@Velcro  
Oh, hold on. There’s an issue with your second point: it doesn’t really matter whether a phenomenon is explained. Whether we understand something has no effect on whether it’s real.
 
In fact we’d have to discount majority of medical research if knowing the mechanism of how something works were a requirement. Migraine might have no apparent reason to exist, but it still hurts like hell.
 
Which brings it back to the first and, frankly, only argument: what the evidence says. And here the “only” thing you have to figure out is whether evidence presented is real or, as you mentioned, a misrepresentation of selected facts. Or just an outright lie.
 
Annoyingly, there are so many easy ways to cook study results it’s not even funny. If you run your test until the results fit your desired conclusion, who’s going to know but you?

@Velcro  
Ah, much better. Good work. Your previous comment was alright as well, I think.
 
I’d like to contribute something, but I refuse to argue about things I don’t know enough about.
 
My short time researching aspartame safety didn’t yield any results I can be certain of either way, either due to lack of evidence or lack of credibility in the studies I’ve looked at. The only thing I could be sure of is the obscene conflict of interest between manufacturers and researchers, same as it was with tobacco.
 
Unlike that one, however, I wouldn’t hold my breath for truth of the matter, whichever it is, ever seeing the light of day. For all its professed ideals, academia tends to treat innovation and falsification like airborne plague, and public relations firms have improved enough to make billionaires out of failing computer manufactures in a span of a few years.

@Draco_2k  
Ugh. Alright, I probably shouldn’t have compared those who have fallen for the health-scare to creationists.
 
 
So let’s start over. I’ll focus on basic points that have nothing to do with human behavior:
 
 
-There is no evidence that says Aspartame can cause either cancer or brain-degeneration at dietary levels. As far as I’m aware, there have been a number of tests that attempted to suggest that Aspartame is toxic, but these have either been fatally flawed or involved intentionally misrepresenting of facts.
 
-Aspartame has no known mechanism by which it could cause the damages attributed to it. All metabolic products have been accounted for (unless new ones come to light) and none of them can cause noticeable health damage at dietary levels. An exception should be noted for a specific group of people who suffer from the genetic disorder Phenylketonuria, as Aspartame contains a source of phenylalanine.
 
To be clear, with ‘dietary levels’ I mean normal use, such as the small amounts used in softdrinks. Eat a whole four-pound bag of concentrated Aspartame and we’re not talking about dietary levels anymore (also, you’d get sick and possibly die).

@Velcro  
Derp. Apparently me saying in plain English which side I’m really on is no deterrent either.
 
Well, that wasn’t even my point. My problem was with how fallacious your argument was, not whether it leads to the right conclusion. The right thing to do would probably be to pick it apart piece by piece to prove the point, but my internal censor tells me this would elevate the drama levels in this thread to a bannable amount. Besides, I’d have to pick apart every argument in this thread, probably including some of mine.
 
I wouldn’t expect anyone to look back and say “I’m sorry for opening my argument by poisoning the well” or “I shouldn’t have made hasty generalizations” or “I shouldn’t have argued from authority” because that’s not what people do in an argument…
 
But we really should.
 
An argument should be a search for truth, not a cockfight.

@Draco_2k  
I suppose it doesn’t matter. You’ll never change your mind no matter what evidence is delivered. Evidence never matters to such people anyway.

@Velcro  
And on another rant we go, undeterred.

@Draco_2k
 
Intellectually dishonest would be to make claims of toxicity without mechanism or cause.
 
Notice how in all the non-fictional chemicals, we know the effect and its mechanism. We know why cocaine causes dopamine release, we know why it is addictive, we know about its side-effects and why those exist, for instance.
 
…except aspartame, which has no mechanism through which it can do the damage it is claimed to do.
 
It does not produce enough methanol to do damage in dietary quantities, it does not have anything that affects the function of DNA or cell-growth and fenylanaline only negatively affects those who have a very specific ailment that prevents them from digesting it properly. It has no known digestion products that have significant negative effects and we’ve accounted for the entire molecule.
 
That’s the basic thing of it: It literally cannot do the things people claim it does at the doses it is used at.
 
Saying ‘Aspartame is toxic at dietary levels!’ is basically the same as pointing at a fresh body and screaming ‘Abraham Lincoln murdered this girl!’ despite the alleged killer having been in his grave for a while now.
 
