Your colleague is a victim of marketing spin. Maybe you like buying cars that are advertised with scantily clad ladies draped over them - same thing.
Well, I have pointed out that heartworms from mosquitos are pretty damn natural and will kill a dog if untreated, whereas the preventative has an extremely low rate of side effect but it falls on deaf ears. Snakescatlady, I’m in Michigan and heartworm is fairly prevalent. I had a HW+ rescue dog. I put him through the nasty chemical :rolleyes: immiticide treatment, which saved his life. Unfortunately he had permanent heart damage from the (natural) HWs and would tire easily.
It also seems that this sort of thinking is pretty “first world” elitist. I’m sure the thousands of people dying of malaria in third world countries would appreciate some toxic chemical prescriptions to save lives.
I just bought some fish oil pills ( omega3, highly touted for everything from improved mental health to arthritis) and the label warnings included: don’t take if you are pregnant or lactating, don’t take before surgery, don’t take if you have heart problems, diabetes, blood clotting disorders or are taking blood thinning medication. So much for no side effects. Doesn’t it stand to reason that anything strong enough to have a positive effect would also run a good chance of having negative side effects?
As I said in the other thread, I think this comparison is rather too generously loose; selective breeding cannot achieve the same results as direct genetic manipulation. And the idea isn’t even the same; selective breeding is a ‘top down’ methodology and genetic engineering is a ‘bottom up’ approach.
antichinus:
I suspect many of those ladies are not in the “all-natural” category as well.
Its not just selective breeding though. Hybridizing can force all kinds of genetic crossovers and the results can be similar to “genetically altering” something in the lab. Other tricks include things like grafting that force plants to do all sorts of weird things. People have known how to genetically alter organisims since domestication and agriculture began. Sure, gene techniques in the lab open the possibilities further but there is nothing new about it and the results don’t have to be anything more dramatic than we have always done.
As far a chemicals (every thing in the world is chemicals) and chemicals (I won’t put nasty chemicals in my body) is concerned the more intelligent among us understand that words have different meanings under different contexts. To dismiss the I won’t put nasty chemicals into my body by saying everything is chemicals is to miss the point of what people are saying. It is like the physics teacher getting made that a work of fiction says the velocity of the car is 50 Miles per hour when the definition of velocity includes direction as well as magnitude. Velocity is every day speach means speed just as chemicals in every day speech mean for the most part man made synthesized things.
If you are going to say someone is wrong and their arguments are silly make sure you know what they are really trying to say not what is easier to argue against.
I don’t think anyone fails to understand what they are trying to say, but it is just as silly as if they were being literal.
Sure, they don’t have to be, but they can be; direct genetic manipulation could, hypothetically, result in ‘garden of eden’ configurations; transgenic organisms that were themselves viable, could never occur by means of breeding from viable ancestors. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, but it’s certainly a difference between GM and selective breeding.
The results of selective breeding are only those configurations that could (however unlikely it may be) concievably occur in nature; again, that doesn’t make them good or safe, but it’s a key difference.
As I also said in the other thread, it would be easy to mistake my stance here as being anti-GM; that isn’t my stance, but I don’t think we should resort to misleading generalisations (of which I believe this is one) in order to try to win support for GM
OK, looks like the “chemicals” angle has been beaten to death.
Ask her if she knows what will happen if some tetanus gets into her body and she has not been vaccinated. Show her a photo of the heart of a dog who died from heartworms.
My experience is that you cannot use facts to change someone’s mind who holds this type of position. Lotsa luck.
Hear, hear. If it isn’t obvious to you that the lady meant contaminants, you’re the soft-headed one. We all avoid poisoning ourselves to one extent or another, some people are just more fanatical about it, and some people (gasp) do not use precise academic terminology. Oh, the horror.
The real question, and it’s a valid one, is when does the potential benefit of artificially processed foods and drugs no longer outweigh the potential harm (Thalidomide, anyone)? Some people take it to an extreme but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a valid question.
But hasn’t Saint John’s Wort been shown pretty conclusively not to be effective for depression?
That’s true, but there is a method of breeding that causes effects that could never occur in nature, is in the foods we eat and are accepted by the “all natural” types. It’s where the seed is bombarded with radiation or exposed to mutagenic chemicals, in order to damage the DNA. Then they grow the plant and see if anything good happened. I think that’s a pretty good refutation of the anti-GM fear.
I’ve heard it stated something like “you can’t use reason to argue someone out of a position that he didn’t use reason to arrive at in the first place.”
Its not obvious that she is talking about “contaminants”. Even if she used that terminology, I would have no way to know what a “contaminant” is to her because it isn’t based on anything a rational, scientific person can derive on their own. The word “contaminant” maybe combined with “poisons” and “toxins” is used subjectively by some people and it comes from a belief system that isn’t rational.
These people aren’t rare. I have a well-educated SIL that is one. There are billions of dollars worth of merchandise on the market meant to milk their beliefs.
