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Certain parts of the male anatomy seem to be shrinking thanks to pollution

  • Thread starter Deleted member 42253
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Deleted member 42253

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www.businesstoday.in

'Existential crisis': Human penises are shrinking due to pollution, warns scientist

Environmental scientist Shanna Swan has warned that due to rising pollution levels, babies are being born with smaller penises. In her new book titled 'Count Down', she has stated that humanity is facing an "existential crisis" in fertility rates due to r
www.businesstoday.in www.businesstoday.in

I thought I d leave that here for you to enjoy, time to get to work and save the enviroment ... hurry ... I dont have any inches to spare.

Btw. this is gonna be my favorite article to cite, whenever evolution thanks to environmental factors gets mentioned.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
Is there a primary source cited in the article?
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Human penises are actually already surprisingly large for our body size comparative to other apes and their sexual proclivities.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 42253"/>
@hackenslash For primary sources, you might have to buy/pirate the book "Count Down" from environmental scientiest Shanna Swan.

Also .. help me, SD is savagely bullying me with his giant space bar.
 
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From Maslin's Cradle of Humanity.
 
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 619"/>
arg-fallbackName="Deleted member 42253"/>
I know, I meant that the primary sources should be in the book.

Thanks for the paper though ... a little hard to read, but ah well, I got the time and google.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
I found the article by the way:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Decrease in Anogenital Distance among Male Infants with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure

Prenatal phthalate exposure impairs testicular function and shortens anogenital distance (AGD) in male rodents. We present data from the first study to examine AGD and other genital measurements in relation to prenatal phthalate exposure in humans. A ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Decrease in Anogenital Distance among Male Infants with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure​


...

In light of the toxicologic literature for MBP, MBzP, and MiBP (Ema et al. 2003; Foster et al. 1980, 1981; Gray et al. 2000; Nakahara et al. 2003), our data suggest that the end points affected by these phthalates are quite consistent across species. A boy with short AGI has, on average, an AGI that is 18% shorter than expected based on his age and weight as well as an increased likelihood of testicular maldescent, small and indistinct scrotum, and smaller penile size. These changes in AGD and testicular descent are consistent with those reported in rodent studies after high-dose phthalate exposure (Ema et al. 2003; Gray et al. 2000; Mylchreest et al. 2000). The lack of association for MCPP and MMP, which have not been widely studied, is not inconsistent with the toxicologic literature.
Click to expand...
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Concentrations of diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) metabolites in first trimester maternal urine samples are inversely associated with AGD in male, but not female, newborns.
Click to expand...

This is the kind of thing I like to share with the various internet peoples who are convinced that science supports their non-scientific beliefs, and think they're using the language of science, that science is on their side.

Very simply put: here's the hypothesis statement. It's integral to scientific method. It's formed as a hypothetical - if X, then Y.

Now the process of science can get to work.

This published statement is read by practitioners and researchers in relevant fields thanks to routinely reading specialist journals.

Some tiny fraction of that group decides to run some trials on this to test the hypothesis - they've probably done work in this area before.

But ALL the other people in the various related fields also have this idea somewhere in the recesses of their memories, and they will naturally make observations from then on with this hypothetical in mind. If the hypothesis is valid and DEHP concentrations in 1st trimester maternal urine samples are correlated with AGD in male newborns, then a growing consensus will emerge - it will become standard, accepted knowledge in the field.

But note that even with widespread specialist acceptance, the hypothesis has not been confirmed 100%.

Therein lies a partner problem in the comprehension of science. It's very hard to confirm a hypothesis like this because we'd need to be able to control far too many variables (essentially, we'd need perfect knowledge of the system and all interacting systems, and if we had ;perfect knowledge then we'd already know :D). That's what that 'tiny fraction' mentioned will be working on, but that could take years and while it can prove the hypothesis wrong (falsify the correlation), for validation, all it can do is shave off some uncertainty.

The most intrinsic value of scientific method to me isn't that it's methodologically naturalist (although that unquestionably helps) but that it uses a cautious, highly conservative approach to validating ideas. Science is, at its best, quick to toss out bad ideas - when they're shown wrong by data, there's little reason to keep coddling them (although even professional scientists are guilty of this) on the off-chance that perhaps there's still something of value to be salvaged. But science is a right measly old bastard when it comes to dishing out validation. It's damn hard and it should be if we care about what's actually true.
 
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