76 sats \ 3 replies \ @petertodd 7 Jun \ parent \ on: What has been the worst or most harmful scientific discovery of all time? science
Nah. Without plastics there's no way we'd have modern civilization.
A much better example is your example of asbestos, which we have been able to find alternates to for pretty much all usage. OTOH, maybe without asbestos, we wouldn't have been able to get an industrial civilization advanced enough to find those alternatives.
Asbestos prevents fires from spreading
People ignore the benefits of asbestos
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Asbestos prevents fires from spreading
Actually that is true. There was recently fire on a country side for relatives at some older building around 3am in night, and it still had asbestos roof from Soviet era and people woke up then and be able to act only because of sound of it's blasting. Otherwise likely fire would have spread to even more buildings, some of which contained natural gas balons, then there were parked cars full of gasoline nearby, etc.
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If it didn't kill you it'd be a miracle material.
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