nyuuzyou/wikis huggingface dataset:
Lies My Teacher Told Me

Lies My Teacher Told Me () is a 2018 book by James Loewen describing a number of falsehoods or misconceptions prevalent in many American history textbooks. Loewen also examines why some of these issues are downplayed or misrepresented, often for political reasons.
==The lies==
*Christopher Columbus is often treated as something of a hero in modern times or at least made to look like an innocuous explorer. Loewen describes some of his more controversial actions (such as enslaving the natives who welcomed him) and evidence that he was actually not the first European explorer to reach the Americas.
*Oftentimes, the effect of plagues and diseases on Native Americans are downplayed. In reality, it was one of the most crucial factors toward Europeans being able to colonize significant amounts of territory with comparative ease and Native Americans still live on this legacy, being a hidden minority.
*American Indians are often portrayed as "savage" or unsophisticated, even in this day and age. In particular, there's a misconception that the Indians didn't succeed in American society because they had trouble adjusting to mainstream society, when in fact some did, but were deliberately sabotaged: goods confiscated and run out of town when they became too successful, for instance.
*Racism has a tendency to be underrepresented in American history. Really, racism has had its role in politics throughout all of American history and even the modern political arena.
*Anti-racism is also somewhat invisible.
*Issues that are still relevant today are sometimes mischaracterized or glossed over to avoid controversy. For instance, wealth disparity is often not treated as a significant problem.
*There is not enough discussion of events that occurred recently enough that many people still alive remember them. It leads to an interesting predicament where many students may be able to tell you more about Andrew Jackson than George H.W. Bush. The question in this case is, how recent is too recent?
*American foreign policy is often presented as uniformly righteous, while it's often influenced by corporate interests or mistaken ideology, if not outright imperialism.
==Why textbooks lie==
As tools for education, textbooks have to portray uncontroversial images and ideas to avoid outrage. Unfortunately, this caution prevents authors from presenting many facts that are actually most relevant to students' lives.
==Follow-up==
Loewen followed the book up with Lies Across America, examining lies or inaccuracies in American historical sites. Loewen is especially critical of sites associated with the Civil War and their promotion of Lost Cause mythology. He notes the absurdity of pro-Confederate monuments in the North, including one in Montana (which wasn't even a state during the Civil War).
==See also==
*Nationalism in history textbooks
*Texas Board of Education
Category:Nationalist pseudohistory
Life (moral value)

Life, or the preservation of it, is often thought to be the single moral principle by which actions should be measured. Arguably, there are values which supersede life: safety, the quality of life, justice, etc.
For example, to what extent life should be valued is measured by quality. It is fairly reasonable to say that one cannot have safety without life, but it is more reasonable to say that safety increases the value of life. In other words, what is the quality of life without safety? Another way to ask this would be: "Don't soldiers sacrifice their life for the safety of others?" This, of course, suggests that safety is more important than life. The moral value of life is also a paradox in some situations, because sometimes it takes the sacrifice of life to preserve life.
Popular ideologies that may place a heavy emphasis on life are vegetarianism, veganism, pacifism, and anti-abortion activism.
The Terri Schiavo situation also highlighted the issues involved in evaluating the viability and presence of human life.
==See also==
* Life
* Morality
Category:Philosophy
Life Extension Foundation

The Life Extension Foundation (LEF) is an organisation primarily concerned with pushing dubious dietary supplements, in the cause of greatly advancing the average lifespan of humanity, or a portion thereof. It is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and was founded by longtime transhumanist and "life extension advocate" Saul Kent (1939 – 2023) and William Faloon (1954 – ) in 1980.
It claims its primary purpose is funding research. It sells dubious supplements claimed to be for anti-aging and preventative medicine purposes, as well as "sports performance."
It used to be a nonprofit, but was so egregiously oriented to its sales focus that the IRS revoked its nonprofit status in May 2013 ... retrospective to 2006. Forbes tax blogger Peter J. Reilly noted that "The IRS’ problem with the Foundation is [...] an entirely worldly one: it asserts the membership organization’s operations seem to be too entwined with the for-profit Life Extension Buyers Club." LEF filed a Complaint for Declaratory Judgment on August 7, 2013, in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the IRS' allegations;Case 1:13-cv-01219, United States District Court for the District of Columbia the case is pending.
The Life Extension Foundation puts a lot of effort into supporting "health freedom," so that it can keep pushing dubious supplements.
==External links==
*Life Extension Foundation website
==References==
Category:Florida
Category:Food woo promoters
Life — How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?

