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> "Why?" because. ... OK, seriously though: because the specific question is whether the government intentionally added methanol or other substances to alcoh

> "Why?" because. ... OK, seriously though: because the specific question is whether the government intentionally added methanol or other substances to alcohol with the intent to poison people who were drinking it during prohibition. "JasonCEC, please cite the lack of evidence you found" is nonsensical. "Those who are claiming it happened, please cite specific, original documentation" is reasonable. (To be fair, max does not appear to be making the specific claim regarding prohibition; he's making a more technical claim about denaturing alcohol based on a law from 2 decades prior.)

thaumasiotes 12y ago
> because the specific question is whether the government intentionally added methanol or other substances to alcohol with the intent to poison people who were drinking it during prohibition. "JasonCEC, please cite the lack of evidence you found" is nonsensical I originally made this point: 1. But JasonCEC hasn't addressed the question in any way. He's claimed to have researched it. That's not the same as having researched it. I could make a couple more: 2. If you go looking into the question of whether a historical event happened, there are plenty of ways to show evidence that it didn't. People arguing the ahistoricity of Jesus don't say "well, it's impossible to cite a lack of evidence", they do things like pointing out that the non-Christian historians who mention him do so only in known forgeries, and that certain historians who you'd think would have taken note, like one who specifically wrote about religious movements in Asia, seem to have overlooked him, and they compare the state of the evidence for Jesus with the state of the evidence for other notable figures of the same time period. Discrediting the idea that something happened isn't impossible, or in principle even difficult. 3. If one person says "I've looked into it, and I found strong evidence for X", and a second person says "I too have looked into it, and I didn't find evidence for X", that's quite compatible with X having happened. We've all looked for something that was there and not found it. 4. You're calling for applying very strict standards to one side of an argument while implicitly trusting the other side -- based on the word of a guy you don't know who has made not even a token effort to comply with your standards. This doesn't make any sense. If drunken finger-pointing and mumbled arguments are an acceptable attack, they're an acceptable defense too.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  > "We've all looked for something that was there and not found it." which is why it's important for those who claim there is strong evidence to present it. Note that I'm not expressing any specific trust in one side of this argument. I'm simply asking the side claiming to have evidence to post it. max has posted his evidence about the general denaturing process (which I initially misunderstood and would retract my criticism if I hadn't passed the editing cutoff.) Thus far, I have seen no evidence regarding a specific ramping up of "poisoning" during prohibition.
maxerickson 12y ago
I responded with the specific historical evidence that point 3 hand waved to not exist specifically because it was such an odd claim to make. I didn't respond to it because I thought the point was particularly debatable (in my mind, just quickly looking at that document was pretty damning to point 3...). Methanol was used before, during and after prohibition, and it continues to be used today. Pretty much any decent reference will be very clear about denaturing ethanol with methanol (Wikipedia takes 5 words to wink at the fact, using "methylated spirits" as a synonym for denatured alcohol. One paragraph later it says "The main additive has traditionally been 10% methanol"). Calling that particular fact "historically dubious" insinuates something about the other claims in the article, but I sort of think that the author (a "professor of science journalism") went further than "the googles" in their attempts to gather information. I'm sure they read the medical examiner reports that they claim exist. I'm sure the reports are real. I guess I'll read the book, because I'd like a clearer picture of what was going on.

thaumasiotes 12y ago

> because the specific question is whether the government intentionally added methanol or other substances to alcohol with the intent to poison people who were drinking it during prohibition. "JasonCEC, please cite the lack of evidence you found" is nonsensical I originally made this point: 1. But JasonCEC hasn't addressed the question in any way. He's claimed to have researched it. That's not the same as having researched it. I could make a couple more: 2. If you go looking into the question of whether a historical event happened, there are plenty of ways to show evidence that it didn't. People arguing the ahistoricity of Jesus don't say "well, it's impossible to cite a lack of evidence", they do things like pointing out that the non-Christian historians who mention him do so only in known forgeries, and that certain historians who you'd think would have taken note, like one who specifically wrote about religious movements in Asia, seem to have overlooked him, and they compare the state of the evidence for Jesus with the state of the evidence for other notable figures of the same time period. Discrediting the idea that something happened isn't impossible, or in principle even difficult. 3. If one person says "I've looked into it, and I found strong evidence for X", and a second person says "I too have looked into it, and I didn't find evidence for X", that's quite compatible with X having happened. We've all looked for something that was there and not found it. 4. You're calling for applying very strict standards to one side of an argument while implicitly trusting the other side -- based on the word of a guy you don't know who has made not even a token effort to comply with your standards. This doesn't make any sense. If drunken finger-pointing and mumbled arguments are an acceptable attack, they're an acceptable defense too.

lotharbot 12y ago
> "We've all looked for something that was there and not found it." which is why it's important for those who claim there is strong evidence to present it. Note that I'm not expressing any specific trust in one side of this argument. I'm simply asking the side claiming to have evidence to post it. max has posted his evidence about the general denaturing process (which I initially misunderstood and would retract my criticism if I hadn't passed the editing cutoff.) Thus far, I have seen no evidence regarding a specific ramping up of "poisoning" during prohibition.

maxerickson 12y ago

I responded with the specific historical evidence that point 3 hand waved to not exist specifically because it was such an odd claim to make. I didn't respond to it because I thought the point was particularly debatable (in my mind, just quickly looking at that document was pretty damning to point 3...). Methanol was used before, during and after prohibition, and it continues to be used today. Pretty much any decent reference will be very clear about denaturing ethanol with methanol (Wikipedia takes 5 words to wink at the fact, using "methylated spirits" as a synonym for denatured alcohol. One paragraph later it says "The main additive has traditionally been 10% methanol"). Calling that particular fact "historically dubious" insinuates something about the other claims in the article, but I sort of think that the author (a "professor of science journalism") went further than "the googles" in their attempts to gather information. I'm sure they read the medical examiner reports that they claim exist. I'm sure the reports are real. I guess I'll read the book, because I'd like a clearer picture of what was going on.