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30 Facts People Learned In School That Are Now Disproven Because Science Moved Forward
Interview
Facts can and do change as new evidence comes to light—it’s a core part of what science is all about. As we learn more and more about how the world works, we have to update our existing bodies of knowledge.
This does, however, mean that some information that we learned in the classroom can become outdated within our lifetimes, as members of the r/ask online community recently shared in a viral thread. We’ve collected some of these internet users’ insights about what facts have changed since they learned them in school. Scroll down to read what they had to share.
Bored Panda got in touch with the author of the viral thread, redditor u/karatass91. They were kind enough to share a few insights on facts changing over time. You'll find their thoughts as you read on.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
"High school's gonna be the best four years of your life!"
Reader, it was not the best four years of my life
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NPR points out that scientific knowledge is constantly evolving and changing. It's not just completely new facts that are discovered. Researchers also take new evidence into account and then use it to reexamine what we thought we already knew.
"The key is that scientific conclusions don't change on a whim. They change in response to new evidence, new analyses, and new arguments—the sorts of things we can publicly agree (or disagree) about, that we can evaluate together. And scientific conclusions are almost always based on induction, not deduction. That is, science involves drawing inferences from premises to conclusion, where the premises can affect the probability of the conclusions but don't establish them with certainty," NPR explains why we can trust science despite facts changing.
#4
If you learn well, you`ll get a good job and will have a nice future. Total BS.
Ken Beattie 10 months ago
It's not just about learning well, it's about learning something valuable. And realistically, that isn't (and never has been) a guarantee for a good job and a nice future. But it IS a big stepping stone towards one.
#5
My teachers used to say "Video games will make you braindead." Turns out video games were all about solving puzzles and problem solving and ended up increasing the cognitive abilities and critical thinking skills for children from a young age.
Ken Beattie 10 months ago
I think they can still be problematic though, because some of them trigger the addiction centres of the brain. So the gameplay cycle literally addicts you to the game like people get addicted to gambling or other things. Like most things, I think moderation is a good thing.
#6
The food pyramid
Bouche and Audi and Shyla, Oh My! 10 months ago
*climbs the pyramid, and curls up on the chocolate top*
Bored Panda was curious to get the OP's thoughts as to what we could all do to stay up to date with (at least some) of the changes in science. The idea is so that we don't feel like we've fallen too far behind.
"The point here is to find reputable and reliable sources," redditor u/karatass91 said that this lies at the core of good scientific education.
On top of that, they suggested taking on an even more direct approach to education by "establishing online connections with researchers." This way, you could be at the cutting edge of science... at least in the areas that interest you the most.
#7
Animals don't use tools.
Annik Perrot 10 months ago
Our first cat used the shutter's hook to bang on the window when it was closed and she wanted in.
#8
Grade school in the US, mid 1970s: We will be converting to the metric system soon.
#9
While I was in college biology our teacher said she was forced to teach us that cell walls were rigid because that's what the text book said but, she told us, it was not true--the phospho-lipid cell wall had just been discovered. So we learned it wrong and corrected all at the same time.
David Paterson 10 months ago
Wow! That must be an old text book. The lipid cell membrane was known to be flexible in the year 1925, and confirmed in the late 1950s.
According to the OP, there probably will never be a point in time when the facts that we know about the world will never change again.
"I don't think that the facts about the world will stop changing, since our understanding evolves with ongoing research and discoveries," they told Bored Panda.
#10
That Christopher Columbus discovered America. Just ask native Americans about this one.
Ken Beattie 10 months ago
To be fair he did discover it. And so did the vikings. And so did the people who crossed the land bridge from Europe wayyyyy before that. Things that are not known by a group get discovered by that group and it doesn't preclude another group who have no awareness of it from discovering it too.
#11
Areas of taste on the human tongue
John Bababuie 10 months ago (edited)
This is misleading, while different taste receptors are spread all over the tongue, they are in fact more common in certain areas. So it is still possible to for example to taste bitterness with the tip of the tongue, however the taste is way more potent on the back of the tongue. Edit: grammar Edit 2: check the comments please, Ace has an important addition
#12
Gen X here.