Life — How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? is a book published in 1985 by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania.Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, Life- How did it get here? By evolution or by creation? Watchtower, 1985.
The book sets out to answer the supposed question of whether life originated through evolution or creation. However, as with many anti-evolution texts, Life confuses the theory of evolution (concerned with the development of life) with abiogenesis (hypotheses concerning the origin of life). As the theory of evolution itself makes no claims about the origin of life the book attempts to answer a non-existent question.
Life consists primarily of a series of mined quotes and appeals to authority. It is a good source of creationist claims, mostly based on arguments from incredulity, on topics that include abiogenesis, transitional fossils, mutation, fine-tuned universe, evidence of design, and doubt about evolution.
As evidence of the inadequacies of evolution, the authors of Life rely heavily on quotes from J. Francis Hitching, who they identify as an "evolutionist", though in reality he is simply a sensationalist author. Other quotes in Life come from The Neck of the Giraffe, a book which discredits creationism as much or more than it does evolution.Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe, Signet, 1983. ISBN 0451622324
As an example of reliance on Hitching, Life makes the unreferenced claim:
This argument quite obviously comes from Hitching's discussion of the subject:
However, Hitching indicated he was quoting directly from Impact,Glycolosis and Alcoholic Fermentation, Jean Sloat Morton a monthly Institute for Creation Research publication. Thus the argument based on acknowledgments from "evolutionists" in fact comes from a creationist. There are other similar examples of misattribution in Life.
==See also==
*Abiogenesis, for scientific discussion about how life arose
*List of fallacious quotes by creationists, for most of the book's quotations
==External links==
*Reviewed by a former Jehovah's Witness Corey Carroll, talkorigins.
*Critical analysis by a practicing Jehovah's Witness minister.
Life was published in 1985. Today, JWs generally instead use two smaller brochures to propagate their brand of creationism. These are deconstructed in the following two links:
*Weighed and Found Wanting
*Deconstructing "The Origins of Life: Five Questions Worth Asking"
==References==
Category:Creationism
Category:Religious books
Lightning rod

A lightning rod or lightning conductor is a strip of highly conductive metal attached to the roofs of tall buildings, leading down their sides into the ground. Its purpose is to protect the building from lightning strikes that could otherwise cause serious damage.How Stuff Works: How lightning works The term has been adopted for some political usage, although the definition used is based on the misconceptions of how lightning conductors work — that they actively attract, rather than safely diffuse, lightning strikes.
Some religious communities, such as the Amish, hold that building owners should refrain from installing such protection on their property, as lightning strikes are a manifestation of God's disfavor. That God may have demonstrated favor towards such a famous rationalist as Benjamin Franklin by inspiring him to invent it remains unaddressed. Also not addressed is the odd tendency of God to show disfavor towards especially tall structures (though maybe he's still leery of another Tower of Babel).
==Political use==
In modern political usage, the term has been adapted to mean a person who espouses a particularly strong version of some idea in order to attract the energies and efforts of the opposition. Normally, their views are not taken seriously by the more moderately positioned people on their own side of the political spectrum, but they are often appreciated for the distraction they provide, or the apparent sane light that they show their moderate counterparts in.
===Examples===
*Ann Coulter
*Rev. Al Sharpton
*Glenn Beck
==References==
category:political euphemisms
category:neologisms
Lila Rose

Lila Grace Rose is an American anti-abortion activist. Homeschooled as a child, Rose was a 17-year-old history major at UCLA when she and a friend began conducting so-called "sting" operations at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2006, posing as abortion-seeking 13-year-olds impregnated by adult men in order to try to entrap clinic counselors into saying things that make it look like they are okay with letting statutory rape go unreported. Rose secretly tapes these counseling sessions, cherry picks the ones where something out of line is said, then edits the juiciest parts thereof into "exposé" videos that she posts on YouTube.
In 2006, Rose collaborated with conservative provocateur James O'Keefe, recording calls O'Keefe made to Planned Parenthood clinics posing as a racist interested in making a donation "specifically for the abortions of African-American babies" and releasing the ones in which staff appeared not to express opposition (or simply to humor a seemingly disturbed person who could potentially know how to make pipe bombs). Spring 2009. Their intent was to give credence to the notion that Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, an advocate of eugenics (true), with the intent of wiping out the black race (false).
During her time at UCLA, the disingenuous ingénue also founded an anti-abortion student magazine called The Advocate, apparently unaware there's been a magazine of that name around for forty years now, which isn't exactly subscription material for the social conservative set.
At the Values Voters Summit in 2009, Rose delivered a speech in which she revealed she doesn't understand that desensitization makes people care less, not more, and that she hears Hallelujah when everyone else hears grunting, moaning, and squeaking bedsprings: (from the Live Action channel, if you have a YouTube account please click dislike)
Also sometime in 2009, the Protestant-raised Rose converted to Catholicism at an Opus Dei parish.
Despite her ardent anti-abortion and pro-adoption position, Rose sent out a mocking tweet to Pete Buttigieg after he revealed that he and his husband have adopted twins. She replied to the backlash by doubling down on her homophobia and promoting an awful book.
==References==
Category:Anti-abortion activists
Category:Conservative deceit
Category:Living people
Category:Right-wing activists
Category:Shysters
Category:Homophobes
Limbo

