# Re "50 things you are not supposed to know" has anyone fact checked these claims? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 2, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065 "2009-08-02T15:52:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/1 "2009-08-02T15:52:51Z")
There is a book called "[50 things you are not supposed to know"](http://www.amazon.com/Things-Youre-Not-Supposed-Know/dp/0971394288) which I have not read but supposed contains [these claims.](http://www.traveltowork.net/2009/02/50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know/) Just in relying on general knowledge a fair portion are true, but are they ALL true? Which ones are false? > [@](#): > > 1.The Ten Commandments We Always See Aren’t the Ten Commandments > 2.One of the Popes Wrote an Erotic Book > 3.The CIA Commits Over 100,000 Serious Crimes Each Year > 4.The First CIA Agent to Die in the Line of Duty Was Douglas Mackiernan > 5.After 9/11, the Defense Department Wanted to Poison Afghanistan’s Food Supply > 6.The US Government Lies About the Number of Terrorism Convictions It Obtains > 7.The US Is Planning to Provoke Terrorist Attacks > 8.The US and Soviet Union Considered Detonating Nuclear Bombs on the Moon > 9.Two Atomic Bombs Were Dropped on North Carolina > 10.World War III Almost Started in 1995 > 11.The Korean War Never Ended > 12.Agent Orange Was Used in Korea > 13.Kent State Wasn’t the Only ? or Even the First ? Massacre of College Students During the Vietnam Era > 14.Winston Churchill Believed in a Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy > 15.The Auschwitz Tattoo Was Originally an IBM Code Number > 16.Adolph Hitler’s Blood Relatives Are Alive and Well in New York State > 17.Around One Quarter of “Witches” Were Men > 18.The Virginia Colonists Practiced Cannibalism > 19.Many of the Pioneering Feminists Opposed Abortion > 20.Black People Served in the Confederate Army > 21.Electric Cars Have Been Around Since the 1880s > 22.Juries Are Allowed to Judge the Law, Not Just the Facts > 23.The Police Aren’t Legally Obligated to Protect You > 24.The Government Can Take Your House and Land, Then Sell Them to Private Corporations > 25.The Supreme Court Has Ruled That You’re Allowed to Ingest Any Drug, Especially If You’re an Addict > 26.The Age of Consent in Most of the US Is Not Eighteen > 27.Most Scientists Don’t Read All of the Articles They Cite > 28.Louis Pasteur Suppressed Experiments That Didn’t Support His Theories > 29.The Creator of the GAIA Hypothesis Supports Nuclear Power > 30.Genetically-Engineered Humans Have Already Been Born > 31.The Insurance Industry Wants to Genetically Test All Policy Holders > 32.Smoking Causes Problems Other Than Lung Cancer and Heart Disease > 33.Herds of Milk-Producing Cows Are Rife With Bovine Leukemia Virus > 34.Most Doctors Don’t Know the Radiation Level of CAT Scans > 35.Medication Errors Kill Thousands Each Year > 36.Prescription Drugs Kill Over 100,000 Annually > 37.Work Kills More People Than War > 38.The Suicide Rate Is Highest Among the Elderly > 39.For Low-Risk People, a Positive Result from an HIV Test Is Wrong Half the Time > 40.DNA Matching Is Not Infallible > 41.An FBI Expert Testified That Lie Detectors Are Worthless for Security Screening > 42.The Bayer Company Made Heroin > 43.LSD Has Been Used Successfully in Psychiatric Therapy > 44.Carl Sagan Was an Avid Pot-Smoker > 45.One of the Heroes of Black Hawk Down Is a Convicted Child Molester > 46.The Auto Industry Says That SUV Drivers Are Selfish and Insecure > 47.The Word “Squaw” Is Not a Derisive Term for the Vagina > 48.You Can Mail Letters for Little or No Cost > 49.Advertisers’ Influence on the News Media Is Widespread > 50.The World’s Museums Contain Innumerable Fakes ---
**Author:** ![IAmNotSpartacus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@IAmNotSpartacus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmNotSpartacus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/2 "2009-08-02T15:54:31Z")
Boy, you don’t ask for much do you? ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/3 "2009-08-02T16:03:55Z")
> [@IAmNotSpartacus](#): > > Boy, you don’t ask for much do you? I’m not looking for anyone to take the whole thing on, I’m really just interested in the ones that are demonstrably false or highly questionable. In scanning the list it appears that that the large majority are true, or could be true, in some form or fashion. Things like “The Auschwitz Tattoo Was Originally an IBM Code Number” is one thing I have a little trouble swallowing, and also “For Low-Risk People, a Positive Result from an HIV Test Is Wrong Half the Time” seems a pretty high false positive. ---
**Author:** ![SSG\_Schwartz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/4 "2009-08-02T16:14:33Z")
_38.The Suicide Rate Is Highest Among the Elderly_ I will take this one on. Actual suicides are highest among teens and young adults due to the fact that this age group is more emotional and impulsive. Of course, short of a note, many accidents could be ruled as suicide. The trouble with this list is that a lot of the statements are not provable one way or the other. Exactly how do you almost start World War III, and what would World War III even be? Or how does the US plan to provoke terroristic attacks? By being in Iraq and Afghanistan? SSG Schwartz ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/5 "2009-08-02T16:16:44Z")
