Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 300 posts

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#231

Post by theptip »

dekhn wrote: post #162
theptip wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof is on the one making unsupported claims, not on the one questioning the unsupported claims. (It's tedious to post supporting studies on every post, so there's nothing nefarious about claims being initially unsupported.) I do agree that the "be careful..." comment is perhaps open to being interpreted as snarky, though it's always hard to infer the intent in a forum such as this.

the reason I said "be careful" is that I'm a staff scientist who already has done his due diligence, and often, when I ask people to provide refuting studies, they just go on Google Scholar and return with papers whose titles match their pre-existing conclusion. If you try to do that in an academic setting, you'll be laughed out of the room (and nobody will trust what you say any more). I'm just working to save time…

Absolutely fair.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#233

Post by PeterisP »

livingparadox wrote: post #170
Zarath wrote: post #166

Turns out modernity is an extremely unhealthy environment for humans, especially men. Despite the narratives being thrown at you, we live in an incredibly "feminized" society where social stigma/violence/shaming are more powerful for the average person than plain old physical violence.

Why is social pressure necessarily feminine and violence necessarily masculine?

The propensity to aggression, violence and excessive risk taking are biologically related to sex hormone levels, and "masculine/feminine" seem to be quite accurate words to use since e.g. feminine men would actually express this less than average men, and masculine women would express this more than average women.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#234

Post by KekDemaga »

cryoshon wrote: post #226
nate_meurer wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? What exactly do you expect dekhn to cite? You expect them to prove a negative? How do you propose they do that? GP asserted that some scary chemicals cause problems (no sarcasm intended; I find phthalates and bisphenols a bit scary myself), but provided no supporting evidence. dehkn asked for evidence. Pretty simple right?

>You expect them to prove a negative? How do you propose they do that? they do this all the time in the pharma space. just arrange experiments on mice where they're subjected to higher and higher levels of whatever chemical until they're subjected to a level several orders of magnitude beyond any realistic hypothetical human exposure. then you cut up all the mice and see if they're different from unexposed mice.

I've had 6 pet rats in my life and each one had tumors at the end. I wonder if that effect is properly controlled for as well.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#235

Post by kirrent »

jostmey wrote: post #62
accountyaccount wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are even chemicals in our brains!

I put the word "chemicals" in quotation marks because, of course, everything is a chemical. I just wanted to point out that we shouldn't pick just one chemical (e.g. BPA) and heap all the blame onto it. As a society, we have to be concerned about the potential dangers of every synthetic chemical

I think your use of it is pretty clear, but it's interesting to note that quotation marks are also used for scare quotes. Two possible usages in this case with almost entirely opposite meanings.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#236

Post by darawk »

highd wrote: post #211
jakelarkin wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of proof should obviously be reversed! Complex, synthetic chemicals in our water, food, packaging, or furniture should be assumed harmful and disallowed until it there is sufficient evidence that they are safe. Escalating trials basically. This is what we do for pharmaceutical drugs that we ingest or contact, why don't take this approach with other man-made chemicals we are adding to our immediate ecosyste…

Our diet is full of fruits and vegetables containing thousands of complex chemicals, indistinguishable from "synthetic" chemicals, that have entered our diet far too short a time ago to have had evolutionary impact. If one wanted they could surely distill many chemicals in isolation from these naturally occurring fruits and vegetables that in concentration would have many concerning health effects. The fact that many…

> Point being, there is no reason to hold any of these chemicals to a standard higher than that of a strawberry - that is, we can give people a bunch of strawberries and say any negative effect is below some acceptable level. And, in fact, we have found many "natural" foods containing absurdly high levels of arsenic and other dangerous compounds, and that has affected their preparation for consumption. The scientific process has in this way even outperformed the naturalism heuristic.

That's incorrect. We've coevolved with many of the foods we eat. Things like strawberries and broccolli have been, more or less, with us for thousands of years. While it may be true that there are harmful components of those foods, we know that eating them is at least not making us worse off than we were. When introducing some new chemical, we really have no idea what its effects might be. And we have no, in principle, reason to assume those effects are benign. We've had a very very long time to adjust to the organic components of most foods.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#237

Post by coldtea »

evincarofautumn wrote: post #227
highd wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our diet is full of fruits and vegetables containing thousands of complex chemicals, indistinguishable from "synthetic" chemicals, that have entered our diet far too short a time ago to have had evolutionary impact. If one wanted they could surely distill many chemicals in isolation from these naturally occurring fruits and vegetables that in concentration would have many concerning health effects. The fact that many…

This is, I’ve found, a good way to start a dialogue with people about chemophobia. If you ask someone “Which do you think is safer: artificial vanilla or vanilla extract?” they’ll often prefer the “natural” one. But vanilla extract contains exactly the same chemical (vanillin) in addition to hundreds of other compounds, many of which are known to be irritants, hepatotoxins, and carcinogens—in high enough doses. Of co…

>Of course, it’s much harder to break people of the misconception that the provenance of a chemical (synthetic or natural) matters.

If one uses contrived arguments like the one about vanilla extract, then I can see why.

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#238

Post by sumedh »

cameldrv wrote: post #75
mgberlin wrote: post #15

I've personally become concerned recently with the abundance of BPA and it's effect on the endocrine system of men. Between disposable water bottles, aluminum can liners, and food stored in plastic containers, there's a huge amount of exposure to this endocrine disruptor. The article doesn't mention it in particular, but I think it's worth being cautious over.

If you're specifically worried about BPA, perhaps a larger exposure is handling cash register receipts. Don't take em if you don't need em, and wash your hands before you eat anything if you do need to handle them.

> perhaps a larger exposure is handling cash register receipts. Don't take em if you don't need em

That sounds a but vague. Can you please post some links where I can read about this?

Re: Sperm Count Dropping in Western World

#239

Post by sumedh »

djtriptych wrote: post #63
whalesalad wrote: post #42

Are cell phones in our pockets to blame? The effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic radiation on sperm function. – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27601711 More info here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27076112 Also here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26949865 And here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26206279 Here too: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24982785 More fuel for the fire: https:…

I'm gonna go with sitting and stress.

Well I would say there the level of stress would be equal if not more in developing countries because of poverty where you dont even know if you might have food the next day or not.
Post reply on HN