Take a fun “pseudoscience” quiz

March 11, 2016 • 8:45 am

Reader Dom sent me a link to a quiz on How Stuff Works that purports to be a pseudoscience quiz. Well, it’s not all about pseudoscience, but also involves misconceptions about matters scientific, which isn’t really “pseudoscience”. But that quibble aside, click the link below to take the quiz, called “Everyone says it must be so.” It covers a lot of stuff. When you get to the page below, click on the arrow to begin; there are 35 multiple-choice questions:

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My score, which I consider just okay but not stellar:

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Be sure to report your score in the comments below.

 

122 thoughts on “Take a fun “pseudoscience” quiz”

    2. Same. I missed the one about brain colors. The few times I’ve observed operations (mostly gall bladder removals), everything looks red or pink from all the blood. I guess I should have known better.

      As others have already said down below, a lot of the questions weren’t great, either. You had to stop and think about what answer they were expecting, not necessarily what was right (e.g. Coriolis effect does affect water going down a drain, it’s just very, very small compared to other factors – http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/06/03/coriolis_effect_proving_it_does_work_differently_in_different_hemispheres.html).

  3. “If you’re standing at the equator, do you move faster or slower than someone to the north or south?”

    Well duh. If you are standing, then you are not moving.

    4. I got that because of watching phonograph records playing at 78 rpm. I correctly inferred that a point on the outer edge would cover a much greater distance in one revolution of the disc than a point on the record label.

  5. I got a 30. I have to say, though, some of these questions I only got right because their mere presence on the test suggested to me that the commonly-believed answer was the wrong one. Like the question about the Great Wall of China; I had always heard it was visible from space and never thought much about that, but since it was on the test I thought “ah, since they are asking me this, that must mean it’s not really visible from space” so I picked “not usually” and that turned out to be right.

    2. I picked ‘not usually’ on the basis that they didn’t specify whereabouts in space the observer is supposed to see. It may be visible sometimes from earth orbit but I’m pretty sure its not if you get out into the further reaches of the solar system, let alone from the far side of the Milky Way!

      2. It may be long but it is narrow. So from traditional space places (station), it is not normally visible.

    3. I got quite a few correct that I didn’t really know just by reading into how they phrased either the question or the choices. Missed one because I got going too fast and my brain filled in “in the atmosphere” where the question asked about carbon “on Earth”. The only one where I legitimately failed based on believing ‘common knowledge’ was ‘how much of your brain do you use’.

      I can probably save myself there based on the number of people willing to testify that *I* only use 10% on my brain.

  6. 29 but the moon question was poorly phrased so I deserve a 30.

    The moon HAS a dark side all the time – it is just the time average illumination that is about the same. The question used a present tense, implying an instantaneous value, not asking about an average.

    So there!

  8. 32. I got tripped up on that damn how fast are you moving at the equator one and then some stupid things I should have known better (which I now forget so clearly I won’t know them better the next time I take a similar quiz).

    1. In terms of relativity no point in the universe is more significant than any other. That is why the sun, indeed the whole universe too, revolve around the earth. 😉

      1. Actually, that’s only true if you ignore dynamic effects, which make for (seemingly) absolute accelerations. (There’s actually a discussion of this in the Cambridge Companion to Neweton.)

    3. Glad I’m not the only one! But I had quibbles with some of the question wording. And on a couple I just didn’t hit the answer I meant to!

      1. I only knew the brightest star answer because if you’ve ever tried to polar align a telescope by hand in the northern hemisphere in the winter you will know how dim that stupid Arcturus is!

          1. Yes, duh. I was tired when I wrote that. Good thing I wasn’t as tired when I took the quiz.

            Anyone who has had to polar align by hand knows my pain.

  12. I’ve got to say I think the quiz answer about orbiting astronauts is just wrong.

    Weightless MUST mean “If you put them on a scale, the scale would read 0”

    I got 30

    1. Yeah, I came to comment on that, too. I gave the answer that they wanted, but their explanation is problematic. (I got a 32. Got the tornado one wrong, forgot which other two.)

    3. Yes, that’s the one I got wrong. The astronauts are not beyond the pull of gravity for certain. However, they are in fact weightless because they are in free fall.

