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37 Times People Shared The Most Outrageously Inaccurate Things They’ve Ever Heard
Interview With Expert
You shouldn’t believe everything you hear because not all of it may be based on fact. Chances are the person saying it may just be acting on blind faith without having done any research. It’s definitely easy to spread misinformation but much harder to disprove wacky theories.
The folks in this list all fell victim to such ‘facts,’ spread by people who were absolutely convinced by what they were saying. Hopefully, some of these examples might serve as a reality check in case you still believe any of them.
More info: Reddit
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#1
The shape of the banana and the way it fits your hand so well are proof that god exists.
He stopped using that argument when one of our co-workers pointed out that d***s fit hands pretty well too.
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#2
My parents tried to convince me that homosexuality is caused by vaccines. Little do they know that I'm gay even though they didn't have me vaccinated as a kid.
LizzieBoredom 15 hours ago
Everyone knows gayness is a result of your Mom singing Broadway show tunes while pregnant.
#3
My roommate tried to convince me that there are Chimpanzee-people in the jungle because isolated tribes are getting it on with the monkeys. I tried to explain how species reproduce and quickly realized he thinks you can bang a horse and get a centaur.
People often tend to believe things more if a lot of other folks trust the same idea. Studies have found that sometimes false beliefs are adopted just because of their popularity.
Pseudoscientific thoughts and misinformation are now so common because of the way they’re presented on social media. Apparently, fake news travels six times faster than fact-based information, especially on such platforms.
This might be because people care about the opinions of others and want to feel like they are part of the group. Unfortunately, this can be dangerous, especially if the fake facts are related to health, wellness, mental wellbeing, or science.
#4
Not me but my mum. She was walking with a group of friends on a popular trail in the UK. She has quite an outspoken friend, let's call her Sally. The group saw a number of Chinese tourists taking pictures of the sheep along the trail. One of the group asked;
"I wonder why they are all taking pictures of sheep all the time."
To which Sally replies;
"It's because they don't have sheep in China"
The group all believed Sally, and thought it was an amazing fact. My mum decided to regurgitate the fact one dinner time saying that "Sally had told her so"
I called b******t so Googled it there and then.
Turns out China has the largest population of sheep in the entire world.
My mum has never lived that down.
#5
Gay men have [intercourse] by slapping their cheeks together. I died laughing.
#6
The band name "KISS" is an acronym for "Knights In Satan's Service."
"AC/DC" = "Anti-Christian Devil Children"
"Slayer" = "Satan Laughs As You Eternally Rot"
...all told to us without irony by a Sunday school teacher, circa 1987.
The problem with fake facts is that even though everyone thinks they’re blatantly obvious, they’re actually pretty hard to spot, which is exactly why so many people fall for misinformation.
To understand why this happens, Bored Panda contacted Professor Georg Weizsäcker. He is a German economist whose research areas of interest include microeconomics, experimental economics, financial decision-making, and game and decision theory. He also wrote a book called ‘Misunderstandings: False Beliefs in Communication.’
Prof. Georg told us that “people are not only bad at lying detection, but they also believe that they are good at [it]. One often hears people boasting about their ability to understand other people. When it comes to the possibility that the other person may lie, a standard quote is, ‘I look them in the eye.’”
“Thereby, people express that they are somehow able to understand how the other person's facial expression contains a clue to realizing what they intend to do or what they feel. This frequent boasting is at odds with a whole literature in social psychology, which says that most people are very bad at lie detection. Even specialists like judges are not very good at it,” he added.
#7
Someone once told me that it never snows in the state of Washington because 'its on the west coast'. Same person also told me that she doesnt believe in gravity because "if it was real, wouldnt the sun just suck up the moon?".
She was 24 when she said these things to me.
#8
"The spork is 'the devil's utensil' because it's the amalgamation of masculine fork and feminine spoon, trying to blur gender lines in society.".
#9
Africa is one country.
We had literally just finished a geography segment about the countries in Africa.
Even though most of the examples on this list involve people who didn’t realize they were peddling misinformation, not everyone is so innocent. Some people purposely invent false ideas and try to pass them off as the truth.
Professor Georg told us that “the sad truth is that we are gullible and it is easy to mislead us. Even worse: we think that we cannot be misled. This makes other people's efforts to mislead us even more successful.”
“One explanation that we offer is that people are quite bad at understanding the expectation that the other person has about our reaction to their [words]. If the other person expects that I believe her, then she may have an especially large incentive to lie to me (depending on her will to do so): she believes that deception would work if she attempted it.”
“Therefore, when examining the truthfulness of the other person's [words], I should first ask myself, does she believe that I believe her? Our data suggest that this is not what people actually do,” he added.
#10
That "mind over matter" was real. Meaning that you could lift objects with your mind, etc.
It was a great conversation.
Her: "You can do all kinds of stuff with your mind."
Me: "Like what?"
Her: "Lift things, bend spoons, etc."
Me: "Okay, cool. Can you bend something for me?"
Her: "Well no, my mind isn't that good."
