people often say that there is no
evidence for something
there's a common talking point and it
has been for decades
it is often misused it's often a bad
argument a bad point a bad way to engage
in discussion or debate
we can look at this from a theoretical
perspective
critical fallableism and critical
rationalism don't approach debate by
saying that has no evidence
which means essentially that has low or
no justification
it's saying that the amount of positive
support for the idea is none
or low because sometimes they exaggerate
part of what they're saying is that
there's a burden of proof on the other
side that hasn't been met
and i've criticized the burden of proof
concept in general
if you focus on
critical arguments and critical thinking
and pointing out why things are errors
then you won't talk about no evidence
because no evidence is not trying to
point out an error
it doesn't say this won't work because
or this will fail at its goal because
it doesn't point out something wrong
with it
it just says there's a lack of proof
so having the right philosophy gets rid
of this problem in the first place
nevertheless i want to examine it in
more detail in a less abstract way with
some examples
first i want to talk about the massive
bias when the covet vaccine was first
invented
there was no evidence
that it was safe
and also no evidence that it was unsafe
what did people do they said there's no
evidence it's safe we have to do tests
and studies first before we can use it
even though we know covet is unsafe and
it's supposed to protect against
covet now i do think that doing some
studies and stuff was correct though i
also think we took too long on them and
delaying the vaccine as much as we did
was a bad idea that killed people
but my main point was that you could
arbitrarily say it either way no
evidence that's safe no evidence it's
unsafe so if you're saying no evidence
and you're picking one side over the
other you're being biased
and so with medical drugs
our society's typical approach
is to say
we start out with there is no evidence
this is safe you have to do studies you
have to prove the safety before we're
going to use it and approve it
medical drugs basically start out
prohibited and they have to be studied
before they're allowed to be used
however some other things don't work
that way
for example
food additives
with food additives
we just say there's no evidence this
food additive is unsafe and start using
it until some evidence comes along to
show its own safe we don't say oh
there's no evidence that's safe and make
people prove it safe we just start
eating it
and then eventually someone finds some
problem with it and then we switch it
with some other additive that we haven't
studied and say there's no evidence this
one is unsafe we only have evidence that
one is unsafe so it's always a moving
target as they keep finding replacement
food additives to get rid of the unsafe
ones with unknown ones
that often turn out to also be unsafe
some food additives are really
understudied
and
the idea that there's no evidence that
are unsafe is actually misleading
there's often some kind of explanation
or reasoning about why it might be
unsafe
which people call no evidence by which
they mean there isn't a specific type of
scientific study published in a
peer-reviewed journal that directly says
this specific food is unsafe in this
specific way and we have we studied that
exact issue and gathered a bunch of data
about it you can often find some like
similar issue and draw a comparison
and they'll call that no evidence
even though there's tons of relevant
evidence
so i've got a great example for that
it's not from food though it's about
mold there is a debate about how
dangerous mold is and if you have black
mold in your home is that a problem
is that going to harm your health or not
and i found a guy who says it's a big
problem and tries to raise the alarm and
wrote some articles and did some
research and did some advocacy
and
the guy is
maybe a craig
he is he got he lost his medical license
because he was doing experiments on like
experimental research on people
that was not properly documented and
controlled and did not follow proper
procedures and stuff and it sounded
quite bad
so this guy has problems but on the
other hand i read some of the people who
disagree with him about mold
specifically
the research was something else or maybe
it was related but it wasn't
specifically is more dangerous anyways
so i read some experts who disagree with
them and they say there is no evidence
that the mold is dangerous so don't
worry
now like first of all even if that was
true that doesn't mean it's
safe and second of all there's tons of
evidence that mould is dangerous people
have been harmed by mold
we know that some types of mold
absolutely hurt people
mold can kill you
mold can make you sick that's not even a
debate so how can you say that there's
no evidence that having a bunch of black
mold in your home is dangerous what you
mean by evidence is specific types of
scientific studies
we don't have specific studies on
specific issues that show that that
specific thing is dangerous
i assume that's what they mean i haven't
