Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

Facts People Were Taught In School That Were Later Disproven

Facts People Were Taught In School That Were Later Disproven
Photo by Firmbee.com

"Reddit user yepvaishz asked: 'What was a fact taught to you in school that ended up being disproven during your lifetime?'"

A malleable fact isn't a fact, it's an opinion.

So it feels like much of early education has been a big bag of opinions heeped onto generations prior.


No wonder those standardized tests were such a mess.

On the flip side of that thought, life, and science evolve, so facts do change.

Once you're out in the real world, so much has to be relearned and disproven.

Who can keep up?

It feels like we should be paid as participants in the school of life.

So let's do some relearning.

Redditor yepvaishz wanted to hear about the times we've learned some new things about some old things, so they asked:

"What was a fact taught to you in school that ended up being disproven during your lifetime?"

The amount of lies we were fed in school is too high to count.

So let's sift through memory lane and make some corrections.

RECOUNT!

My Work Animation GIF by AndiGiphy

"From an educational filmstrip: 'Saturn has four beautiful rings...' The Voyager photos of the thousands of rings had come in like a week before we watched this."

robaato72

Never say Never

" Germany would never reunite. The French would never allow it."

Powerful-Ad9392

"I'm German and I was 11 when it happened. We housed our East German part of the family for a couple of weeks when they came over to visit. My cousin was my age and had never been shopping (just wandering around a mall looking at things) and my uncle begged my dad to take him to a hardware store just to see what stuff was available."

"Just three months before the wall fell, my dad had been over to visit them, just by himself, saying it was too dangerous for us kids (and I imagine it would have been a hassle getting permission for the whole family). It was such a wonderful time. A peaceful revolution without a single gunshot."

"I'll never forget the moment when the people who had fled to the German embassy in Prague got told they were allowed to leave. That collective scream of joy and relief by 4000 people still makes me tear up every time I watch the video. https://youtu.be/Qh9EwNurawE"

best-in-two-galaxies

200 MPH

"Pompeii was buried slowly by falling ash. They pointed out that remnants of people were found, right in the middle of doing things, but didn't realise this contradicted the burying being slow. It's now thought that it was buried very quickly by pyroclastic flows - superheated gas travelling over 200mph."

ablativeyoyo

"It’s also blew my mind to find out the 'bodies' you see at the site were the hollow spaces where a body once was, filled with plaster, and the hardened ash removed. As a kid I never thought about it I just saw shapes of bodies and thought 'that's a body.'"

Zanzoken814

Bye Kraken

"When I was a kid, the Giant Squid had never been captured or photographed, and some people talked about it like it was el chupacabra. My little brother always said he'd be the first person to get footage of one. Sadly, it has since become an ordinary animal that we know exists. RIP the Kraken."

EarthExile

"I’ve seen the preserved corpses at the Smithsonian. It’s pretty fascinating to think no evidence existed until our lifetime."

UnihornWhale

Crack Away

Sonic 2 Punch GIF by Sonic The HedgehogGiphy

"Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis."

panda388

"They just wanted us to stop."

Admiral_Minell

I've cracked for years and probably will for life.

My fingers are still slender.

Diet Lies

Season 7 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy

"Food pyramid."

OutrageousEvent

"Of all the facts that have since been disproven, this might be the worst. We have a generation of adults who are getting diabetes and fatty liver disease because of what these people said."

calumin

Bad Illustrations

"Your tongue has different areas for tasting different tastes:sweet on the tip, sour on the sides, bitter in the back, etc. I feel like this was some elaborate prank played on my generation. But I remember seeing this in my elementary school biology textbook. I don’t even think it was disproven, like, they just stopped telling this lie. WTF."

