The Rise of Chemophobia In the News 463
eldavojohn writes "American news outlets like The New York Times seem to thrive on chemophobia — consumer fear of the ambiguous concept of 'chemicals.' As a result, Pulitzer-prize winning science writer Deborah Blum has decided to call out New York Times journalist Nicholas Kirstof for his secondary crusade (she notes he is an admirable journalist in other realms) against chemicals. She's quick to point out the absurdity of fearing chemicals like Hydrogen which could be a puzzler considering its integral role played in life-giving water as well as life-destroying hydrogen cyanide. Another example is O2 versus O3. Blum calls upon journalists to be more specific, to avoid the use of vague terms like 'toxin' let alone 'chemical' and instead inform the public with lengthy chemical names like perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) instead of omitting the actual culprit altogether. Kristof has, of course, resorted to calling makers of these specific compounds 'Big Chem' and Blum chastises his poorly researched reporting along with chemophobic lingo. Chemists of Slashdot, have you found reporting on 'chemicals' to be as poor as Blum alleges or is this no more erroneous than any scare tactic used to move newspapers and garner eyeballs?"
frist (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. This is not an either/or question here; both are true.
Re:frist (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing new here, reporters screw up all their stories, whether it's a city council meeting, a new scientific discovery, or an engineering breakthrough. I'm pretty sure everyone here has seen a news story reporting about something in their field that they just had to shake their head in wonder at how stupid the reporter must be.
And don't forget, scare tactics and sensationalism bring eyeballs and ad revenue.
Re:frist (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not even that. There's a deep-seated fear of being poisoned baked into the human subconcious by millions of years of evolution. For whatever reason is far more terrifying to die from poison than, e.g., dying in a car accident, or getting shot in the face.
Eleven kids dying from bad cough syrup resulted in the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic act in the US. Only 11 deaths! This was in 1938; I guarantee you that there was a hundred times as many kids in Europe getting ground under the just-awakening wehrmacht at the time.
Re:frist (Score:5, Interesting)
For whatever reason is far more terrifying to die from poison than, e.g., dying in a car accident, or getting shot in the face.
A quick and painless death is preferable to a slow and painful one.
Re:frist (Score:5, Insightful)
No, poison can be painless. Car crashes can be slow and painful. People understand car accidents, they know when they're happening. A car hits another one. Bam. You get crushed or burn up or something. Poison? Maybe you just ate some. Maybe not. Maybe you're slowly dying and you don't know it.
People are afraid of what they don't know/understand. It's natural, why do you think there's such a widespread fear of the dark? You don't know what's there when it's dark.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you're projecting. People are just irrationally afraid, period.
Re: (Score:3)
"A quick and painless death is preferable to a slow and painful one."
Speak for yourself.
Re: (Score:3)
A quick and painless death is preferable to a slow and painful one.
Well I think this will change with the younger generation preferring the slow painful death as it is a great opportunity to get a huge amounts of hits on their blog posts for an extended period of time.
Re: (Score:3)
A quick and painless death is preferable to a slow and painful one.
That depends on whose death that is. ~
Re:frist (Score:5, Funny)
Did you really just Godwin the thread in three moves? That just happened like a blitzkrieg! You're an orator of Churchillian proportions! You bypassed the Maginot line of logic and rationality and annexed the Sudetenland of irrational comparisons!
Bravo, sir. Bravo.
Re: (Score:3)
As a side note, such treatments also seem to have the wierd side effect of making you a bit philosop
The New York Times Wants Your Eyeballs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:frist (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing new here, reporters screw up all their stories, whether it's a city council meeting, a new scientific discovery, or an engineering breakthrough. I'm pretty sure everyone here has seen a news story reporting about something in their field that they just had to shake their head in wonder at how stupid the reporter must be.
And don't forget, scare tactics and sensationalism bring eyeballs and ad revenue.
My personal bugbear is the word 'toxin', although 'chemical' and 'toxic waste' qualify as well. Any compound can be toxic, is a chemical, and may be toxic waste. As an example, water is toxic in the wrong place/situation/amount, it is definitely a chemical compound, and it can be a waste product of various chemical processes so effectively could be 'toxic waste'. Toxic waste is ANY excess product from a reaction that *may* be toxic, the term itself is emotional and not truly descriptive.
Re:frist (Score:4, Insightful)
We need critical thinking to be taught in schools.
I am skeptical of the claim that critical thinking can be taught. Nurtured, yes; taught, I'm not so sure.
Re: (Score:3)
We need critical thinking to be taught in schools.
I am skeptical of the claim that critical thinking can be taught. Nurtured, yes; taught, I'm not so sure.
