Talk:Dihydrogen monoxide

Can we redirect this to H₂O? --Ed Poor 22:49, 3 April 2007 (EDT)

Good idea. MountainDew 00:45, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, and I'd like to present something about the science project that popularized the term:

• In 1997, Nathan Zohner, a 14-year-old student at Eagle Rock Junior High School in Idaho Falls, based his science fair ... project, titled "How Gullible Are We?", involved presenting this report about "the dangers of dihyrogen monoxide" to fifty ninth-grade students and asking them what (if anything) should be done about the chemical. Forty-three students favored banning it, six were undecided, and only one correctly recognized that 'dihydrogen monoxide' is actually H₂O — plain old water. Zohner's analysis of the results he obtained won him first prize in the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair; garnered him scads of attention from newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, universities, and congresspeople; and prompted the usual round of outcries about how our ignorant citizenry doesn't read critically and can be easily misled. (Snopes)

It's important because it illustrates the PR techniques used by environmentalists to whip up citizen opposition to harmless or low-risk chemicals like DDT. --Ed Poor 09:52, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Uh, guys? Why don't you just include that bit in the Water article? Or, possibly more fitting, in an article about polls, petitions and PR? This isn't about water, it's about people supporting a cause without informing themselves properly. --Sid 3050 10:28, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Give it time. None of this is final. It's a work in progress and is 'evolving'. But thank you for proposing an 'intelligent design'. --Ed Poor 10:32, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Something people may want to include: Penn and Teller set up this gig as a petition and analyze things a little bit afterwards: YouTube --Sid 3050 10:42, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

Yes, let's refer to that. --Ed Poor 10:48, 4 April 2007 (EDT)

• Their agent did not lie but used the "vocabulary and tone of environmentalists". YouTube --Ed Poor 11:14, 4 April 2007 (EDT)
• "Is passion supposed to replace common sense?" [ibid]
• "No end justifies the means of lying." [ibid]
• "We set these people up, but it suggests that they are not so much environmentalists as they are joiners." [ibid]

Also, there's a connection to the carbon dioxide controversy. As you know, a case recently went all the way to Supreme Court to get CO2 classed as a "pollutant" - this obviously is related to the campaign for the Kyoto Protocol.

Partisan politics is tricky. I'd like to expose a few of the tricks. --Ed Poor 10:48, 4 April 2007 (EDT)