Teh Internets Hasn't made ME Stoopid

So I was, like, TOTALLY just surfin' the webs, ya know, like seeyin whut wuz up in the world and shit - I do like to keep up with the world - and I saw this post by JOhn Quiggen on Crooked Timber, "Oh noes! Teh Internets makes u gulible".

And I thought, gee, Im on the net all teh tyme, and I'm a grad student! And I TEACH college students! I'm not stoopid OR gulible. But they link to this study where the researchers that did this urban myth study (ass opposed to the much more horrendous SUBurban myth - U know what Im talking about)and they PROVED that actually (if you're in Aulstralia) and you get on the internet, IT MAKES YOU DUMB. Cuz u lose the ability to distinguish fact from myth. I mean, they surveyed 5,000 people! (More than actually and I guess that means 5,001.) I dont understand why that John Quiggen dude sez that's bad research, I mean 5,001 is a BIG number.

And I can recognize good studies when I see them. For example, I know why the earth's getting hotter. I read about it once on this website, and it looks TOTALLY legit. bUT it says that

"You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature."



And did you see that fancy chart? STATISTICS DON'T LIE.

Also, I took statistics and I'm TOTALLY smrt. So I KNOW. JOhn, Quiggen, I think ur the one who's been on teh internet too long cuz there's no answer to the question ur trying to give bonus marks for:

“Which basic concept of classical hypothesis testing is ignored in this study of ‘ability to detect erroneous information’”