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From: clzb93ynxj@att.net (LaurenceClarkCrossen)
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Subject: Relativity has misled us for "a staggeringly long time."
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2024 20:19:34 +0000
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"Academic urban legends"
Ole Bjørn Rekdal

"Abstract
Many of the messages presented in respectable scientific publications
are, in fact, based on various
forms of rumors. Some of these rumors appear so frequently, and in such
complex, colorful, and
entertaining ways that we can think of them as academic urban legends.
The explanation for this
phenomenon is usually that authors have lazily, sloppily, or
fraudulently employed sources, and
peer reviewers and editors have not discovered these weaknesses in the
manuscripts during
evaluation. To illustrate this phenomenon, I draw upon a remarkable case
in which a decimal
point error appears to have misled millions into believing that spinach
is a good nutritional source
of iron. Through this example, I demonstrate how an academic urban
legend can be conceived
and born, and can continue to grow and reproduce within academia and
beyond....Spinach as a good source of iron
I will illustrate this situation with an example I encountered not long
ago, in which a
scientific article I was reading presented me with some new and outright
fascinating
knowledge. The following quote, including the reference, is taken from
an article published by K. Sune Larsson in the Journal of Internal
Medicine:
The myth from the 1930s that spinach is a rich source of iron was due to
misleading information
in the original publication: a malpositioned decimal point gave a
10-fold overestimate of iron
content [Hamblin, 1981]. (Larsson, 1995: 448–449)1
The quote caught my attention for two reasons. First, it falsified an
idea that I had carried
with me since I was a child, that spinach is an excellent source of
iron. The most striking
thing, however, was that a single decimal point, misplaced 80 years ago,
had affected not
just myself and my now deceased parents, but also a large number of
others in what we
place on our table.
After reading Larsson’s article, I took a poll of colleagues at my
institute, asking them
why they think spinach is healthy. The conclusion was quite clear. The
belief that spinach
is a good source of iron, although falsified 30 years ago by Hamblin in
a British Medical
Journal article, is still widespread among my colleagues, all of whom
have, at minimum,
a master’s degree in health sciences. In fact, the history of spinach
consumption in the
Western world indicates that we are dealing with a decimal point error
of enormous consequences. For generations, parents have been wasting
their time and energy, nagging
their more or less anemic children to eat a vegetable that the young
typically abhor, ruining family social events in the process.
Truth be told, there is iron in spinach, but not significantly more than
in other green
vegetables, and few people can consume spinach in large quantities. A
larger problem
with the idea of spinach as a good source of iron, however, is that it
also contains substances that strongly inhibit the intestinal absorption
of iron (see e.g. Garrison, 2009:
400). Simply put, spinach should not at all be the first food choice of
those suffering from
iron deficiency.
Larsson’s article made me aware of the remarkable fact that a large
number of people
in the Western world have been misled for a staggeringly long time."