Can I Get A Cheer For Them?

[Johnny Pneumatic]

National Geographic had a thing on Crop Circles and they had James Randi on there; sweet. They debunked them and showed how violent believers can be(tossing rocks a hoaxers). Hip hip hooray!

[El_Spectre]

On the subject of Crop Circles... the folklore says that there have been thousands over the years and, more importantly, that they have been around for quite a long time. If this all crap?

Also, what's up with the supposed dehydrated state of the grain?

I get all these 'facts' from the same kind of TV show that transformed a bishop's hat into a medieval UFO, so I suspect some distortion was involved...

[kookbreaker]

People have been making all kinds of fake claims about crop circles based on nonsense science. The "change in the grain structure" is probably the worst example and is actually covered by the sci.skeptic FAQ


.7.4: What about cellular changes in plants within crop circles?
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Yes, what about the changes? Although this is another claim that is widely circulated among ufologists and cerealogists, the evidence is simply not very good. A few photographs of alleged changes in the "crystalline structure" of wheat stems were published in some magazines and UFO publications. The method used was spagyrical analysis. This is a technique involving crystallization of the residue of organic material after harsh processing, invented three centuries ago and popularized by Sir Kenelm Digby. Digby is known for other wonderful inventions like condensation of sunlight and the development of sword salve (which you had to put on the weapon rather than on the wound, in order to cure the wound). The fact that this technique was tried at all casts serious doubts on the "researchers" involved.


Take any and all claims from "cereologists" with cubic yards of salt.

Never heard about the violence against hoaxers, however, was that when caught in the act, or were they stalking them in their homes?

[LW]

Originally posted by kookbreaker ,quoting a FAQ

Digby is known for other wonderful inventions like condensation of sunlight and the development of sword salve (which you had to put on the weapon rather than on the wound, in order to cure the wound).

By the way, the magical sword and gun salves (Digby wasn't the only one to develop them) were often the better bet compared with nonmagical surgeons back in the 16th century, especially in the bullet wound case.

You see, the accepted medical doctrine of the day was that gunpowder was poisonous and so bullet wounds would lead to certain death if all powder wasn't scraped off the wound. And this was done by sticking various unsterilized instruments (or surgeon's unwashed fingers) in the wound and scraping really hard. Or it was cauterized by pouring boiling oil over it, though this practice slowly fell in disrepute after cauterizing oil run out during the aftermath of the Pavia battle and it was noticed that the unfortunate patients that were left without oil actually had a much better survival rate than those who were treated. For a while there was also a medical school that recommended preventive amputation for every bullet wound.

Compared with that, simply covering the wound and applying some salve to the weapon is a very good treatment.

It wasn't until the 19th century when medicine bypassed magic in the wound treatment area.

[Suezoled]

hurray!