83 Common Misconceptions That We Should Forget

Markymark142 said:
"If you swallow your gum, it will stay in your stomach for years."

Commenter replied:
"IF this were true I'd fave a wad of gum the size of a basket ball in me. My dad always taught us that we should swallow gum because spitting it out was littering. I still swallow gum."

beccaonice replied:
"If only there was an alternative to swallowing or littering, like a container of some kind where you could place the gum when you finish with it."

"Touching a baby bird is not going to cause it's mother to abandon it.

An old wives tale designed to stopped kids messing with young chicks has now caused a generation of people to pass on this old belief without ever being corrected.

Yes, if you see a baby bird on the ground chances are it's mother kicked it out to teach it to fly or something, but if you need to cut the grass / mow the lawn you can lift it and put it back in it's nest, it's mother isn't going to abandon it just because you touched it. That's like thinking a human mother would abandon a baby because a cat rubbed it's butt on it."

adognamedgoose said:
"You don’t have OCD because you like things organized or clean. OCD is horrible and debilitating and it’s a lot less fun than feeling 'satisfied' when things are organized."

Azelais replied:
"Additionally:

You don't have bipolar disorder because you occasionally are moody.

You don't have depression because sometimes you're a little sad.

You don't have anxiety because you get stressed during normal, stressful periods."

"That going in an ambulance to the ER will get you seen faster. It won't. Unless you are actively dying, you do not suddenly get put on a higher priority list.

Stop calling 911 for bullsh*t. Thanks.

Signed,

An EMT."

hy-yh said:
"That anything labeled 'vegan' or 'organic' is automatically healthy and you can eat as much as you want without worrying about the calories. Even those energy bars made by a brand rhyming with MIND still have a lot of added sugar and you'd probably be better off eating fruit or something less processed."

Daniel_A_Johnson replied:
"Oreos and Fritos are both vegan."

CaptainKangaroo_Pimp said:
"You can file a missing persons report as soon as the person goes missing. No need to wait 24 hrs or whatever."

Xenon32 replied:
"'As soon as a person goes missing' should be noted as 'as soon as you think something might be wrong.'"

emartinoo replied:
"It's actually a law (or is proposed, I can't remember) in my state that parents must report their child missing within 24 hours or they are charged with a felony."

Commenter replied:
"Casey Anthony said she was just seeing if her kid turned up again somehow, like a lost cat."

"Type one diabetics can’t eat sugar.

Yes we can. We can eat whatever we want, as long as we take insulin for it.

We can eat whatever we want, when our BG is appropriate. For example, I’m not gonna eat 12 bags of skittles when I’m at 300.

Insulin is something we use to manage it, not a complete workaround. No matter what we try, BG levels will never stay perfect. Try to have a little empathy for us, it’s a constant chore we have to think about all the time."

FavorableFox said:
"Autism is a genetic disorder. Genetic Disorders are created within us before we are born, while our DNA is still being made up. Vaccines don't change our genetics. Therefore...

Vaccines. Don't. Cause. Autism."

PunchBeard replied:
"Mine's about Autism too. But from a much different angle:

Autism doesn't grant super powers.

Ever since 'Rainman' everyone assumes that autistic people all have some sort of super intelligence or hyper concentration. Sure, there's autistic people who do have extraordinary abilities but they are extremely rare."

talonofdrangor replied:
"My cousin is autistic, but his only superpower is keeping up with like 20 ongoing anime series at once. But then again, I used to do that too and I'm not autistic (as far as I know)."

Commenter said:
"Eating fat doesn't make you fat, what really does it is eating more calories than what you use."

TheMoleBear replied:
"The American war on fat started in the 80s. It was a huge mistake."

Commenter replied:
"60s, actually. It was between sugar and fats and Big Sugar lobbied their way to make sure it was fat to take the blame."

Commenter said:
"Fresh fruits and vegetables are necessary to eat healthy.

Frozen can even be superior and canned produce saved countless lives over the years. Fresh produce is also responsible for the largest share of produce food waste because it has higher appearance standards and shorter shelf lifes."

boxpear said:
"'Curing cancer' isn’t going to be a single eureka moment and BAM! cancer is gone forever. There are tons of different types of cancers, with different genetics and epigenetics playing into how they develop.

There seem to be people out there who think Big Pharma™️ is sitting on some magical cure that they’re holding out on because they want to sell treatments. To even suggest that there’s one catch-all cure is soooo reductive of what “cancer” is—it’s not really one disease, it’s tons of different ailments with different symptoms that happen to share some commonalities in the way the cells divide and spread."

zebrucie replied:
"F*cking thank you... The amount of people I've just wanted to slap in the back of the head for saying 'I know they have a cure!' gives me nightmares."

"Sikhs are Muslims.

We are a completely different religion. Just because you saw Bin Laden with a turban does not mean we are the same. There are many differences e.g. The shape/style of our turban, we don't cut our hair, we wear a steel bracelet etc."

"That dog breeds are natural and healthy. They are not. They are man made and most of them have serious genetic problems or deformities."

Prof_Alchem said:
"Flushable wipes aren't flushable. Toilet paper breaks down easy in water, but you ever seen a baby wipe rip up? Those things just end up clogging pipes and ruining the sewers. Hell, New York (Sorry, LONDON. My bad.) found a huge mass of those things (along with a bunch of other junk) the size of a bus in the sewers thanks to those wipes."

cosmogoinggoinggone replied:
"IIRC, makers of those wipes are allowed to call them 'flushable' if they can get around the u-bend and out of the pipes of your home. Once they’re in the sewer, what happens to them isn’t considered a problem as far as the labelling is concerned. Which leads to a lot of people thinking they’re fine to flush - or at least those that care about those sorts of things in the first place."

Rasheedgames said:
"Giving a cat milk is a very bad idea. Most cats are lactose intolerant and giving them milk will cause stomach problems."

leargonaut replied:
"We could always force evolution by only giving them milk."

shrifbot said:
"That something needs to be direly wrong in your life before you should see a therapist. You can gain so much from therapy, even if you're not critically distressed."

Commenter replied:
"The best description of therapy anyone ever gave me was 'it's like a personal trainer but for your brain.' That really helped me look at it differently."

RavenNif said:
"You weren't the fastest spermatozoid.

Actually the first ones to arrive sacrifice themselves to destroy the protective barrier surrounding the ovule."

Arstya replied:
"Ah, I'm the opportunistic f*cker. I like that more."

praziquantel said:
"That an apple has as much caffeine as a cup of coffee. I'm just tired of hearing it because I have one friend who says it every time she sees someone eating an apple. and it is not true."

cogitoergoiratus replied:
"Sounds like she read a report about apples being a better source of energy in the morning than coffee, and misinterpreted it to mean that apples are full of caffeine."

PM_ME_WITH_ANYTHING said:
"You'd be happy with your job if you just found something you love doing. F*ck that. The second something I love doing turns into a job I would despise doing it ever again."

EstherHarshom replied:
"Speaking as someone who does something they love as a job, I've found that to be half-right. You still get bad days, and those bad days are as bad as they are at any other job, but the ease of the good days (especially if you're self-employed, so you don't have a boss to piss you off) more than makes up for it."

"I haven't met too many people who believe this (I do live in New England though) but nobody was burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials. 19 people were hung, and one man was pressed to death, but nobody was burned."