# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![diku](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4af34b/32.png) [@diku](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/diku)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/121 "2006-01-02T19:14:39Z")
> [@Savannah](#): > > 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. You haven’t? I see them all the time. Middle of it will start to be the fluffy seeds, with the rest still yellow. Or shriveling yellow. I had my boss argue with me for a solid hour that Dalmation puppies ears stand up when they’re puppies. Like cat’s ears. Then they become floppy ears when they grow. Nevermind the fact that I have a dalmation puppy, with very floppy ears that have a tendency to get infected. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/122 "2006-01-02T19:34:14Z")
Hah. I’ve acquired the results of a survey of primary school teachers, asking them to state whether various statements about science are true or false. Some of them were deeply worrying - _“the earth is the centre of the solar system”_ and _“all rocks are heavy”_ each got a few teachers answering ‘true’. A few of them, however, catch a lot of people out…I went through the list with three friends, all of whom have science doctorates. All of them answered incorrectly to _“the phases of the moon are caused by the earth’s shadow”_. ---
**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, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/123 "2006-01-02T19:34:19Z")
> [@diku](#): > > You haven’t? I see them all the time. Middle of it will start to be the fluffy seeds, with the rest still yellow. Or shriveling yellow. Yep–it’s not a particularly rare thing. Next April or May, or whenever the fluffpods are just starting to appear, go to a dandelion field and take a close look at a bunch of them: you should see them in all the stages. **BluePitBull** , [Snopes says that early Christians DID put Jesus birthay on the 25th of December so that they can look like they are celebrating pagans holidays.](http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/jesus.asp) > [@Snopes](#): > > The idea of celebrating the Nativity on December 25 was first suggested early in the fourth century CE, a clever move on the part of Church fathers who wished to eclipse the December 25 festivities of a rival pagan religion, Mithraism, which threatened the existence of Christianity. It sounds as if by the time this occurred, Christians were not under serious threat of persecution; this was more a marketing move than anything else. Daniel ---
**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, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/124 "2006-01-02T19:35:33Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > All of them answered incorrectly to _“the phases of the moon are caused by the earth’s shadow”_. [sub]False, right?[/sub] Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/125 "2006-01-02T20:44:17Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > All of them answered incorrectly to _“the phases of the moon are caused by the earth’s shadow”_. Science degrees, you say? Well, **Hell’s bells** , that’s sad. Heh. ---
**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, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/126 "2006-01-02T22:05:04Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Yep–it’s not a particularly rare thing. Next April or May, or whenever the fluffpods are just starting to appear, go to a dandelion field and take a close look at a bunch of them: you should see them in all the stages. > > **BluePitBull** , [Snopes says that early Christians DID put Jesus birthay on the 25th of December so that they can look like they are celebrating pagans holidays.](http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/jesus.asp) > It sounds as if by the time this occurred, Christians were not under serious threat of persecution; this was more a marketing move than anything else. > > Daniel I am not denying that the Christians moved Jesus birthday to 25th of December but I know that the pope, in order to convert pagans, move it on that day. The person I was talking about, thought the reason was to escape persecution. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2006, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/127 "2006-01-02T22:37:59Z")
> [@Tomcat](#): > > …that wing curvature is where it is AT, my friend. But then a little kid walks up and asks why his model glider with a flat balsa wing seems to fly pretty well. ---
**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, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/128 "2006-01-02T23:01:25Z")
> [@BluePitbull](#): > > The person I was talking about, thought the reason was to escape persecution. Well, that seems to me to be a pretty niggling point. It was moved before church and state were intertwined; religious persecution of Christians on a huge scale had been happening within living memory; and one of the effects of the move would be to integrate Christians better into contemporary Roman traditions. I’d hardly call it bad science to believe that escaping persecution was part of the motive of the move. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/129 "2006-01-03T00:05:26Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > [sub]False, right?[/sub] > > Daniel The dark part of the moon (which isn’t very hard to see at least a little, even with common binoculars) is just the side that’s facing away from the sun. It’s in its own shadow, like your back when you face the sun. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/130 "2006-01-03T00:24:29Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > Science degrees, you say? Well, **Hell’s bells** , that’s sad. Heh. True - I then reminded them that it was their fault they opted for chemistry 😉 ---
**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 3, 2006, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/131 "2006-01-03T00:38:16Z")
> [@BluePitbull](#): > > I am not denying that the Christians moved Jesus birthday to 25th of December but I know that the pope, in order to convert pagans, move it on that day. It’d probably be a good idea to tell [Cecil](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_034b.html) of this. He, like us, will need a cite though. ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/132 "2006-01-03T02:00:49Z")
> [@diku](#): > > You haven’t? I see them all the time. Middle of it will start to be the fluffy seeds, with the rest still yellow. Or shriveling yellow. Okay, that’s my summer project. 🙂 I’m going to hunt the Transistional Dandelion. There should be plenty of examples in the yard and garden, alas. ---
