Quote from: 4v4l0n42 on September 06, 2011, 12:08:08 AM

Quote from: mobodick on September 05, 2011, 10:19:07 PM

I don't want to nitpick but i think this is a terrible example.
There is no very clear distinction between food and poison.

It amazes me the simplistic view that you and jtimon have of any science. So, there is no clear distinction between food and poison... actually there is. There is no clear distrinction between certain foods and certain substances, in particular circumstances, doses, etc... but we generally know what constitutes poison and what not.

We have learned to keep them separated precisely because we cannot tell the difference easily.
People at some time had to sample a potato to see if they could use it as food and not get poisoned by it.
It's an obvious process but that does not make one simplistic considering it.
In fact, it is you who has a simplistic view becuase you put poison and foos as mutually exclusive.
But is you had cared to read what i wrote you would have realized that reality is more complex than that.
As i said, almost everything is poisonous at some level. That includes food.
Food, otoh, is valued for its nutrients.
A food can be valuable, even if it is somewhat poisonous, because it contains some substance that we cannot source from another food.

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Science is not about this or that, black or white.

Exactly, so food is not white and poison is not black.
It's all shades of grey.
I'm amazed that you say this while you posed these as opposites, food is good, poison is bad.
As you now apparently have realised, things are more complex and you need to consider at least some of the detail to understand what is realy going on.

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According to your reasoning, nutrition is not a science and serves nothing, because there is no distinction between what's good for you and what's not. We might as well drink arsenic instead of water, because we there is no clear distinction between what's good and bad for us, and we can't know anything!

I never said such things.
You are oversimplifying it.
From a toxicological standpoint, if you want to drink 10 liters of water then indeed you may just as well drink some arsenicum and not go through the hell of death by water poisoning.
But water is needed by your body in some quantity so you need to consume it anyway.
But is it 'good'?
No, it's nessesary, a nessesity.

I know these things BECAUSE of science.

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We all know that's bullshit. Certain foods and good, in certain doses, to certain people. To others, it plays out differently. But this is not a deficiency of science, this is its very strength, it has the ability to adapt and be scalable.

If you know it's bullshit then you should stop oversimplifying things.
Especially if you start hanging values like good and bad over your oversimplifications.

Science itself is (moral)value-less, it's moral-agnostic if you will.
It can be used for what some consider good and it can be used for what some consider evil.
Science cannot decide what is good or bad or evil, humans can.
And we certainly do use science to make up our opinion about good and bad and evil.
But you have to realise that the value comes om us, humans, not the science or the scientific method.