30 “Now-False Facts” That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time

When I was in elementary school, teachers told me that Columbus discovered America. When I was in high school - that there are nine planets in the Solar system, including Pluto. After algebra lessons in high school, I knew for sure that Fermat's Last Theorem had no proof...

Do you know what those all have in common? Yes, that's right - some time passed, literally several years, and everything that the teacher said turned out to be untrue. More precisely, not even a lie - just science convincingly refuted everything that was considered an indisputable truth earlier. And I'm not alone here - in this thread in the AskReddit community, many netizens share similar stories from their own school years.

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30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Hard work will be noticed and rewarded.

RedSpartan3227 , energepic.com Report

Final score:

237points

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StrangeOne 1 year ago (edited)

Yeah, right. Even in school your hardest efforts could be mocked and ridiculed by teachers, or they put more pressure on you to try harder.

66points

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30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time “You’ll never get a job looking out the window!”

I’m an airline pilot.

PferdBerfl Report

Final score:

233points

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and_a_touch_of_the_’tism 1 year ago

😂

57points

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30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time That Christopher Columbus was a great guy and all the natives rose up in celebration when he came.

Yea, I don't teach history that way.

Soundwave-1976 , Wellcome Library, London Report

Final score:

229points

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Cosmologist wannabe 1 year ago

Bro brought disease, slavery, poverty, death, war, pain, suffering, he is such a great guy! /s

105points

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And after all, I also listed examples from the exact sciences, astronomy and mathematics. And relatively exact - like geography. What can we say about history, which, as you know, is written by the winners? There is no doubt that if, for example, Napoleon Bonaparte had won a victory at Waterloo, not only would world history have changed its direction, but, much more significantly, its textbooks would have changed as well. In general, the process of education has always been quite dynamic, and the knowledge that was given at school to one generation sometimes becomes completely outdated when their children go to school.

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Plate tectonics. When I was in the 1st grade I saw a map of the world and I told my teacher that it looks like all the continents used to fit together, but they moved apart.

My teacher laughed at me and loudly proclaimed I was an idiot with a wild imagination.

School kids laughed.

Jokes on them.

LovelyFireCracker , Jon Hanson Report

Final score:

229points

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Ace 1 year ago

The theory only really gained acceptance from the 1960s onwards, so you're showing your age.

66points

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30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time "You won't always have a calculator in your pocket!"

Plus-Statistician80 , Karolina Grabowska Report

Final score:

228points

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LizzieBoredom 1 year ago

"You won't always have a pocket in your pants".

157points

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30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time That standardized tests help kids learn better. No, no they did not.

Coveinant , RM Images Report

Final score:

196points

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Cosmologist wannabe 1 year ago (edited)

They make kids hate school better. School should be based on developing knowledge, not funneling knowledge into our brains so that we can put it on paper for something I don’t give an f about. Our school system has to change. We need development as our key goal in education. As a kid living in a US state that is placed 48h in education, we have to fücking change. Rant over

108points

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But in the last few decades, the process has been moving so rapidly that no one, including the education system, can keep up with it. School teachers who received university education sometimes twenty years ago may also lag behind trends, or simply be out of touch with the latest changes and discoveries in science. And if we talk, for example, about the '90s, when the internet was not yet as comprehensive as it is today? Okay, Sir Andrew Wiles and his colleagues proved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1994, but when could the average math teacher somewhere in the outback know about it? If you missed the corresponding news release on TV or an article in the newspaper - that's it, the most important discovery for world mathematics was late for students for years and years...

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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 , ulricaloeb Report

Final score:

188points

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Isabelle Lamarque 1 year ago

Not only that but now you can get money by people watching you play with computers 🤔😅

69points

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30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time I had a teacher in 4^th 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)

TrailerParkPrepper , JESHOOTS.com Report

Final score:

169points

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Sky Render 1 year ago

Glad that c**p was gone by the mid-80s and early 90s. Sinistrals unite!

103points

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30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Late 90’s computer class, “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.

abidingyawn , Phillip Stewart Report

Final score:

151points

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FakeOptimist 1 year ago

Reminds me of the paperless office they envisioned in the 90s.

