# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/101 "2006-01-01T00:32:21Z")
> [@NoPretentiousCodename](#): > > A coworker insisted once that helium was a very explosive gas. I bet he saw a hydrogen demonstration in high school chem class (like taking a match to a balloon filled with hydrogen) and just confused it with helium. I think the most unfortunate victim of this misconception is Fred Grandy (who played “Gopher” on _The Love Boat_.) His hands got terribly burned at a party, and the official story was that the cause of his injuries was an accident with a cigarette and a bundle of helium balloons. Yes, that’s right. The single biggest risk of burn injuries for partying Hollywood types in the early eighties was helium balloons. Jesus, I was eleven or twelve, and I knew better. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/102 "2006-01-01T02:01:49Z")
> [@Dag Otto](#): > > I was with a friend at Dante’s View, overlooking Death Valley. He turned to me and said “I wonder where it drains to?”. > > In his defense, he’s an engineer and immediately knew it was stupid question. He apparently hadn’t heard of the [Basin and Range province.](http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/docs/parks/province/basinrange.html) I happen to live in the southwestmost basin of that region. It is characterised by north-south mountain ranges separated by basins (sinks) and all of the drainage is to the interior of the sinks. Death Valley is a part of that region. If residents of the Antelope Valley just to the south of us want to claim the honor of being the southwesternmost, I won’t argue strenuously but I think they are really part of the Mojave Desert. {quote]The Basin and Range province’s dynamic fault history has profoundly affected the region’s water drainage system. Most precipitation in the Great Basin falls in the form of snow that melts in the spring. Rain that reaches the ground, or snow that melts, quickly evaporates in the dry desert environment. Some of the water that does not evaporate sinks into the ground to become ground water. The remaining water flows into streams and collects in short-lived lakes called playas on the valley floor and eventually evaporates. Any water that falls as rain or snow into this region does not escape out of it; not one of the streams that originate within this basin ever find an outlet to the ocean. The extent of internal drainage, the area in which surface water cannot reach the ocean, defines the geographic region we call the Great Basin. [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/103 "2006-01-01T03:34:12Z")
A former coworker, Erin, who is still one of the dumbest people I’ve ever met, once shared with us this lovely “fact”: \*\*black people don’t need to wash their hair. When it’s dirty, it falls out and is replaced by new, clean, hair. \*\* 😕 This only arose because a picture of a black man on a shampoo bottle baffled her. I can only imagine other ways she could have shared her benighted beliefs with us had we been working in other aisles of the store… ---
**Author:** ![Tevildo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/104 "2006-01-01T03:47:44Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > black people don’t need to wash their hair. When it’s dirty, it falls out and is replaced by new, clean, hair. Well, that is in fact true for everyone. 🙂 However, (a) it takes several very unpleasant weeks for your hair to reach a stable state, and (b) things tend to start living in it. Nobody _needs_ to wash their hair, but I agree that it’s still a good idea. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/105 "2006-01-01T04:22:23Z")
> [@Tevildo](#): > > Well, that is in fact true for everyone. 🙂 However, (a) it takes several very unpleasant weeks for your hair to reach a stable state, and (b) things tend to start living in it. Your hair falls out, but not because it’s dirty! ---
**Author:** ![MrFantsyPants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MrFantsyPants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFantsyPants)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/106 "2006-01-01T04:31:59Z")
A friend of mine (a grade four science teacher, in fact) overheard me telling his daughter that the yellow dandelion flowers would soon turn into those fluffy seed heads. “Don’t tell her lies” he said. “Those are two different types of plant, honey”. It took me a few minutes to convince him otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Phedre\_no\_Delaunay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/839c29/32.png) [@Phedre\_no\_Delaunay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phedre_no_Delaunay)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/107 "2006-01-01T19:11:30Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > That water drains in the opposite direction (counter-clockwise) in the southern hemisphere. I heard a variation of this from a _meteorologist_! He claimed that toilets in Australia swirl in the opposite direction from American toilets. I corrected him, citing the fact that I had _lived_ in Australia and observed the toilets first hand while he had never been there. Toilets in Australia don’t swirl like our toilets at all. They sort of flush straight down. The bowls aren’t all full of water like ours either\*. (At least the ones I saw in private homes I visited and the public ones I made use of.) He still didn’t believe me! \*When my husband first came to the US he didn’t use the toilets at the airport because they were all full of water and he thought they were all out of order. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/108 "2006-01-01T21:38:04Z")
