Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!

April 22, 2009 4:26 PM

An oldie, but apropros for Earth Day. Join Penn & Teller in banning the nefarious Dihydrogen Monoxide!
posted by grapefruitmoon (63 comments total)

Ok, I spent a good half hour searching and didn't find this as a double. I'm sure though one of you Sherlock Holmeses will find it in the next fifteen seconds, in which case, my apologies for making a doomed post.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:26 PM on April 22

One of my favorite Metafilter comments.
posted by Flunkie at 4:27 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

...but ...but ... Dihydrogen Monoxide is WATER!
posted by clearly at 4:30 PM on April 22

teller
posted by kliuless at 4:32 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

surprised it wasn't a double...I run across this every month or so: an effort to discredit the enviros as a bunch of wackos, or more accurately, to discredit the "man on the street" as a tool of the Radical Environmentalist agenda. A silly pointless stunt.

Well, it is not entirely pointless: the left and the right take polls with intrinsic bias in their wording and then use it to influence policy, which is of course reprehensible. But that is not the point of this stunt; it is to discredit popular fears of dangerous chemicals in our environment, which is, in point of fact, a valid fear.
posted by kozad at 4:36 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

If there is anyone left who thinks the dihydrogen monoxide thing is funny, I pity them.
posted by localroger at 4:37 PM on April 22 [4 favorites]

I've seen it used to expose the scientific illiteracy of elected officials, which seems like a pretty good purpose to me: MP tries to ban water.
posted by Paragon at 4:38 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

High School Kid Proves People Are Gullible 1997, etc., etc.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 4:40 PM on April 22

But that is not the point of this stunt; it is to discredit popular fears of dangerous chemicals in our environment, which is, in point of fact, a valid fear.

I disagree. I think the point of the stunt is to show how easily people can be duped simply by using long words, strong language and appeals to emotion. People can be duped in any direction, and it's imperative that people take steps to get the facts and not react to fear-mongering from anyone or any group.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:42 PM on April 22 [6 favorites]

Ahhh, Bullshit!. Absolutely brilliant at confronting peddlers of supernatural frauds and quackery, absolutely terrible at everything else.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:46 PM on April 22 [4 favorites]

I think the point of the stunt is to show how easily people can be duped simply by using long words, strong language and appeals to emotion. People can be duped in any direction, and it's imperative that people take steps to get the facts and not react to fear-mongering from anyone or any group.

That may be the point of this (common) stunt when done by someone, but Penn Jillette is a bitter, angry Randian libertarian. The point of this stunt is fuck you all I'm gonna go Galt on you and then you'll be sorry you inferior pieces of shit why don't you like me.
posted by Flunkie at 4:47 PM on April 22 [9 favorites]

I disagree. I think the point of the stunt is to show how easily people can be duped simply by using long words...

The word "gun" is one syllable.
posted by tkchrist at 4:49 PM on April 22

I think Penn may have a guilty conscience from earning his living in Las Vegas.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:50 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

There are a couple things that I really don't like about this, one is that it seems to have the message that environmentalists are gullible in particular. That is of course idiotic. Yeah you can frame things to make them seem bad or good by using factual information misleadingly, and it worked here, but the thing that I don't like is that the people smugly laughing at the people who were tricked probably would be just as likely to be fooled. Maybe less predisposed to signing a petition, but no more likely to see through the rouse. They tell the audience right up front the joke just to make sure that they know that it isn't on them. They didn't even ask what dihydrogen monoxide was? Typically you hear a chemical's name and thats what it is. What's carbon monoxide? You didn't even ask!

See I think this exact thing could have been funnier and a more satisfying critical exercise if the audience was more the butt of the joke. It's easy to get people to feel like they're superior to other people, and it's fun to feel better than other people. But if you are like most people, you probably aren't so much more clever than the rest of the world and you can be tricked and you should be vigilant against manipulation. But Penn and Teller didn't do that. They'd rather say "get them over there". That's disappointing because I'm sympathetic to the idea that environmentalism is an insufficiently scientific movement and more rooted in symbolic consumer choices and group affinities than it is in pursuing practically superior outcomes. The thing to remember is that this isn't because the people who are members of the group are somehow less clever than I am, or you are but because the people in this group happen to have stars on their bellies. Which is totally uncool.
posted by I Foody at 4:52 PM on April 22 [4 favorites]

Previous MetaFilter posts about Dihydrogen Monoxide.

