Archive for Science
NASA confirms there’s no Planet X or precursors of terrestrial calamity
Posted by: | CommentsThanks to Chris once again for pointing this out. There’s an interesting post on NASA’s website Ask an Astrobiologist and here it is:
Question:
I have something that may sound ridiculous to write to you but I need to ask you. My friends and I were talking today and they told me that on May 15th, there will be a comet passing the earth, not hitting it, but its gravitational pull will stop the earth from spinning cause all these things to happen and the earth will flood and there will be earthquakes and stuff. This may sound ridiculous but it would be appreciated to get a response back.
Answer:
Don’t worry, these rumors of catastrophe are not true. For months, weird stories have circulated on the Internet predicting the close passage by Earth this month of a Planet X sometimes called Niburu, or in some versions it is a giant comet or asteroid. The simple answer is that these are pure fiction. There is no such object. Also, there have been no unusual levels of earthquakes or solar flares or any other of the supposed precursors of terrestrial calamity. Contrary to what you see on some of these websites, nothing unusual is happening and scientists are not worried by such supposed events. Even more to the point, it is already evident that there is no large comet or looming planet bearing down on the Earth. If you want details on these stories about Nibiru or Planet X, check out the following website http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/index.html.
David Morrison
NAI Senior Scientist
It pretty much says it all and it’s nice to hear it from a Senior Scientist at NASA. You’ll tell me of course NASA wouldn’t say a huge calamity is at our doors as it’s a government agency. But I can tell it’s just one more confirmation that there won’t be something such as the end of the world in the next couple of years or in 2012. If you’re a first time visitor of Daily Common Sense I encourage you to read on the subject:
2012 Explained - Why it shouldn’t be feared
What is that pole shift thing?
Planet X Explained - Why it doesn’t matter that much
What is that pole shift thing? - Part II
Posted by: | Comments
One of my previous article, “What is that pole shift thing?”, got a lot of attention and it explained what a magnetic pole reversal was. Why a part II if it’s been covered before? Well, there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what a pole shift really is. There’s two important concepts about pole shift: Magnetic reversal and change in the axis of rotation of the Earth. Magnetic reversal being covered, I will explain the possible change in the Earth’s rotational axis. We’ll start with Wikipedia’s definition of a pole shift:
The pole shift theory is a hypothesis that the axis of rotation of a planet has not always been at its present-day locations or that the axis will not persist there; in other words, that its physical poles had been or will be shifted. Pole shift theory is almost always discussed in the context of Earth, but other solar system bodies may have experienced axial reorientation during their existences.
How can the poles physically change location?
To really understand the way poles can physically change location, let’s take a look at the Earth’s different layers:
As you see on this picture, our planet has mainly 3 layers: Crust, mantle and core. The core is then actually divided in two: Solid inner core and liquid outer core. The crust is the layer we live on and it’s very thin compared to other layers. If the earth was an apple, the skin would be the crust, so you can see it’s really thin compared to the rest. This crust is divided into plates called tectonic plates and they sort of float on the mantle just below. These plates usually move along smoothly but sometimes they stick and build up pressure. When there’s too much pressure, the rock bends and we get an Earthquake. So now we all understand that the crust “float” on the mantle (The mantle flows so that’s why the crust can actually “float” on it).
We’re now getting to the real deal. The reason why the poles would shift is because of mass distribution. Mass distribution explains why the Earth rotate the way it does and I like to explain it with laundry: When you put clothes in your washing machine, you try to distribute them equally with the space you have. If you put everything on one side, when the washing machine starts it will make an awful noise and probably start shaking and moving around. You have to stop it, balance what’s in it correctly and start over. The Earth act the same way and it rotate smoothly because it’s well balanced. Of course it’s a little more complicated than that but for our needs we don’t need more. If an extra weight unbalance the Earth, it would tilt and rotate itself until the extra weight moves somewhere near the equator. The poles(physical poles as in top and bottom of Earth) would still be pointing the same direction, but the continents would be shifted completely due to the moving crust. That’s why knowing about the crust is important: Because it “float” on the surface, it can move freely and such a radical change in the Earth’s rotational axis would cause it to move a lot. Such a drastic change would cause the crust to slip and you very well imagine the disasters it can cause. This theory is called “True Polar Wander”.
Why and how would this happen?
