The Conspiracy Argument

[ConiectoErgoSum]

Let's for a moment assume that modern science and ancient religion are at odds. That they are in fact mutually exclusive. This seems to be a mentality that leads to one of the following arguments:

Creationist:
God's word is specific and perfect.
The bible is God's explicit word.
The bible says that God created all things in a week.
Modern science says that the universe took billions of years to develop.
The two are irreconcilable.
Modern science is wrong.
This argument ends up essentially concluding the following about science:
Modern science is a conspiracy. Modern science is a set of rumors, or memes, initiated by scientists and perpetrated by the gullible. Its medium consists of indoctrination through schools, universities, the media, and word of mouth. It survives because it builds credibility through truths readily observable by everyone - basic physics, the survival instinct, fossil records, animal behavior, etc - and then adds lies that are only observable by "the experts".

Scientist:
The bible, if God's word, if true, would be specific and perfect.
The bible says that God created all things in a week.
Modern science says that the universe took billions of years to develop.
The two are irreconcilable.
The bible is wrong.
This argument ends up essentially concluding the following about Judeo-Christian religion (henceforth referred to as "religion"):
Reliigon is a conspiracy. Religion is a set of rumors, or memes, initiated by ancient politicians/writers and perpetrated by the gullible. Its medium consists of indoctrination through churches, families, the media, and word of mouth. It survives because it builds credibility through truths readily observable by everyone - the often evil nature of humans, the desire to never die, the wisdom of loving your neighbor as yourself - and then adds lies that are only observable by "the priests".


Now I'm sure everyone who thinks this argument is black and white is gonna hate me for reducing it so. I'll just go ahead and admit I didn't get all the details of either argument right. I'm probably way off base. But MY conclusion, is that anyone who believes "Science vs Religion" to be an "either or" - that the two are irreconcilably, mutually exclusive - MUST arrive at the conclusion that there's a conspiracy out there somewhere.

My question is this: How can you say that the evidence you have is not just part of the massive conspiracy? How do you justify believing one conspiracy theory over another?

[Wyvern]

I didn't know all British doctors shared the same opinion and if you posted something which goes against all British doctor's opinions you are now suddenly against all British doctors. (there is absolutely no dissent in Britain of course against any of this of course, none), news to me..

The Lancet is the journal for the British medical association as such it is on par with JAMA. Your decision to poison the well because I got an article from the Lancet via aspartame.net is of no concern to me although it does say a lot about your bias on the subject.

I will assume you are being sarcastic about your description of British doctors however I'm not sure why you wrote it in the first place. My only reason in mentioning British doctors at all was to gauge where and how strongly your negative bias lies.

[Wyvern]

Here's a link with links to studies. I'll post them all in case anyone wants to browse before clicking so they know exactly what to click for.

I'm not saying there are not problems with aspartame, there are issues with anything you ingest especially when done excessively which is what most of these studies are doing. A number of these studies deal with prenatal developement and just as doctors advise pregnant women to limit or eliminate intake of caffeine and alcohol I would bet they give the same advice regarding aspartame not to mention pregnancy is one time when women shouldn't be concerned about their caloric intake in the first place.
Your initial post on this subject was taken nearly verbatim from the Nancy Markles internet hoax which is why I pasted a link to snopes.com. Dissent is one thing, swallowing a hoax hook, line and sinker is another.

[Shermana]

I didn't know all British doctors shared the same opinion and if you posted something which goes against all British doctor's opinions you are now suddenly against all British doctors. (there is absolutely no dissent in Britain of course against any of this of course, none), news to me..

The Lancet is the journal for the British medical association as such it is on par with JAMA. Your decision to poison the well because I got an article from the Lancet via aspartame.net is of no concern to me although it does say a lot about your bias on the subject.

I will assume you are being sarcastic about your description of British doctors however I'm not sure why you wrote it in the first place. My only reason in mentioning British doctors at all was to gauge where and how strongly your negative bias lies.

Your bias includes skipping over 60 legitimate studies of people who disagree with the Lancet.

[Wyvern]

I didn't know all British doctors shared the same opinion and if you posted something which goes against all British doctor's opinions you are now suddenly against all British doctors. (there is absolutely no dissent in Britain of course against any of this of course, none), news to me..

The Lancet is the journal for the British medical association as such it is on par with JAMA. Your decision to poison the well because I got an article from the Lancet via aspartame.net is of no concern to me although it does say a lot about your bias on the subject.

I will assume you are being sarcastic about your description of British doctors however I'm not sure why you wrote it in the first place. My only reason in mentioning British doctors at all was to gauge where and how strongly your negative bias lies.

Your bias includes skipping over 60 legitimate studies of people who disagree with the Lancet.

Where did I do that? Before dismissing it out of hand you really should read what the Lancet article says.

[Shermana]

I will post the Lancet for everyone to read.

Did you see the 60 links I posted? Are you assuming none of them are significant? This is what you are using to go against the words of all those links I posted, which I'll be happy to quote from as needed.

The following letter appeared in The Lancet on 3 July 1999. It is reproduced here with the permission of the publishers of this respected journal.

Sir - Patients at our diabetes clinic have raised concerns about information on the internet about a link between the artificial sweetener aspartame and various diseases. Our research revealed over 6000 web sites that mention aspartame, with many hundreds alleging aspartame to be the cause of multiple sclerosis, lupus erythematosis, Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, brain tumours, and diabetes mellitus, among many others. Virtually all of the information offered is anecdotal, from anonymous sources and is scientifically implausible.