On the HIV thing. Suppose the test is 99% accurate. 99% of the time if you have HIV, you’ll test postive and 1% of the time you’ll test negative. 99% of the time if you don’t have HIV you’ll test negative and 1% of the time you’ll test positive. It’s easy to see that in a statistical universe where HIV is uncommon you’ll get a lot more false positives than true positives. Say, if you test 10,000 people and of those people 100 actually have HIV. 9900 are HIV negative, the test is 99% accurate, so you get 9801 negative results from them, and 99 postive results. 100 are HIV positive, so you get 99 postive results and 1 negative result. So in this universe, half the people who test positive are actually negative, even though the test is 99% accurate. ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/6 "2009-08-02T16:19:26Z")
> [@](#): > > 9.Two Atomic Bombs Were Dropped on North Carolina True, but misleading. [They didn’t detonate due to safety mechanisms.](http://www.ibiblio.org/bomb/) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/7 "2009-08-02T16:19:31Z")
No, the highest suicide rate is the age group between 75 and 84: > **[Suicide Statistics at Suicide.org! Suicide Statistics, Suicide Statistics,...](http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html)** > > Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide Statistics. Suicide... I’ve read the book and mostly it’s pretty accurate. Is there any particular claim that you’re saying isn’t true? ---
**Author:** ![velaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ce7236/32.png) [@velaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velaro)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/8 "2009-08-02T16:20:11Z")
Well, some of them are sufficiently vague or untestable. For instance: The HIV test thing: just look up the probability that the test will show an incorrect result, given a certain HIV status. If an individual’s probability to be HIV positive is equal to this probability (prior to taking the test), and the test then shows positive, then the probability of the positive being false is one half. Carl Sagan is an avid pot smoker: we just need to define the word avid appropriately Most scientists don’t read all the articles: does that include cases where they only read parts of it? World War one almost started in 1995: “almost” can be stretched quite a bit. I guess we’d need the full explanations from the book to be able to evaluate the claims. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/9 "2009-08-02T16:25:57Z")
O.K., you asked specifically about the Auschwitz tattoo being an IBM number. Try this: Google on “Auschwitz,” “tattoo,” and “IBM.” You’ll find a lot of pages talking about it. You know, astro, you ask a lot of questions, and you don’t seem to do any Googling to find the answers yourself very much. You know, you can learn to be a good researcher yourself if you’d just try. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/10 "2009-08-02T16:26:50Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > No, the highest suicide rate is the age group between 75 and 84: > > [Suicide Statistics at Suicide.org! Suicide Statistics, Suicide Statistics, Suicide Statistics, Suicide Statistics, Suicide Statistics!](http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html) > > I’ve read the book and mostly it’s pretty accurate. Is there any particular claim that you’re saying isn’t true? Well this one “The Virginia Colonists Practiced Cannibalism” is an eyebrow raiser. “Practiced” means (to me) that it was a somewhat planned or organized activity. I know there was some cannibalism in early American failed colonies but I always thought it was from dying people crazed with hunger with no forethought involved. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/11 "2009-08-02T16:28:16Z")
Furthermore, why don’t you read the book? Do you think that your time is too important to read a book? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/12 "2009-08-02T16:32:15Z")
Here’s the page that you would have found if you’d Googled on “Virginia,” “colonists,” “practiced,” and “cannibalism” > **[The Virginia Colonists Practiced Cannibalism](http://50thingstonotknow.blogspot.com/2006/12/virginia-colonists-practiced.html)** > > During the harsh winter of 1609-1610, British subjects in the famous colony of Jamestown, Virginia, ate their dead and their shit. This fact... Really, you can answer most of your questions much faster by Googling on them rather than asking them on the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/13 "2009-08-02T16:35:58Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > O.K., you asked specifically about the Auschwitz tattoo being an IBM number. Try this: Google on “Auschwitz,” “tattoo,” and “IBM.” You’ll find a lot of pages talking about it. You know, astro, you ask a lot of questions, and you don’t seem to do any Googling to find the answers yourself very much. You know, you can learn to be a good researcher yourself if you’d just try. I suppose I could take it to pieces and after several hours or days could come back here with a big report on the specific details of what I’ve found, or I could open up an interesting list of claimed facts for general discussion by the SDMB on a slow Sunday afternoon before working it over to see what people think. Sometimes a conversation is just as interesting as a lecture. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/14 "2009-08-02T16:52:25Z")