There’s evidence it happened in the past and this theory could explain a lot of things that remained mysterious. There’s a couple of theories about how it could happen next:
- Important mass building at the poles
- Continents drift
- An asteroid hitting Earth
- A large object/Planet not from the Solar system approaching Earth
- Something like a super sized volcano formed far from the equator
So as you can see once again, it’s all about a critical mass building up far from the equator. But Adam Maloof, professor in Geosciences at Princeton University has something really interesting to say:
If a true polar wander event has occurred in our planet’s history, it’s likely been when the continents formed a single mass on one side of the Earth. We don’t expect there to be another event in the foreseeable future, though. The Earth’s surface is pretty well balanced today.
So, as you can see, it’s not like the magnetic reversal which is mostly unpredictable and can happen anytime (Even though as I explained it’s not that much of a big deal). It’s a process that we can see happening. The only drastic way it could happen is with an asteroid striking Earth or a large object/planet getting near Earth. For the asteroid, NASA is monitoring near Earth objects and I’m sure they do a good job with that. For the planet approaching it’s clear people are making reference to Planet X/Nibiru. Once again, if you haven’t read my article Planet X - Why it doesn’t matter that much I encourage you to do so. This will give you some information on why it’s not really a possibility.
As I said in Part I, It happened in the past and it will happen again, we just don’t know when. I decided not to give to much historic informations on the pole shift theory as I know you can all find that fairly easily on Wikipedia and other places. In fact here’s a link to Pole Shift theories on Wikipedia. I don’t like repeating other’s website content and my goal was really to point out how the crust could move around the globe and expose the fact that it’s a mass distribution problem that cause the pole shift.
It’s a credible theory and I won’t try to kill it. In fact, Albert Einstein thought it was a credible theory. But that doesn’t mean we have to fear this! There’s no evidence pointing for that to happen any time soon. Like any other doomsday prophecy there’s a fear propaganda built around it and don’t get caught in that.
What’s the relation between this Pole Shift and 2012?
There’s no clear link between 2012 and that physical pole shift. It’s most likely linked with Planet X approaching Earth and then causing a pole shift due to the change in gravity which holds our Solar system the way it is. There’s also a possibility for an asteroid to hit Earth. TU24 just missed Earth a couple of days ago and I remember that I read about 2012 and TU24 hitting Earth. Anyway, there’s probably not much to fear about 2012.
Conclusion - Will a Pole shift put an end to our world anytime soon?
A pole shift probably won’t happen anytime soon as nothing is pointing toward that direction, but it will happen someday. I think it’s a really interesting and credible scientific possibility. I just don’t buy the option it will happen anytime soon. It’s something we can track and as Maloof said, the Earth’s surface is pretty well balanced at the moment. Of course something unpredictable can happen but we can say that everyday in life. Every time I drive my car there’s a possibility for me to die but I just don’t think about it maybe like 95% of the population. Well , there’s a slight possibility for a pole shift and a magnetic reversal everyday but life goes on.
Red Planet Land - Mars Real Estate scam
Posted by: | Comments
First I’d like to thank Chris, a Daily Common Sense reader, who found the Red Planet Land website. It’s really awesome and hard to believe but it does exist. You can visit the website and have a look for yourself but it’s basically a Mars real estate website. That’s true, you can buy a 1 acre land on mars to secure your future. Ridiculous.
For about 35$, you get 1 acre of land on mars and the full package you see on the picture which is basically a certificate, facts sheet and a picture of mars. I would personally feel bad selling this to people. The real question is how could someone even think of buying this, thinking it’s true?
Why would anyone pay 35$ for a piece of paper that has absolutely no legal value and that you won’t be able to use? The NASA is trying to have a Man-made mission to Mars by 2037, which means it will take a really long time before regular people like you and me can make it to Mars! The owners of this company will be dead by the time we can go to Mars (If one day we can…) but until then they cash-in!
Another good scam I guess…
Planet X Explained - Why it doesn’t matter that much
Posted by: | CommentsAfter my popular article 2012 Explained - Why it shouldn’t be feared, I thought I would talk about a related issue. here’s Planet X Explained - Why it doesn’t matter that much
What is Planet X?
First of all, Planet X or Nibiru as some like to call it is a large hypothetical planet beyond Neptune. Why hypothetical? Because no one ever saw or proved the existence of Planet X. That’s also where the name X comes from; to represent the unknown. A lot of attempts were made to prove the existence of the planet, even by the NASA, but without success. Here’s the origin of the search for Planet X from Wikipedia:
At the beginning of the 20th century, many astronomers speculated about the existence of a planet beyond Neptune. The discovery of Neptune resulted from calculations of the mathematicians John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier to explain discrepancies between the calculated and observed orbits of Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter.