> [@Phèdre nó Delaunay](#): > > They sort of flush straight down. That’s because Australia is located down under, and the local gravity there counteracts the coriolis effect. This is also why you have holes in your ozone layer. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2006, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/109 "2006-01-01T22:30:55Z")
> [@Sean Factotum](#): > > During a conversation with my carpool buddy about the ID/Evolution court decision, he said, “And how do you know that carbon dating isn’t just something someone made up to support their side of the argument?” You would not believe the number of times I’ve heard this too… The most common one I hear, which of course I hear far too often on this Board even, is that “Most electricity in the US is generated by oil”. I once threatened to go to the top of a tall tower with a rifle the next time someone said it. When I used to go into classrooms in schools for “energy” presentations, it was always appalling how little Junior High and High School “science” teachers knew about energy, power, thermodynamics, etc. outside of their textbooks. It was embarassing the number of times a hand would go up and a child would say “But Miss Persson…our teacher said (something not factual)”, and I had to correct what the teacher had told them while said teacher was standing right there. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/110 "2006-01-02T05:09:54Z")
Not exactly bad science, but last week I was talking with my wife about buying talcum powder. The discussion centered on what additives are put in (corn starch, baking soda, etc.) and I discovered that my wife had no idea that there is a mineral called “talc”, commonly sold in powdered form. She thought it was just a generic name for body powder. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/111 "2006-01-02T12:04:52Z")
My sister is an alternative medicine type. She has convinced herself that she had hypoglycemia, wheat and milk allergies, mercury filling poisoning, environmental illness, and zinc deficiency. I was eating with her one time and she brought out this little device that had an LED on it. She waved it around her food in a circle then did the same on top of her head. She said that she was “aligning the molecules”. ---
**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 2, 2006, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/112 "2006-01-02T13:20:06Z")
Back in grammar school, we had a Health teacher who claimed that: 1.) mosquitos give you malaria by laying eggs in your bloodstream 2.) Robins are “red-breasted” because their skin is s thin you can see the blood through it. 3.) Airplanes fly by “floatring on a cushion of air”.(None of this Bernoulli or “equal transit time” or “angle of attack” nonsense – remove all controversy and keep it simple). This is what taught me not to trust adults, and to check all my facts. If even I knew better than her, who knew what other things they were trying to fob off on me? ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/113 "2006-01-02T13:52:49Z")
> [@](#): > > A couple years ago I heard someone talking about a recent volcano eruption, and she blamed it on humans screwing up the enviroment. Humans aren’t screwing up the enviroment. It’s all the endangered animals. 🙂 Anywhooo, back to the fun of it all: I have issues with my SIL for many things, but the corker of her telling me during a heated argument about gay people that People Chose to be Gay…just made my mouth hang there. Ummmm. Yeah. Oh, and she also beleives that we are descended from Adam and Eve and the earth is only 6,000. years old. …and she teaches kids. I’ve decided to relish these moments of utter self enforced ingorance with her and view them as Pure Entertainment rather than a Plot To Cause Me A Stroke. ---
**Author:** ![Stillwell\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@Stillwell\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stillwell_Angel)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/114 "2006-01-02T13:53:04Z")
> [@Phèdre nó Delaunay](#): > > I heard a variation of this from a _meteorologist_! He claimed that toilets in Australia swirl in the opposite direction from American toilets. People, please. Bart Simpson tackled this subject years ago. Hilarity ensued. [Cite](http://www.tv.com/simpsons/bart-vs.-australia/episode/1404/summary.html) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/115 "2006-01-02T14:53:51Z")
