For as long as there have been people, there have been sources of guidance. Deities, prophets, leaders; all have persisted through time and have been highly influential on our world. We look to them for answers to our problems, for ways to improve our lives, and we try to model our own lives in their image or vision. For thousands of years, humans modeled themselves after a god, or many gods, and these all-powerful beings generally rewarded “good” behaviour and punished “bad” behaviour. Unexplainable phenomena were attributed to these beings’ anger or sadness, and joyous, miraculous events were attributed to their pleasure and exuberance in response to our following of their teachings.
Overall, people trusted in their worshiped deity to maintain a natural order to the world, and for thousands of years it seemed like things were going pretty well. Until modern science, putting your faith in whatever deity you…
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RE.: WHY QUACKS EXIST ( http://disruptedphysician.com/2015/02/04/why-quacks-exist/ )
Interesting. The article claims to debunk a bit of modern pseudo-scientific quackery by offering up what it purports to be ‘scientifically grounded’ claims. You have, for example, this paragraph:
“What constitutes “certified organic” is also very misleading. Organic farms still use pesticides, but the only difference is that these pesticides are organic in contrast to conventional synthetic ones. These pesticides have actually been shown to be more harmful than synthetic ones because of their lack of specificity, i.e.. they kill the pest and a whole host of other organisms. On top of that, because these pesticides aren’t as target specific or effective, they actually have to be sprayed more to have the same desired effect, which is obviously more harmful than using a synthetic pesticide much less. Because of this revealing data from the scientific community, organic food sales have slowed or begun to decline. This is not some big farm conspiracy; organic food has much higher profit margins than conventional food because consumers are simply willing to pay more for it, so it wouldn’t make sense to doom something that makes you more money.”
So, where is ‘this revealing data’ from the scientific community to found exactly? Wouldn’t a reference be appropriate, here? How many studies are we talking about, here? Who conducted the studies? Were they scientifically impartial or biased? And in what sense is the ‘spraying of less specific but greater quantities of organic pesticides’ obviously more harmful than the use of ‘less’ synthetic pesticide? Is ‘more’ of one necessarily more harmful than ‘less’ of the other? Is being more ‘target specific’ necessarily less harmful than being less ‘target specific?’ Harmful in what sense? Nutritionally or environmentally or both?
And as for the concluding statement implying that the use of synthetic pesticides has nothing at all to do with profit margins, but is all about a highly ethical regard for both the environment and human health, isn’t that a tad rich? Are we really to believe that agro-business and all of its supporting and affiliated input industries are not really only in the end about the bottom line? Really?
Oh, and by the way, only one reference for you (because I’m out of time), to get you started on actually doing a bit of your own ‘research:’
World’s Number 1 Herbicide Discovered in U.S. Mothers’ Breast Milk
which you can find here: http://sustainablepulse.com/2014/04/06/worlds-number-1-herbicide-discovered-u-s-mothers-breast-milk/#.VNJhmJ3F-Sp
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