actually searched for those studies but
it's fully plausible to me that we don't
have those because they're really hard
to do they'd be expensive they take a
lot of work
and usually when you do a study you have
to narrow it down a bit and and then
they'll be able to say there's no
evidence of this thing they only studied
that other slightly different thing
and so on the one hand we have a crank
who walks with medical license but some
of his reasoning seems to maybe make
sense and some of it is just common
sense and then the other side we have
experts saying oh don't worry there's no
evidence there's any problem
and that just seems like completely
ridiculous
and then you hear the same thing about a
bunch of food additives and about
chemical sunscreens and various other
things
okay and then it gets a lot worse though
this is why i wanted to give the mold
example so i was reading what the expert
actually said and he didn't just say
there's no evidence that the mold is
dangerous he said that we do have some
evidence that mold is dangerous
for workers if you're at work in a bad
working environment mold can be
dangerous to you
he just said it's not dangerous in your
house don't worry about household mold
and the reason that he said that mold is
dangerous at work is mold can only hurt
you if you get a lot of exposure to it
so if you work in a moldy building
and you're breathing in all the time
every day at work 40 hours a week you
can get a lot of mold exposure but if
you just like casually walk near some
mold and walk away it's not going to
hurt you if you insane and that's not
true of all types of mold but for the
type of mold we're talking about maybe
it's true
it's plausible that it'd take like a lot
of exposure for it to hurt you
but okay but people get a lot of
exposure to household mold their home is
a place that they spend a lot of time so
his reasoning makes no sense if the
studies showed that you can be in danger
from mold
from work if you keep being exposed to
it then of course you could also be
indeed here from mold at home if you
keep being exposed to it why would it
only apply at work and not at home when
the key issue is the amount of exposure
the amount of time that you're in the
presence of the mold
so his reasoning is so bad and he's just
there's no evidence that household mold
hurts people who live there
because the only evidence we have is
that
workplace mold hurts people who work
there
so the guy's a complete idiot
and and there apparently clearly is
evidence of mold being dangerous because
it it's dangerous in workplaces and he
even admitted that
and the mold doesn't care if it's a
workplace or a home it cares about
things like how close are you to it and
are you breathing it in
and how often are you there and do you
breathe it in all the time
and it's even worse than that though
because i looked into briefly some of
the studies about
the workplace mold being a problem i
think i clicked his own link
and so they listed like various
workplace conditions to watch out for
and several of them were if you work in
people's homes watch out for mold there
you could if you go into someone's home
to repair their toilet and they have a
moldy shower curtain then you can get
mold poisoning
so they're saying that mold in people's
homes can hurt workers who are visiting
the home
but then the guy is telling me not to
worry about household mold if you live
there
but moldy shower curtains are dangerous
and several other types of mold are
dangerous to
workers who come into your home
temporarily
that is literally the information that
he linked to that he provided that's
their side
so of course household bolt could be
dangerous
so that's what that's the worst of the
no evidence people
the studies only say workplace mold is
dangerous not household mold including
when your workplace is someone else's
household
it's
ridiculous
so i wanted to talk a bit more about the
food additives
some of them they just start using with
no study and they just assume it's safe
there's no evidence it's unsafe but why
don't they say there's no evidence
that's safe it's just arbitrary bias
a lot of this is just done by what you
might call greedy corporations who don't
care about the people who eat the food
and get poisoned
i don't think that's the proper way to
be greedy and make a lot of money but
i think that it is the kind of thing
people call greed and that i can
understand what their point is
and that i think a lot of the executives
doing this kind of thing think it's a
good way to make money and that's why
they're doing it and
they're they're short-sighted and it's
not the proper way to run a business
they put a lot of weird dyes fillers
binders and preservatives into food
a lot of them are not things you would
think of as food such as wood pulp
they also use extracts
and a lot of people think oh if it is an
extract from a plant
then it's probably fine it's natural
and that is wrong
i found out about this recently
it is how they get some of the sugar
substitutes stevia i think or monk fruit
or some of them
some of the sugar substitutes like zero
calorie sweeteners
are
are artificial but some of them are
plant extracts
