{"id":370,"date":"2024-12-24T12:43:49","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T12:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/?p=370"},"modified":"2025-07-03T00:36:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T00:36:20","slug":"weird-pseudoscience-on-youtube-shorts-a-debunking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/2024\/12\/24\/weird-pseudoscience-on-youtube-shorts-a-debunking\/","title":{"rendered":"Weird pseudoscience on YouTube Shorts &#8211; a debunking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last night I was mindlessly scrolling through YouTube Shorts, when I came across this: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/6BoCt6vo558\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/6BoCt6vo558<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"We had all this 600 years ago \ud83d\ude31\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6BoCt6vo558?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It looks like a 3D reconstruction of the Fountain of the Lions from the Alhambra, taken from a longer show on the Alhambra water system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The comments are all slop about people not being stupid in the past, and about the fountain being built in Al-Andalus, in really weird tones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here is the full video, which already has 2.7 million views, in just 3 weeks:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Ancient City That Mastered Water\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xLaLpMeOyHk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 3D and the animations are quite well done, unfortunately the actual content is mostly bullshit! The factual part seems to be largely inspired by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/travel\/article\/20220428-the-spanish-city-where-water-defies-gravity\">this BCC Travel article<\/a> from 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The central claim is about the Fountain of the Lions being a water clock. They have a textual version of each of their videos: <a href=\"https:\/\/primalnebula.com\/the-engineering-of-the-alhambras-water-system\/\">https:\/\/primalnebula.com\/the-engineering-of-the-alhambras-water-system\/<\/a>. The only source they have for the horological features is this &#8220;paper&#8221;, which is quite evidently devoid of any validity: <a href=\"https:\/\/ijisrt.com\/assets\/upload\/files\/IJISRT22JAN498.pdf\">https:\/\/ijisrt.com\/assets\/upload\/files\/IJISRT22JAN498.pdf<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If we look at the actual sources on the 2011 restoration of the fountain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/cuadernosdelaalhambra.alhambra-patronato.es\/index.php\/cdalhambra\/article\/view\/209\/179\">La conservaci\u00f3n y restauraci\u00f3n de la Fuente de los Leones \u2013 CARMEN TIENZA DUR\u00c1N Y BEATRIZ MART\u00cdN PEINADO<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/26200485\">THE MASTERY IN HYDRAULIC TECHNIQUES FOR WATER SUPPLY AT THE ALHAMBRA LUIS JOS\u00c9 GARC\u00cdA-PULIDO<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.alhambra-patronato.es\/en\/disfrutar\/fountain-of-the-lions-methodology-of-a-restoration\">Fountain of the Lions. Methodology of a Restoration<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is no mention of the horological feature in any serious text, for the very simple reason that the fountain is not a clock! Water simply comes out of all twelve spigots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There are other basic physics mistakes, but I don&#8217;t understand why one would go to all the effort of doing all of this 3D reconstruction, all of these renders, just to spread lies on the internet. I guess the motive is actually quite clear: get millions of views, make lots of money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Debunking a YouTube video on the Alhambra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federate","footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[10,65],"class_list":["post-370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-link","tag-3d","tag-debunking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370\/revisions\/372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/e-muse.it\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}