Is MSG a problem?
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 7 votes and with 43 points ahead, the winner is...
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- One week
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PLAGIARISM: http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Is_MSG_bad_for_you
With pro's R1 dropped for that reason, combined with one third of the remainder getting into cons masturbatory habits, this really was a case of no contest.
Arguments: This goes to Con, as he had more thought out arguments and shown that MSG was never proven to have averse effects on people.
Sources: Con.
Conduct: Pro had a very interesting vocabulary and Con remained professional.
Pro's sources ranged from weak to disreputable. Pro pushed weaker arguments and claims. Pro failed to convincingly undermine Con's sources. It is unsound to suggest that because the FDA is capable of fault, pseudoscientific misconception should be given free reign. Pro resorted to needless personal attacks.
"I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem." -- Hitchens
Con consistently cited more credible and authoritative sources, Con's arguments and scientific information were consistently more on point, Con did not call anyone a Janus-faced wanker. Full points.
I prefer to avoid casting my opinion on any matter which mainstream scientific experts have already deeply investigated except by directly citing relevant professional sources, for doing so arrogantly implies that I am as qualified as those experts to independently evaluate the issue.
In terms of who presented superior content, Con immensely outgunned his opponent on all battlefields except perhaps spelling and grammar. They made heavy usage of trustworthy sources and treated the opponent with relative respect, despite opposing accusations of being a "Janus-faced wanker." Con furthermore relentlessly dissected and refuted his opponent's arguments through better-formatted and thus more readable text.
I am quite sure that the issue with the links from Pro are due to tech illiteracy and not due to actually unreliable links. For instance the first URL he posts is broken and this is because I am sure he tried to type out an ending that would make it into a pdf. He meant to link to this: https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/130/4/1007S/4686662 on top of that his second link is impossible to get more than the abstract of as the study is private to non-registered university students. I am not going to give a 'more reliable sources vote' to Pro but what I will do is say they had worse source formatting and choice despite the sources being reliable.
Pro is actually correct, just like lactose, MSG has been very harmful to people with such food intolerances and the harms of it to people with an intolerance to it are severe and life-quality-reducing by significant margins. They will have constant diarrhoea among many other issues. The issue is that to those lacking Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or MSG-specific intolerance, MSG is actually not that much of an issue to them (and Con focused entirely on this group in a cunning manner).
I will say this: I agree 100% with Pro and predict MSG to be removed from all foods by the year 2300 but for now not enough anti-MSG articles are mainstream and the harms are hidden especially in MSG-heavy nations like China and South Korea where government-party-sponsoring corporations sell products covered in the stuff.
Pro loses conduct for not only unnecessarily claiming that Con used fallacious sources but saying the following:
"You are a Janus-faced wanker"
" the rodent literature."
The rodent literature is almost ad hominem and the first quote is verbal abuse of Con.
Con far and away had better arguments showing that MSG for the most part is safe, and that people who claim to have sensitivity towards MSG in actual trials have indicated that they mostly do not. The sources con uses for their arguments are also strongly recognized as reliable and fair sources, pro failing abysmally to challenge the sources as unreliable when given the opportunity. Pro's conduct was also quite poor towards the end of the debate, spelling and grammar not much of an issue. Easy win.
Con provided the most reliable sources with respect to MSG's affects on humans.
Con couched their arguments in a more organized and relevant fashion, making them more convincing.
Con's formatting and grammar were better.
Con automatically has better conduct, as Pro devolved to hurling unwarranted insults.
Con wins on all points.
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I'm not really presenting anything. I thought it was hilarious when I followed your link in the votes tab and before I had a laugh about it I wanted to be reasonably insured against an "oh yeah well that was me numnuts" retort from T1.
Actually it was partly plagiarism purely because I know that Pro was the guy who made the debate that Ragnar linked to and went by the name FactMachine (he's since been banned on the site and has ravaged it with alts) whereas the person he copied from was not him.
It's a nice hypothetical you present, but ultimately lacking in meaning.
Were they the same person, it would be on him to clarify (make a post to the original that he has changed his name...) and request a reevaluation. As of this moment, there is absolutely nothing to suggest they are the same person; plus he chose to present the arguments in the form of plagiarism, it would be an outright disrespect to his intellectual integrity to judge him otherwise.
That is aside from the obvious sloppy copy/paste job. That it's broken infers lack of access to the original writing (fresh copy/paste from the original writing, as opposed to how it was displayed on a random website, would lack the preponderance of errors).
Re: Plagiarism: How do we know Type1 isn't this WinstonC from createdebate?
Maybe I misread 'rodent literature' but the Janus faced wanker is still direct abuse.
I will vote on this as Drafterman's may well be taken down if the admin gets serious about vote moderation. I will be voting for Virtuoso and just need to word the justification properly.
I am posting this to confirm I will be voting as someone asked me on PM to vote here and I said I'd do so and want to be held to be a man of my word.
Very cool, and I just saw your argument. This will be a fun debate :D
I am a rapper, a lyricist and vocalist specifically. I wouldn't call myself a musician because I don't make instrumentals or anything like that.
Why? Are you a musician? Because I'm a musician too lol. It's why I accepted it. I'm looking forward to it now.
Interesting. Too bad you didn't take this debate. I'm afraid the odds will not be in your favour though in the lyrics debate, because I am an expert on the subject just as you are an expert in this.
I'm aware of the mouse studying you're referencing. You think that mice were treated with MSG and toxicity was observed. That's not what they did. They used neurons from mice in a cell culture and treated those cells with large amounts of MSG until they got a toxic effect. You can eat MSG all you want, but the amount that amount that will get into your brain is so small you literally have to inject it directly into your blood to get the effects you are suggesting.
Wow, so you're telling me MSG doesn't effect the brain at all?
I'm not a big fan of how the science was handled in this debate. Especially from you Pro. Your science is completely off. Glutamate in MSG is metabolised to glucose, lactate and aspartate when you digest it. Even if you directly injected it into your blood, the molecule is an anion and thus cannot enter the brain. Your entire case is based on the actions of glutamate as a neurotransmitter in the CNS, and that entire basis is completely false to begin with. You don't actually have case in this debate and Con has engaged your material under the assumption that it's underlying premises were true when he didn't have to.
If you'd like to do this topic again in future, please send me an invite. This is my field of study and I'm quite confident I could prove unequivocally that none of what you said here is correct.
Virtuoso is currently in the lead with the preponderance of evidence via credible sources both private and federal. Type1, your links are broken.