Nathan Zohner, a grand prize winner at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair Saturday, has at least 43 people urging the ban of dihydrogen monoxide.And for plenty of good reasons: it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting, it is a major component in acid rain, accidental inhalation of it can kill you, it can cause severe burns when in gaseous form, it contributes to erosion of the natural landscape, it decreases the effectiveness of automobile brakes and it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients.
Zohner, a freshman at Eagle Rock Junior High, asked 50 people attending the science fair if they supported a ban of the chemical. Forty-three said yes, six didn't know and only one knew what the chemical is: water.
The title of Zohner's prize-winning project was, "How Gullible Are We?" His conclusion is obvious when he considers 43 of 50 respondents elected to ban water.
"I'd say they're extremely gullible. They need to pay more attention," said Zohner, 14, who wants to be a nuclear engineer or physicist.
[Ed.: Tainting Zohner's data is the fact that most of his respondents were also children, but the European Science and Environment Forum successfully repeated the experiment by presenting the same scary scenario to 167 Londoners. Of the 123 who responded, three quarters said dihydrogen monoxide should be "strictly regulated or even banned," and only five percent realized the chemical was water.]
