# When good adults believe bad science (share your stories) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 30, 2005, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738 "2005-12-30T16:52:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/281 "2006-01-09T04:22:47Z")
> [@deevee](#): > > I once had a girlfriend who would crank up the thermostat all the way on a cold day then move it back when the room reached the desired temp. Same with preheating an oven, crank it up to 500 to make it heat up faster. On a related note a few years ago our digital thermostat was not working in that it didn’t get the furnace to turn on. If the room temperature was 65, let’s say, I turned it up to 66 or 67 and nothing happened. So I called a repairman and he came and turned it up to about 90 and the furnace kicked in and has worked ever since. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been there. BTW, I have to say I’ve enjoyed reading this thread as much as anything I’ve read on the web in a long time. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/282 "2006-01-09T07:54:26Z")
> [@Plan B](#): > > If the room temperature was 65, let’s say, I turned it up to 66 or 67 and nothing happened. So I called a repairman and he came and turned it up to about 90 and the furnace kicked in and has worked ever since. The real problem is that the thermostat isn’t calibrated correctly and the repairman was lazy and/or stupid. My thermostat does that too; I have to turn it about 5 or 10 degrees higher than the temperature I want, and sometimes fiddle with the heater/AC switch. On top of that, the dial has a tendency to turn itself down at the slightest vibration, such as walking by. I have to jam a piece of paper in there to keep it in place. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/283 "2006-01-09T09:48:25Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > No, I’m serious. How do you know they (the laws of physical science) would still operate if not one person had the slightest shred of belief in any of it? > > I don’t think you’ve conducted this experiment, therefore I contend you have no right to say that. I’m not saying conclusively that they wouldn’t, but I’m saying you have no right to say conclusively that they would. Science isn’t about _what I have the right to say_, it’s about _what can be reliably and repeatably observed_; since lack of ‘belief’ would necessitate the lack of an observer, it wouldn’t even be science. Fine, I ‘don’t have the right’ to say that a tree makes a noise falling in the forest when nobody is watching (and let’s be honest, your argument is nothing more than a tired rehash of that problem), but you ‘don’t have the right’ to assume that anything I can’t disprove is potentially true. If you want to assert (and it seems you do) that the operation of the physical universe is not constant, but rather, dependent on the beliefs of the observer, then the burden of proof is upon you; advance your argument beyond bald assertion by providing some evidence that it is actually the case. The ball is in (and indeed has _not yet left_) your court. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/284 "2006-01-09T10:22:35Z")
I stopped believing in gravity, once, in 1960, for 20 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/285 "2006-01-09T10:49:59Z")
As long as we’re rehashing grand old SDMB jokes, I might as well mention that a book called “The Mare’s Nest” - all about the V-weapons from WWII - cited some War Office correspondence discussing an intercepted German secret message about an experimental weapon. {interrupts flow of sub-clauses to start a new sentence} The German message mentioned the development of a new devastating weapon with which “we ourselves cannot be attacked”, and the possibility that this might mean a large rocket missile was listed (in the War Office memo) at the end of a list of alternatives _after_ “death rays” and “engine-stopping rays”. That is, while strategic rocket missiles were considered a possibility, they were deemed less likely than… a 1920s-style “Death Ray”. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/286 "2006-01-09T15:06:55Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > I stopped believing in gravity, once, in 1960, for 20 minutes. Since you’re posting now I’ll assume you weren’t on top of a building at the time? ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/287 "2006-01-09T17:46:34Z")
> [@photopat](#): > > Since you’re posting now I’ll assume you weren’t on top of a building at the time? Actually, I was in Mexico, and I believe I may have been underwater at the time. My memory of the occasion is understandably a little hazy; that was a tough time in my life. ---
**Author:** ![DiggitCamara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@DiggitCamara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiggitCamara)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/288 "2006-01-09T17:59:47Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Actually, doctors are genuinely puzzled by how some people can be missing massive amounts brain tissue and still function normally by all accounts. My comment was rather meant to illustrate the belief that all people are using only 10% of their brain capacity and could, if they only knew how, have all kind of mystical mental powers when they exploited said 90% surplus. As far as I know, in the cases you mention what is really illustrated is the incredible redundancy organic systems actually have. ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/289 "2006-01-09T18:21:36Z")
> [@fetus](#): > > I stopped believing in gravity, once, in 1960, for 20 minutes. The best part was that when you came back, you brought pie. ---