Critical thinking is like muscle. Some naturally have more muscle. With exercise and proper nutrition, muscles get stronger and more defined. Without use, they become smaller, withered, and useless.
You know it's coming (Score:5, Funny)
So when is Kirstof's writing an article about the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide?
First bad joke?
Re:You know it's coming (Score:5, Funny)
Dihydrogen monoxide? You mean, like, from the toilet?
Re:You know it's coming (Score:5, Funny)
It's no joke man, they've found DiHyMo in 100% of brain tumors. It's used in all sorts of industrial applications including GMO farming and pesticide production. And it's ubiquitous. People will spray it all over their lawns to try and promote growth. It's so bad it's in all the runoff in the streams rivers, and we just dump it right into the ocean.
Re:You know it's coming (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You know it's coming (Score:4, Funny)
I think the number one psychiatric diagnostic tool to recognize Asperger's sufferers is whether the patient actually thinks that tired old joke is still funny.
Like I'd care. Technically, it's the people I talk to that suffer from my Asperger's.
Re: (Score:3)
I remember seeing a petition against dihydrogen monoxide years ago and was amazed at all the signatures. I mean it's really simple junior high level chemistry and thousands of people didn't get it.
Signatures for causes are fairly easy to get in meatspace. You just have to make what you are advocating sound important. They are not exactly going to research the issue independently while you are standing there waiting for a signature. They will sign just to get you to go away.
Doing the same thing online is a little harder. Google is too easy to use when you are sitting at a computer. Also, the people signing a online petition are usually the ones looking for a petition to sign.
Re:You know it's coming (Score:5, Informative)
My favorite source for actually scary chemicals is Things I won't work with [corante.com], a chemists weblog detailing all sorts of stuff that, well, he won't work with. Random quote:
Re: (Score:3)
<pedantic>
The proper term is "hydrogen hydroxide": it naturally dissociates into H+OH. Please people, can't we use the proper terminology for our hazardous chemicals?
</pedantic>
Re:You know it's coming (Score:5, Funny)
DHMO (Score:4, Funny)
Re:DHMO (Score:5, Informative)
holy shit, oxygen hydride! we're all doomed! (Score:3)
those hydrides, man, they're reactive as all hell. why, this stuff will corrode even steel! it dissolves poisons and carrier them throughout the human body! oh, woe is us!!!
Re: (Score:3)
Dihydrogenmonoxide is just not IUPAC conform.
And that's sort of the point. Let's break it up.
Di = Die!
Hydrogen = Bad Stuff--Hydrogen Bombs, Hindenburg, etc.
Monoxide = Bad Stuff--Carbon Monoxide poisoning.
So, if you're trying to get the media to help with your culture-jam, "Dihydrogen Monoxide" sounds far worse than "Oxygen Hydride."
Never let reality get in the way of a good story.
Re: (Score:3)
> Dihydrogenmonoxide is just not IUPAC conform. Or would you call methane with a systematic name of "Tetrahydrogen monocarbide"?
Well, it's not like it's entirely unbased: there's "dicholorine monoxide", for instance, and similar metal-free compounds tend to follow the same rules. Incidentally, the compound most like water, Hydrogen Sulfide, is also know as "Dihydrogen monosulfide". You can even have some fun with it too, and call it "Hydrooxidic acid" or something.
I would also point out that "oxiran" i
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Or would you call methane with a systematic name of "Tetrahydrogen monocarbide"?
You would if you wanted it to sound scary. This is memetics, not chemistry.
Re:DHMO (Score:5, Insightful)
Guys, I appreciate the joke, but the nomenclature sucks. Dihydrogenmonoxide is just not IUPAC conform.
Bravo! Your post illustrates that the wags who like to bring up the tired old DHM joke aren't as clever as they might presume about chemicals.
Rant on.........
At the possible expense of ruining all the fun, my own read on why so many people are phobic regarding chemicals isn't necessarily stupidity and ignorance, but a combination of real world experience and anecdotal experience, plus a lot of lies they have been told. And ridicule too. So they think that a safe course is to assume that all "chemicals" are bad.
Contact dermatitis from cleaning solutions is not a mental issue. I obtained a nice case from photographic chemicals which spread over my hands - made worse by latex gloves I wore in an effort to keep the chemicals away. Interesting enough, a cream of various chemicals cured it right up - but the lay person thinks of that as "medicine", not chemicals.
Interesting that some of the chemicals in photo processing - like Sodium EDTA, snd Sodium Sulfite are used in cleaning soultions and salad lettuce "freshener" respectivley. Not with universal good results either.
