Most Americans reject young-earth creationism. But the share of Republicans who believe that humans evolved fell from 54% in 2009 to 43% last year. Democrats, do not look so smug: your lot are likelier to believe in UFOs, ghosts and astrology. Also, that the moon landings were faked, that the CIA introduced crack to inner cities and that America’s government conspired in the September 11th attacks. It’s enough to make an ape weep.
Also see Majority of young adults think astrology is a science
Well no, actually, it didn’t. But once a myth lurches into life, there’s no stopping it
…the epidemiologist Mark Nelson from the University of Tasmania, Australia, designed a formal trial of the curse based on protocols for testing the effects of drugs. He compared people who were in the tomb at key times with people who were in Egypt but not in the tomb. His report, published in the British Medical Journal in 2002, concluded that being in the tomb did not significantly hasten death. The ‘participants’ in the study lived on average for more than 20 years after the tomb was opened, whether they visited it or not.
…the mummy’s curse as we know it is a product of 19th-century England. Dominic Montserrat, an Egyptologist from the Open University, traced the first mention to a science-fiction book called The Mummy! (1827) by the little-known novelist Jane Webb Loudon, who was inspired after attending a public unwrapping of a mummy near Piccadilly Circus in London. Loudon set her story in the 22nd century and featured an embalmed corpse who threatened to strangle the book’s hero, a young scholar called Edric.
Some current thought on the “Baghdad Battery”.
From Paleobabble.
The Mythbusters should have done some more background research. It might have spared Adam Savage some pain.
UFO widely seen in Middle East skies, linked to Russian missile test has an update from James Oberg, explaining that the spiral does not indicate a failed launch, but is a deliberate feature needed for the trajectory the Russians wanted.
Five Titanic myths spread by films, from
Skepchick
Contrary to the popular interpretation the White Star Line never made any substantive claims that the Titanic was unsinkable – and nobody really talked about the ship’s unsinkability until after the event….
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 