Limbo was the way-place where unbaptised babies went after death, at least according to Roman Catholic wishful thinking. Hell and even purgatory seemed a bit too harsh a punishment for the crime of dying before their parents could baptize them, so Limbo was invented as a slightly less bad form of eternal isolation. Although it is not part of official Catholic doctrineGotquestions.org - What does the Bible say about Limbo?, it was widely accepted within the church until 2007, at which point the Pope apparently realized that it didn't actually exist.
==Origins==
The doctrine of original sin left Catholics in an awkward situation. Since we are all born with original sin — baptism being the only way to remove it — babies who die prior to being baptised would seem destined to burn in Hell. St. Augustine, nice guy that he was, believed that babies were indeed going to be tortured for all eternity for the heinous crime of being born. This line of thinking remained popular until medieval scholars revived the heretical idea of Limbo.
Limbo gained wide acceptance, although it was never formally accepted as doctrine. Bereaved parents perhaps drew some comfort from the knowledge that their babies were happy in Limbo for eternity. http://www.scotsman.com/news/international/pope_to_abandon_idea_of_unbaptised_babies_forever_in_limbo_1_1111483#
==Problems with Limbo==
Babies had been saved from hell, but Limbo seemed a little unfair. If hell is an eternal prison of torture, then Limbo was similar but with natural happiness instead of torture. Unbaptised babies could not go to Heaven without the doctrine of original sin being seriously undermined. Allowing unbaptised babies entry to Heaven would mean that anyone with a good reason for not being baptised (e.g. people living in countries with no Catholic priests) would also get to go to heaven, and that would render the Catholic Church obsolete. So basically, the Church was faced with two choices: 
#Invent the concept of Limbo. 
#Relinquish all power by saying God treats all religions equally (and we can't have that now, can we?).
Hence Limbo was invented and everyone was happy, except the dead babies who were too busy participating in dead baby jokes to care.
Officially, the Church never recognized the notion of Limbo as a separate "place" from Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, although they never flat-out denied its existence until 2007. In Dante's Inferno, the author tried to reconcile this by making Limbo into the outermost circle of Hell, devoid of any actual torture (but still a rather gloomy place). Of all the parts of the Inferno, the author rather quickly passes through it, emphasizing in narration that he doesn't have enough time to talk about it.
==Limbo downsized==
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI decided that Limbo doesn't actually exist.Pope Benny closes Limbo There remains no clear answer as to the fate of unbaptised babies, but most Catholics will continue doing what they always do – assume that God wouldn't do anything nasty to the little babies.
==See also==
*Infant damnation
*Purgatory
==References==
Category:Afterlife
category:Catholicism
Category:Christianity
Limited hangout

"Limited hangout" is intelligence jargon for a form of propaganda in which a selected portion of a scandal, criminal act, sensitive or classified information, etc. is revealed or leaked, without telling the whole story. The intention may be to establish credibility as a critic of something or somebody by engaging in criticism of them while in fact covering up for them by omitting many details; to distance oneself publicly from something using innocuous or vague criticism even when one's own sympathies are privately with them; or to divert public attention away from a more heinous act by leaking information about something less heinous.
This is a common tactic used by political extremist groups on both ends of the political spectrum, as well as by government intelligence agencies caught in scandals.
==Examples==
The Catholic Church's public response to their pedophilia scandals.http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44668-2002Apr24.html
The term entered the popular discourse around the time of the Watergate scandal, when Richard Nixon and several advisers were caught discussing whether to release selected bits of the Watergate scandal to obscure the actual role of the White House in the burglary.
==Counter-examples==
Conspiracy theorists, in their paranoia, tend to be over-sensitive to seeing "limited hangouts" where none exist. For example, 9/11 and John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists are notoriously fractious, often accusing each other of being part of the cover-up by only revealing selective information.
Selective reporting is a sort of flip side of a limited hangout, deliberate overreporting of minor events to make a political point or stir up moral panic.
==See also==
*Cherry picking
*Quote mining
*Straw man
*Weasel word
*Willful ignorance
*JAQing off
*Sheeple
*WAKE UP
*Handwave
==References==
Category:Propaganda
Category:Neologisms
Linda Gottfredson

