[brazzy]

Slavery, Torture as a judical tool and blood feuds are also literally as old as human civilization and yet have recently fallen out of favor.

As for mixed research results - no surprise when there's a huge industry and status quo bias funding one side of it.

[commandar]

>Slavery, Torture as a judical tool and blood feuds are also literally as old as human civilization and yet have recently fallen out of favor.

Those things all fell out of favor because they inflict direct harm upon others, not because of their long-term health effects to the individual.

And as I noted, the temperance movement was largely driven by the harm inflicted upon by alcoholics on their families, which resulted in impoverishing women (largely because women weren't viewed as fully autonomous at the time, something else that's socially fallen out of favor).

>As for mixed research results - no surprise when there's a huge industry and status quo bias funding one side of it.

Ah, yes. Occam would clearly dictate that conflicting scientific data is best explained by vast, shadowy conspiracy.

[brazzy]

It's neither shadowy nor really a conspiracy - but do you really want to deny that the results of research are often biased in favor of the organization funding it, and that the various alcohol-producing and -distributing industries have a lot of PR money between them?

"conflicting scientific data" does not by itself mean there isn't overwhelming evidence for one position - although that's of course exactly what those whose livelihood depends on that evidence being ignored want people to believe, in so many areas - be it the effects of alcohol, the existence of global warming, or the efficacy of homeopathy.

What counts is the quality of the actual science, size and rigor of studies, etc. And yes, I'm too lazy to go into that level of detail here.