:hmmm: This is only the tip of the iceberg. Truly amazing, it's everywhere.
Why??????
https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_...-10391704.html
https://www.ewg.org/bpa-in-store-receipts
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:hmmm: This is only the tip of the iceberg. Truly amazing, it's everywhere.
Why??????
https://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_...-10391704.html
https://www.ewg.org/bpa-in-store-receipts
it's not just this stuff, either. We're living in a bath of exotic chemicals. I'm pretty skeptical about the effects of EMF on the body; most of the mechanisms people have used to explain why EMF affects people aren't convincing at all. But there is a lot of evidence about the effects of tiny amounts of chemicals on biological processes.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Sun Fire Plumbing:
This isn't new, or a problem only for modern society. I bet the cave painters suffered from the toxic paint they put in their mouths in order to blow it through painting straws onto the cave walls.
People seem caught up by phantom contamination, like mercury in vaccines, when they should be far more worried about the poisons in the dust you breathe, food you eat and water you drink.
Actually, I take it back. Being worried all the time doesn't help. You're still at more risk from cars and fast food than you are from these, and eliminating those from our world would do more to help everyone's health than getting Monsanto to clean up their act.
I had concerns about just what was in these. Glad to know my instincts can be confirmed. Sad how toxic our man made world is, and how little those who control it care.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Sun Fire Plumbing:
Calling the mercury in vaccines "phantom contamination" discredits you entirely. Go on, drink it up if you think it's so safe!
Removing and reducing toxic products, natural and synthetic; is what is needed at every level. Being informed, and cautious is smart living. Worrying does not change a thing.
Are you on the Monsanto payroll, cel phone companies, PG&E?
Not being cautious about contaminates, and therefore, ingesting and inhaling more of them; would correspond to not noticing, or being able to understand the harm they bring.
Just take a look at what is in all those air fresheners made by Glade, etc. If you can smell it; it's getting into your system, and blocking your ability to comprehend the dangers.
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Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
it's actually not that easy to be "informed", if by that you mean understanding the issues. When an idea is "controversial" it doesn't mean that there are several equally valid points of view. It more likely just means that some people feel passionately about it, and find others don't share their views.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Peace Voyager:
I could use the extra bucks...Quote:
Are you on the Monsanto payroll, cel phone companies, PG&E? .
Agreed PodPoisson that the soup of industrial chemicals we live in and with is a primary concern. Remember the famous Bill Moyers show where he had himself tested and found he had traces of 150 man-made chemicals in his system that did not exist prior to the Industrial Revolution?
As for the BPA in receipts, I'm somewhat concerned, it's also in the plastic liners of canned food. Sometimes I yearn for a soup or stew and don't want to cook it from scratch, nowadays I go without, and keep telling myself to start shopping for recipe ingredients. I can cook better than most food industry "chefs"!
For years I've read my newspaper wearing thin cotton photo handling gloves, cause the accumulated newsprint gives me a rash on my fingers that burns and itches (little red bumps). I call them my "Mickey Mouse Gloves", except they get gray and black very quickly, with use.
The problem with the toxic soup is, like all systemically produced social problems, a real fix would involve such massive economic and social change as to seem unlikely. Piecemeal solutions, like focusing on a specific corporation, or substance, well, sometimes it's all we have access to.
The placebo of "every little bit helps" loses persuasive power over time, but in lieu of a major revolution what else can we do? I'm afraid, "Just suck it", doesn't work for me, although that's the effective approach most of us seem to have settled for, whether intentionally, or unconsciously.
One quibble with your claim about cave painters. My understanding is that the materials they used, were mostly benign. Charcoal, ocher, perhaps some sulfur deposits, but, unless inhaled in large amounts, probably not too harmful. I suspect the wood smoke was a bigger threat to health. A life expectancy of 35-40 years was not just the result of dangers of being an artist!? Still, I get that your quip was for illustrative purposes, more than it was a factual claim. Artists didn't start using arsenic and such, in their paints, until after the Neolithic.
the interesting thing about mercury in vaccines is that when the fed health deciders finally decided to take thermosel out of childhood vaccines they took a huge risk, what if autism rates went down? thank the liability lawgods it has not! we would all be on the hook, even more than now! human genetic material in childhood vaccine production seems like the most likely theory for autism rise, reporting changes is old news.
as a father of a two month old i think about this kind of thing more now. when i heard about chicken pox running through the waldorf charter world this afternoon while picking up the almost 7 yr old on the bike this afternoon i thought "dang, she hasn't gotten it yet?"
as far as heat printed receipts, refuse to touch them if you can. hold them by the unprinted side if you have too. know that cashers have horrible exposure and scientifically indicated negative health consequences, and that there are safe alternatives that are no more expensive and that this information is actively suppressed by the chemical industry.
human evolutionary history seems to indicate that the smartest survive environmental challenges wherever they come from. we solve one and create three. another theory is that we have been selected to survive in challenge and change, what else is new? those who notice make it through...
