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

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. 

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. 

In a few cases, simple repetition of an outdated fact has done the trick.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. 

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. 

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.