CuriositiesOCT 9, 2023

Getting the Facts Straight: 33 Common Beliefs That Are Actually Untrue

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There is nothing more human than being confidently incorrect. We’ve all been guilty of it, giving answers that are completely wrong, or casually citing statistics, facts, and figures that have no bearing on reality.

So one netizen wanted to set the record straight and asked the internet for its favorite often repeated fact that is actually false. People shared all sorts of information that might send you reeling when you realize something you’ve firmly believed as true is a lie. So get comfortable as you scroll through and be sure to upvote your favorites and comment your thoughts below.

#1

Getting the Facts Straight: 33 Common Beliefs That Are Actually Untrue

That you can sweat out "toxins".

You liver and kidney remove toxins from your body. Your sweat glands are physically incapable of "removing toxins"

PuyallupCoug, cottonbro studio

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176points

#2

People in the Middle Ages thought the Earth was flat. The Greeks had already calculated the radius of the sphere with great precision centuries before.

bpo1989, William Navarro

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170points

Many of the “facts” on this list come from Hollywood scriptwriters who absolutely needed something to happen in a scene that wouldn’t work in real life. From CPR to deflators, a lot of emergency medicine doesn’t magically take a dying person from on the brink to breathing and talking within moments.

People also love a “gotcha!” story, hence the weird, ever-present insistence that Albert Einstein failed math, despite this being untrue. It does make for a great story, a misunderstood genius, an evil authority figure, and the idea that being “bad” at math is not a precursor to intellectual failure. Except, of course, Alber Einstein was by no means bad at math.

#3

There is no "24 hour waiting period" on a missing persons report. If someone is missing, even if its for just an hour, you can most certainly file a report.

anon, Erik Mclean

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162points

#4

that life expectancy several hundred years ago was only 35 or so.

the average age was lower due to incredibly high infant mortality rates. however, if you could survive infancy/childhood, you'd likely live well into your late 50s or 60s.

cubs_070816, Ilse Orsel

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159points

#5

CPR is used to restart hearts and is quite successful. CPR is hugely unsuccessful and isn't used to restart hearts, it's used to keep circulation going until medication to restart the heart can be administered.
A defibrillator is used to restart hearts. Nope again. It's used to stop hearts that are beating incorrectly in the hope that when they restart they'll be beating all nice and proper.

Merlin_Aucoin, Michel E

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157points

There is also a strange cottage industry around survival tips that are simply unhelpful, bizarre, or even dangerous. It seems like every single wilderness expert has their own suggestion on what to do if you see a bear, which of course also depends on the type of bear, the time of year, and, presumably, a host of other factors.

#6

Many people believe that eating carbs makes you fat. Carbs don't make you fat, overeating food does.

firepebble14, Tara Evans

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151points

#7

The structure of a wolf pack. Contrary to what most people think, there is no alpha, beta, ect. in the pack. Rather, the pack is made up of a family with the mother and father leading, followed by their cubs and later the families of their cubs. After a while the cubs break off from the pack to find their mates and will remain on their own.

Omega9001, Eva Blue

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141points

#8

St Patrick isn't Irish. He's Welsh.

HacksawJimDGN, Nheyob

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138points

In a few cases, simple repetition of an outdated fact has done the trick. Once a piece of information is thoroughly embedded in the public consciousness, it becomes very hard to dislodge, it even gains a sort of mythological power where people repeat it, without being able to identify where they first heard it.

#9

Sugar makes kids hyper. It does not

TheDanimal8888, Denny Müller

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129points

#10

It is a complete falsehood that if a penguin does not find love, it waddles off to die alone.

I was horrified when I first saw this, and since I couldn't find anything else on the internet about it, I reached out to Dr. Dees Boersma at the University of Washington and asked her about this claim.

She told me that she has 33 years of data and has observed pairings that have stayed together for as long as sixteen years. She also told me that penguins can get 'divorced' when not successful at mating, and that they will most likely will 'divorce' if not hatched. There is also a major gender skew of more males than females. If a male want a mate, he HAS to have a nest set up. Furthermore, females don't come ashore unless they are going to mate. So some females will skip breeding season if they are not in a mating mood.

For example, a female she studied had skipped pairing with her male for a year. The male looked for another mate didn't find one, and then the next year she was back with him. They do have emotions and they do vary in aggressiveness over a lifetime.