As for the lies, Love Canal was not the cause of any of the people who lived there's illnesses. Minimata? There's a scary story,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minamata_disease [wikipedia.org] Just some quick examples.
Then there is the ridicule factor. While the Dihydrogen Monoxide joke was funny the first dozen times or so, it in reality is a symptom of the problem. And for the geniuses out there, it is entirely possible to suffer and or die from water intoxication.
During the Fukushima Tsunami/Powerplant disaster, the riducule was out in full force here on Slashdot. While the wags were decrying the stupidity of people who thought that maybe something bad was going on, those same fools were able to view the destruction caused specifically by the reactor problems, not those caused by the Tsunami. The initial figures of radiation release have been updated to new levels of 15,000 TBq for the combined amount of iodine-131 and caesium-137. Not so good, given that TEPCO initially told people the release was only 4,720 TBq. There's a lot more info, but this is only used as an example.
So while chemophobia is absolutely wrong, it is perfectly understandible why most people have the affliction. They've been able to see the damage, sometimes to themselves, and they've been lied to and ridiculed. What prudent person wouldn't adopt a "I don't know what is good, and what isn't, so I just have to presume it's all bed" attitude.
The cure of course is education, and for crissakes stop the lying,
Re:DHMO (Score:5, Informative)
DHMO Poisoning is not what you think (Score:3)
Especially with this year being the 100th anniversary of the Titanic incident, where a large number of the fatalities were actually due to DHMO poisioning
No, most deaths on the Titanic were most likely due to hypothermia due to the cold water. Those that got hit on the head or trapped or were too infirm to stay afloat long enough for hypothermia to get them and so drowned died because their lungs could not extract oxygen from water. I am guessing that it is a very safe bet that nobody died from drinking too much water [wikipedia.org] which is how you die of DHMO poisoning.
Re: (Score:3)
And as we all know, the Titanic sank because it was critically overweight with time travelers going back to see why it sank.
Re: (Score:3)
It's a funny site, but mostly the criticism on the use of "chemicals" and "radiation" is inspired by a backward interpretation of how words should be used. Most of the time "chemicals" and "radiation" can be used in a clear and unambiguous way, and people understand that their intended use is "harmful chemicals" and "harmful radiation". In those cases there's no need to insist on the long naming. And choose not to use the words when they are confusing.
The rule should be whether the communication is clear, n
As a former chemist (Score:5, Informative)
I find much in the popular media to be anti-chemical. Invariably, "Chemical" is used as a perjorative, almost always being prefixed with either toxic or hazardous. Further, it seems that the term "organic" means without "chemicals", which is idiotic, since Every! Single! Thing! is composed of chemicals.
So, anyway, I have a wonderful time with the chemophobes, preferring to use the term "Organic" to refer to a class of covalently-bonded chemicals, primarily composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms, with various other elements occasionally found.
So, most pesticides (with the exception of things like Bordeaux powder) are organic, as artificial sweeteners, etc. Water is never organic, btw.
Re:As a former chemist (Score:5, Funny)
"Chemical" is used as a perjorative
Damn right, and I love it. When someone says something I don't like, I just give them with a disdainful look and say "I don't have to take that from someone filled with disgusting chemicals."
Re:As a former chemist (Score:5, Insightful)
Thankfully in my native language we don't use the term "organic" for food items - we use ... well, something like "ecologically".
However, when I'm talking to English speaking 'green freaks', it is rather fun to point out that by their own standards dog shit is organic.
The same is true for urine. Not only is it organic in the chemical sense (uric acid), but for people who swear by organic foods etc., it is also a wholly organic product.
Granted, I rather doubt either of those are particularly healthy, but hey - at least it's organic, right?
The whole organic vs organic thing reminds me of an old anecdote (not sure if it's true though).
A news crew gets a call about a tanker truck crashing, resulting in a large chemical spill nearby, so they rush off to cover it. Two minutes later they get another call from their boss:
"Don't bother with the tanker truck story - turns out it was only organic chemicals."
Re:As a former chemist (Score:5, Insightful)
"Organic" pertaining to food also refers to production methods consistent with sustainability, not just reduction of carcinogenic pesticide use.
While I also partake in the joys of shooting down uneducated neohippies who shell out money without a skeptical eye toward marketing (re: "all natural"), it's almost impossible to rationally defend industrial agriculture as a peer to certified organic farming. I know you weren't doing that, but it sounded like you may be headed down that path, so I offer my unsolicited comment.
Re: (Score:3)
Sticks and stones from the high horse there! That's quite a sweeping generalisation you have made there, that covers two whole professional bodies.