New link, but an old standby as a topic.
posted by briank at 4:52 PM on April 22

can we have a new flag called "life double?"

As in, even if it hasn't been literally posted before, everyone in the world has heard this joke before and no longer finds it clever, if indeed they ever did.
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:54 PM on April 22

In other news: Your epidermis is showing.
posted by Joe Beese at 4:55 PM on April 22 [9 favorites]

Also, water is common referred to as "water" or, failing that, "h-two-oh."

"Dihydrogen Monoxide" sounds a lot like "carbon monoxide." It's a really easy mistake for someone who isn't very chemistry literate. Yawn.
posted by drjimmy11 at 4:56 PM on April 22

I also cracked the hell up in 1976 when Gilda Radner talked about her uvula on national television!
posted by Ron Thanagar at 5:00 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

OTOH, Peter McDermott et al.'s alt.drugs FAQ on the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide can never be linked too often, in my biased opinion.
posted by Maias at 5:01 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Of course they edited the part(s) where people looked at the petitioner incredulously and asked "You want to ban water?" Shit, I learned that joke in high school.

Penn & Teller: Entertaining, but don't rely on them for facts.

Funny how they state explicitly right at the beginning of each show how this is their opinion. Yet, do you realize how many people I've run into that have used their recycling "facts" as basis for arguments that recycling is bad?
posted by P.o.B. at 5:06 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Penn Jillette is a bitter, angry Randian libertarian.

Yes, because a stunt about a funny scientific name for water is HOW HE'S GOING TO GET YOU.

Prediction: Given the right circumstances, half of the people on MeFi would be 1000 times more likely to be thumbs up for a good old-fashioned book burning than Penn Jillette. So, let's all loosen the fuck up, 'kay?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:07 PM on April 22

It wouldn't be a double. It'd be a dipost.
posted by srboisvert at 5:14 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Yes, because a stunt about a funny scientific name for water is HOW HE'S GOING TO GET YOU.

No, a stunt about a funny scientific name for water is HOW HE'S GOING TO DISPARAGE REGULATIONS.

Prediction: Given the right circumstances, half of the people on MeFi would be 1000 times more likely to be thumbs up for a good old-fashioned book burning than Penn Jillette.

[citation needed]

Or are you just pulling a fast one on me by speaking misleadingly without contradicting the literal fact that a thousand times zero is zero? Wow, I'm stupid, like those idiots who think the government should ban things. They think the government should ban water.
posted by Flunkie at 5:17 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Jimmy Kimmel did a similar thing years ago getting women to sign petitions against suffrage. A little more wincemaking, as we expect scientific ignorance in the common man.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:28 PM on April 22

Prediction: Given the right circumstances, half of the people on MeFi would be 1000 times more likely to be thumbs up for a good old-fashioned book burning than Penn Jillette.

This statement is a bizarre non sequitor, has no basis in fact, and does nothing to dispute the fact that Penn Jillette isn't pulling this stunt to poke fun at general scientific ignorance, but instead just to be the asshole libertarian that he is.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:30 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

On an old SNL, Jane Curtin and Al Franken did a funny take on this where he was a spokesman for the chemical industry. He related how he had a phobia for anything with a chemical name until he found out that NaCL was common table salt. As a retort she tricked him into drinking "Fresh, clean H2S04."
posted by digsrus at 5:41 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

I thought he was poking fun at people's willingness to sign petitions, and the fact that people who attend rallies of any kind are generally more willing to sign a petition at that rally than people who are not at rallies.
posted by The World Famous at 5:43 PM on April 22

In other words, if you want to lay blame for the public's general fear and ignorance of science-y terminology, blame the Jesus freaks in the Republican Party who have been whittling funding for basic education and science research for the last 25 years. If we're a dumb nation, it's not because of regulations on polluters, but because of the willfully ignorant right-wing yahoos we keep putting in charge. If anything, pollution laws passed in the early 1970s have probably done more to improve the general health and economic well-being of this country's citizens than any act since the Great Depression.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:46 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

It's definitely a double, but I can't link to it because it was first posted back before URLs were invented.
posted by DU at 6:20 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Absolutely brilliant at confronting peddlers of supernatural frauds and quackery, absolutely terrible at everything else.

