The Gullibility factor

[D_Raay]

http://www.newstarget.com/gullibility.html

I love quizzes... I got a 100 woohoo.

[jackrock]

i got 61. and if i were in the matrix i wouldve taken the red pill !

[QueenAdrock]

I read the first 5, then decided to go with "false" with the rest of them without reading them, and got an 85%, which makes me a "free thinker."

How ironic. :p

And silver fillings aren't used anymore, from what I gather. We've had patients come in to get theirs removed for the sole purpose that they contain mercury and have been bothering them. Porcelain is more popular, and there is a silver-type bonding filling we use, but I don't think mercury has been used for a few decades...or shall I say, it at least shouldn't have been.

[enree erzweglle]

I read the first 5, then decided to go with "false" with the rest of them without reading them, and got an 85%, which makes me a "free thinker."

How ironic. :p

This made me laugh. (y)


And silver fillings aren't used anymore, from what I gather. We've had patients come in to get theirs removed for the sole purpose that they contain mercury and have been bothering them. Porcelain is more popular, and there is a silver-type bonding filling we use, but I don't think mercury has been used for a few decades...or shall I say, it at least shouldn't have been.

My dental insurance sent around a letter last spring that said something like, "We'll pay for the cost of an amalgam filling. If you want a white filling, you'll have to pay the difference." Also, my insurance won't cover the cost to have silver fillings replaced with white ones unless the silver ones are loose (and even then, they'll only pay to have them replaced with amalgams, not whites).

[ChrisLove]

I read the first 5, then decided to go with "false" with the rest of them without reading them, and got an 85%, which makes me a "free thinker."

How ironic. :p

And silver fillings aren't used anymore, from what I gather. We've had patients come in to get theirs removed for the sole purpose that they contain mercury and have been bothering them. Porcelain is more popular, and there is a silver-type bonding filling we use, but I don't think mercury has been used for a few decades...or shall I say, it at least shouldn't have been.

They are still regularly used in Britain by NHS dentists as far as I know - I have always refused them

[catatonic]

I got an 88 which puts me in the top 5%.

[Qdrop]

wow.
this is just a sanctimonious opinion piece thinly disguised as an "informative" public quiz.

while there are some valid points made in this piece.....the black and white stance that the author is taking on each subject is embarrasingly transparent and arrogant.

the author will take or make a few valid or obvious points, and then pepper them with opinionated bullshit.

there are few particular that i gotta call out:

Silver fillings are safe to put in your teeth. Otherwise, dentists wouldn't use them.
FALSE. Silver fillings are nearly 40% mercury -- one of the most toxic heavy metals known to man. A single drop on your skin can literally kill you. A single drop in a lake poisons the entire lake. Silver fillings (actually "mercury fillings") generate mercury vapor in your mouth, which you repeatedly inhale or swallow. This puts mercury directly into your bloodstream where it causes birth defects (if you're pregnant) and nervous system disorders like Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

yeah, mercury is toxic....
but lets get beyond the scare tactic, "culture of fear" routine and look up the real documented cases of mercury fillings causing such problems....let's see the real clinical proof.
there really isn't much.
the author is falling victim to, and using the same mass hysteria hyberbole that he claims big business and gov't does...

People who watch television are not persuaded by television advertising.
FALSE. Everyone who watches advertising is persuaded by it, but no one thinks they are. Consumers believe they are rational decision makers when, in fact, they act on emotional associations embedded in their minds by clever advertising. That's because television advertising is designed to bypass the rational mind and install positive associations with brands, companies and products that later translate into measurable, consistent behavior modification in consumers. This system of influence works very well. If television advertising didn't work, advertisers would have stopped using it long ago.
sure, advertising informs and persuades. but the author is taking it to Orwellian extremes...acting as if our minds are incapable of deciphering persuation claims, stereotypes, etc from reality.
i can. and i'm no super genius.
these brainwashing claims do not hold up to cognative science findings under scrutiny.

