I had the same response as you when I read the Hitchcock bellybutton item in the NY Times Quiz.  I also took exception to the item about the rabbit and parrot being the only animals that can see behind themselves without turning their heads.  Several species of lizard (such a Chameleons) have eyes that allow them to see in all directions without turning their head.

Thank God someone else has this insane desire to prove these useless facts as fiction.  I, too, spend time trying to disuade people from believing everything they read on the Internet, but noone seems to want to hear about the truth.  They really hate it when you correct them in public.

that is hilarious, I found this site, by trying to prove each one of those stupid facts incorrect.

I too like Les, just end up pissing people off, but I found it rewarding for a brief moment that I might help some poor soul stop believing everything they get in email, so they will then stop forwarding it to me

Well, if you guys don’t already know about it then bookmark the Snopes.com Urban Legends webpage. They’re one of the best spots to go when you need to debunk the latest email glurge you get in your inbox. They not only check things out, but they cite their sources. I have a few other links I check as well, I should probably make a whole link list full of them.

I got that same e-mail.  I sent a response back with researched comments to each of the “truths”, especially the Alfred Hitchcock thing:
Every human ever born had a bellybutton.  Without one, the embryo would have no way of receiving nutrience while inside it’s mothers womb.  If he didn’t have a bellybutton, his birth would have been a quick miscarriage.

What do you think of this one:
40 people are sent to the hospital for dog bites every minute.

57,600 people a day for dog bites?  That’s a lot of dog bites.

me, too .... me, too .... me, too—- i found myself searching the internet to see if these things were really, really true—and voila! ... i find some instant friends!!

Y’all so sillie.We thu wuns who makes em up!

OMG, I am yet another person who found this site b/c I wanted to disprove the “fact” that Alfred Hitchcock doesn’t have a belly button.

hehe

<tim><

And I’d really like to know how sneezing stops your heart and all other bodily functions. It doesn’t usually kill me.

It’s a shame that 92% of the population believes this crap.

There, another fact to add to the list.

97.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot, too.

Amazing how few people actually think to investigate what shows up as ‘fact’ in their email. The rest of my family think I’m crazy because I want to disprove this garbage… oh well, says a lot about you average “man on the street,” doesn’t it?

Indeed. The emails of the sort that I listed here, where it’s largely a set of occasionally true trivia statements, don’t annoy me as much as the people who forward you little “uplifting stories” that are somewhat true, but exaggerated beyond credibility.

One of those, for example, is about how Al Capone’s lawyer, Easy Eddie, ends up deciding to turn in his famous mobster boss so that Eddie’s son will have a good name. His son later grows up to be legendary WWII fighter pilot Butch O’Hare who supposedly single-handedly keeps an entire squadron of Japanese bombers from destroying an entire fleet of American warships and has an airport named after him. The moral being that even someone who was so bad he worked for the worst of the mobsters could turn over a new leaf and by his good example produce a son who is this side of a superhero.

Problem is it didn’t actually happen quite that way or for quite those reasons. The email’s tale of Butch’s daring is ridiculously exaggerated. Butch did do some pretty heroic stuff in helping to defend an American fleet of ships that was under attack by Japanese planes against overwhelming odds, but it’s not the near-Superman level achievement that the email makes it out to be. I have the link to the real history around here someplace and I’ll provide it if anyone is curious. Additionally the motivations of his father to rat out his gangster boss had very little with his desire to turn over a new leaf and clear his own name. More of a seeing-the-writing on the wall and getting a few favors from the Feds than anything else. Which totally destroys the moral of the email that was sent out as well as distorting history.

Those sort of emails really piss me off. The O’Hair name was cleaned up by the actions of the son, not the father. By implying the father had anything to do with it in order to promote some trite morality concept diminishes the accomplishment of his son.

My least favourite ‘facts’ are the ones related to what’s visible from space.

I have heard, perhaps a gazillion times, that the Great Wall of China is visible from space.

‘Ha’, says I.

It might be long, but it isn’t very wide; you would be more likely to see I-95 through the states, or the QEW from Toronto to Niagara Falls, but you can’t.

Maybe Alfred Hitchcock had surgery (tummy tuck) where the bellybutton was removed later in his life ?.......just askin….....

Oh my god!!! I got the same list of statements in an e-mail and i found this site while trying to find out if coke would be green or not. I know that the toothbrush WAS invented in 1498. can someone please find out if the rest are true or not and then post it somewhere or a link to it? that would be great.

Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a bellybutton, maybe he had 2 bellybuttons?

Reality-what a concept!

gosh, soulmates!

just got an email with some silly “facts” and went to my favorite site - http://www.snopes.com - I just LOVE hitting reply all and posting the link that disproves the theory that deoderant causes cancer, or whatever the warning du jour is.
Found this site looking for something official-sounding about Alfred H.‘s bellybutton. 

didn’t realize there were so many others out there who don’t believe everything they read.  I feel better about the future of the world!

ok i guess im an idiot because i thought it was a real fact that alfred hitchcock didn’t have a bellybutton! thank u everyone who made me realize im dumb haha

Thank you all.  I have found friends.

I have to admit that I’m surprised at how much response this entry has generated. I used to think that I was the only one who got annoyed at these sorts of emails, but it’s clear I’m not the only one.

The problem is when I try to be helpful and point out how ridiculous these emails are all I end up doing is pissing off one of my family members for “being so arrogant” and replying to people that I “don’t even know.” Ignorance really must be bliss.

Here’s a good page with some of these debunked: Rumor Mill

Enjoy!

And, Mel Gibson’s face wasn’t destroyed when he was a teenager!  Please all you naive people out there - think a little.  Don’t believe everything you read.  Believe 1%. And this post is the 1%.:smile:

What about the kneecaps??  Really, who would possibly believe that a two-year-old child could walk around with no kneecaps???

/gina

actually the thing about the kneecaps is partially true. infants are born with a patella, but it is made of cartilaginous material. it ossifies later in life, so won’t show up on an x-ray until then. so technically it’s like they don’t have them in the usual sense of a kneecap, until they do ossify.

check this link: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/may97/861940964.An.r.html