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Chemistry Professor Michelle Francl Takes on Pseudo Science

June 12, 2015

UPDATE: Francl is  for a May 5, 2015 segment on this topic.

Chemistry Professor Michelle Francl recently appeared on the NPR program "On the Media" to once again debunk some of the claims made by Vani Hari, the activist and author known as "The Food Babe."

During , Francl talks about the role "processing fluency" plays in some people's view that "natural" is always good and "chemical" always bad.

"We trust material that is familiar and words that we can pronounce. Lots of chemical terms come from the Greek so they have a lot of harsh sounding vowels and consonant mixes in them. Oxidane, methotrexate, they sound scary. But something like four-marvels powder sounds very safe."

Francl has previously written about Hari for Slate. In 2013, she first wrote about chemophobia for Slate in  the article 

Read more from Francl on her blog 

To find out about 老王论坛's Chemistry Department, visit their website.

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