Talk:Word of Wisdom (Latter-day Saint)

Validity of Health Study

I dispute the accuracy of the last section:

Health studies have shown that Latter-day Saints live significantly longer, healthier lives compared to the general U.S. populace, a consquence that correlates to their health code, the Word of Wisdom.

This is a strong assertion that needs to be backed up with some sort of evidence. Can any such studies be cited? My dad was LDS and followed the WoW and died when he was 73—that is NOT longer than the general population. My wife's grandfather and her mother, both faithful Latter-day Saints, both died in their early 50's. I'm not saying it is inaccurate, but for a reference such as an encyclopedia, it needs some sort of validation. AFAIK, the life expectancy of Mormons is on par with the general population.

On another note, it'd be nice to have a section in here about fasting and how it is NOT part of the WoW--many non-members may beleive it is. —Frecklefoot 14:10, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I read the research some time back and planned on adding references when I had the time to find them again: Mormons as a group have a longer life expectancy and lower incidences of cancer and heart disease than the general US populace...as I understand it, it's also well known in parts of the the medical community. B 21:52, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

"85% of statistics are made-up."

Essentially, sure, maybe someone did a study that concluded that Mormons live longer than the average person, but any statistician knows that statistics have a tendancy to vary tremendously in their results from study to study. In fact, for the most part, statistics in this respect have little grounds. Statistics are useful in politics and assessment of popular opinion, but are worthless in determining something as abstract as whether or not Mormons live longer than other humans.

As a matter of fact, it seems to me that it is quite preposterous to say so. And, just as a note, genetics are increasingly thought to dictate lifespan moreso than any other factor, including the consumption of drugs and alcohol, and the exposure to mutagens in pollution. Khranus

Though I feel a little silly responding to a vandal (see the last two edits to the article by Khranus), if you read the article, it mearly states the findings in the study, not that the study was perfect and unerring. We strive to be NPOV here at the 'pedia, so if another study came out saying that Mormons lived shorter lives (and it was not highly biased), we'd include that too.

On that note, your last two edits were NOT NPOV, so I reverted them (e.g. linking exercise to Benito Mussolini). Please stop vandalizing articles or you run the risk of being banned. —Frecklefoot 14:46, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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Alcohol/Ethonal and NPOV

You fucking deleted that information on alcohol? Excuse me, but isn't part of NPOV showing both sides of the story? You dogmatists need to clean up your act, or I'll call for deletion of this entire article. 'Information' on any religion's morals should NOT preach those morals--NOT in an encylopaedia.

If you think it's 'vandalism' to give the other side of the story (which is more widely accepted by physicians than your side, by the way), perhaps you don't deserve to have a 'Word of Wisdom' wiki to begin with.

Mussolini was linked to 'exercise', by the way, because he demanded his the populous of Italy be healthy, and thus banned smoking in most instances, and forced everyone to exercise every morning. Perhaps a reference to George Orwell's 1984 would have been more appropriate, though.

About the 'fact' that Mormon's live longer being widely known to the medical community... That in itself, is complete bullshit. My father is a very experienced and respected doctor (in practise for 25 years), and, studying biology and medicine myself, he was able to explain to me that sombunall religious fanaticsc such as Mormons and Baptists who DO NOT drink alcohol tend to live shorter lifespans, from his experience, because plenty of them die of heart disease. In terms of 'statistics', they are never NPOV if you say 'Mormons live longer' and such--you must say something along the lines of 'sombunall Mormons live longer according to this statistical analysis of this population'. You need to be more precise and less biased.

It may be a stretch to expect a member of the LDS Church to actually think about their religion, however... Khranus

Khranus, please make a more positive contribution to the article and its talk page...sophmoric rants do not help. B 04:22, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sophomoric? Ironic that you would call anyone 'sophomoric', as I find your apparent enslavement by an obviously made-up religion 'sophomoric'--in fact, larval and pathetic. Khranus

In terms of the content of your religion, do not be mistaken, I do think that there are a few good ideas thrown in the mess. Unfortunately most of them seem to have been stolen from Freemasonry... At least the Tabernacle Choir produces some good music. :)

A bit of evidence of the spiritual bankruptcy that the Mormons suffer from is this quote: "Happiness and spiritual progress lie in following the leaders of the Church." —Elder Dallin H. Oaks... Sort of the exact opposite of what 'Jesus' apparently said, isn't it?

