Popular societal misconceptions...Can you add to the list?

HighlanderNorth

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I somehow ran into this wikipedia list of "common misconceptions". It was very interesting, because it flies in the face of many things that most people are told or taught. I was aware of some of these, including 2 of the following three. But some of them surprised me.

Earlier this year, we Americans celebrated Columbus day. This topic brings up a few misconceptions. 1. Chris Columbus didnt actually discover America. First of all, what he did discover were Caribbean islands. Obviously some of the natives there might have disputed the idea that he discovered THEIR islands! As far as America proper, ie. the continent of N. America, it was discovered by Leif Ericsson hundreds of years earlier, and there appears to be ruins of a settlement in Newfoundland from that time.

2. Secondly, it is taught that the "flat Earthers" fought hard to undermine Columbus' plans of finding a shorter trade route to India/Asia, because they thought he'd just fall off the end of the 'flat' earth. Well, actually, they didnt believe in a flat Earth. The reason the naysayers were against his plans, was that they inherently knew that Columbus' estimate of the distance to India was VERY, VERY underestimated. They somehow estimated that the real distance was many times greater than what Columbus was claiming. They were right, because the actual distance to India, had North America not been there to block his route, was literally 6 times further than he estimated, which meant that if he had not been stopped by "the new world", he would have never made it to Asia, he would have run out of supplies long before.

3. On the same "flat Earth" theme, its not accurate when people say that most people of the middle ages believed in a flat earth. As far back as the Greek empire, some people had already figured out that the earth was roughly spherical, and as time went on, it was accepted that the earth was not flat.

4. This one wasnt mentioned in the wikipedia list, but it definitely held up science for at least 100-150 years or so. It was a false theory of a naturally occurring element called "Phlogiston". Belief in this non existent element was called the Phlogiston theory.

Those are but a few of the many interesting misconceptions. But there are many more not listed in wikipedia as well.
 

orbital

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+

Sadly, there are so many to list
 
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Monocrom

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Amerigo Vespucci discovered what we now know as America. America was named after him. Somewhere out there, in an alternate universe, there's a nation call Vespuccia. Filled with red-blooded Vespuccians.
 

gadget_lover

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Yes, there were many, many in the past. Let's only cite those since otherwise it might turn political. :)

Tanning in an X-Ray machine was once thought to convey all sorts of healthful benefits.

It was once thought that traveling in high speed trains (more than 20 MPH) would suffocate the passengers.

Daniel
 

HighlanderNorth

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Yes, there were many, many in the past. Let's only cite those since otherwise it might turn political. :)

Tanning in an X-Ray machine was once thought to convey all sorts of healthful benefits.

It was once thought that traveling in high speed trains (more than 20 MPH) would suffocate the passengers.

Daniel


Back in the 50's and 60's, and even the 70's and into the 80's it was thought by many that spending enough time in the sun so as to get tanned, or burnt at first, then later tanned, was healthy! I remember people in the 80's saying "cant end the summer without getting a dark tan". Unfortunately, when you look at their skin 25 years later, its become leathery, and many have gotten skin cancer as well.
 

HighlanderNorth

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I think we've probably all been taught from our earliest days in history class that Napoleon Bonaparte was a really short man. Well, actually its been proven that he was 5'7" tall, which may seem a bit short by today's standards for mens' height, but back in Napoleon's day the average Frenchman was only 5' 6" tall, which means Napoleon was actually taller than average! You have to judge that sort of thing by the historical contemporary standard, not by today's standard.

As far as age goes, there's a major misconception. You always hear how people from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries lived much shorter lives than we do, for example its said that the average age of death for people 150-250 years ago was in their late 30's to early 40's. Well thats not exactly true either. There's a significant factor that throws off the real average age of death for adults. When they figure out these averages, they are including the extraordinarily high number of babies who died at 1-2 years old, as well as infant mortality, which brings the average way down. But when you look at it from a more realistic and accurate standpoint, the fact is that if you survived into adulthood your average lifespan would be into your 60's.
 
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jtr1962

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As far as age goes, there's a major misconception. You always hear how people from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries lived much shorter lives than we do, for example its said that the average age of death for people 150-250 years ago was in their late 30's to early 40's. Well thats not exactly true either. There's a significant factor that throws off the real average age of death for adults. When they figure out these averages, they are including the extraordinarily high number of babies who died at 1-2 years old, as well as infant mortality, which brings the average way down. But when you look at it from a more realistic and accurate standpoint, the fact is that if you survived into adulthood your average lifespan would be into your 60's.
I'll also add that things like war and famine tended to artificially bring down lifespans. If you subtract out the early deaths for those reasons, you'll probably end up with average lifespans in the 70s. If you do the same thing now, take away all the ways in which people's lives ended prematurely, such as accidents, you end up with an average lifespan in the high 80s. People who don't meet with misfortune are only living maybe 10 to 15 years longer than they did a few centuries ago, but a lot fewer people die prematurely, so average lifespans are way up. Arguably, those extra years are mostly due to better living conditions, not major advances in medicine. What's interesting here is average lifespan can only ever reflect the socioeconomic conditions which existed when today's old people were born. A fairly old person nowadays is indeed likely to die in their late 80s if misfortune doesn't kill them earlier. However, a baby born today will likely live well past their late 80s. In truth, we just don't know what life-extending procedures will occur during the lifetime of someone born today. I've even heard stuff like most people under 40 now may never die because medicine will advance enough in their natural lifetimes to extend their lives indefinitely.

Incidentally, I had a great-great grandmother who made it to 102 years, 8 months. Nobody in my family since then has made it past 100, although a few people came fairly close, including my maternal grandfather's sister who missed it by a few months.
 

SFG2Lman

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I just read about one that will be on there in a few years, that all the cells in your body have the same DNA, apparently a much greater percentage of people are chimeras (composed of 2 or more distinct DNA strands) this has come up a few times and everyone thought it was pretty rare, a twin that had both her and her brother's blood types (meaning some of her blood cells were actually male), and the criminal whose DNA from a cheek swab did not match the DNA from his sperm (nearly got him off the hook for a rape until further tests were done). Apparently a recent study of mothers shows that up to 70% of them get stem cells from their children in utero that continue to reproduce and function, usually repairing damaged tissue, but a lot of mothers of males will have cells with Y chromosomes especially in nerve tissue. Also, they may have discovered a link between these male cells in breast tissue that can cause breast cancer because of the hormone exposure. Its crazy to think that everything we thought we knew about genetics might be changing very soon.
 

Monocrom

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Two regarding George Washington:

1 - He didn't have wooden teeth.

2 - He never chopped down a cherry-tree.
 

ledmitter_nli

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"Go to school, study hard and get good grades and you will find a high-paying job with good benefits."

"It's a new paradigm, and everybody who doesn't buy a home, now, will be priced out forever."

"The real estate bubble is different from all of the others - it will never slow down, or pop. The gains are permanent."
 

ElectronGuru

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Good thread.

Every boom someone says its a new paradigm, dudes were saying it in the 1920s. Chiefly to explain why the rules didn't need to be followed. It's part of the [irrational exuberance] that allows them to continue. The key factor of which is how many people are young enough not to remember the last one ;)
 
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