by VorJack
One of the good things about working in the museum field is that other museum folks are more willing to tell it to you straight. And so, during a tour of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, one curator told a group of us about the historic baseball that Abner Doubleday didn’t have when he didn’t invent baseball, when he wasn’t in Cooperstown, which wasn’t in 1839.
Of course, not everyone wants to hear that, which is why the curator was venting to us. Despite the fact that the Doubleday myth has been roundly debunked for decades now, people still show up at the Hall of Fame wanting to hear the old story about the Civil War general designing the baseball diamond.
This kind of story is sometimes called a “zombie fact,” no matter how many times you try to kill it, it always rises again. Somehow they just seem lodged in our collective memories, and no amount of pounding gets rid of them.
There are a number of national “zombie facts,” like the idea that Columbus was trying to prove the world was round, or the story of Washington and the cherry tree. But I think most of these facts exist on the local level, just as little stories that get passed around the community that no one ever bothers to check.
In this region, we have to tell people that the song “Yankee Doodle” probably wasn’t written at Fort Crailo – which, incidentally, wasn’t really a fort. And no, I’m sorry to say, Captain Kidd did not bury his treasure anywhere along the Hudson, nor did Robert Livingston abscond with any and bury it on his land.
Not, of course, that telling people does any good. The zombie fact always rises to lurch another day.
What sort of “zombie facts” do you have in your region? Are there any that particularly get under your skin?
This one doesn’t really bother me, but I think it’s pretty funny.
In my town there is a mini mall in the downtown core in a building that is a strange shape, (it looks sort of like a converted barn) and from the outside at least it seems to have a huge, unused attic on the second floor. The persistent, unkillable rumour (conspiracy theory) is that this attic space is where the Mafia Dons who secretly run the town have their weekly meetings. Many people, (myself included, I have to admit) refer to it as the “Mafia Mall” because of this story.
Eratosthenes was trying to prove that the world was round. Columbus was trying to get rich.
I’ve been wracking my brain for local zombie facts (I’m in western NY). The best I can come up with are urban legends, which aren’t quite the same thing as zombie historical facts. For example, there is a persistent belief that there is a secret underground connection between Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake, and that the bodies of people who drown or go missing in one lake sometimes turn up in the other. But I’ve lived here for 50 years and I’ve never heard of a single documented case of this.
@ UrsaMinor
Eratosthenes knew the world is round. He tried (and did) to measure its circumference.
That all Asians look alike!
180% zombie fact!
That the airplane was invented by a Brazilian. Wright brothers ain’t got nothing on Mr. Dumont.
Granted, it was a mistake done by Europeans of the time, but the myth stuck.
No way it was a farmer in New Zealand farmer by the name of Richard Pearse.
I guess one would be that there are taste zones on your tongue for salt sweet bitter and sour.
okay I’m bummed, I thought there were…with maybe a fifth. what is the right answer?
There are five basic tastes* currently recognised, but they’re not localised into specific areas on the tongue. All parts of the tongue have taste buds sensitive to each of the tastes.
*The fifth is umami: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami
In Greece we’ve got plenty of those, but we’ve coined the term “lernean facts” as in the lernean hyrda. No matter how many times you chop off their heads, they always sprout more.
Among my favourites (all involving the Greek Language):
1. The Greek Language has 5,000,000 words (closer to 150,000 really)
2. The Greek Language missed becoming an official US language by a single jewish vote (gotta love this one)
3. The only language computers accept for programming is the Ancient Greek Language (this makes my head spin exorcist-style every time I hear it)
and of course
4. All major discoveries were made by Greeks (Colombus was of hellenic origin, Einstein stole the Theory of Relativity from the Greek mathematician Constantine Karathodoris are a couple of examples that spring to mind).
5. Henry Kissinger harbours a deep-seated hatred for Greeks, as all zionists do. All major problems in Greece can be traced to a Jew. (antisemitism with fries on the side, anyone?)
All these have been propagandized for at least 30 years by fringe right-wing nationalists, but as the saying goes, one only needs to tell people what they want to hear to be successful. But when you hear people mentioning this stuff in the Parliament, you know we’re in trouble. *le sigh*
In America, the legend seems to be about German (though I’ve never heard the Jewish rider).
