 by Penny Eubanks April 10, 2005 I would say to Jos Govaars that let's give Tyrell the benefit of the doubt, perhaps he ran across the link www.dmho.org - the information there is kinda scary. Tyrell may have not known it to be a hoax. Or perhaps Tyrell received one of those famed email forwards, which I have come to hate, warning us of some impending doom regarding use of some product such as jell candles which blow up! After I received a simular email long ago and passed it on to my family and freinds out of concern, only to find several weeks later an email from a person I didn't even know (he hit the reply to all tab) letting me and everyone else who passed the email on know that it was a hoax and sharing the urban legend site with us, recommending that we thoroughly check out the facts prior to ever again sharing this type of information. Myself being thoroughly embarrassed that I had passed on information and caused others concern unnecessarily, vowed I would delete all future email forwards or if in doubt check the internet resources to determine if it was a hoax or had validity. Perhaps Tyrell was aware of the hoax and decided that a little satire with a viewpoint on "real threats" would lighten up the topics of conversation of late on Sitnews... Either way Sitnews has provided this viewpoint forum enabling people from all over the world to post to our little remote town of Ketchikan's Sitnews site - it is always refreshing, enlightening, amusing, sorrowful, or other emotions that are shared on viewpoints which draw us all together to communicate. After rereading several of my own posts one time, I decided either in the future I would not post, I would BITE my tongue and keep silent (but here I am), or that I would not be as judgemental about someone else's posts or views. Thank you Sitnews for the opportunity you have given the world to share our very humble (or not) opinions and views! Reading the opinions and viewpoints of others has at times relieved the monotony of a dreary, grey, slanting sideways rainy day! Penny Eubanks
The following information was found on an urban legends site: Claim: A junior high school student won a science fair by circulating a report about the dangers of 'dihydrogen monoxide.' Status: True. Example: [Collected on the Internet, 1997] BAN DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE! Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year. Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death. Dihydrogen monoxide:
Contamination is reaching epidemic proportions! Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage in the midwest, and recently California. Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:
Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer! The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its "importance to the economic health of this nation." In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use. Origins: In 1997, Nathan Zohner, a 14-year-old student at Eagle Rock Junior High School in Idaho Falls, based his science fair project on a report similar to the one reproduced above. Zohner's project, titled "How Gullible Are We?", involved presenting this report Ban me! about "the dangers of dihyrogen monoxide" to fifty ninth-grade students and asking them what (if anything) should be done about the chemical. Forty-three students favored banning it, six were undecided, and only one correctly recognized that 'dihydrogen monoxide' is actually H2O plain old water. Zohner's analysis of the results he obtained won him first prize in the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair; garnered him scads of attention from newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, universities, and congresspeople; and prompted the usual round of outcries about how our ignorant citizenry doesn't read critically and can be easily misled. In other words, a tempest in a teapot. Zohner's project wasn't original: spoof petitions about dihydrogen monoxide and other innocuous "dangers" have been circulating for years, and Zohner based his project on a bogus report that was already making the rounds of the Internet. Moreover, Zohner's target audience was ninth-graders, a group highly susceptible to allowing peer pressure to overwhelm critical thinking. Thrust any piece of paper at the average high school student with a suggestion about what the "correct" response to it should be, and peer pressure pretty much assures you'll get the answer you're looking for. Someone that age isn't very likely to read a friend's petition calling for the banning of whale hunting and critically evaluate the socio-economic and environmental impact of such a regulation. Instead, he's probably going to say to himself, "This issue is obviously important to my friend, and he must have some good reasons for circulating the petition, so I'll sign it." That said, this example does aptly demonstrate the kind of fallacious reasoning that's thrust at us every day under the guise of "important information": how with a little effort, even the most innocuous of substances can be made to sound like a dangerous threat to human life. The next time you receive an ominous message such as the one warning you that sodium lauryl sulfate (a common foaming ingredient used in shampoos) causes cancer, with the "proof" being that this caustic chemical is also used to scrub garage floors, keep in mind that the very same thing could be said of another ubiquitous cleaning agent . . . dihydrogen monoxide. Update: In March 2004 the
California municipality of Aliso Viejo (a suburb in Orange County)
came within a cat's whisker of falling for this hoax after a
paralegal there convinced city officials of the danger posed
by this chemical. The leg-pull got so far as a vote having been
scheduled for the City Council on a proposed law that would have
banned the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events because
(among other things) they were made with DHMO, a substance that
could "threaten human health and safety." (Last updated:
March 15 2004) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sitnews.
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