“天然”食物更健康？不一定！

    食品行业及其最为偏执的批评者纷纷利用“诉诸于天然”这一逻辑谬论来满足自身利益。波•贝内特（Bo Bennett）在他的网站“逻辑谬误”（Logically Fallacious）中写道，“很多人将其作为默认的信仰”。他在这一极具逻辑性的网站中逐一列举了各种逻辑谬误。如果“天然的”真的存在，那么科学可以根据其“天然度”来进行评估。当然，这是不存在的，原因有两点：首先，“天然”一词没有经得起推敲的定义；再者，即便“天然度”可以衡量，其结果对我们来说也没有什么意义。贝内特写道，“有很多天然的事物要好于非天然的事物，然而在评价时，我们在使用‘天然度’的同时还应使用其他的标准。”他告诫读者们：“记住，大自然有时也会毫不犹豫地将你扔进垃圾桶，然后让你自生自灭。”

    托马斯•霍布斯深知这一点。这位17世纪的英国哲学家倡导社会契约、人类对制度和社会秩序的需求以及进步的一般概念。他做出了著名的论断：人类在有序社会出现之前便处于“天然状态”。在那个时候，他写道，生命是“孤独、贫苦、肮脏、野蛮和短暂的。”（财富中文网）

    译者：翔

    Both the food industry and its most rabid critics leverage the “Appeal to Nature” logical fallacy, or “Argumentum ad Naturam,” to their own benefit. “Many people adopt this as a default belief,” writes Bo Bennett at his site Logically Fallacious, where, logically enough, he catalogs logical fallacies. If “natural” meant anything at all, science would evaluate things based on their “naturalness.” But of course it doesn’t, both because there’s no workable definition for “natural,” and because even if “naturalness” could be measured, it wouldn’t tell us anything meaningful. “There are many natural things that are better than unnatural,” Bennett writes, “but they must be evaluated based on other criteria besides the ‘naturalness,'” He advises readers: “Keep in mind that Mother Nature is the kind of mother who wouldn’t hesitate to throw you in a dumpster and leave you there to die.”

    Thomas Hobbes knew this. The 17th century British philosopher, who championed the social contract, the need for institutions and social order, and the general notion of progress, famously described mankind in its “state of nature,” before humans started living in organized societies. At that time, he wrote, life was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”