    4. Astronauts are too weightless (relative to their immediate surroundings, all falling together)!

      (I blame the other four I was scored as wrong on badly worded questions or answers, rather than factual error. 🙂 )

  13. Disappointingly, the quiz peddles pseudoscience itself. For instance: *of course* most people lose most of the body heat through their heads, by a large margin [1]. The reason is that most people don’t run around naked most of the time. In the same vein, plastic trash does dissolve slowly in the ocean … the “floating garbage patches” everybody is afraid of are formed, for the most part, of tiny particles (this doesn’t mean they are beneficial for the ecosystem, of course!) [2]. Thirdly, brain weight. Of course that’s (strongly!) correlated to intelligence. It’s just that *in humans* the difference is negligible. But compared with non-human primate species (or even non-primates) there is a very clear, very strong, and most importantly, completely uncontested correlation between brain size and intelligence. There seem to be counter-examples (some birds seem surprisingly smart, yet have tiny brains) but in reality it’s highly questionable whether they possess general intelligence rather than being one-trick ponies. In fact, everything we know about how brains work suggests that the number and complexity of neuronal connections (and thus, indirectly, size) is a relevant explanatory factor for intelligence. [3]

    [1] http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/2842/82
    [2] http://baysidejournal.com/wp/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-myth-or-grim-reality/
    [3] https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/ask-neuroscientist-does-bigger-brain-make-you-smarter

    1. Eating stuff that was dropped on the floor:
      Was it in a wrapper? Was it dropped before or after cooking?

  15. 32. I got one question wrong because I was just moving too fast even though I knew the answer. I got the brain regeneration question wrong. And the third one I got wrong something seemed fishy about the question. I don’t remember what the question was though. I wasn’t paying attention.

  17. 29. That was a good quiz, but some of the questions were ambiguous as to what they were asking.

  20. 28. I got the equator one right, but misread the one about carbon and don’t know diddly about tornadoes. Guess that puts me in the lower 50 percentile for you guys.

    1. The carbon one was a bit misleading. The big controversy, of course, is about carbon dioxide, so I initially read it as meaning carbon dioxide. Then I went with “no”, figuring I’d be marked wrong but would be technically correct. And “no” was what they wanted. So Overall, I’d say that was a poor question.

  26. I got 32 if I include the two over anxious clicks that went elsewhere. Had to scratch my head and get lucky too.

  28. 31 out of 35

    I agree with others that the wording of some questions was misleading.

  29. 31 – not noteworthy, I agree, but if I’d beaten your score, I certainly would have posted it, so, fairness.

  31. Only 29.

    I think the weightless question is not well posed. (Floating is anyone’s definition of weightless. If they had said mass-less then I would have answered per their answer.)

    1. Oddly I got that one correct, but largely because I guessed right about how they were being sly.

        1. You are quite correct!

          Cyrus, on the other hand, did not fare too well on the quiz, but he is not really concerned about the result.

  34. 34/35, and I contest the question I got wrong. Astronauts ARE “weightless” in orbit! “Weight” is a measure of mass in a gravitational field. The astronauts’ mass does not disappear when they are in “free fall” (as they are in orbit)– but their “weight” does (since the scale used to measure their mass in a gravitational field is in free fall, too). I demand a perfect score or I will be OFFENDED! (The horror, the horror.) /s

  36. 33 and HATE HATE HATE these things.

    Is there a dark side of the moon? YES, always. Just not always the same side.

    Is an astronaut in orbit weightless? Well, yes. Is this about weightlessness or about gravity?

    Knowing all you need to know to answer these questions is not enough to answer these questions “correctly” if you can’t guess what they’re looking for. BAH!

    (Those aren’t the 2 I missed, BTW. Just 2 I remembered.)

  37. Some of the questions don’t seem to have anything to do with pseudoscience, just ordinary knowledge about which there are no myths.

    And a lot of them are bad questions. Most of those have been mentioned already, but here’s another: “What’s the brightest star?”. Of course the right answer wasn’t available. The answer you can get is “Sirius”, but that’s wrong. Hint: it’s way closer than that. (I’m assuming they mean relative rather than absolute magnitude.)

    1. Yes, I found that one annoying myself, too. As with the dark side of the moon thing, and the “hypothesis/theory” thing. The terminology there *is variable even within science*. In many contexts, theories are said to be composed of their hypotheses (axioms) and the result of closing same under logical consequence.

    2. “What’s the brightest star?”. Of course the right answer wasn’t available. The answer you can get is “Sirius”, but that’s wrong. Hint: it’s way closer than that.”

      It’s so bright, you can even see it during the day. 🙂

  39. Woo! I beat Jerry! I got 32. But question 32 was bogus. Is there a dark side of the moon? Yes! It’s the side that’s away from the sun! Just like there’s a dark side to the earth.

    1. I just got madder & madder as I went along because I hate these one-page-per-item designs. Because I don’t have enough memory for an ad-blocker ATM it takes forever just waiting for each page to load! Grumble, grumble…

          2. If I’m translating correctly, that’s the name of an ad-blocker that works on those two browsers and doesn’t take an inordinate amount of memory? 🙂

          8. Yeah I use a Ad Blocker or something on Chrome but since I usually use an iPad, I’m totally screwed.

  41. 28.
    Surprisingly, the meme that Columbus was trying to prove the world was round is prevalent in the rationalist community.

  46. 31/35 … just by the skin of my teeth though.
    However, not bad. Ten years ago, I would have gotten maybe a five, or a ten at best. Thanks Profs Dawkins, Coyne et al!

