For decades, people thought that avocados with their huge seeds were spread across Central and South America by giant sloths that went extinct 10,000 years ago. That made sense, because avocados have very large pits, and it would take a huge animal to ingest them and poop out intact pits to grow further away from the parent tree. But it turns out there is no study, no data, and no evidence to support that. It was just an idea someone had that seemed to make sense. We reported it, and so did Sci Show. But now Hank Green explains where that "fact" came from and why it ain't necessarily so. It turns out that avocados didn't always have such huge seeds, and the reason they do may have more to do with human avocado fans than with giant sloths. Score one for mythbusting, and an example why there is always a need for fact checking and further research.
Comments (1)
Now I have to train myself, when I look at an avocado, to stop thinking about extinct sloths pooping.
If you actually knew how science works, you'd realize that to scientists who actually spend their entire lives studying their respective fields, the word "theory" does not mean opinion, as you seem to imply. In fact, a good scientist rarely ever uses the word "fact," because the best that we humans can do is make conclusions based on observations, but rarely can we ever say that something is an absolute "fact."
To a scientist, the word "theory" refers to a PROVEN concept backed by evidence and repeated observation. There is absolutely NO evidence or repeated observation to back up creationism. None whatsoever.
The people who don't vote have the right idea, though not necessarily for their reasons. Voting is irrelevant because of, inter alia:
(a) institutionalized vote fraud,
(b) our problems being commercial in nature, thus being unsolvable via political means--apples vs. oranges,
(c) the foolishness of looking to politicians for solutions to problems we the people are creating,
(d) the citizenship requirement for being eligible to vote, U.S. citizenship being an inferior status, and
(e) etc., etc., etc.
These people don't vote.
You know young people don't exactly have good turnouts to vote, and honestly, do you think an idiot who thought the Titanic was fiction is going to be interested or even AWARE that politics are happening?
The same type of ignorance that believes in creationism and waves off evolution.
For heaven's sake, can you restrain yourself from bashing people's beliefs for one minute?
You can't compare the two at all. Titanic = fact. Creationism/evolution = theories. Not knowing about an incredibly well-known shipwreck does not equate to believing/disbelieving a theory.
Since then nothing can surprise me.
Humanity is doomed.
I wonder if these are the same people who don't believe men have walked on the Moon.