After the discovery of Neptune, however there still were some slight discrepancies in those orbits, and also in the orbit of Neptune itself. These were taken to indicate the existence of yet another planet orbiting beyond Neptune.
Since then, there’s been a lot of research done on the discrepancies in those orbits and many astronomers consider Lowell’s Planet X hypothesis to be over. This is mostly because there’s no discrepancies in the space probes (Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2) trajectories that could be attributed to the gravitational pull of a large unknown object (Planet X). Which, in short, means there’s not much chance for a Planet X to exist.
Apparently, from popular beliefs, Planet X is on a 3,600 years orbit around the sun and is due for a passage really soon near Earth.
What about Planet X/Nibiru and the “end of the world” in 2012?
One more prophecy is adding up to the already overloaded stack of prophecies for 2012. It is going to be a really bad year if we believe in all that nonsense. It’s not really clear what role Planet X is going to play in 2012. Some say it’s due for a passage in 2012 and its passage would be devastating for earth because its magnetic force would stop the Earth rotating for several days. That would eventually cause earthquakes, volcanoes, Tsunamis and hurricanes. That would also cause the Earth’s magnetic poles to shift. You all understand that would eliminate almost every sort of life on this planet. Scary? Well not really because it’s not the first time Planet X is associated with some sort of prophecy. The last one was in 2003. Nibiru was supposed to pass near earth sometime in June 2003 causing the same catastrophes. As you all imagine it never happened because we’re still there and the north is still pointing north. The other reason why it’s not scary is because there’s no evidence for planet X to exist.
So you say it doesn’t exist right?
I hate saying yes or no. Here’s what I think about it:
Dr. John Murray of the UK’s Open University says he might have found what could be Planet X. The size of the planet would be between 1 and 10 times the size of Jupiter and it could possibly be a Brown Dwarf. This is also the conclusion of most of the Planet X theorists. The only problem is that Dr. John Murray give it an orbit of 6 million years. It’s quite far from the 3600 years Planet X theorists predict.There’s also something about the IRAS (Infrared Astronomical Satellite) that surveyed the sky in 1982. Gerry Neugebauer, chief IRAS scientist, said:
“A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope. All I can tell you is that we don’t know what it is”.
What to believe? NASA says they haven’t any proof of it, but says it’s possible. That let me believe that there’s a possibility for another planet in our solar system. I just don’t buy the end of the world prophecy related to Planet X. I’m going with that conclusion: Nibiru might exist but we don’t have much proof of it. I say we have to stay receptive to the signs of another planet in our solar system but there’s no way Planet X will change our world in 2012. Being on such a big orbit, if it’s due to pass near earth in 2012, I’m pretty sure we would be able to spot it because we’re only 4 years away. Also, it didn’t pass in 2003 as predicted.
I made this article kind of short even if there’s ton of information about Planet X because it all come to the same thing: NASA vs. Average Joe and it might exist but no one’s sure.
So don’t worry too much about Planet X: It might exist but it doesn’t matter that much for you and me.
Falling U.S. Spy satellite contains Hydrazine
Posted by: | CommentsIn my previous post I talked about the U.S. spy satellite that will soon enter our atmosphere because it is falling from orbit. I mentioned it contains hazardous materials. It is confirmed that the satellite contains Hydrazine. Hydrazine is a rocket fuel that was used during WWII for the Messerschmidt Me 163B and is now commonly used as a low-power mono propellant for the maneuvering thrusters of spacecraft. Hydrazine is a colorless liquid with an ammonia-like odor and can cause harm to anyone who contacts it.
Here’s the safety note about Hydrazine from Wikipedia:
Hydrazine is highly toxic and dangerously unstable, especially in the anhydrous form. Symptoms of acute exposure to high levels of hydrazine in humans may include irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, dizziness, headache, nausea, pulmonary edema, seizures, coma, and it can also damage the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. The liquid is corrosive and may produce dermatitis from skin contact in humans and animals. Effects to the lungs, liver, spleen, and thyroid have been reported in animals chronically exposed to hydrazine via inhalation. Increased incidences of lung, nasal cavity, and liver tumors have been observed in rodents exposed to hydrazine.
There’s good chances the satellite won’t cause any harm and that it will be dealt with correctly, but still my reflexion from the previous post remains. Why aren’t there any mechanism built in the satellite to deal with this situation accordingly instead of taking unnecessary chances?