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Posted in reply to the post by Peace Voyager:
I miss the old days, when the only common contaminants in our precious bodily fluids were flouride and red dye #2. Now there's apparently always a new obscure hazard to focus on!Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by rossmen:
I suspect that if ever anything approximating a single, unique primary cause is found, it won't be anything that's been popularized by Jenny McCarthy. It's doubtful that the biology involved is that simple. There are a lot of incredibly complex interactions going on in biological systems that have absorbed hundreds or thousands of compounds, man-made or natural. They behave differently when there are different proportions - substances that have one effect in isolation change their behavior when other substances are present. A poor but easily understood analogy is the mixture of sodium and chloride - the combination doesn't act like either one.
Despite the fat bonuses I get from Monsanto, I'm still not denying that man-made chemicals are likely behind a lot of negative health effects modern people suffer from. But the "usual suspects" seem to me to be singled out for arbitrary and capricious reasons - there's poor to no science or logic behind the choices. Another bad analogy: kinda like saying that if we could only get rid of the Fed our economy would flourish.
here's a great article that makes my point:Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
https://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/...ausation/all/1
a quote from it:
That's a beautiful insight about our ability to understand the world, wonderfully well expressed.Quote:
.... causes are a strange kind of knowledge. This was first pointed out by David Hume, the 18th-century Scottish philosopher. Hume realized that, although people talk about causes as if they are real facts—tangible things that can be discovered—they’re actually not at all factual. Instead, Hume said, every cause is just a slippery story, a catchy conjecture, a “lively conception produced by habit.” When an apple falls from a tree, the cause is obvious: gravity. Hume’s skeptical insight was that we don’t see gravity—we see only an object tugged toward the earth. We look at X and then at Y, and invent a story about what happened in between. We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact—it’s a fiction that helps us make sense of facts.
Whoa There Podfish!
David Hume, my favorite British Empiricist Philosopher, was full of it in that quote.
There are things we cannot see, which we know are there. Bacteria and Viruses, Social Relationships, Economic Processes (which are generally quantifiable, at least in conventional Economic theories).
The old, "if it's not right in front of my face and I can touch it, and that's ALL I CAN SAY I KNOW", Empiricism, has long been debunked. Etiological effects of manmade chemicals on health (Allergies, Chronic Diseases, Cancer) have been established in Medical Science. Through Inductive Reasoning.
There are disputes, of course, that's how Science works. But dismissing existence of something simply because you can't see it? Baby thinking. The contrapositive of insisting you can know something which is imperceptible, but you know it's real, just because you know it. The latter being the folly that Hume was puncturing.
Hume was a man of his time. His skepticism, expressed with dry wit, is highly entertaining. And as a conveyer of Enlightenment ideas, he needed to punch holes in the Magical Thinking of his time, mostly the Protestant Christianity of his Calvinist milieu in Edinburgh, although he was also debating Jesuits.
Context, is everything.
https://www.nakedscience.org/mrg/Deductive and Inductive Reasoning.htm
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/bruces'-song.htm
Philosopher's Drinking Song
Immanuel Kant was a real piss-ant who was very rarely stable.
Heideggar, Heideggar was a boozy beggar who could think you under the table.
David Hume could out-consume Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel.
And Whittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nieizsche couldn't teach 'ya 'bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.
John Stewart Mill, of his own free will, after half a pint of shanty was particularly ill.
Plato, they say, could stick it away, half a crate of whiskey every day!
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
And Hobbes was fond of his Dram.
