Teach Your Children
by Bill Sanders - February 1, 2006

I received an email purporting to be list of trivia.

Now, TRIVIA is supposed to be "unimportant matters: trivial facts or details; also singular in construction : a quizzing game involving obscure facts" according to Merriam-Webster Online. FACTS are TRUE details (see Definition of fact - Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary).

But I found a large percentage of this specific email's "facts" to be false.

During my online research on these… "FACTS" (took 10+ hours! - Some were VERY hard to find, with all the … JUNK … out there!), I found literally THOUSANDS of pages out there with at least a single trivia statement from that email, and most of those pages contain even more "FACTS". The vast majority of these were copies of this list of Trivia, and very, very few attempted to prove or disprove any of the statements, opting instead to assume that they were true (quite a few of these are on Educational Sites, and are patently WRONG!). A FEW said something about "allegedly true", to me meaning they had doubts about at least some of the statements, but most just merrily posted them as FACT. Some were on boards where certain items were discussed.

This is what prompted this opinion/rant piece.

I find it deplorable that many of us, and especially our children, have been and are being taught some of these untrue (trivial though they are) minutia as ACTUAL INFORMATION; AND, it's shame that those giving us these "facts" can't or won't do their own research to prove or disprove them. Yes… It takes time, but doesn't everything?

As I said, I found NUMEROUS educational sites with this list on it. I would guess that the "teachers" would then use these "facts" to "enhance the classroom experience" and to amaze their students with their knowledge. The problem, again, is that a lot of the information was/is FALSE. What would be even worse, is if the teacher gave a test on any of these items, and graded it wrong if the student were to actually do the research and find the correct information, but the teacher is using this list as their authority (and I'm sure that's been the case at least a number of times.)

BTW: There are literally THOUSANDS of copies of these type emails out there... Some listing "statistics" from 100 years ago. I got one recently for 2006 listing 1906 items. A little research (nowhere near the time I took to prove EACH item wrong in the following), and I found EXACT copies of the statistics for every year from 2000 for 1900 through 2006 for 1906. In other words, someone simply changed the years, using exactly the same statistics for each year. I did not research whether the stats were correct for even the 2000/1900 list, but they OBVIOUSLY were not for the following years.

How It Happens

These erroneous trivia/fact emails propagate the way many Urban Legends do:

1. Someone finds or crates a list of "facts" or one-line jokes. They MAY actually have done the research, or it's stuff they "heard", rather than something they know.
2. They send the information to a friend or group of friends.
3. At least one of those friends forwards the email to THEIR friends. And so on, and so on, and so on...
4. Somewhere along the line, automatic signatures may get attached. Now, what may have started as a "joke" list of say "crime stats", sent to a cop and forwarded with his automatic signature attached, has credence.
5. Someone, somewhere may change some of the stats, information or wording, or may add more (or remove some of them), "just for fun", or they "heard" (read "know") differently from the original emailer.

6. ALL of this gets forwarded numerous times. Names, stats and/or other information can be changed at any of those stops.

   NOTE: ALL of this takes very little time, so within a month or so, there are THOUSANDS of copies of the original email out there, many with bad information in them.

    
7. Somewhere else along the line, someone with a humor, trivia, "fact", or other type of site gets it, and copies the email to a web page. They would probably make changes in formatting, wording, (see #5), whatever, possibly changing the meaning.
8. A short time later, someone else finds that website, copies the list and the cycle starts over.

This happens with Urban Legends, Virus Hoaxes, Trivia Lists, and even Email Letters to family members, forwarded to a friend (as has happened.) Somewhere along the line, too, if no signature lends credence to the email, someone may think it "sounds" like a comedian or someone else, and may add that attribution to the email. Political sites (right, left, middle-of-the-road) have had this happen to many of the items added to their boards. Then there's the joker that takes a list and adds comments to it; Somewhere along the line, the stats get deleted, but the joke remains, again, forwarded on and on.

The human condition is such that if you hear something enough times, you believe it, even if it's patently false and you KNOW it to be false. After a few repeatings, you begin to wonder if YOU were really right.

Admonition

PLEASE don't EVER assume that everything you read in an email (like the following), or on a web page, is TRUE unless the proof is shown (as below), without getting facts, or at least consensus agreements to arguments.

I realize that these lists are supposed to be fun, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't pass them on, but be sure to state you haven't checked them out, so they won't be taken as true FACT without research. (At LEAST use the words "Alleged Trivia" or  "May or May NOT be True!" somewhere before the list or statement(s)).

Heck, if you are a teacher (institutional or home) and get a list of "trivia", have your students do the research to prove or disprove them, then publish the findings on the 'net with the note that the proof/refutation was researched by... (student's name - Be sure to get parental permission to use their name on the internet!). I think that could be a fun assignment!

Trivia - Verified/Refuted

[THIS is the email that prompted the above diatribe.

It was researched by Bill Sanders (LYAO Editor or "-LE" on 01/27-28/2006. I ended up with some nice research links in here. Explore them, too! Some are good references, some just "boards", but all had reasons and facts to explain the information given. All of my notes are in square brackets ("[" and "]"]

***

by Bill Sanders © February 1, 2006 - email:
 

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