**Author:** ![Tikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/133 "2006-01-03T02:26:46Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > 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”. I used to do electronic assembly and this sounds like the gadgets I helped build for some new agey company. They sent us a bagful of quartz crystals that looked like they had been just dug out of the earth, dirt and all and then were wrapped a bunch of times with a length of copper wire. I clipped the wires the proper length, inserted them in a little circuit board and added 9-volt batteries to them. There may have been an led light or two involved though I don’t remember exactly. My boss explained what these gimmicks were supposed to do and though I don’t remember that exactly either, I do remember that we both agreed it was a bunch of hooey. ---
**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 3, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/134 "2006-01-03T02:49:18Z")
It used to be thought that a snake wouldn’t crawl, or slither, over a horsehair rope. I suspect some still believe it. My dad told me that when he was young the story was that a horse couldn’t pull a man at the end of 100’ of rope. He and his twin brother tested it. They got an old hay rope well over 100’ long, put a collar on a horse and tied the rope to the hames. My uncle got down in a ditch and braced his feet. Dad told to horse to giddyup and the horse walked off bringing my uncle out of the ditch like he was on an elevator. ---
**Author:** ![Tikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5daacb/32.png) [@Tikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tikki)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/135 "2006-01-03T03:26:41Z")
My Dad, an otherwise erudite person and a guy whom I greatly love and respect, tried to get me to believe this all through this fall. “You can feel all that cold air flowing in when I open the blinds, can’t you?” says he. “Yes,” says I, “but that doesn’t mean the blinds are keeping all the cold air in between the blinds and window. It’s leaking between the slats and out the bottom all the time. You just don’t notice it because the electric floorboard heaters get a chance to heat it up before it gets to you.” “No, I’m keeping the place warmer by keeping the blinds closed.” “No, you have the illusion of keeping the place warmer by keeping the blinds closed, Dad. If they were curtains, then I might concede that you are keeping the place warmer because curtains present a more solid, though not impermeable, front against the cold. I fail to see how 50 or so loosely-fitting parts per window can manage to do the same job.” I also told him that it doesn’t matter that I keep my blinds up or open all the time because I save a lot more energy than he does and I’m comfortable enough in my place. He seemed to think that we were talking about apples and oranges when it came to saving energy and keeping the cold at bay but the proof in what I said was realized when we got our most recent electric bills. You see, Dad moved into the apartment next to mine a few months ago. We have identical floor plans so our energy needs should be about the same, right? In reality, written right there on paper, was the fact that I had used about a third of the kilowatt hours that he did. I haven’t heard anything about the blinds since then. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/136 "2006-01-03T04:28:43Z")
> [@](#): > > Wait… Wasn’t this true a long long time ago- Well not the metal getting into the food just that you shouldn’t leave food in the can i nteh fridge. Like back when they were actually TIN cans. I think it probably has something to do with canning technology improving. I have personally had problems with some foreign cans. I like to buy the little tins of canned Chilies and Moles from Mexico and south. And I have noticed that once there is a cut and exposed edge metal it gets rusty and the food gets foul really quick compared to American canning. I now routinely dump my Chilies into a little tuperware bucket, cause I won’t keep those cans in the fridge anymore. ---
**Author:** ![cbawlmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cbawlmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cbawlmer)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/137 "2006-01-03T05:53:13Z")
I once had a conversation with my great-grandmother in which she insisted that it wasn’t dangerous to fire a gun into the air. The slug explodes when it reaches its highest point, you see. She wouldn’t budge from this belief, even when I cited news articles about people dying from being hit by bullets fired to celebrate the new year and such. My husband was born in a German hospital, and the nurses there removed all the flowers and other plants sent to her by friends and relatives on the grounds that the plants would suck the oxygen out of the room. And Germans are supposed to know their science! ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/138 "2006-01-03T06:12:31Z")
I’ve mentioned this before here, but my grandmother refused to believe how a microwave oven actually works. She insisted that since it was an oven, it must have a heating element. When I explained that the food or water was bombarded by radio frequencies that vibrated the molecules, creating friction, to cook or boil the contents from the inside out, she got mad at me and told her I was making it up and telling her a bunch of bullshit because I thought she was a gullible old lady. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/139 "2006-01-03T06:14:25Z")
Oops, typo. Please read “she told _me_ I was making it up…” ---
**Author:** ![mojave66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@mojave66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mojave66)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2006, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738/140 "2006-01-03T06:16:54Z")
My great-aunt once asked me where the AIDS virus came from. “I heard it was 'cause people fucked goats” she told me. So I spent the next half-hour talking to her about viruses, retroviruses, how animal viruses can mutate and infect humans, and the (then common) theory that it probably evolved from a simian virus and was probably passed to humans through consumption of simian meat. She listens, lets all this sink in for a few minutes, then turns to my mother and says “Yep. Goat fucking.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-good-adults-believe-bad-science-share-your-stories/337738.md?page=8)