baeuchlein on 24/8/2010 at 12:33
Since we started out from the Sci-Fi department, I might also mention that the solar system closest to our own, (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri#Observational_history) Alpha Centauri, is frequently depicted in science fiction stories as a
single star, although observations from at least some decades (possibly even centuries) ago show that it's at least a double star. I know that some sci-fi books are older than recent scientific discoveries, meaning it's understandable that they depict the universe in a different point of view, but that does not count here.
I don't want to dive too deep into Hollywood's mistakes concerning reality, although some of them might be worth mentioning: No, cars don't usually explode if you shoot into their fuel tank. They don't detonate either if there's a small leak in the tank and you try to ignite the fuel. Even if you threw a lit match into a
full fuel tank, there's little chance that it would do more than just
go out in the liquid. Some more examples can be found in the electrics department - just spraying some electric device with water does
not mean that it will instantly fail with lots of sparks emanating from it - and sci-fi operas do several things wrong when it comes to space flight or space battles.
Back to electric misinformation. Here in Europe, it is common to say "230 volts are deadly", but in reality, it's not the voltage that kills you (I've been subjected to it once and just felt a bit of a sensation). It's the electric current. Humans may walk over a rug and receive an electric charge of ten thousand volts waiting for them to touch something like a metal fence, but even after that,
They live.:p
Then there's all this discussion about CO2, the climate change and other things more or less connected to that. There's frequent talk around here about "CO2-free power plants", which is bullshit. These power plants burn coal or fossil fuels, meaning they
have to produce CO2 - that's where all the energy comes from. What "CO2-free" usually means is that after producing CO2, some kind of storage technique is used to prevent CO2 from
getting into the atmosphere. But in times when it's not popular to bury atomic waste (especially since (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asse_II) the first experiment of this kind in Germany just went very wrong), it's probably not popular to put some other unwanted waste there either. So they want to sell it as an improvement concerning environmental issues. See Kolya's post above - it's some kind of marketing as well.
Furthermore, there are all kinds of people (scientists or others) claiming to
know what's up exactly with our climate, but reality is a lot more complicated. This is often the case when science and money get into the way of each other - anyone claims to know the sole truth (but
every one prefers a
different truth), while it's sometimes even
impossible to prove some things. On the other hand, doing nothing (usually preferred by whoever makes money with
current technology concerning the subject) can be wrong as well. One has to carefully evaluate known risks as well as possible ones, and should in theory select measures which are appropriate for
every scenario.
The fantasy department provides us with some pitfalls as well. Today, (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elf) elves are commonly seen as human-like and human-sized beings, but before Tolkien's
Lord of the Rings, elves could mean much smaller beings than the ones we see in fantasy stories today. The description of a (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Conan_Doyle#Spiritualism) picture that fooled Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, showing "fairies", is sometimes translated as "showing elves", another hint at smaller beings named like that. However, thanks to J.K.Rowling's "house-elves", all may not be lost, at least not yet.;)
Ah, yes, Doyle. His famous creation, Sherlock Holmes, has uttered the phrase "(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#Holmesian_deduction) When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" in several variations throughout his "history", but in reality, things are usually a lot more complicated. (We're scraping science once again, and logic.)
The idea behind this phrase is correct only if several conditions are met. For example, one has to first make a
complete list of all possibilities (even ones we
cannot imagine yet!) , then eliminate without any fault every possibility that is truly impossible until
only one possibility remains. In reality, simplistic thinking like this is often employed, while some deeper thinking would easily raise doubts about it. Once again, this is often used to push people into a certain direction, most common today in politics. That way, it is used to
spread misinformation, although the idea itself can hardly be described as information or mis-information.
