What's wrong with air conditioning?
The far-reaching effects of air conditioning | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14485962
https://www.airconditioningservices.com/info/legionnaires-di...
We should go back to when everything was just so much more natural.
Science is not a binary thing: hackers of all audiences should know that you can respect science while admitting partial knowledge of the world and embracing holistic (or less fully informed, yet well evidenced) modes of action.
In short, daveguy's argument simultaneously presents a false dichotomy and shifting the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof based upon the implied assumption that formal, academic science is the only true source of evidence. In fact, there are many valid sources of information other than science, and many of its outputs are near philosophical anyway. For example, monocultures are weak would be scientifically founded, philosophical perspective for holistic thinking and against the implication.
PS. In fact my comment was mostly aimed at the folly of human behavior (overoptimization for macro-visible pathogens and backslapping self-assessment of broad self-assumed understanding when mounting evidence shows just how little we know about even human biology), not claiming that industry is bad, mmkay?
Not counting huge land-masses in central africa and I'd also be skeptical of the numbers provided for Khazakstan and Mongolia
So let's rephrase that to "At current densities where most of the world's people actually live there is no way everyone can have a garden, because of lack of space."
Evidence is a loaded word in that it has a specific scientific meaning. Information is less so. As sources of information, are gut instincts to be dismissed? Do you wait for a scientific analysis to be peer-published before running away from danger? Are traditions to be dismissed? Many forms of traditional lore have been validated through subsequent scientific study: are they valueless prior? Law is largely opine and tradition with appeals to random existential and other fallacies, not science, yet does generally fine in guiding human behavior in many societies. Similarly, most people don't know the law, they 'get a sense of it'. Should they cease to live because they don't have time for a law degree?
You are table-thumping on formal and reductive reasoning yet conveniently ignoring the broader biological, physical and indeed scientific reality that we have an imperfect understanding of the world. This does not dismiss in any way the achievements of science, and my original comment was made to encourage people to laugh at our folly in making great rational advances while missing the forest for the trees. Your comments are, sadly, while probably well meaning, providing mostly nought but a great example.
I cited the positive health effect of the last century as evidence that the scientific method has worked out well.
I am not ignoring that we have imperfect knowledge. That's why science isn't over. Ignoring our evidence based understanding and health improvement outcomes over a philosophical argument that our knowledge isn't complete (it never will be) is the definition of folly.
Ignorance is not an argument for more ignorance.