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Naturally

The Random Number Gods have once again conspired against me by continuing some of yesterday's theme. I normally avoid HuffPo, but I was unable to resist this article from two months ago:

    More And More People Suffer From 'Chemophobia' — And MAHA Is Partly To Blame  
The fear tactic strikes a nerve with both conservatives and liberals alike. Here’s what you need to know.

If you’ve ever muttered to yourself, “I should really get the organic peaches,” or “I need to replace my old makeup with ‘clean’ beauty products” or “I really want to buy the “non-toxic’ laundry detergent,” you may have fallen into the chemophobia trap, an almost inescapable phobia that’s infiltrating lots of homes.

I have never, not once, muttered or even thought anything resembling those phrases.

The closest I ever came was "You know, I really ought to stop eating Twinkies."

Chemophobia is complicated, but, in short, it’s a distrust or fear of chemicals and appears in many of aspects of life from “chemical-free” soaps and “natural” deodorants to vaccine distrust and fear-mongering about seed oils.

Everything is chemicals. Every soap, every drink, every morsel of food, every article of clothing, every folksy treatment for whatever ails you; it's all chemicals. And natural, however you might define it, isn't always good.

I'm hardly the first to push back on this. This article   expands on a thing you might have seen where someone lists all the chemicals in an apple and uses it to supposedly trick an anti-vaxxer. I should warn you: while that link is educational and interesting, the author puns more than I do. Oh, sorry, that warning came too late, didn't it? Ain't I a stinker.

Next time you find yourself thinking, "natural is good; artificial is bad," please remember that tobacco is natural.

Appealing to the left, it was seen as counter-culture and opposed the “evil market forces,” said Timothy Caulfield...

On the right-leaning side, chemophobia appears as a distrust and demonization of things like studied vaccines and medications and the pushing of “natural” interventions, “when those have no regulatory oversight compared to regulated medicines,” Love noted.

So they're against what doesn't have regulatory oversight, but vaccines have regulatory oversight, but *head explodes*

Chemophobia leads people to believe that synthetic, lab-made substances are inherently bad while “natural substances” — things found in nature — are inherently good, and that is just not true, Love said.

I've said it before, as recently as yesterday and so far back that I can't even remember. But it's nice to see it from someone else, even in HuffPo.

But I'm not the only one trying to shine a light into the darkness here. There's even a name for it: Appeal to Nature,   a subset of the naturalistic fallacy.

The article eventually goes into this. Then:

At the core of chemophobia and appeal to nature fallacy is also a “romanticization of ancestral living, when, in reality, we lived very poorly, we died very young and often suffering and in pain,” Love said.

The past, with no exception, sucked. The future might suck, too; we can't know, and that's a good thing, because it enables us to keep up some semblance of hope. What I know for sure is that I wouldn't be here to gripe about it if it weren't for "artificial" chemicals and modern medical science. Some people might consider that a good thing; I do not.

If someone on social media says that a certain ingredient is harming your kids, you’ll be scared and want to make lifestyle changes. If someone claims your makeup is bad for you, you’ll also be scared and want to make changes.

This is, therefore, a very effective advertising technique: Brand X contains chemical Y. So buy my Brand Z, which is completely Y-free!

“The reality is, our brains want simple. They want black and white,” said Hardy.

That statement is, ironically, simplistic.

We make choices all day long, which makes categorizing things, like food, as “good or bad” appealing to our minds, Hardy said.

Here in reality, everything's got its benefits and risks. But like I said yesterday, humans are utter shit at risk assessment.

If you’ve ever fallen into the chemophobia trap without knowing, you aren’t alone. It’s complicated and nuanced, and the science is, at times, messy.

This is also true. I've pushed back before on questionable studies and reports on science. I expect to continue to do so.

“So, it all just becomes slogans and wellness nonsense,” along with the peddling of unregulated, unproven supplements (that are basically just untested chemicals), Caulfield added.

I don't have an inherent issue with so-called "natural" products. That is, while I object to the marketing, some of them may very well be effective. We don't know, though, because many supplements don't have to go through the rigorous testing that, say, vaccines do.

And, many of the people who claim to be so concerned about chemicals then profit from the sale of unregulated supplements, Caulfield said.

Which rephrases what I said up there.

Whether someone has conservative or liberal views that fuel their chemophobia, the fear of chemicals is dangerous. And, it’s, sadly, more prevalent than ever, Caulfield said.

I deliberately avoid getting political in here, and I really don't want to get into the "both sides are bad" argument. Hell, even the idea that there are only two sides is oversimplifying things, which, well, didn't we just rail against that?

The side I'm on is science and knowledge. I'm not perfect in that regard. Neither is science. But it's the best tool we have right now, and the benefits outweigh the risks.