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That's a different argument. The comment I replied to offered no context and simply relied on the extremely broad "good vs. bad." I replied to that.

What is data? In the comment I replied to, the words "rather than" indicate that the OP considered the defense "natural vs. unnatural" to be a defense based on data. I replied on that standard.

I will repeat that I hope Sri Lanka continues this experiment. Experiments like this are the only way we'll get the data we need.

Here's one: Organic food needs soil, sunlight, and water. Conventional food needs soil, sunlight, water, oil refineries, chemical plants, etc., plus all the heavy industry necessary to support those things.

Here's another: If I recall correctly, after WWII the US didn't know what to do with all its munitions factories. They realized that the basic ingredients of bombs were good at fixing nitrogen in the soil, so they made minor conversions to the factories and started producing chemical fertilizers. Fifty years later, Timothy McVeigh was able to buy a truckload of the stuff and bomb a federal building.

I hope Sri Lanka continues this experiment. Could it be that after so many years of conventional agriculture, the soil was too depleted of nutrients to be suitable for food crops? I imagine that things will improve as the land heals.

I highly recommend the book Lawrence in Arabia, by Scott Anderson, which puts that story in context. It follows four people active in the area at the time: TE Lawrence (who first went to the Middle East as an archaeologist), an American employee of Standard Oil, the leader of a Jewish spy ring working with the British, and a Turkish official. Very interesting.

https://www.powells.com/book/lawrence-in-arabia-978030747641...

It's probably a goat, maybe a sheep. But yeah, I've seen (and heard) a bagpipe made out of a single goat skin. It was Bulgarian, I think. The skin seemed completely intact, except for where the head and feet were replaced by pipes.

I was once browsing Asimov titles in a used bookstore. I had read his nonfiction but none of his fiction. Out of curiosity I picked up a copy of The Gods Themselves, and tucked between the pages I found a folded-up copy of his obituary torn out of the New York Times. I bought the book for the obituary and as a bonus I loved the reading the book.

That was one late bus.