Skeptics Guide to the Universe #851

Science or Fiction

• Item #1 The Japanese spider crab has the largest leg span of any arthropod at over 12 feet (3.7 meters).

• Item #2 Cotard’s syndrome is a neurological disorder in which people believe they are dead and their body is rotting, they often refuse to eat and in some cases request to be taken to the morgue.

• Item #3 Lieutenant General Gilles de Rais, who served under General Washington during the revolutionary war, was later convicted of raping and dismembering over a hundred children (although the exact number is unknown) and was ultimately hanged for his crimes.

Skeptical Quote of the Week.

‘In many cases, flawed or misleading evidence is worse than no evidence at all. This is because the state of ignorance resulting from a lack of evidence is recognized as a state of ignorance, whereas the state of ignorance resulting from misleading evidence is not so recognized.’ Vance Berger and Sunny Alperson from their paper titled – A General Framework for the Evaluation of Clinical Trial Quality