Chemicals are bad, right? Chemicals . . . you don’t want those in your morning cereal!
Oh wait. Chemicals are just molecules of elements that occur in nature.
Okay, so natural chemicals are good. Like cyanide. Which is a simple molecule consisting of carbon and nitrogen. It is found in the seeds of apples and mangos, among other things. But cyanide can kill you, which isn’t good. Hmm.
What about the chemical oxytocin? To those unfamiliar with it, it certainly can sound unnatural. And the chemical is a relatively massive clot of a laundry list of elements. And yet the human body naturally produces this hormone. So it’s good, right?
What about the synthetic form? Produced in a laboratory. Some would say this is bad, or not-as-good, because, once again, it is not natural. It wasn’t produced by Nature herself. Rather, John Q. Safety Goggles produced it by combining refined elements.
It seems to me that that the naturalistic fallacy is akin to believing in homeopathy: somehow the chemicals retain the memory of something no longer present but retain a good vibe. Or something.
Back to oxytocin. New research, conducted in a laboratory by Susan P. Clipboard, no doubt, has discovered that delivered as a spray, the hormone can improve male sensitivity. No, not sensitivity “down under,” but social sensitivity.
Here’s a particularly information paragraph from the news release:
In summary, Dr. René Hurlemann of Bonn University´s Clinic for Psychiatry was able to state that “significantly higher emotional empathy levels were recorded for the oxytocin group than for the placebo group“, despite the fact that the participants in the placebo group were perfectly able to provide rational interpretations of the facial expressions displayed. The administration of oxytocin simply had the effect of enhancing the ability to experience fellow-feeling. The males under test achieved levels which would normally only be expected in women. [bolds mine]
In-ter-est-ing.
I wonder, do more sensitive guys “naturally” have higher levels of oxytocin, or more receptors for the molecular substance?
Chemicals, man. Without them, we’d be . . . cold nothings.
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