There’s plenty to disprove the tooth fairy: parents put money under pillows, and no-one has actually seen the tooth fairy. The end.

There’s also plenty to disprove Fan Death. Lab experiments are not needed, the data is there to be analysed. When people die in the rest of the world, actual causes of death are found - none are attributed to the fan killing the victim (without touching them). Therefore, Korea must have it wrong.

Even if there are more instances in Korea of people dying at night with the doors closed and the fan on (there isn’t), it would not be the fan’s fault, but some other variable particular to Korea. As they say: you can’t prove a negative. And there is no positive evidence for Fan Death.

This phenomenon is only interesting because it is a superstitious meme that is resistant to debunking, not because there might be some truth to it.

As far as the possible causes, given what we know about physical processes (the human body, and fans), there’s not much need to perform actual experiments. Do fans displace oxygen with Co2? Can moving air, which isn’t cold itself, induce hypothermia (considering moreover that it’s only acting on the skin)? Can a weak vortex of air prevent a person from breathing? Can a mildly dry mouth swell up enough to block a person’s breathing? Unless there’s something very unusual about the fans themselves, there wouldn’t be much point in a formal study.

Then again, plenty of money’s been thrown away on questionable research. One chimp with one fan in a closed room? I’d prefer it if I were the chimp, give the alternatives.

If you take this line of thought to its logical conclusion, the line of thought being that the various hypotheses regarding fan death must be held up to scientific scrutiny, then obviously the next question becomes, how exactly does one perform an experiment to either prove or disprove fan death? You would also realize that proving fan death is more easier than not proving fan death, ie the person dies. The fact that a person doesnt die during the experiment is NOT a disproof of fan death because fan death is already understood as a probabilistic phenomenon (ie, it doesnt happen to EVERYONE). Which brings us to the final and the most important difficulty, that since it is difficult to DISPROVE fan death, and the only conclusive end is to PROVE fan death by demonstrating a death under laboratorily controlled conditions, effectively, this becomes an experiment where the out is to effectively kill someone. Any concerned expats would like to volunteer themselves for the sake of science???

There are lots of urban legends everywhere. The only reason fan death is notable is that it’s believed in so strongly by so many people. Even so, it hardly deserves 69 comments.

I dont think lack of skepticism or blind belief is the chief cause of the persistence of this unusual phenomenon. Granted sociological inertia is ALWAYS a factor in any society. I think the main culprit is the fact that Korea is not a particularly litigious society (yet). If fan death was something that people could sue about, then there’d be all kinds of studies done and folks would be all up in arms about it until the issue was laid to rest one way or another. In the US, it was not scientists or “rational, logical” thinkers that did away with outmoded ways of thinking but the lawyers. So until Korea becomes the kind of place where people could sue a major fast food corporation for spilling hot coffee on themselves or for making them fat by overconsumption of their products, we will just have to deal with it.

When you put fan death in the context of other ridiculous, widespread beliefs among Koreans — fortune tellers, psychics, superstitions, SARS and cancer-curing kimchi, animal parts as aphrodisiacs, four seasons — it makes perfect sense. A culture that doesn’t value skepticism, and instead values blind loyalty and unquestioning belief in anything their “seniors” (or media) tell them over a prolonged time period, is bound to be awash in horseshit and fantasyland masquerading as common sense.

key phrases: high blast, direct breeze, prolonged time period, horseshit

By the way jives, you may want to inform your father that his logic is faulty. He apparently isn’t drawing a distinction between “incidents actually happening” and “being told by the media that incidents happened.” Once he correctly infers that the attribution of death to fans is a laughable premise swallowed only by fools, and thus that all the “incidents” of fan death reported by the Korean media are not actually incidents at all…it becomes quite easy to dismiss and ignore the fan death myth…as anyone with half a brain did long ago.

He also said something which make me think Stumbler might be on to something. My father claims that having the fan on “high blast” issuing a “direct breeze” for a “prolonged time period” caused his face to swell up considerably, upon awakening.

Key phrases: high blast, direct breeze, prolonged time period