Man walking on mars is a rock
Posted by: | CommentsIf you don’t know about it, the Spirit rover sent on mars by the NASA has taken a picture that shows a ‘humanoid figure’ on it. There’s been a lot of comments on the subject going in different directions and NASA has provided the full image zoomed-in and we can clearly see that this is a rock. Here are the pictures:
Ok, so this is clearly a rock and not a man or statue. As the NASA said:
“It’s a two-inch piece of rock eroded by the wind” explained NASA spokesman Dwayne Brown.
At two inches, I don’t see it being anything else than a rock. When you look at the zoomed-in picture you might have doubts because it’s so close and the figure really look like someone. When looking at the whole picture, you realize the humanoid figure is too small to be anything else than a rock. On top of that, it took three days for the rover to take that complete panoramic image(the lens moving slowly across the scene). The figure doesn’t move during that name so it’s definitely not any kind of life. A statue? A two inches statue…maybe not.
Sorry but it’s not today we’ll prove there or there was life on mars!
Web Bot - What is it? Can it predict stuff?
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s been some sort of hype lately regarding the Web Bots and I’m really surprised there’s almost no information about it available. The Web Bot project was developed in the late 1990s mainly to predict the stock market ups and downs (Web bot and stock markets). How do they do it? It’s really simple in fact and it’s a very nice implementation of what search engines do. Web bots simply crawl the web the same way Google crawls it at regular intervals to catch new and existing web sites and detect relevant keywords. Web Bots do it just a little differently: While search engines are just “indexing” the Web and creating a Web directory, Web bots are looking for trends with the keyword relations they find. It search for keywords “standing out” in a web document but also take in consideration the content preceding and following the keyword. This data is then analyzed by a linguistic tool to determine the meaning if there’s any.
So does it work and are Web Bots reliable? well it’s kind of hit and miss. Sometimes you’ll see things predicted correctly and sometimes not. I think the project is a really good initiative and can lead to great things, but at the moment I’m more under the impression that they interpret the results in the same way we interpret Nostradamus Quatrains. What I mean is that what the Web Bots are getting out of the internet while crawling is not that clear and when an event happen a couple of days later, then we find a way to relate the data.
Being in the computer engineering domain, I think I can see where the Web Bots will succeed and where it will fail. There are fields I believe the Web Bots can predict stuff and there are field they can’t. What are these fields? Well, essentially, anything “man-made” could be predicted in some way and anything man has no control over can’t be predicted. This is for the plain and simple reason that the Web Bots crawl the Internet for data and the Internet is actually man-made. So, the only data that can be collected is data written by people/government/companies,etc. I don’t see how you can predict a natural disaster or anything like that by simply crawling the Web. The only thing you can get by crawling is facts or opinions, nothing else. The only way I can see predicting natural disasters or anything not man related is if the Web Bots actually crawls 3 000 blogs/websites written by specialists of a certain domain and that they are pointing towards a similar conclusion.
What about 2012 (Read my article on 2012) and the Web Bots? As I said, I’m not seeing how a computer can figure out what’s going to happen in 2012 simply by visiting websites published by real people. The more data Web Bots get pointing towards 2012 just means more and more people are publishing stuff about 2012 and the end of the world. Remember, the only thing they can crawl is the internet and what you find on the internet was created by real persons, not God. They will surely get a strong correlation between 2012 and the end of the world; there’s ton of websites talking about it.
So, can Web Bots predict stuff? Yes I believe it can and it’s a really nice piece of technology. I’m pretty sure preventing terrorists attacks can be done using Web Bots and also predicting anything involving human interaction. Remember, it crawls the web, written by humans so it can only predict what humans are able to predict: Just in a shorter time frame! I think it’s easy to fall into the “It can predict everything” stuff, so let’s say it’s a really nice technology which can help us predict things we wouldn’t normally see happening. There’s a lot of future in that field and it has to be pushed a lot more forward. A good project, with good potential, but be careful with what people say it predicted!
2012 Explained - Why it shouldn’t be feared
Posted by: | Comments2012 is a business
Before you read this article, here is a video I recently recorded about 2012 and how people build businesses around it to make money. While a lot of people say that you can’t trust NASA or the government because they would certainly hide this 2012 stuff from us, I say there are a lot of people who want to spread this because they make money out of it. So, in the end, who do we trust? Watch it, I think that explains it all, but still, read the article and all the comments for more information.
What is 2012 about?
The year 2012 is referring to the last year of the Long Count Maya calendar. The current Great Cycle, as the Mayas call it, is set to end on the winter solstice of 2012: December 21 2012 and many people believe that on that date, the world will change and never be the same. Some predict terrible events resulting in the destruction of our world and some predict that it won’t necessarily end, but that we will enter a new era and massive changes will occur.