You're justifying the nonsense, inflammatory journalism that surrounds chemistry based on cherry picked events? The history of chemistry and engineering is certainly dotted with many serious blights, but to tar the whole industry, and dismiss any attempts we make to prevent the spread of "chemophobia" is not really all that productive.
Your casual assumption that
Re: (Score:3)
"Physicists"
good one'
"mathematicians"
math isn't a thing, it's ideas and concepts. It's a great, one of the best inventions of man. Bit it isn't a physical 'thing'
" philosophers and theologians "
no longer needed, so who cares.
Re: (Score:3)
Aspartame and saccharine are both carbon compounds, so they are organic, at least with respect to organic chemistry.
Re: (Score:3)
"saccharin, aspartame"
of course they are organic.
"they were discovered in labs by accident"
Yes, and...? That doesn't mean they aren't organic..in fact it only means they where discovered in labs by accident. Nothing more.
"See, if a sweetener is organic, it's not artificial then is it"
false.
It's artificial sweetener. As in not a sugar. as in no calories. It's still organic.
As for your 12? you might want to move away from the propaganda pages and read the actual studies.
Most of them are alarmist tripe, and th
On the flip side (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
chemical
noun - a compound or substance that has been purified or prepared, esp. artificially: never mix disinfectant with other chemicals | controversy arose over treatment of apples with this chemical.
Point is that the common usage of the word, and the definition in my dictionary means especially artificially produced.
Re:On the flip side (Score:5, Funny)
Yea, like grizzly bears. Those a natural, but they can ruin your afternoon.
Re: (Score:3)
Like Cobra Venom? All natural all Organic?
Ricin?
Re: (Score:3)
Heroin is NOT naturally occurring, though. Morphine is.
Heroin is made synthetically by attaching a couple of acetyl groups to the morphine molecule.
They can't even get "hacker" write (Score:4, Insightful)
They've successfully re-educated the public and turned a good word (hacker==hobbyist) into an evil word, such that stores yank magazines off shelves if the title says, "How to hack your Linux computer". And you expect reporters to correctly published chemical formulas when they never took chemistry classes in college??? LOL.
(And yes I picked the subject on purpose.)
Re: (Score:3)
No. The telephone activity came later. It was referring to using surplus telephone switching equipment to run an elaborate model railroad. Then it was used for a particular style of exploration and software development on a mini.
Playing with the phone network was mostly called phreaking, but occasionally called hacking. However toll fraud was a latecomer to that game and mostly perpetrated by people who bought a bluebox from a hacker but didn't really understand how the thing worked other than by rote and w
I love chemicals! (Score:2)
I'm made of them.
Alarmists tend to have names . . . (Score:5, Informative)
...they're just usually not the right ones. For example, the token anti-vaccine person I know rails first about vaccines. Then, if pressed, he will say that the issue is the mercury. Then, if pressed more, he will say some specific compound involving mercury such as thimerosal.
The point is, people can fixate on names all day. It's people's tribalism that's the problem. If one person has a terrible problem with one doctor, that means that he or she will tell all of his or her friends that doctors are bad, and science is bad, and that home birth is the ONLY WAY. And then he or she will go out in search of anecdotes and outlier studies to support his or her claim.
And yes. There will be studies to support any claim. This is why news sources need to slap their sources' confidence intervals [wikipedia.org] right next to any reporting done on studies, ever.
Re:Alarmists tend to have names . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
What does your token anti-vax friend say while they pick up their teeth with broken fingers? If you haven't fucking punched them right in the face, you aren't doing your civic duty.
Re:Alarmists tend to have names . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't seen him in person since high school, honestly. Good ol' Facebook with the Facebook 'friends' and suchlike.
Punching someone with a strong belief in something only strengthens their belief. I'd much prefer to convince them that it doesn't matter as much as they think, and then change their belief through reason once all that pesky emotion is out of the way. One asshole science-person counteracts hundreds of completely fine science-people.
That said, if I had kids, I would give him a fucking piece of my mind, because I don't want their god damn disease-ridden kids getting my kids sick. And aside from that, anti-vaccine people treat autism like it's some sort of death sentence. Like any autistic person is instantly a pariah. It's the more subtle douchery of anti-vaccine people.
Re:Alarmists tend to have names . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>What does your token anti-vax friend say while they pick up their teeth with broken fingers?
Yes because the way to deal with people who hold "wrongthought" is to punish them with brutality. Maybe even send them to a re-education camp, like they did in Socialist Russia. Are you a Democrat per chance? I may not like your opinion or your group (KKK) but you still have a natural right to express yourself using the body given to you.
Good (Score:2)
well done, more people need to make these demands on journalists.
