bad facts on "Education" shows

[gfunkusarelius]

one thing that bothers me is when shows on channels like history, discovery and TLC have "experts" giving questionable or outright incorrect info, especially when they are evidently doing so to sway the audience toward their desired conclusion.

one thing i saw a night or two ago was about (among other things) the plague...i think the show was about moses. anyway, this expert talked about how the nursery rhyme ring around the posie is all about the plague. he told the standard interpretation and there was no one to challenge that "fact" at all. it threw me off cause i thought this was a documented falsehood. going to snopes reinforced this (http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm). i guess in this case it is probably due to bad research from the show producer, but it goes to show how you can have someone on these shows that looks so scholarly and influential who is totally wrong about a subject.

anyone else have any such stories? i caught this one, but it makes me wonder how many facts i see that are totally wrong. i mean, these shows are very influential- i'm not watching medium here...

[Psiload]

one thing that bothers me is when shows on channels like history, discovery and TLC have "experts" giving questionable or outright incorrect info, especially when they are evidently doing so to sway the audience toward their desired conclusion.

one thing i saw a night or two ago was about (among other things) the plague...i think the show was about moses. anyway, this expert talked about how the nursery rhyme ring around the posie is all about the plague. he told the standard interpretation and there was no one to challenge that "fact" at all. it threw me off cause i thought this was a documented falsehood. going to snopes reinforced this (http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm). i guess in this case it is probably due to bad research from the show producer, but it goes to show how you can have someone on these shows that looks so scholarly and influential who is totally wrong about a subject.

anyone else have any such stories? i caught this one, but it makes me wonder how many facts i see that are totally wrong. i mean, these shows are very influential- i'm not watching medium here...

The "smallpox-infested blankets to the Native Americans" myth. I saw this one repeated on Penn & Teller's Bullsh!t last night. I know... not exactly a "scholarly" show, but still, I've seen this one offered as a factoid often enough that it gets annoying.

[Almo]

The "smallpox infested blankets to the Native Americans" myth. I saw this one repeated on Penn & Teller's Bullsh!t last night. I know... not exactly a "scholarly" show, but still, I've seen this one offered as a factoid often enough that it gets annoying.

I've seen this one a load. Where do we have evidence for/against this one?

[Psiload]

I've seen this one a load. Where do we have evidence for/against this one?

Some info here:

http://tim.2wgroup.com/blog/archives/000889.html

[drkitten]

I've seen this one a load. Where do we have evidence for/against this one?

My understanding is that the "deliberate smallpox infection" story is most definitelynot a myth; it was carried out by Captain Ecuyer in 1763 at Fort Pitt. There is a long but incomplete documentary chain linking Ecuyer's actions to plans to the commanding general, Lord Jeffrey Amherst. Rather like the Hitler legacy, we have no single "smoking gun" to point to, but when Amherst discusses in a letter to his subordinates his approval of a plan "to innoculate the Indians" by distributing smallpox-infected blankets, and then we read that in the journal of one of the soldiers that "we gave them two Blankets and an Handkerchief out of the Small Pox Hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect," it's hard to avoid drawing the conclusion that the infection was deliberate. I've seen a few idiots argue that because Koch didn't discover the germ theory of disease until the 19th century, 18th century English wouldn't have been aware that blankets in the possession of sick people could themselves cause sickness. A similar argument would hold that since human sperm hadn't been discovered until the 17th century, the medievals didn't know that sex caused pregancy. And if this were the case, what the heck did Amherst mean by "innoculate"? The meaning of "inocculate" as "infect" was established (see the OED)by 1722.

However, it should be pointed out that as far as reputable historians go, the Amherst/Ecuyer incident is more or less unique. There are no other documented cases of such "germ warfare" against the Indians -- which may simply mean that other soldiers pulled the same trick but didn't bother to document it, or it may mean that Amherst was uniquely sociopathic. It was certainly not widespread enough to have become official policy.

[blutoski]

My understanding is that the "deliberate smallpox infection" story is most definitelynot a myth; it was carried out by Captain Ecuyer in 1763 at Fort Pitt.

Yes, this is case is pretty certain. As you point out, there was no master plan, though.

Also: I've never heard the defense that people wouldn't have known about germs, so they wouldn't have known about infection! That's pretty rich: germ warfare is a pretty antique strategy (catapulting plague-infected bodies into sieged cities to precipitate epidemic), and infection via fomites was acknowledged (burning infected areas was common practice), if not completely understood.

Even the natives understood infection. I read a few anecdotes from the 19th century where Brazilian natives called smallpox "Black Robe disease," since they recognized it was being accidentally distributed by Jesuit missionaries pushing into the jungle.

I built a smallpox website about - oh - eleven years ago, now, which speaks to this:

http://www.graemekennedy.name/science/2/immunoweb/bad/invaders/viruses/smallpox/index.html

[Almo]

I checked with Mom yesterday. She remembers hearing about this incident back in the 50's, so it apparently predates this Ward guy. She also says she thinks her Mom was aware of it earlier than that.

[drkitten]

Also: I've never heard the defense that people wouldn't have known about germs, so they wouldn't have known about infection!

Well, you know how dumb the average American is, right?

... and then remember that by definition, half of the population is dumber than that.

[Orb]

I was watching Discovery a couple weeks ago. They were discussing Pyramids and how they were built. The myth about the pyramids lining up with Orion's belt was given by the "expert" on the show. Sorry, can't recall his name.

[Starthinker]

I was stationed at Bentwaters when the UFO incident took place. I've watched maybe a dozen different shows that either featured this or touched on it and not once have I seen anything accurate.

[Trifikas]

For the easy-read answer on the Smallpox.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_066.html

Cecil Adams needs to be a guest at TAM at somepoint in his life...

[gfunkusarelius]

I was stationed at Bentwaters when the UFO incident took place. I've watched maybe a dozen different shows that either featured this or touched on it and not once have I seen anything accurate.

oh yeah, i saw a show about that. interesting to know someone was there. i am always wondering about the military witnesses. my dad was in the air force and, tho he never has anything too to say (other than his religious convictions), i know that military pilots are human too but on any shows about (et) UFOs they always have pilots on as the drop-dead best witnesses. for some reason we are all supposed to think they wouldnt be confused or, worse, lie.