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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Maintaining the standards of permaculture - important issues
  • Date: Thu, 3 May 2012 17:36:03 -0700


On May 3, 2012, at 3:03 PM, Oystein Tandberg wrote:

> :-) Thank you, Toby, for your kind reply - you produce NO arguments though

There are a few in there, if you know what an argument is. These sites,
however, produce no relevant arguments.

> 1. Destructive man made climate change -
> http://www.globalwarminghysteria.com/ten-myths-of-global-warming/

This website is a superb example of the same old pseudoscientific soundbite
ambiguities, distortions, and a few outright lies, that have been shown to be
false over and over again. Zombie arguments: why won't they die? Their point
amounts to "climate is always changing." It is designed to influence the
ignorant. It's not worth my time to make the same corrections that have been
made by good scientists hundreds of times, but there are about 400 websites
out there that cite research data (instead of stories, like that website)
that specifically refute this garbage. With all that out there, you have to
be working hard not to have these falsehoods corrected.
>
> 2. Overpopulation - http://overpopulationisamyth.com/

What a smokescreen. For example, they say we have enough food. Yes, we do,
for now, but that is a typical distraction that hides the real issue. Their
argument, "we are producing more food now on less land" is just stupid--it's
because of oil, which is non-renewable, and it's really sick food that causes
obesity, diabetes and heart disease, grown at a terrible ecological cost. No
problem there! The site is full of poor or "inside a small box" thinking like
that. Their main argument, another distraction, is that overpopulation is
not the cause of poverty, disease, and war. Well, duh. But to then conclude
that a large population doesn't cause problems is really bad reasoning. The
true problem with a large human population is its ecological consequences and
overexploitation of resources which then cause collapse of both the human and
non-human realm (it's happened many times), which they completely ignore.

And, I had to laugh when they wriggled out of it all by stating that
population will soon begin to drop, anyway, which tells me that in their
hearts they know that it is indeed a problem, but we don't need to worry
about it because it will be naturally checked (uh, by running out of food?).
Really poor thinking.

I've already agreed that a healthy organism is much less likely to succumb to
infection. The arguers try to make a sensational story out of nothing,
relying for it on the layperson's confusion around the many meanings of
"cause," which has vexed philosophers for 2500 years (same with the
population website: what "causes" poverty?). They aren't saying anything that
a virologist would disagree with, but the bottom line is that without an
infectious agent, there will be no infection. Yes, people in good health
rarely get sick (circular reasoning?). Healthy tissue resists infection. Poor
health causes infection. Viruses cause infection. All are true, they just use
the concept of "cause" differently. This is immediately apparent if you ever
studied logic or philosophy. Apparently, few have.

I'll stop there, because the lame excuses for thinking on these sites are
really just awful and a waste of my time, although it's always fun to wade
into the garbage pits on the internet. But that people fall for it makes me
sad.

Toby
>
> 3. Viruses - http://www.virusmyth.org/
>
> 4. Pasteur - http://www.whale.to/a/lost_history_of_medicine.html
>
> best regards
> Øystein
>
>
>





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