In article ,
Major Ursa wrote:

I believe that there is no rational basis for believing that Roundup is
no danger to humans when used correctly.


That's great as a religious statement. Your belief may be *about*
rationality, but it is itself irrational, as I will discuss below.



OK. Go with God.

Just don't *pretend* that you have a rational or scientific
basis for your belief.

Scientific no, rational yes. It would be the first time EVER that
Monsanto spoke the truth; hardly believable. And besides, the best
decisions are hardly ever made purely rational.


And here is where your irrationality manifests. The studies that
fail to show any danger from Roundup are *not* Monsanto studies.
Certainly, Monsanto data threw down the claim, but there have
been tens of studies trying to disprove the claim. They have
*all* failed. Independent government studies have confirmed
that Roundup is safe to humans when used as directed.

But all you can think of is "Monsanto." You cannot even
*think* of Roundup independent of your ideologic opposition
to Monsanto.

And in doing so, you not only have to dismiss the Monsanto
data, you have to dismiss *all* verified data.

That is where you become irrational. From the perspective
you promulgate, *all* science, *all* governments, *all*
organizations (other, of course, anti-Roundup advocacy groups)
are tainted by Monsanto. The judge of whether or not
a study is corrupt is *not* in how it was done, *not*
in its methods, *not* in its inherent quality. The judge
of whether or not a study is to believed relies solely
in its *results.* If it shows Roundup is bad, it must
be a good study. If it fails to show that Roundup is
bad, it must be tainted by Monsanto.


Not to me. But if you want to convince ppl you'll have to win their
trust. They will not trust you if you ignore their (irrational)
doubts.

And by "ignore" you mean "fail to pander to." As in

"Oh, yes, there is absolutely no rational basis for
it, but let's pretend that Roundup is dangerous because
it makes us feel better."

No, I don't mean that. Just adress the issue and show that you have the
same doubts about a companies trackrecord. It only shows your human..


I have addressed the issue. There are no studies that show
any danger of Roundup to humans when used as directed. There
exist independent studies that show that Roundup is safe
when used as directed.



Funny, you don't have any problems with *that*
conflict of interest, do you?

I'm not accusing anyone of a conflict of interest.


On the contrary. That is exactly what you accuse Monsanto of. You
may have not joined the lynch mob around *me,* but you somehow decline
to use the same criteria when evaluating the critics of Roundup as you
do when evaluating the claims of Monsanto.

As I said, I believe that Monsanto should do a much better job in
proving their claims.

You ask the impossible. No matter *what* Monsanto does, it will
not be enough. There is no "much better job" that can be done
when nothing Monsanto says is believed.



It should be proven above and beyond all doubt,
easily verifiable for everyone and without any connections between the
researchers and the company. This should do a ridiculous amount of
proving; that is the price they pay for past behavior.



It has been. All those studies trying to knock down Monsanto's claims
that failed. What do you think they were doing? All those independent
government studies. What do you think they were doing?



Roundup must be declared dangerous because it represents
unacceptable thought.

Pure and simple.

Monsanto to me respresents unacceptable thought...


I didn't say "Monsanto." I said "Roundup."

Hmmm. Roundup and its linkage to GM-tech represents Monsanto's way of
thinking.



Exactly. Regardless of the biology, Roundup is thought crime. It
has nothing to do with science *or* rationality.




I think that simply saying that there is no evidence showing Roudup is
dangerous in not enough. The absence does not prove anything. There
could be a lot of reasons why that evidence is not available.



The fact is that controlled studies have been done to induce
toxic effects. These invariably require high doses and/or
long incubations that do not represent any reasonable condition
of normal use. There is no more that *can* be done. The way
you show something is safe is to expose test tissue/organisms/etc.
to the substance and see how much it takes to cause problems.
That has been done. *Every* study shows that toxic effects
require high doses and/or long incubations, *no* studies show
toxic effects at exposures related to use as directed. What
more, exactly, do you want?



Your argument boils down to the fact that your dislike for Monsanto
means that you don't care about the facts about Roundup.

Because of the reasons why I dislike MS I want more facts, more, more.

And there will never be enough, because any facts you don't like
you will dismiss as being thought-crime.


I think my behavior is rational. As in an analogy you brought up
earlier; if the Germans hadn't shown remorse about their crimes in WWII
we would still not trust anything they do and there wouldn't be a united
Germany now. And if Churchill had based his decisions purely on the
scientific data at that time, the Germans would not have been beaten.

That's right. If the Germans hadn't shown remorse, all their cars
would thus have bad brakes, no matter what any performance tests,
mechanical evaluations, or engineering studies showed. That's
what you call rational.


billo