Of course, at night! That makes so much more sense! 
This was 1977, so I really hope they’ve gotten past it now!
I have an otherwise intelligent friend who adamantly believes that ice, frozen water, cannot have a temperature lower than the freezing point of water. He insists that the internal temperature of an ice cube inside of a freezer in which the air temperature is 0 F will never dip below 32 F. He “read it somewhere.”
From Roger Ebert Answer Man:
Some dogs, including Pembroke Welsh Corgis, are born with floppy ears, which stand up later on.
Alton Brown’s book I’m Just Here For The Food has a debunking of the “microwaves cook from the inside out” myth.
Do you mean that your Quality Control director didn’t test each device for molecule aligning effectiveness?
I was going to ask if you could fix my molecule aligning do-dad, but now I’m not sure I trust you. I think I’ll just wrap another layer of tin foil over it.
Geez! Do you people need a cite that the sky is blue?
I know that microwaves don’t cook “from the inside out” because every time I nuke my leftovers I have a relatively thin region of warm food around the outside of the Tupperware and an ice-cold center. I have to take out the container, mix it all up, and put it back in a couple of times to get it adequately and approximately uniformly heated.
A programmer where I work believed that radiation leaking out of the microwaves in the break room was dangerous to us. She also was concerned about the radiation leaking out of the overhead lights and from her (flatscreen LCD) computer monitor. No amount of pointing out the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation would convince her. She also refused to let her kids be vaccinated, and believed floride in the water was poisoning anyone who drank tapwater.
This programmer later left the company, resigning by email without giving any notice. I can’t say I was suprised.
My wife had serious trouble understanding the actual cause of the phases of the moon, and the idea that the moon rotates yet always keeps the same side facing the earth. I had to demonstrate using a desk lamp and some oranges as props before she got it.
Sometimes I think that, if there were one of those chain e-mails going around saying it wasn’t, we all know people who would really believe it wasn’t. Even though they could see with their own eyes that it was in fact blue, they would believe that somehow it “really” wasn’t. You know, if it’s in an email that’s been forwarded all over the internet, it must be true :rolleyes:
Funny thing is, their absolute faith in the truth of things on the internet doesn’t seem to extend to the sites we send them to to show them why whatever it is they read in an email is wrong. Maybe, instead of citing snopes or other authoritative sites, we should make a mass-forwarded email saying that whatever rumor isn’t true.
In all fairness, the actual amount of applied statistics training that one has to obtain in order to get a degree in physical sciences or engineering is astonishingly minimal. I have a degree in mechanical engineer with minors in physics and mathematics, and yet I was not required to take a statistics course; my academic exposure to statistics came from applying a linear least-squares fit to experiment data in basic and intermediate physics labs, and stochastic analysis in a machine design class, neither of which provided a comprehensive coverage of basic statistical methodology.
When Marilyn vos Savant did her version of the Monty Hall problem, plenty of people wrote in, including those claiming to have advanced degrees in mathematics and one stating that he was responsible for safety at several nuclear plants, contending that she was wrong or that she misapplied the method to obtain her solution. Cecil’s weaseling aside–as Homer says, weaseling is what seperates us from the animals (except weasels)–an application of Bayes Theorem clearly indicates that the door switching is favorable. (Actually, you can show this without even getting into the math of Bayes’ Theorem, if you consider the opened door and the unselected door to be one “virtual door”; i.e. by switching, you get to see what is behind 2 doors instead of the single one you pick.)
Besides, I’ve known a number of physicists who believed that their extensive knowledge of arcane physical laws translated into an understanding of other physical phenomena, and yet very few seem qualified to change their own motor oil. Experience in one field does not translate to the command of another.
Stranger
In all fairness, the actual amount of applied statistics training that one has to obtain in order to get a degree in physical sciences or engineering is astonishingly minimal. I have a degree in mechanical engineer with minors in physics and mathematics, and yet I was not required to take a statistics course; my academic exposure to statistics came from applying a linear least-squares fit to experiment data in basic and intermediate physics labs, and stochastic analysis in a machine design class, neither of which provided a comprehensive coverage of basic statistical methodology.