Furthermore, because there are many more males than females, a lot of males have never gotten mates. One of the penguins they've studied, "Turbo", a Magellan penguin, has not had a mate in 14 years and he keeps on trying.

So penguins do not, in fact, waddle off to die if they do not find a mate.

nurturingtrapdoor, Jay Ruzesky

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126points

#11

That you eat 8 spiders in your sleep. You actually eat them mostly in your processed food, as the FDA allows a limit on things like peanut butter and tomato soup.

Butterflipstick, Elizabeth

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126points

But some border on absurd, for example, the fact that undercover cops have to tell you. Besides the fact that this would make the entire point of being undercover useless, it’s probably a good idea to understand that the police can and will lie to people during the course of an investigation. Hence why it’s always best to lawyer up.

#12

The best way to escape a bear is to run down hill. You may get faster running down hill, guess who else does too?

anon, Zdeněk Macháček

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121points

#13

> *1. Rabbits love to eat carrots.* Eating carrots can actually make rabbits sick because of their high sugar content. Rabbits mainly should only eat hay and/or grass. > *2. George Washington died of a cold.* George Washington was diagnosed with a cold, but actually he was suffering from a severe infection called “epiglottitis.” > *3. Dogs only see in black, white and gray.* Dogs are dichromial animals, so while they recognize fewer color differences than humans, who are trichromial, they still see a variety of actual colors. > *4. The red liquid coming from a steak is blood.* The liquid dripping out of a steak is mostly myoglobin, which is a binding protein found in muscle tissue. > *5. Searing meat seals the moisture in the meat.* Searing meat may cause it to lose more moisture in comparison to an equivalent amount of cooking without searing. Generally, the value in searing meat is that it creates a brown crust with a rich flavor. > *6. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when he was five years old.* “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” was not composed by Mozart. He only composed variations on the tune, and then at the age of 25 or 26. > *7. Jesus was born on December 25.* The Bible never claims December 25 as the birth date of Jesus but may imply a date closer to September. The fixed date is attributed to Pope Julius the First because in the year 350 CE he declared the 25th of December the official date of celebration. > *8. The black belt in martial arts indicates expert level or mastery.* The black belt in martial arts indicates high competence, but it does not necessarily indicate expert level or mastery. > *9. The oxygen we breathe comes from trees.* The oceans are responsible for 70% of the oxygen that we breathe, and it mostly comes from phytoplankton. > *10. The pyramids in Egypt were built by slaves.* Egyptian pyramids were built by workers, most likely paid workers.

duckyoumate, ierc

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115points

#14

Einstein didn't fail math

Anonymous, Ferdinand Schmutzer

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112points

In some rare cases, these facts were spread as disinformation and have simply managed to survive any scrutiny. This is why lists like this are useful, as it helps reset all the incorrect facts we might each be carrying around. So if you would like to investigate some more of Bored Panda’s actually false fact lists, look no further.

#15

The food pyramid. It was lobbied into what we grew up on by the food industry, having plenty of grain. I mean, come on, grain is not more necessary than vegetables and fruit.

anon, USDA

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109points

#16

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
This originated as an ad campaign to sell breakfast cereal.

Scrappy_Larue, Ben Kolde

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103points

#17

That we only use 10% of our brain and if we could use 100% we'd all be super geniuses or something.

puppet1987, Robina Weermeijer

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101points

#18

The whole tongue map thing. You don't have parts of the tongue that only react to a specific taste.

premature_eulogy, Alex Guillaume

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99points

#19

While dining, the ancient Romans did not ritualistically eat so much that they had to interrupt eating to go vomit. An entranceway to a stadium of that time was called a *vomitorium* and had nothing to do with dining. I have seen this "fact" in at least two children's history books and I have no idea how or why some historian came up with this weird claim.

Speaking of eating, those fat "Buddha" statues and depictions you see in some Asian restaurants are not the historical Buddha (who founded Buddhism and was not obese). They are *Budai*, a 10th-century Chinese folk hero, who eventually became a buddha himself.

tenzing_happy, Norbert Nagel

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99points

#20

Eating carrots doesnt actually improve your night vision. This was a disinformation campaign carried out by the British in WWII to keep the Germans from discovering that they invented radar. Pretty funny/obvious once you stop and think about it.

UpInTheTreehouse, Louis Hansel

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88points

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