# Debunk these debunkings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2003, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928 "2003-04-02T09:03:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/1 "2003-04-02T09:03:17Z")
I came across [this](http://www.dribbleglass.com/fallacies/index.htm) list of common fallacies. Some of these debunkings seem to me a little suspicious themselves - e.g. > [@](#): > > Many are surprised to discover Alaska is the most eastern U.S. state. Alaska is the most northern, western and eastern state Can anyone validate or debunk any of these? ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/2 "2003-04-02T09:09:31Z")
The Alaska one is correct, because the Aleutian archipelago crosses the 180th longitude. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/3 "2003-04-02T09:13:32Z")
This is debatable, since both East and West are infinite directions, you can keep going and going in one of the directions around the globe. Not so with North and South. ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/4 "2003-04-02T09:18:37Z")
You’re right it is debatable. However, their interpretation is reasonable. It’s not ridiculously contrived just to come up with a good factoid. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/5 "2003-04-02T13:19:27Z")
It is a bit strained to get “easternmost” (which is generally meant to mean “as measured from the center”), but it’s not wrong. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/6 "2003-04-02T13:31:40Z")
‘Rabbits are more closely related to horses than they are to rodents or mice.’ This is no longer accepted… Lagomorghs (rabbits and hares) are nowadays associated with the rodents once again, rather than ungulates… [Family tree](http://www.palaeos.com/Vertebrates/Units/450Eutheria/450.000.html) ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/7 "2003-04-02T13:41:06Z")
‘Saturn isn’t the only planet in our solar system with a ring. In fact, the only planet without a ring is Earth.’ Swipe me. here’s another one… I don’t remember a ring being discovered around Venus, or Mercury, or Pluto, or even Mars… but anyway, there are 100+ extrasolar planets now- we can’t possibly know whether any or none of these have rings. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/8 "2003-04-02T13:57:43Z")
‘The pineapple has nothing to do with pines or apples. They’re actually a berry.’ That’s funny, I thought it was the fleshy stem of a bromeliad… ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/9 "2003-04-02T14:02:29Z")
Man… there are a lot more of those than I thought. I don’t want to say how much. _Thirty-four pages_. I saw a couple that I could validate on the first few pages, but aside from that planet’s rings one, nothing I knew was false. Are there any more specific ones you have in mind? ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/10 "2003-04-02T14:14:26Z")
Just to back up **eburacum45** and **Achernar** , while it is true that the jovian planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) all have rings, no rings have been detected around any of the terrestrial planets or Pluto. It has been hypothesized that Mars might have a ring of dust knocked off of its outer moon, Deimos but this putative ring has never been observed. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/13edae/32.png) [@Dewey\_Cheatem\_Undhow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Cheatem_Undhow)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/11 "2003-04-02T14:25:23Z")
The Kremlin thing is stupid. So what? There are a lot of white houses in the US – hell, I can look down the street and see one – but when people say THE White House, they’re pretty much referring to 1600 Pensylvania Avenue. So in Russian, Kremlin means a citadel or fortress – big deal. When people refer to THE Kremlin, they’re referring to the seat of government in Moscow. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/12 "2003-04-02T14:31:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RealityChuck \* > \*\*It is a bit strained to get “easternmost” (which is generally meant to mean “as measured from the center”), but it’s not wrong. \*\* More than a bit strained, I’d say. The only reasonable meaning of easternmost is “the point intersected by a longitudinal line when moving the line east from a point within the U.S., past which the line no longer has any point within the U.S.” This definition would need tweaking if an island were the easternmost point, but regardless, there is no way it’s Alaska. Saying that part of Alaska is in the Eastern Hemisphere is not the same as saying it is the easternmost point. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/13 "2003-04-02T14:38:15Z")
Does taxiing wear airplane tires most? I can’t speak for the authority of the site but [http://mb-soft.com/public/planetir.html](http://mb-soft.com/public/planetir.html) says: > [@](#): > > OK! When could enormous wear occur? During low speed taxiing? No, there is extremely little tire wear under those conditions. During a takeoff? A moderate amount of wear can occur then, due to the fairly high speed attained just before liftoff. But that cannot possibly account for a tire tread lifetime of just a hundred miles or so. > > There are two situations during landing that can (and do) wear the tires extremely rapidly. Prior to large airplanes having ABS brake systems, it was possible for a pilot to apply the brakes so aggressively in slowing the plane down that he could “lock up” one or more of the wheels. If that wheel remained in that position, a LOT of wear could occur on one side of that tire, resulting in something called “flat-spotting”. That is virtually unheard of today because of the automatic action of ABS brakes. > > That leaves only one remaining situation that can result in rapid wear in the tires, at that instant of touchdown, when the very heavy motionless wheel and tire assemblies must suddenly be sped up to 130 mph (110 knots) by friction with the pavement of the runway. This fraction of a second, mentioned above, with its puff of smoke from wearing of tire tread and its skid marks that are additional parts of the tire that came off, is therefore the cause of virtually all of the wear on aircraft tires. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/14 "2003-04-02T14:40:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Oxtail soup isn’t made from ox. It’s made from beef tails. Well, sorta, maybe. Not much of a difference here. An “ox” is just a domestic bovine used for (typically farm) work purposes–generally a castrated male. The only species named “ox” that I know of is the “musk ox,” which is not a bovine at all, but more closely related to sheep. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/15 "2003-04-02T14:48:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Despite what you might think, drivers kill more deer than hunters. Reasonable. I have heard of very few hunters killed by drivers. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/16 "2003-04-02T14:54:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dewey Cheatem Undhow \* > … So in Russian, Kremlin means a citadel or fortress – big deal. When people refer to THE Kremlin, they’re referring to the seat of government in Moscow. And the same thing goes for Greece and _acropolis_. It’s just the cliff around which you have built your city. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/17 "2003-04-02T14:57:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Cucumbers aren’t vegetables—they’re fruits. I thought this one had been beaten into obedience a long time ago. For the botanist it’s the fruit of the plant, for the chef it’s a vegetable. ---
**Author:** ![ChalkPit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e4f/32.png) [@ChalkPit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChalkPit)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/18 "2003-04-02T16:46:30Z")
“London Bridge isnt in London, its in Arizona” I can assure you there is a London Bridge in London, its the next one west from Tower Bridge. An earlier version was sold to some twit in Arizona. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/19 "2003-04-02T16:58:34Z")
> [@](#): > > _eburacum45 wrote:_ > …but anyway, there are 100+ extrasolar planets now- we can’t possibly know whether any or none of these have rings. To be fair, the list did say “in our solar system.” ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2003, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928/20 "2003-04-02T17:03:38Z")
> [@](#): > > The American robin isn’t a robin, it’s a thrush. Lawd knows, I’m not bird expert, but from what I found, this is akin to saying that “A tiger isn’t a cat. It’s a member of the feline family.” “Robin” appears to be a very common name for certain members of different species (and genera) within the “thrush” family. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/debunk-these-debunkings/165928.md?page=2)