100% spot on, except for the word "brilliant" in the first clause. Or maybe they were brilliant, but not at confronting. The episodes I watched were really really great at calling people names for 42 minutes straight, though.
posted by DU at 6:22 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

Screw water, I want to drink a glass of Brawndo, the Thirst Quencher .
posted by kldickson at 6:24 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

I don't have to hate Penn Jillette to think this is stupid, right?
posted by grobstein at 6:31 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

Hell yeah, it's about time someone stood up to big environmentalism! Just thinking of all the perfectly safe chemicals banned by the environazis makes me sick. How does that old poem go?
They came for dioxin,
and I did not speak up, because I did not sell dioxin.
Then they came for asbestos,
and I did not speak up, because I did not sell asbestos.
Then they came for thalidomide,
and I did not speak up, because I did not sell thalidomide.
Then they came for dihydrogen monoxide,
and by that time there was no one left to speak up.
posted by Humanzee at 6:55 PM on April 22 [5 favorites]

Penn Jillette is kind of like Rush Limbaugh, a very good sense of humor, but his politics make him kind of creepy, and as time marches on the creepiness gets stronger and the humor weaker for both of these guys.
posted by caddis at 7:01 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

And the people who 'got it' - why were they left on the cutting room floor?
posted by rough ashlar at 7:17 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

because that's not funny
posted by caddis at 7:20 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Rush Limbaugh, a very good sense of humor

[citation needed]
posted by DU at 7:23 PM on April 22 [3 favorites]

Yeah, um, Rush Limbaugh doesn't have a very good sense of anything, actually.

As for Penn Jillette, well, I don't mind the douchebagginess as long as he's doing those little magic tricks of his. I wish that other guy would talk some sense into him.
posted by Sys Rq at 7:32 PM on April 22 [2 favorites]

Yes, because a stunt about a funny scientific name for water is HOW HE'S GOING TO GET YOU.

He is a Randian libertarian, and environmentalists are a favorite target of his. I am quite sure that making environmentalists, specifically, look stupid is exactly the point of this (I believe it actually comes from the "Environmental Hysteria" episode) and I find it rather depressing that many liberals regard right-wing assholes like Penn Jillette and Christopher Hitchens as people worth respecting and listening to because they make themselves out to be hard-nosed rationalists. Their shtick may be more viscerally appealing to the average liberal than that of, say, Glenn Beck, but ultimately I think Jillette and people like Beck are, in most ways that matter, ideological kin. Despite their pose of being above partisanship, when push comes to shove, Jillette-type libertarians almost always align themselves with the right.

Prediction: Given the right circumstances, half of the people on MeFi would be 1000 times more likely to be thumbs up for a good old-fashioned book burning than Penn Jillette. So, let's all loosen the fuck up, 'kay?

I am not a liberal of the sort that seems to be the most popular political viewpoint on Metafilter, but even so I don't believe this for a minute. I don't think that the average liberal is any more likely to support book-burning than the average Randian libertarian, and in fact, I think it's probably somewhat more likely that the average Randian libertarian would support a book-burning, as long as it wasn't a government backed book burning, and the targeted books were what they would consider "irrational", "anti-life", "pro-altruism", or whatever else. Rand herself was a deeply authoritarian person at heart, and many of those who follow her philosophy are as well, from what I've seen.