and so a plant extract means you take a
plant and then you take part of the
plant and you use that and you throw
away the rest of the plant or use it for
something else
and there's an actual reason that a
plant extract can be dangerous when a
whole plant is safe
like even if eating the whole plant is
completely fine eating an extract can be
dangerous and the reason is
it is concentrated like it is a single
part much more concentrated than normal
so for example apples have cyanide in
the seeds but only a tiny bit
so
if you extract only the apple seeds and
you eat apple seeds as your diet you
will die
however
if you eat whole apples including the
cores
you will not get enough cyanide to die
if your diet was 100 apples
and you just ate the entire apple
and you ate like a normal amount of
calories
then it won't be enough cyanide to kill
you but if you extract just the seeds
then you're in trouble
and so it's the same thing with with
other plants when you extract specific
parts of them
you're getting higher concentrations of
some stuff and lower concentrations of
other stuff
and you can eat quite a lot of some
specific part of a plan and it could
potentially be bad
and some people put quite large amounts
of artificial sweeteners
or sorry
of plant extract sweeteners into their
food because they think it's like safe
and zero calorie and healthy and
whatever and natural
that there are generic reasons to be
wary of doing that it's not just that
there could be a problem it's not random
that apple seeds have cyanide in them
plants often have defense mechanisms
against being eaten they don't want to
be eaten the one exception is the fruit
which is meant to be eaten
not the seeds in the middle of the fruit
but the fruit around the seeds
some seeds are actually meant to be
eaten but not digested and pooped out it
helps spread them around so they can
grow in other places but this the seeds
either don't want to be eaten at all or
they don't want to be like chewed and
digested so they often have some sort of
like mild poison in them something to
discourage eating them and it's the same
with the other parts of plants the
the bark the stock the roots etc
often have some compounds in them that
are bad for animals to eat to help
discourage being eaten
and so when you take a plant and then
you take an extract of a specific part
if that part is one of the ones with
something bad in it then you're in
trouble
and so there is a danger there
so just saying there's no evidence
there's a danger it's like yeah we don't
have any specific study showing a
specific danger there in some cases we
do but
the point is not whether or not we have
one in this particular case it's just
that there are reasons there's we have
understanding of why some of these
things could be dangerous so say no
evidence is misleading if all you mean
is
no specific direct study
when in fact we do have a bunch of
evidence that is relevant and helps us
understand the right concepts and what's
going on and why there could be a
problem like we have evidence that
there's cyanide and apple seeds and we
have an explanation about why
plants have poisons in them
in most parts of the plant we have an
explanation about how how extracting a
specific part of a plant can get you a
more concentrated dose of certain things
inside the plant
when you extract part of the plant
you're not getting a random average
sample of all the different things in
the plant you're getting more of some
things in the plant and less of others
and so if you get more of the bad ones
that is problematic and if you're
extracting like one percent of the plant
then you could get a 100 times bigger
dose
of
some of the bad stuff if all the bad
stuff was in the extract
and to just say oh that's theoretical
explanation and there's no evidence and
the the apple seeds having cyanide is
not evidence that there's anything bad
in monk fruit that's not evidence for
the right plant so we're just not going
to count it and then they can end up
dismissing some actual evidence like
we observed apple seeds that is evidence
but they dismiss it and then they also
dismiss all the conceptual explanations
and then they just say no evidence and
it's very silly
also the way they study this stuff is
often really silly red dye 40 and as an
example and there there are a bunch of
different dyes
and they put these dyes in food
and they're not putting them there for
to make the food better it's not to make
it healthier to make it taste better
it's just for appearance that's
unnecessary but my recollection with i
believe it was read by 40 is that they
studied it a bit and they decided in
certain doses it is okay to eat
and then they let people put red dye 40
in food but then if you eat several
foods with red di 40 you could get more
than the dose they studied they have if
you know that someone can have one gram
of red dye 40 per day and that is safe
but 2 grams is unsafe
then how much red dye 40 should you
allow
into a can of soda
like you have to guess how many cans of
soda might someone have in one day and
also red dye 40 could be in gummy bears
and
dozens of other foods
and so you have to guess how many
different foods with red diapers will