Electrolytes! (Score:2)
Better living through chemistry (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but once that phrase was co-opted by the enviro-wackos to mean that all chemicals were bad it should have been clear that things were going to take a turn for the worse. Today it is clear to everyone that "chemicals" are bad. Nearly everyone does not understand that "chemicals" are things that are present in the heavily filtered water you are drinking, the nice organic food you are eating and in the very air you are breathing. Most people think you can filter out all the "chemicals" and that if you do not, you aren't safe.
This has been going on since the 1970s and with 40 years of it behind us there is almost nothing anyone is going to be able to do to stop it.
We have politicians that believe this or at least profess to agree with their constituents who believe it. Laws are being made to accomodate these beliefs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Common language just isn't exact. When people say they want to filter the chemicals out of their water it's pretty clear that they'd like to get as close to H2O as possible and filter out other chemicals even if they are healthy. When people say they don't want chemicals on/in their apples it's pretty clear that they don't mean the sucrose that occurs naturally in them, they mean specifically the chemicals that are specifically designed to kill insects or drive off other pests. Worrying that the "lingo"
Just say no (Score:2)
We've been told for decades to "just say no" to drugs. Is the fact that some folks internalized the concept really so surprising?
Remember, "better living through chemistry" means drug abuse as surely as "gay" means homosexual.
Stop Being Pedantic (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
This isn't just pedantry. The problem with co-opting scientific words to have a different mainstream meaning is that it reduces people's ability to read and understand science. Someone might find a scientific article that talks about a new type of (soap, pesticide, fuel, spice) but calls it a chemical. The naive reader is immediately convinced that this new product is unsafe. This causes politicians to make bad policy decisions too.
Scientists tend to lose in public debates against non-scientists. This
Re: (Score:3)
most snakes aren't poisonous, it's just the famous ones that are.
I don't care about poisonous snakes, as they are not a part of my diet.
Venomous snakes, on the other hand, can lead to quite an unpleasant experience.
Both explanations are true (Score:5, Insightful)
Truth1: Chemistry reporting is as bad as all other science reporting.
Truth2: The Chemical industry is as unconcerned with "externalities" as any other business.
Reporters will get you to panic even if they don't have a good reason; the reason that reporters are capable of spreading panic easily is because chemical manufacturers will poison you in order to make a buck. So, from a certain standpoint, the response of the general public is rational - they don't trust the chemical industry, and they shouldn't, so why not err on the side of caution when dealing with certified professional liars (marketing, PR and advertising people). Particulates are bad for you; the chemical industry (and domestic manufacturing generally) denies this, but they're lying. Vaccines are not harmful; but they are a big emerging profit center for pharma. If vaccines were harmful (again, they aren't), would pharma lie about it? Damn straight they'd lie through their teeth. So it becomes a double problem - it's difficult to educate the public about what is safe (vaccines are safe), and at the same time it's difficult to get robust action on what isn't safe (airborne particulates are not safe; neither are most chlorinated organics, heavy metals, etc.)
Colloquial vs. technical language? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't this just a case of colloquial vs. technical language?
I think most non-technical folk associate the term "chemical" with artificially manufactured or extracted substances not usually encountered in our little corner of nature. Colloquial meanings often differ from modern technical usage (see also "organic", "work", "weight"). Words mean different things in different contexts - deal with it.
By all means challenge specific cases of "chemophobia" but you won't win any hearts and minds by telling people they're stupid because they don't use the same definition of "chemical" as you.
Also, remember the hidden wisdom of the old "dihydrogenmonoxide" joke: there ain't no such thing as a "harmless substance" and anything can be toxic or dangerous if too much of it turns up in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, harmless old Sodium Chloride might not seem a problem until every food manufacturer starts adding it in huge quantities to make their product tastier without paying for more expensive spices.
Fly in the Ointment (Score:4, Informative)
There is an excellent book, Fly in the Ointment [amazon.com], that debunks a number of these kinds of issues.
I especially like the one about peeling apples because they have been coated in chemicals. The chemicals they are coated with is simple wax used to replace the naturally occurring wax that is removed during the washing process. Why wash the apples? To remove fungus spores, dirt and insect eggs. Why replace the wax? To prevent premature spoilage due to excess oxygen getting to the fruit.
Re: (Score:3)
Read the book but here is some info;
Most waxes are bees wax, carnauba [sciencelab.com] and candelilla [naturalsourcing.com] wax, shellac [melissas.com] or oxidized polyethylene [alliedsignal.com]. So the waxes use are harmless.