  49. Only 32 of 35. Must be old age – I got 795/800 on the LSAT – yes, it’s been a long time since the LSAT used the 800 scale.

  52. 29/35

    Tornadoes (or was it hurricanes?) – got that wrong.

    I totally disagree with the answer for the Moon’s dark side. OF COURSE it has a dark side – whichever side is facing away from the sun at the moment.

    And astronauts are effectively weightless the force of gravity on their mass (which is what weight is defined as) is exactly counteracted by inertial acceleration.

    cr

  53. 28/35. I learned from this quiz why veins are seen blue through the skin.
    I, however, disagree with some questions. Particularly with the one about neuron replacement. I know there are some recent studies claiming that ependymal cells function as “stem cells” of the nervous system and can replace neurons, but I don’t think there is enough evidence to replace the paradigm about non-replacement of neurons. If something kills a substantial part of your neurons, you get brain damaged, don’t you? This touches also the question claiming that brain function has nothing to do with its size – so, I guess, brain enlargement during evolution was sexual selection, mere preference for boy-/girlfriends with larger heads, and the correlation between microcephaly and cognitive disability is spurious. Any neuroscientists here?

    1. I mean, of course you get brain damage when you lose neurons, even if the neurons regrow: The brain functions via its structure, i.e. specific *connections* of neurons, which are learned. There’s no reason why regrowing neurons would magically form the same connections.

      1. You are quire right that connections are crucial; because of them, spinal cord damage can be very disabling even if few neurons are actually killed. However, as far as I know, neurons do not regrow, so not only haven’t we the same connections – we have no new connections, except some formed by re-wiring of cells that have survived.
        The problem with proper wiring of eventual new neurons may explain why no replacement mechanism for neurons has evolved.
        I’ve also read a paper about formation of new oocytes in the adult mammalian ovary. The findings were contested by later works. You cannot pick one study and say that a paradigm supported by thousands of studies is overthrown.

        1. As far as I know, and assuming I’m remembering correctly, the limbic system constantly creates new neurones as part of its function in forming memories, and neurones are like most cells in having minor regenerative abilities anyway – for instance, broken axons can be repaired over time by new cellular growth. What should have been specified in the question is that this ability is sorely limited, just like it is for any other organ; you’re not, for example, going to regrow a left hemisphere or a lobe if it is severely damaged or removed.

  54. According to Google, on”dark side of the moon”, this popular term refers to the fact that the same physical half of the Moon, the “near side”, is always facing Earth, which in turn means that there is a far side or so-called “dark side” that is never facing Earth and can only be seen from space.

    So the correct answer, under that sense, is yes.

    1. As a Pink Floyd fan, I know perfectly well what ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ means.

      However, I thought this was a science quiz, not a pop culture one.

      (And to quote the classic record itself, from ‘Eclipse’:
      “There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it’s all dark”)

      cr

    2. Exactly! Like we all learned some time in grade school! Which is why I got that one wrong.

      Definitely more than one definition possible, there.

  55. 32 out of 35.

    I fluffed the “brain colour” question (I answered pink), the “throwing food away that’s dropped on the floor” question (I said never pick it up), and the “fossil fuel burning increases carbon content” question (I said it did because I was thinking solely of the atmosphere, not Earth as a whole).

    Still pretty chuffed, though I think some of the questions were a bit leading. For instance, the “hypothesis theory” one had an obviously wrong answer (complete guess vs educated guess) versus a more respectably phrased one.

  56. 29 scored with at least one thumb-o and a couple of questions that are highly dubious.
    None of the options on the Antarctic ice question are correct on average, some areas are gaining some are losing, and some change through the years.
    similarly dodgy options on the ‘gyre garbage patch’ question.
    The diamond formation question is flat – out wrong. Conversion of diamond to graphite had been seen, but no evidence of graphite or coal going (naturally) to diamond. Most formation models look at gas – phase conversions, but differ over CO2 to diamond or CH4 to diamond. Both may occur.

    1. Ah, I think you’re the first to mention those two questions, both of which I got “wrong,” too. I’ve read frequently about the inconsistencies in the data on net direction of Antarctic ice growth/loss.

      Unlike several here, I got the tornado/window question right. Maybe that comes from living in a place that has annual tornado warnings.

      My stupidest mistake was on the fusion question…I carelessly hit “plutonium,” reflexively relating it to “nuclear,” only to then see the Helium option and have an explosive Doh! moment. Like when you notice a typo in a WEIT post a nanosecond after you’ve hit Post Comment. Otherwise my score would have matched yours…

  57. Failed this off the bat, because I did the wrong quiz! (Beats me how that happened … got 28/30 on that one). Then found the right quiz and got 30/35, but under duress as the ambiguity factor was too high. I’ll swear off these quizzes from now on.

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