Many common grocery products (including yogurt, fruit drinks and candy) are colored with an ingredient called "carmine" that is actually made from insects: dead, ground up husks of female cochineal beetles.
TRUE. Just about every container of strawberry yogurt, for example, uses this insect-derived food coloring. Aside from the gross factor, carmine also poses the threat of causing a rare but fatal allergic reaction known as anaphylactic shock.
"a rare but fatal allergic reaction"...
talk about hyberbole....
how many are actually act risk here? seriously...how many?
yet this is some kind of danger to the mass populous?

talk about using fear to promote your views or gain attention.
this is not better than the rest of the ratings-hungry media.

Inflation is a natural side effect of a healthy, growing economy.
FALSE. Monetary inflation, which saps the buying power of your dollars, is intentionally caused by the expansion of the money supply which is, in turn, controlled by the Federal Reserve. The net effect is a hidden tax on Americans' income and savings (a tax most people never notice). In an honest economy, the money supply would remain constant, and the annual inflation rate would be zero. Inflation is not natural, it's a manipulation that acts as hidden taxation.
yeah, every past and modern economist is wrong.
except for this guy...he's got economics all figured out.
and it's controlled by the MAN! the MAN causes inflation!
yeah....

what a hack.

Processed and packaged meat products (hot dogs, bacon, sausage, etc.) are preserved with an ingredient that both the food industry and the USDA absolutely know causes cancer.
TRUE. The ingredient's name is sodium nitrite, and it's found in practically all packaged meats at any grocery store in America. Both the food industry and the USDA have known for decades that this ingredient, when consumed, creates a class of chemical compounds known as nitrosamines which are highly carcinogenic (cancer-causing). The USDA actually tried to ban sodium nitrite in the 1970's, but was overruled by the food industry, which wanted to keep using the ingredient because it turns meats bright red, making them look fresh.
just like the mercury claim....

but what LEVELS of this ingrediant are necessary to cause cancer?
we all know that nutrasweet has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats...
but at OBSCENE levels...levels of consumption that we never get near.

jesus, drinking water can kill you if you drink too much of it.

more hyperbole....and using irrational fear to promote an agenda.

this guy would make a great republican.

Anything that hasn't been scientifically proven isn't true.
FALSE. There exists an entire universe of knowledge science has yet to discover. Truth is truth, even before science recognizes it. Gravity worked just fine even before scientists studied it, for example. And just a few decades ago, scientists thought there were only four vitamins. There is much that is true, even though it is currently questioned or even discredited by mainstream science. The one thing about science that's 100% predictable is that the definition of "scientific truth" will evolve and expand, often contradicting past truths.
yes, there we go....

let's translate: "yeah, science doesn't back up what i say...but that don't make it untrue!....mercury will kill you ALL!!"

so he's free to make any claim he wants about medial, nutritional, ecological beliefs...and just say "but science hasn't caught up to me yet.....that's all."

Vitamin E is dangerous.
FALSE. The recent headlines about the dangers of vitamin E all result from an organized assault on vitamins that used blatantly distorted science to produce a false conclusion. The vitamin E studies used for this assault relied on a variety of dishonest tactics to assure a negative outcome. These tactics include using synthetic vitamin E instead of natural vitamin E, relying on extremely low doses, conducting studies on elderly heart attack patients who were near death to begin with, and excluding studies that used healthy people.

intriguing. gee, i don't suppose some of these VERY SAME tactics could have been used when your sources were looking at the effects of mercury fillings and sodium nitrate?
naw...couldn't be....

All the clean hydrogen we need to power the world is already contained in crystals at the bottom of the ocean called gas hydrates.
TRUE. The mainstream U.S. press doesn't talk about it much, but the world's hydrogen problems have a ready solution. Frozen ice crystals found off the shores of Canada, Japan, Russia, Iceland and other nations with Northern shores contain vast quantities of clean, frozen hydrogen -- enough to power the entire world far beyond the limits of petroleum reserves.

now one wouldn't doubt that big oil would like to either halt, slow, or get a hand in an emerging hydrogen fuel market (duh)....but this claim that gas hydrate crystals are the "cold fusion" to our fuel concerns is rather specious and stretched.

has this claim really been substantiated and proven by a panel of scientists who aren't "slaves to the green agenda" the way others are "slaves to big oil"?

