Friends and contacts and mean well when they pass you bits and pieces of trivia via email. Unfortunately some of those information is more like misinformation. I don't know why some people got so much time in their hands to concoct such fallacies, incorrect understanding as well as myths and urban legends. And once it was let loose into the wild wide world of web, it will become viral and spreads.
The thing is, some of this bits of misinformation seemed plausible. Especially if you don't have the background academic knowledge or remembering a partial bit of information that you may have studied a long time ago but then you forget and when you receive the email, the explanation seem rather possible because your memory was a bit hazy on that subject matter. This brings to mind the show, "Are you better than a fifth grade" reality show. And yes, we don't have perfect memory, and things that we studied at one time is gone with the wind after many years of not referencing it in our brain.
Although for me, I still have good recollection of some of things that I have studied especially on those subject matters that I liked (but unfortunately for me, I don't know why I'm so poor at remembering names with people that I met! Must be the way my brain is differently wired). Anyway, we don't all have that good memory and we use whatever means to memorized information be they important or trivia.
So whenever I receive emails about some interesting discovery, trivia, and even warnings, it is best to do a little research online to find out just how accurate those information. Some people just have too much time in their hands, and will take real information and give it a little twist. So when you receive it, the information seems correct at first glance, but in reality it is already in error due to bad interpretation or overly simplistic view or misunderstood or could even be a joke or malicious intent of creating disinformation.
Thank goodness for sites like Snopes, BreakTheChain and various website and individuals trying to debunked bad information. Yes, internet communication (websites and emails) may be the best thing that has happened because it provide vast information for your research and reading at the touch of the button. And yet there are also sites or individuals whose grasp of their subject matter that may be less than well researched or poorly understood or just plainly made wrong intentionally to create disinformation.
So while you are surfing around or receiving emails with those pieces of trivia, do be weary of misinformation. Don't be lazy, but do a little bit of research and find out its accuracy before passing it along to your friends and family. Perhaps you might learn a thing or two about the subject matter that was circulating in the wild and avoid the disinformation and to inform the sender that the information they are sending should be more accurate so that they won't learn the wrong thing and pass bad information around.
