It Is Not Natural
* From “The A**HOLE’S Guide To Arguing (Or, How To Succeed In Politics)”
If you hear someone claiming that something is good for you because it is natural or bad for you because it is unnatural, they are making an appeal to nature. Often this fallacy is committed by religious people.
“It is not natural for a man to be with another man, or for a woman to be with another woman.”
Nature disagrees.
Male giraffes have sex with other males more frequently than they have sex with females, often ignoring the female all together. Bonobos regularly engage in lesbian sex. Flamingos, who mate for life, sometimes mate in same sex pairs and adopt abandoned chicks.
“You’re either a man or you’re a woman. That’s it. That is how nature works.”
Tell that to the bearded dragon lizards where the male changes sex and becomes a female, egg laying supermom. Or the gynandromorph butterflies that are half male and half female. Or what about the male seahorses that get pregnant and give birth?
The more you study nature, the more it becomes apparent that nature is incredibly versatile. In fact, there is very little that is not natural.
Another group that regularly use the appeal to nature are those that believe natural medicines are better than synthetic, man-made medicines.
“I am not going to spend all that money on some designer drug. They put so many weird things in them, and they cause all sorts of nasty side effects. I’ll make it myself, then it will be safer and better because it is natural.”
The Foxglove plant is used to make the drug digoxin, which can be a very effective heart medicine. However, trying to make it yourself, thinking that ‘natural is better’ could be suicide as the plant is highly toxic.
Although natural may be better in some instances, assuming that natural automatically means that something is either safer or better, is fallacious. Share on X© Merlyn Gabriel Miller