This article will try to answer most questions you may have in a rational way. because there are way too many websites creating some sort of fear propaganda around 2012 and as you will see, you have nothing to be scared of.
There’s too much disinformation going on about this subject and there’s an article you can read that was published around 1990 that reminds me the current situation:
What will happen on December 21 2012?
Quick answer: Nobody knows, but probably not much.
There have been a lot going on regarding the 2012 prophecy recently, including the movie “I am legend”, but surprisingly, not much information about what is really supposed to happen on that date is available. This is Probably because nobody knows and also because probably not much will happen. Most information available about 2012 is making reference to mass destruction of the world as we know it, earth’s pole shift/magnetic field reversal, Nostradamus predictions, end of Mayas calendar, etc.
The base of all the predictions is the end of the Maya calendar in 2012, which is supposed to mean the end of the world or a period of radical changes. In fact, the end of the Maya calendar is known as the end of the Great Cycle. People find it easy to believe in that theory because Maya civilization is known for advanced writing, mathematics and astronomy. It can seem like they really know what they’re talking about, but the truth is that the end of the Great Cycle is not the end of the world, it’s in fact a great celebration for the Mayas:
For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle” says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”
From USA Today
On the winter solstice in 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way for the first time in about 26,000 years(Milky Way is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. The Galaxy has special significance to humanity as it is the home galaxy of the planet Earth). This special alignment means that the usual energy that typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted on 12/21/12 2012 at 11:11 p.m. Universal Time. Scientists are actually in great doubt about the fact that the Mayas even knew what they were talking about.
Astronomers generally agree that “it would be impossible the Maya themselves would have known that” says Susan Milbrath, a Maya archaeoastronomer and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. What’s more, she says, “we have no record or knowledge that they would think the world would come to an end at that point.”
From USA Today
Putting apart scientific data, here are the commons beliefs of the December 21 2012:
- Galactic Alignment. This Galactic Alignment occurs only once every 26,000, this is considered as the end-date in the Mayans Long Count calender. It is the alignment of the December solstice sun with the Galactic equator.
- A comet hitting Earth (Nostradamus)
- Read my article on Nostradamus to discover the real truth about Nostradamus: Nostradamus is not a valid argument!
- Earth’s Pole Shift/Magnetic field reversal
- Read my article on pole shift to discover the real truth about 2012 and pole shift: What is that pole shift thing and What is that pole shift thing part II
- Increase of calamities, natural disasters, mass destruction, etc.
I don’t want to repeat myself, but all of this is very vague as nobody really knows what will happen and the world is not at its first doomsday prophecy. There have been a lot of “Unfulfilled” prophecies in the past and you can have a look at this Wikipedia document for a list of unfulfilled religious prophecies.
What I find quite interesting about the 2012 theory is that there’s not much publications from well respected scientific organizations. NASA has published a couple of articles about the pole shift, but nothing else that could reveal a certain fear of the end of the world. Now you could argue that “big organizations” certainly wouldn’t reveal anything that has to do with the end of the world, but that’s another debate.
2012 conspiracy theory
I mentioned in the “What will happen” section that there’s a lack of scientific information coming from well respected sources like NASA. Some people claim there’s a conspiracy theory behind the prophecy to hide it from the public so it doesn’t create mass panic. Now, this does and doesn’t make sense. At first, it sounds like it could be true because I totally agree the government could restrain publications from the NASA as it’s a governmental agency, but I find it weird that this kind of information wouldn’t “leak”.
Do you really think something as big as the end of the world wouldn’t leak from any agency? Keep the NASA apart, do you really think the scientific community would miss something as big as that? When there’s no scientific data about a subject, you really have to doubt.
You’ve probably read a lot of information on websites from people claiming they know more than they should know and that the government is hiding all this information from you. Government is hiding a lot of things from you, more than you probably imagine and they would probably try to hide the end of the world if it was going to happen. But, let’s picture this: The Mayas were there 1000 years before Christ which makes it about 3000 years from now. Do you think someone could hide the end of the world for 3000 years if it was really going to happen and was really that possible and scientific?
I have my doubts.
Pole shift/reversal, the only 2012 end of the world possibility
The only rational “2012 End of world” possibility is actually pole shifting. A Pole shift is a rare phenomenon and is characterized by the north and the south poles swapping places. Such reversals, recorded in the magnetism of ancient rocks, are unpredictable. They come at irregular intervals averaging about 300,000 years; the last one was 780,000 years ago. I wrote an article on pole shift that explains the whole process, have a look: What is that pole shift thing?