someone eat in one day and that can
change over time like when they first
start making soda with red dye 40 they
could be the only food that someone eats
on the day with red dye 40. so it could
have say half a gram and then they'd be
able to have two cans of soda per day
and some people have more than that so
you already have a problem but suppose
suppose someone was having two cans of
soda a day and they have and the red dye
40 is fine and then new foods with red
dye 40 go in the market now do you go
back to the soda manufacturer and say oh
people are starting to eat more red die
40 in these other foods so you have to
reduce the amount you have in your soda
and make your soda look different i
don't think that happens i think they
just keep putting out the same red di40
in the sodium there's no good way of
totaling up how much red dye 40 someone
is getting from many different sources
and so it is plausible
from what i saw that someone could eat
more than the studied allegedly safe
amount
that wouldn't be all that hard to do
both because some people just
drink tons and tons of soda like more
than a two liter per day
and they and also because they'll eat
multiple different sources of the red
dye like candy
this is going on with many different
additives
so the dosage problem also comes up with
sunscreen
so the original sunscreens used were
mineral sunscreen they used zinc i think
was the primary one
and i know we also used to titanium now
sometimes zinc and titanium together
and there are some downsides to mineral
sunscreens
one of which is they tend to be a bit
white colored and hard to rub into your
skin
and some brands do a lot better than
others at making them nice
as like a lotion
and some of these companies created
chemical sunscreens which is not a great
name but i think that's a standard name
and anyways there's these four different
chemicals they put in it
rather than the minerals i know minerals
are chemicals depending how you define
it the point is not the terminology so
they've got these four artificial
chemical things that they put in the
sunscreen to block sun
and they did various testing on them to
try to see if they were safe
and my friend did a bunch of research on
this and all the tests
are done using certain dosage
and then if you read the instructions
for how much sunscreen you're supposed
to use the amount you're supposed to use
is more than they ever tested
so if anyone actually follows the
instructions on the bottles of sunscreen
they'll be getting a larger dose than
what was tested
and yet we're told oh the evidence shows
it's safe
there's no evidence there's a danger
here but there is evidence there's a
danger because we know
that some of the compounds that they're
putting on the sunscreen are absorbed
into the body into the blood and stuff
and that they can affect things like
hormones
and then we also know
and there's evidence of this that babies
have less blood than adults the babies
are smaller and they have less mass and
so when you put sunscreen on a baby
the same amount of sunscreen on an adult
would be diluted over their whole body
it would have a smaller effect on them
they put the same and you put it on a
baby you can end up
with a higher concentration it can
affect them more
so the studies about what was safe for
adult
can be problematic with a baby
adults have more
volume per surface area than babies do
a way to look at this
is
how the surface area and volume of
spheres grow as the radius grows
the surface area
grows in relation to the square of the
radius
and the volume grows in relation to the
cube of the radius
as you make
a sphere bigger
the
volume is going up more than the surface
area
so babies and adults are not spheres but
i think it works as a loose
approximation
some study has also claimed that there
are metabolic differences in babies that
can also make the sunscreen more
dangerous for them
but anyways even for adults
they studied sunscreen at a lower dosage
than the instructions say to use
and then they thought that was safe for
adults and then they decided sunscreen
is safe
one is tempted to reply that there is no
evidence that sunscreen
used as directed is in fact safe
by which i mean the chemical sunscreens
the zinc and titanium seem to be fine as
far as i know
there are a lot of things that people
put in or on their bodies the society
just seems to be telling them it's safe
to worry about it like only weird people
worry about things like sunscreen and
food additives that is a minority
concern
but via the authorities the scientists
are just like oh there's no evidence
there's a problem or we studied it or
whatever they're often lying it's often
a bunch of crap
and some of these things do turn out to
be dangerous and then what often happens
is they just replace it with something
else that they haven't studied yet so
they don't know it's dangerous and then
they say it's fine
and sometimes this happens repeatedly
they replace it with a new dangerous
thing wait a few decades until people
figure out it's dangerous and get
evidence and then they get a new one and
say there's no evidence this one is
dangerous and wait a few decades until
people create evidence and then switch
again