Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials • Hacker News Board

Re: Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials

#111

Post by hosh » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

kuhewa wrote: post #84

hosh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Root systems are not necessarily just about being able to hold soil or not getting knocked over. I don’t know what the parent comment meant by that, but I do know the root zone is vital for plants. Plants do not directly mine minerals. Instead, they produce complex sugars which they exchange with bacteria and fungi, who in turn, trade minerals that the plant needs. Some plants with also trade nutrients with each othe…

Granting that is perfectly true for arguments sake, roundup also enables widescale no-till agriculture which is huge for soil conservation

The idea here is to look at the whole ecosystem, even at the local level at the level of the farm.

- How does Roundup contribute to the health of the farm?

- How is the manufacturing process of Roundup harmonized with ecosystem where it is manufactured? What about further up the supply chain? What about transport, marketing, and finance?

- How is the manufacture and use of Roundup caring for land, caring for people, and distributing fair share?

Chances are, the “weeds” that Roundup were killing contributes more to the soil health than Roundup does. The point of “no till” is not just to no-till, but rather, a comprehensive and holistic way of working with the soil. It takes at least five years to get it going.

Re: Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials

#112

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

chuchana wrote: post #105

weberer wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah. When I see Bayer, I think aspirin.

You might have heard of their classic cough medecine, too: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Drug_sto... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Bayer_He...

The original Purdue Pharma!

Re: Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials

#113

Post by kuhewa » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 11:37 PM UTC

hosh wrote: post #111

kuhewa wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Granting that is perfectly true for arguments sake, roundup also enables widescale no-till agriculture which is huge for soil conservation

The idea here is to look at the whole ecosystem, even at the local level at the level of the farm. - How does Roundup contribute to the health of the farm? - How is the manufacturing process of Roundup harmonized with ecosystem where it is manufactured? What about further up the supply chain? What about transport, marketing, and finance? - How is the manufacture and use of Roundup caring for land, caring for people,…

> Chances are, the “weeds” that Roundup were killing contributes more to the soil health than Roundup does.

I mean, sure, if you take the cropland out of production and let weeds do their thing, that will be great for soil health. That isn't farming though. The alternative to sedbed preparation with herbicide isn't just leaving the weeds. Typically, it is tillage. Are there no till practices that scale that dont involve Roundup? Yeah, sometimes. But thus far it's use has fostered the proliferation of no-till farming, now on 1/5th of US cropland, and has been a net benefit for soil conservation Unless you really want to argue tilling was better.

Re: Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials

#114

Post by kuhewa » Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 11:39 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #110

kuhewa wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I watched it, I'm a little surprised that one imprecise statement is compelling to you regarding a matter of scientific facts. I mean rather than taking it second hand from a lawyer that an unknown portion or a jury were 'scientists', you could actually take it from scientists and advisory and investigatory bodies comprised of scientists the cite specific sources.

I suppose it's my Bayesian priors coming to light - I'm so distrustful of one side of this debate in general that simply having 'science' in a website title gives me a reaction similar to a lot of people who see 'truth' or 'infowards' in a headline. I'd probably be much more receptive to the same studies if you were linking to google scholar or scihub.

You had just been linked scientific sources in the parent of the comment I replied to right? And your counterpoint was that a lawyer said 'scientists' were on the jury.

Re: Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials

#115

Post by kazinator » Sat, Feb 11, 2023, 7:39 AM UTC

hcurtiss wrote: post #96

kazinator wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we randomly sample, say, 10,000 swans and find all of them to be white, then we can state that a certain percentage of swans are white, with a confidence interval around it. That percentage won't be 100% and the interval won't be +/- zero. There are multiple techniques for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_proportion_confidence... Here is an online calculator: https://www.statskingdom.com/proportion-con…

Personally, I would take it a step further. Even if there is a non-zero statistical chance that it causes cancer, I think there has to be some room to ask whether the benefits outweigh the costs. To some, low food prices in a world of food shortages may very well merit some non-zero chance of cancer. Grown-up societies make these kinds of trade-offs all the time. A speed limit of 10 miles an hour would result in fewe…

Also, every nonzero statistical chance has to be compared to the noise floor. Say that something is found to be capable of causing cancer, but at the environmental exposure levels, the risk is lower than from having one beer every three months.

Re: Toxic Exposure: The True Story Behind the Monsanto Trials

#116

Post by SuoDuanDao » Mon, Feb 13, 2023, 12:53 PM UTC

kuhewa wrote: post #114

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose it's my Bayesian priors coming to light - I'm so distrustful of one side of this debate in general that simply having 'science' in a website title gives me a reaction similar to a lot of people who see 'truth' or 'infowards' in a headline. I'd probably be much more receptive to the same studies if you were linking to google scholar or scihub.

You had just been linked scientific sources in the parent of the comment I replied to right? And your counterpoint was that a lawyer said 'scientists' were on the jury.

I disagree. If science means anything it means the same to a trained professional as a literate layperson.

The idea that twelve ordinarily competent people sequestered and doing nothing but studying the science for months would be more likely to come to the wrong conclusion than people whose careers depend on a specific outcome is not science. If science is an impenetrable language available only to a designated elite, then it's just religion with weirder cosmology.