50points

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"That's exactly the problem with printed textbooks in today's world," says Olga Kopylova, Ph.D., associate professor of economics at Odessa National Maritime University, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment here. "For example, if you are holding a paper school or university textbook released in 2023, this most likely means that it was written several years ago. The writing process itself takes a lot of time, and then coordination, approval, the process of submitting to printing, distribution - some scientific books today have time to become obsolete, even before being printed. And this is not a drawback, it's just the reality of our time."

"As for searching for information online, on your own or under the guidance of any mentor, another problem arises here. The colossal amount of available information makes it difficult, firstly, to select reliable sources, and secondly, to analyze it. Artificial intelligence was designed to help a person understand all this - but today it often even gets in the way. At least in the scientific world, there are now numerous cases when unscrupulous researchers abuse the capabilities of AI to create a large number of fake articles. Someday, of course, this will stabilize, but so far the educational process lives in an era of great change," Olga sums up.

#10

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time I was always taught Mississippi's secession from the union in the civil war was to preserve state's right to be independent and 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.](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp) They decided if they couldn't own humans anymore it would crash the economy.

pontiacfirebird92 , Josh Hild Report

Final score:

145points

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solace in rage 1 year ago

I'm from Alabama, and was taught a lot in the 80's about how sorry and unforgivable the institution of slavery was. Perhaps it was at a crux, when the views went from defending the confederacy to a full condemnation, or just teachers willing to do their due diligence, but were were also taught of how the Europeans set up the colonies to run on slavery in the first place. We were taught that fellow Africans rounded up the slaves, their own kith and kin, and sold them to the Europeans for profit and arms, taught how some tribes threatened war and tried to continue the slave trade after the English, Spanish Portuguese and others stopped buying. We were taught how Anthony Johnson, a black Angolan and former slave, created the breed of lifelong chattel slavery in the United States by going to court to retain a slave named John Cassor. In short, we were taught a lot of raw and ugly truth, not just about our state, but the nation as a whole, the cause and effect. The truth, on all sides.

17points

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#11

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time That people only use 10% of their brains. I mean some do, but that’s not normal

Constek , DS stories Report

Final score:

143points

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and_a_touch_of_the_’tism 1 year ago

Where do I get a candle like that?? 🤩

52points

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#12

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Are you intentionally trying to get my generation riled up about Pluto again? Lol

nkiehl , RDNE Stock project Report

Final score:

142points

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Sky Render 1 year ago (edited)

Pluto took a demotion so the other dwarf planets could get a promotion! I like that future generations will now know about Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, Sedna, Eris, Gonggong, Quaoar, Orcus and Salacia.

58points

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Damn it, but how upset I was for Pluto when in 2006 it was denied the right to be a full-fledged planet by those heartless astronomers! Ever since my school years, I felt for it, so small, cute, distant and lonely, some kind of tender sympathy - and then such a disappointment! Although, thanks to the internet, I found out about it almost instantly... I'm sure each of us has our own similar story under the belt. So now please feel free to scroll this selection of ours to its very end, and share your tales about some outdated pieces of school knowledge in the comments below this post.

#13

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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 , Andrew Kuchling Report

Final score:

139points

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Luke Branwen 1 year ago

There are several animals who started off as cryptids, like okapi or coleacanth. Makes me wonder if there'll ever be a day where a yetti or a lake monster (Nessie) will be regarded as a totally normal animal.

64points

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#14

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time The USA is the only free country

OGwalkingman , Pixabay Report

Final score:

136points

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Rob 1 year ago

Yep, free to be gunned down in, free to die because you can't afford healthcare...

191points

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#15

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis.

panda388 , Eren Li Report

Final score:

133points

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JL 1 year ago

Good thing it doesn't. Pretty much all my joints make that noise. Knuckles, neck, knees, ankles, wrists, elbows...

64points

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#16

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time That Columbus was the first European to step foot in the new world. Once found an old textbook that stated this. This was prior to the discovery of the Viking settlement in Nfld.

taskergeng Report

Final score:

124points

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Cosmologist wannabe 1 year ago

Les’ go Leif! Oh wait, nvm. Let’s go Native Americans!

51points

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#17

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time So many things. The lifetime of facts is shorter than you'd think. Among them:

* You use 10% of your brain (was in a textbook)
* Model of the atom
* What composes a healthy diet
* Various histories from how dinosaurs looked to what life was like in the Middle Ages
* Causes of ulcers, poor vision, acne..

frank-sarno , MART PRODUCTION Report

Final score:

120points

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arthbach 1 year ago

The model of an atom.... There re different models of the atom, each geared to different levels of education/understanding. As a student progresses they are taught, "What you learned in previous years is just an approximation. THIS is closer to reality." And a different model is presented.

