I say that all the time, so instead I’d like to steelman the “natural > artificial” perspective.
There are, let’s say, a few hundred things or so in nature that are good for humans. Apples, nuts, etc. This makes sense, since humans evolved in nature. There are natural bad things too, but when people say “natural is healthier” they obviously understand that poison exists in nature. We can extend this list of good things to include artificial things which seem “natural” because people have been eating it for generations with no apparent problems, like tofu – or cooked food. If you stick to just eating these few hundred known good things, you most likely won’t cause problems for yourself, even if you’re missing out on artificial superfoods and modern medicine etc.
In contrast, we’re constantly inventing artificial things, and we haven’t had generations to prove they’re worth. Now there’s thousands, millions of things to put in our bodies. Theoretically, they’ve all been FDA (or analogous organization) approved, and the FDA is quite conservative, but even if the FDA is 99.9% accurate (which it ain’t), things still slip through the gaps all the time. So anything artificial is a bit risky, since it hasn’t had generations to prove itself.
I think all that is true, but it’s just one side of the picture, since it ignores the benefits of artificial foods and drugs. Seems to me like this comes from a case of extreme conservatism or deontology. If you’re extremely conservative and/or not remotely utilitarian, it makes sense to go all-natural, right?
I say that all the time, so instead I’d like to steelman the “natural > artificial” perspective.
There are, let’s say, a few hundred things or so in nature that are good for humans. Apples, nuts, etc. This makes sense, since humans evolved in nature. There are natural bad things too, but when people say “natural is healthier” they obviously understand that poison exists in nature. We can extend this list of good things to include artificial things which seem “natural” because people have been eating it for generations with no apparent problems, like tofu – or cooked food. If you stick to just eating these few hundred known good things, you most likely won’t cause problems for yourself, even if you’re missing out on artificial superfoods and modern medicine etc.
In contrast, we’re constantly inventing artificial things, and we haven’t had generations to prove they’re worth. Now there’s thousands, millions of things to put in our bodies. Theoretically, they’ve all been FDA (or analogous organization) approved, and the FDA is quite conservative, but even if the FDA is 99.9% accurate (which it ain’t), things still slip through the gaps all the time. So anything artificial is a bit risky, since it hasn’t had generations to prove itself.
I think all that is true, but it’s just one side of the picture, since it ignores the benefits of artificial foods and drugs. Seems to me like this comes from a case of extreme conservatism or deontology. If you’re extremely conservative and/or not remotely utilitarian, it makes sense to go all-natural, right?