TOW #22- A Week Of Misconceptions

     

       This week I read an interesting article called A Week of Misconceptions. Because April fools day just happened and is over, the author felt the need to debunk some of the misconceptions that are fooling the publics eyes. These are the types of things you here that are backed by said “studies.” The article included misconceptions like: exercise builds strong bones, most spree killers are mentally ill, the universe started in one singular place, climate change is not real, and baby teeth don’t matter. All of these “facts” have been going around the whole year. In the article you can read more about each misconceptions.

            The reason this article interested me so much was because it created the argument that people are very gullible. I don’t know if it is because of a lack of education, or it is just human nature, but people tend to fall for all these types of things all the time. Its practically the reason As Seen On TV is still bothering us with their stupid commercials all the time.

            Whenever there is a commercial or article or advertisement that include “bla bla” technology, expert testimonials, or some scientific backing, half the time everything is a lie. The satirical article we read in APELC made fun of these devices in a very comical and accurate way. The article included works like “pseudoscience” and fake scientific facts. All of which accurately portrayed the average advertisement we encounter everyday.

            I personally believe that this problem is only created because of the lack of education in this country. Im not saying I’m a genius who knows everything, but when I heard about how exercise build string bones, I thought to myself, “how could anyone fall for this.” Exercise only affects muscles, at least to my knowledge. Only reason someone would thing otherwise is because of a lack of knowledge when it comes to human anatomy.

            The same thing goes for how climate change isn’t real.  If the public was more educated on how weather and seasonal changes work, the misconception would have never gotten enough footing to become as big as it has.

            I feel like the only way this problem can be fixed, to make America less gullible, is either to increase the average education (which they are already working on) or to have stricter laws about what can be called facts and studies. Once one of these solutions or both are addressed, American can know the truth and not fall for any of these tricks again.