Talk:List of common misconceptions

This article was nominated for deletion on 2006-10-18. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

I love this article

I move to vote on a consensus that this article is awesome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.167.239.71 (talk) 06:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Meteorology

The first point about cloud formation is either simply incorrect or very poorly expressed.

pre-deletion discussion

You said you moved bigfoot to a disputed facts section. This section is not at disputed facts, it's not in this article, and it's not in controversy. So I guess I'm asking where is it?
~ender 2003-09-20 07:20:MST

Should a person or group religious view point be called a misconception ? Smith03 17:09, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yes. --Wik 17:35, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC)

Whether the "world was created in seven days" by God is an unfalsifiable hypothesis and a matter of faith. -- Smerdis of Tlön 01:07, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The creationism v evolutionism argument over how the world was created is POV stuff Graham  :) 16:49, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Creationism is as good a misconception as any. This is not "POV stuff". --Wik 18:09, Sep 20, 2003 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Grahama and ask Wik why he believes it to be NPOV. --Daniel C. Boyer 17:22, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Deletion discussion

This page was listed on VfD on September 20.

Wikipedians in favour of deletion:

• Khym Chanur, Smerdis of Tlön, Tannin, Martin, Smith03, Daniel C. Boyer GUllman

Wikipedians in favour of keeping:

• sugarfish, Daran, Marshman, Graham  :), ~ender, ­Matt714

Wikipedians whose position is not obvious:

• BenRG, Wik

Deletion discourse

Deletionist: All the items in the list are POV - you can't write neutrally on this topic. Furthermore, they're not misconceptions: they're semantic disputes or disputed facts.

Inclusionist: But I can think of NPOV misconceptions, like the Mary Celeste or "play it again Sam". People will accept that they've got a misconception on being confronted with the full details.

Deletionist: Even if there are NPOV misconceptions, the article will invariably attract POV additions: it'd be a lot of work to make this thing neutral, and keep it that way.

Inclusionist: Perhaps, but I think it'd be worth the effort. This would make a fun entry point into a range of articles, and be educational to boot.

Deletionist: In the end, it just isn't encyclopedic now, and it won't ever be encyclopedic. Let's delete it and move on.

Inclusionist: I disagree: like a butterfly, this article will turn into something beautiful. Just wait and see.

Deletionist: Nearly every article in an encyclopedia has information that someone didn't know, or was incorrect about. These pieces of trivia belong in the articles about that subject, which is where encylopedia users will look for answers to their question. If they want to learn a random fact, they can click on Random Page.

Inclusionist: It's not stated, but this entry is about "common and widespread" misconceptions, not just all possible misconceptions. Students tend to always aquire the same misconceptions. "Education by debunking" is a valid technique, especially in gradeschool physics, and this entry brings it all together in one place.

Proposed move

If my rewrite of the article sticks (ha!) then I'd like to move this thing to list of misconceptions. Objections? Martin 00:33, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

No. But surrealism being an artistic movement is definitely simply a misconception, not a disputed fact. Nearly every primary source from surrealism's beginning to the present day makes this point directly, even in so many words, or indirectly, through its discussion of something completely separate from art, from its definition of surrealism, from its failure to say anything about art... This is not an honest dispute, this is not a controversy, this is a misconception plain and simple. --Daniel C. Boyer 17:24, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I disagree- I dispute it. Kurt Schwitters was a surrealist writer and visual artist. Markalexander100 02:35, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Physics

Some comments by Neo:

• Gravity is actually the weakest of the four fundamental forces, at about 1 thousand trillion trillion trillion times weaker than the strong nuclear force.
  • Isn't this statement meaningless without defining both the objects, and the distance involved. At the largest scales (for instance of the order of parsecs and above) one can largely reject electromagnetic interactions, whereas one would be stupid to reject gravitational interactions. Similaly one can reject gravitational interactions at length scales of the order of nanometers, but one needs to consider electromagnetic interactions.

• • Is this even a misconception? If people know of the existence of the four fundamental forces, which is quite a high level physics concept (ask people on the street whethere they know what the strong nuclear force is...) then they know that for fundamental particles and small length scales the order of strengths differs from that at macroscopic length scales and for larger objects.

The interactions consider the strength of all charges yester they are added to near-neutrality, for a given mass and distance. Besides, you can still see stars from thousands, and galaxies from millions, of parsecs away—can you feel their gravity?? -lysdexia 00:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Some comments by Dotchan:

• I'm fairly sure that water is colorless; it looks blue because the microparticles in the water absorbs all other colors. (Note that the blue color doesn't become visible until one has waded out to a certain depth.)

