this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
680 points (86.2% liked)

Memes

45619 readers
1143 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
680
Power Sources (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Current science" is really key here because it wasn't so long ago that science was convinced that heroin could be given to babies, smoking was harmless, and leaded gasoline is safe.

Science as a whole never was, there was just a shitton of money going to anybody publishing studies saying so. There's not a cannon of grant money fired at any scientist who says "radiation is good actually".

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The lead gas thing is as you described but heroin and tobacco especially were in wide use for many years without anyone really knowing the full extent of damage they caused. Sometimes it does actually just take science a while to gather the data and catch up.