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Amazing . . . but False!
Edison invented the lightbulb—and motion pictures. Camels store water in their humps. Captain Kidd was a notorious pirate. What do these so-called "facts” have in common? They’re all false! Every one is a myth that, through time, has achieved the status of reality. Finally, someone is here to set the record straight, once and for all. In this fully illustrated color collection of popular misconceptions, freelance writer and journalist David Diefendorf uncovers hundreds of widely accepted truths in various categories: famous firsts, health and the body, history, misquotations and misusages, people, religion, science and technology, and more. It’s fun and informative, and a great gift for any brainiac, trivia buff, or know-it-all. James Randi, the internationally-known debunker of pseudoscience and a brilliant magician, provides the entertaining foreword.
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2007
60 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 1, 2025
I read this book because James Randi’s name was attached to it, and I’m an enormous fan of his.
Randi’s foreward is primarily addressed at people falling for scams and not being skeptical enough.
This book is not that. So I don’t quite understand Randi’s endorsement.
The presentation style was decent. The heading is the wrong “fact”, and there’s a few paragraphs beneathg it explaining the truth, and how the wrong information got spread. It makes for a good casual perusal, and the writing is occasionally on the snarky side.
This makes for three categories of information:
1.) Debunking “facts” that one already knows the truth about.
2.) Bringing up “facts” that one had no idea there was a misconception about.
3.) Actually correcting one’s false information.
Of course, everyone would have a different selection of which tidbit is which. I do believe, however, that the majority of the book would fall into categories 1 or 2 for most readers. Category 3 is what the book promotes, and it is what I believe there is very little of in the book.
That doesn’t make the book a miss. It’s interesting to read about the origin of false information, and there are some fun history lessons.
However.
It very quickly became evident that a lot of this book is primarily just splitting hairs. For example:
It’s “false” that golf was invented in Scotland. There were games similar to golf in other countries, and all Scotland did was “add the hole - perhaps the key and crowing ingridient- and continued to make refinemnts until the game evolved into what it is today”. I dunno, it seems like a LOT of games could be close to hitting a ball with a stick, and having the hole is the EVERYTHING in golf. The defining evidence here, the author notes, is that golf got its name from “kolf” that was played in Holland, and the game had clubs and balls.
But, it’s also “false” that the Egyptians invented paper, despite papyrus being “very similar to paper”, and the word paper being derived from the world papyrus. Sometimes close-but-not-quite counts; sometimes it doesn’t. The Wright Brothers flight doesn’t count because it was close-but-not-quite. The first car doesn’t count because a steam-powered car was built in the 1600s. It feels like the author wants to lean anyway that is AGAINST common knowledge, and it’s annoying. I liked the extra details, but not how they were presented.
Another annoyance was that “building on the works of others” means the person couldn’t invent something. This got old fast. There is difference between taking credit for someone else’s work, and inventing something new that pulls from work other people did. If we wanted to keep at that, we’d have to note that scientists often rely heavily on paper, and then give due credit to the Egyptians. No, the Chinese. Whichever.
The author also debunks facts as “false” because there isn’t enough information to verify. This doesn’t make them false. This makes them uncertain. Not all crop circles are made by humans. The crop circles that weren’t… well, we don’t know. But it’d be really hard for a human to do it, so there. It’s assume this tale is fictional, because the guy who reported it was a known story-teller, and it couldn’t be corroborated. Things like that.
He goes to weird levels with this, but in the direction of what had to be true. In one instance, he goes as far as saying that the pyramid workers “looked forward” to the seasons of pyramid building. How on earth would the author know this? It’s been surmised that Egyptian workers were paid, and not strictly slaves, which is what he’s primarily explaining. But there’s a lot of conjecture there, and he’s REALLY amping this up. People may be paid to do physical labor, but that doesn’t mean they all whistle while they work. He does the same with debunking “The Old West Was a Violent, Lawless Place”. Indeed, it’s not as crazy as movies indicate. But to say that because cursing and spitting in front of a woman could result in a hanging, and thus there was virtually no rape or violence against women, is quite a stretch.
Then, by far the CRAZIEST fact he debunks, late in the book: “The Titanic Could Never Have Been Anticipated”. The author surmises that the book “The Wreck of the Titan” by Morgan Robertson predicted the sinking of the Titanic. Robertson knew it would happen, due to all the similarities. IS THE AUTHOR INSANE?? Did James Randi KNOW that this “fact” was in a book he endorsed?
I’ve now lost all faith in everything the author assured me was true. I’m at a total loss.
