Social proof trumps best logic

Peer pressure always wins.

Wilt Chamberlain – easily one of the best basketball players of all time – was a terrible free throw shooter. Except for one season when he changed technique and scored more free throws in one game than anyone ever has. Then, crazily, he gave up the technique. Malcolm Gladwell explains why we often make the wrong decisions, in full awareness that they’re wrong. This story was adapted from Gladwell’s new podcast Revisionist History, which is produced by Panoply. 

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/590/choosing-wrong

Vax propaganda 

The drug companies, via public health and propaganda, are putting out a fear story every day now. 

People are waking up to vaccine damage. 

They are having an effect. 

The phony stories are daily. 

Beware. 

Scarlett as in scarlet fever? 

Little Scarlett was one week shy of getting the immunization shot meant to protect her from whooping cough when she became infected in late January.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/she-was-not-breathing-ontario-infant-nearly-dies-of-whooping-cough-1.4327698

Stop the JNF with David Mivasair

An episode that exposes how if you want to flaunt the rules, own the money machine of the rule writers. 

David Mivasair is a Canadian rabbi who is part of a petition to remove charitable status from the Jewish National Fund, a major landowner in Israel that has a mission to provide land to Jews, but not to people of our groups, such as Palestinians, a bias that even the Israeli state is not allowed to enforce. Reasons for the complaint is that the JNF has never identified purpose, supports the Israeli military (clearly illegal for a Canadian charity), is discriminatory and has assisted the Israeli

* Duration: 58:22, Played: 37:51

* Published: 2019-02-19 3:23:35 PM

* Episode Download Link (80 MB): https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/h5vkfk/TIM_021919.mp3

* Show Notes: https://infectiousmyth.podbean.com/e/the-infectious-myth-stop-the-jnf-with-david-mivasair/

* Episode Feed: The Infectious Myth – https://infectiousmyth.podbean.com/feed.xml

The power of belief

Great podcast showing how lonely men were duped by another man’s pen-pal business. Even when they found and testified against this fraud, they were still convinced of their original belief and said he did more good than harm.

Jesse had been waiting his whole life to fall in love—and then he started getting these letters from the perfect woman, Pamala. She seemed vulnerable. In need of protection. A classic beauty. He was totally devoted. They corresponded for years. And when something happens that really should change how he feels about her— he just can’t give it up. NPR’s social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam reports the story.

Source: Jesse’s Girl