Such event could really disrupt our planet that’s true. Imagine the North pole and South pole swapping places: Telecommunications, animals, humans, etc. would all be affected and it would be a really important change. There’s only one thing you need to consider… I’ve read in a lot of different places that a polar shift is going to happen on December 21 2012 and it is totally false:
Polar shift is a process that roughly takes 5,000 years to complete and doesn’t start on a specific date and time. The real truth is that nobody knows when the next one is due.
The process takes time and another myth wants the earth’s magnetic field strength to be near zero during that transition time. It would actually be as strong as it is now but simply a lot more complicated. Once again, it is explained in my What is that pole shift thing? article.
Will I die on December 21 2012?
I can’t tell, the Mayas can’t, Nostradamus can’t and the aliens can’t. On December 21 2012, a comet won’t hit the earth, a pole shift won’t happen instantly and a massive gravity burst won’t happen either. The only thing you can fear is a pole shift and it can take up to 5,000 years to complete…
What if you’re wrong?
In the case that I am wrong, that every scientist on this planet is wrong and that the NASA can’t figure out a simple galactic alignment that would put our world to an end then I guess we are all in the same situation. You, me and everyone will die. Scary isn’t it? Well, no one can tell what will happen tomorrow or in 2012.
Hope you enjoyed
I hope you enjoyed reading on the 2012 end of the world prophecy and that you are looking at it in a completely different way. Post your comments and come back to Daily Common Sense for more scam debunking.
Feel free to get in touch on twitter
twitter is an easy way to reach me, feel free to add me: http://www.twitter.com/bentremblay
Did we walk on the moon?
Posted by: | CommentsI must admit that even if I’m not a big fan of conspiracy theories, I’m still very open minded and the moon hoax looked really plausible to me. So, did we walk on the moon? Or was it filmed in some studios?
Anybody that actually read about the moon hoax know that it’s extremely confusing and really not easy to determine if it’s true or false; there’s just so much information going in random directions. But I found three websites that I think are really satisfying about proving the walking on the moon is probably real and not a hoax. As I’ve said a lot in my previous articles, it’s easy to determine if a story is plausible or not: If there’s enough scientific data backing it, it’s probably true (As long as it’s reliable sources). If it’s unknown people with arguments hardly backed with proofs then it’s mostly a hoax. I searched a lot on the moon hoax and didn’t find any satisfying answers about whether we really walked on the moon or not until I discovered three websites going point by point over what’s usually contested about the walking on the moon. Here are the three sites I’ve found that rely mostly on scientific data and are quite logical with their answers:
The Great moon hoax
Bad Astronomy
RedZero’s Moonhoax - How Apollo moon landings really happened
What is homeopathy?
Posted by: | CommentsHomeopathy first appeared about 200 years ago with the experiments of a German doctor, Samuel Hahnemann. He “discovered” homeopathy while investigating the role of cinchona bark’s in curing malaria. After ingesting the bark, he experienced symptoms similar to those of malaria: fever, shivering and joint pain. That basically led him to believe that you could cure a disease with the disease itself. His first observations were pure logical for the time: If the cure creates symptoms on healthy individuals and if it’s also used to cure the disease, then it means you can cure the disease with the disease itself. That later became the base principle of homeopathy: “law of similars” or “Like cures Like”.
I think Hahnemann’s reflexion was quite logical at the time, given the poor medicine knowledge 200 years ago. Where it gets to nonsense is how homeopathy was later developed by himself and people after him. Hahnemann later made experiments to test what effects substances produced on human and published his results. This was an effort to find out which substance would be effective to cure existing diseases. Then, he thought that giving too much of the remedy would harm the patient more than helping him, so he decided to dilute the substance. But honestly, I think he went mad on dilution. The dilution process of homeopathy involves mixing 1 part of the substance with either 10 or 100 parts of distilled water, shaking it vigorously and then mixing 1 part of that newly diluted substance to another 10 or 100 parts water and so on. The standard unit for homeopathy is “C” and one “C” means that the substance has been diluted 1:100. It’s not rare in the domain of homeopathy to have a dose which has been diluted at 6C or 12C which means it’s been diluted 1:100 six or twelve times!
I’m sorry but I can’t say anything else than homeopathy is a scam. You wouldn’t buy Advil or Tylenol to cure your head ache knowing the remedy has been diluted in 10 gallons of water. It’s the complete opposite of today’s medicine and as far as I’m aware we don’t cure cancer with homeopathy, today’s medicine does. You can’t hope to cure a disease with a substance diluted so many times that there’s no more trace of it. Then that means water cures everything, which is quite nice because it’s free and we drink it everyday.