Randi’s foreward is primarily addressed at people falling for scams and not being skeptical enough.
This book is not that. So I don’t quite understand Randi’s endorsement.
The presentation style was decent. The heading is the wrong “fact”, and there’s a few paragraphs beneathg it explaining the truth, and how the wrong information got spread. It makes for a good casual perusal, and the writing is occasionally on the snarky side.
This makes for three categories of information:
1.) Debunking “facts” that one already knows the truth about.
2.) Bringing up “facts” that one had no idea there was a misconception about.
3.) Actually correcting one’s false information.
Of course, everyone would have a different selection of which tidbit is which. I do believe, however, that the majority of the book would fall into categories 1 or 2 for most readers. Category 3 is what the book promotes, and it is what I believe there is very little of in the book.
That doesn’t make the book a miss. It’s interesting to read about the origin of false information, and there are some fun history lessons.
However.
It very quickly became evident that a lot of this book is primarily just splitting hairs. For example:
It’s “false” that golf was invented in Scotland. There were games similar to golf in other countries, and all Scotland did was “add the hole - perhaps the key and crowing ingridient- and continued to make refinemnts until the game evolved into what it is today”. I dunno, it seems like a LOT of games could be close to hitting a ball with a stick, and having the hole is the EVERYTHING in golf. The defining evidence here, the author notes, is that golf got its name from “kolf” that was played in Holland, and the game had clubs and balls.
But, it’s also “false” that the Egyptians invented paper, despite papyrus being “very similar to paper”, and the word paper being derived from the world papyrus. Sometimes close-but-not-quite counts; sometimes it doesn’t. The Wright Brothers flight doesn’t count because it was close-but-not-quite. The first car doesn’t count because a steam-powered car was built in the 1600s. It feels like the author wants to lean anyway that is AGAINST common knowledge, and it’s annoying. I liked the extra details, but not how they were presented.
Another annoyance was that “building on the works of others” means the person couldn’t invent something. This got old fast. There is difference between taking credit for someone else’s work, and inventing something new that pulls from work other people did. If we wanted to keep at that, we’d have to note that scientists often rely heavily on paper, and then give due credit to the Egyptians. No, the Chinese. Whichever.
The author also debunks facts as “false” because there isn’t enough information to verify. This doesn’t make them false. This makes them uncertain. Not all crop circles are made by humans. The crop circles that weren’t… well, we don’t know. But it’d be really hard for a human to do it, so there. It’s assume this tale is fictional, because the guy who reported it was a known story-teller, and it couldn’t be corroborated. Things like that.
He goes to weird levels with this, but in the direction of what had to be true. In one instance, he goes as far as saying that the pyramid workers “looked forward” to the seasons of pyramid building. How on earth would the author know this? It’s been surmised that Egyptian workers were paid, and not strictly slaves, which is what he’s primarily explaining. But there’s a lot of conjecture there, and he’s REALLY amping this up. People may be paid to do physical labor, but that doesn’t mean they all whistle while they work. He does the same with debunking “The Old West Was a Violent, Lawless Place”. Indeed, it’s not as crazy as movies indicate. But to say that because cursing and spitting in front of a woman could result in a hanging, and thus there was virtually no rape or violence against women, is quite a stretch.
Then, by far the CRAZIEST fact he debunks, late in the book: “The Titanic Could Never Have Been Anticipated”. The author surmises that the book “The Wreck of the Titan” by Morgan Robertson predicted the sinking of the Titanic. Robertson knew it would happen, due to all the similarities. IS THE AUTHOR INSANE?? Did James Randi KNOW that this “fact” was in a book he endorsed?
I’ve now lost all faith in everything the author assured me was true. I’m at a total loss.
October 5, 2012
Because this book was advertised as having a preface by the Amazing Randi, I assumed it would be intelligent and contain some intriguing information. No such luck. This book is pedestrian and poorly researched. It is filled with errors and misconceptions; awkward and incorrect reasoning. There are no 'facts' that I thought were true. And the amazing facts are confined to the mundane. I can only imagine that James Randi must have owed Diefendorf an amazing amount of money that Diefendorf agreed to forgo if Randi wrote a preface. Do yourself a favor and avoid this lazy list. It's not even readable as a bathroom book. Need examples? Here are some of the 'facts' Diefendork debunks:"Presidents are treated much more harshly these days." "The Immaculate Conception refers to the birth of Jesus." "Popes have never had children." "The bible contains coded messages predicting the future." "The earl of Sandwich invented the sandwich." "Columbus set out to prove the world was round."