We'll run out of oil by 2000.
Ken Beattie 10 months ago
I remember something along those lines too. Pretty tough being in high school and thinking, what will get me first, nuclear war, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, starvation because of no fossil fuels or aids.
The author opened up to us that they never thought that their question would get so much attention on Reddit. "I know it was a good question, but never had such an expectation," they said.
"I think it went viral because I believe every redditor went to school and they could come up with an interesting answer," the redditor noted that the topic was something that most of us could deeply relate to.
The reality is that we all have some knowledge blindspots. There are gaps in our knowledge that we’re not even aware of. These can range from misconceptions about common sense things to false interpretations of more complex situations.
The best that any of us can do is to keep an open mind when we come across information that runs counter to our experiences. This means being humble enough to recognize that nobody is perfect, that everyone makes mistakes, and that we might be wrong in some cases. Scientific knowledge is rarely ever stagnant for long.
#13
That your permanent record really does follow You for Life a bunch of Bologna
#14
Nerves can’t regenerate and electron orbitals are circles. Basically, science keeps getting better and I had no idea these had changed for a long time.
David Paterson 10 months ago
I get angry that the education system was still teaching Rutherford's plum pudding model of the atom a full hundred years after it ceased to be relevant.
#15
That you have to do lots of extra curricular activities, sports, and volunteer work just to get into any colleg. Joke's on them. I went to college 10 years after high school so none of it mattered.
Glenn Cuneo 10 months ago
I went to a boys and girls college (A nod to Forest Gump) after I retired from the military. Lots of things to fill out on the school application. I just wrote "Nope, not doing this section- it was 30 years ago"
However, being open-minded does not mean being naive. This doesn’t mean accepting any and every piece of information that comes your way.
As one study from 2021 pointed out, people tend to think that repeated information is more truthful than new information. This is known as the illusory truth effect. To put it simply, the more often we hear a claim, the more we think that it’s true. This means that all people, no matter how educated, can fall prey to everything from fake news to advertisement campaigns.
#17
A lot of things that we learned about dinosaurs when I was in elementary school turned out to be wrong. We thought they were scaly and reptilian, turns out a lot of them had feathers, and were very brightly colored, and were more like birds in a lot of ways than reptiles. Dinosaurs we thought existed like brontosaurus, turned out to not have actually existed.
Just everything dinosaur. Everything dinosaur was wrong.
Jeannette Treusch 10 months ago
Of course the brontosaurus existed. It was thought to have been a taxonomic synonym of its close relative Apatosaurus, but a 2015 study by Emmanuel Tschopp and colleagues found it to be distinct.
#18
That the English language has comprehensive and consistent rules.
What facts from your own school days have you seen get disproven within your lifetimes, dear Pandas? Is there any information from your lessons and lectures that you personally find hard to let go of even when you know it has been updated? We’d like to hear what you think—tell us about it in the comments.
#19
Just about everything they taught about nutrition was a lie... which is kinda insane when you think about it. An entire generation who doesn't know how food works in your body
#20
Basically any idea promoted by the D.A.R.E campaign
Ovata Acronicta 10 months ago
I'm curious if anyone had to get together as a class and sing any DARE songs. I still remember the one we did. No amount of drugs has allowed me to forget! but then I mostly just stick to those rx'd to me.
#22
Pluto being a planet
Luiza Menezess 10 months ago
I remember being so upset when I realized Pluto was no longer a planet. It was my favorite one!
Moë 10 months ago
My very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas. See you need Pluto to finish the acronym
Epsilon (he/him) 10 months ago
My very excellent mother just served us nine. We are seven. 789 lol
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Comedy Clumbers 10 months ago
GET PLUTO OUT OF YOUR DIRTY MOUTH!! Pluto is a planet, you [expletives]!!!
Chris Maddock 9 months ago
A Pluto is a sausage on a stick. I still regard the planet Pluto as a planet.
