the U.S. government owes in dollars. [1] http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

mhurron 14y ago

If it is unknown that it has no effect, the effect that it has is unknown. 'has [an] unknown effect' does not preclude there being no effect.

lostlogin 14y ago
It is unknown if there is any effect.

chimeracoder 14y ago

> It denies the possibility that there is no effect. "No effect" could be interpreted as the null effect, which is covered by "unknown effect".

sliverstorm 14y ago
Technically yes, but that isn't how they mean it to be read, and that isn't how readers will read it.
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  It's exactly how I read it, and it seems others too. It makes no sense to assert "there absolutely was an effect; we just don't know what it is". Unless you're a trader dealing in long straddles.

CamperBob2 14y ago

These articles can usually be traced back to some professor or postdoc researcher whose lab got a shiny new toy with impressive specifications. Being able to detect caffeine at 45 nanograms per liter is pretty cool, but I'd say the burden of proof is on anyone who claims that such a concentration could possibly have an effect on anything except the sensors inside a FrobozzCo 8566B Mass Spectrometer. 45 ng/l = about one grain of salt in a 1000-liter tank.

gvb 14y ago
Hey, that isn't nearly scary enough. According to Wikipedia, there are 1.94E+02 grams per mole 6.02E+23 atoms per mole which works out to 3.22E-22 grams per atom Found in the seawater were 4.50E-08 grams per liter which means there were 1.40E+14 atoms per liter Put in "national debt" units, that is 140 trillion atoms. The current U.S. national debt is only 16.5 trillion[1], so that is 8.5 times as many molecules per liter as the U.S. government owes in dollars. [1] http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/