I’m not ruling out that we may eventually find some way to prove Aspartame toxic (at dietary normal use levels), but at the moment the only possible way we can think of for it to be toxic is through an overdose.

@TheLoneLampman  
Ah, got it. All makes sense now.
 
Except why in the holy hell would anyone give out packets of aspartame. It’s like giving out wood pulp just because they add it to tea and cereal.

@Draco_2k  
Yeah, they don’t give you pure stuff. People probably would die accidentally from the stuff if they had access to it.

@Draco_2k  
Hm, Google says aspartame is about 200 times sweeter than sugar. My guess is that consuming a spoonful of it would make you vomit first, and dead shortly after.

@TheLoneLampman  
But aspartame is sweeter… So if they wanted to give you an equal taste to sugar, they’d either water down the aspartame with something else to numb its sweetness or give you a teeny-tiny packet, right?
 
I don’t know. I’ve never tasted or even seen one of those.

@Draco_2k  
They give you the same amount as they do in sugar packets. It’s supposed to be equal, not concentrated.

@Blissey1  
That wouldn’t be entirely fair though. Aspartame is just very high on the sugar-y index, so it’s sweet taste is so strong it ceases being pleasant. It’s like comparing black pepper against jalapeno.
 
As far as I know, humans are very bad at distinguishing what’s good for them from taste alone, and the junk food industry is nothing if not proof of it.

@Draco_2k  
I’ll I’m saying is, if you really want people to stop using aspartame, don’t go on about how bad it is for you.
 
just have them open one of those yellow or blue packets next time they go the a restaurant and take a taste.
 
They’ll never touch the stuff again. I know I haven’t.

@Blissey1  
Point. I did try sucrose and fructose (not really “artificial”, but whatever), and they were pretty terrible; meanwhile, honey and starch are delicious.
 
But I’ve also tried drinks and mouthwash with aspartame, and didn’t notice much difference from ordinary sugar. I would assume that’s the whole point of aspartame: cheap sugar.

@Draco_2k  
yes. Have you ever tried white sugar by itself? It tastes sweet and delicious!
 
have you ever tried pretty much any artificial sweetener by itself? it tastes like shit.

@TheLoneLampman  
Wait, it has taste? Is it different from ordinary sugar?

@Velcro  
Oh, to clarify: I didn’t say your comment was offensive (though peppering it with insults as you have does make it so), I said it was intellectually offensive: meaning it’s primarily made up of obvious and common fallacies that you have to be an utter idiot to swallow, which is insulting.
 
Not saying you’re an idiot for having written it, but that you treat your audience as ones.

I don’t care how good or bad aspartame is, it tastes like crap and dries out your mouth.

@Velcro  
Truth offends. Lies offend. People who get other people angry will claim it’s because it’s one when it’s the other.
 
It’s easy to claim something is “the most studied” or “absolutely certain” or “scientifically proven”, but for most people - who aren’t scientists and haven’t read an iota of scientific literature on the subject - this comes down to repeating someone else’s claims that they take on pure faith. Often for emotional reasons rather than skepticism.
 
As you said: you’re sick of people making false scares. Other commenters said they’re sick of corporations trying to feed them brain cancer. They both sound like good reasons, but they also both sound disingenuous: the only good reason to believe something is because you’ve seen proof of it.
 
Myself, I’m reasonably certain the only “heavily scrutinized” food additive in the world is white sugar. Most modern additives are either a minefield of conflict of interest or so obviously harmless they’re not even worth studying.

@Draco_2k  
The truth will offend some people, it happens. I, myself, get offended by people going “This is toxic, that is toxic! Quickly, buy my homeopathic magic water to purify yourself!”
 
Maybe aspartame, one of the single-most intensely-scrutinized food-additives in existence, will one day end up proven dangerous despite all the current evidence telling otherwise.
 
But right now I’m utterly sick of the utter frauds and liars trying to feed us another health-scare.

Where’s Heisenberg’s Blue Sky?

@patachu  
>“There is proof! you’re just not looking hard enough!”  
>doesn’t provide any of said proof
 
you’re really helping your case, here.

@Gentlecolt  
after further investigation - not a single faith in humanity was lost.  
Because there was none to begin with HAHAH

@patachu  
>crabogen
 
A quick Google search says you’re the first person on the Internet to make that pun.  
Congratulations.