What's The Harm?

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2008-05-09 01:29pm

I just found a website that looks at woo-woo beliefs and gives examples of the human and economic cost of irrational beliefs. It's HERE

By the way what's the harm? 2,451 people killed, 117,941 injured and over $138,693,382 in economic damages. That's probably a big underestimate.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2008-05-09 01:36pm

Some of them are interesting, but I don't get the one under Vegetarianism describing the woman who killed herself by eating Foxglove because she mistakenly thought it was a different herb.

What does that have to do with vegetarianism?

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2008-05-09 02:17pm

Boyish-Tigerlilly wrote:Some of them are interesting, but I don't get the one under Vegetarianism describing the woman who killed herself by eating Foxglove because she mistakenly thought it was a different herb.

What does that have to do with vegetarianism?

Whoever named that section is a fucking idiot. "What's the harm in being a vegetarian?" is not discussed at all, and what a surprise, there's no "what's the harm in eating meat?" corresponding section replete with the hundreds of thousands of illnesses and deaths due to large meat intakes in people's diets.

I'm sure there's some value in the rest of the site, but I can't shake the feeling they'll turn out to be avid Bullshit! watchers (look at the absence of second hand smoke section) with all the lolbertarian idiocy that comes with that.

Omeganian · Post by **Omeganian** » 2008-05-09 02:32pm

Hmmm, no urinotherapy?

Stuart · Post by **Stuart** » 2008-05-09 02:42pm

Zuul wrote:"What's the harm in being a vegetarian?" is not discussed at all, and what a surprise, there's no "what's the harm in eating meat?" corresponding section replete with the hundreds of thousands of illnesses and deaths due to large meat intakes in people's diets.

Actually there is. Click on the little yellow circle with a question mark and it takes you to a detailed discussion of the plusses and minuses of various things.

Boyish-Tigerlilly · Post by **Boyish-Tigerlilly** » 2008-05-09 03:05pm

From what I have read so far, some of the categories have been filled up with items that literally have nothing to do with the category or are only tenuously related. For instance, someone mistaking one herb for a poisonous plant isn't an indictment of vegetarianism. It doesn't make a lot of sense to attribute that as a "harm" of vegetarianism as a practice. An omnivorous person could have done it too. It's more like not paying attention to what you put in your mouth.

I can understand the ones about not balancing the diet with supplements or trying to live on all-fruit "extreme" diets. That's an actual legitimate problem for some variants.