When Marilyn vos Savant did her version of the Monty Hall problem, plenty of people wrote in, including those claiming to have advanced degrees in mathematics and one stating that he was responsible for safety at several nuclear plants, contending that she was wrong or that she misapplied the method to obtain her solution. Cecil’s weaseling aside–as Homer says, weaseling is what seperates us from the animals (except weasels)–an application of Bayes Theorem clearly indicates that the door switching is favorable. (Actually, you can show this without even getting into the math of Bayes’ Theorem, if you consider the opened door and the unselected door to be one “virtual door”; i.e. by switching, you get to see what is behind 2 doors instead of the single one you pick.)
Besides, I’ve known a number of physicists who believed that their extensive knowledge of arcane physical laws translated into an understanding of other physical phenomena, and yet very few seem qualified to change their own motor oil. Experience in one field does not translate to the command of another.
Stranger
I’m guessing that this has to do with a misunderstanding of the light and dark portions of the carbon cycle. It would have to be a multilevel misunderstanding because, at the very least
- The “Dark” reaction doesn’t happen only at night. It just doesn’t require sunlight.
- Plants produce Oxygen.
Programmers don’t necessarily have much (if any) training in the physical sciences. Not all programmers have college degrees, and the ones who do might not have been required to take any physics classes. Not to mention how incredibly effective introductory college science classes are at dissuading people from believing stupid things about radiation…
True story: at one college I went to, one of the libraries had signs on the scanner things that you pass through on your way out of the library, reassuring people that they didn’t emit radiation :rolleyes:
There’s an even easier way to show it:
Suppose you pick door number 1.
The prize can be behind door number 1, 2, or 3, and has an equal probability of being behind any of them.
If the prize is behind door number 1, you lose if you switch.
If the prize is behind door number 2, Monty opens door number 3, you switch to 2, and you win.
If the prize is behind door number 3, Monty opens door number 2, you switch to 3, and you win.
In 2 cases out of 3, you win by switching.
(The same reasoning would apply if you initially picked door number 2 or door number 3.)
QED.
Oh, my! Reading this, I suddenly flashed back to junior high, when my teacher patiently explained to the class that the Nile was unique because it is the *only *river that flows North! :wally
One of my college students ranted in an essay last year that people only get AIDS by having sex with non-virgins.
Hate to burst your bubble, but he stole that from the “Journal of Irreproducible Results.”
Heh, so I assume your teacher had never heard of the St. Lawrence Seaway?
Obligatory link to thread-killing druggy anecdote.
Not bad science, but misguided adult belief:
When I was a teenager, I remember having a conversation with a contracted plumber who related the fascinating factoid that plumbers are so-called because before there were threaded pipefittings, they used solder for joints – and the big blobs of sealing solder “looked like plums.”
He insisted on that even after I told him that the first plumbers were Roman, and they used plumbum to get the job done.
‘“Plumbum” is lead. That’s why you call a plumb-line a “plumb-line.”’ “No, it’s because it hangs plumb down!”
He said I’d obviously made up the word “plumbum” because it sounded so silly. :smack:
Ah well, at least he learned a trade.
Has this been mentioned yet? I’ve met quite a few Californians who firmly believe there is such a thing as “earthquake weather.” I think it’s when the weather gets a bit off-seasonally balmy & foggy. “Ooh, this is earthquake weather! I bet we’re going to have an earthquake!”
Wow. I’d heard that notion was believed in some parts of Africa, or even worse, that having sex with virgins would cure AIDS. Scary.
By the way, there is a side of the moon that doesn’t get sunshine. The inside.
I’ve lost track of how often I’ve received the “true facts” e-mail glurge that includes things like the duck quack “fact.” Generally from people who should know better.
I have to say, while I’d be annoyed by that refusal to absorb the facts, I’d be as impressed as hell if any of my great aunts would just say “goat fucking” in a matter of fact way.
Zombie!!! We’ve got a zombie on the board. 