I'm not saying that the Mormons are unique in their stupidity and blindness--far from it. They just so happen to stand out at the moment as a particularly dangerous cult, somewhat the way the Catholics were during the Middle Ages, or the way the Muslims tend to be nowadays... Khranus

Please limit comments to the topic at hand and keep NPOV. Regardless of beliefs, most of your comments above have no relation to the article. If you disagree and think that these comments are valid, please start you own [Word_of Wisdom_Controversies|Word of Wisdom Controversies] page. The purpose of Wikipedia is to provide an accurate representation of topics and beliefs, not judge the beliefs of others as the paragraph above does. As far as studies that alcohol is good for people, please see the article page's link to Moderate drinking controversy. Visorstuff

Meme-slaves tend to be so hypocritical that their subsquent myopia blinds them from their own faults. Just as you have demonstrated in not recognising just how incredibly POV this Word of Wisdom article is. Perhaps somone can start their own Mormon wiki on another set of servers rather than wasting space on the wikipedia servers with their religious dogma.Khranus

It's clear that Khranus has a poor understanding of wikipedia policy, for example, on issues regarding POV, vandalism, unsympathetic tone and poor attribution...I probably missed some others. I'm particularly bothered by Khranus' reassertion of this propoganda:

"Ethanol is also inevitably produced by intestinal bacteria whenever humans eat carbohydrates--and in massive quantities. Up to a few ounces of pure ethanol can be produced if you eat enough sugar. Therefore abstaining from alcohol could be described as a mechanism to prevent an excess of ethanol from developing in the bloodstream. However, it may the case that an insufficient quantity of ethanol is produced in modern humans due to a change in diet in relation to paleolithic dietary norms, and thus it would be rational to drink moderate amounts of alcohol to compensate for this inadequacy."

Ethanol is NOT produced "in massive quantities" from consumption of an ordinary diet of carbohydrates...not even close. It may not be an exaggeration to suggest that an ordinary human would probably die from an overdose of sugar to consume the amount of sugars needed to produce "a few ounces of pure ethanol". My wife is in her 6th year of a biophysics program at a distinguished graduate research university. Her work involves fruit fly genetics requiring advanced knowledge in microbiology, chemisty, mathematics and physics. I told her about Khranus' first attempt to add that propoganda to this article and she was in disbelief. She did a lil research and pulled some science article citations on this topic. The amount of ethanol produced is minimal. But Khranus doesn't stop there. He tries to bolster his propoganda by positing "paleolithic dietary norms" as if it were a settled, known fact when given the little evidence available on that topic it can be nothing more than a generally untestable, speculatory hypothesis. This post and Khranus' inconsistent and sloppy first post on this subject could be picked apart further, but I've already wasted enough time pointing out what is probably obvious to everyone else in this forum except Khranus. --B 22:20, 20 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I believe I meant 'the equivalent of ethanol in a few ounces of wine'--that was a typo, actually (I wrote that at around 3am). The amount of ethanol produced is indeed a few grams... I can get you the actual stoichiometric equation

No, it was not a typo. You posted it twice as well as the "massive quantities" exaggeration. My wife corrected me that the amount produced is not "minimal" as I posted above, but "insignificant". If ethanol were produced in the massive quantities you were deliberately propogandizing earlier, we'd all be driving home a little under the influence after going out for a big meal. This is also inconsistent with your propogandizing of the need for moderate alcohol consumption: if ethanol is still being produced in such a significant amount due to a supposed change in diet from paleolithic times, there is no need for extra moderate alcohol consumption. You don't need to produce the equation...what you need to produce is a reference from a reputable science journal or some comparable, authoritative source. Because your daddy-doctor said it doesn't count...and his opinion not published in a peer reviewed journal carries little weight in the scientific community.

via my father, who as I've said before is a doctor with 25+ years practise... His opinion on the matter is that alcohol can indeed be beneficial if moderated. He also does believe that it is one of the most dangerous narcotics on the market,

Unless your doctor-dad has gone thru a MSTP program, he is likely not a researcher...at most he does correlational and clinical studies. He likely can formulate a more educated opinion on the results of a published research article..so what?...especially if you doctor dad is a crackpot. BTW, alcohol is not a narcotic, it's a depressant...big difference.

but you probably wouldn't be pleased to hear that he thinks that cocaine is virtually harmless in its traditional leaf form, and agrees that LSD is only banned because it proved to be a cure for schizophrenia, autism and alcoholism (drug companies lobbied to have it banned, as usual).

Oops, it appears that your poor judgement is now leading you to sterotype and generalize about my individual feelings based on your prejudicial bigotry about Mormons and your poor understanding of Mormonism. I have in-laws with schizo..so my wife has belonged to NAMI for years staying on top of the latest treatments for the mentally ill...LSD can actually precipitate schizophrenia in susceptible persons, and there's no evidence that LSD does anything other than induce hallucinations and mess up your brain. This is like so much of your other propoganda...even if LSD "cured" (whatever that is supposed to mean) those things--which it doesn't--there are very effective treatments for schizo w/o the risks of LSD..it's just stupid and irresponsible to suggest otherwise.

