Zohnerism

The Dihyrdrogen Monoxide Parody is the use of facts that are disguised by sciency and mathematical lingo to lead an audience to a false conclusion.  It’s superbly effective against a crowd of grift magnetism affected trolls.  They’ve been force fed a steady diet of hatred of science, being a part of troll team that gets Attaboys!^TM for harassing scientific experts like medical topics, and their fondness of arguing for the sake of arguing without being right.  This can backfire, as other members of the group will claim they never would have fallen for that like their cronies did.  And those end up bitter and sulky for knowing deep down they were hoodwinked, too.  This was the topic of a Penn and Teller episode of their series Bullshit!, although being an entertainment show this could have been staged in part if not in full.  

Like the Dunning-Kruger tests of people as a group over assessing their driving ability constantly as above average, this works over and over again.  It twists the conspiracy grifter’s own tactic around against them.  That is, especially regarding any medical topic (vaccinations, diets and supplements, cancer), they use high falutin’ language to sound cool to the initiated.  That’s not just an essential oil, that’s laser initiated chromatographic emulsion fluid.  Just through any random sciency words together, regardless of how the terms might not be compatible together.  Remember, these are the confirmation bias crowd.  Their research is searching for the answer they want to hear, not the right answer.

I suppose I should run through the basics for those that don’t want to click links.  In 1997 our hero, a 14 year high school student conducted a science fair poll asking people if they thought something should be done about dihydrogen monoxide.  Even the most unscientific high school drop out is pretty much aware the water is H₂O.  There’s nothing factually incorrect about calling it diydrogen monoxide.  Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.  Continuing the misleading story, Zohner included the also factually true comments like:

1). Large number of deaths per year (drowning).

2). Major component of acid rain.

3). Dependency, those that withdrawal from its use can die.

Etc…

The 50 unsuspecting 9th grade poll subjects overwhelmingly fell for the hyped up wording.  43 decided this was so dangerous it should be banned, 6 were undecided, and only one knew that Zohner was actually talking about water.

Yes, this is the exact same hype that gets twisted around for anti-vaxx messages.  But the anti-vaxx grifter crowd has an unfair advantage.  They absolutely don’t mind throwing in a bold faced lie or two, or a hundred, into the mix.  And it takes too long for fact checkers to post the correction as these topics are meme fodder.  People who have no clue what they’re talking about love spreading pretty pictures.

Earlier this year I saw someone post the chemical make up of an apple and got the “oh, that’s dangerous, I’d never ingest that” response.  The next post is going to be little else than a picture to share with the meme loving anti science people that fall for Zohnerism.  Consider it to be a companion to the previous posted reality check.

For old times sake, here’s that message again:

Reality Check:  If gematria for picking sports games worked, the person promoting it would not ever need to ask you for money, they would simply use their system to make money.  The only people making money off sports gematria are the ones with other fundraisers like books, merchandise, Patreons and whining about not having gas money.