CAIN IS THE HERO, NOT ABEL:
Natural doesn’t always mean better: How to spot if someone is trying to convince you with an ‘appeal to nature’ (Amanda Ruggeri, 2/12/25, BBC)
Often called an “appeal to nature”, or the “naturalistic fallacy”, it is one of the most commonly-seen types of logical fallacies, or flaws in reasoning that can make a claim sound surprisingly convincing. Anytime you hear someone make a claim that a product or practice is superior because it is “natural”, or that one is inferior (or even harmful) because it is not “natural”, this is the naturalistic fallacy at work. So are arguments that something is “as nature intended”, or that something is bad specifically because it is a “chemical” or “synthetic”.
Nature is, in many ways, wonderful. And it has a great deal to teach us. So why isn’t it true that something is better merely because it comes from nature?
For one thing, because nature, of course, does not have intentions – not in any conscious sense. As such, nor does it have intentions to be good, or to help humans, specifically.
We don’t need to get too philosophical to grasp this. Just consider a handful of nature’s creations. Arsenic, which can kill an adult with a dose as little as 70mg, is natural. So is asbestos, which causes cancer. Cyanide, which can kill with as little as 1.5mg per kilogram of body weight if ingested, is a phytotoxin produced, naturally, by more than 2,000 different plant species, including almonds, apricots and peaches. This is also why some “natural” remedies frequently marketed – such as ground apricot seeds – can in fact be dangerous to consume.
And this is the trouble with the use of the word natural that is so commonly used to market products. It is a poorly defined term that doesn’t necessarily mean the product labelled as such will be better for you, or indeed safer, than any other alternatives.