Stephen Hutchison 9 months ago
It's still a planet. Just because a minority of space scientists bullied and bluffed the rest of the world into using THEIR terminology doesn't make them correct.
Sam Wallace 9 months ago
Their definition, if you pay attention to it, is that a planet is one of eight bodies that orbit our star. The bit about clearing it's orbital path of other objects is c**p as a defining trait because it's subject to change and has over the life of the solar system. Exoplanets are defined differently, too, so there's no generalization. It would have made more sense to define planets by classes similar to how solar mass objects have been, but that seems too obvious. Also, try finding a definition of a moon per the same folks who categorize Pluto as a minor planet.
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Mick Wilkinson 9 months ago
This photo from voyager, also perplexed Astronomers. Pluto exists in an orbit from the sun where there is substantially more debris (therefore collisions) that we have located near Earth. Add to that the low gravity of Pluto and no appreciable atmosphere (which unlike Earth and Venus, for example, tends to burn up wandering rock chunks on the way in), scientists rightly expected the planet to be pockmarked with craters, worse than our moon is, from billions of years of impacts... but it isn't. Some (rather ignorant) scientists at the time, days after this observation, tried to explain it away by suggesting 'volcanic resurfacing' perhaps 100 million years ago. Other Cosmological geologists politely suggested such scientists 'shut up' when it is known that Pluto is too old, too cold and too small to have any such volcanic activity... so why doesn't it have more craters??
Brian Droste 9 months ago
Pluto was considered a planet for a very long time. Not sure when the science field declassified Pluto as a planet. It was when Big Bang Theory was still on.
timebleeder 10 months ago
Pluto is a dwarf planet which is still a planet it just a different classification of plant then the rest of the solar system.
Nimitz 10 months ago
Still frustrates me. The goal was to refer to dwarf planets as Plutoids, but people put up such a malarkey they never followed through. Pluto was getting an upgrade before dumb people stepped in. FYI: it had to be recategorized because there are dozens of Pluto (or larger) sized dwarf planets further out, possibly hundreds.
Nimitz 10 months ago
It's also frustrating because people focus only on Pluto and not the DOZENS of recently discovered itty bitty planets in our solar system. C'mon! That s**t is cool af!
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Sami-Jo Ross 10 months ago
I wrote a report about this in seventh grade, when the biggest factor in its classification was that it followed the orbit of the Kuniper Belt instead of the "standard" planetary orbit.
Sky Render 10 months ago
I would say the fact that they never mentioned any of the other dwarf planets was a bigger problem. Then again, some of those dwarf planets hadn't been discovered yet in the late 80s.
CK 10 months ago
They're known to be really chill about people disrespecting them by demoting the planets named for them, right?
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Michael Gower 10 months ago
Its not an advance of science if a bunch of people with way too many years in college changed a definition. If scientists decided the color red is really blue, dies that mean we were taught wrong that stop signs are red?
Alexander Brooks 10 months ago
Unsettled science. Like fluoride. Is it good or bad? I’ll find out every time I go to the dentist, cause every time they tell me a different story. Every dentist, every country.
Rahb in Oz 9 months ago
It is not about science, it is about more accurate definitions. Pluto is now classified as a 'dwarf' planet, with an eccentric orbit.
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Rob Vaillancourt 10 months ago
Pluto is a president, as well as a planet..... #VotePluto2024
Load More Replies... #23
1970's elementary school - Global Cooling was in process. We would be out of oil by the end of the 80's
#24
Cracking your knuckles will cause arthritis, plus basically everything in history class.
#25
Eating fat causes you to get fat.
Ken Beattie 10 months ago
Ugh, I hate when this one is brought up because they're trying to oversimplify it. It sounds like they're trying to say you can eat fat and NOT get fat, which is not the case. Fat still has calories (and lots of them). Eat too many calories and you'll get fat, doesn't matter what group (fat, carb or protein) they come from.
#26
Earth had 4 oceans.
