Kate Hackett
There are certain old adages that people swear up down and backward by even though they are not, were not, and have been proven to be not true.
So what’s an intelligent person to do when people around you think the earth is still flat? u/Jimbo_Jigs did us all a solid by starting a Reddit thread about all the dumb hoaxes that have been proven untrue but are still believed. Let’s make sure we don’t believe any of these, mkay?
1. Popped knuckles
That cracking your knuckles gives you arthritis.
Wrong! There was, in fact, a doctor who popped his knuckles in just one hand and did not develop arthritis.
2. Grays
If you pull out a grey hair three more grow in its place, my sister still believes this one.
3. Braiiiins
We only use 10% or our brain.
4. Any baby animal
Touching a baby bird will make its parents reject it.
5. Spiders
That you swallow 8 spiders a year in your sleep.
6. Shaving
Shaving making hair grow in thicker.
7. Dogs
That dogs’ mouths are cleaner than humans!
8. Lies!
It’s illegal to keep the light on in the car while driving.
9. Your candy is safe
People putting needles or poison in Halloween candy.
10. Blood
Blood in your veins is blue and red in your arteries. Literally every elementary school teacher I had kept this lie going.
11. Detoxing
Detox. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. What do you think your liver and kidneys are doing all day? If they weren’t working you would be on a form of detox called dialysis.
12. Brains
That people are “right” or “left” brain thinkers and that it has any bearing on her personality and level of logic or creativity.
13. Wolves
Wolf hierarchy with alpha on top and omega at the bottom
The author of the original paper has been on a thirty-year crusade to make people forget he ever wrote it. The following year he published a correction. Essentially, he’d been following a single pack of recently released (into Yellowstone) wolves and observed their behavior. When he redid the study, he followed multiple packs, both new and legacy, and realized that the pack structure basically followed the family structure.
TL;DR: Original author redid the study and realized there were no “alphas”, just parents.
14. Crypto
Majority of the suckers often either continue to hold their investments; that was worth less than dirt, or go on to invest in yet another scam.
15. MSG
That MSG is bad for you.
I meet people regularly that think it’s a super insta-cancer ingredient that will cause you to die or something based on 80s/90s false scares. Then I tell them “you do know it naturally occurs on tomatoes, yes?”
* Unless you have migraines. Woof, does MSG do a number!
16. This persistent, stupid BS
That vaccines cause autism.
