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This reminds me of the first "scientific myth" I witnessed. It was in the 80's in France where we had a photocopied page with "the most dangerous additives". T
by BrandoElFollito 4y ago
This reminds me of the first "scientific myth" I witnessed.
It was in the 80's in France where we had a photocopied page with "the most dangerous additives". The worst was E330. 40 years later, I still remember it.
My parents had a copy from sime friends and these well educated people (dad is an engineer and mom a lawyer) checked everything against the list. Just because it was "from the Villejuif hospital".
It was a fake and E330 is citric acid, a benin product. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid
The famous list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villejuif_leaflet https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villejuif_leaflet
- TillE 4y agoI don't remember the exact context at this point, but I've definitely encountered someone complaining about "ascorbic acid" as an additive, which is of course vitamin C.
- pdpi 4y agoLet's not forget the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. Used as an industrial solvent, its vapours can cause severe burns, yet they put it in food.
- iso1631 4y agoLook at everyone who has committed a murder - you'll find they've consumed dihydrogen monoxide all their lives. Now look at those who have never consumed dihydrogen monoxide -- they haven't killed anyone.
- goldenkey 4y agoI can only cringe so hard from these watered-down jokes. Please, for the life of us, stop!
- not2b 4y agoI first started seeing the "dihydrogen monoxide" or "DHMO" memes a couple of decades ago when there were serious concerns about DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide), a solvent that can carry drugs through the skin, which apparently has some medical use but can be risky. It's a by-product of paper making.
- Scarblac 4y agoA so-called "enabling component" of acid rain, and found in all polluted waterways in the world. That said, nowadays I don't consider these jokes so funny anymore, people really believe similar stuff these days and post-truth bs is used to gain real power by people without shame.
- BrandoElFollito 4y agoThis. I stopped trying to be smart-ass with such jokes because when you read things people believe in, it is disheartening. I am not even thinking about religion or homeopathy, but even benign things they read on Internet and apply to their everyday life. Nobody (exceptions exist) checks them before adding them into their routine. It is enough that Aunt Mary said that (she is an engineer after all), or your typical celebrities gazette added it to their "Did You Know That...?" section.
- t_mann 4y agoDihydrogen monoxide is actually a cooling agent for nuclear power plants. It's lethal at high doses, with hundreds of thousands of fatal accidents per year, and yet they put it into our food because it's cheap.
- dhosek 4y agoThere was one time that a group of Santa Monica High School kids were at the Sunday farmer’s market trying to make videos of people being fooled into a moral panic about ascorbic acid in the produce. I remember saying to them, “You mean Vitamin C?” and the interviewer shook her head and said “You’re too smart” and she and her cameraman walked away in search of a more amenable victim.
- jahnu 4y agoI remember those too :) Had them in Ireland as many times faxed sheets.
- swayvil 4y agoIf you didn't actually make the observation yourself, aren't they all scientific myths?
- radley 4y agoOr the most insidious of all, Dihydrogen Monoxide aka H2O. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dihydrogen-monoxide-hoax https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dihydrogen-monoxide-hoax