I’ve got a very intelligent friend who invited me over for brunch yesterday evening. As I was helping him cook, he mentioned off-hand to me how much he loathes microwaves. I asked him why, of course, and he started telling me about everything he’d learned about water vibrations, and how he doesn’t trust anything that’s going to change the water’s vibrations that much. He then described a book he’d read by some Japanese “scientist” who took pictures of ice crystals from polluted wells and clean wells and discovered that: 1. The polluted-well crystals weren’t as pretty. 2. If Buddhist monks prayed over the water from the polluted wells, the crystals turned all pretty. 3. If he taped a note that read, “I love you” to a container of dirty water, it would form pretty crystals. Similarly, a note that said, “You’re ugly!” taped to a container of clean water would result in unattractive crystals. I was really wishing I could do the single-raised-eyebrow thing right about now. He picked up on my skepticism (probably because I said, “You know, the guy could be lying or delusional”) and reassured me that the “scientist” had been a nonbeliever at first, too, and that this lent him credence. I pointed out that if the dude was a liar, his claims about being a nonbeliever could also be lies. But by then, the Hoppin John was done, and I figured that I ought to let the conversation drop. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/116 "2006-01-02T16:52:48Z")
I once had a boss who insisted that if you let garbage sit around long enough, it would spontaneously turn into maggots. No biology involved. When I was explaining a really kewl scene from The Fly, and how a woman gave birth to a giant maggot she asked “So what did they do, shove old garbage up her butt?” ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/117 "2006-01-02T17:25:00Z")
> [@MrFantsyPants](#): > > A friend of mine (a grade four science teacher, in fact) overheard me telling his daughter that the yellow dandelion flowers would soon turn into those fluffy seed heads. “Don’t tell her lies” he said. “Those are two different types of plant, honey”. It took me a few minutes to convince him otherwise. But how come you never see a dandelion in transition? I only see yellow flowers or fluffy seed heads. I never see a dandelion in the middle of changing from one form to another! It is quite mysterious, you must admit. I had an otherwise intelligent friend who totally believed in astrology and paid good money for charts and stuff. ---
**Author:** ![BluePitbull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@BluePitbull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BluePitbull)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/118 "2006-01-02T17:29:04Z")
I have heard: Someone call a chimpanzee and a kinkajou a monkey Someone believes that giraffes have long necks due to stretching their necks It is impossible for two brown eye parents to have a blue eye child Early Christians put Jesus birthay on the 25th of December so that they can look like they are celebrating pagans holidays and avoid persecution. ---
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/119 "2006-01-02T18:59:10Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > Not exactly bad science, but last week I was talking with my wife about buying talcum powder. The discussion centered on what additives are put in (corn starch, baking soda, etc.) and I discovered that my wife had no idea that there is a mineral called “talc”, commonly sold in powdered form. She thought it was just a generic name for body powder. Until just now, so did I. > [@BluePitBull](#): > > Early Christians put Jesus birthay on the 25th of December so that they can look like they are celebrating pagans holidays and avoid persecution. Apart from the “avoiding persecution” bit (Christians might have been powerful or even dominant by the time they set the date of Christmas), that seems like a good summary of the prevailing wisdom. So why do you think it was placed on the 25th of December, then? And as for the chimp / kinkajou = monkey thing, “monkey” might have a precise biological meaning, but it’s also used to describe all kinds of primates and things that look like primates. ---
**Author:** ![Tomcat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Tomcat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tomcat)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/120 "2006-01-02T19:05:33Z")
I have a college degree in Aviation Technology, was a CFI, and took physics, meteorology, etc. From my schooling I can tell you that planes fly because of Bernoulli’s principle. I can even show you it working by blowing over the top of a piece of ripped newspaper. See? It floats up because of the faster air over the top. Newton’s in there somewhere, but that wing curvature is where it is AT, my friend. My wife is into Homeopathy…unfortunately they combine natureapathy(sp?) (using natural products) with Homeopathy here, so trying to draw a difference between peppermint tea being good for stomach aches and some little, white, sugar ball of naxapraxfraxataxacodonament being good for brain cancer fails cuz they were both recommended by the same ‘doctor’. That 24-hour flu versus influenza is a yearly ritual. Dowsers are hired by the Czech Government to locate good spots for digging wells. Here’s one I want tested: Breast inflamation/infections due to breastfeeding are cured here by smearing cottage cheese (tvaroh) all over the breast. I’ve had it reported by my wife that it works within a day. If true, it would be a great benefit to mom’s everywhere. But, I doubt they will get a scientific test for it anytime soon. So the next kid we have I get to hopefully watch her spread cheese over her boobies. -Tcat [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738.md?page=7)