Be skeptical

Few days back I received an email claiming link between drinking cold drink after meal and cancer. Another friend did some research and responded with another email claiming the above is a myth.

Today I received another email forwarded by a friend on some claims that some hawkers melt plastic such as drinking straws or plastic container into hot oil so as to have fried crispy snacks remain crispy for hours. I didn't manage to find strong arguments that this is untrue, but ... may be that's because it was just reported in a newspaper quite recently, near end of February. Or may be it is true, but I doubt so.

I don't mind reading such emails. False information is still a piece of information. However, I mostly don't forward them to others. Especially if the article encourage one to do so.

In this information explosion era, we have to be skeptical with all these information. Not only those myth-like information, but also those myth-buster type. Take for example, in the above first case, the argument against the link between cold drink and cancer is that there isn't scientific evidence. This only say that the first claim is not based on scientific evidence. It doesn't make the claim false. Note that there are many truths that have existed, and some are still existing before any scientific evidence is discovered to support them.