This episode contains curse words. If you listen closely, you will hear them.

My dad used to tell me, well, humans did have tails. You had a tail and we'd cut it off when you were a baby.

Has your dad ever told you something that you suspected might not be entirely true.

My father claims that he invented the joke.

That's what she said.

My dad has a hypothesis about melon, which is that you must eat it alone or leave it alone.

He doesn't want to get cremated because he thinks that you might be able to feel it.

Look, this is just an observation, but dads seem to harbor an unusually high number of unsubstantiated theories.

You know, untested but firmly held hypotheses. So in honor of Father's Day, we are investigating your old dad's tales,

and I know you know what I'm talking about.

I've certainly heard a lot of fathers say a lot of bullshit does that does that count yes

yeah yeah sure this is Adam Mann's back father of You know like most things with F. In the title it's not actually intended for children.

You wrote the Dad Lie version of a children's book. Yeah. So I need your expertise

Adam. As a non-dad myself and factually tethered person, I'm hoping

you can help me understand how and why dads have turned lying into an art form.

Oh yeah, there's no one better qualified than me.

Okay, so here's the data we're working with.

We asked listeners to call in with their old dad's tales.

We sorted them by subject matter.

And our first finding was that 24% of these dad claims were health related.

I'm not surprised.

That dads like to offer unsubstantiated health advice?

...