Vitalism lives on (Score:3)
It's been nearly two hundred years since Friedrich Wöhler synthesized urea, a compound which has previously been known only from biological source, from substances not of biological origin. This should have demonstrated that we are all made of chemicals, as are animals and plants, and that no substance exists which is not chemical in nature. Yet, this Vitalism persists. I don't know if Vitalism is the cause or effect of the Chemophobia which seems to be increasing its hold on the populace of advanced nations. I see both as related to the fear of fire and the disregard for human observation. The legend of Prometheus, and others like it, seem to demonstrate a recurrent thread of thought which damns such uses of powerful natural forces by man. In the twentieth century, the twin gift and curse of fire became more powerful with the harnessing of nuclear energy for productive or destructive purposes. In the twenty-first century, we are brought again to the question of Vitalism with the boom and boon of biotechnology, and this time the Vitalism is contained within the DNA itself, and when humans directly change these molecules, other humans rise up in a resentment that goes beyond reason, though it is often cloaked in arguments which attempt to manipulate reason.
Chemophobia is merely another aspect of a widening rift between those who trust in reason and its utilization in the realms of science and technology, and those who do not. The anti-science people conglomerate in the anti-evolution movement on the right side of the political spectrum, and the anti-chemical movement on the left.
Hydrogen (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the layperson fears "chemicals", so much as artificially produced and altered chemicals that are in our food.
It's not the chemicals (or the elements) themselves that are feared, but what they do to our body -- and the lack of disclosure about what they are doing. Look how long it took to get the trans-fat containing partially hydrogenated vegetable oil removed from our food (which wasn't even removed, but when manufacturers had to report trans-fat grams, suddenly hydrogenated oils weren't so necessary for many of their products).
So even that innocuous hydrogen that is so important to basic life can become a threat when combined with other chemicals.
Of course, the Hindenburg disaster gives another reason to fear "harmless" hydrogen. (ok ok, so maybe it was the fabric shell covered with incendiary paint that triggered the disaster, but the 200,000 cubic meters of flammable hydrogen didn't help).
Re: (Score:3)
Let me guess... you're not a chemist. Because, if you were, you would know that the hydrogenation process converts unsaturated fats into saturated fats. "Trans fats" are unsaturated fats (seriously, even if you knew nothing about "trans fats", it's clearly on the first paragraph of the wikipedia article).
The problem is not "hydrogenation", it's "partial hydrogenation".
Lucky guess! I am indeed not a chemist!
The very first section of the Wikipedia article on Hydrogenation states:
Hydrogenation of unsaturated fats produces saturated fats and, in some cases, trans fats.
Surely a professional chemist like yourself can fix the Wikipedia article to make it less ambiguous. And there are plenty [fda.gov] of other [webmd.com] references [umm.edu] around that say that transfats from from a Hydrogenation process.
While it may be true, if somewhat pedantic, to claim that only "partially hydrogenation" creates trans
Distortions Are Everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
There are distortions everywhere. Some are more subtle than others. When Kirstoff generically refers to "chemicals", most people recognize that he is either biased or using shorthand for "a compound which I did some research on and found to be risky in the context in question." Deciding which he is doing is an exercise for the reader, and must always be. Using "perfluorooctanoic acid" is certainly better for an educated audience that has the will, time, and ability to do its own research, but it is better for Kirstoff to do the research and shorthanding -- in a truly unbiased fashion, which may not be the case here -- for an audience that either lacks the will, time, or ability to dig deeper on their own. Perhaps ideal is for the article to have hyperlinks for more information.
While we're on the subject of distortion, I recently read a summery that had a couple of strong shorthand distortions in it, which may provide some interesting points of comparison:
"Pulitzer-prize winning science writer Deborah Blum" -- appeal to emotion -- it asserts that the reader should assume that Deborah Blum is an expert on science matters because she won an award for writing. If her article stands on its own, leave that bit out. If it rests on her expertise, this brief note is not enough to establish it. This sentence is fine for an audience that has the time, will, and ability to check on Deborah Blum's actual credentials, but relies upon the author's research and integrity for those audience which lack those criteria.
"decided to call out" -- appeal to emotion -- trying to get the listener to emotionally go along with a rebel who's fighting the power.
"have you found reporting on 'chemicals' to be as poor as Blum alleges or is this no more erroneous than any scare tactic used to move newspapers and garner eyeballs?" -- false dichotomy -- the options are "Kirstoff is wrong because Blum says so" or "Kirstoff is wrong because he uses scare tactics."
Distortions are everywhere, and journalism necessarily calls for using shorthand. Eldavojohn wanted to communicate the essence of Blum's piece without reproducing it verbatim. He used shorthand which he hopes will give a fair image of the underlying work, by using turns of phrase which would -- in isolation -- be clear-cut distortions. The point is elegantly made by Blum herself (though she gets it backward):
But if we, as journalists, are going to demand meticulous standards for the study and oversight of chemical compounds then we should try to be meticulous ourselves in making the case.