**Author:** ![pizzabrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e9c0ed/32.png) [@pizzabrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pizzabrat)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/290 "2006-01-09T18:31:33Z")
> [@ryobserver](#): > > One awkward day in second grade, I was the only one in class, including the teacher, who knew there were no tigers in Africa. …nobody? Don’t look at me, I’m at work and it’s not so easy for me to covertly search for the link… ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/291 "2006-01-09T18:33:42Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > The best part was that when you came back, you brought pie. Juana??? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/292 "2006-01-09T20:36:46Z")
One of my favorite “weird science” anecdotes comes from an argument my mother had with a neighbor (who was, as an aside, a grade school teacher). My mother was trying to tell her that to weatherproof a window, you needed to cover the whole window. The neighbor countered that you didn’t need to worry about gaps at the bottom of a window, because hot air rises. An unfunny example of the ill-informed: When my son was first diagnosed with diabetes, my brother’s girlfriend, a nurse of many years, began telling us about all the dietary restrictions he would face. Essentially we would have to make everything, including pastas and such, from scratch, and he could only eat healthy things like fresh fruits. This is, of course, horribly wrong and unnecessarily traumatic to parents of a three year old just learning about diabetes. She later laid on us the huge risk of cancer from Nutra Sweet products. Fortunately, I had some inkling already that this one was false, and we had the history of knowing that she was prone to crazy bullshit. It is just frightening to have a nurse so willfully spread health-related misinformation. **Re: Dowsing and pendulums:** Using the pendulum to demonstrate the links between thought and imperceptible muscle movement is referred to as the [Chevreul pendulum](http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1518697l) experiment. It is a great way to show people that they are capable of influencing their body to respond in particular ways even if they are not trying to or are not aware of doing so. Really, **Knowed Out** , it doesn’t matter how much you were not aware of making the rods cross. Your body will still be influenced by your expectations. Other than trying it in different areas where you don’t know where the water is, you might try exactly what you did again, only hold the hanger with some sort of tool that would prevent your hands from moving the ends of the wire together. For example, you might use a pair of pliers in one hand to hold the rod in such a way that you can hold the wire, but cannot move the ends of the wire yourself. See if they cross when you walk over the water then. > [@Lumpy](#): > > Actually, doctors are genuinely puzzled by how some people can be missing massive amounts brain tissue and still function normally by all accounts. I’m very curious to hear which doctors, which brain tissue, and what is “massive.” You may not have meant it this way, but your response might be interpreted to mean that there was some truth to the 10% of the brain thing, and that one could lose a massive portion of the 90% we don’t use. The truth is that the various portions of the brain are highly specialized, so losing a portion of the brain will affect a portion of your functioning. The brain does have some redundancies and ability to recover after some traumas, but I cannot conceive of how what I consider to be massive amounts of brain tissue could be missing and have “normal” functioning. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/293 "2006-01-09T20:55:22Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > Saying that schoolkids shouldn’t be taught the traditional model of electron structure is silly. It’s a perfectly adequate model for most people to use - if it’s “lying to children” then so is teaching Newtonian physics. Did I say that? No. But an awful lot of people never make it to the kind of science class where you learn a more complex truth. I’d have appreciated it terribly if there was more of a “this is only a _simplified_ drawing” sort of thing back when I first learned it, because when I got to high school chemistry with the p’s and the s’s and the spin and all, it took me and everybody I knew at least a couple weeks to figure out what we were even _talking_ about - it was obvious to the teacher but definately not to us. Meanwhile, when I learned physics it was always obvious that this and that and the other thing were only true for certain circumstances. It doesn’t strike anybody as strange that my college educated parents both think _women have one less rib_?! I mean, can’t you just feel your sides? ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/294 "2006-01-09T21:00:30Z")
