AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Oh right, I forgot pH was on a scale similar to measuring earthquakes.

Is your final nitpick the obvious bias? A dentist produced the findings, and one of the first things on the list is enamel wear. The chart is obviously supposed to be a deterrent against sour candy for anyone who reads the list.

Sour patch kids are one of the worst candies for your teeth. Only because they are sticky and hold the sugar in place next to your teeth to provide fuel for cavity growth.

Eh, I don't mind the bias since they are somewhat right. Sour candy is bad for your teeth, and the pH is a factor in this. And using scientific arguments to try and back up your statements is better than just no evidence at all.

I don't like how they say that a low pH is bad, since that is a very vague statement and implies that a high pH is good. pH above 7 of course means it's a basic solution, which isn't good for your teeth either.

Should I do something like this again sometime? Or we could make it in to a game where we take turns posting popscience articles to pick apart or something. I think it's a good way to train critical reading/thinking.

It might be interesting.

Obviously you can still use this thread.

And yeah, that probably would have been my next guess, implying that a pH of 14 would be awesome and radical and not incredibly hazardous.

Had to do something like that for Psychology. Find a bogus science article on the web and then explain why it was.

I picked mine on a monkey that was supposedly somewhat sentient.

I love that movie.

The book was cool, too.

Technically, unless I'm forgetting something about the composition of teeth, even strong bases wouldn't do much damage to them, since bases primarily break down lipids, which means they'd break down the cell membranes of your gum cells and the rest of your tissue and not necessarily affect your teeth. This is why most commercial cleaners are bases, because they're able to actively break through oils and fats that get left behind (like in kitchens) and can even sanitize/sterilize surfaces.

However, they need to be used more carefully than acids, because they don't affect your nerve receptors like acids do (acids produce heat, as Exeres mentioned before, which is why you feel a burning sensation when you consume/touch acids), hence why soap doesn't burn you, but if you were to say, leave it on for hours, you might feel a bit of pain from it and have irritated skin.

/pedant

EDIT: How do I quote good?

Most bases wouldn't be harmful, but alkali bases are often toxic. Like I said, what matters more is the chemical composition, not just the pH.

Well yes, but toxicity would affect the health of you, not the the strength or "health" of your teeth (at least not directly), which was my point.

Altering the pH in any direction denatures enzymes (and other proteins) though, so you'll probably have digestion problems if you have too much of it. Especially in your stomach where the pH is kept very low. Also for some reason I thought there were cells or enzymes or something which helped keep your teeth clean? Not sure about that at all.

Of course strong bases are caustic and will fuck your shit up in general, as demonstrated by Mr. Norton.

Chemicals are just bad, m'kay?

"All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous." -Paracelsus

Dihydrogen monoxide: the deadliest chemical of them all.