Having a baby is a patent violation because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office routinely grants patents on human gene sequences found in all humans.
TRUE. Patents are now routinely awarded for human gene sequences, animals and even seeds found in nature. One U.S. company was awarded a patent on Basmati rice, a grain that has been grown in India for generations. Monsanto recently applied to patent a pig. Hundreds of individuals and companies now own patents on human genes, meaning they have been granted the right to charge royalties on all gene replication (i.e. making babies). This practice of stealing intellectual property from nature and claiming human ownership is called Biopiracy.

yeah. uh huh.
soon the gov't will own our DNA.
"it's happening man!...open your eyes sheeple!"

who wrote this section? a bored Trekkie?

a tiny bit of research on this subject will put your fears to rest.

There is no cure for cancer.
FALSE. There are, in fact, many proven cures for cancer used all around the world with excellent results. Nearly every indigenous culture has at least one cure for cancer, including the American Indians, Australian Aboriginees, Peruvian natives, and so on. The U.S. cancer industry simply doesn't want anyone to know cures exist because it profits from the management of cancer (i.e. dependence on drugs, chemo, radiation, etc.). Promotion of alternative cures would deprive the U.S. cancer establishment of its power and profits. This is also why today's cancer industry virtually ignores genuine cancer prevention and, instead, focuses on treatment (drugs and surgery).

again, i can see parts of the medical industry that are more concerned about profit having a greater interest in treatment than a cure....
but the claims about "Nearly every indigenous culture has at least one cure for cancer, including the American Indians, Australian Aboriginees, Peruvian natives, and so on."...yeah...let's see the data on that. jesus fuck.
there ARE some forms of cancer which are curable...
but this claim that cancer is plenty curable, we "just don't want to"...is a slap in the face to those that have spent thier lives researching a cure. many of those in this field have relatives who died from cancer, thus inspiring them to enter the field. are we to say that THEY are just "stalling"?....
just a little bit of knowledge about the biology of cancer can help you understand why a total cure is so difficult...much like aids.

Most common diseases (cancer, heart disease, diabetes) are caused by bad genes and bad luck.
FALSE. This myth is promoted by organized medicine as a way to disempower patients and make them think there's nothing they can do to prevent disease. Diabetes, for example, was exceedingly rare just a hundred years ago. Doctors often had to travel hundreds of miles to find a patient with the disease. Cancer and heart disease were similarly rare. Since our gene pool hasn't changed in a hundred years, the explanation for these disease must be found somewhere else -- namely, in our processed foods, lack of exercise and exposure to modern environmental toxins. Disease is not a matter of bad luck, it's a matter of simply cause and effect.

hmm....diabetes, cancer, heart disease were excedingly rare hundreds of years ago, huh? now that wouldn't perhaps have anything to do with lack of proper diagnoses, eh?
the better science gets at understanding a disease, the better it can diagnose it...the numbers of such disease cases go up because of better proper diagnoses, not because of an increase in occurances.

[D_Raay]

You just mad because you got a bad score? ;)


BTW, just because you SAY something is hyperbole, does not make it so. You have nothing to back up your claim of the article being untruthful. You just don't like authors who choose to go the pessimistic route. We all KNOW mercury and sodium nitrate are bad. Why take a chance and trust that the amounts are sufficient not to kill us? They shouldn't be used at all.

[Funkaloyd]

(y) Qdrop


If television advertising didn't work, advertisers would have stopped using it long ago.
You hear the same thing from "think of the children (http://trivialpursuits.typepad.com/trivial_pursuits/HelenLovejoy-thumb.jpg)" conservatives when they blame movies, video games and rock for every act of violence committed by white people under 20.


