My point is two fold:
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Edited by Benesyed - 10/22/12 at 12:05am
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
Providing information will not make any meaningful impact on risk-assessment
1) Pragmatically people lack the know-how to make a meaningful decision based on the evidence presented because they do not understand what those articles actually mean and can't without training/lots of time and work, which likely they will not expend. This is a legitimate argument because disclosing information does have costs in terms of appeal/mystique and competitiveness. If very few people will bother to investigate then its not really worthwhile to invite other harms.
2) Even if the above argument was untrue, the research evidence is not at the quality level (yet) that you could say ok using cologne with x/y/z ingredients leads to an increase of X% in my risk of getting cancer.
The reason that value is important is because it lets to weigh whether or not said risk is worth taking. If you don't have anything resembling that then its just this "may cause cancer" - but ANYTHING can do that and so you are not making an informed decision at all.
You will either a) say fuck it any risk is too much (which is not logical or consistent with other instances of risk appraisal) or b) you will say yolo but still do so for bad reasons. The appropriate thing would be to have better studies and epidemiological surveillance to get information that would aid in actually making said decisions. Absent that its a toss up.
It is equivalent to guessing what animals someone is thinking of based on if its land/sea/or air. Your odds at accurate assessment have increased in a pragmatically useless way, and you still will more likely than not get the right answer
1) Pragmatically people lack the know-how to make a meaningful decision based on the evidence presented because they do not understand what those articles actually mean and can't without training/lots of time and work, which likely they will not expend. This is a legitimate argument because disclosing information does have costs in terms of appeal/mystique and competitiveness. If very few people will bother to investigate then its not really worthwhile to invite other harms.
2) Even if the above argument was untrue, the research evidence is not at the quality level (yet) that you could say ok using cologne with x/y/z ingredients leads to an increase of X% in my risk of getting cancer.
The reason that value is important is because it lets to weigh whether or not said risk is worth taking. If you don't have anything resembling that then its just this "may cause cancer" - but ANYTHING can do that and so you are not making an informed decision at all.
You will either a) say fuck it any risk is too much (which is not logical or consistent with other instances of risk appraisal) or b) you will say yolo but still do so for bad reasons. The appropriate thing would be to have better studies and epidemiological surveillance to get information that would aid in actually making said decisions. Absent that its a toss up.
It is equivalent to guessing what animals someone is thinking of based on if its land/sea/or air. Your odds at accurate assessment have increased in a pragmatically useless way, and you still will more likely than not get the right answer
Edited by Benesyed - 10/22/12 at 12:05am