Wrong! You've aquired a widespread misconception. Water is [definitely a blue substance], and the "microparticles" which cause the color are the water molecules.--Wjbeaty 20:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

No, you're wrong. Water is hueles but not huefree. -lysdexia 00:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

What does (pure) water taste like? - Matthew238 05:30, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

like your tongue -lysdexia 00:52, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Some comments by tcsetattr:

• Is there any justification for the statement "gravity reduces exponentially"? Sounded cooler than "quadratically"? Seems like "exponential" might be a good candidate for the List of frequently misused English words or (if it's too late) at least the List of English words with disputed usage Tcsetattr 05:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Fixed. -- BenRG 03:41, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
  • To say "gravity reduces exponentially" is very wrong. If gravity reduced exponentially, it would reduce as a^(-r) (r is distance, r is a constant) instead of as r^-2. (I may be misunderstanding what your post originally meant, however). -Arkady

Some comments by fafnir: 12:19, 10 October 2006 The magnetic pole stuff is meaningless. You can take any magnet, and lable the pole 'north and south' arbitrarily. The north pole is the north magnetic pole, little magnets people carry around and call compasses have the south magnetic pole on the compass painted red and labled 'north' so people know which direction is north. The only misconception is on the author's part. Though the poles have switched in the past, throughout man's history they have remained constant enough for countless people to use them for navigation and such.

• Meaningless? Which part? I suspect that instead you just don't understand it. "North" and "south" are defined in physics and engineering, just as "positive" and "negative" electric charges are defined. The choice of course was arbitrary, but it was made long ago and is followed by the entire science community. In the same way, you can label electrons as "positive" if you really want, but you'd be sowing confusion by violating a century-old standard. Magnetism is the same: a century-old physics standard tells us what "north" pole means. Maxwell's equations are based on negative electrons, and on "N" poles which point to the Earth's northern hemisphere. According to this standard, the geographic north part of the Earth contains a "south" type of magnetic pole, and so the end of a magnet which points towards it must be a "north" pole. Any authors which say the opposite are wrong: wrong in the same way as if they had said that protons carry a negative charge. --Wjbeaty 08:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

in the section on electricty, the theory of relativity is quoted as to why electrons cannot move at the speed of light, but isnt that why we have quantum physics, because when you get down to atomic and subatomic particles, the theory of relativity no longer applies, hence the search for a uniform theory of realitivity, that works for both regular items and atomic and smaller particles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.212.26 (talk) 05:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Health

In this article, it is told that cold weather can decrease the strenght of the immune system and thus facilitate the common cold. But in the "Old wives' tale" article, the opposite is told: cold weather and decreased immunity have no correlation. At least one of them is wrong.

Deleted the following: BEGIN

Colds and 'Flu

Main article: Common cold

• Exposure to cold conditions, or the moving between cold and warm environments, is not a cause of the Common cold or Influenza. Moreover, the development of colds and 'flu are not encouraged by such exposure. Cold weather often forces humans to congregate indoors, which encourages the spreading of airborne viruses. (Long term exposure to cold conditions can, however, lead to Hypothermia, which is a much more serious problem)

• Infection with a cold virus affects thermogenesis. This makes people associate post-infection shivering with situations in which they were exposed to cold that intensifies shivering (e.g. wet hair, draft, long wait on a bus stop, etc.). This association helps propagate the myth.

• A cold virus often irritates nasal passages and encourages sneezing. Sneezing can also be caused by other conditions, notably exposure to colder air temperatures. Cold weather can thus cause sneezing, but sneezing is not necessarily an indication that a person has "caught a cold".

• If cold weather were directly linked to the spread of the common cold, then it could possibly be demonstrated by comparing the infection rates of people who live in colder climates (such as Iceland or Greenland) with people who live in warmer climates (such as countries close to the equator). Studies done in the 1960s found no significant increase in infection rates in people who live in colder climates.

• One reason why so many people link exposure to cold weather to "catching a cold" is via a logical fallacy which assumes that Correlation implies causation. Colds are certainly more prevalent during colder periods of the year, but it is wrong to assume that the two are directly linked.

• The "Correlation implies causation" fallacy can also apply to popular treatments for colds and flu symptoms, whereby a sufferer associates their improving health to certain cold remedies, when in fact their improving health would have occurred with or without these remedies. Popular remedies can also have a "Placebo effect", whereby a person who believes in a certain treatment "feels" better as a result. Some of these popular treatment are:

• Echinacea. Scientific studies into the effects of Echinacea have shown no measurable positive effect on those suffering from colds or 'flu.