> [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > an argument my mother had with a neighbor (who was, as an aside, a grade school teacher) Not scientific, but I just remembered this: when I was in 2nd grade or so, I had an argument with a teacher (at a friend’s house–she must’ve been the friend’s teacher, or the friend’s parents’ friend) over the pronunciation of my name. My name is fairly common and universally recognizable (one Baseball Hall of Famer who’s a household name has it) and uses standard spelling and pronunciation. But this teacher used some weird, vowel-exaggerated pronunciation of my name and _insisted_ that it was the correct pronunciation. I told her that no, it was my name, and I definitely knew how to pronounce it, and furthermore my pronunciation was the normal one. She didn’t have any of it. She was a _teacher!_ She _knew_ how to pronunce names. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2006, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/295 "2006-01-09T22:22:17Z")
Honey, I was once taught by a sixth grade geography teacher that Central America was a country. All one country. I called bullshit on it and got sent to detention. I brought in a map the next day, he said all the little lines in Central America were just states. ---
**Author:** ![zenith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zenith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zenith)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/296 "2006-01-10T20:57:53Z")
1. _Calories Don’t Count. It’s the fats(or in the case of Atkins, Protein Power, etc. proponents, carbs) that make you fat._ Eat a loaf of bread instead of a steak, or a pound of bacon instead of 2 slices of toast, depending on one’s beliefs. 2. _All of the vitamins in potatoes, fruits with an edible peel, etc are in the skin._ . Why eat the rest ,then? I always suspected that my Dad, who was overwhelmed by all the work involved in raising 5 small kids, didn’t really believe that but used it as a “scientific” proof that he didn’t have to peel things for us. We never heard that one when Mom was alive and stopped hearing it after he remarried. 3. _Kill That Mouse While He’s Still Little Or He’ll Grow Into a Rat_ . Several otherwise above-average-intelligent black co-workers would say that when the field mice tried wintering-over in the chemical plant break room. Apparently it was quite the ghetto legend. In all fairness to my co-workers, one day I killed a mouse in my home and then turned to my then wife and said , “I hope it wasn’t here long enough to lay eggs”. It took me all of a minute to figure out why she was laughing so hard. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/297 "2006-01-10T20:59:31Z")
Just before new years eve, the blonde airhead weatherperson on TV (in the tiny northern European country where I live) let us know that a leap second was to be added onto the end of the year, and that the reason for this is that the earth’s rotation slows by one second every year\*. That one really made me want to go down to her office and slap her around. \*yes, folks, the earth’s rotation does slow down due to tidal effects, but the rate is about 2.3 milliseconds per century, and has bloody well nothing to do with the leap second. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/298 "2006-01-10T21:07:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by Lumpy > Actually, doctors are genuinely puzzled by how some people can be missing massive amounts brain tissue and still function normally by all accounts. > > I’m very curious to hear which doctors, which brain tissue, and what is “massive.” > > You may not have meant it this way, but your response might be interpreted to mean that there was some truth to the 10% of the brain thing, and that one could lose a massive portion of the 90% we don’t use. The truth is that the various portions of the brain are highly specialized, so losing a portion of the brain will affect a portion of your functioning. The brain does have some redundancies and ability to recover after some traumas, but I cannot conceive of how what I consider to be massive amounts of brain tissue could be missing and have “normal” functioning. I haven’t got a cite, but I’ve read of more than one such case in respectable science journals. There have apparently been cases in which truly massive amounts of cerebral tissue is missing, and the braincase is largely filled with fluid, yet the person seems to be functioning normally.(“Massive” meansexactly what you think it does – hefty percentages of brain volume. Tens of percentages) It’s not as if they lost brain tissue due to some injury (in such cases that I’ve heard of, there was always some loss of function), but that the tissue hadn’t been there to begin with. At best, it seems that the body repartitioned what was there in order to use it. This doesn’t really support the “you’re only using 10% of your brain”, though. The person with the whole brain is apparently using it all, and suffers if you take away part. The person with less brain tissue is also using it all, but apparently more efficiently, somehow. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/299 "2006-01-10T21:14:10Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > It doesn’t strike anybody as strange that my college educated parents both think _women have one less rib_?! I mean, can’t you just feel your sides? Not if you’ve got enough fat that you can’t count your ribs. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/300 "2006-01-10T21:17:14Z")
> [@Peak Banana](#): > > the reason for this is that the earth’s rotation slows by one second every year\*. OK, you got me. Why do we have the leap second? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738.md?page=16)