View Single Post
  View Parent  #20  
Old September 14th, 2019, 12:37 PM
Debbie
Guest
 
Posts: n/a
Default Re: [Dixonary] Results Round 3013 Prisencolinensinainciusol

You do have the heart and soul of a teacher.

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019, 12:47 PM 'Efrem G Mallach' via Dixonary <
dixonary (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com> wrote:

> The history of science is replete with things that were thought to be
> benign but were later found to cause serious problems over time.
>
> - Lewis Carroll's mad hatter was not a random turn of phrase. Exposure to
> mercury in making felt for hats causes a neurological disease, erethism,
> also called "mad hatter's disease" or "mad hatter's syndrome."
>
> - Marie Curie died of anemia caused by exposure to radium. Despite that,
> it was used to make glow-in-the-dark watches well into the last half of the
> 20th century. The workers who applied it to watch dials would wet their
> brushes in their mouths, leading to radium necrosis of the jaw..
>
> - Many of us are old enough to remember when three out of four doctors
> recommended Chesterfield cigarettes.
>
> - Any number of plant and animal species were introduced to new regions to
> control pests, and turned out to be worse pests.
>
> - And what will we find out, a few decades from now, about genetically
> modified foods?
>
> The unifying thread to many of these examples is that not only did
> something cause harm, but the mechanism through which it caused harm was
> not known to the science of the day. ("The day" is not always long ago.)
> Thus, a scientist who was asked if something could be harmful could
> honestly reply "No, it can't," because it could not cause harm through any
> known mechanism. Therefore, anyone who says something can't be harmful
> (e.g., "GMOs can't hurt you") is essentially saying "we know all there is
> to know about all possible mechanisms through which something can harm us."
> I don't think any reputable scientist would agree with that statement in so
> many words, yet many of them say things that imply it.
>
> Back in the 1990s, when the university at which I then taught didn't have
> enough classroom space in the building where we usually held our classes,
> some were scheduled for a building that housed the university's nuclear
> physics research reactor. To their credit, though only after some pushback,
> they let faculty refuse classroom assignments there - despite assurances
> that the level of radiation in the building was completely safe. I did. (I
> still fly to Australia and New Zealand, though. Getting there by ship from
> North America takes too long. Fortunately, the chances of my fathering any
> more children are small.)
>
> Caveat user.
>
> Efrem
>
> On Sep 14, 2019, at 12:18 PM, Guerri Stevens <guerri (AT) guerristevens (DOT) com>
> wrote:
>
> We hire people to do some of our yard work, but I still enjoy puttering
> around. I wonder about people whose job or business is landscaping and
> other yard work, and who use chemicals of some kind. And some of these
> dangers don't come to light right away.
> On 9/12/2019 9:47 PM, Tony Abell wrote:
>
> My definition was a real one for heptachlor. There have been a lot of
> pesticides that turned out to be dangerous to humans or other untargeted
> animals. Personally, I'm not convinced yet that glyphosate is one of them, at
> least when used occasionally by homeowners.
>
> ------------------------------------------
> On 2019-09-12 at 15:16 Guerri Stevens wrote:
>
>
> the pesticide definition: is it really Roundup by any chance. I used it
> for many years, and was horrified to learn that it was dangerous.
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Dixonary" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to dixonary+unsubscribe (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/di...rristevens.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/7d8ad904-9aaa-0a6a-4fed-f265bb4e9709%40guerristevens.com?utm_medium=email& utm_source=footer>
> .
>
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Dixonary" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to dixonary+unsubscribe (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/di...%40verizon.net
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/8F76277F-72BB-41CD-92F7-83D5008F07F4%40verizon.net?utm_medium=email&utm_so urce=footer>
> .
>


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Dixonary" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to dixonary+unsubscribe (AT) googlegroups (DOT) com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/di...mail.gmail.com.
Reply With Quote