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
I think the quote stands well on its own, independent of any broader philosophy of Hume's. It's specifically about the concept of "cause"; whether it derives from a larger conception of reality or not doesn't limit the accuracy of this observation.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by "Mad" Miles:
His use of gravity as an analogy is perfect. Everyone "knows" what gravity is, and that things fall because of "gravity". But actually, possibly no-one really knows what gravity is. We observe that objects move toward each other - and even that's more sophisticated a description than would have been used a few hundred years ago, when people would say things just fall downward.
Newton made a stab at giving a cause for the observed effect. He said there is a force associated with objects that is proportional to their mass. Well, that was a guess pulled out of his ass, as he himself knew at the time, but it worked well enough for horseshoes and handgrenades (literally). However, it didn't work for the kind of objects being observed a few hundred years later. Now, many would say gravity is 'caused' by distortions in space-time.
There's the apt cliche - "correlation is not causation". But it's all we have to go on, I admit that. Theories about causation often lead to practices that when applied give the desired result, at least a useful percentage of the time. That's not at all the same thing as saying you know the cause. The danger is that too often, people act as if they do and treat their presumed cause as an observed fact.
Podfish,
You really want to assert that we don't know what gravity is because we cannot see it cause things to fall or attract or ?
How much Quantum and other theoretical physics are you familiar with?
As for cause in general, in medicine, social science, it's all just theory? Nothing has been proven?
Sorry, Hume could write about gravity that way in 1748, but I assert it is no longer reasonable or true two hundred years later.
i know a fair bit, though my math's not really up to what it should be.. And yes, I assert it - I don't think that statement's controversial at all, actually. I don't know why you read "if we can't see it it's not real" in my posts. I'm asserting that these are complex phenomena, and that there's a tendency to oversimplify. We know a lot about gravity, but there are some fundamentals that aren't at all understood. I thought the example of Newton, thinking it was a 'force' exerted by mass, vs. Einstein, saying it's more a consequence of geometry, highlighted that! Einstein tried and failed to unify gravity with electromagnetism. That's pretty strong evidence that at least -he- didn't claim to fully understand what it was.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by "Mad" Miles:
Follow the link I posted. It's an interesting story and describes the consequences of misunderstanding what seemed to be an obvious "cause" of heart disease.Quote:
As for cause in general, in medicine, social science, it's all just theory? Nothing has been proven?
"Just theory" is a misleading phrase, implying "just theory, not fact". The real way to rate a theory is with a level of confidence. It's not like there's some magic threshold that turns "just theory" into "fact". Theories that are useful and reliable may as well be called fact. There are a ton of theories that are extremely unlikely to be wrong. There are a lot that are extremely unlikely to be right. And others will over time be modified -- like Newton's theory of gravitation.
My original point of bringing this up in this context was to highlight the termination of thought that happens when a 'cause' is proclaimed. Arguments then reduce to "is it or is it not" the real cause. I don't think it's often that straightforward. Just because it's not mercury in vaccines, you don't have to jump to something like "contamination with human genetic material" for god's sake.... maybe the rise in autism diagnosis is a consequence of a wide and disparate variety of factors.
maybe, the truth is we don't know why autism rates have spiked. there is a strong correlation to increased childhood vaccine protocol. thats why thermosol was yanked. just because the rate has stayed high doesn't mean the vaccine correlation is now meaningless. the human genetic material question has some plausible theory behind it. and i could list many other possible reasons for the rise due to our rapidly changing world.
vaccines are a facinating example of how medical technology is tested. the results so far are mixed, the theorys are still evolving, and propaganda and prejudice provide a thick fog for the individual and parent trying to make informed choices.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by podfish:
Podfish,
This is the specific language that you quoted, that I was responding to:
"...although people talk about causes as if they are real facts—tangible things that can be discovered—they’re actually not at all factual. Instead, Hume said, every cause is just a slippery story, a catchy conjecture, a 'lively conception produced by habit.'..."
and,
"...We can measure facts, but a cause is not a fact—it’s a fiction that helps us make sense of facts. ..."
In the context in which Hume wrote, it made sense. Although the summary of his ideas in this matter is pretty grossly general, and I suspect, if I were to go back to Hume, I would find it innacurate. Keep in mind who Hume was debating. Religious scholars, dealing with matters of Faith. He was not engaging in a critique of Enlightenment Scientific Theory. He was defending and promoting the latter.
In a general discussion of epistemology and theory of science, at this place and time in history, those assertions you quote, do not make sense. At least not without a great deal of explanation and contextualization. Which in your last reply you provided, in which I have no bones to pick, hence my casual (not causal!?) use of the "gratitude" icon.
