To hate the argument of "it's natural"?

[DaisyLovesMetronidazole]

I'm not referring to any situation in particular. I just dislike when people say that something's natural to imply that it's the safer or better option.

I mean, lots of diseases and tooth decay are natural. The altered forms of certain medications are much safer. It just seems like a bit of a moot argument.

It also leads people to miss the point in certain circumstances. For example, someone says breastfeding is natural. Someone says that defecation is also natural. I mean, the situations are not comparable, but the person saying that both are natural is technically entirely correct.

Does anyone else dislike this argument too? Or AIB totally U?

I correct folk who talk about natural childbirth by saying, oh do you mean vaginal ?

People trust what's natural, because it's more 'tested'.
Such as sugar, rather than aspartame.
We know sugar doesn't really hurt anyone.

I use the natural argument a lot.

MackerelOfFact the desire to wash and be clean is also natural.

The only thing more annoying than the "natural" argument is people using it as a strawman to denigrate perfectly sound ideas. On this thread, I've seen people do this with:

• organic food
• co-sleeping
• breastfeeding
• low-intervention childbirth

among other things.

To take co-sleeping as an example, there are two reasons why it's relevant that lots of families across the world co-sleep (and why it's relevant that this has been the standard pattern throughout human history). Neither are to do with it being "natural" and therefore automatically better. Instead, the reasons are:

1. There is significant concern about whether the risks of a baby dying in its sleep might be increased due to co-sleeping (SIDS, suffocation). The fact that lots of babies are not routinely dying in their sleep from SIDS or suffocation in the large portions of the world where this is still the default is a helpful indicator that the risk is not particularly elevated.
2. Human babies can reasonably be expected to be biologically adapted to benefit from a co-sleeping environment, eg using CO2 in their parents' exhalations to keep their developing respiratory system functioning. It's a sensible hypothesis (and I understand that the evidence bears it out, although I've not gone through it all myself).

Deux the third world thing is my pet-hatred as well! If you have people lying outside your local hospital dying having walked 2 days to get there, only to be refused (very limited) treatment because they have no money, then yes you can describe the NHS as 'third world'. If not then you are just being an ungrateful knob.

People are stupid then. Just because some natural things are good doesn't mean all natural things are good, or that all natural products are better.

Deadly nightshade is natural. It's also tried and tested to have extremely bad consequences.

My DD has excema and 'natural' products (like aloe vera) have always made it worse. The thoroughly researched and chemically manufactured products she uses are fabulous.

You are definitely not being unreasonable. It's a pet hate of mine.

'All natural ingredients!' Yeah. I could write that on a jar of arsenic, too, and the Advertising Standards Authority couldn't do a thing about it.

I hate the way 'chemicals' are made out to be bad. EVERYTHING is chemicals. Nothing that exists on this earth is not made from chemicals including living things.

slhilly I wasn't strawmanning, just explaining badly (and I said it was off topic!)

Basically I have a problem with people who confuse "commonly used/done" with "natural" it happens in lots of other situations besides co-sleeping, which I have no problem with or with either of your perfectly valid scientific explanations of why it's a good thing.

It just drives me bonkers when "it's more natural that sleeping seperately because x% of parents worldwide do it" is used as an argument because they don't mean natural. They mean prevelent!

yanbu.

The problem is people trying to use absolute('ism') logic.

I think it would be fair to say that co-sleeping can be considered as the best thing to do for these natural reasons; and list them.

However co-sleeping being the best idea because it's natural can't be regarded as an absolute law.
Because there's many things that aren't natural in our culture that can cause natural things like co-sleeping to actually become unsafe.
Such as parents being smokers, drinking alcohol, even bottlefeeding so the mother's body isn't so intune with baby could make co-sleeping riskier.

However if you're going to do all 'natural' parenting, breastfeeding, being with your baby constantly and sleeping when they do and not being under the influence of any drug. Then sleeping 'naturally' (co-sleeping) is likely to be the best plan.

What's natural being 'best', I think, could be justified in every instance.
But it's all semantics, on whether people agree.

it's silly two ways -

many of things said to be natural are not natural at all.

being natural does not make anything good or right.

YANBU, right with you on this one!

Especially when 'natural' is used to mean 'utterly harmless so why not ingest the whole lot, it might not kill you'.

Someone once told me the best 'natural' remedy for toothache was a tablespoon of clove oil. Because I am not a fool, I checked this, and that dosage is probably enough to kill.

Also 'natural' used to mean 'herbal'.

A GP of mine also once told me that Earl Grey tea was a good alternative to coffee if you want to avoid caffeine, because it is 'natural'. I didn't have the heart to tell her coffee also comes from, erm, beans, but did manage to suggest that although Earl Grey is made entirely of leaves, it nevertheless contains quite a lot of that pesky caffeine.

YABU natural is almost always better

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

slhilly, just saw your message now. I wasn't denigrating breastfeding.

I have often read threads on here where one poster says breastfeeding is natural as a pro argument. Someone replies that defecation is also natural.

These two things are not similar.

However, to say that both are natural is entirely true.

I dislike the use of the word "natural" in this situation.

I just wanted to make myself clear. :)