(Sure, they say they represent the opposite of authoritarianism. And neoconservatives claim to be all about spreading freedom and democracy, Marxist-Leninists claim to be about worker's power and equality, and abortion clinic protesters claim to be all about Christian compassion. Oh, and Penn "Global warming is bullshit!" Jillette claims to be all about being skeptical and pro-science.)
posted by a louis wain cat at 7:57 PM on April 22 [10 favorites]

Prediction: Given the right circumstances, half of the people on MeFi would be 1000 times more likely to be thumbs up for a good old-fashioned book burning than Penn Jillette.

Since Penn Jillette doesn't believe that burning those books would contribute to global warming, but half the people on MeFi do, I will take that bet!!!

Wait, there was no bet. Nevermind.
posted by dirigibleman at 8:21 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

If the book was Atlas Shrugged, you'd be right.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:30 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

Illusionists excel at deceptive act. Film at 11.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 8:53 PM on April 22 [1 favorite]

This is a watery post.
posted by not_on_display at 11:27 PM on April 22

I am not a liberal of the sort that seems to be the most popular political viewpoint on Metafilter, but even so I don't believe this for a minute. I don't think that the average liberal is any more likely to support book-burning than the average Randian libertarian, and in fact, I think it's probably somewhat more likely that the average Randian libertarian would support a book-burning, as long as it wasn't a government backed book burning, and the targeted books were what they would consider "irrational", "anti-life", "pro-altruism", or whatever else. Rand herself was a deeply authoritarian person at heart, and many of those who follow her philosophy are as well, from what I've seen.

Ayn Rand hated being associated with libertarians. She considered them "hippies of the right" and said she'd rather vote for Mickey Mouse than John Hospers, the first libertarian presidential candidate. Go to the Ayn Rand Bookstore and you can get all sorts of goodies about how libertarianism is evil.

Likewise, most libertarians (at least from my experience) tend to dislike Ayn Rand as well. Sure, they like Atlas Shrugged and they can get on board with the role of the individual, that the free market is great, but most don't really buy stuff that being an altruist is like being worse than Satan or stuff like that.

This seems like a minor thing to quibble about but the point is, most libertarians aren't Randroids and a Randroid that says they're a libertarian isn't really a Randroid to begin with. Most libertarians do not smoke cigarettes out of principles, jack off to the image of smokestacks, etc. like a Randroid and I don't think any libertarian would support a book burning out of principle. If individuals want to get together and burn books they paid for and is their property, might as well let them, but you'd have a hard time finding a libertarian who supports that morally. I have nothing against "lollibertarian" threads, just that conflating libertarians with the Randroid crowd is no better than how conservatives equate liberals with pinko commies who want the streets to flow with the blood of capitalists.

I like Bullshit! and from what I've seen, Penn is far from being a Randroid on environmentalism. He's one of the VERY few libertarians who's admitted that global warming is a problem - he was like "Yeah, it could be false but there's a whole lot of scientists who say otherwise, but the current solutions being proposed aren't really addressing the core problem." Compare that to the Ayn Rand line, as seen in The Objectivist Standard's Exploit the Earth or Die t-shirt.

Yeah, Penn has read Ayn Rand and it's influenced him a bit but he's no Randian. Really, Bullshit!, at least in my view, isn't really designed to be an objective, non-biased look at some issue. It's mostly Penn and Teller presenting their point of view on an issue (in their own words, they're "biased as fuck") in an entertaining fashion. It's sorta like a non-fiction version of South Park, not exactly the objective journalism.
posted by champthom at 11:49 PM on April 22

See, you're seeing a discussion about chemicals and political activity.

I'm seeing humans hanging around in a context where people approach them to sign petitions and the group is dedicated to common interests. An attractive human approaches them and uses context- and culture-appropriate language. She asks for a normal, everyday token - signature on a petition - that doesn't cost anything. In return you get approval of this new human, which of course is always good for building group identity and relations. This is entirely normal human behavior since we're social apes and we do this kind of thing all the time. We exchange approval.

Sure, the targets could invest more in the operation by quizzing the con-artist and finding out about her proposition, but that would be less rational. More cost, same benefit. Give her the signature, get the group-binding benefit. Don't waste time thinking about it.

