Amazing but False by Diefendorf

[Greediguts]

Just wondering if anyone else has read the book "Amazing but False: Hundreds of "Facts" You Thought Were True, but Aren't" by David Diefendorf. The Amazing Randi wrote the foreword so I was a bit suprised by some of the content. The book is supposed to point out various accepted myths and debunk them. When I got to page 89,which had the title "All Crop Circles are Hoaxes", I was suprised to read the following:

"So are true crop circles different from the man-made hoaxes, and if so how? There is a long list of characteristics that make it unlikely if not impossible for the "natural" crop circles to have been fabricated by humans:

-The leaves and stems of the plants manipulated in genuine crop circles are woven together in a fashion so intricate as to be impossible for pranksters to duplicate.
-Nodes on the plant stems are elongated, or stretched, in peculiar ways that no human could have managed.
-The soil beneath natural crop circles often remains dry, even after heavy downpours.
-The stalks of plants, some as brittle as celery, are bent at angles of up to ninety degrees. If handled by humans they would snap apart at a mere forty-five degrees.
-Some crop circles have been found in restricted areas, including military installations, which are securely fenced off from public access."

----and so on, and so on.......

It ends the "debunking" with this :

"As you can see, there's a convincing list of features distinguishing artificial crop circles from the genuine articles. So where do we go from here? Is there yet any reasonable explanation for this fascinating worldwide phenomenon? Nope. When it comes to answers, we're back to square one."

I picked-up the book because I saw Randi's name on the front cover. It seemed to be a nice, little book of amusing facts. Flipping through I saw the standard "The Chicago Fire was Started by Mrs. O'Leary's Cow", and "Ostriches Bury Their Heads in the Sand to Escape Danger" so I wasn't expecting the author to take the position that some crop circles are hoaxes but the rest are genuine. I'll have to continue reading to see if the author has any other questionable myths that he debunks in this fashion.

I did a search to see if someone else had mentioned the book or the author. I didn't find anything so I apologize if there was a thread or post somewhere that I couldn't locate. I assumed because Randi wrote the foreword that there probably would have been a thread.

[Bikewer]

Military areas restricted to the public....But not soldiers..... Nothing like bored GIs to have a bit of fun.

Sounds like this individual wants desperately to believe.

[Greediguts]

Just came across another myth he "debunks". The title is "Noah's Flood Was Pure Mythology Transposed to the Bible".

He mentions the bible account, then talks of the Gilgamesh Epic. He states, "...the Gilgamesh epic, an ancient Babylonian tale that seemed to be the source (the mythical source) for the Noah story in the Bible."

Notice the "mythical source" in parentheses. He then talks of 2 Columbia University geologists finding evidence of a great flooding of the basin of the Black sea around 5,600 BCE. The last paragraph sums up his "debunking" of this myth:

"Then as the polar ice caps melted and the Mediterranean rose, the sea broke through the Bosporus and inundated the area with salty sea water. The torrents that poured through the Bosporus would have been the equivalent of ten Niagara Falls, according to Ryan and Pitman, and would have been a cataclysmic event for what was then human civilization in the low-lying region--more a flood than a great rain...a distinction which is also reflected by a more accurate reading of the Biblical text.

So welcome back, Noah, to the world of the real!"

I think most people would agree that actual flooding took place many times throughout history in that area of the world, but this does not make Noah's story "real" anymore than it would make the Gilgamesh Epic real.

Hmmm.......maybe the author just has an odd writing style.

I just briefly read a part where he says Hitler would sometimes fall to the floor and chew on the carpet. His subordinates who witnessed this behavior nicknamed him "Teppichfresser" (the carpet-eater). Apparently there is alot about Hitler that I didn't know.....

[Vic Vega]

I just briefly read a part where he says Hitler would sometimes fall to the floor and chew on the carpet. His subordinates who witnessed this behavior nicknamed him "Teppichfresser" (the carpet-eater). Apparently there is alot about Hitler that I didn't know.....

Funny you should write this. I just finished reading Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir. She writes that Eleanor's second husband, Henry II of England used to go into fierce rages which sometimes involved him thrashing about on the floor and chewing the floor rushes or chewing on the stuffing of his own mattress. I had never heard of that anywhere else until your post.

[GreyICE]

Noah's flood was probably a real event, at least to my mind. There's several local flood records in the region.

Big, big (once in a century? Once in a millenia?) storm hits, floods many countries, hundreds of cities, is the most devastating thing they've ever seen, or lived through.

Throw in a century of oral history, and you have the Wrath of God.

Certainly the millions of people floods have killed this century wouldn't exactly disagree with the sentiment expressed there.

One animal of each kind, an ark, etc.? Laughable. But a big flood that ruined tons of crops and killed a lot of people? Seems likely.

[Garrette]

I read Ryan's and Pitman's account years ago. I found it well presented and credible. They presented the Black Sea flooding as the origin of the Noachic Flood Myth, but they did not presume certainty. The book is worth reading if only to learn why they distinguish this particular flooding event from other local flood events in regard to why it would make it into cultural memory.

Take my opinion with a bag of salt, though. It is the only book I have read on the Black Sea flood, so if there's anything debunking them I've missed it.

[Sefarst]

I just briefly read a part where he says Hitler would sometimes fall to the floor and chew on the carpet. His subordinates who witnessed this behavior nicknamed him "Teppichfresser" (the carpet-eater). Apparently there is alot about Hitler that I didn't know.....
Sounds like a myth to me. I'm not a native German speaker (if there are any please correct me), but Teppichfresser doesn't make sense. It means "carpet eater," but the "fresser" part is reserved only for animals. When people eat, it is called "essen," but when animals eat they are said to "fressen."

Thus, I'm inclined to believe this is from the mind of someone with a German dictionary and a little imagination.

[Greediguts]

Funny you should write this. I just finished reading Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir. She writes that Eleanor's second husband, Henry II of England used to go into fierce rages which sometimes involved him thrashing about on the floor and chewing the floor rushes or chewing on the stuffing of his own mattress. I had never heard of that anywhere else until your post.


So Henry II and Hitler both had a Pica disorder? Amazing.....


I read Ryan's and Pitman's account years ago. I found it well presented and credible. They presented the Black Sea flooding as the origin of the Noachic Flood Myth, but they did not presume certainty. The book is worth reading if only to learn why they distinguish this particular flooding event from other local flood events in regard to why it would make it into cultural memory.



I would be interested in seeing what made them distinguish one particular flood as the origin of the myth. I start to do some quick digging on Wikkipedia and found that their theory has been seriously questioned.
That link is here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_Flood).


Sounds like a myth to me. I'm not a native German speaker (if there are any please correct me), but Teppichfresser doesn't make sense. It means "carpet eater," but the "fresser" part is reserved only for animals. When people eat, it is called "essen," but when animals eat they are said to "fressen."

Thus, I'm inclined to believe this is from the mind of someone with a German dictionary and a little imagination


The author appears to be referring to William Shirer's book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." I found this (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_L._Shirer#Teppichfresser) on Wikkipedia. Now, I found one web page that said his chewing on the carpet was a error made in translating German to English and that actually it was a slang phrase that really meant "crawling up the walls". I haven't been able to locate any proof of that claim though...