They do have computer programmers in Greece, right?
Who needs programmers when you can soak up all the light radiating from the right-winged fountain of knowledge… See now? You got me started… :P
A little googling and I found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenic_Quest
Basically it was a hoax/joke email that (Greek) people took a little too seriously.
Hellenic Quest. Quite right. It IS a hoax, but I ain’t laughing. People gobbled it up cos they wanted to. Sacrificing the truth for an ego boost isn’t really my thing. Yet again, most urban legends and hoaxes like this basically survive cos they give an ego boost on a personal or regional level, don’t they?
¿We only use a x% of our brains ?
Well if you’re a fundie, x< 1.
I live in Charlotte NC, but in Asheville, there’s a persistent belief that Walt Disney worked either at the newspaper, or as a draftsman for the city even going so far as offering “his desk” for sale or claiming that smudged signatures on local maps are his.
Thing is, Walt NEVER lived in Asheville, or any part of North Carolina for that matter.
Another weird one passed around on the renaissance faire circuit is that the Disney Company runs or at least owns several of the larger festivals; particularly, a prominent one in Texas. All started because the company that DOES own the faire used Disney theme parks as a inspiration when constructing their immersive environment, and then Disney was poking around Texas contemplating a resort or theme park, but there no connection between them what-so-ever. But every year I hear that same “fact” spouted by some big bearded blow-hard in a kilt thinking he knows everything.
*waves from Charlotte*
Nope this had nothing to do with the thread. Just wanted to say hi. =)
Betsy Ross and the first American flag http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Ross
In 1870 Ross’s grandson, William J. Canby, presented a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in which he claimed that his grandmother had “made with her hands the first flag” of the United States. Canby said he first obtained this information from his aunt Clarissa Wilson in 1857, twenty years after Betsy Ross’s death.
This is on a par with the writing of the gospels.
The founder of McKeesport, Pa., David McKee is not buried under the monument to him in the McKeesport, Versailles Cemetery. When the monument was erected, they intended to move his body from its plot but found nothing. It turns out that when the down town expanded, and the previous ninth street cemetery was moved to Mck/Vers, the grave diggers were afraid that a stone wall might collapse on them, and only moved a few bones in a small box to the new cemetery and that box was never found.
There is a great list of these at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions.
But one that bothers me personally (although this isn’t historical, so maybe not precisely on topic) is that artificial sweeteners cause cancer. Probably 90% of people I have talked to about this (or perhaps even more) were fairly certain that all artificial sweeteners were known to be carcinogenic. When I pointed out to them that in reality, almost all of them are known NOT to be carcinogenic, they rarely believed me.
There are also still plenty of people who believe that certain colors of M&Ms cause cancer (probably based off the Red #2 scare), that processed foods are filled with carcinogenic preservatives (while I admit there have been some cases of artificial ingredients being delisted by the FDA after approval, this is far more common with natural ingredients), that GM crops cause cancer, and that pretty much anything else you do causes cancer.
My favourite true fact in the world is that oxygen causes massive amounts of DNA damage, and hence cancer. :)
All those aliens must be looking down on us going “the hell is wrong with those earthlings, breathing oxygen?!?”
Seems to me that life causes cancer….
That’s actually pretty accurate from what I understand. An oncologist described it tome thus: You get two copies of your DNA, and over time one of them gets worn out until it’s knackered, then you pretty much switch to the other one instead. When they’re both corrupted, cancer happens. People with severe congenital conditions are more prone to cancer because one of their copies is already corrupted. I know that’s massively simplified, but I like it as an explanation.
Well, all of your chromosomes are expressed (although any given female cell will only express one X chromosome), so that can’t be true. If one of the chromosomes gets damaged in a cell but not its homologue, the cell can probably still function because usually one normal gene is enough. On the other hand, often one abnormal gene is enough to cause cancer, even if the cell is still functioning (a simple example being carcinogenic insulin mutants). So I wouldn’t call that explanation “simplified” so much as “highly inaccurate.”
