Science or Pseudoscience?

[Rayaan]

You can influence a person's political opinions by controlling how close to a hand sanitizing dispenser they stand.

Pseudoscience.

Gorillas use language.

Science. Gorillas, including many other animals, communicate by using sign language and different sounds.



The heat and electromagnetic waves generated by a laptop can kill some of your sperm cells if you put it too close to your penis while using it.

[Angrboda]

You can influence a person's political opinions by controlling how close to a hand sanitizing dispenser they stand.

Pseudoscience.

No, that's actually science.

Dirty Liberals! Reminders of Physical Cleanliness Influence Moral and Political Attitudes, Helzer EG, & Pizarro DA (2011).

[Rayaan]

I still doubt it, but maybe that is true. I didn't see anything in the link that specifically say that making someone stand closer to a hand sanitizer can influence his or her political opinions.

Since you didn't respond to the sentence at the bottom of my post above, I'll do it myself.

The heat and electromagnetic waves generated by a laptop can kill some of your sperm cells if you put it too close to your penis while using it.

Science.

http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-rep...-fertility
http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/content...2.full.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...235208.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/200...202347.htm


Next one:

The number of sunspots and the amount of solar activity has an effect on the stock market.

[Angrboda]

I still doubt it, but maybe that is true. I didn't see anything in the link that specifically say that making someone stand closer to a hand sanitizer can influence his or her political opinions.

I don't appear to have paid access to that journal. Here is how it is described in :

"In the first experiment, volunteers were asked to complete a questionnaire on their political attitudes. To do so, they had to either step over a hand-sanitizer or walk down an empty hallway. Results showed that people who were exposed to reminders of cleanliness reported a less liberal and more conservative political orientation than people in the control group. In the second experiment, before being asked to rate their moral approval of various behaviors, some volunteers were exposed to a sign promoting the use of hand wipes to help keep a lab clean. Those who were reminded of physical purity rendered harsher judgments of sexual acts than the control group."

And here is how it is described by Jonathan Haidt in the bestseller, "The Righteous Mind".

"In one of the most bizarre demonstrations of this effect, Eric Helzer and David Pizarro asked students at Cornell University to fill out surveys about their political attitudes while standing near (or far from) a hand sanitizer dispenser. Those told to stand near the sanitizer became temporarily more conservative."[27]

[note 27] - "The first study in this paper, using the hand sanitizer, only asked for subjects overall self-descriptions, and found that subjects called themselves more conservative when standing near the sanitizer. In the second study the authors replicated the effect and showed that reminders of cleanliness and washing made people more judgmental primarily on questions related to sexual purity."

[Rayaan]

That sounds more legit now. I just wanted to see some sources for that.

Re-post:

The number of sunspots and the amount of solar activity has an effect on the stock market.

[Angrboda]

Uh-huh. For what it's worth, that ends my participation in this thread.