Where I'm coming from is that there are things, not directly perceivable by our senses which are real. Are facts.
Theories aren't just speculation, at least not ones subjected to the scientific process, or in the case of the Social Science and Humanities peer review by a community of experts, aka scholars. Of course, schools of thought differ, and call each other names, and have mutually exclusive theoretical frameworks. But, that's something to be dealt with by specifics and embedded contextual analysis. Not by sweeping claims about facts versus "lively conceptions produced by habit". Theoretical work, in any field, is about questioning habit and preconceptions. It's what philosophers do. So using Hume to argue against Hume? Stuff and nonsense!
The word, "fact", itself, is highly contested. Some define it as, a thing (or idea, or claim) which is irrefutably true, proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Some say it is something true, that we have confidence in, within the limits of our conceptual (theoretical if you like) framework. As in all such things, it's important to define our terms. Much confusion and disputation can be avoided if we do. And that's a fact!
Rossmen,
The link between Thimerosol / Thiomersal and Autism rates has been thoroughly debunked. That's a fact. There has been an extensive discussion here in Waccovia, over the years. You're late to the party.
Here's a couple of the more extensive and relevant threads.
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showthread.php?28601-Help-fight-forced-vaccinations/page2&highlight=Vaccination+Dangers
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/showt...nation+Dangers
There are many, many others. Your Anti-Vacc position has been well represented. Are you aware of all of the relevant "facts" that make that position untenable? As you wrote:
"...propaganda and prejudice provide a thick fog for the individual and parent trying to make informed choices..."
That sword cuts in many different directions!
you are not reading me accurately brother. i am not writing or implying in my writing that there is a link between mercury in childhood vaccines and autism. this was a plausible theory which was proven wrong by the experiment of removing mercury from childhood vaccines in 2001. rates have remained high.
i do not characterize myself as antivac either. vacselective is accurate. and this has hardly been discussed on wacco. your vacpositive prejudice has clouded your cognitive attention.
Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by "Mad" Miles:
I sit corrected Bro. You have posited that human DNA in vaccines may contribute to the etiology of Autism.
In the voluminous discussion and sharing of info here, in previous vaccination pro and con threads, I don't have a clear memory of that being discussed, but I would be surprised if it hasn't been mentioned. At the very least in the masses of linked info provided from all sides.
I don't have the time to review all that, and it's not a central focus for me. If anyone, who has been here in the trenches for the years of this going around and around, remembers if, and if so, where human DNA as a part of vaccines and it's "causal effects" on health, has been discussed, please, let me/us know?
Hey, Podster--
The fact that causation is intangible, that it's not factual in the sense that an apple or a tree is factual, and is only inferred from the regular, pretty much predictable relationships we observe between "factual" things (things we end up referring to as "causes" and "effects"), does NOT mean causation is a fiction, regardless of what the estimable Mr. Hume may have said. If I brained you with a baseball bat (don't worry, Bro'; I wouldn't do that), you would have no hesitation to hold me financially responsible for your medical bills on the assumption that my attack CAUSED the brain damage which "coincidentally" happened immediately upon your being struck.
I shoulda left Hume out of it.Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Dixon:
it's not a fictional concept, but it's not a trivial one either. We often grab on to a single cause for convenience. It's not necessary to go for deeper meanings - even the colloqial one is easily shown to be inadequate in many cases. Just ask your lawyer about the cause of my injury. Maybe I should have been wearing my helmet.
You -did- mean I was playing catcher at the time, right??
You took the words out of my head Dixon! I chose not to go with the "punch in the face" example. For reasons that should be obvious.
Defining ones terms is key in these matters. By matters I mean discussions such as this one. I often argue against single cause explanations, for pretty much everything, but especially complicated events such as cancer etiology.
Podfish, if you'd only said that attributing complex events to a single cause, was specious, I never would have bugged you.
Still, I got to revisit my Phil.1B "The British Empiricists" course, which was the third Philosophy class I took, the start of quite a few more. Hume always struck me as a clear thinker, with a dry wit, who was accessible to any literate reader. That's a lot to recommend him, given the discursive style of many Philosophers. His Scottish common sense, dry sarcasm, no mercy for fools, always cracked me up. So, Thank You!