Where do you guys draw the line when it comes to bullshit spewed by friends and family?

[beam me up scottie]

Do you call everyone on it all the time, let all of it go in the interest of peace, or find a spot somewhere in between?

For example:

I currently reside in a house that is infested with Brown Recluse spiders.
Now anyone who knows me knows how much I love spiders; I never kill them, save them from people who do and photograph them whenever I get the chance.

This past winter, I found the granddaddy of all Brown Recluses in the bathroom, he had been living there for several years (judging by the discarded exoskeletons) and had never bothered anyone.
I easily captured him and was able to get dozens of great macro shots. He was very shy, calm and about as aggressive as a lady bug.

I have tried to explain to folks that doctors incorrectly blame these poor arachnids for every single mysterious insect bite and staph infection that gets reported.
Very few bites have actually been verified and only a handful of those required medical attention.

Recently, I found a very pregnant female BR in the bathtub, photographed and then relocated her.

The problem usually starts when I am dumb enough to show these photos to people too ignorant to appreciate them.

I was slapped upside the head with a heavy dose of stupid by my friend's mother (who also happens to be the Queen of Urban Legends and Right Wing Propaganda)
when her granddaughter showed an interest in them.

She inferred that by relocating BR's, I am dooming other people who will surely be bitten by these vicious creatures (even though I release them far from human habitation).

The woman claims that her aunt was attacked by a great horde of BR spiders, lay unconscious in her cellar until her son found her several days later, was hospitalized for months and
was never "right" again.







I started to explain that different types of venom are used by different spiders but gave up when I saw her eyes glaze over.

So, would you have continued?

Are you guys permanent kill-joys or do you consider the time spent with friends and family "off duty"?



Oh, and here's a close up of Junior (dial-up warning!):




and one from our outdoor photo shoot:




Isn't he awesome?

[TZ]

1. I have to take a little issue with you here

Brown Recluse bites are indeed dangerous..THere is a poster here on DU, that I am friends with (JerseyGirlDemocrat) who had a near fatal bite that was textbook reaction to brown recluse, when she was a child..they even found the spider in her pillowcase.
But I do know they aren't necesarily aggressive that most bites are accidental. I think the black widow is the spider whose bite is WAAAY overrated.
Admittedly, I am not a fan of spiders and I would NOT want a brown recluse in my house but yeah I can see how people could easily go over the top.

As for the main gist of the question. Yes, I am always on "duty" so to speak. I have several woo relatives who just so get on my nerves.
One of them wanted to give me a copy of "The Secret" as a present and we got into a fight.
I am just as opinionated IRL as I am here. I try to bite my tongue in real life sometimes..Like when I went out to lunch with a coworker and hubby (she is also scientifically oriented) and the nubby told me straight to my face that chemotherapy is "a racket"..That was hard....

Edit: THe line for me is when people get angry and aren't gonna listen any more..with the hubby that bashed chemo..I told him I'd been on chemo drugs and done quite well with them. That shut him up..he looked QUITE surprised.

[beam me up scottie]

2. I never said that the bites weren't dangerous, trust me, I'm very aware of the danger they pose :)

When I handle my little friends, I operate under the assumption that any spider bite can send you to the hospital.

But the misdiagnosis of Brown Recluse spider bites is REALLY shameful. Most of the itpatients never feel the actual bite and never see a BR, or any spider, for that matter.

Here are some cites:

http://spiders.ucr.edu/wjm.pdf

http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef631.asp

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2002/08/05/hlsa0805.htm


Black Widows pose a greater danger, especially this time of the year.

Anecdote: last year, my bf had a really bad reaction to a chigger bite, the wound got infected and his mother took him to the ER (she's the head nurse so he basically had no choice) and the doctor documented it as a BR bite.

[dropkickpa]

3. We need bigger pictures!!

I love spiders, they've always fascinated me and I think the vast majority of them are just beautiful!

[beam me up scottie]

4. Did The Hoff ever pose with a spider?

Kit always reminded me of a Black Widow for some reason...

Yeah, I love them too, they are the ultimate predator.

Someone once said that if spiders grew to the size of house cats, we'd be knocked down a notch on the old food chain.

[dropkickpa]

19. I don't think so

But wouldn't that just be swoony?

[beam me up scottie]

30. Dammit!!!

My photos seem to be suffering from a severe case of shrinkage.

Let's try again using my flickr account:





and here's one of a really cool wolf spider I found in the house:

[dropkickpa]

31. Thanks!!

Brown Recluse's are so unassuming, but elegant looking. And that Wolf spider is just so freakin' cool!

[beam me up scottie]

32. I know, I think it's the long legs and the way she holds her body close to the ground.

Wolfie was hard to photograph, he was really active even after I stuck him in the fridge for half an hour. He had awesome fangs, too.

[salvorhardin]

5. I generally try to let them ramble and then steer the conversation in a different direction

If the person is halfway reasonable, then I'll try to introduce a factoid or otherwise try to get them to consider their belief from another perspective. "I'm not sure that's true... I seem to recall reading where..." or perhaps, "That might be so, but I don't think that's the whole story..." That's the tact I take with pseudoscience, paranormal beliefs and a lot of political beliefs. When it comes to more serious topics, such as anti-vax beliefs, bigotry or some of the more idiotic and bigoted conspiracy theories I'll argue more forcefully, but not for very long. It's unlikely I'll change the mind of a true believer so I'll just say my piece and let it drop. If they're willfully ignorant, I'll just shake my head and walk away but I recognize that it's much harder to do that with family and friends.

[beam me up scottie]

6. I've got someone asking me to prove that Obama is not the Anti-Christ.

I'm serious, he's come to me to debunk stuff in the past and says he respects my opinion. Oh, and he's a registered Dem.
I haven't responded to him yet, where the f*ck would you even START with someone that gullible? :banghead:

Thanks for your input, I think we all have learned some of these lessons the hard way.

[salvorhardin]

7. Oomph. That's a tough one.

The only thing I could think to do is simply present him with a list of all the other anti-Christs throughout history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist#Views_through_history

If he's, in any way, socially conscious, you might also point out that the notion of the antichrist has historically been used to demonize specific groups of people, particulary anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic bigotry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antichrist#Contemporary_identification

Or, and I take it he's a Christian, you might try giving him a copy of this article:

Biblical Repudiation of Modern-Day “Antichrists”
by Dave Miller, Ph.D.

... Contrary to current claims, John applied the term “antichrist” to more than one individual, and to individuals who were living then—in the first century! For example, 1 John 2:18 states that numerous antichrists had arisen in John’s day, and he therefore contended that “it is the last hour” (i.e., the final period of religious history commonly referred to as “the last days,” as in Acts 2:16-17). He then described their behavior as “not of God” (1 John 4:3). “Antichrists” were simply anyone who denied Christ (1 John 2:22). John, therefore, labeled any such deluded soul as “the deceiver” and “the antichrist” (2 John 7). Notice the use of the article. John was saying that people living in his own day who denied the incarnation of Jesus were to be regarded as the antichrist! Not just an antichrist—but the antichrist! The idea that the term “antichrist” is to be applied to some “future fuehrer” (Lindsey, 1970, pp. 87ff.) who will draw the world into a global holocaust is totally out of harmony with John’s inspired use of the term.

The primary passage that is used to support the notion of an antichrist is Revelation 13:1-10. ... With this understanding of Revelation 13, it is unscriptural and unbiblical to identify the sea beast in Revelation 13 with some future revived Roman dictator known as the “Antichrist.” ...

When studied in context, the passages that are used to bolster the dispensational scheme provide no such support. Those over the centuries who have applied these passages to papal authority, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, et al., have been shown to be wrong. Amazingly, the pattern continues among those who have not learned from the sad mistakes of the past.
Full article: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2263

There's also this good Snopes article...
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/antichrist.asp

Also, how did he form his belief? Glenn Beck?

Today on his CNN Headline News show, Glenn Beck asked Pastor John Hagee whether Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is the embodiment of evil:

There are people — they say this about Bill Clinton — he might be the Antichrist. Odds that Barack Obama is the Antichrist?

Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/04/beck-is-obama-the-antichrist/

You might try to discredit his source (if it's Beck, it's not hard). Or you might just want to shake your head and walk away...

In any case, good luck. I think you'll need it.

[beam me up scottie]

9. Thank you!!!

He heard it at church, of course, the same place he heard that Obama was a muslim (the first rumour I successfully debunked).

I just started speaking to this guy again, I refused to have anything to do with him after he kept trying to "save" me.

The only reason I bother with him at all, and why I'll forward your research, is that he has the ability to influence other voters.

[Random_Australian]

8. My family who are creationists and think gays are plotting to take over the world

are quite respectful of my beliefs..... in the sense that both of us know we'd just argue and get no-where, so we both keep conversation away from that stuff. Of course, in private we think each other's beliefs are about as loony as they come, but they're family and we both believe that is more important.

[beam me up scottie]

10. Wow. What happened to you?

Did you always know they were cuckoo or did it take years for you to realize it?

[TZ]

11. I think he's a mutant.

It explains soooo much....:rofl:

[beam me up scottie]

12. Well that's not so bad, I know plenty of cute genetic mutations.

I'm even the offspring of one. :D

[Random_Australian]

21. Hmmmm, most of the time they're quite normal. They're geniunely very nice people who let others be,

being content to throw little more than their one vote against the various groups they don't like.

I didn't know when I was little because the first time I found out they even believed that stuff was when I was a teenager, and we've never really discussed it.

[YankeyMCC]

13. Not long ago I was caught by surprise by a family member

that tried to argue with me that oil was a renewable resource, generated deep within the Earth.

I was so flabbergasted - apparently this is not a new woo-woo theory but I'd never heard it before - that I probably got to aggressive to fast in my reaction. Because generally when I have to deal with my sometimes very conservative family I just let most of it go with little or no comment because I know I'm not going to change minds.

But when it comes to points of fact as accepted by science I think it's always important to speak up. But you just have to be aware of their 'glaze over' point and probably the only difference between these sorts of arguments with anyone else vs family is that you need to be more gentle, more willing to pull back sooner in the name of familial peace.

[salvorhardin]

15. Abiogenic oil?

More pseudoscience from the former U.S.S.R. that's become something of a darling of right wing cranks (and some left wing conspiracy theory aficionados).

[YankeyMCC]

16. That's the name that I latter heard for this

the uncle that sprung this idea on me didn't have name for it and couldn't cite for me where he had heard or learned of the idea and just said it made 'sense' to him because how could the "dinosaur bones have gotten so deep"

:eyes:

When I got to the point of asking him if he believed in the accepted time lines for how long ago dinosaur's lived and how much further back life in general went even before the dinosaurs he was thinking of and having to ask if he understood that the crust of the Earth moved and even having to "PROVE" to him what the diameter of the Earth was - well I had to just shake my head and try an stop myself I was getting so flustered. I had no idea of the depth of ignorance, he is an otherwise very nice and I Thought intelligent person.

And to put a cherry on top of the experience everyone else in the room was annoyed at Me for being to concerned with 'facts'!

[beam me up scottie]

22. You're right, it is important to address issues of science.

But when it comes to religion and politics, I should probably just let my eyes glaze over.
I am also trying my damnedest to delete those effin right wing propaganda emails before I read them.

[Warpy]

14. They are beautiful creatures and eat all the bad stuff

like mosquitoes that carry eastern equine encephalitis and West Nile fever. We're out of brown recluse range here in NM, but still within black widow range.

Black widows are dangerous and I have mushed the only one who was ever reckless enough to invade my living space.

Other spiders, including the local Apache spiders, are allowed to live in corners and cracks and not scooped into a jar and put outside unless they invade my living space. The Apache spiders have glossy black heads and legs and brightly colored bodies from taxicab yellow through day glo orange to deep tomato red. They are gorgeous spiders who have a painful but not dangerous bite. I tolerate them.

A few spiders are truly dangerous and deserving of being mushed, like the Sidney funnel spider and the black widow. Most are relatively benign even if it does hurt if they bite.

I'm not terribly tolerant of the "kill all the bugs!" people who can't tell the difference between a beneficial insect and a dangerous one. They generally get a lecture and I don't care if their eyes glaze over.

[TZ]

17. (((crickets)))

Just kidding! I couldn't resist. Don't like spiders but I do understand their place in the world.

[beam me up scottie]

23. Wow, I just looked up Apache Spiders and they're gorgeous!

Jumping spiders are my favorites.




I finally convinced my bf to leave the wolf spiders on the front porch alone. All I had to do was show him how many houseflies they catch and he was sold.

[Heddi]

18. I try to ignore them, turn the conversation, or (if that fails)

just walk away and say "I cannot continue this bullshit steeped conversation".

My whole family has them---my mother is totally into UFO's, psychics, Elvis Conspiracies. Basically anything that comes down the pike and has a mildly interesting "documentary" on Discovery Channel is horn-dog truth to her. She thinks that John Edwards and Sylvia Browne are gifted, etc.

My grandmother is kind of the same, a bit less than my mom.

My husband's mother and her husband are into supplements and the funny thing is that every time we're together, they try to "educate" me on the REAL Anatomy and Physiology of Humans....which is so quaint because she never went past high school, and he got his degree in Chemistry in 1948 or something. Anyhoo, I just let them ramble on about negative ions and oregano oil and smile, knowing that they're so full of beans they should have hotdogs coming out of their ears. They try to educate me on the correct use of different pharmaceuticals and they're so off base. It's now particuarly funny because Mr. Heddi is a nurse too, and we just look at each other and smile, and roll our eyes, and wait for them to go to sleep before we make fun of them behind their backs.

They're also very religious and use the "God has a plan" excuse for everything, and it gets kind of annoying. I'm like "Why did God plan on the two of you not being able to rub 2 pennies together, and be out of a job, and in your 70's and both of you having to work 60 hours a week just to make yoru house payment, you don't have insurance and no retirement either?"

Mr. Heddi's uncle (mom's brother) is a full on Wilds of Idaho anti-government, off the grid, anti-vaxer, conspiracy laden survivalist. He's one of the people you see on TV in movies and think "Naah, there's no way there are people that are REALLY like that'. Only he is.

But---really fucking nice guy. Love him with all my heart (as I do with all of our family). I really disagree with about 300% of what he beleives in, but gosh, it's so interesting to talk to him. Great guy to smoke a fag and drink a beer with and shoot the shit for 10 hours at the kitchen table.
---

When my MIL's husband attempts to educate me on the reason BP meds work (not the way he says they work, interestingly enough), or when my mom talks about the moon landing conspiracy, I just sit there and really don't even try to engage them in rational conversation anymore. When the bullshit gets too deep, I just politely end the conversation or, as I said above, let them know that I think they're full of baloney and cannot continue a conversation that is so mired in insanity and disconnect from reality any longer.

[beam me up scottie]

25. You guys all have such interesting families, I'm jealous.

I quickly found out that beloved boyfriend's mom is still susceptible to the occasional woo even though she's a nurse.
The upside is that bb is quickly learning to be a skeptic.

[Evoman]

20. We don't have any dangerous spiders up here. But I'm totally a bug guy.

The only bugs I will kill are mosquitos or ticks.

My thing, though, is totally Orthopterans. Crickets, grasshoppers and locusts. I'm also a huge fan of mantids...although we don't get many of them around these parts.

Right now, I'm in love with the bladder grasshoppers. Why? Take a look:



Not only that, but some species are basically translucent...you can freakin' see their guts right through the skin.

[beam me up scottie]

26. Cute little buggars, aren't they?!

I also love mantids, Praying Mantises astound me. When you talk to them, their heads swivel around and they look right at you.

[Evoman]

33. I know I've posted this story before, but what the hell....

When I was teaching a lab about four years back, my teaching assistant brought his praying mantis to the class. It was a class on arthropods, so we thought the class would get a kick out of seeing a live praying mantis.

Man, did they ever. First of all, he wasn't in a cage. My TA kept him out of a cage on his plants, and would just occasionally feed him some bugs. The thing was basically trained! So anyways, there it was....just sitting on a plant. We fed him some bugs, and the class was estatic, cause he was so awesome.

But, as in every class, there is always some girl who hates bugs. Well, guess who the praying mantis gave his attention. That's right....HE FLEW AFTER THE GIRL THAT WAS AFRAID OF HIM. We heard a scream as it actually chased her around the lab until she ran out of the class, and it lost sight of her. Then it calmly sat on one of the lab benches until my TA went and put him back on the plant.

We were afraid of getting sued, lol!

That class gave us the best reviews we have ever gotten for that class.

[beam me up scottie]

34. LOL!

I hadn't heard that story, what a riot!

It's amazing how some animals seem to instinctively know which people hate or are terrified of them.

[Evoman]

35. Check out this video...the mantis attacks a fucking snake!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT0Lyrwyh5E&feature=related

[beam me up scottie]

38. Un-fucking real!

If those things got much bigger we'd be totally screwed.

[beam me up scottie]

40. Here's one that killed and ate a hummingbird: (warning - graphic!)

From http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/site/backyardbirds/hummingbirds/mantis-hummer.aspx">Bird Watcher's Digest:

The other day while I was working in the yard my son urgently called to me. "Dad, a praying mantis caught a hummingbird!"

Not sure what to expect, but knowing my son is not one to make things up, I came running to see for myself. By the time I arrived it was too late for the poor hummer and my scientifically minded son had already begun taking pictures and studying the scene.

As you can see from the photographs this hungry mantis captured and killed a hummingbird not much smaller than itself. The mantis used its spiny left foreleg to impale the hummingbird through the chest while leaving his right leg free.

We surmised that the mantis ran the hummer through and dangled its full weight on its foreleg while he consumed the flesh of the hummingbird from the abdomen. After he had his fill, the mantis gave his foreleg several swift jerks and freed his leg.

This was an unfortunate experience for the hummer, but we are amazed to realize how fast, precise, and powerful the mantis must be to accomplish such a feat!

Richard L. Walkup
West Chester, PA

[Evoman]

41. OH MY GOD.

I had no idea they could fucking kill a hummingbird! Awesome.

[beam me up scottie]

42. Someone on YouTube posted a video of one that waits on their feeder.

And when poor little Flick comes in for a drink...:cry:

Can you imagine what they could do to us if they were bigger?

[Evoman]

36. And check out this video...its "grooming" itself!

Man, never start a bug conversation with Evoman....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ran2d2eMzJA&feature=related

[beam me up scottie]

37. I hate you.

Now I'll be on YouTube all night checking out praying mantis vids...

[dropkickpa]

45. I spent about 1 hour

AT WORK watching mantis vids!

[beam me up scottie]

48. Have you seen the one where the centipede grabs a bat out of midair and then eats it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UROVfmY3NTA

[dropkickpa]

50. Awesome!!!

I love watching them walk!

[beam me up scottie]

39. Check this guy out:

I posted this in the Science forum and nobody paid any attention to it, it was one of NG's pic of the day:



A female Macleay's specter stick insect pauses on a branch at the Cincinnati Zoo. Indigenous to Australia, these large, well-defended arthropods are covered in tiny spikes and can reach 6 inches (15 centimeters) in length.

[cosmik debris]

24. Preemptive glazing.

The first one to glaze over their eyes wins. It takes quick reflexes, but as soon as you hear the first sign of woo, stare off into space and say "I think I'll have Chinese for dinner."

And I live a little further up the food chain than you. We have an abundance of Texas Spiny Lizards. Life is hard and short for most terrestrial bugs.

[beam me up scottie]

27. LOL! I am definitely going to try that!

I love lizards, too. Unfortunately for Mr. Lizard, Fluffy here is just a wee bit higher on that food chain:

[onager]

28. Saudi lizards and coping with woo...

When I lived in Saudi Arabia, weird little flat-headed lizards lived in my house. (And everybody else's on our compound.)

They loved to run along the walls, which could be...surprising when one of the little buggers went zipping past suddenly. Or at night, when I was almost asleep and heard the pitter-patter of little claws above my head.

But they ate bugs and left me alone, so I left them alone.

Tolerating woo: I'll leave out the religion part, which always gets me in trouble when I visit the old home place in the Deep South. I have a lot of relatives who are Fundies. But everybody back there just assumes I am Xian, so I'm constantly under threat of developing a serious speech impediment from biting my tongue.

My mother gave my email address to some neighbors of hers who are perfectly nice people. But they believe in every bit of spam wooery they receive, and unfortunately forward it all to me.

I keep getting one over and over, an animated cartoon of some long-haired, bearded hippie dude with a bunch of sheep. These usually have the subject: "He just left my house..."

So far, I've resisted the temptation to ask: "And what were the 2 of you doing with those sheep, anyhow?"

The only time I snapped was when I got that old pre-internet hoax, "The Atheists Are Trying To Ban Religious Broadcasting!"

I blasted that one back to all 900 people who seem to be on the list, with a link to the relevant Snopes piece.

One woman actually responded and said: "Thank you. I didn't know that. I thought it was real until I read the Snopes article. From now on I will just delete these."

No, nice anonymous lady, thank YOU...

[beam me up scottie]

29. You got through to one of them too?

I'm sure it will never happen again, but I ended up conversing with a newspaper editor because we both fired back links to debunking sites and told the original email-er to stop sending us this crap without doing their own research first.

I've had to block others and play dumb when they ask me what is wrong with my email. :D

I love your lizard story, I have tried to explain to bb why I would much rather have spiders in the house than cockroaches.

[Silent3]

43. I won't disagree with your spider facts...

...but ICK!

I just can't deal with spiders and most insects. I sure don't want them in my house, especially in my bathroom <shudder!>.

It's not fear of being bitten, being poisoned, catching a disease... it's just a deep-seated repulsion. At a purely intellectual level I can kind of, sort of imagine the aesthetic aspects that others see in such creatures, but as a gut emotional reaction I find spiders and most insects hideous.

Don't you sometimes have guests at your home who, even without voicing any arachnological misinformation, are creeped out a bit and cringe about the idea of using your bathroom?

[beam me up scottie]

44. Nah, in this neighborhood they have a lot more to worry about than bathroom dwelling arachnids.

Besides, we could always throw one of the cats in there first, they find and catch anything that moves (and many things that don't).
My boy Calvin was the one who found the BR in the bathroom and pointed it out to me.

I understand the revulsion, though, I feel the same way about cockroaches, especially water bugs, ugh. Brown Recluses make short work of them.

[dropkickpa]

46. Uck

Roaches, botfly larvae (yet maggots don't bug me), and silverfish all creep me the fuck out, but everything else I'm either "meh" or "cool!" about.

[beam me up scottie]

47. I have no idea why I am so repulsed by roaches.

I saw my first roach in boot camp on Parris Island so it's not like I grew up with them.

Centipedes really make me squirmy too.

[TZ]

49. I'm guessing you wouldn't be interested

in the up close and personal I got with an madagascar hissing cockroach at the Smithsonian Insect Zoo once (If you haven't been there, you really need to go!)

[dropkickpa]

51. Oddly, they don't bug me (hahahaha)

The kind you find in Texas (american cockroach) creep the hell out of me.

[beam me up scottie]

52. I actually don't mind the hissers. :)

I've even handled a few.

I would love to go back to the Smithsonian, maybe I can convince bb to check it out instead of going camping this winter.