Don’t Take Medical Advice From the New York Times Magazine

Saying that everything is comprised of chemicals reminds me of the complaint that the phrase "could care less" is the logical opposite of the way people use it. True in a narrow sense, sure, but willfully ignorant of what people are actually trying to convey. This kind of thinking drives me batty, and people who fancy themselves scientists seem to enjoy indulging in it.

"Technically right" isn't the best kid of right, it's the worst.

(If you're interested in the "care less" thing, check out "The Language Mavens" chapter from The Language Instinct by Pinker.)

Don't take any advice from Slate.

"Another common chemical name for methotrexate is amethopterin, which comes from the roots meth, Greek for wine, which I might stretch to spirits, and pterin, Greek for feathers."

Except for it's ameth, which would mean lack of intoxication, a la 'amethyst'.

In fact the whole article is complete BS as it doesn't even remotely align with the views the author presents in the original article -- nowhere does the author say that she is 'chemophobic', nor is this even hinted at beyond her saying that her husband has always been "more comfortable with pharmaceuticals, more trusting in general." And of course naturopathic medicine is going to seem like pure evil if you're willfully blinding yourself to the arguments in its favor and only seeing the (legitimate) weaknesses, as will anything else for that matter.

From the article: "We are a chemophobic culture. Chemical has become a synonym for something artificial, adulterated, hazardous, or toxic. Chemicals are bad—for you, for your children, for the environment. But whatever chemophobics would like to think, there is no avoiding chemicals, no way to create chemical-free zones. Absolutely everything is made of atoms and molecules; it’s all chemistry." This was striking to me, as I had seen an example just recently elsewhere in cyberspace of reasoning that "chemicals" are bad ingredients to have in a food, even though all foods are materials made up of, um, chemicals. I have seen similar comments earlier here on Hacker News.

Matter is made up of atoms, and those atoms form various chemical elements or compounds or mixtures. We breath chemicals, we eat chemicals, we touch chemicals every day. Just because some foodstuffs have listed ingredients, with names that are sometimes difficult to read out loud (I have no trouble with the names, but then again I grew up with a parent who majored in chemistry) doesn't mean that those foods are dangerous. Whatever kind of food you think is perfectly safe surely contains some compounds with chemical names that are hard to spell or pronounce, but are nevertheless perfectly "natural," and usually not listed on an ingredients label. Don't worry about it.

I know that, but thank you. Let us agree to disagree.