Profit on homeopathy is outrageous. Remember, it’s water! Buying homeopathy is buying the most expensive water ever. If it works on some people, it’s simply placebo effect which is also encountered in the most serious studies. Here’s some notes on the placebo effect from wikipedia:
This effect has been known for years. Generally, one third of a control group taking a placebo shows improvement and Harvard’s Herbert Benson says that the placebo effect yields beneficial clinical results in 60–90% of diseases, including angina pectoris, bronchial asthma, herpes simplex, and duodenal ulcers.
Isn’t that proving the whole thing? 30% of a control group taking a placebo shows improvement. I’m pretty sure we would observe the same results with homeopathy because that’s what it is, a placebo!
I hope this put some light on homeopathy scam and that you won’t fall into it. Remember: Homeopathy is expensive water.
Alex Chiu’s Eternal Rings and Gorgeouspil Scam
Posted by: | Comments
I don’t know if you’ve heard of Alex Chiu’s Eternal Rings and Gorgeouspil but if you haven’t, it’s worth checking this out! The crazy guy claims he created an immortal device taking the form of rings you wear at night. Here’s from the Alex Chiu’s website:
According to Alex Chiu, based on testimonies, facts, and proofs, people are believed to be able to stay physically young forever by using his new inventions “The Eternal Life Rings” and “The Eternal Life Foot Braces”. The Eternal Life Rings are to be worn on both small fingers of a user during sleep. The Eternal Life Foot Braces are to be worn on all toes of both feet during sleep. Both devices consist of rare earth or ceramic magnets and plastic braces which hold magnets onto the fingers of the user. The inventor explained that the fingers and toes are the negative (-) and positive (+) terminals of your body.
Alex Chiu compares your body to a transistor so he can explain why the eternal rings works and it is where it fails monumentally:
So a transistor is just like an amplifier. You use a little bit of energy to turn on a larger amount of energy!!
Now back to your fingers. Your fingers are the transistors of your body. Each finger affects a certain part of your body. If you allow energy to flow from one finger to the other finger, the energy which traveled between the 2 fingers turned on a larger amount of energy. The larger amount of energy is so powerful, it affects each cell of your body. (Only works well on the small fingers. I got close to no result from the other fingers.) The powerful energy which flows through your entire body as it cures damaged cells, is not directly emitted from the 2 tiny magnetic rings. The powerful energy you have experienced is the energy amplified by the tiny energy which came from the rings. This powerful energy helps your body reheal. Which means, your wounds, scars, and among other damaged cells will reheal.
Oh, look we’ve just changed physics, thanks to Alex Chiu for his great discovery of creating energy. A transistor is truly an amplifier; it can be used as a current, voltage or power amplifier, but there’s no such thing as an energy amplifier! You can’t amplify energy, that’s as simple as that. You have to deal with the amount you have. This whole thing is just ridiculous and he’s actually selling those Eternal Rings, that’s the worst thing! Can you expect to gain eternal life by wearing two Alex Chiu’s Eternal Rings that “amplify energy” and cure your body that way? No. I’m pretty sure some mad scientist would have figured it out and proved it. We’re in 2008, something as simple as wearing a ring to gain eternal life would have been discovered. I mean, we send people in space…Don’t we?
Now the best of the best, Alex Chiu’s Gorgeouspil! Again, here’s a quote from Alex Chiu’s website:
This pill was named ‘Gorgeous Pill’ because it turns a user prettier every time the pill was taken. The user will gradually look PERFECT, even more gorgeous than super models. You will one day reach PHYSICAL PERFECTION!!
Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Alex Chiu’s is once again lying. You just have to look at Alex Chiu’s picture to understand it just doesn’t work. And now the juiciest quote of all:
A person who takes Gorgeouspil likes to concentrate his soul within his own body and does not wish to scatter his soul on to other bodies. So making babies is not desirable for people who take Gorgeouspil. Gorgeouspil allows a person to achieve unlimited beauty and unlimited youth. Meanwhile, it stops humans from unnecessary reproductions of more human beings.
Oh now that helps a lot Alex; create a crazy generation of 6 billion people looking 25. I just can’t believe some people are actually buying these things thinking it will work. You just have a look at Alex Chiu’s website and you know it’s a scam. There’s nothing professional and nothing scientific in this whole thing. I’m sorry Alex Chiu’s, but your stuff is BS. No, in fact I’m not sorry.
