right; I’m not making the claim that microplastics definitely have zero effects, or that we should halt research into them.
but I am making the claim that these sorts of risks — microplastics included — receive attention from lay people far outweighing their actual danger; and that a similar model of social exposure explains similar outcomes
let me draw an analogy to the microbes case: now that we have the scientific method, we can evaluate hypotheses like “failing to wash your hands before surgery causes a higher risk of infection”, or “regions with stagnant water have higher cases of disease than regions with fresh water”, or “a culture in which people frequently wash their hands has lower rates of communicable diseases”.
since we’ve had decades of exposure to microplastics, we can run similar tests. it seems that we have attempted to do this research (you likely know more about the specific issue than me, feel free to correct me on this...). I see a paper in Science from last year entitled Twenty years of microplastic pollution research which seems to show quite small effect sizes
given that, what’s the worst case for microplastics? it’s not zero — probably they disrupt some hormones, possibly they can act as a carcinogenic. but I’d claim it’s unlikely to be a high enough material risk for lay people to invest a lot of their time into
society can still do research into the effects, just as we do research into many ideas to improve public heath
does that resonate at all? or the link to social exposure isn’t that compelling (maybe something else explains irrational group behavior towards vaccines etc)? or possibly there’s something specific to microplastics that means we can’t observe their negative effects? or the costs of switching away from plastic is low + pro-social so we should just switch, unlike with vaccines?
right; I’m not making the claim that microplastics definitely have zero effects, or that we should halt research into them.
but I am making the claim that these sorts of risks — microplastics included — receive attention from lay people far outweighing their actual danger; and that a similar model of social exposure explains similar outcomes
let me draw an analogy to the microbes case: now that we have the scientific method, we can evaluate hypotheses like “failing to wash your hands before surgery causes a higher risk of infection”, or “regions with stagnant water have higher cases of disease than regions with fresh water”, or “a culture in which people frequently wash their hands has lower rates of communicable diseases”.
since we’ve had decades of exposure to microplastics, we can run similar tests. it seems that we have attempted to do this research (you likely know more about the specific issue than me, feel free to correct me on this...). I see a paper in Science from last year entitled Twenty years of microplastic pollution research which seems to show quite small effect sizes
given that, what’s the worst case for microplastics? it’s not zero — probably they disrupt some hormones, possibly they can act as a carcinogenic. but I’d claim it’s unlikely to be a high enough material risk for lay people to invest a lot of their time into
society can still do research into the effects, just as we do research into many ideas to improve public heath
does that resonate at all? or the link to social exposure isn’t that compelling (maybe something else explains irrational group behavior towards vaccines etc)? or possibly there’s something specific to microplastics that means we can’t observe their negative effects? or the costs of switching away from plastic is low + pro-social so we should just switch, unlike with vaccines?