No, you are wrong. It is specifically the case that chemical compound oversight should be far more technical than public writing. Public writing, whether from Eldavojohn, Blum, or Kirstoff, is about communicating complex underlying issues in a brief and simplified form. That is its very nature. If such simplification is biased, then there is a very serious problem -- but the mere act of simplification is not a fault in itself.
Who hasn't noticed it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I am a PhD chemist, but I am not your chemist (or something like that).
The nebulous threat of 'chemicals' has been present for years, but there has been a bit of an uptick in rhetoric recently.
Much as the traditional computer hacker resents the rise in the use of the term hacker in the media to mean malicious computer criminal, most chemists I know are quick to dismiss the silly bias against 'chemicals' in the media. But the term has become a catchphrase for the larger population, and pointing out that everything is made of chemicals has little effect. 'Organic' food is the same way - no one would eat inorganic cucumbers (aka rocks), but the word organic means something else in that context.
Long-hand chemical names won't fix it, because your eyes just gloss over the *fnord*perfluorooctanoic acid*fnord* chemical names. If you want to call out specific chemicals, give them a shorter name (maybe spell them out for people who really want to know), but then explain them and why they are bad.
There are plenty of naturally occuring chemicals that will kill you in small doses, there are manufactured chemicals that are perfectly safe to spray on your children, and every spectrum in between. If the media wants to call out 'chemicals', I think we would all appreciate them specifying which ones.
The whole 'fraking' thing is a great example of this. Most 'fraking fluid' is water and PEG (polyethylene glycol, a harmless 'chemical' found in lots of beauty products - see what I did here?). So who cares if you inject that into a shale formation miles below the water table? Are there other chemicals in there that might be harmeful? Could be (and often are). Call them out specifically if you want me to worry about them. But we have a problem here - people won't panic if you tell it like it is, making it much better to light someones tap water on fire! What's burning? Not 'fraking fluid', not any of those nasty 'chemicals', just natural gas that was probably there before any drilling started. But if you tell people that the oil companies are pumping nasty chemicals into the ground, and show them a faucet on fire, they'll draw their own conclusions, based an anecdotal evidence rather than logic and causality. And this is, or course, exactly what was supposed to happen in response to the scaremongering in the media.
People love to get riled up about something, and there are no shortage of chemicals that they could be getting riled up about. Some more careful journalism, and a requirement that most people need at least science 101 and math 101 to really understand the information they will be presented with would all be good, but I don't see any of those changes happening in the short term. It is at once wonderfully reassuring and extremely terrifying that you don't need a brain to have an opinion.
As usual Slashdot summary is a mess... (Score:5, Insightful)
The latest article by Kristof points out the dangers of "endocrine disruptor" chemicals and he makes it clear (from the very first sentence) that he is talking only about these chemicals. The red herring about hydrogen and oxygen was inserted by his attacker. Kristof says nothing about hydrogen.
Endocrine disruptors have been shown to have serious adverse effects and they are poorly studied and regulated. He is calling for more study and regulation. They are becoming ubiquitous in our environment (from your cash register receipted to most canned foods).
Re: (Score:2)
Crap, QuietLagoon beat me to it.
Re: (Score:3)
As did half of slashdot.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, hydroperoxyl is dangerous since it destroys ozone in the stratosphere.
Re: (Score:2)
Nah, I blew it. I meant dihydrogen monoxide. Never go from memory when you have google.
GOOD LORD I JUST DRANK SOME!!!! (Score:2)
I'm drinking soda and it's listed on the back as an ingredient! What can I do?!?
Re:GOOD LORD I JUST DRANK SOME!!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Shit, responded to wrong parent. When is Slashdot going to get a comment "edit"?
Re:Liberal eco freaks (Score:5, Informative)
Science illiterate, social media sheeps.
That's funny .. I was going to suggest Science illiterate, anti-education Conservative rednecks.
...
It all comes down to
IGNORANT PEOPLE
I say ignorant rather than stupid because of something a colleague told me years ago:
Ignorance can be cured with education. Stupidity can only be cured with a hand gun
So as I am an optimist I am hoping for "ignorant"
no. morons. (Score:5, Insightful)
you can bombard some people with facts, and logic, and 2x4s all day long, and they will stubbornly refuse to accept a stone-cold fact if it falls on their foot.
they are beyond cure, or explaination, or apology.
they are morons. their little pea-brains are furiously working all the time to reject information and cling to what The Voices tell them. they are not capable of understanding that...
