dogma and crap science

We all know of the common stuff, like antivaxxers and their various logical fallacies, which have caused old diseases to resurface. 

But there is a lot of smaller, yet still pernicious crap science out there. 

Just brainstorming on a lot of fake science that sets my BS-o-meter off:

  • You have to put 10,000 hours of something to get good at it
  • You can only focus on one passion or else you'll suck at what you do
  • Anything about "starvation mode" in regards to weight loss
  • "Ectomorphs", "mesomorphs" and whatever the other one was
  • Carbs are supposedly evil and make you fat
  • You should only eat "complex carbs"
  • You have to live off of boiled chicken, broccoli, protein, and brown rice to get ripped, and avoid sugar and fast food 
  • Testosterone isn't a steroid 
  • Cardio will destroy muscle so you shouldn't do it, asthma and heart health be damned (I actually do have a debunk on this one, thanks to the excellent Scooby Werkstatt: LINK)
  • You can get "addicted" to activities that are inherently non-addictive, i.e. video games or nsfw material. Most people have an incredible misunderstanding of what actual addiction constitutes. 
  • Crash or fad diets are necessary (CICO and IIFYM are all you need)
  • Weight machines are bad (sorry, don't want to injure myself because I work out alone and don't have a spotter) 
  • Using glasses will make your eyes worse (your eyes get worse naturally, this is complete bs lol)
  • Some people are "more emotional" and thus better at English, history, and art, and some people are "more logical" and thus better at math and science
  • if you're "untalented" at something you'll never be good at it
  • "hardgainers" exist, lmao
  • running is bad for your knees
  • running high mileage is bad for you
  • by majoring in computer science or something else that's "practical", you implicitly give up on your creative dreams 
  • women are inherently less sexual than men 
  • multivitamins don't work (better than nothing if you're like me and hate vegetables lol) 
  • you can eat as much as you want as long as it's "clean"
  • you need to eat "clean" 
  • hunger is bad (read about ghrelin; you're supposed to feel it)
  • you can "train yourself" to learn to sleep less (your performance will decline significantly if you do this)
  • NNN has benefits (nope)
  • you need to be "hardcore" like Elon Musk and spend your entire life at work
  • Elon Musk definitely doesn't spend half his time "working" screwing around online (speaking of which, I should get off my blog now)
  • drinking soy protein will give men BIG BOOBA (it's the steroids. it's 100% the roids)
  • milk is bad for you
  • juice is bad for you
  • caffeine is inherently bad
  • there is inherent value in masculinity or femininity, or avoiding "childish" hobbies
  • sugar in fruit is somehow bad for you
  • rogaine doesn't do anything 
  • cold showers do something (they do feel nice in Hawaii but that's it)
  • you should avoid doing things that are "weird" like solo travel (this one isn't science, it's culture, but still)
  • you have to shut off electronics an hour before bed to sleep well (blue light filters, people)
  • the covid vaccine causes people to randomly drop dead (lmao)
  • there are "good" and "bad" sources of protein and carbs
  • hydro homies drink "too much" water (this is possible but it rarely happens)
  • it's never worth buying more expensive versions of things, or paying more money for convenience 
  • etc. 
Learn about confounding variables, people, pls. Broscience is utter crap!

There's also the obvious stuff that I've heard (picking at zits won't make them worse! brushing your teeth is actually BAD for you!) that is garbage, but other stuff is more pernicious. Incidentally, this is why I think LDS missionaries should be allowed to use Google. Not sure if they still are; I haven't kept up with news on the program because no one else in my family went. Regardless, on my mission I believed so much random crap, because I didn't have the resources to look anything up -- so I just took everything at face value. 

There's so much BS out there and folk wisdom is often utter garbage. Not always, but often. Learn to use your brain, your experiences, and what makes the most sense to you. I could be wrong on some of this stuff, but the thing is, I'm constantly learning. Pretty much every bullet point made my life 100x easier when I managed to debunk it. It's what works for me and I'm just going to stick with it at this point. 

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