And on 'propoganda'... Don't you think it's just a little along the lines of 'propoganda' to include in your article citations of a study that claims Mormons live longer than other people, and then goes on to assume that this is because of the Word of Wisdom rather than genetics?

It is not propogandizing on wikipedia to include relevant, POV material that is properly attributed. The article itself does not assume thay Mormons live longer b/c of WoW rather than anything else...in accordance with wiki policy, the article properly attributes that assumption to Mormons.

In fact, such a study is so vague in its actual data that I could just as soon claim that Mormons live longer because the majority of the people who originally went west with Joseph Smith were in some way of Celtic descent, or, If I had drawn upon data from a different population, I could have just as easily concluded that Mormons do not live longer on average.

This isn't high school, Khranus. My guess is that everyone you're preaching to in this forum deserves better than the grade-school-level example above, but maybe that is all you are capable of.

Such a 'study' doesn't really deserve to be in a supposedly 'NPOV' article--especially one with as many standing violations of NPOV as this one.

As stated above, relevant POV studies or the conclusions of such are permissible (and should be included) on wiki articles so long as their is proper attribution or citation...otherwise no studies would be included since all are POV...and as stated by Frecklefoot, this article references/links to other material critical to the study.

In terms of carbohydrates, any carbohydrates consumed and digested end up with a significant quantity of ethanol on the products side of the equation, not just sugar, to clear things up if you were confused at all on the matter.

No, Khranus, the only person who has been confused here is you. And again, it is not a "significant" amount. And the term I used was sugars in plural as in "complex sugars". And in case you were confused, it is not merely carbohydrates, but also the consumption of fats and proteins which also produce insignificant amounts of ethanol...and to clear up your further confusion, yeast in the body is likely to play a greater role in the production of ethanol by-product than that which is produced by bacterial metabolization.

And in terms of a paleolithic diet, it can be ascertained quite well what the paleolithic people of at least Eurasia ate, and it seems to consist mostly of berries and meat (which is pretty much to be expected to the point where it goes without saying. Wolves eat berries and meat, so early humans, a species with similar behavioural patterns and ordering, should share a similar diet.). On the neolithic level, we actually have Ice Man, who was indeed found mummified in the Alps and was dissected--with some common neolithic foods still sitting in his stomach undigested after thousands of years.

No, it canNOT be ascertained quite well. The most that can be ascertained is what those few, discovered paleolithic people ate at that particular time during their life. Ice Man, wow, just recently learned about him, did you?

FURTHERMORE, the paleolithic idea was written as a theory, not as absolute truth.

Then talk about it consistently in terms and a tone that acknowledge it as a theory. As it is your POV rambles back and forth between a token acknowledgement as theory and the rest as immutable fact.

I don't even personallly believe in absolute truth on the phenomenal level (if you aren't familiar with philosophy I'll explain what I mean).

I majored in philosophy, graduated from a top-quartile law school and am an attorney for five years now...do you really think you have something to educate me about on philosophy except your own less than sophisticated POV?

It is most certainly NOT an untestable hypothesis, though.

Don't put words in my mouth. I stated "generally untestable". And yes, the hypothesis or theory you are advocating is generally untestable in practice as addressed in my comments below.

It is quite well documented what paleolithic humans apparently ate.

Your statement above is deceptively ambiguous. No one is arguing that it isn't well documented what those few discovered paleolithic humans ate. What is at issue is what most paleolithic humans ate and that is NOT well documented and is not likely to ever be documented under current circumstances because they are all dead and rotted away. Who knows why Ice Man had berries and meat in his stomach. Maybe he was a rebel who ate the foods prohibited by the ruling culture and died as a social outcast...there are as many reasonable possibilities as the imagination can come up with. The point is two pieces of a thousand piece puzzle do not a big picture create. With only two pieces of the puzzle you can put hypotheses to all sorts of tests, but without having enough pieces of the puzzle, no test is ever going to amount to much than educated speculation...and in a great many instances in science, there is not likely to ever be enough pieces of the puzzle available under existing circumstances. When there is not enough pieces to allow a test that can "prove" the conclusion you want, the theory or hypothesis is untestable at least in practice.

It's just as sketchy as ANY history in whether or not it is actually true. But then again, we don't really know whether or not Jesus actually existed, and that seems to be the foundation of your religion, is it not? Shouldn't it be quite obvious that 'history' is usually at least a little inaccurate to begin with? In fact, it can NEVER be NPOV (nothing truly can, but history is subjective to a greater degree).

Duh?...really?! And it is not primarily a matter of subjectivity...insufficient evidence plays a large role.

In addition, I don't think that your wife's credentials make her brief 'research' even begin to compare with the years upon years of study and research that my father has endured.

Don't make more out of the "research" than I did. She simply looked up science articles on research that had been done on the topic. There is more to be gained from reviewing the research of multiple experts than your dad's single POV on the subject.