• Vitamin C. Vitamin C can reduce the incidence of colds amongst physically stressed people by up to 50%. Amongst ordinary people, a 200mg daily dose had no effect whatsoever in reducing the incidence of colds.

• Zinc lozenges. A 1999 study showed that the effects of zinc lozenges for treating the common cold are inconclusive.

For further information, including external links and references, please click on the links provided.

END

The above is original research, and also wrong, or at least heavily debated. From the common cold page: "a rhinovirus cannot survive at elevated temperatures for more than a few minutes.[8] Because of this weakness, the rhinovirus infects the outer membranes of the throat and sinuses, where it is not exposed to normal human body temperature."

In the winter, the extremities are more likely to be cold. Is it winter? Touch your nose. Bingo. Also:

"It is not known conclusively whether cold weather or a humid climate can affect transmission by other means, such as by affecting the immune system, or ICAM-1 receptor concentration, or simply increasing the amount and frequency of nasal secretions and frequency of hand to face contact."

"researchers at the Common Cold Centre at the Cardiff University attempted to demonstrate that cold temperatures can lead to a greater susceptibility to viral infection. In the experiment, 29% of a group of 90 people who sat with their feet in ice-cold water for 20 minutes a day for five days developed cold symptoms during the five days, while 9% of a control group of 90 people who were not similarly exposed developed symptoms."

This page is hardly the place for stuff that's open to debate. If scientists are still asking questions about whether it is the case or not, then it is clearly not a "misconception" it is "not yet established". DewiMorgan 19:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4433496.stm

Quotations to misquotes

Shouldn't the misquotes from the "Entertainment" section be moved to the article List of famous misquotations? --153.1.150.24 10:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd be tempted to leave the Casablanca (apologies about my spelling) fact in there as it is so famous as a misconception, and add a link to the misquotations page for the others, removing the others. --Neo 16:49, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Why the sky is blue

Some believe that the sky looks blue because it reflects the ocean...

Who are those fools?! This is a list about "common misconceptions", not "misconceptions held by a tiny minority of people who probably think the moon is made of cheese as well".

I hope there aren't people who believe the sky over a desert is yellow, because it reflects the sand. Psychonaut3000 03:10, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It is quite widespread. Explanation I was given as a kid was that the earth, in general, is a blue/white sphere when seen from space; the average colour is blue. In the same way Mars' atmosphere is thought of as red. (Note: the sky over the desert can well be yellower than that over the sea, due to dust particles, which to the naïve might appear to support the ground-reflecting hypothesis). DewiMorgan 12:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Delete this indiscriminate list?

This appears to be an indiscriminate list, I strongly urge deleting the entire ugly mess. However, it seems I just missed the deletion debate by a few days... Can we get some honorable, capable editor to merge the content back into the articles where this stuff belongs, and after this article has been whittled down, delete this thing for good? linas 15:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is a good idea at this time. An AFD was closed the day before you made that comment. --70.48.174.110 00:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

There's a reference to pirates that needs five different citations. Its just not needed on the list, I mean complete accuracy is a hope but little more, But we can only go so far. As well I don't think its accurate, I have read several good (historical, non-fiction) books on pirates and privateering and was always lead to believe that well the jolly roger was different in many ways from ship to ship it still existed. Regardless, I can't stand looking at a three sentence paragraph with five needed citations. Colin 8 20:13, 22 April 2007 (UTC) "An old (and surely dying) superstition is that toads can give people warts" that its old and a superstition is indisputable, but whether its dying is opinion and little more, I am removing the bracketed info.Colin 8 20:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Evolution

I love this page :) I added a whole swathe on evolution, but now I'm thinking maybe this should be copied to the evolution page itself. These misapprehensions about evolution are, so far as I can tell, the only reason it is not universally accepted. [edit: Oops forgot to sign]DewiMorgan 22:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm going to try to pare down the list. As it is, it seems somewhat redundant and inaccurate. --Allen 03:30, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I ended up only making some small changes... after doing that I think the bigger problem is that most of the points aren't shown to be common misconceptions in the first place (in fact, I think that's a serious problem with much of this article). I'll plan to wait a while and then remove points that don't have a source to demonstrate that they're misconceptions, unless it seems to me that they obviously are. --Allen 03:39, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

How I should prove the evolutionary misconceptions are such. I could link to many forum discussions on the topic where people are being blatantly wrong on each of the points, but I think that showing the poor people in those forums to be retarded would be immoral. I don't think there have been many scientific papers on what the common evolutionary misconceptions are, so I'm not sure that kind of references I should give. I guess maybe Intelligent Design sites? But the idea of using those sites as a reference, even as a reference for wrong-thinking, turns my stomach. As it is, as someone who has been in many discussions on evolution, I find it hard to tell which of the list are not "obviously" misconceptions: I've seen them all, countless times. Also, it seems that someone added a similar section to the evolutionary basics page, so I suspect that they are pretty common. DewiMorgan

