Send This Post to Your Friends - Or Your Mother Will Die!

People believe all sorts of things they're told. This is all consistent with the "automatic responding" feature that fascinates me about human behavior. One of the many areas I see evidence of this is with urban legends. Hardly a day goes by without an email from one of my friends or relatives warning me about how microwaving food in plastic containers will lead to cancer, or how drinking 10 liters of water a day will extend my life dramatically. Then I really do still get notices from well-meaning friends to forward a certain message to ten people so that "something wonderful" can happen to me within a few days.

The joke on one of my extended-family email lists is that I am the "urban legends" guy. Invariably, I am the one to send out an exasperated email to the list reassuring people that microwaving water for coffee will not lead to an explosion, or that heating food in plastic containers will not kill you tomorrow. As is usually the case, these urban legends are born from a small shred of truth that is then exaggerated and sensationalized beyond belief. My favorite site to refer people to is http://www.snopes.com/ which is amazingly comprehensive in its coverage of urban legends. Here's the advice that I constantly dish out to people I know. Before forwarding ANY message to lists of other people, check out the validity of the claimed danger (or miracle) at the Snopes Urban Legend site. And I promise you, it has actually been scientifically proven that checking the site before emailing lots of people will result in amazing good luck. The last five people who did this actually became millionaires within a week of visiting that site!