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For some reason, it is believed that all sorts of dubious theories usually attract people who lack the knowledge or education to distinguish truth from fakes. However, as it turns out, this is not always true. Want some proof? Voila!
In this thread on AskReddit, the user u/dexicoma asked netizens a couple of days ago: "What's the stupidest thing the most intelligent person in your life believes?" The question has already collected over 9.3K upvotes with nearly 6K various comments. And we, Bored Panda, are presenting to you a selection of the most interesting and intriguing stories.
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She believes basketball makes you taller and has no idea about survivor bias even when it's explained to her.
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Of course, this list will include Neil Armstrong and the flat Earth, omnipotent aliens and planetary government, and many other conspiracy theories that have been popular lately. However, there may also be completely stupid everyday prejudices that cannot be explained from a logical point of view.
For example, why you can't wear a hoodie and shorts at home. To be honest, I still don't understand the logic behind this statement (except that it implies that a hoodie is clothing for the cold season, and shorts are for the warm season). But if you're at home - well, if anyone also shares this point of view, please explain it in the comments.
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Another classic popular opinion of many people is why you can't have Wi-Fi at home. What can I say - my mom is a former university professor and she still doesn't have a router at home, because she's afraid of "radiation." She lives in an apartment building, so recently, I just turned on Wi-Fi on her smartphone, showing how many access points there are around her apartment.
So if Wi-Fi really was that incredibly dangerous, then over the years of living in this apartment, it would definitely affect her health badly. Yes, she nodded her head, agreed that an extra router wouldn't affect anything... but she still refused to install one in her home...
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Listening to them rant about how masculine men only pee while standing was interesting.
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Well, and the dinosaurs, of course. No, it’s understandable that it is simply difficult for the human mind to fathom a time period of tens of millions of years - and if you haven’t seen paleontologists finding dinosaur bones, this doesn’t mean that they never existed. Or that this is a special conspiracy of scientists to get funding for themselves.
After all, numerous legends about dragons in literally different parts of the world, which were not connected in any way in ancient times, didn’t actually arise out of nowhere. Because crocodiles and alligators, which can partly become prototypes of dragons, didn’t live everywhere.
Here, by the way, there is room for another popular theory - cryptozoology, that dinosaurs didn’t die out and live among us - but this is not what we’re talking about now...
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For example, she told me not to let our child walk down a street that was bordered by a wrought iron fence. Why? Because he might get impaled on the spear like points on top of the fence.
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"In fact, a good education or having a well-paid job is by no means a guarantee that a person will not be susceptible to various strange theories," says Valery Bolgan, a historian and editor-in-chief of the Intent news agency from Ukraine, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment.
"In the end, one outstanding mathematician of the end of the last century once became so carried away by history that he came up with a whole system of the so-called 'New Chronology' - and absolutely anti-scientific."
"That is, a person can be a great expert in their own field, but have mediocre knowledge in other fields. So being under the influence of the Internet, social networks, they can gain confidence, bordering on faith, in something completely weird and incomprehensible."
"Although, on the other hand, science sometimes changes its vector of perception. For example, Einstein's theory of relativity was once considered by many really big scientists to be nothing more than a stupid fiction... However, it’s unlikely that any of the 'theories' given here will become generally accepted over time," Valery sums up.
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He’s so nice I’ve never bugged him about it.
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She tells me wind turbines are powered externally just to keep turning, because they don't generate any power themselves.
So, let's now just read this selection of human beliefs and misconceptions again. Without laughter, just with understanding. After all, if a decent human being believes in something strange and doesn’t try to impose their viewpoint on others, then why not? By the way, if you also have similar examples and stories about such people, please feel free to share them in the comments here.
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So...there's that.
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ETA my coworker just reminded me about the flat earth map. He literally had a fancy classroom-type giant wall map of flat earth over his desk, if I can find the pictures we took when he was on leave, I’ll share them.