It was Mark Twain who once said “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
A point that’s all the more poignant when you consider that actually it was probably not Mark Twain who said that.
Just goes to go how confusing following the truth can be, like in these cases:
What is a common myth that has been debunked but too many people still believe? from AskReddit
What does Reddit have for us to debunk today? Let’s find out.
1. Albert Einstein failed math as a kid
This myth originated due to a misunderstanding of grading scales.
Einstein’s primary education took place in Germany, where the grading scale went from 1 (best) to 5 (worst).
His secondary education was in Switzerland, where the grading scale went from 1 (worst) to 6 (best).
His scores in math and science were excellent at all stages of his education.
– sillybear25
2. Dogs see black and white
Most placental mammals are dichromats with two types of cone cells in their eyes. They’re descended from tetrachromats with four retinal pigments, but we believe that two were lost during an era when mammals were primarily nocturnal and color vision was less useful at night.
A branch of primates including apes and, specifically, us mutated up a new pigment, different from either of the ones that were lost, getting us back to trichromatic vision. (Our L and M, or red and green, cones are very similar, with one being a mutation from the other that proved useful to have exist in parallel.)
It’s why hunters wear orange vests and tigers are bright orange despite living in jungles.
To prey species, they both look green like vegetation.
– ThePowerOfStories
3. Lemmings are suicidal
they were filming a disney nature documentary where the producers herded them off cliffs and the misconception stuck
It’s been debunked but you ask someone about lemmings and see what they say.
– graeuk
4. The tongue has “taste zones”
Not only was this one a myth, they TAUGHT us this in school.
I remember coloring in the different sections of the tongue various colors.
– MattieMcNasty
5. Handling a baby bird will make the mother reject it
Most birds don’t have a significant sense of smell. So put the nakey baby back in the nest!
Now, sometimes mother birds will push a sick or otherwise terminal chick out of the nest, so when people try to put it back she goes “Hey, thought I got rid of you” and does it again.
But that’s not because of you, she just knows something you don’t, so take that babe to a rehab rescue and hope for the best.
But a lot of the time the little squishy beans just wiggle out of the nest, so feel free to put them back in. No harm done.
– AlwaysWantsIceCream
6. Bumblebees shouldn’t be able to fly
Except they obviously can.
I think bumble bees perfectly exemplify the fundamental misunderstanding that laypeople have of the scientific process and the difference between a law and a theory.
A scientific law is a physical description of what we observe under specific circumstances. A theory, on the other hand, explains why we observe different phenomena when at least one variable isn’t controlled for.
So it isn’t that “bumble bees shouldn’t be able to fly”. It’s that they fly as a result of a different set of variables within the mechanisms of flight.
– Dynasuarez-Wrecks
7. Direction of a toilet flush depends on the hemisphere
The design of toilets direct water in a specific way, the Coriolis effect would never change that, but even in more passive drainage systems, the internal flow of water and geometry of the basin will be much more significant than that of the Coriolis effect. This is true even if water sits still for long periods of time.
Under very specific scientific conditions, with a flat, perfectly circular pan and a centralized drainage hole, many days after filling the water the Coriolis effect can begin to govern the direction of the water as it’s emptied, but this is not exactly practical. We do see the effect in weather patterns of course though, so that’s something.
– CanFjord
8. Blood is blue before being exposed to oxygen
Seriously tho, I was told that everyone’s blood was blue on the inside when I was younger, and I honestly don’t know why my Mom thought that.
Maybe it’s just one of those things that you only believe because your family has been saying it since your Grandma’s Grandpa’s Grandma’s Grandma’s Grandpa or something like that.
– Rand0mWe1rdGuy
9. The tryptophan in turkey makes you tired
The reason you always feel tired after a Thanksgiving meal is because your body is spending all its energy digesting your big meal.
– LiquidMetalStarman
10. It’s dangerous to swim after eating
There’s no reason that should be dangerous.
However swimming after drinking alcohol puts you at a substantially higher risk of drowning.
– Scrappy_Larue
11. Mammals have alpha males and beta males
The researcher who wrote it himself not only said that this cannot be used to interpret human behaviour in any way, but he even proved his own findings wrong in a later study, because this behaviour only applied to wolves in captivity (so, a constantly stressful situation)
– JuFo2707
12. The McDonald’s “hot coffee lawsuit” was frivolous
Lady melted her vagina and only wanted to get enough for bills.
They wouldn’t even do that.
– Tenebrousoul
13. Electromagnetic fields cause nausea
A lot of people in Sweden believe this despite research attributing it to the nocebo effect.
– hampan97
14. Ted Bundy was a very popular playboy
That goes into a bigger myth that people with psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder are these cunning manipulative geniuses.
Ted bundy abducted girls in a busy af park going by the nickname ted and only got so many girls because cops didn’t communicate across state lines at all and there was virtually no video surveillance.
By definition these people have god awful impulse control, delusions that they can control people, and terrible control of their behaviours. They have awful control of how they act when they get emotional, and people like Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Wayne Gacy, ect. All got caught because they were genuinely suffering from arrogant , very dumb, and poorly planned behaviors.
– Antispam1432
It’s always nice to find out you were wrong!
What other myths would you add to this list?
Tell us in the comments.
The post People Discuss Debunked Myths That Just Won’t Go Away appeared first on UberFacts.