The fantastic Sense About Science has an end-of-year wrap-up of all the science-related nonsense that celebrities have been spouting this year.
Sarah Palin, who is just a horrible person:
“[I don’t] believe in the theory that human beings – thinking, loving beings – originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea [or] monkeys who eventually swung down from the trees.”
Heather Mills:
“[When you eat meat it] sits in your colon for 40 years and putrefies, and eventually gives you the illness you die of. And that is a fact.”
Shilpa Shetty:
“I avoid carbonated drinks – they sap all the oxygen from your body and make your skin wrinkly and dehydrated.”
Anthony Worrall Thompson on the benefits of being a locavore:
“Locally produced food is better for your health because the ingredients are far more nutritious than something that has been shipped from thousands of miles away.”
Suzanne Somers went for the double:
“[They] put poison in [Patrick Swayze’s] body … Why couldn’t they have built him up nutritionally and gotten rid of the toxins?”
“I’ve come to realize that [birth control pills] weren’t safe because is it safe to take a chemical every day? And how could it be safe to take something that prevents ovulation?”
*boggle*
It still saddens me to think of some of the bone-headed statements of Dan Quayle (Bush, Sr’s vice president)
“For NASA, space is still a high priority.”
“[It’s] time for the human race to enter the solar system.”
“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
“We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.”
“I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change.”
And last, but not least:
“Mars is essentially in the same orbit . . . Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.”