Appeal to Nature Thu, 11 Jan 2024 Opinion, Lifestyle ================ 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.