On 09/23/2015 02:15 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
My observation is that while "we" probably all agree about global warming, more
or less, that one or more of us will peel off from the scientific consensus on one or of
the following issues.
Diet and Heart Disease
Chronic Lyme Disease
Fibromyalgia
Diet and Cancer
Vaccination and autism
???? and Alzheimer's
Chronic fatigue syndrome
Environmental sensitivity syndrome
So what _are_ the consensuses for these topics? I'll provide a couple of
ignorant guesses at the consensuses:
Diet and Heart Disease -- heavily correlated, particularly salt and animal
products
Diet and Cancer -- weakly correlated, except with heavy use of processing
chemicals and except for obesity
Vaccination and autism -- no correlation
First of all, I would like to recruit this list to identify other issues where
at least one of us Global Warming Believers departs from some other equally
strong scientific consensus.
Non-celiac Gluten Sensitivity -- weak evidence in few cases
GMO Safety -- perfectly safe in the near term
- GMO consequences -- ???
Sitting vs. standing desks -- ???
Chiropracty -- can help some people, mostly psychosomatic, a bit dangerous
Acupuncture -- all psychosomatic, but pacifies some of those pesky chronic pain
people
Exercise-induced ketonic starvation -- bad for you
Of all of them, I'd most like to see some people seriously apply themselves to the long-term consequences of
GMOs (including plants and animals for food, drugs, pest resistance, synthetic biology, etc.). All we ever
hear about is their "safety" for immediate consumption, about which I couldn't give a damn. I want
to understand it in the context of species domestication and the interaction between artificial and natural
evolution. I'm a big fan of GMOs. I'd modify myself if I knew how! But the consensus story that they're
safe, in any _interesting_ definition of the word "safe", is just nonsense. Sure, I can eat
them... but I can also drink large doses of poison (e.g. ethanol) with no medium-term consequences ... and
have large doses of poison (chemo) injected directly into my bloodstream with no long-term consequences. So,
that's not really a very interesting definition of the word "safe".
That's a point the scientismists don't ever seem to grok.
AND then, I would like to have a discussion concerning why and when we feel
qualified to depart from a scientific consensus.
I would _bet_ that we'll never get to that part of the discussion. Our
appetite is too small. ;-)
--
⇔ glen
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