She does not have a medical degree, and studies animals other than humans--not even being particularly acquainted with te human anatomy. To suggest that she somehow knows all about the human body because she studies fruit fly genetics is like saying that she is an expert in the field of quantum mechanics because she took chemistry and physics in highschool. Khranus

A good scientist should know that animals are studied in part for the purpose of hopefully better understanding the human body, and the fruit fly has been one of the mostl widely-used analogs of research for decades because of the simplicity of its makeup, ease of care and so on. Your disparagement discloses your scientific ignorance as does your false presumption of her unfamiliarity with human anatomy. Again, you put words in my mouth: I've never suggested that "she knows all about the human body". What I did imply is that she has special knowledge on subjects related to biophysics than most people have.

(and if you aren't familiar, a few ounces of wine is around the average glass size.)

Your last comment exemplifies the whole of your contributions to this article so far...I'm sure you are discovering a lot of new ideas in your lower level undergraduate classes this year, but your mastery of them is unimpressive. Your pseudo-pedantry is laughable B 02:24, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Your amazing ignorance and flawed logic culminate in this last comment. Yes, fruit flies are analogous to humans in many ways--but when it comes to the digestive tract, they're quite different from us, which should be obvious to any three-year-old. I'm not putting words in your mouth, I'm addressing the issue we were discussing. It seems obvious to me that human anatomy is the field we're dealing with when we discuss the physioligical effects of alcohol on the human body--does it not to you?

And this 'disparagement' you speak of is no more evident in my writings than in yours. Now you're only being a hypocrite.

Now this assumption that I'm enrolled in undergraduate classes seems to be a great example of your disparagement. I am not enrolled in undergraduate classes, although if I was it would not necessarily say anything about my scientific know-how. Being involved in academics, I must admit that it is a very flawed system, and that there have been several figures in history who have proved autodidactic geniuses. Take Einstein, for instance, or Tesla, or Edison. All autodidacts. I in fact currently bear the contention that my educatation has in many ways hindered my progress in knowledge, as it has repeatedly instilled me with false dogmas that have been since washed away.

If we are to attack eachother personally, however, I must say that I am quite amazed that you, apparently a lawyer, think you know anything about science. Of course, lawyers seem in general to assume they know about everything--which is part of their seemingly innately psuedopathic personality.

And beyond science, you are a Mormon, which is evidence of philosophical idiocy. Anyone still entangled in such a childish dogma must not have thought much about the nature of the universe outside of that dogma. Perhaps in speaking to you to beginn with I should have heeded Leary's admonition to steer clear of larvals, and avoid interaction with them, as 'one cannot use butterfly language to communicate with caterpillars'... Khranus

Okay, guys, this hair-pulling and name-calling isn't getting us anywhere. The fact is that if you are going to make such a statement, Khranus, you need to back it up with some evidence. Saying, "My dad told me so, so it must be true," doesn't cut it as scientific evidence. Personally, I don't really beleive that eating a piece of bread is equivalent to drinking a glass of wine. If this were the case, we'd all be stumbling about drunk most of the time.

But, if your assertions are true, back them up with a source—or better yet a few. If they are true, they'd have to be mentioned somewhere. Not everything contributed to the 'pedia needs to be backed up with a source, but for highly contested claims, such as this one, they should be. —Frecklefoot 14:51, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I never stated that eating 'a piece of bread' was the equivalent to a drinking a glass of wine. However, people who consume large numbers of carbohydrates in a day can indeed reach such an equivalent. Cows, who have a four-chamber stomach (four stomachs, in essence), digest so many carbohydrates in such a fashion daily that, by the end of the day, they actually do behave as though drunk. Part of the reason for their docility (or insanity, depending on hormone levels, I suppose), is that they have such a large amount of alcohol in their gut...

In response to BonMojo's comment (which he apparently added to), Ice Man still remains a good example of the Neolithic diet. And evidence of dietary norms can and has come from sources other than biological evidence. Take, for instance, pictographs which depict humans hunting buffalo. I presume that they didn't hunt these animals just for their own entertainment--and therefore it is quite logical to conclude that they ate the meat of these creatures.

Whether or not alcohol is or isn't beneficial seems irrelevant now, as you have worked relentlessly to keep your article, which you apparently bear a territorial attachment to, free of change from those who disagree with your views. This is not only dogmatism, but it goes directly against the basic principles of Wikipedia as a whole.

Also, the fact that everyone concerned about this article besides me seems to be infested with the Mormonism meme doesn't help... Khranus

Khranus, if you really think we're violating Wikipedia's rules or spirit by continually removing your unsupported additions, bring it up with an administrator (such as Mav) or start a discussion on the Village Pump. I'm fairly certain that no one else here at the 'pedia will want unsupported contreversial statements added to an article. —Frecklefoot 16:56, 22 Oct 2003 (UTC)