I watch Mythbusters and I have a question to pose to you Mythbusters Club members. Do any of you feel that when they test myths that when they come to an ending whether it be Confirmed, Plausible or Busted that they don't always run the complete gamut of the myth tested, or explain it to the best of their abilities? What I'm getting at is it feels to me that I can mention one thing I know about the myth that they're testing that could throw out their results completely.
Here are a couple examples:
1.) In the myth about the "5 second rule" when it comes to food they tested whether or not if you dropped a piece of food on the ground and then tested it for germs after having it sit there (I believe they used 3 and 6 second intervals) it would come up clean. They tested it by putting the affected area of the food on petri dishes and allowing the dish time to grow any possible bacteria.
My point here is, of course the dish is going to grow bacteria after something touched the dirty ground if allowed time. No one argues that it is clean, but rather it's safe to eat and no one in their right mind when they talk about the 5 second rule is going to allow that piece of food to sit overnight. The point is that the food is still good right there as there is very little bacteria affecting the food at the time of impact and what little bacteria there is on the food will be easily destroyed by your stomach acids and immune system. They failed to mention this when running the tests.
2.) In the "Franklin kite experiment" myth, they tested whether or not someone would survive such an event. They ran the myth under a test which best simulated this event and came to the conclusion that Ben Franklin would've died and therefore busted the myth. What they fail to mention is that many of people get struck by lightning and survive. How can they bust the myth when there is hard evidence that can prove that it is atleast plausible?
Thoughts?