47points

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#18

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time That you’re gonna end up working a minimum wage job if you don’t go to college.

Johnny_Menace , Sora Shimazaki Report

Final score:

114points

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LizzieBoredom 1 year ago

Or that shopping carts would get so tiny.

82points

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#19

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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 , Qfl247 Report

Final score:

106points

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Hokuloa 1 year ago

I’m not what you’d call “young,” but I think I recall always knowing this. Granted, I did grow up around volcanologists. Anyone else remember this “slow” belief?

40points

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#20

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time My f*****g history teacher taught us how great of a president Woodrow Wilson was.

I later learned he was a literal white supremacist who admired the KKK and an overall giant racist even for his time.

T3CT0N1C_Reid , Katerina Holmes Report

Final score:

103points

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Luke Branwen 1 year ago

Maybe it says something about the teacher's belief system. I mean... there are people who say that the Orange Guy was a great president even though he's one of the "very fine people".

80points

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#21

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time The American Civil War wasn't about slavery.

DanTheTerrible , Karolina Grabowska Report

Final score:

96points

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LokisLilButterknife 1 year ago

Sadly, Governor DeSantis in Florida is trying to teach this Florida schools.

18points

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#22

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Blood is blue until exposed to oxygen

mwjb86SFW , frankieleon Report

Final score:

93points

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Sky Render 1 year ago (edited)

If your blood turns blue it's usually a bad sign. The arteries and veins that appear blue are just because they're moving deoxygenated blood back to the heart. And that blood in those veins is actually still red!

32points

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#23

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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 , Pavel Shakotko Report

Final score:

82points

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Andy Frobig 1 year ago

But only four are beautiful. It's like "she gave me the seven best years of my life." "You've been married 20 years." "I said what I said"

62points

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#24

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time that microwaves kill all the nutrients in food.

Amazing-Treat-4388 , cottonbro studio Report

Final score:

82points

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Sky Render 1 year ago

Only in the same sense that boiling water gets rid of nutrients.

34points

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#25

If you throw ANYTHING at ANY speed in ANY direction it will go directly in some kids eye. ALWAYS.... Always .. edit: no just SOMETIMES ... always... I'm talking about you can't even casually toss your fork in the sink without it defying physics and going in the eye of someone who isn't even in the room

ShlorpianRooster Report

Final score:

82points

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Joshua Rodrigues 1 year ago

Some mom's... NOT ALL... just some you know

19points

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#26

Bohrs Atomic Model

Taste buds

We only have 5 senses

Brain cells, once lost, are gone.

Dogs and cats see in black and white.

Wolf packs have alphas. Turns out wolves are a lot like humans and the 'alphas' are simply the sire and b***h of the wolf pack (their parents) and they follow them and respect them because they're the ones who taught them how to hunt and survive.

Ok-Bus1716 Report

Final score:

73points

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Sleepy children love Moon 1 year ago

wait the brain cells thing isn't true? when did the correct fact come out?

25points

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#27

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time When my mom graduated high school in 1944, the nuns were teaching that the atom could not be split. I think the Manhattan Project was already extant at the time. Correct me if I'm wrong, I did see Oppenheimer twice.

smipypr , Ville MJ Hyvönen Report

Final score:

68points

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Sky Render 1 year ago

The Manhattan Project was underway at that time, but it was VERY classified!

40points

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#28

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time So many but I’ll start with cold blooded dinosaurs. I was in college when opinions about them changed.

LifeHappenzEvryMomnt , Mike Bird Report

Final score:

66points

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Joshua Rodrigues 1 year ago

Bird with cold blood... BHWEHHEHEHAHA-

18points

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#29

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Germany would never reunite. The French would never allow it.

Powerful-Ad9392 , Ingo Joseph Report

Final score:

61points

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Bookworm 1 year ago

Why the French, specifically? I think the Soviets were pretty invested in maintaining separation, too

36points

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#30

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time Glass is actually a liquid, which is why old windows look droopy.

I was definitely in my 20's before I learned that wasn't true.