Well, life is a sexually transmitted disease….
Living in the “Slate Belt” we have allot of old quarries most of which fill with water from all the natural springs. One of the quarries was turned into a scuba diving center called Dutch Springs. Being a diver I wanted my, then, Lady friend to come along and to try it out,but she went on a rant about how “there aint no bottom to the quarry hole”. She honestly believed that there was no bottom and was too terrified to even consider going. I then found that she wasn’t the only one with this deranged idea, that quite a few of the locals really believe this. Even after telling them that the quarries is 110′ deep and I’ve been there they wont accept it. Sad,very very sad.
What exactly do they think is down there? The center of the Earth? Clear through to the other side?
And even if it DID go to the center of the Earth…. so what? It’s still perfectly swimmable water.
They’re afraid of underground rivers. That if they went swimming they would get suck in like a drain and their bodies would never be found. I even took pictures of a friend standing on the bottom and they still refuse the truth.
St. Louis, Missouri “zombie fact”:
During World War II, the Army worked on a top-secret weather control device that they planned to implement should the Axis powers attempt air raids on U.S. cities. The best place to test such a device? St. Louis, because it is situated between two rivers and therefore has complicated and diverse weather patterns. After the war, the Army needed to cover up the machine, so they buried it and built the Arch on top of it. To this day, major storms continue to just miss the metropolitan area because of the buried device.
Two words:
Earthquake Weather.
“Homosexuals are paedophiles.”
It’s been shown again and again and again to be false, but the homophobes keep on using it.
Ok I found one. There is a persistent myth that Kangaroo literary means “I don’t know” In the language spoken by the Aboriginal people living in the Sydney Cove area at the time of first contact. This is not the case. http://www.answers.com/topic/kangaroo
It sounds like a Terry Pratchett “joke” about how the explorers choosed mountain’s names talking with the aborigens “It’s your finger idiot!”
sushi does not mean raw fish. Ummm everyone eats whale meat and there are modren day ninjas here
Wait… no ninjas? Ok scratch Japan off the list of dream vacations.
Disabled people have no sexual desire at all.
That… that one bothers me a LOT.
Told you about the lectures nursing students in the UK get on that one, didn’t I? Some of the stories that we got told by guys in wheelchairs were hilarious… Some of them made me want to borrow a wheelchair from the hospital and try a few of the moves they mentioned, too :D
Wish I’d been there.
I thought it was an excellent way of hammering home the message that being disabled doesn’t make you non-human (a sadly common attitude even among new student nurses), which I think was kind of the point. Was funny watching people wriggle at videos of guys injection their junk to get hard-ons, though :D
Needles? Near dangly bits?! O_O;
Yeah, the drug paraplegic men use to get erections (if Viagra doesn’t work) is delivered by injection directly into the billy-dangler.
My region (for the past 10 years) is Fredericksburg, 50 miles south of D.C., and there’s a feeling here that this is where the South “held the line,” or turned back the Yankees. Yes, Robert E. Lee did some of his best work here, but the town and countryside were devastated during the various battles in the area.
What’s the mirror image of a zombie fact? Something that people continue to ignore, no matter how many times it’s reported and supported?
You know, like overpopulation, while the mommies keep squeezing out babies, and the glorification of mommyhood goes on in middle-class America.
That the Chinese character for “crisis” means “danger” and “opportunity”.
Crisitunity!
The biggest ‘zombie fact’ here in Texas is that ‘Shrub’ Bush was a competent president and 9/11 did not occur during his presidency.
Are you trying to hint that when Fix noise were saying, after the underwear bomber, that there was no terrorist attack on the US under W they were not telling the true.
Zombies?……Patsy Robertson, Jizzy Swaggart, Beenny Hinn…..need I name more? They may not be in my region but you can be a zombie too……turn on the TV on Sunday mornings!
Everybody quoting everyone else, without question, that “studies show” that married people are happier and healthier. There was <i<one flawed study, which author and researcher Bella DePaulo, Ph.D., beautifully deconstructs. The study looked only at people who were currently married. Bella writes about how a drug study done like this “study” would be conducted: people who are taking drug “M” are happier than people who aren’t taking it. But some of the people who aren’t taking drug “M” used to take it, and quit because it didn’t help them. Some of the people not married used to be, and it didn’t make them happier. Some of the people now married will end it. SOme of the happy single people may stay that way, or marry later.
