How Gullible Are We?
 

A freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science and spreading fear of everything in our environment. In his project, he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."

And for plenty of good reasons, since:

1. It can cause excessive sweating and vomiting
2. It is a major component in acid rain
3. It can cause severe burns in its gaseous state
4. Accidental inhalation can kill you
5. It contributes to erosion
6. It decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes
7. It has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical. Forty-three said yes, six were undecided, and only one knew that the chemical was water. The title of his prize winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?" He feels the conclusion is obvious.

O my, I'm suprised the little geek kid in my class hasn't done somehting like that. Gullible not really, its just a different name for something commonly called H2O, I don't know how to do subscript with my keyboard. Or just flat out water, but H2O is liek what my science teacher refers to it as, o well. And of course, everything thats good has a bad side, none of the good things were listed. Starting with water helps most all organic or plant basis of life.

David, why did you just post that stuff? I wasn't saying I believed that water was bad, I was just relating this amusing story to you... And there wasn't any need to show off that you know what H2O is, since it said what it was in the post...

Danny...we all should applaud your ability to put a decent topic in the posts...Even if most people wouldn't understand....hmm

Danny, I like your post...what a cool idea for a science project!
kudos to him.

Intersting story, Danny. Once I saw a local TV show doing something like that, making a survey in the streets with the most strange questions. Things like:"Do you think that Ludwig Von Beethoven will be well recieved in his next national turnee?" People would say "Yes, of course, he is a great artist!", or "uhn, I guess so?"", or "No, his last record didn't do well on sales stores...", It was very funny :)

But the best part of this topic was Majig_Abe's reply. Heh... It shows that we are VERY gullible, indeed.:)
It was truly beautiful...

Damnit, it hould b hydro-carbons or whatever. Hydrogen, Carbon Nitrogen and like Oxygen or wahtever... Something cant be organic without the carbon atoms, damn science... Maybe now I know why I have a 76 or whatever. My science sucks, please continue laughing at me, please, I deserve it. Just wait till I get a teacher that I can actualy pay attention to, damn organic stuff. I believe I used the wrong term, its the carbon which makes things like sugar organic, water only like helps us function. Yes, I am gullible, but I hate science, the only cool thing is looking at stuff under microscopes and seeing it move, after that all the papers get added on to help the learning expirience...

MA, you are completely missing the point -- it has nothing to do with science. It's not so much that you are gullible as that you are young and ingenuous. So what; just go with it.

Read Danny's first post carefully. If you still don't get it, don't worry about it. You have the rest of your life to become jaded and cynical.

Re: How Gullible Are We?
 

:lol: heh *wonders what people would answer if she tried the same thing here*

That's a great story... It would be pretty fun to try that some time... Your posts are some of the bests, Dan...

Majic... Uh... Try reading the whole post instead of reading 10 random words and replying...

Looks like Dan got his hands on e-tales. :cool:

I fell for it the first time I read it, and I'm good at chemistry.

It has nothing to do with science (well, not any of the three main ones). The point is that you aren't used to water being refered to as 'dihydrogen monoxide' so you don't think it's water.

Type,
H<sub>2&lt/sub&gtO
And you get,
H₂O

Well you could have put me down as one of the 43 people, because I wouldn't of had any idea. And if you asked me in a couple of days time, I still wouldn't know what Dihydrogen Monoxide is.

Pretty funny, Dan. I've heard of stuff like that before- like people circulating petitions to end the suffrage of battered housewives, and outlaw mastication in public buildings. They always get a good number of signatures, too, before somebody realizes that suffrage means the right to vote, and mastication is chewing.