People have very strong beliefs about all kinds of things in life: religion, politics, the environment, etc.
And sometimes their beliefs are so strong and unwavering that people don’t believe facts that are widely accepted by the general public. I guess that this can be both good and bad, depending on how you look at it.
What widely accepted fact do you KNOW is wrong?
AskReddit users shared their thoughts about this.
1. Thoughts on this?
“If you touch a baby bird the parents will abandon/kill it.
Most birds dont do that. If you help a baby bird back into its nest as long as you try not to touch the nest a lot then everything should be fine.
If its an adult bird you rescued then not touching it for a day does help with it getting your scent off but not 100% needed.
I know this because my mom and I rescue wild animals when they are hurt or still babies and release them when we are able to.”
2. About the same.
“Your head does not lose proportionately more heat than the rest of your body.
It’s about the same.”
3. Brain talk.
““Left and right brained” people who are either more artistic or more numbers base.
Just as inaccurate as the “parts of your tongue that taste different things” yet people still say it.”
4. BS.
“‘NASA spent $$$$ inventing a pen that worked in space and the Russians used pencils.’
Total b*llocks.
The Fisher Pen Company was independent and developed its ‘space pen’ with zero investment from NASA.
American astronauts began using mechanical pencils in space. Tiny fragments of graphite, and graphite dust floating around the spacecraft was not ideal because graphite is conductive. It’s also combustible, so everyone was keen to find an alternative.
Fisher patented its first ‘zero gravity’ pen in 1965, and in 1967 NASA began using it. By 1969 Russia were also buying them for their space missions.
Reportedly both NASA and The Soviet Space Company received the same discount for their bulk purchases.”
5. Short man?
“Napoleon wasn’t small.
He was just the victim of good propaganda by the eventual winners.”
6. The fishbowl.
“Goldfish don’t have a memory span of 5 seconds.
They actually remember things for months, recognize their owners, and are
able to distinguish them from other people.”
7. No waiting.
“That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing in the USA.
There is no law about waiting, you don’t have to. Push to make the police cooperate and list the person missing immediately when you suspect something isn’t right.
Don’t lose precious time; it’s extremely important if the person truly is missing.”
8. Medieval life.
“That medieval/ancient people only lived to be ~32 years old, and at that age, they were considered ancient.
That estimate is an average, which means it accounts for high infant/child mortality. Lots of ancient people lived to their 80s and older.
If you made it to 30, chances are good you’re making it another 30+ years.”
9. Not true!
“That you swallow eight spiders a year in your sleep.
The origins of that myth is so weird. It made its way around message boards in the 90s and possibly earlier. Then at some point, the Snopes Usenet board (pre-website) claimed that the myth was invented by a tech journalist who wanted to illustrate how lies spread on the internet.
Except that Snopes lied, the journalist never existed. So now there’s a second layer to the myth that being the myth of who invented it and why.”
10. Hmmmm…
“”If you have a cold, you should get lots of Vitamin C.”
This is completely down to one scientist called Linus Pauling who had a theory that massive doses of Vitamin C would cure colds, subsequent studies have shown he was wrong and any benefits are minimal at best.
Yet I still get everyone telling me to drink orange juice whenever I get a sniffle.”
11. About the Earth…
“People didn’t think the Earth was flat 500 years ago. It was theorized to be round in the 5th century BC.
The Americas were just not known yet (except to Indigenous Americans) and it was believed that there was a vast ocean between Europe and Asia.
People believed Colombus’ voyage would fail because he would exhaust his food and supplies before crossing it.”
12. All very different.
“Tourette Syndrome isn’t always exclusively swearing uncontrollably.
It represents a wide range of ticks, both verbal, nob-verbal and physical.
Every case is different.”
13. From an astronomer.
“Astronomer here!
People always say Jupiter protects us from getting hit by asteroids because its larger gravitational pull attracts them (I believe it was on a certain popular astronomy show).
In fact, this does not appear to be the case. See, while Jupiter does indeed interact with more things, it is both good and bad- some things hit Jupiter or get flung away, some things get flung directly at Earth that otherwise wouldn’t.
Most famously, in 1770 Lexell’s comet passed closer to Earth than any other comet ever observed, missing us by just 6 Earth-moon widths. Turns out Jupiter flung it straight at us right before that.
So yeah we almost died thanks to Jupiter, and good and bad comes from having it as a neighbor.”
Now we want to hear from you.
In the comments, tell us what widely accepted facts YOU think are not true.
Please and thank you!