Colmes: According to reports, the alleged 14-year-old gunman was nicknamed music has been characterized by some as shock rock because of its violent lyrics and images.
Does graphic music lead to violent behavior? Joining us from Buffalo, New York is Paul Cambria, Marilyn Manson's attorney. And from Washington, D.C. is Steve Schwalm, a senior analyst with the Family Research Council.
Welcome, both of you, to Hannity & Colmes.
Steve Schwalm, Family Research Council: Hello.
Paul Cambria, Attorney For Marilyn Manson: Gentlemen.
Colmes: Steve, do you believe that music such as the music of Marilyn Manson can lead to violent behavior?
Schwalm: Absolutely. There's a long track record and history of people, for example, in Texas not long ago, somebody was - somebody gunned down a cop while he was listening to "Cop Killer," a rap song.
I was a kid. And I know that I was influenced by music, and many kids are. They're looking - they're looking, they're searching for values. And our culture is very pervasive, and it does, in fact, influence kids in many ways.
Colmes: Well, how was it that you grew up with the same music that so many others did? We've all heard the same music.
Schwalm: Right.
Colmes: You didn't have a violent reaction. Most people don't. You managed to come out OK.
Schwalm: But I want to...
Colmes: Look how well you're doing.
Schwalm: Look, advertisers pay millions and millions of dollars based on the fact that a 30-second shot on the air can influence people's decision making. And it does, influence people's decisions.
Schwalm goes on to say "I use to go out and drink and be rowdy and I listened to Judas Priest. I listened to AC/DC. I listened to all the worst bands." :rolleyes:

[QueenAdrock]

yeah, mercury is toxic....
but lets get beyond the scare tactic, "culture of fear" routine and look up the real documented cases of mercury fillings causing such problems....let's see the real clinical proof.
there really isn't much.

I can at least tell you from personal experience that my company has had many patients come in with problems with mercury. It's actually quite gross. They have constant pain in their teeth, so they came in to get them removed and had amalgrams put in. The drilling and screaming was tremendous.

They come in and tell me that the mercury is giving them constant pain, and they've had many health problems due to having mercury in their teeth. The doctors hadn't known what it was, because they didn't even think the mercury content in fillings would cause such problems.


The only problem with this guy's statement is that mercury really isn't used in fillings anymore, but he makes it seem like it is. Not for quite some time now, they have technological advances in the field of dentistry, and mercury is not a part of it. He makes it seem as though getting fillings now is dangerous, when it in fact, is not.

[Qdrop]

I can at least tell you from personal experience that my company has had many patients come in with problems with mercury. It's actually quite gross. They have constant pain in their teeth, so they came in to get them removed and had amalgrams put in. The drilling and screaming was tremendous.

They come in and tell me that the mercury is giving them constant pain, and they've had many health problems due to having mercury in their teeth. The doctors hadn't known what it was, because they didn't even think the mercury content in fillings would cause such problems.


The only problem with this guy's statement is that mercury really isn't used in fillings anymore, but he makes it seem like it is. Not for quite some time now, they have technological advances in the field of dentistry, and mercury is not a part of it. He makes it seem as though getting fillings now is dangerous, when it in fact, is not.
(y)

[EN[i]GMA]

Speak it QDrop.

And I get on 88 on it. It was pitifully easy to decipher which answers would be right, even I knew nothing of the subject at hand.

Certainly people need to be more dilligent in their thought and less gullible, but this isn't going to help much.

[Medellia]

^Yup. Even if everything he said was true, he could have been less painfully obvious. And how is one a free-thinker if they agree without question and don't think it through?

[D_Raay]

You guys are disappointing. This isn't the end-all quiz of all quizzes written by God himself. Find me a conservative minded one and I will answer truthfully on all of them. Forgive me if you didn't care for the thread.

[Medellia]

I think most of us are disappointed by it is because it was so easy to figure it out. And even though if you got a certain number correct you were labeled a "free thinker" he was completely preachy and hit you over the head with it.

[Qdrop]

I think most of us are disappointed by it is because it was so easy to figure it out. And even though if you got a certain number correct you were labeled a "free thinker" he was completely preachy and hit you over the head with it.

yeah, D....that's all it is really.

don't be offended.....we love you.