Suggest that natural products or ingredients are always superior to synthetics is a common reasoning of the reasoning used by influencers, brands and politicians.
Before writing this relationship, I planned the hairdresser time.
As I wandered the cutting coverage around the neck, it indicated the shampoo it would use. “It’s a new line, made with 90%natural ingredients,” he explained.
The attached flyer contained summarized descriptions of each of the line products. One of the shampoo contained the extract of the figure and another used acai fruits. A third included chia seeds.
As soon as I entered the house, I took the bottles of shampoo that I bought and looked at the list of ingredients in a more detailed way: Alcohol Gracelith, glycerin, Behentimmonio chloride and Mistrate Isopritla. All are common substances produced in the laboratory.
None of these ingredients worried me. But even if they are used in much larger quantities than any fruit extract, none of them are highlighted in the brand’s advertisements.
The tactic used – apparently successfully in my case – has existed for centuries. It is often adopted on social networks, brands and influencers and by politicians from all over the planet.
The “charm to nature” or “naturalistic error” is one of the most commonly observed types of logical errors – reasoning failures that can make a declaration seem to be surprisingly convincing.
Every time you feel someone say that a product or practice is higher because it is “natural”, or that another is lower (or even harmful) because it is not “natural”, it is because naturalistic bankruptcy is underway.
From it arise the arguments that claim that a certain product follows “the standards of nature” or that another substance is serious in particular because it is “chemistry” or “synthetic”.
Nature is wonderful in many ways and has a lot to teach us. But why isn’t something necessarily better just because it comes from nature?
The answer is because nature has no intentions, at least consciously. That is, he has no intention of doing good or helping humans, in particular speaking.
We don’t need to philosophize a lot to achieve this conclusion. Consider only some of the creations of nature.
Arsenic, for example, is a natural product that can kill an adult human being with a dose up to 70 mg. Another natural product is asbestos, which is carcinogenic.
The cyanide can kill up to 1.5 mg per kg of body weight if ingested. It is a phytotoxin, naturally produced by over 2,000 plant species, including almonds, apricots and peaches.
Therefore, some “natural” drugs often marketed can actually be dangerous for consumption, such as apricot seeds on the ground.
This is the question of using the word “natural”, so common in the advertisements of various products. This is a scarcely defined term, which does not necessarily mean that the product will be better, or even safer, than other options.
Research on the dentition for the teeth of children labeled “natural” has found, for example, that over 370 children have undergone adverse effects such as convulsions or disappointments. The products contained inconsistent levels, sometimes high, from Belodona.
Of course we can also observe natural phenomena, in addition to the ingredients used in the products.
Service, for example, even killed one person out of three infected with the disease. This virus of the natural presence was responsible for the death of an surprising quantity of people – from 300 to 500 million, in the 20th century – until it was uprooted thanks to vaccination.
Poison, Poliomielite, Tornado, insect bites and the eventual and inevitable death of the sun that one day will end all life on earth are also natural events.
In his essay on nature, 1874, the British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) indicated that this is one of the main problems of the so-called “Nature Appeals”:
For him, “or it will be right to kill, because nature kills; torture, for the torture of nature; ruin and devastated, because nature does it; or we should not consider what nature does, but to do what is beautiful to do “.
In other words, if the premise of the appeal to nature is correct and everything that is “natural” must be better, just because it is natural, we will also have to be willing to accept everything that leads nature. Otherwise, we probably do not believe, in fact, that everything is intrinsically better when it is natural.
At the same time, there are hundreds of things that we can consider unnatural and in reality have significantly improved the lives of many people.
Before modern medicine, more than one in 100 women died when he gave birth. Currently, in rich and industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom, a woman dies every 10,000.
Before the global diffusion of vaccines, Pertosse kills one in 10 infected children. After vaccination, the dead fell to a fraction – more specifically, 1/157 – of the previous numbers.
So far we have just talked about medicine. But look around to observe dozens of other examples.
The use of glasses, cooling food or the lighting of heating in winter, for example, may not be “natural” actions. But for many of us, it is a better alternative than walking without seeing well, letting the meat ruin or having cold skin shots in winter.
Most of the foods we consume do not get there in the same way that nature presents them. We elaborate them and cook them.
The collection, grinding and processing of wheat has helped in the transition that made our species no longer nomadic, hunter and collector, made up of established farmers, capable of building sophisticated civilizations.
The same happened with our cultivation and crossing of plants. Many of the nourishing foods that we consider today “natural”, from carrot to modern banana, have a very different appearance and flavor from their wild arangrs.
Of course, it would certainly not be to suggest that man’s products do not cause us problems, such as pollution generated by the matter of synthetic plastic or by the use of weapons and explosives. And this does not mean that in many cases the most “natural” option cannot be better for us.
But the fact is that we cannot consider that the most “natural” option is better simply because it is natural, despite the frequent tendency between people to believe otherwise.
Carrots can be better for us of snacks, but a paracetamol – chemically synthesized – is also better than natural arsenic.
But what is natural?
Some of these examples indicate another serious “appeal to nature” problem. How to determine what is natural and what isn’t it?
After all, humans come from nature. So if something produced by an animal or a plant is “natural”, why is it not what humans are not?
And how do the creations that are mixtures of what traditionally called natural calls and substances or processes made by man come? How are vaccines, which are derived from parts of a natural virus or bacteria and, if injected, help to teach our immune system to defend themselves naturally from the same pathogen in the future?
“Like all the really interesting words,” nature “has numerous meanings”, writes the historian of Science Lorraine Daston.
The word can mean almost everything, depending on the context. And this diffusion of meanings is exactly what makes it a term so versatile for advertising – and explains why we are so easily convinced.
But there is still another problem. Even if there was a clear line of division between “human” and “natural”, we often don’t know what is truly synthetic and what is not.
When we pass our teeth, for example. Is it natural to wash your teeth with a fluorine toothpaste? How about touching with a fluoride -free cream?
The instinct of many people can say that fluorine brushing is not natural and that fluoride -free toothpaste is natural.
But fluorine is a mineral of natural occurrence. It can be found in the ground, water and rocks. It is one of the common alternatives of “natural” dental creams is nanoidrossiapatitis – a synthetic component.
And we must also consider that the cleaning of the teeth, certainly with the products we use today, is far from natural. The maximum that the other primates make to wash their teeth is “thong” in hand, like bird feathers.
Even if we wanted to brush how our human ancestors did, we would need to rub our teeth with branches, pigs or even pulse.
Another question: if I told you that I prepared a drink made up of 99% of dihydrogen monoxide, would you accept?
The chemical name seems to describe something quite synthetic, but it only thinks a little.
The monoxide of dihydrogen, of course, is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one of oxygen. Its chemical formula may seem more familiar: H2O. Yes, we are talking about water.
For all this, the next time you observe the announcement of a product based on its natural origin (or someone who attacks some products because it is synthetic), it is worth questioning what it really means.
It is possible that you should ask you why the people responsible for that product or practice are making use of the error of the “natural charm” to convince the public of their values, rather than simply presenting the logical topics that justify the reason why this really is The best option.
*Amanda Ruggeri is a journalist and writer of science winner of the prize. He writes about know-how, media literacy and much more in his account @mandyrugeriOn Instagram.
Read a Original version of this relationship (in English) on the site BBC innovation.
Source: Terra
Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.
