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Comment by andrepd | Hacker News Reader

The "beer as a safe alternative to water" is likely a myth. See https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1yts0v/comme...

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Can we please have a higher standard of truth than a Reddit comment, especially one that doesn't cite any sources? I am not saying the linked comment is wrong but why should I believe it over anything else?

A comment by a flaired user in /r/AskHistorians is a very different thing to a "Reddit comment".

Yes, but it's just a reddit comment none the less with no way to backtrack to peer reviewed work.

We've all learnt that "peer reviewed work" is code for "accept other peoples papers so they will accept ours" and has nothing to do with confirming the finding.

Are you implying that we should just accept peer reviewed work and Reddit comments as equally valid? I don't disagree with you, peer-review is no guarantee of proof but I assign more weight to it than an upvote. Especially if I can read the work myself and investigate further sources.

Don't throw the baby away with the bathwater.

Peer reviewed publications offers the only venue for accountable reporting on complex subjects.

By definition this mean "accountability to peers" and is the only mechanism which outsiders can use to gauge the credibility of claims.

Like all things humans do that is not pure maths, it's not perfect but the best we have.

I think his point is the fact that /r/AskHistorians comments are usually sourced properly and are strictly moderated.

But this one isn't so it doesn't get the benefit of the doubt based on higher quality peers.

/r/AskHistorians may be a fine place to discuss history but without sources the comments can be treated as nothing more than opinion.

It isn't though. Without sources it's still just a Reddit comment. We should have higher standards than this.

> a Reddit comment, especially one that doesn't cite any sources?

That Reddit comment is literally saying "[the claim that beer was safer than water] cannot be substantiated with primary sources". You're complaining that somebody isn't citing sources when all they are saying is that there is a lack of evidence that the claim is true. You're placing the burden of proof in the wrong place.

The GP claim is that "beer as a safe alternative to water" is likely a myth. In order to back this up they linked to a comment that does nothing to prove this claim.

Sure, the Reddit comment says there is no primary source evidence to back up the claim that beer was used as a safe alternative to water but that does not make it a source to claim that beer was not used as a safe alternative to water.

Furthermore, the Reddit post makes unsubstantiated claims, such as "failing many logic tests" without naming the logic tests themselves. The entire second paragraph is predicated on the assumption that homesteads used only clean water sources without polluting them. How did they handle waste? Did they know how far from water sources to deposit their waste? The comment doesn't say.

Indeed the burden of proof is on the accuser and in this case the GP is the accuser. Reddit comments do not meet my standard for proof.

I think what we're all trying to say is, could you provide any evidence for the "beer as a safe alternative to water" theory? If we place the burden of proof on the skeptical "accuser", that could redeem almost any theory about history, including the more colorful ones involving aliens.

Someone on HN made a claim that the idea of beer as a clean drinking source was a myth and cited a Reddit comment as a source. This is unacceptable to me because that Reddit comment cites no further sources and raises other concerns.

I would apply the same rigor to a claim that beer was used as an alternate drinking supply.

Internet comments are just that, commentary. The same as the opinion piece in a newspaper. If they are to be used as fact they must meet a much higher standard or be disregarded. It is not acceptable to cite one opinion as proof of another.

Well the article does not provide any source to its claims, does not even attempt to prove anything, yet you accept USA today repeating something as a proof that "beer was a safe alternative to water". Is it even as established fact that water was unsafe to drink ? if so where ? when ?

Unsafe water in large overcrowded cities such 19th century London is proven but an exception not the general situation for the whole world over time.

I make no claim to the validity of the USA Today article. Unsubstantiated claims should not be countered with other unsubstantiated claims. I am simply calling for a higher level of proof.

the fact that teetotal sailors where considered a higher insurance risk which can be backed up with sources

Try using common sense here. It is self-evident that water had a long history of being drank before beer came to be, that you can't replace drinking water by drinking beer, and lastly that water was safer to drink before we started putting shit in it.

Your invocation of common sense is insulting.

What part of drinking water makes it self-evident that it was drank before beer? Additionally, how does it establish a long history? You seem to cite your entire comment as a source for the extraordinary claim that drinking water has no substitute and that adding things to water only makes it worse.

Are you saying that any additive to drinking water is harmful?

> What part of drinking water makes it self-evident that it was drank before beer?

You're taking skepticism to absurd levels. Water is naturally occurring. Beer is not.

The linked article is pop-history clickbait. The comment I linked is not a peer review article, granted, but it's a statement by a verified accredited specialist in History of Alcohol. Since I don't have time or expertise to do in depth research, I think I'll take this comment.

Besides, most of the comments in this thread are positing wild guesses and making spurious claims. If you didn't complain about the article or those comments you have no right to complain about my link not being a high standard of truth :^)

I do not accept subreddits as a source of anything beyond Reddit commentary itself. They are opinion pieces unless they include sources.

The quality of comments in this thread are entirely irrelevant to the comment you linked. I apply the same standard to all internet comments.

If you wish to deflect that is on you but I stand by my standard of truth.

Lack of clean water is a huge issue today, much less in historic times before germ theory. Anyone who says otherwise is stunningly ignorant. That they so blithely claim otherwise tells me that they don't know what they're talking about.

http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/diseases-risks/en...

It's likely a myth with regard to the middle ages, but what about ancient times --ie Roman, Greek, Egyptian, etc? These places had urban centers.

Ancient (specifically Roman) civilizations had fantastic systems to transport water and even developed indoor plumbing. They didn't need to augment their water quality with wine. Wine was simply made ubiquitous due to their civilization determining that it should be enjoyed by everyone.

Of course there are stories of soldiers augmenting pond water with wine, but this could have been as much to make it more palatable as preventing oneself from getting sick.

Here's a paper that talks about Ancient thoughts on water: https://issuu.com/eajournal/docs/articulo_-_van_tillburg_-_d... Basically, humans have for a really freaking long time been able to determine whether water is basically more or less safe to drink, and have not really worried about it more than any other thing (and certainly not drank beer or wine because they feared for the quality of the water)

A counterexample is cholera.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/snow/choleratheories.html

Is it? I don't see how 19th century cholera outbreaks have anything to do with ancient civilisations.

Because cholera existed before the 19th century, and people didn't understand that contaminated water was the cause?

So as late as the 19th century, people were just drinking regular water, believing there was nothing wrong with it. (This, plus the fountains and wells that have existed since antiquity as public places to both drink water and wash your hands... eww)

Cholera only existed in the old world and is a byproduct of animal domestication and urbanization[1].

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk

If they had urban centers, then they had civilization already debunking the claim.

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