This is an entirely rational, Randian, scientific behavior. Think of it as being at a party when someone says "I do job X" and you say "Oh, that's interesting" even when (1) you don't really know what X is and/or (2) you're lying. You might be someone who wouldn't say that, who would say "X, which you spend most of your time doing and defines you as a person, really sucks!" And then you'd probably like/understand/agree with this video.

But I'd just argue that you're just lekking: you're displaying superior knowledge as a way to show your fitness. "See, I'm so much cleverer than these people! Mate with ME!" Are you a young male human? Learn some manners and think more deeply about how people interact.
posted by alasdair at 11:49 PM on April 22 [3 favorites]

I enjoyed the show as entertainment, but I always thought that Bullshit! was an appropriate name and descriptive of the show itself.
posted by double block and bleed at 5:01 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]

Penn Jillette is kind of like Rush Limbaugh, a very good sense of humor, but his politics make him kind of creepy, and as time marches on the creepiness gets stronger and the humor weaker for both of these guys.

You're going to make that comparison and not use the word "loudmouth"?
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 6:05 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]

"Their shtick may be more viscerally appealing to the average liberal than that of, say, Glenn Beck, but ultimately I think Jillette and people like Beck are, in most ways that matter, ideological kin. Despite their pose of being above partisanship, when push comes to shove, Jillette-type libertarians almost always align themselves with the right."

Glenn Beck is a media whore. Penn Jillette is at least sincere. I understand that lots of people don't agree with either one, but Glenn Beck is mostly going after ratings when he says something outrageous, which is how he makes money. Jillette doesn't use his politics as a platform to earn a living. He's just a famous guy who is outspoken.

I am hopeful that people stop using the left/right dichotomy as much as a dividing line to determine which views are worth considering. Jillette's flavor of libertarianism is too knee jerk for me, too Randian. He's a smart guy, but he mistakes cleverness for intelligence, and he fails to make a point with some of these stunts. Good policy doesn't spring forth from non-sequitur jokes about the stupidity of the masses. But whether he falls on the left or the right is not really that important, and it's also not a good basis for policy.
posted by krinklyfig at 8:03 AM on April 23

Jillette doesn't use his politics as a platform to earn a living.

Maybe you haven't heard of a show called Bullshit!
posted by shakespeherian at 8:16 AM on April 23 [1 favorite]

When Jillette had his radio show he used to continually repeat the latest Drudge talking points criticizing Democrats, but the only Republican I ever heard him badmouth was Rumsfeld (but he did do a whole show about him).

He's very interesting to listen to as long as the subject isn't political.
posted by rfs at 8:51 AM on April 23

It's a really easy mistake for someone who isn't very chemistry literate.

I'd say that it is a really easy mistake only to someone who isn't chemistry literate at all. IUPAC nomenclature isn't very complicated at that level:

di=2, mono=1 (both come from the Greek, so humanities students really have no excuse),
dihydrogen=2 times hydrogen,
monoxyde=1 time oxygen.

Thus H₂O. If one hasn't learnt that at the end of primary school, then I must ask: Is our children learning?

Moreover, if you really are so ignorant of chemistry, then perhaps you should consider seeking the advice of experts before calling for bans, as people (even lawmakers!) who fall for this joke do. An idiot is an ignorant who doesn't know or care that he's ignorant. For this reason, this scam is the perfect idiot detector.

And I don't care what Penn's political views are. Blatant disregard of science is just as worthy of criticism on the "left" as it is on the "right".
posted by Skeptic at 9:00 AM on April 23

I'd say that it is a really easy mistake only to someone who isn't chemistry literate at all.

