Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Here are 60 pieces of false knowledge many people misquote as absolute facts.
- Shaving causes hair to grow back thicker. – Shaving does not cause hair to grow back thicker. This false knowledge carried by many people is due to the fact that hair wears down and appears thinner over time. Thus, new hair looks thinner than old hair and feels coarser due to unworn edges.
- We only use 10% of our brain. – We may only be using 10% of our total brain at any one given time, but this 10% is nearly 100% of the brain capacity designed to calculate the data sets we are currently working on. For example, the creative side of the brain isn’t going to help you remember a statistics formula. It wasn’t designed to do so and it will remain unused during this process.
- Rice is pure and healthy. – Actually, it’s often contaminated with small traces of arsenic.
- Milk is absolutely essential to your health. – It’s just one of numerous sources for calcium and Vitamin D.
- People should eat mostly carbohydrates. – After all, that’s what the food pyramid says, right? False! Look around at the average American’s midsection. An excessive intake of carbohydrates is fattening. Wholegrain foods containing fiber should be the primary source.
- Tar and nicotine in cigarettes cause cancer. – Nope, excessive smoke in your lungs causes cancer. In fact, the Radon and Polonium in the smoke is enough to account for most cases of cigarette related lung cancer.
- Being overworked can cause a nervous breakdown. – Actually, nervous breakdowns do not even appear as an official mental health disorder in DSM-IV.
- Depression is purely biochemical. – Depression is more closely related to a specific cognitive state of mind.
- Male masturbation is unhealthy. – I’m sure most teenage guys will love this. Research has shown that masturbating early and often may reduce Prostate Cancer later in life.
- Females are biologically inferior in math and spatial skills. – Statistically, males and females have very similar grade averages in math courses from grade school through doctorate level classes. Male enrollment, however, drastically out-numbers female enrollment.
- Based on global warming Earth will be hotter in 2000 years. – Nothing is certain. In this kind of complex nonlinear system, we could have an ice age.
- Corn based fuel (biodiesel) is better than gasoline. – It’s more expensive, increases the cost of food and still pollutes the environment.
- Religious faith alone heals. – This is only true on a physiological basis to a minuscule degree. Religious faith cannot replace medical intervention.
- Herbal medicine is healthier than modern medicine. – In numerous cases herbal medicine has been found to have either zero value or undesirable side effects.
- Chills don’t make you ill. – Wrong! Getting a chill in your body shocks your immune system, which prevents it from effectively keeping viruses at bay.
- Highly social people are psychologically healthier. – Not healthier, but usually a bit happier.
- Nutritional supplements make you live longer. – Quite often the opposite is true. Many people misuse supplements and end up doing more harm than good to their bodies.
- Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death. – Hair and fingernails do not grow at all after a person dies. This illusion is based on the fact that skin dries up and shrivels away from the foundation of hair roots and nails, making the hair and nails look longer than before death.
- String Theory – There has been zero proof that String Theory relates to the physical universe.
- The Big Bang was an explosion. – It was an expansion of space, not an explosion. [Read more…]