Sometimes their beliefs are as simple as Western Medicine = Bad / Eastern Medicine = Good. Other times they judge by what type of store the pills or food are sold in (Organic peanut butter with a higher aflatoxin risk = good because it comes from a specialty store and has organic on the label).
Although even a stopped watch is right twice a day, this blind allegiance to groups of pseudoscience do not meet SDMB standards.
It’s not obvious. It’s not clear that the lady knows the difference between ‘chemical’ and ‘contaminant’ or cares to learn.
Anything moderately manipulated by man is often perceived as dangerous to the loons who want to be ‘natural’, or ‘chemical free’.
The problem is that these loons include things on their banned list. while demonstrating that they don’t know what they are talking about.
For example, a neighbor in my office doesn’t like ‘chemicals’ or non-natural things either, and yet she scarfs down processed/distilled water by the gallon every day. Where on earth can she find this naturally occurring pure H2O? No where, but it isn’t worth arguing about.
And some folks passed on the free annual flu vaccine because they don’t want chemicals in their body.
Sometimes, you don’t proceed to argue with ignorance, you simply point people to sources of the right information and just move on. I don’t think you should consider a debate with her.
Absolutely. I’m utterly terrified of needles (and of doctors), and even I went in and got a tetanus shot, because tetanus is so scary and the bacteria are everywhere.
Back in the '50s my uncle refused to have any of his children vaccinated for all the shit that was still a huge threat back in the day. They all lived, but it was pure luck if you ask me.
Some people lack the self-preservation gene. Sounds like she’s the type who needs a crusade. But she picked a really stupid one. I understand some stuff is bad for you, but when you let that cloud your vision on all science, you’re asking for trouble.
Reminds of a great SNL gag with Al Franken & IIRC Jane Curtin. Al was representing a Big Chemical Company (I think) and disingenuously explaining how chemicals are good for you.
Paraphrased:
Al: “Chemicals aren’t bad for you! Why, NaCl–sodium chloride–simple table salt. Here’s some of H[sub]2[/sub]O! [starts drinking]”
Jane: “What is THAT?!?”
Al: “Why, ha, ha, it’s simple water!”
Jane: “Well, here, try some of this H[sub]2[/sub]SO[sub]4[/sub]”
Al: “What is this [glub, glub, glub]”
Jane: “Why, ha, ha, it’s simple sulfuric acid!”
[splatter]
I’ll offer a possible explanation for the kind of behaviors questioned by the OP - generalized fear about the world we live in translated into a misguided effort to regain control. Conquering fear requires the perception of control, real or not. We can’t quantify our fears, nor can we reliably avoid them, about financial ruin, weapons of mass destruction, terrorist attacks, hurricanes, serial rapists, child molesters, deranged snipers, philandering significant others, or the weird guy who lives next door, etc. etc. Furthermore, as individuals, we can’t control those elements of the world. But, processed foods, vaccines, and prescription drugs all carry potential risks that although we can’t quantify, we do have the ability to control through our own volition - we can choose to avoid them. So, many take comfort in organic foods, herbal supplements, or avoiding vaccines because this is a way for them to try to exert some control over the unknowns that go along with a life that is full of potential risks. Sadly though, avoiding perceived risks may have dire and real consequences as a result of avoiding those perceived risks (vaccines being a prime example).
Our society has little “institutional memory”; we didn’t experience or don’t remember the horrible medical events of the pre-vaccine world, we don’t consider the dramatic improvements in life that have come from adequate nutrition, few of us have lived in fear of diseases that can now be easily conquered by antibiotics. What we do know is that none of the achievements we see as a result of “chemistry” are risk free. So some control their fear by avoiding these risks, whether exaggerated or not, and are comforted by the sensation that regaining this control has reduced those risks.
Personally though, I wouldn’t want to live on a planet ravaged by diseases that are “natural” and unchecked by human ingenuity.
I don’t want to sound dogmatically anti-GMO either, but the fact is that while the results of genetic modification perhaps don’t have be more dramatic than that of selective breeding, the results certainly could be more dramatic. And they almost have to be (else why bother?).
I think the woman in the OP needs to get a more sophisticated understanding of what a chemical is, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t real, valid reasons for wanting to move slowly and carefully with Genetically modified organisms, particularly in the food supply.
They wouldn’t have to be more dramatic, they would just need to expand the range of the types of things we can alter and induce in a variety of food crops. The changes don’t have to be huge although I have to assume that scientists would try some pretty bold things after successes. I can easily see people stretching to make that new Frankenfood.
Genetically altered food don’t bother me at all from an individual standpoint. They would be tested for nutrition just like anything else and we don’t absorb genes from the foods we eat.
One real risk would be that someone creates an extremely aggressive plant that wipes out native species and isn’t easy to control. Think tomatoes turned Kudzu or something.
From a nutritional standpoint though, I have never been able to appreciate the risk. Worst case, if a really bad one hits the stores, don’t eat it. There is no need to shun the whole category based on misguided science in advance.