Try2Relax , Pixabay Report

Final score:

58points

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Snorky The Pig 1 year ago

Well, if you make it hot enough...

22points

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#31

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time 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 , Google DeepMind Report

Final score:

16points

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#32

There are no planets outside our solar system.

JWRamzic1 Report

Final score:

16points

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Cosmologist wannabe 1 year ago

Right. There are exosolar planets. Not solar planets.

3points

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#33

The likely persistence of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. Turns out: nah.

GlitchyMcGlitchFace Report

Final score:

16points

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Ace 1 year ago

Well they're still trying...

11points

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#34

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time There are only a few dozen viruses and a few hundred bacteria types.
Turns out that there are millions of viruses and trillions of bacteria.

Kasoni , Polina Tankilevitch Report

Final score:

15points

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Marek Yanchurak 1 year ago

There are literally more than a trillion bacteria that call each one of our bodies home. They out number our own cells.

1point

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#35

I went to a fundamentalist christian school, most of the "facts" I was taught were disproven long before I was born.

liberal_texan Report

Final score:

15points

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detective miller's hat 1 year ago

My brothers were sent to a tiny Christian fundie school. Their science "education" left quite a bit to be desired.

7points

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#36

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time The clitoris is external genitalia. It is more like an iceberg, with most of it being internal with just a bit poking up the top

ferretunderpressure , cottonbro studio Report

Final score:

12points

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Sky Render 1 year ago

Any tranmasc could tell you that! The clitoris is the homologue of the penis, complete with shaft.

9points

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#37

Ain’t isn’t a word.

Negative-Low-1997 Report

Final score:

12points

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geezeronthehill 1 year ago

Ain't is Scottish, so it was disfavored by the folks who created the dictionaries, who all came from London. So this north/south divide goes back to Britain in the elizabethan era. North/south divide reversed on this continent.

11points

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#38

Extinct volcanoes are completely dead and will never, ever erupt again.

butter00pecan Report

Final score:

11points

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kansasmagic 1 year ago

That is what extinct means! However, having an exact definition doesn't mean that people will *apply* it correctly.

2points

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#39

30 "Now-False Facts" That Were Really Taught In Schools, But Did Not Stand The Test Of Time One that pops to mind is Niels Bohr and the electron cloud. He won a Nobel prize for it. Then his kid won one for proving he was wrong.

I wouldn’t necessarily call that a fact though.

weedysexdragon , https://pixel17.com Report

Final score:

9points

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Lene 1 year ago

It's funny you should say that because I'm Danish and I know about Niels Bohr (well.... I know his name and *something something* about physics) but I don't think I ever knew about him having a child? Lol. Oh the Danish propaganda. 🤣

2points

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#40

My history teacher taught us Italy is in Africa

thisBarbieisJewish Report

Final score:

9points

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sofacushionfort 1 year ago

They were kinda-sorta right if you use tectonic plate settings

8points

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#41

The appendix is a vestigial organ

mrs_packletide Report

Final score:

6points

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Captain Awesome 1 year ago

Misread that as vaginal. Man was their sex ed class wrong

15points

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#42

Most of these responses are things taught in school that were wrong but already disproven.

Nielas_Aran_76 Report

Final score:

-7points

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Joshua Rodrigues 1 year ago

No s**t

12points

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What do you think ?

Der Kommissar 1 year ago

I was taught that if you get under your (wooden) desk, shield your eyes with one arm, and protect the back of your neck with the other, that you will survive a nuclear blast.

21points

Scotira 1 year ago

Well, we still get Iodine pills as first aid measure in case the nuclear plant blows (3km away). Yours as well as this is likely a way of keeping people calm and showing the municipality or government is doing something, offering solutions. 😅 It's rubbish, but to some it gives a measure of security 🤷‍♀️

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Sardonyx_3 1 year ago

Or that the blast would give you a "sunburn". I remember reading something about these practices.

5points

Robin Hawkins 1 year ago

I remember the safety drills in elementary school. We just did what we were told. SMH

0points

Douglas Tucker 1 year ago

Science as well as history are subject to change or correction as we dig deeper, experiment more or communicate better. Sometimes the corrections or changes (image a beverage using cocaine or a beauty product causing long term health problems) come at a high cost but they continue to appear hopefully because we we are curious and continue to be open to research, discovery and whatever may be the current truth.