Global warming? God wouldn’t allow it.
Posted by: | Comments
I was browsing some forum in search for some juicy information and I found a really good one! It seems there’s a bunch of Conservative Christians actually not believing in global warming because God wouldn’t allow it! Here’s some quotes before going any further:
Global warming? God wouldn’t allow it, or if he did, it would be because of divine intervention, not anything MAN could do.
As a Conservative Christian, I know more than anyone how the left is trying to undo all of the God given rights of our faithful upper-class. It is my understanding that we cannot be the cause of global warming, because God wouldn’t allow his most beloved Nation to do such a thing. Its just another attempt to get people into backing such anti-Christian causes as public education, medicare, medicade and tax cuts for the poor.
You know when you read something and it hurts? I mean it really hurts and you just feel so out of control because it’s plain ridiculous. I totally understand not everyone can agree with global warming as even if there’s a lot of scientific data backing it up, it’s still unsure about whether we’re responsible or not. I personally think we are responsible for global warming as we’re just freaking careless about our planet and there’s a lot of scientific data pointing towards that possibility.
Anyway, the “God wouldn’t allow it” is just plain ridiculous! I’m sorry but God has nothing to do with Global warming. We’re messing up our planet, we’re dealing with it. It’s not a matter of believing in God or not, I really don’t care…It’s a matter of common sense! Hiroshima…Why did God let that happen? WWI and II, why did God let that happen? The fact that we’re destroying our forests, why is God letting that happen? The real truth is that we’re complete idiots and that our world is driven by money which eventually leads to man-made disasters. Plain and simple. There’s no divine intervention in that. You mess up, you pay. End of the story.
I thinks it goes further than the religion stuff. It’s dangerous, really. These people are totally blind about what’s happening around them and there’s no facts that could convince them about anything. I honestly think religion is a wonderful thing as it helps people to go forward and give them something to believe in. But there’s a point where it’s dangerous and I think these people have crossed the line. So you make your own opinion but my quote of the day is: “You mess up, you pay”.
How to detect propaganda
Posted by: | Comments
I think an important thing in life is to remain rational and not being caught in all sorts of fear/war/whatever propaganda. The key to that is being able to detect propaganda. In fact, I’m amazed that propaganda still works really good in today’s world because access to information is so much easy. Access to information and education is key to eliminate propaganda. Well informed people are less likely to believe things that doesn’t make sense because they can make their own objective opinion from things they’ve read or seen. With Wikipedia and all the information available on the internet these days, you don’t have any excuse anymore to be misinformed.
Wikipedia defines propaganda as follows:
Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience.
Propaganda can take the form of, but not limited to, leaflets, posters, TV and radio broadcasts and Internet websites. Any medium that has access to mass population can be used. Propaganda is a very cleaver principle and works mostly by appealing to your emotions while making you believe it is appealing to your reason. In fact, it tries to make people act like animals more than rational, self-thinking persons. The most common form of propaganda is fear propaganda, but there are numerous types. The thing they all have in common is that they are appealing to your emotions and not to your brain. It’s really easy to figure out why it works so well with fear: What’s your reaction when you’re afraid? You’re acting under impulsion and not with your brain; that’s also what animals do. You make people fear something so they approve whatever agenda you may have as long as it resolves the issue. War on terror anyone? Also, what do you do to people not agreeing with you when you’re afraid? You reject them, creating a community of “believers” and clearly separate Good from Bad. Of course you’re always on the good side, never on the bad side. Then you become Self-righteous and the propaganda wheel is in good shape!
So, how to detect it? It’s really simple, when a group of people in charge (Government, at work, school, etc.) tries to justify actions they have intentions to take by appealing to your emotions/feelings, there’s good chance they have a hidden agenda or want to start a propaganda campaign about something. Another good clue is that they won’t make reference to any rational/scientific/proven argument just to make sure you’re not self-thinking. The part where it gets tricky is if arguments are made up to make you believe they’re right. That’s where information and education enter the game. If you’re well informed, you will be able to detect those lies because you can think in a rational way and make links with things you’ve read and experienced.
A good thing can be to observe existing propaganda campaigns and note their similarities. You’ll notice that war, end of the world, UFO, etc. propagandas campaigns all make reference to your most primitive emotions and doesn’t make reference to any scientific/proven/valid arguments. It’s all about emotions and feelings while making you think it’s rational by the ways it’s put!
It’s a very short, straight to the point article about propaganda but I think it’s a good thing to know. Also, if it gave anyone the “drive” to be more informed about their world well it’s a success.