FACT: enough of anything is a poison.
FACT: some stuff is more poisonous than others.
FACT: some stuff is so frikkin deadly that if some nut whispers its name a continent away, birds fall in flight.
FACT: grouping all these types of chemicals as one by either side of a stupid argument should require using those idiots as guinea pigs in testing all known classes of chemicals in LD100 tests.
you're welcome. next global issue, please... .
Re:Liberal eco freaks (Score:4, Insightful)
It all comes down to ...
IGNORANT PEOPLE
I say ignorant rather than stupid because of something a colleague told me years ago:
IGNORANT PEOPLE with internet access.
100 years ago, ignorance spread rather slowly. Today, you can convince 1000 people of some bullshit in a matter of seconds.
Re:Liberal eco freaks (Score:4, Informative)
As a liberal that has lived in a commune (Zendik Farm, Bastrop Texas, late 90's) I can attest to the huge number of hippies afraid of "chemicals", Sodium lauryl sulfate (derived from coconut or palm oils) is one that really grinds their gears. Fuckers kept tossing my toothpaste when I wasn't looking.
This is usually a liberal issue, unless you live in a cancer cluster and then you'll see a fair number for conservatives pick up the chemophobia banner.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Liberal eco freaks (Score:4, Insightful)
There are two components to this. The first being that we are a society of specialists. It is impossible to know everything about everything, the best you can hope for is knowing a little about everything. The second part, are chemical corps and their cousins--typically referred to as big chemical and big pharma--that are well known for chasing the dollar regardless of the cost in terms of the effects their products have on people and the environment. When combined, this causes people to have a natural distrust of all of these poly-syllabic words on the back of the products they buy. In many cases it's well founded, others at least suspect. It isn't uncommon to learn that commonly used additives for food and cosmetic preservation, coloring, etc. or even the materials used in their containers area actually not very healthy for you. One of the earliest examples in human history being that of lead. But has been followed on by plenty of others, mercury, radium, DDT, PVC, hydrogenated oils, ... Even now we're learning that even though people or test animals don't drop dead or develop tumors, etc. right away it's still quite possible to manifest negative consequences many years later. There's also reasonable concern over synergistic effects of chemicals considered safe in isolation being quite the opposite when combined with certain others.
Under this kind of climate, is there any wonder why when given a choice between ingredient lists that look like, "wheat, sugar, soybean oil, salt" or "wheat, high-fructose corn syrup, sorbitol, maltodextrin, salt, yellow no. 5, polysorbate 80" people are going to prefer the former?
Re:Liberal eco freaks (Score:5, Insightful)
To some extent, yes. On the other hand, our society is built upon specialization so not everyone can be expected to invest in literacy in all fields. Really where the failure occurs which allows irrational fear of "chemicals" to evolve is in the large number of cases where an actually harmful chemical does real damage, and said damage is denied and covered up by institutions which the public feels powerless against. That poisons the well, and after that, is is open season for sensationalist media profiteers.
I find it hard to call a group of conspiracy theorists and/or worry warts "sheep" by the way, because the true sheep are the people that rely on arguments to authority to dismiss any disturbing information. Modern society is more like a bunch of confused squirrels.
Re: (Score:3)
So you mean that discounting large, diverse groups of people by attempting to characterize them in 8 inflamatory words is unlikely to result in enlightenment or productive discussion?
It is interesting to see a Slashdot user refer to social media users as "sheep", considering that Slashdot itself is successful because it is such an effective social medium.
Re: (Score:3)
All I know is that all the food I eat is organic. I don't know of any foods that don't contain carbon.
Re:Organic Food (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Organic Food (Score:5, Funny)
You're thinking of pizza.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably the same idiot at the FTC or FDA who thought "natural milk" sounded like a dangerous substance and started prosecuting Amish-Americans (i.e. organic farmers), because their customers carried the product from PA to Maryland.
Last I checked that's the customer who committed the supposed-crime, not the farmer. Arrest the customer. (Or better yet: Don't arrest anybody.)
Re: (Score:3)
In the US, the USDA certifies [usda.gov] food products that meets certain criteria as "organic".
Obviously, there are other definitions of "organic". Interestingly the definitions are not uniform across disciplines.
Carbon Free Organic Sugar. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:H2o (Score:5, Funny)
That's why I like Duvel, it only contains about 92% of it.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
also, do you even know what depleted uranium is used for? it's used instead of lead in a bullet because it's denser and goes farther, not because it's radioactive. If such a small about of uranium could pose a threat
There is some evidence that DU has had an effect in Fallujah:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah_during_the_Iraq_War#Health_effects [wikipedia.org]