• Queen HawlSera
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    606 months ago

    This is why most skepticism based programs don’t work, and Mythbusters did.

    They didn’t try to be smug about it, they didn’t belittle people who believed in the myths, they never brought religion and politics into it, and the biggest pitfall they avoided: They never pretended that the “science was settled” and that they “already knew everything”, they simply did the research and went where the data took them.

    Too many skepticism based programs seem to think the scientific method is running into a church, yelling “FAKE!”, and then running outside to hurl insults at passersby.

    Mythbusters didn’t do that, they skipped the dogma and went straight to the science.

    • FuglyDuck
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      66 months ago

      Also, most of the myths weren’t “serious”- it wasn’t like they were debunking flat earth or something.

      • @candybrie
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        196 months ago

        I hate that debunking flat earth is now seen as serious rather than a 5th grade science experiment.

        • Queen HawlSera
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          16 months ago

          I actually got fired because I told a Flat Earther to leave the store I worked in, it was closing time and he was harassing people… But if you bitch enough to corporate you can get us to walk on water…

          Whatever, I’m a Janitor now, never doing retail again.

          It’s too easy to debunk flat earth, if it were flat cats would have knocked everything off by now.

      • Zagorath
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        56 months ago

        it wasn’t like they were debunking flat earth or something

        Though you could do that. And with equipment and a type of experiment that would make sense on their show. The experiment conducted at the very end of the documentary Behind the Curve is perfect. Great big lasers, a simple and easy-to-visualise pass condition. If they had wanted to, they absolutely could have done it.

        • FuglyDuck
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          26 months ago

          I mean, yes.

          but their myths generally didn’t piss surprisingly large segments of the population off. it was more… the urban legends that gave them an excuse to blow stuff up, shoot stuff, or otherwise crash stuff; all in slow motion.