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Quantum fluctuations in space, science, exploration and other cosmic fields... served up regularly by MSNBC.com science editor Alan Boyle since 2002.

Alan Boyle covers the physical sciences, anthropology, technological innovation and space science and exploration for MSNBC.com. He is a winner of the AAAS Science Journalism Award, the NASW Science-in-Society Award and other honors; a contributor to "A Field Guide for Science Writers"; and a member of the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

Check out Boyle's biography or send a message to Cosmic Log via cosmiclog@msnbc.com.



Myths busted on the Web

Posted: Monday, August 18, 2008 8:55 PM by Alan Boyle

The bad news about last week's Bigfoot news is that, by all appearances, the claims about finding an actual corpse of the long-sought monster are bogus. The good news is that it didn't take all that long to bust the Bigfoot myth. The Internet lends itself easily to putting forth all sorts of tomfoolery, but more and more folks are using online communities to track down the truth as well.

The most reliable sources for checking Internet myths and downright scams are the folks at Snopes.com, home of the Urban Legends Reference Pages. The Discovery Channel's MythBusters have also made a name for themselves, and there are many more on the Web. Here are a few other myth-busting sites to sample:

... And for what it's worth, I'm tanned, rested and ready after a weeklong sojourn in California. Regular postings to Cosmic Log will resume on Tuesday.

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nice to have you back...bummer RE Bigfoot...I still allow myself the same twinge of belief/excitement at the possibility of Bigfoot proof as I did the very first time...DRAT!!!
how friggin' cool would it be?
Don't forget that some issues within science deserve more than just a "myth-busting".  Some scientific controversies are sufficiently debatable that they deserve more of our attention.  If society decides to view science as nothing more than an assortment of facts, then the casualty of that view will be a more realistic view that incorporates the inherently controversial nature of science.  Where arguments can be formulated to defend a scientific view, people need to listen up and apply logic.

The idea that gravity is the dominant force that surrounds us is a very old idea.  We used to also think that space was a vacuum.  Since we started entering space with probes, we've come to realize that space is filled with charged particles.  These charged particles obey electromagnetic effects more than gravity.  They also tend to, in the laboratory, form filaments.  Space scientists see these filaments everywhere -- around the Sun, connecting the Sun to the Earth, trailing off of Venus, connecting the largest structures that we can witness with our telescopes -- even emanating from our Milky Way galaxy.  But every time they see them, they fail to realize their significance.  In the laboratory, plasmas use these braided filaments to transfer charged particles.  And it has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with gravity or collisions or anything like that.

Our appreciation of Albert Einstein has in fact led us astray.  Yes, he was a genius.  But, he was also in fact far more open-minded than people have become since his time.  When he died, he was reading a book by Immanuel Velikvosky, "Worlds in Collision".  The very act of re-considering that particular text suggests that Einstein was re-considering the scientific content of ancient human mythological stories.

It turns out that Einstein was a step ahead of everybody else.  The field of comparative mythology has in fact come a very long way even since the time of Einstein and Velikovsky.  Some IEEE-published plasma scientists are recognizing morphologies in cave rock art only previously witnessed within plasma laboratories.  Many of the main characters in our oldest mythologies -- like Zeuss -- actually hold in their hands laboratory plasma shapes.  The possibility that our plasma sphere (aka the magnetosphere) can change over short time intervals is supported by modern observation.  We should take this into consideration when considering these numerous mythological coincidences.

However, within the space sciences, the idea that there could exist vast amounts of yet-undiscovered space-relevant information within human mythological stories is so heretical that the large majority refuse to even take the arguments seriously.  Most don't even realize that good arguments can be formulated, and they base their confidence that it is wrong in large part upon this lack of awareness.

While the people at Bad Astronomy work hard in public to bust myths like the one above, most of the public doesn't realize that they also work hard behind the scenes to "bust" the Electric Universe.  Employees who staff the Picture of the Day NASA website can be witnessed to log computer time at all hours of the work day arguing against the Electric Universe.  Others staff wikipedia, where the Electric Universe is denied even an entry in spite of the fact that its authors receive publication in a yearly IEEE publication (IEEE is the world's largest scientific institution).  One of the premier experts in the Electric Universe has worked as an advisor to the Department of Energy.  Behind the scenes, advocates of the Electric Universe in fact span virtually all of the scientific disciplines.  The EU Theorists in fact draw upon this incredible resource to create their publications.

Needless to say, at the Bad Astronomy Forum itself, it's not difficult to cast doubt upon any new paradigm.  After all, it's competing against a very elaborate (albeit arguably malfunctioning) paradigm, the Standard Model.  What they rarely acknowledge at BAUT is the fact that the existence of mathematical explanations doesn't actually have much bearing on whether or not those explanations are real.  They will argue that this is how science works, as if science has no need to pro-actively incubate argumentatively stronger (yet financially weaker) competing ideas on its own.  What we get is ultimately what we've paid for: one paradigm to believe.

