We all learn things as we navigate life and this very strange world we live in. While most of the knowledge we obtain is true and beneficial, not all things hold up. The folks over at BuzzFeed stumbled across a Reddit thread where a person (u/yepvaishz) asked about the “facts” others learned in school that ended up being false or disproven by the time they were adults. The responses are staggering.
“What was a fact taught to you in school that ended up being disproven during your lifetime?” the Reddit user asked. People weren’t shy about sharing the “things”facts” they thought were true for years only to discover that they had been wrong all along. There’s no shame in admitting you’ve been duped by a teacher and, in fact, it’s great that individuals are calling them out. We were surprised to learn that we have been wrong about so many things. Check them out below!
These ‘Facts’ Are Simply Not True Today
On Nutrition
- “The food pyramid.”
- “It was all a scam from Big Grain.”
—u/kumakami89
On Aquatic Life
- “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.”
—u/EarthExile
On Knuckles
- “Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis.”
—u/panda388
On Counting
- “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.”
—u/robaato72
On Dexterity
- “I had a teacher in fourth grade that would force left-handed kids to write with their right hand. She said that it was the normal way to write and would benefit them later in life. (Circa 1974.)”
On Taste
- “Your tongue has different areas for tasting different tastes: sweet on the tip, sour on the sides, bitter on 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.”
On Reunification
- “Germany would never reunite. The French would never allow it.”
On Smartphones
- “‘You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket!'”
On Memory
- “In a late ’90s computer class, it was, ‘We’ll never have terabyte hard drives in our lifetime, or a need for that much data.’ Heh, now you can get terabyte Micro SD cards. Wild.”
—u/abidingyawn
On Archeology
- “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 realize this contradicted the burying being slow. It’s now thought that it was buried very quickly by pyroclastic flows — instead of superheated gas traveling over 200mph.”
—u/ablativeyoyo
On Humorism
- “Blood is blue until exposed to oxygen.”
—u/mwjb86SFW
On Wealth
- “That you’re gonna end up working a minimum wage job if you don’t go to college.”
On Technology
- “Playing with computers is a waste of time and won’t lead to a career. This was said to me by a very old and bitter teacher. Twenty-five years in IT and counting.”
—u/zerbey
On Matter
- “Glass is actually a liquid, which is why old windows look droopy. I was definitely in my 20s before I learned that wasn’t true.”
—u/Try2Relax
On Colonizers
- “That Christopher Columbus was a great guy, and all the Natives rose up in celebration when he came. Yeah, I don’t teach history that way.”
On War
- “I was always taught Mississippi’s secession from the union in the Civil War was to preserve the state’s right to be independent and had nothing at all to do with slavery. That Confederate heritage was about family and not racism. Slavery is mentioned in the very first sentence of the first paragraph of the letter of secession as the primary reason. They decided if they couldn’t own humans anymore, it would crash the economy.”
On Dinos
- “So many, but I’ll start with cold-blooded dinosaurs. I was in college when opinions about them changed.”
On Organs
- “That people only use 10% of their brains. I mean, some do, but that’s not normal.”
—u/Constek
On Waves
- “That microwaves kill all the nutrients in food.”
On Meritocracy
- “Hard work will be noticed and rewarded.”
On Geography
- “My history teacher taught us Italy is in Africa.”
On Grammar
- “Ain’t isn’t a word.”
On Space
- “RIP ninth planet, [Pluto].”
—u/MHipDogg
It’s clear that the educational journey is peppered with misconceptions and inaccuracies. These shared experiences highlight the importance of continual learning and challenging information we’re given, even from trusted sources like our schools. Remember, knowledge evolves as we discover more about our world, and what was once considered a fact can be disproven with time. So, stay curious, question everything, and never stop learning because the pursuit of truth is an ongoing adventure.