Fallacy
See also: Appeal to natureSome people who may be described as chemophobic believe that all chemicals are at best untrustworthy, and at worst harmful. This is an incorrect generalization because every substance encountered in the universe is a chemical. Even benign, naturally occurring, or pure substances—including unpolluted air and pure water—are chemicals.
More commonly, these people fear what they perceive to be man-made, synthetic, or "unnatural" chemicals, and accept what they perceive to be "natural" chemicals. The distinction overlooks both the benign nature of some man-made substances and the deadly nature of some natural chemicals. For example, there are numerous natural poisons from plants; and similarly, the percentage of natural chemicals that are carcinogenic is equal to the percentage of synthetic chemicals that are carcinogenic.
Read more about this topic: Chemophobia
Famous quotes containing the word fallacy:
“It would be a fallacy to deduce that the slow writer necessarily comes up with superior work. There seems to be scant relationship between prolificness and quality.”
—Fannie Hurst (1889–1968)
“I’m not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called “scientific” mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)