From subterranean Martians to female hysteria, people have been known to believe some pretty bizarre things. What does it take to make a believable scientific hypothesis out of a strange idea like Hollow Earth theory, what suspension of believe is needed to agree with the Intelligent Design nutjobs? Apparently, not much. Here are five of the strangest examples and who knows what people will find hilariously untrue from our era in 50 years? Everyone will no doubt have other ideas for what the world’s weirdest theories are so give it a shot in the comments below!
1. Trepanation
Ouch. In one of the oldest known medical interventions, a hole is drilled in the skull of a patient who is suffering from defects such as seizures or migraine headaches. The idea was to relieve pressure in the head which was believed to be causing the ailment. Today, trepanation is used on a very limited basis as a mechanism to access the brain for necessary surgery. Some people practice recreational or spiritual trepanation, presumably because they need modern medicine like they need a hole in the head.
2. Female hysteria
Women in the Victorian age were said to be suffering from female hysteria when they were moody or a little more “difficult” than usual. Fortunately for them, the treatment was something called pelvic massage. We can’t laugh too hard at this one, though. Many years later, it directly caused vibrating devices to be widely available for, um, home treatment.
3. Expanding Earth
As bizarre theories go, this one doesn’t sound that far-fetched. Expanding Earth is the idea that the planet was once a lot smaller and completely covered in one continent. If you mentally shrink the globe and try to fit the continents together like a puzzle, you could almost start to believe this theory
… you use your combination taser/mp3 player. You know what a bother it is to carry both your MP3 music player and your Taser gun? Worry no more. Today at CES, Taser International introduced the Taser MPH — the first combination hand-held music player and Taser.
… you steal another man’s wife. A Mississippi businessman must pay more than 750,000 dollars in damages to the man whose wife he wooed away, after the US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear an appeal in the case.
… you let your illegal immigrant child become famous. The father of Rhode Island’s first baby of 2008 faces deportation after being arrested for violating immigration laws, while his roommate, also an illegal immigrant, was found dead of a suspected suicide hours after the arrest.
Some pictures are worth 1,000 words, but others are worth 1,000,000. By (subjective) category, here are 10 of the most amazing viral images of 2007. Undoubtedly some of these you will have seen before, but some will be new as well. Click on the images below to go to the full-sized originals. Enjoy!
Most Touching: Loyal to the End
Most Geeky: Why We Love Firefox
Best of Technology: 1 Gigabyte Then and Now
Best of the Web: Why Net Neutrality is So Important
So wait, what? The Earth … hollow? Yes, it’s an insane theory, and yes it is as fictitious as the fairy tales that gave rise to it, yet at the same time it can’t be directly disproved. Why? Because we have never actually dug more than about 15 miles below the surface of the Earth, so there is no 100% direct evidence the Earth is solid through an through! Does this mean Hollow Earth Theories could hold true? Sure, and Santa might actually drop by 6 billion houses a year on a sled pulled by a glorified pack of deer.
What may be most amazing about Hollow Earth theories is the fact that some people believe them even today. One self-identified scientist and explorer is currently trying to raise two million dollars to mount a mission where no man has ever gone before: through a polar ice cap and into a supposed ‘Inner Earth’ with its own oceans, continents and of course its own sun. What is strangest about his video presentation on the subject (above) is the deadpan, candid and intelligent-sounding way in which he presents his arguments.
Shocking as it may seem that some people still believe the world to be empty at its core this idea is unsurprisingly nothing new. Early theorists held that there were a series of concentric spheres within the Earth while more recent models have posited a viable interior space or even that we occupy the center rather than the interior surface of sphere with everything else in orbits within this sphere.
There are a lot of hilariously bad videos on YouTube, some bizarre but good ones and some that are downright amazing. This set of videos progresses from one end of the spectrum to the other with no stops in between so hold onto your hats because this is going to be ugly to begin with but don’t worry you’ll love the last one!
One has to wonder if these guys dance this badly just to be funny.
Some work clearly went into this crazy light-sabering.
