> Asbestos prevents fires from spreading

Actually that is true. There was recently fire on a country side for relatives at some older building around 3am in night, and it still had asbestos roof from Soviet era and people woke up then and be able to act only because of sound of it's blasting. Otherwise likely fire would have spread to even more buildings, some of which contained natural gas balons, then there were parked cars full of gasoline nearby, etc.

kristapsk

If it didn't kill you it'd be a miracle material.

petertodd

Asbestos prevents fires from spreading 

People ignore the benefits of asbestos 



Bell_curve

science

What has been the worst or most harmful scientific discovery of all time?

Taft

> Makes me think that maybe one of the worst discoveries will turn out to be plastic.

Nah. Without plastics there's no way we'd have modern civilization.

A much better example is your example of asbestos, which we have been able to find alternates to for pretty much all usage. OTOH, maybe without asbestos, we wouldn't have been able to get an industrial civilization advanced enough to find those alternatives.