I recently wrote a blog about organic food not being better for your health that went a little viral https://medium.com/@gidmk/organic-food-isnt-better-for-your-health-93a35584639d … 2/?
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In the piece, I talk about how organic food "doesn't offer any health benefits". A lot of people have complained, pointing out a study here or a theory there 3/?
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I purposefully drew upon systematic review evidence - and explained what systematic reviews were - to try and preempt this sort of cherry picking 4/?
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The thing is, if you follow the links to the 4 systematic reviews I cited, and can get past the paywall on 2 of them, its still extremely hard to understand what I mean 5/?
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Technically, the statement should be that "The currently available evidence does not support any direct health benefits from eating organic food, nor does it support the theory that conventional farming/pesticides cause negative health effects in commercial quantities" 6/?
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This is an awful statement that means absolutely nothing to anyone and should never be said outside of a scientific conference
#scicomm https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/958836700502880256 … 7/?Show this thread -
But...what to say instead? My statement that organics are no better for your health could of course be proven wrong with further research 8/?
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In my opinion, it is better to make a definitive statement based on the best current evidence, and be prepared to have egg on your face if you are proven wrong in the future 9/?
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It's certainly possible that we'll uncover harms associated with eating conventionally-farmed vegetables that organics protect you against. Given the state of the evidence, I think it's unlikely, but you can never rule it out 10/?
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If this happens, I'll retract what I've said about organics. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong 11/?
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But hedging around to make sure that no statement you'll ever make could be considered wrong helps no one. In my opinion, it just adds to public confusion 12/?
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Take the Daily Mail. They cheerfully print total garbage as if it were God's Own Truth. In response, you often see scientists taking a bland, neutral position 13/?
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I'm not saying you have to be certain of everything. But being reasonably certain - based on the best current evidence - is totally fine 14/?
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Anyway, just some thoughts. I'm wrong all the time. I try to be honest about it when I am. I feel like that's more helpful than trying to be 100% right by dodging affirmative statements until I never say anything definitive at all
#scicomm 15/15Show this thread -
P.S. This is NOT true IN ANY WAY for scientific publications. I think science encourages a culture of pedanticism, or maybe we're all just weird people, but regardless everything you say has to be 100% supportable or it's all wrong otherwise reviewers will be mean to you
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