Appeal to Nature
Thu, 11 Jan 2024
Opinion, Lifestyle
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An appeal to nature is a argumentative fallacy where something is
assumed to be good because it is natural. For a long time as a
young child and early adolescent, I have been guilty of employing
this line of reasoning in many decisions regarding my lifestyle.
I suspect this mode of thinking is something I inherited form my
parents.
As I grew older and become a teenager, I started to question the
teachings of my parents, and one of the things which was
addressed were the many appeals to nature made in my
life-choices. Now that I am yet-again older, I decided that, at
age 14 -- wile pumping hormones and sleeping 11 hours
per afternoon -- I was likely not smarter than my parents,
teachers, government, etcetera. Since discovering this
ground-shaking fact, I have made an effort to try an rethink
every decision or pattern-of-thought which I started in that
period, and as-such, the appeal to nature reared its head again.
Let me use an example: getting a cold. My parents would address
this annual issue by making me take rest, hot-baths, much sleep,
and otherwise letting my body take care of itself. This approach
is contrasted by the alternative of using medication to squash
the disease. Of course, there are many grades between these two,
but that is not exactly relevant at the moment. As a child, I
would not be given medicine unless a cold was sufficiently bad, I
am sure my parents had various metrics for this, such as duration
or fever, and I do not question their judgement as they are both
smart people, and since my mother has extensive medical training.
As an adult, I am the one to decide whether I take medicine,
hot-baths, or whether I afford myself an afternoon off. This
problem is compounded by the fact that I have grown a lot more
sickly these past few years, likely due an increase in travel as
well as living in a student dorm with a rotating selection of
international viruses. Now, I have never been a fan of taking
medicine for minor illnesses like colds, though I am even less
inclined to being sick, and I cannot stand bed-rest for more than
24 hours.
One thing which still remains in the back of my mind as I am
deciding whether to opt for medicine or not, is the idea that I
can just let my immune system handle it ``naturally''. The
supposedly fallacious appeal to nature still has a strong pull,
despite the fact that every learned person tells me this is
wrong. Upon revisiting my stance on this, I came to a conclusion:
an appeal to nature is not necessarily fallacious, though it must
be understood in the proper manner.
I came to this conclusion because relying on ``natural'' things
(as opposed to artificial ones) generally does a great job at
keeping me safe. The reason for this is, I believe, the fact that
natural things have stood the test of time. If research came out
tomorrow stating that vegetables such as zucchini or pumpkin
(which humans have eaten for generations) are actually
unequivocally harmful, then I would doubt that research before I
doubt the squash family. Likewise, I rather more distrust
medicines which were invented recently and tested ``only'' for
about a year, as opposed to natural remedies such as rest or
herbal medicines which have stood the test of time. Of course,
the artificial medicine is likely much more effective, though it
is statistically more likely to have negative side-effects too.
Looking at appeals to nature in this manner, where they are
really appeals to endurance, I think my choices become much more
clear. Natural remedies have proven themselves over time to deal
with colds just fine. At the same time, we cannot extend this to
more serious infections such as bacterial meningitis, which has
proven itself to be quite deadly when left to nature.
Taking this idea outside of medicine I think it also applies very
well. Every day, I hear new research come out about processed
foods, sugar, tobacco and about how damaging they are. While many
of these products supposedly had scientific backing with
peer-reviewed double-blind studies, we now know these studies are
basically bought-off by large corporations. Things which have
stood the test of time however such as vegetables, fruits, herbs,
and such are unlikely to have been bought-off by some ancient
conglomerate aiming to sell more nutrients.