"From what I have read, more like a game of telephone.Study results got slightly distorted, and then changed into a graph which didn’t have meaningful numbers, which lead to an illustration, which got re-purposed. That an illustration got put into textbooks for years and years."

danneedsahobby

Exposure

"Blood is blue until exposed to oxygen."

mwjb86SFW

"This one triggers me. I had an old lady teaching my 6th grade science class that sent me to detention for arguing with her when she said the blood in your veins was blue but red in your arteries. To be fair, I argued with her on a lot of things she was wrong about, but this is the only one that resulted in detention."

"That's the only time I can remember my dad, a chemist, actually go to the school to confront a teacher for being wrong. Incidentally, she also counted off on a test because I said sound was one of the senses. She wanted hearing. I said you sense a taste, you sense a sight, you sense a smell, and you sense a touch, so why don't you sense a sound? That argument lasted several days, but she did give me my points back."

pacer_3iii

The Science of It All

"Neurons can never regenerate. This was from my then-one-year-old anatomy and physiology textbook, and my private, Catholic school actually took - and still takes - its science seriously; we never talked about creationism or the divine influence on our natural world, not to mention our solid AP Physics and AP Chemistry scores. It turns out that that the peripheral neuron system actually can regenerate; as of now, it doesn’t seem that the central nervous system has much in the way of that capability."

Brunt-FCA-285

Jokes on Them

muppets computers GIFGiphy

"Playing with computers is a waste of time and won’t lead to a career. Said to me by a very old, and bitter teacher. 25 years in IT and counting."

zerbey

Who knew computers would take over the world?

They seemed just like big cumbersome machines at first.

Now they build and destroy lives and careers.

More from Trending/best-of-reddit

Screenshot of Lisa and Dr. Mehmet Oz
The Katie Miller Podcast

Dr. Oz Accidentally Tells The Truth About The Trump Administration's Gaslighting—And Yeah, That Tracks

Speaking on the podcast of former Trump administration official Katie Miller, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump's administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, accidentally told the truth about the administration's gaslighting of the American public.

Oz admitted that people "might not like us" but then had a Freudian slip that says all you need to know about an administration that is called out on a daily basis for openly lying and obfuscating.

Keep ReadingShow less
Karoline Leavitt
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Karoline Leavitt Gets Awkward Reminder After Claiming Anything On Truth Social Is 'Directly From President Trump'

During the Wednesday press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt directly contradicted her boss, MAGA Republican President Donald Trump.

Leavitt told the White House press corps:

Keep ReadingShow less
Keke Palmer attends the 8th Annual American Black Film Festival Honors at SLS Hotel.
Savion Washington/WireImage via Getty Images

Keke Palmer Explains Why She's 'Almost 100% Sure' She's Asexual In Candid Post—And Fans Are Here For Her

Keke Palmer had the internet talking after revealing she is “almost 100 percent sure” that she’s asexual. The Emmy-winning actress shared the revelation in a sultry Valentine’s Day Instagram post featuring a chic pixie cut, a champagne-toned halter corset top, a thin gold necklace, and stud earrings.

But while the photos turned heads, it was her caption that sparked the conversation.

Keep ReadingShow less
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups; Brad Reese's Open Letter to Todd Scott
Julia Ewan/TWP/Getty Images; Brad Reese/LinkedIn

Grandson Of Reese's Founder Shames Hershey Co. For 'Replacing' Candy's Iconic Ingredients In Powerful Open Letter

Brad Reese, the grandson of H.B. Reese, who invented Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, is now speaking up about the quality of the product and his grandfather's original promise: real peanut butter and real milk chocolate.

When H.B. Reese invented the deliciously simple candy, he pointed out that using real ingredients wasn't a marketing tactic for him; it was a promise to the consumer that they knew what they were eating, and that what they were eating was real food.

Keep ReadingShow less
Elon Musk
Harun Ozalp/Anadolu via Getty Images

X User Asks What The First Thing You'd Do If You 'Wake Up As Elon Musk'—And Everyone Had The Same Idea

Billionaire Elon Musk was widely mocked on his own platform after X user @buffys opened a veritable Pandora's box by asking what people would do if they woke up as him one day.

The question was simple:

Keep ReadingShow less