General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Sorry, Monsanto: The Science Is on Our Side, Not Yours [View all]Igel
(35,296 posts)The report was based on a study that had 3 rankings: known to be carcinogenic, probable or possible carcinogen, and shown to not be carcinogenic.
If it's not proven safe, it's possible. "Proven safe" is difficult to attain for a lot of substances.
The public reports truncated "probable or possible" and rendered that into "probable". But while all things probable are possible, not all things possible are probable. The truncation reduced the range of possibilities without adding new knowledge.
This finishes the motivated task: What's probable is now seen as absolute.
If I flip a coin 10 times it's not provable that it will come up heads 10 times. It's possible or probable it will come up tails 10 times.
So it must be probable it will come up tails 10 times.
So that means any time you flip a coin ten times, it will come up tails 10 times.
It's a silly set of linkages that go from something that is butt-obvious to something that is not yet known, all without adding new information or knowledge. It replaces science with pure rhetoric, which is very Humanities.