Aspartame, a dipeptide composed of phenylalanine and aspartic acid linked by a methyl ester bond, is not absorbed, and is completely hydrolysed in the intestine to yield the two constituent amino acids and free methanol. Opponents of aspartame suggest that the phenylalanine and methanol so released are dangerous. In particular, they assert that methanol can be converted to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, and thus cause metabolic acidosis and neurotoxicity.

Although a 330 ml can of aspartame-sweetened soft drink will yield about 20 mg methanol, an equivalent volume of fruit juice produces 40 mg methanol, and an alcoholic beverage about 60-100 mg. The yield of phenylalanine is about 100 mg for a can of diet soft drink, compared with 300 mg for an egg, 500 mg for a glass of milk, and 900 mg for a large hamburger (1). Thus, the amount of phenylalanine or methanol ingested from consumption of aspartame is trivial, compared with other dietary sources. Clinical studies have shown no evidence of toxic effects and no increase in plasma concentrations of methanol, formic acid, or phenylalanine with daily consumption of 50 mg/kg aspartame (equivalent to 17 cans of diet soft drink daily for a 70 kg adult) (1, 2).

The anti aspartame campaign purports to offer an explanation for illnesses that are prominent in the public eye. By targeting a manufactured chemical agent, and combining this with pseudo-science and selective reporting, the campaign makes complex issues deceptively simple. Sensational web site names (eg, aspartamekills.com) grab the browser's attention and this misinformation is also widely disseminated via chat groups and chain e-mail.

People consult the internet about medical issues for various reasons and many users regard online sources as being authoritative and valid. The medical profession has a role in teaching our patients to be discriminating consumers of the information offered there.

[Shermana]

Where does Snopes actually debunk the article other than providing links to FDA statements? Quite rare for a Snopes article to not actually post the reasons why. Very odd.

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

The Wikipedia discussion article, as usual has the good stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Aspartame_controversy

Is it true it's banned in China? Those gullible Chinese. Falling for hoaxes.

Actually it is DISCOURAGED officially in China. It is banned in Japan.

http://www.extrapounds.com/blog/LAPD/comments/509125/

As well as in Europe for children's products.

The Trocho Study in Barcelona (l99 showed that the formaldehyde converted from the free methyl alcohol accumulates in the cells and damages DNA with most toxicity in the liver but substantial toxicity in the adipose tissue (fat cells).

[Wyvern]

Where does Snopes actually debunk the article other than providing links to FDA statements? Quite rare for a Snopes article to not actually post the reasons why. Very odd.

You mean other than the fact that the Nancy Markles that wrote it does not exist? Or that none of the claims made about aspartame in the article are true? Either way it is plain silly to continually defend your original position when it has been definately shown to be a hoax.

[Wyvern]

I will post the Lancet for everyone to read.

Did you see the 60 links I posted? Are you assuming none of them are significant? This is what you are using to go against the words of all those links I posted, which I'll be happy to quote from as needed.

Are you expecting me to wade through 60 studies in order to find one that is significant? Point out any that you think are significant and we can discuss that but to throw out so many then expect me to do your work for you is ridiculous. My overview of your studies is contained in post 22. Additionally I would like to know what position you are actually holding at this point, it seems that all you are doing is aggressively defending everything you have posted while effectively hand waving away anything said contrary to your position.

[Shermana]

Yeah, just go dismiss those 60 articles. That works. Your One overview just quickly dismisses them all. Yep. I'll let the reader decide, you can call my argument ridiculous and think the toxicity is nothing. That works.

You say "What position are you holding at this point"

Right now my position is that you are being intellectually dishonest to the extreme. But I'll let the reader decide. I'd like to say something like "Go ahead and eat all the aspartame you want" but I don't want to quite sound malicious.

And I'm guessing you think the Chinese and Japanese are gullible for believing it too? And the Europeans?

Maybe you just got something against Japanese scientists by your logic.

[Shermana]

Here we'll start with this one.

http://journals.lww.com/neuroreport/Abs ... DH.23.aspx

Conclusion/Findings: Showed signs of severe cell damage and other neurological events with aspartame.


ASPARTAME (ASM), an artificial sweetener, was shown to dose dependently increase 45Ca influx into and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage from murine brain cell cultures. Astrocytes were more resistant than neurones to the effects of ASM. In cerebellar granule neurones, a 20% increase in calcium was found after an incubation time of 22 h in the presence of 0.1 mM ASM; at 0.5 mM concentration, calcium influx increased 40% compared with control cultures. At a concentration of 10 mM, influx was increased 13-fold after 5 h. Morphological appearance as judged by phase contrast microscopy was first visibly affected after exposure to 1 mM ASM for 22 h. Citrate, another food additive, was included in the study to demonstrate that cerebellar granule neurones could tolerate 10 mM additions to the medium and citrate did not cause 45Ca influx or morphological changes in neurones after 22 h. LDH leakage, a sign of severe cell damage, was observed at 1 mM concentrations of ASM after 22 h. Cerebral astrocytes on the other hand were more resistant and showed morphological changes, increased calcium influx and LDH leakage first at 5 mM concentrations of ASM.