And that's ultimately what the public doesn't realize: the conventional theories are just one single attempt at an explanation for our observations.  It's by no means been a rigorous or exhaustive attempt at identifying *all* paradigms, and eliminating them one at a time, as each new one appears onto the scene.  Instead, new paradigms are more oftentimes judged by the rules of the pre-existing paradigm.  In other words, people basically refuse to entirely reconsider their assumptions.  It is a mistake that we pay for in terms of our awareness of the past every day that goes by.  The people of the past are trying to tell us what happened to them.  We just refuse to listen, actually.
Big Foot is no myth! I beleive these men are telling the truth. There have been hundreds of people who have reportedly seen these. Are they all lying? I seriously doubt that. Also there have been pictures taken of these animals.There is no way anyone can prove these are a myth. The DNA test which was supposedly done showed it to have Oppossem guts in it. It quite possibly had just eaten one. I am quite sure this will eventually proove to be the real deal when it is over.
Flashing your headlights on and off or your brights on and off will help the traffic light change. Can someone please bust this myth. I'm pretty certain it is a myth but I'd like to see proof. It really annoys me as a person who used public transportation when people are flashing their headlights at intersections.
The most amazing part of this Big Foot hoax was not how quickly it was exposed, but how slowly MSNBC and other news outlets dropped the story. These idiots got a weeks worth of national news coverage that was clearly not deserved.
Ya. Sure. come to California AFTER the earthquake and when the fires are all out.

Where's your sense of adventure?

Pansy!

And don't claim you "survived" Mt. St. Helens. I used to live in Longview, and the mountain was just a friendly neighbor!

JK.

Good to see CL postings will be back up...
"It must be true if I saw it on the 'Interwebs'!"
THE SAD PART IS THAT EVERYBODY IS SO ANXIOUS TO PROVE THIS TO BE FALSE RATHER THAN ACTUALLY GET MORE INFORMATION FROM THE PEOPLE THAT SUPOSEDLY FOUND BIG FOOT.  I THINK THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE TOO AFRAID TO BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT ISNT SPOON FED TO THEM SINCE THEY WERE YOUNG.  IM A FIRM BELIEVER THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.  SCIENTIST DISCOVER NEW SPECIES EVERYDAY!!  IF THERE WASNT A POSSIBILITY THAT A CREATURE LIKE THAT COULD BE OUT THERE AND JUST ESCAPING OUR GRASPS, THEN THIS WORLD WOULD BE A VERY BORING PLACE.
Flashing your lights on and off only indirectly affects the traffic lights. The flashing attracts Bigfoot to the intersection, and he opens the controller box and forces the light to change state prematurely. So, another myth busted.
Chris Reeve...how about simplifying things a bit?
Like, "It's all the same place, and we are in it."
Or, "Many Cosmologies/Mythologies have worked in the past, why believe that today's version is any more valid than earlier offerings?"
Einstein didn't ride around on his bike, wagging his tongue like a goofy puppy for nothing.
He realized that even his genius was limited by many of the same restrictions as any other Human, and kinda liked it that way.
He was a Human, experiencing Humanity...and enjoying it.
Experience some Humanity by clicking my name below.
It'll give you a grin...especially if you think about ol' Al on his bike at the same time.

"I THINK THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE TOO AFRAID TO BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT ISNT SPOON FED TO THEM SINCE THEY WERE YOUNG."

Which would seem to be balanced out by people who are perfectly willing to lie to you.

Not to mention those who are honestly mistaken about an unusual observation.

Yes, the farther outside our experience (or the more profound the implications and meaning, such as the existence of ETs...or God) a claim is, the greater the standard of proof should be.

I didn't always agree with Carl Sagan, but he was on the money, when he said; "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

And yes, I have a few somewhat radical beliefs and ideas of my own, but I *know* there's not yet enough behind them to 'stand up in court,' so to speak, and therefore I don't present them as hard facts.

Mr. Miyagi...
If it is dawn or night, and the traffic lights switch to a sensor for rural areas (less traffic, street with more flow stays green), then yes it is possible for you trigger it by turning them off then back on. But, they should have already triggered when you pulled up to the intersection, unless you are facing down hill at the intersection and your lights don't reach high enough (hit the brights), but then, why would they have installed sensors at an intersection where they wouldn't work properly? Do you live in Alabama or Utah, lol...
I know Bigfoot exists! The aliens have told me so. They have been beaming messages to me from the HAARP facility in Alaska since 2005. They have communicated to me a wealth of knowledge and understanding and have opened my eyes to reality. I get it now! The aliens are probably trying to communicate with you, too, but you have to be tuned into their wavelength.
Wow, I think it's hilarious that people "just know" that bigfoot exists.  The areas where they are purported to live could not sustain a mammal that large.  For a population to survive, its numbers have to be in the hundreds.  There are no bigfoot droppings in the areas.  No bigfoot hairs, no dead bigfoot carcasses, no bigfoot homes despite the fact that they are purported to live in areas to cold for a mammal of this size to live outdoors with no shelter.  The whole idea of a mammal surviving in the forests of Montana or South America is not even remotely plausible.  That's why scientists don't believe the hoaxes.  No, the people are not all liars, some are liars and some are just mistaken.  The picture that they showed of a bear was proven to be a bear with mange.  That one picture is the only picture in the entire video that doesn't look like a bear.  But it was the only one published.  If you watch the rest of the video, it is clearly a mangy bear.  Conveniently, the rest of the images were left out.  Yes, those people were deceitful.
This "bigfoot" was a plastic bigfoot mask on a possum's body!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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