I’ll take on as many as I can say _something_ intelligent about. > [@](#): > > 1.The Ten Commandments We Always See Aren’t the Ten Commandments This is meaningless. The Roman Catholics and Lutherans, the Jews, the Orthodox Catholics, and the Anglicans and other Christian denominations each have their own version of the Ten Commandments. The only difference is which rule goes with which commandment. [Wikipedia has a good overview.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments) > [@](#): > > 2.One of the Popes Wrote an Erotic Book So? Look up the Borgia Popes if you want tales to make each individual hair stand on end like quills on the fretful porpentine. Let’s summarize by saying that during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the office of the Pope was _highly_ political in a culture accustomed to solving political matters using poisons, swords, and siege weapons. > [@](#): > > 3.The CIA Commits Over 100,000 Serious Crimes Each Year First: _How the hell could anyone outside the CIA know this?_ Second: Crimes according to whose laws? > [@](#): > > 9.Two Atomic Bombs Were Dropped on North Carolina It was an accident. [The plane carrying them crashed and the bombs fell out.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash) > [@](#): > > 11.The Korean War Never Ended This is wrong in terms of most real-world politics and only correct in the stupid, nit-picky way some trivia answers are. There was never a formal peace treaty signed, only a cease-fire, so, by some measures, the war still has not ended. Nobody has violated the cease-fire, though, so the war is over. > [@](#): > > 22.Juries Are Allowed to Judge the Law, Not Just the Facts This sounds like jury nullification to me. Mentioning it in a court will likely make everyone pretty damned mad at you, because it causes a mistrial (AFAIK). > [@](#): > > 23.The Police Aren’t Legally Obligated to Protect You Rephrase this: “The police have no obligation to individually protect every single person in their jurisdiction.” It’s really obvious when you say it that way: There aren’t enough police in the world. See _[Castle Rock v. Gonzales](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Rock_v._Gonzales)_ for a specific case. > [@](#): > > 26.The Age of Consent in Most of the US Is Not Eighteen “Age of consent” for what? Sex? If so, this is true: Sixteen is more common, assuming heterosexual sex. > [@](#): > > 29.The Creator of the GAIA Hypothesis Supports Nuclear Power Yes. His name is James Lovelock. > [@](#): > > 32.Smoking Causes Problems Other Than Lung Cancer and Heart Disease But those are the major problems likely to kill you, so they’re the ones everyone cares about. Life is funny like that. > [@](#): > > 34.Most Doctors Don’t Know the Radiation Level of CAT Scans So? Most doctors wouldn’t know how to fix a CAT scan machine, either. That isn’t their job. > [@](#): > > 37.Work Kills More People Than War More people work than fight. This is news? > [@](#): > > 42.The Bayer Company Made Heroin One the list-maker _ **undersold** _! ‘Heroin’ was Bayer’s _trade name_ for the drug, which has passed into the public domain. The name came about because it was supposed to be a morphine alternative that was ‘heroically’ free from morphine’s addictive potential. Addiction-wise, we didn’t know our ass from our endorphins in the late 19th Century. > [@](#): > > 47.The Word “Squaw” Is Not a Derisive Term for the Vagina Indeed this is true. [Here’s Cecil’s column on the matter.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2542/is-squaw-an-obscene-insult) > [@](#): > > 48.You Can Mail Letters for Little or No Cost It’s what, 39 cents now? ‘No-cost’ mailing would either be COD or email. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/15 "2009-08-02T16:59:38Z")
> [@astro](#): > > There is a book called "[50 things you are not supposed to know"](http://www.amazon.com/Things-Youre-Not-Supposed-Know/dp/0971394288) which I have not read but supposed contains [these claims.](http://www.traveltowork.net/2009/02/50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know/) Just in relying on general knowledge a fair portion are true, but are they ALL true? Which ones are false? #28 is interesting, about Pasteur. I’d like to see what the author is claiming there. The Pasteur legend has taken a bit of a bruising in recent years with revelations about his self-promotion and less than equitable sharing of credit wth with fellow scientists. This is largely through the efforts on one academic (Geison), who has thoroughly examined Pasteur’s notebooks. It reads like typical legend ankle-biting tbh - the guy may be the father of microbiology and immunology, and discovered chirality, but did you know he was a bit of a cunt? WGAF, really? In any case, Pasteur’s principle theories have been shown to be correct - which experiments is he alledged to have suppressed? The best known allegation of scientific impropriety on Pasteur’s behalf is to do with his preparation of the anthrax vaccine (discussed on his [wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur), where he claimed one method whilst secretly using a competitor’s, possible for commercial reasons). That’s not the same thing at all as suppressing an experiment. Thanks for posting the list in any case **Astro** - some interesting factoids. The one about the bombs falling on NC is a good one that I’d not heard of. ---