It's a really easy mistake for anyone who isn't really listening and who is enthusiastically supporting a cause at a rally. When people who are used to signing petitions to ban chemicals hear "will you sign a petition to ban dihydrogen oxide?" they often just hear "will you sign a petition to ban blahblahchemicalblahchemicalblah." It's not that they're idiots or that they aren't chemistry literate. It's that they aren't listening to anything after "a petition to ban." If someone they perceive as being in their circle of trust on political issues thinks something should be banned, they just don't listen at all to what that person proposes banning.
posted by The World Famous at 9:59 AM on April 23 [3 favorites]

Maybe--probably not, but it's possible--maybe they understand that a petition to ban water is not a real petition, and sign it because it is harmless fun.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:03 AM on April 23 [2 favorites]

So, those explaining the social aspects of the interaction: Are you arguing that what Penn did was silly? Or are you arguing that any idiotic movement could be started if one adheres to the group culture?
posted by FuManchu at 11:10 AM on April 23

My understanding is that you don't call an oxide a monoxide unless the oxidation is incomplete.

Things that are not fully oxidised are more reactive than things that are oxidised (and introducing reactive things into delicate chemistry naturally tends to result in stray unwanted reactions). So while water is fully oxidised, someone referring to water incorrectly as a monoxide is someone stating incorrectly - and misleadingly - that water is a more dangerous molecule than it really is.

Between the two fools (the person who doesn't know their chemistry, and the person who doesn't know chemistry but is playing a prank on someone else who likewise doesn't know their chemistry and thinks it proves something), I'm not sure that the gullible fool is the bigger of the two fools.
posted by -harlequin- at 5:25 PM on April 23 [1 favorite]

I'm trying to figure out the formula for something that really would be called "dihydrogen monoxide", and I'm not getting anywhere. :-/
posted by -harlequin- at 5:28 PM on April 23

A less flawed joke might be the chemical name of a sugar. But then you'd have to learn the chemistry because you don't know it yourself, which makes it harder to pretend the other person is stupider than you.
posted by -harlequin- at 5:34 PM on April 23

harlequin, don't tease. What's the chemical name of sugar? And the correct chemical name for water?
posted by nooneyouknow at 5:47 PM on April 23

nooneyouknow, the correct chemical name for water would just be hydrogen oxide. Neither the di nor the mono are used as they usually would be by chemists.
posted by localroger at 6:22 PM on April 23

I don't think the point of this stunt is to point out the fear of dangerous chemicals in our environment, which is indeed a valid fear. It's to point out the fear of just plain old chemicals.

Unfortunately, a lot of people in the environmental movement have gotten this concept that anything with chemicals in it is bad. Which is of course absurd, considering the world is composed of chemicals. And this fear of chemicals is moving into the general public. For example, search for chemicals on Whole Foods. Almost every mention is in a negative context. A lot of the home cleaning products contains notices like: "no chemicals!"

By continually associating the word chemical with negative words, we have changed the sentiment of the word chemical itself. In the 50s/60s, when many Americans thought of "chemicals", they probably had positive reactions. Probably due in part to the slick advertising of chemical giants like Dow Chemical and Du Pont, and other cultural events like the space program. Now, ask somebody what they think of when they think of chemicals.

As a whole, I don't think this is a good thing. I think because of this science as a whole is going to take a hit. You're already seeing it in things like the death of the chemistry set (complicated in part by the war on drugs).

Yes, we need to be more careful about which chemicals we ingest and release into our environment. But the green industry is playing on this fear of chemicals and only making the situation worse by creating a science-illiterate public.
posted by formless at 11:28 PM on April 23

It's mostly Penn and Teller presenting their point of view on an issue (in their own words, they're "biased as fuck") in an entertaining fashion.

Yeah, I've cleanly laid that one out for a couple of people, no dice. They still persist in repeating the 'facts' they've gleaned from the show.

I will say I really enjoyed Jillette's book Sock. The main narrator is a sock monkey.
posted by P.o.B. at 6:25 AM on April 24

In the 50s/60s, when many Americans thought of "chemicals", they probably had positive reactions. Probably due in part to the slick advertising of chemical giants like Dow Chemical and Du Pont, and other cultural events like the space program. Now, ask somebody what they think of when they think of chemicals.

Dow Chemical and DuPont, mostly. Blame them.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:56 AM on April 24