A Letter to Teachers
I've gotten quite a few emails from teachers wanting to share facts and projects from this site with their classes. While I'd be honored to be part of your students' education, there is one very important thing which I think you should know before you proceed:
UndeniableFacts.com is a joke. Not only are the facts on this site deniable, they're completely wrong! While individual details may be true in some cases, the general premise of every single fact on this site is false.
The videos on the site are fake as well. The "science experiments" are hoaxes orchestrated through camera tricks and computer graphics, and we have researched them carefully to make sure that none of them actually work.
So why have we created this elaborate sham?
The site is a statement on the sorry state of critical thinking in our culture. The voracity of the public's appetite for misinformation knows no bounds, and unscrupulous capitalists provide an all-you-can-eat buffet. Their menu offers such nonsense as UFOs, psychics, chiropractors, crop circles, scientology, infomercials, diet pills ... the list goes on and on.
The real undeniable fact is that people simply aren't skeptical enough. We are trained - and perhaps instinctively compelled - to accept information based on the credibility of its source. This alone can be dangerous, but unfortunately, we are also becoming increasingly inclined to accept information based simply on the forcefulness with which it is presented.
Our brand of humor is certainly dry, and we have been a little surprised that so many people either accept the "facts" or don't get the joke. Of course, if you realize that the facts are intentionally false, they're pretty amusing. We have endless fun coming up with them, as well as writing lengthy, scientific sounding explanations for age-old special effects.
While you may think that we're cynical, we really do earnestly hope and believe that the situation can change. Which is why we have created this page, the only page on the entire site which does not contain any bald-faced lies. This page is here because we have a request: please try to give your students a little push in the right direction. Maybe put a question on a test where the correct answer is "He's just trying to screw with your head so he can scam you." Or maybe just emphasize the importance of fact checking a little bit more. Heck, I don't know. You're the teacher. But please, please, help us to dam the raging river of over-trust.
P.S.
While you may think we're cruel for trying to fool you, remember: we showed you how to "make" magnetic water. But at least we didn't try to sell you any.
13 Comments:
This is too funny. . I can't believe that I haven't read this particular part of your webpage before. I actually thought that you were serious (and seriously full of it).
Hey, I'll admit it, I was fooled (you can think of that admission as the Emperor's New Clothes in reverse, if you like – I'm sure that there were plenty of others that were fooled hook, line and sinker, but who wont feel comfortable admitting it). I didn't actually try any of the experiments described, but I did read one or two of read them at face value after being directed here by I-am-bored.com, and believed them at the time. I thought that they might be cool things to try on a rainy day. It was the graviton spoon that eventually made me think "hmmmm, nope!", and bother to read further. Without over-egging the matter, I don't consider myself to be a dummy, or, under most circumstances, gullible. If I can be fooled, then I'm pretty sure that others can and will have been too. I think that the underlying lesson to be learned from the site is a valid and worthwhile one; always consider the source, and never assume.
Thanks guys,
Rachel Pirry,
Glasgow, Scotland.
Good blog had me fooled for a while. Kind of reminds me of those mags in the supermarket near the cash registers.
wow! all i sham eh? well some of them where quite unbelivable, and i do admit to trying a couple of the stupid ones. love the site though, gives ma a few laughs =)
OK, the existence of UFOs is not proven yet, psychics are phoneys, crop circles are all fake, scientology is just bunch of liars and idiots (who even kill people), informacials sell nothing else than trash and I am also completely aware of the fact, that diet pills don't work. But you are telling me, that chiropractors are just a big hoax as well?!? I'm sorry, but I'm sceptical! (See? I'm not one of those credulous sillys!)
Dan, Good work man! Keep it up.
So you poor saps believe him when he says "Trust me--those other posts are false...this one is true!"?
It's painfully obvious to me that this is simply a clever ruse to deflect the attentions of "Them" from his radically subversive guerrilla assault on their FUD-ish lies.
More power to him, and no, I'm not giving the game away, since no one takes me seriously or believes a word I say.
HAND!
i like the site a lot but guess what... you made me waste a lot of eggs :D
i was fooled for a while, tried the flying apple thing... gotta learn to work on that skepticism thing. Great site though.
the only thing more entertaining than reading the facts is reading the folks trying to debunk you, and then reading the folks that earnestly try to support your facts.
I thought this was the greatest blog of all time until I read this part of it. Why would you admit anything?
It would be perfect if teachers started using this page as trivia for their classes and newscasters started putting little tid-bits of trivia from this site into their news. Why would you ruin that?
You have to take this page down and go with it 100%. It'd be hilarious. YOU CAN DO IT.
I constantly get idiotic email from friends and aquaintances telling me "Mars is going to be the size of the full moon next month", or they found some health remedy based on putting magnets in your shoes, or they're trying to sell me on creationism, perpetual motion, magic, ESP, whatever.
I'm weary of trying to talk any sense into them. From now on I'm just going to steer them to this website.
okay you got me
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