[MD] Science: Medicine?

[Krimel]

gav, Arlo, Margaret,

Look I don't care what people eat but I am a bit concerned about thinking
sensibly. gav presumes to judge the quality of my diet, wtf? gav says that
growing my own food would be cheaper and improve its quality. First I have,
not a green thumb, but a black one. The very touching of a seed by me is a
kiss of death. But this also ignores the fact that in order to grow my own
food I would have to buy a much larger chunk of land and even in a depressed
market that cost alone is prohibitive. But in order to tend such a garden
year round I would have to spend way more time outside than I have any
desire to do. Plus the time I spend hoeing at subminimum wage would mean I
could not do what I do do for a bit more than minimum wage. As for other
home grown products, it is not the cost of production that drives the price.
It is the risk factors involved and those are costs I am not willing in
incur. I think there are many points we might have in common with regards to
sustainability and ecological sensitivity but you come to them from a
romantic perspective that I respect but have little sympathy with.

"The greatest crime, the final treason is to do the right thing for the
wrong reason." (T.S. Elliot)
i am dazzled by the glorious collapse of the world!!!! (henry miller)
"Some men just want to watch the world burn," (Alfred the Butler)

I can't comment on the authors Margaret cites. As I said to Arlo this is not
an area of especial interest to me and the lecture I attended caused me to
question some of the assumptions I have. The authors you list do not appear
to have an abundance of publications in peer reviewed journals. They seem to
seek a partisan audience already sympathetic to their cause and uncritical
of what they are saying. There is a big difference between citing peer
reviewed articles and writing them. We recently had a thread about at press
that publishes works on Christian apologetics. In their articles on
intelligent design they cite lots of peer reviewed articles but their
conclusions and use of those article can not be taken seriously.

Many of the problems Arlo sees in the modern world, soda, cheese crackers...
don't come for chemicals in the food, they come from too much food. Obesity
is a major risk factor for heart disease, diabetes and all manner of health
problems. I don't see what that has to do with chemistry. If you broke raw
broccoli into its chemical constituents none of them would look very
appealing and some of them are carcinogenic. This talk of evil chemistry
just doesn't cut it. ALL food is a collection of chemicals. Lemon juice is a
preservative. So is salt. Are they bad? The fact that we can preserve food
means that it is available to eat. The faint possibility that preservatives
"might" be harmful really pales in comparison to the effects of eating
rotten food.

Not all genetic modifications must be done for economic reasons we could
genetically engineer foods to be tastier and more nutritious. It isn't the
practice we should be concerned with, it is the application. Which, is the
chief point at issue here. It is not the science that is bad and it is not
scientists saying we should eat crappy food.

Krimel