You are welcome to use this material yourelf for debunking Doomsday stories on news sites or on youtube. See also: List of the articles in my Debunking Doomsday blog to date. by Robert Walker
on Science 2.0 posts - which will also include any new posts since I made this page. I get an average of three comments a day on my Science20 articles and often several pm’s a day by scared people asking for help with the many doomsday news stories they read online. I find that I often copy and paste the same reply to many people each day, especially after some fake news story “breaks” and lots of people are asking me the same question.You are welcome to use them in the same way I do. Copy and paste, or link to the answer, or both. Released under CC by SC NA - so non commercial share alike attribution. I’ve done it like that so that I can use them for my kindle book. So you can modify them and use them as you please, but not commercially and have to attribute me. However, if you are just answering a comment on a news site or a youtube video, don't feel you have to attribute me in a situation like that :). Just copy and paste as much of the material as you need for your response. It’s more like, e.g. if you copy one of these posts into a blog, then you need to attribute me as the author and link back.
Just done a cover draft for my Doomsday Debunked book which I hope to write some time in the next week or two.
The cover shows Cassiopeia A - Wikipedia, a supernova remnant approximately 11,000 light years away.
A blurred out version of this image is sometimes used as the cover picture for Doomsday Stories, though it is of no conceivable threat to Earth. The stories generally don't explain why they are using a blurred out image of Cassiopeia A.
The blurred out image actually originated as an image for a story for the Big Rip theory,, where it is tangentially related because distant supernovae were used as data for that theory. It is of absolutely no danger to Earth.
I’ve got lots of material, and the draft outline for the book is here:
on Science 2.0 postsWritten Oct 26 CommentShare"Humans have a great tendency towards hyperbole - vivid exaggeration to get a message across, or to make a story more vivid. We get bombarded by so many doomsday scenarios in the press and in youtube videos. Some are scientifically plausible, and some are just hoaxes or so absurd to astronomers that they can hardly credit their ears and eyes when they learn that anyone might think such things are true. So how much truth is there in these. Indeed is there really anything that could make humans extinct?
"In this book I go through them all and examine them closely. The aim is to find the truth behind the stories, unexaggerated, just present them as is. I think there is plenty that we do need to be concerned about, such as climate change, extinction of species, environmental degradation, human rights and so on.
Exaggerated ideas of future doom distract us from real challenges which we can actually do something about. They also lead some people to be really scared and in some cases even suicidal. There is no need to be scared of this at all, as I hope will become clear as you read the book.
I’ve written this book and also did my many online doomsday debunking posts as a result of hundreds of comments and personal messages by scared people who ask me to debunk one or other story of the end of the world.
"All proceeds from the book will go to suicide prevention charities. At present the plan is to donate them to Befrienders International."