**Author:** ![MeDrewNotYou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@MeDrewNotYou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeDrewNotYou)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/16 "2009-08-02T17:01:59Z")
I have nothing substantive to add. But am I the only one who thought of the scene in _History of the World: Part One_ where the empress is picking out escorts from the legion? “Yes, no, no, no, no, no, no yes…” ---
**Author:** ![HorseloverFat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8e8cbc/32.png) [@HorseloverFat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HorseloverFat)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/17 "2009-08-02T17:03:34Z")
Here you go, first link on google for this too [http://50thingstonotknow.blogspot.com/](http://50thingstonotknow.blogspot.com/) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/18 "2009-08-02T17:32:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Most scientists don’t read all the articles: does that include cases where they only read parts of it? Which is a very important distinction, since many of the most-cited articles are hundreds of pages long, and it’s quite reasonable that a scientist might only need information from two or three pages of that. Or you might cite a paper written by a colleague, where you only skimmed through the paper itself, but got most of the paper’s content from seminars or discussions over lunch. A lot of these statements are misleading at best when condensed into a one-liner, but might make sense given a page or three of elaboration. Really, to fact-check them, we’d need the entire book, not just the table of contents. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/19 "2009-08-02T17:38:40Z")
Some of these definitely seem :dubious: > [@](#): > > 1. The CIA Commits Over 100,000 Serious Crimes Each Year I don’t think the CIA does 100,000 things of any sort in one year’s time. > [@](#): > > 1. After 9/11, the Defense Department Wanted to Poison Afghanistan’s Food Supply Several aid groups predicted in 2001 that the war would kill hundreds of thousands of people via famine, but that never happened, and I’ve certainly never seen actual policy toward that end. > [@](#): > > 1. Kent State Wasn’t the Only ? or Even the First ? Massacre of College Students During the Vietnam Era Wouldn’t other massacres have been similarly huge news? > [@](#): > > 1. The Supreme Court Has Ruled That You’re Allowed to Ingest Any Drug, Especially If You’re an Addict There is a S.Ct. decision ruling that the government cannot criminalize simply “being an addict.” > [@](#): > > 1. Work Kills More People Than War Isn’t this a good thing? > [@](#): > > 1. You Can Mail Letters for Little or No Cost 44 cents, right? Who doesn’t know this? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2009, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065/20 "2009-08-02T17:38:41Z")
A lot of these seems to be written in a provacative or vague way designed to make you think one way when in fact the real story was much more mundane. For example the nuclear bomb headline was written to make one think they were purposefully dropped as in Hiroshima, but a more accurate (and boring) headline would be “Plane carrying nuclear bombs crashes” Ok so it wouldn’t be THAT boring, but still less vague and interesting than the original headline > [@](#): > > 5.After 9/11, the Defense Department Wanted to Poison Afghanistan’s Food Supply > 7.The US Is Planning to Provoke Terrorist Attacks > 8.The US and Soviet Union Considered Detonating Nuclear Bombs on the Moon > 10.World War III Almost Started in 1995 “Wanted”, “planning”, “considered”, and “almost” are words you can throw in any statement and make it seem like it was really going to happen. > [@](#): > > 16.Adolph Hitler’s Blood Relatives Are Alive and Well in New York State Didn’t they change their names? I recall a story I read about Hitler’s relatives a few years ago > [@](#): > > 24.The Government Can Take Your House and Land, Then Sell Them to Private Corporations Eminent Domain. [Kelo vs. The City of New London](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelo_v._City_of_New_London) > [@](#): > > 30.Genetically-Engineered Humans Have Already Been Born Haven’t doctors been able to eliminate certain illnesses in the womb for a while? > [@](#): > > 41.An FBI Expert Testified That Lie Detectors Are Worthless for Security Screening Testified, yes. Doesn’t mean its the official position or that its true [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/re-50-things-you-are-not-supposed-to-know-has-anyone-fact-checked-these-claims/505065.md?page=2)