Linda Gottfredson is a hereditarian professor emeritus of educational psychology at the University of Delaware. Her legitimate research focuses on and individuals' career decision-making. For instance, she is well known for her theory of "circumscription and compromise" to explain why people choose certain jobs.Did you inherit your career? Gottfredson's theory of circumscription and compromise She is a former president of the International Society for Intelligence Research.ISIR officers
She has been a prominent proponent of the pseudosciences of hereditarianism and racialism, as both relate to IQ tests, for over 30 years. She also likes defending scientific racists like Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton as well as railing against affirmative action.Linda Gottfredson, Southern Poverty Law Center She was interviewed by Stefan Molyneux on the putative link between race, evolution, and intelligence in 2015.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZPsXYo7gpc
Outside of her academic research, she is mainly known as the author of the "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" letter that was published in the Wall Street Journal in 1994, and signed by 52 other researchers. It was subsequently published in Intelligence in 1997. She is also known as a major recipient of grant money from the notorious white-supremacist organization the Pioneer Fund, which got her in quite a bit of trouble with the University of Delaware in the early 1990s. She was temporarily banned from receiving money from them while on the University's faculty, but in 1992 an agreement was reached that lifted the ban.U. Delaware Reaches Accord On Race Studies, the Scientist, July 6, 1992
==References==
Category:Psychologists
Category:Living people
Category:Pseudoscience promoters
Category:Racialism pseudoscientists
Category:Racists
Category:White supremacists
Linda Taylor

Linda Taylor was a career criminal from Chicago who came to public notice in the 1970s. During his 1976 Presidential Campaign, Ronald Reagan made it a point to mention her as merely a "woman in Chicago" who "used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.”The Welfare Queen
However, that was not what actually occurred. In what economist Paul Krugman called "a gross exaggeration of a minor case of welfare fraud”,Republicans and Race she was actually found to have used four names to scam the government out of only $8,000.
Of course, any amount of welfare fraud is obviously bad, however, the massive disparity between what Reagan claimed and the truth of the situation is rather notable. Reagan made it sound like this woman was some massive fraudster (and by insinuation somehow representative of welfare recipients), scamming the government out of thousands of dollars using every loophole she could possibly find. In truth, although $8,000 is not nothing, it was still only slightly more than five percent of what Reagan claimed she had taken. In spite of the fact that this story bears no relation to what actually occurred, Reagan also turned her into the face of "welfare queens," people (usually African American) who take money from good hardworking men and have no interest in finding a job or getting off the dole.
Reagan used this to his benefit, with Bryce Covert noting in an article for The New Republic that "Once in the White House, Reagan’s tall tales were used to justify real-life changes… Congress would pass $25 billion in cuts to programs that helped the poor. An estimated 408,000 households were cut off from AFDC, while millions more saw their benefits reduced."The Myth of the Welfare Queen Also the Reagan administration managed to pass supply-side economics-based laws that gave massive tax breaks to the wealthy and deregulated industry.
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Conservative deceit
Category:Criminals
Category:Financial fraud
Category:Shysters
Category:United States politics
Linking to authority

Linking to authority describes a form of deceit people use online and in print. If a person uses a link as a reference to any claim, it appears to have authority backing it. In the form of books, these come as footnotes or endnotes that reference another print or online source.
However, following the links or reading the referenced material often reveals the deceitful nature of the claim. Sometimes a quote has been mined, sometimes the linked article has little to do with the claim, or even sometimes argues the exact opposite point that the claim makes.
Playing on the notion that few of their followers will bother checking their work, or reading the referenced pieces, this form of deceit gives the author an aura of respect and their claim weight where none exists. You know where the best examples are.
==See also==
*Appeal to authority
Category:Appeals to authority
Category:Deceit
Category:Fallacious arguments
Lipids

Lipids are a group of biological macro-molecules that include fats, phospholipids, waxes, and steroids as well as many oils. Because they are hydrophobic (also known as lipophilic; insoluble in water), they constitute a very important component of cell membranes, cell signaling, mechanical support (as adipose tissue), thermal insulation and energy storage (as fats).
This word is sometimes used in advertising to avoid the word "fats", in the (probably accurate) belief that a beauty product's target audience will have failed science at school.
==See also==
*Saturated fat and cardiovascular disease
*Trans fat
Category:biology
Category:advertising
Category:Chemicals