This July has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This last happened 823 years ago. By forwarding this fact you can get good luck with money by the Chinese ideas of Feng shui.
Except this is utter rubbish. The last time this happened was in 2005. Feng shui is unrelated to any of this. And the Chinese don't even use the Gregorian calender, so what do they care about July? Despite these glaring inaccuracies a lot of people have been taken in by e-mails about this. But this is hardly surprising, given our culture's acceptance of facts presented. Most people will not do anything to check the validity of a claim and this has much greater consequences than spreading rubbish about the months. An inability to check facts and understand the mean of proof leads to racism, intolerance, unbalanced drug laws, war and the majority of other problems the world faces. The problem is not only a lack of drive to find proof, but an inability to identify what is and isn't proof. I often hear people saying about how different drinks have different effects, but they can't understand why this is only anecdotal and has no meaning from a scientific point of view. Anecdotal evidence is a major factor in the persistence of old wives tales and alternative medicine.
It is my belief that if everyone was well versed in the basic principles of scientific reasoning, as well as some understanding of statistics, the world would be a much better place for everyone. So why not start questioning everything?
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