Hundreds of dumb things the author believed in, perhaps. . .
Hundreds of dumb things the author believed in, perhaps. . .
June 16, 2010
Too bad. This book was very promising. Sure, I expected it to be light reading -- good for in the bath or similar grab-a-moment fare. And, the James Randi connection, one of the great debunkers of pseudo-science, made it attractive. But, Mr. Diefendorf needed a good editor that took the material seriously. There are too many glaring errors, some of them in the nature of typos, some in the nature of his maybe having his notes out of order, and some facts that are just plain wrong (one should not really use Wikipedia as a primary source!). Still, it was entertaining to read through. But, if one doesn't already know about the material the errors could be really misleading. So, leave this one on the shelf and pick up Randi's "Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural," R.T.Carroll's "The Skeptic's Dictionary," or Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World" instead.
January 24, 2012
I thought this was going to be more interesting, especially since there was a foreword by James Randi. Unfortunately, Randi's was the best part (unfortunate only in that it was so short). There were a couple of good odd facts. But unfortunately the bulk of it were things that I've discovered long ago. I'm not saying this wasn't a good, quick read. It's just a compilation of myths and facts, and I think if you like trivia and proving people wrong (and who doesn't?), it's all right to have on hand so you can pull it out and point victoriously at a page and shout "Napoleon was a decent, proper size!". And then everyone can just calm down and have a drink.
April 26, 2009
Found this book shelf browsing at the library. Some things were interesting, some things I already knew. The best thing about this book is that everyone in the family has looked at it to one degree or another. My kids can't wait to tell their teachers that George Washington didn't really have wooden teeth, and that Thomas Edison was not the first inventor of the light bulb. I've created monsters.
March 15, 2009
This is a fun book to entertain friends and family by contradicting lots of "common knowledge". My only complaints are that many of the things are obvious to anyone with an undergrad degree and some are debatable or vague, but there are enough concise well documented contradictions to what many people thought were true facts that make this worthwhile.
April 21, 2009
It became apparent early in the book that I really do know tons of obscure, useless facts. I didn't gain any new tidbits from this & I felt it was often reaching to prove something was "false". Such as the example of Lizzy Borden axing her mother and father. Their big revelationi was that it was her stepmother. Yeah, that really changes things.
July 30, 2011
A pretty entertaining read. I've learned a lot reading this book. Took me no more than a day to go through it, but it's the kind of book you might return to often as reference since there's no way I'll remember every detail. I've discovered that most everything I held for granted in popular culture was horribly wrong. Nice job on the authors' part.
October 17, 2008
This is a great resource for anyone who wants to find out the real truth about all those misconceptions that we seem to hear and see everyday. Nicely illustrated and easy to read, this book is a nice coffee table kinda book. Nice to read for ten minutes or an hour.
April 24, 2009
Probably better for younger readers than older, there is plenty of weird information about commonly known "facts" that happen to not be true. There is plenty of stuff to look at, but this is more of a book to read for general information than to look things up.
March 13, 2009
Full of interesting facts that Cliff Claven would love. Although I read this one straight through over a couple of evenings, I could definitely see it instead being one stuck on the back of a toilet and picked up at any time and read from any point in the book. (that was meant to be a compliment)
January 4, 2010
Jennifer got this for me for Christmas. She knows me well, as I like trivia, and this book is somewhat unique in that it contains things that everyone assumes to be true, but really aren't. Cool stuff.
March 25, 2010
It's no 'Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.'
February 24, 2011
Very enjoyable. I enjoyed the short synopses and could pick it up and put it down easily.
October 17, 2010
Very interesting. I learned a lot. The only bad thing is that I think I'm getting on my husband's nerves now because I keep starting conversations with, "Did you know....?"
February 24, 2011
Not exactly earth-shattering...but as an entertaining bathroom book-nee-basic history resources, it does the job with a bit of style.
August 11, 2011
Very entertaining, on a simple, but nevertheless interesting level. Informative and fun, without taking itself seriously.
September 7, 2012
this is a really fun,interesting read..i loved alot of it..i love the insight on the egyption pyramids and how they looked with the sun gleaming off them-- after they finished them way back then..
November 9, 2015
Many interesting wrong facts that I even don't know it was a fact. Haha. But it's a nice leisure book to read and to show off to your friend some no one care facts.
April 10, 2016
An entertaining reference tome that would be at home anywhere from the coffee table to the bathroom rack.
Read
November 19, 2008You'd be horrified if you found out just how much of what you're told is FALSE!
Kelly
Kelly
May 8, 2009
Not that amazing...Really!
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews