Supermyths

The Supermyth concept is explained in-depth in my article "On Supermyths" {Click here}.

What are supermyths and braced myths?


Supermyths, of which braced myths are a sub-type - are ironic unintended, or else a deliberate and disingenuous, consequences of fallacy dissemination. Supermyths have three very specific components:


1. The creation of a fallacy, myth or error by an orthodox expert


2. it being used by another expert who in turn promotes it as being ‘true’ and


3. whilst still thinking that it is true, promotes it as a good example of the need to be healthily sceptical of bad scholarship.


Moreover, fourthly:


Braced myths are supermyths that have been pointedly deployed by orthodox scholars in order to bust another specific myth or fallacy. The braced myth hypothesis is that using one myth as a specific mythbusting device in this way braces the supermyth to make it further entrenched and therefore more difficult to prevent it being credulously disseminated as veracious knowledge.

The Darwin Supermyth is bust

It is a proven fallacy that Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace (1858/59) were each first to independently conceive the full theory of evolution by natural selection. This is because top Darwin experts such as Richard Dawkins and Darwin medal winners Sir Gavin de Beer and Ernst Mayr (to name just a few) write that Patrick Matthew (1831) was in fact first into print with the entire theory. The myth that Darwin should have priority for Matthew's prior published theory is based on the falsehood knowingly spread by Darwin that no single person read Matthew's theory. In fact Darwin's and Wallace's influencers and their influencers, among others also newly discovered, had read and cited Matthew's book. For these facts and many more in this story read the book Science Fraud. More than one artificial intelligence system finds Charles Darwin guilty of knowingly lying about Matthew's (1831) prior readership. Hence the Supermyth of Darwin being an honest originator of the theory of evolutuion by natural selection is busted by the empirical data and logical reasoning based on it. Here

Read two HealthWatch articles by Mike Sutton. The first on the Spinach Supermyth and the second on the Vam Meme (with Matt Henn and Linda Gibson). The reading pane in each box below can be expanded by clicking the page expansion button.

Dysology pdf file of above article HERE

Dysology pdf file of above article HERE

My Mythbusting articles on Spinach

Spinach, Iron and Popeye: Ironic lessons from biochemistry and history on the importance of healthy eating, healthy scepticism and adequate citation (Sutton 2010) (here and here and also here)

The Spinach, Popeye, Iron, Decimal Error Myth is Finally Busted (Sutton, M. 2010) (here)


Did Popeye Really Increase Spinach Consumption and Production by 33 percent in 1936? (here)(Original Best Thinking blog post archived in full here


SPIN@GE USA Beware of the Bull: The United States Department of Agriculture is Spreading Bull about Spinach, Iron and Vitamin C (Sutton 2011) (Here)


Spin@ge II: Does the United States Department of Agriculture’s Publication of Spuriofacts Have its Origins in a Perverse Scientific Paper Written in 1937? (Sutton, M. June 2012) (here and archived here)


How the spinach, Popeye and iron decimal point error myth was finally bust (Sutton 2010) (Here and also here).


The Spinage Supermyth Positively Affirmed as a Problem in Science in the British Medical Journal


I am delighted to see the importance of the Spinach Supermyth, which I (Dr Mike Sutton) discovered in 2009, is now positively affirmed as a problem in the British Medical Journal in 2023. The free PDF of that important article is available to download HERE

The BMJ page on it is HERE (archived HERE)


Read a timeline video blog that unravels the UK Covid19 Masks Supermyth of 2020 - HERE

Dr Harries, a major spreader of the masks supermyth and heavily criticised in the press in 2023 (here), was the inspiration for the poem on managerialism entitled "going forward". Because she was constantly using the over-promoted idiot signaling ludicrous corporate buzzterm "going forward" in news briefs on COVID19.