One of the items in this section is unclear: "Evolution is a "theory" in the same way as the theories of gravity, thermodynamics, etc.", stated as fact, which I believe it is. It continues: ""The word "theory" has a different meaning in a scientific context than in a casual, which may have lead to this misunderstanding." The first part is another fact, but then the sentence ends referring to "this misunderstanding", but... what exactly is the misunderstanding? It's never mentioned. Retodon8 14:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Good call - I prepended "Some believe that as Evolution is a "theory", it is merely a hypothesis, rather than a proven fact of life." to clarify. DewiMorgan 17:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Made some changes. In particular, I returned the two sections:

• Evolution does not happen within just one creature: you need the entirety of a population to observe evolution. You need some of them to breed, and some not to.

You hear this one so often it's painful: definitely a misconception/strawman, but which one to link to as a ref?

• Evolution is not progress from "lower" to "higher". In that sense, "Evolution" is a misnomer.

Same again. Not so much a question of whether it's a misconception, but rather, link to use to show that it is?

Also did some cleaning up, added a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misconceptions#Evolution and so on.DewiMorgan 18:47, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there was a real article here at one time, a fork of evolution, called Misconceptions about evolution or something similar. It was deleted I believe, but still might be retrieved and mined potentially. Some of this material is ok, but some of it needs some editing and pruning and correction, in both the evolution section and the other sections.--Filll 16:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Spaghetti Bolognese

Spaghetti Bolognese did not originate in Italy. [citation needed]

This is not supported by the current article on SB or anything else I have ever read. Perhaps it is a confusion based on the well attested fact that "Bolognese sauce" is called ragu in Bologna.1Z 16:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

"Spaghetti bolognese did not originate in Italy. The actual name in Italian is spaghetti con ragù, which means spaghetti with ragù. Spaghetti bolognese is actually the German name." FALSE. First of all, the common way of saying is "spaghetti AL ragù" not "spaghetti CON ragù". Moreover, "ragù" is a meat sauce that can be done in many ways, and "ragù alla bolognese" is one of them. You can say "Spaghetti alla bolognese" (omitting the preposition is an error) to mean "Spaghetti (al|con) ragù alla bolognese". Writing from Italy, not that far from Bologna :) Barabba 14:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Uncertainty principle

Would this article benefit from a discussion of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which is often misinterpreted to mean "everything is uncertain" is some sweeping way. 1Z 16:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Coriolis formula

I have removed the formula $-{\frac {1}{3}}({\frac {2h}{g}})^{3/2}g\Omega \cos {\lambda }$ from the section on the Coriolis force affecting bathtub draining.

• The formula is for an object falling vertically; but weather, ocean currents, missiles and draining water move horizontally.
• The equation predicts a maximum effect at the equator, λ = 0, whereas the effect on drains and weather would change sign (be zero) there.
• The text makes the assertion that cosλ is a maximum at λ=1, which is false.

Spiel496 16:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Native Americans/Aborigines couldn't see the Europeans' ships

What about adding this misconception - that 'uncivilised' peoples couldn't see the Europeans' ships because they didn't have the concept for it? I've heard this idiocy from various intelligent British people.Malick78 07:46, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a common misconception, so probably isn't appropriate for this list. It's a misconception solely of those who've uncritically swallowed certain ideas from the postmodern cultural studies movement. Furthermore, as I'm British, I feel honour-bound to point out that this misconception is not by any stretch confined to the United Kingdom.  ;-) The article on the Sokal Affair should illuminate those less familiar with this particular streak of postmodern craziness. --Plumbago 07:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Emancipation proclamation & Black hole

The change to the Emancipation Proclamation is wrong (I know) in it’s reasoning "did not immediately free all American slaves because it took winning the civil war to bring those slaves under his authority": it did not free any slaves that were not in rebellious states: those that did not rebel and had slaves were under his authority but did not have their slaves freed by the Emancipation Proclamation. - unsigned

Yes, you are right; but I was trying to fix the idea that it was supposed to free slaves not under Union control. I'll go back and make sure both our important qualifiers are clear. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

The change to the black hole is wrong (I think) in it’s reference to the sun (which is in sol), and is not in appropriate reference to the star itself.- unsigned

"The sun's radius" was wrong, but so was "Schwarzschild radius". I changed "sun's" to "star's". BenRG (talk) 22:40, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I meant to write "star"; thanks for fixing that. WAS 4.250 (talk) 23:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)