The 5th ocean plot twist was revealed to me in my late 30s. I didn’t know, guys!!
Could someone please update Gen X when this stuff happens? There should at least be a weekly memo or something. We are all over here failing easy trivia questions because no one told us that there was a 5th damn ocean. 🤣
M Calad 10 months ago
I learned in school that the earth had 5 continents. America was seen as one continent comprising of north, central and south america, Australia and all the islands made Oceania, and Antartica was not considered a continent. When my daughter started school, I learned from her now they teach that there are 7 continents! And Oceania no longer exists, it's called Australia.
#28
That breast feeding was a form of contraception
Patsy Robins 10 months ago
This!!! It works for many women but not all. I always, always tell my postnatal women not to depend on it, & when they say they’re never having sex again (news flash- people DO have sex again after childbirth, and often sooner than they think!) I ask them how unhappy they’re going to be to discover they’re pregnant again at their six week check?
#29
That by 1999 all the landfills would be full and we would have to use the Grand Canyon and valleys for our garbage
#30
That 98% of our genes are unused, a throwback of evolution.
What do you think ?
Mavis 10 months ago
I think one of the best changes in schools today is kids learning about the history and culture of indigenous people. Back in my day we learned tons about Captain Cook and the British discovering Australia. But we were taught absolutely nothing about the people who had lived here for 60,000 years. I'm so glad that has changed. Today my daughter's high school has a whole subject 'Indigenous Studies'. Excellent!
Landithy 10 months ago
That's cool. My school had a pretty good history program for its time, but we still learned next to nothing about pre-coloniel history, and First Nations peoples tended to be talked about as a monolith. I'm glad it's changing.
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Justin Tyme 10 months ago
Bored Panda Staff: "Let's post this list every week. It is easier than finding new content."
Livingwithcfs 9 months ago
Cfs is a mental illness has been debunked. It's definitely a physical illness that originates in the brain. Only positive to come out of covid is the link between long covid and cfs
Eat Dirt Crow 9 months ago
In the US: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Knitting Panda 9 months ago
Two parallel lines running forever in the same direction will never meet. The first time I heard that in math class in 6th grade, I knew there was something wrong with that statement. The teacher got mad at me. I went home and told my dad. He laughed, but wouldn't tell me why. "You'll figure it out," he said. I was an adult before I learned Euclid reversed himself on that and said they might. (Space is curved, babies.)
CP 10 months ago
Huh? What color do you get then that is different from everyone else? https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/what-color-does-red-and-blue-make-when-mixed/
Load More Replies... Mavis 10 months ago
I think one of the best changes in schools today is kids learning about the history and culture of indigenous people. Back in my day we learned tons about Captain Cook and the British discovering Australia. But we were taught absolutely nothing about the people who had lived here for 60,000 years. I'm so glad that has changed. Today my daughter's high school has a whole subject 'Indigenous Studies'. Excellent!
Landithy 10 months ago
That's cool. My school had a pretty good history program for its time, but we still learned next to nothing about pre-coloniel history, and First Nations peoples tended to be talked about as a monolith. I'm glad it's changing.
Load More Replies... Justin Tyme 10 months ago
Bored Panda Staff: "Let's post this list every week. It is easier than finding new content."
Livingwithcfs 9 months ago
Cfs is a mental illness has been debunked. It's definitely a physical illness that originates in the brain. Only positive to come out of covid is the link between long covid and cfs
Eat Dirt Crow 9 months ago
In the US: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Knitting Panda 9 months ago
Two parallel lines running forever in the same direction will never meet. The first time I heard that in math class in 6th grade, I knew there was something wrong with that statement. The teacher got mad at me. I went home and told my dad. He laughed, but wouldn't tell me why. "You'll figure it out," he said. I was an adult before I learned Euclid reversed himself on that and said they might. (Space is curved, babies.)
CP 10 months ago
Huh? What color do you get then that is different from everyone else? https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/what-color-does-red-and-blue-make-when-mixed/
Load More Replies...
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