The Pew Research study (which was easy for me to find and read online in its entirety) showed very different results. It was done much better than the really lousy “study” that everyone quotes everyone else on, while they keep ASSuming someone actually did a decent study somewhere. Yet the zombie “happy marrieds” “fact” keeps groaning to life, heaving up, and plodding on.
We have one in England which reached a national level and pops up from time to time: “Singing Baa Baa Black Sheep is now considered racist by the government due to some West Indian people being offended”.
I always used to here people talking about it as an example of the loony left. But as I’m the son of a West Indian mother and they sing that song over there, I’ve always found it too stupid to be true. Turns out it was a complete fabrication. By none other than by the Daily Star (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loony_left#Baa_Baa_White_Sheep)
As for locally…The belief that Boudicca is buried under Victoria station.
Here are some whoppers from the locals:
When the boys went to put together the Bible (the exact version varies from person to person), in order to get the most accurate translation, several different people were made to translate the thing completely independent of one another. When they were finally finished and brought their results together, each translation had turned out exactly the same.
The gospel we have today (aka the King James Bible) is the exact same gospel that Paul the Apostle had when he was alive. (In Early Modern English, too? Wow!)
“Homosexual” is a less offensive term than “gay,” because it’s scientific.
From around the country:
There are only five flavors: sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and umami. (Apparently “starchy” doesn’t count. Hmm.)
MSG will cause strokes.
Low-carbohydrate diets practically forbid vegetables and encourage eating buttered steak.
Consuming saturated fat increases your risk of heart disease. (They did ONE study, back in the 70′s, which showed a link between high cholesterol and heart disease. They also found that saturated fat had cholesterol in it. They jumped to conclusions and deliberately ignored any studies that showed humans consuming high levels of saturated fat without associated heart disease.)
Consuming saturated fat increases your risk of diabetes. (The link here is even more tenuous – consuming saturated fat allegedly raises your body fat levels, and high body fat levels allegedly make you more likely to have diabetes. In fact, high body fat levels are a symptom of carbohydrate intolerance, which can lead to diabetes, and dietary fat has nothing to do with it.)
Sushi = raw fish. (I know it’s already been mentioned, but NO. One wonders how these people would react if confronted with pork sushi.)
Dieting doesn’t make you hungry; that’s just a lack of self-control.
You don’t lack self-control; there’s nothing you can do about your weight short of gastric bypass.
If everyone ate the same diet as the person writing this anecdote, we could end obesity, diabetes, heart disease, tooth decay, cancer, aging, violence, world hunger, global warming, and/or death.
And here’s one I remember from the Internets:
“95% of all teenagers do not accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. If you are one of the 5% who do, copy this and paste it into your signature.”
“95% of all teenagers do not accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. If you are one of the 5% who do, copy this and paste it into your signature.”
Does that count teenagers in Saudi Arabia who accept Mohammad as their lord and savior (not much of an improvement over JC) or in India or china. Because if it only refer to the US then where do all those fuc*ing fundies come from.
62.1% of all statistics are made up on the spot. The other 37.9% come straight out of someone’s ass.
@ AnonyMouse: You’re not one of those idiot “Militant Fatties”, are you? You know, those thirty-five stone prats who claim that their weight isn’t affecting their health and it’s not their fault that they’re fat? I only ask because you said:
“They did ONE study, back in the 70’s, which showed a link between high cholesterol and heart disease. They also found that saturated fat had cholesterol in it. They jumped to conclusions and deliberately ignored any studies that showed humans consuming high levels of saturated fat without associated heart disease.”
As a health professional, I have an ethical duty to call you on that bullsh1t!
http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=%22saturated+fat%22+%2B%22heart+disease%22&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0
The link between saturated fat and coronary heart disease is well known and well researched.
Hyperlinking went wrong, dunno why.
“Militant fatties” xD