The Great (Gasp) Google Conspiracy

If you come around here very often, you know I am a scientist. A scientist with an Inner Curmudgeon who is totally exasperated by conspiracy theories, especially those that can be dispelled by simple reason. Personally, I am sometimes amused by the more ridiculous claims. Consider what I will call The Great Google Conspiracy about COVID-19. For some weeks, this has been circulating on Facebook and Twitter. It goes like this. Open your device or computer and Google any three digit number, followed by the words new cases. Up will pop multiple news pages showing exactly that number of new cases, proof positive that Google is faking articles to match any number of cases for some nefarious purpose. A few days ago, someone posted this YouTube video of an unknown woman demonstrating this in order to blow your mind. The truth is she ought to use hers instead of trying to blow yours.

Here We Go … Again

This week, during  podcast titled Winging It, Steph Currie asserted that he didn’t believe we had ever landed a man on the moon.   Of course, three other NBA players, Vince Carter, Kent Bazemore, and Andre Iguodala agreed with him.   As the biggest star of the group, Currie is getting the most attention for what the press is calling his mental air ball.   Given Kyrie Irving’s even more outlandish declaration the the earth is flat, I am wondering whether the NBA has ever produced an educated player.  Easy folks.  I’m just joking.  I was tempted to cite Bill Bradley as an educated NBA player, but given that he is white, and our country’s penchant for political correctness, I’d probably be called a racist.  So, instead, I’ll cite a post on Reddit, All-Time Nerd Squad: The Most Educated NBA Players  which offers a mixed race selection of NBA scholars.  Mr. Currie and Mr. Irving are not among them.

Conspiracy

I was talking to somebody a couple of weeks ago about a friend who is struggling with cancer, whose body is so damaged by cancer treatments that it is having trouble healing from a recent surgery.  The someone I was talking to, to my surprise, insisted that the cure for cancer already exists but the parmaceutical companies are just hiding them so they can sell other drugs that just treat the symptoms.   I was astonished and said so.  He told me he could give me the references where I could find the evidence that had convinced him, along with articles about pools of thermite found in the World Trade Center ruins, indicating that our government was somehow complicit in 9-11.  He wasn’t happy when I called him a conspiracy theorist and he insisted that he just does more and  better research than most people.  He was absolutely sure that if I looked at his sources, I’d believe his theories and was insulted when I called them crackpot sources without looking at them.   Even though I hadn’t seen his exact sources, I’d seen plenty of similar rubbish in the quagmire of information and misinformation that the internet and social media has created.  My someone is not alone.