As far as I understand, the synthetic pesticides may actually be safer since they're designed with human consumption in mind and are able to be synthesized in such a way to limit negative effects on the body. Also, they can be designed to eliminate pests that are harmful to crops while doing little damage to other fauna in a way that organic pesticides can't.

I don't have any sources to cite, just my memory from past reading. If I'm off-base, please let me know!

Very good point. As far as I know, Latrotoxin [1], is a fully organic product. It's also much more deadly that most "chemicals" you could name. Hell, Polonium is on the periodic table of elements.

The incredibly successful media campaign waged by the Organic industry should be held up as an example for the rest of the marketing industry. DeBeers should take notes.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrotoxin

Given that all "chemicals" used before, say, 50 years ago were natural, I would go further and say there is no shortage of utterly horrible ones.

Nassim Taleb makes an interesting argument in Antifragile that the natural stuff is still better assuming it’s been in use longer, since new stuff could have disastrous effect we don’t know about yet, and won’t know about for 50+ years. In the same way that some option investments look safe until they blow up.