Me: "Then why should I listen to you?".
#11
An ex boyfriend once insisted that women can hold in their periods like we can hold our urine. He did not believe me, a woman, when I told him that was absolutely not the case. What.
MindNumbinglyBoringJob 16 hours ago
AND a woman only has 2 holes. Men have argued with women about this. We apparently pee through our vaginas.
#12
My dad believes “nano silver” cures everything & truly believes in his “nano silver” throat spray. He says kings & emperors in the past drank from silver cups & that’s how they had long, healthy lives.
Er. No they didn’t. They had mostly short, often disease riddled lives.
With so much misinformation being spread around, it might seem tough to actually find the truth among the lies. According to experts, there are a few easy ways to sift through false facts. You can do this by:
- Verifying online information by first doing a reverse text or image search.
- Use the Debunking Handbook as a guide to understanding and learning about psychological biases and how they play a role in the way we think and act.
- Practicing empathy for those who spread false facts and finding a way to answer any concerns they might have.
#13
It's possible to breathe underwater.
She then tried to demonstrate and snorted a bunch of lake water up her nose. She was 14 at the time.
#14
I was talking to a guy at the bar and he was telling me how soap is unnecessary for washing your hands. All you need is a combination of hot water and cold water. Not warm. But use both cold and hot.
I did not shake his hand.
#15
My ex argued that fossils weren’t actually old and those creatures never existed, they were just stuck there to confuse us.
Although it might seem like an uphill battle to question a person who truly believes in a fake fact, maybe it can help them see a new side of things. Remember to always question everything you’re told and everything you’ve been telling people so far. Who knows, maybe you’ve been spreading some fake facts of your own.
If you think of any misinformation that you used to strongly believe in, we’d love to hear about it and also learn from your mistakes.
#16
A woman at a party I was attending over a decade ago insisted that the largest member of the rodent family is the...polar bear.
I looked at her in absolute disbelief and replied that they weren't rodents, they were f*****g bears.
She had a PhD, too...smh.
#17
You can get black lung disease from overcooking the marshmallows for s’mores.
Roni Stone 17 hours ago
No, but you can definitely get badly burned tongue and fingers! Ask me how I know... LOL
#18
My mum told me Michael Jackson died from eating too many potato chips, in an attempt to get me to stop snacking..
#19
A woman I worked with a long time ago told me that her proof of Christianity being the correct religion is that it was the first one.
#20
When you go to Liverpool and start singing a Beatles song, everybody will join in like it's some Disney movie. The guy was dead serious.
#21
That you can live off drinking sea water because Gatorade has sodium in it.
I was telling this dude about a guy who was stranded out at sea for awhile and survived by drinking rainwater and shark blood or some s**t, and dude was like "why didn't he drink the sea water? Gatorade has sodium in it and it's fine. It's a myth that you can't drink sea water. Probably so they can keep charging people for drinking water.".
#22
Peacocks dont have [intercourse]. A female gets pregnant when it eats the teardrops of the male.
#23
I always like "if they are undercover law enforcement and you ask, they HAVE to tell you!".
#24
“The internet is in the sky.” I explained how it’s in the ocean. They ganged up on me and said “It’s called the ‘cloud’ because it’s in the sky, duh!”
It was 3 of them vs 1 of me. I walked away ‘losing’ the debate. There’s power in numbers folks.
Edit: Thanks to everyone in the comments explaining how the internet works. To those saying I’m wrong, I maintain, clouds come from oceans - its science.
#25
That men have one less rib than women, and that alone disproves evolution.
ElfVibratorGlitter 15 hours ago
I know a few people who actually believe this to be true. That's how they can tell if a skeleton was male or female. SMH.
#26
My friend argued that all eggs are brown when they come out of the chicken, and only turn white after going through a chemical cleaning process. Later he also confidently explained that rats and bunnies can change their gender at will. I know some fish species can do it, but rats and bunnies? No XD.
ElfVibratorGlitter 15 hours ago
Chicken eggs come in all different beautiful colours, kinda like a Martha Stewart palette or something. Blues, greens, greys, creams :)
#27
An old boss explained to me one day that hearing men sing causes women’s brains to release some kind of [intimacy] hormone that makes us crazy. This is why girls and women screamed and fainted over the Beatles back in the day and why we get all hysterical at concerts. He said it in this really condescending tone, too, like he was dropping some deep knowledge on me that I probably wouldn’t understand, but that’s how he explained most things anyway. F*****g hated that idiot.
#28
My cousin's wife told me that blue eyed babies can't wear Pampers diapers because they're all allergic.
#29
"soap makes the water molecules smaller, that's how it cleans".
#30
Someone in one of my college classes believed that we only use ten percent of our brains.
Tracy Lanier 18 hours ago
That was pretty common knowledge when I was young. Not sure if its always been bunk or if we had not really figured out how the brain works.
#31
My grandma wasn’t very happy with the fact that I’m vegetarian so she tried to convince me that fish were vegetables. ... I still can’t help but laugh because she wasn’t even joking.
#32
Goats lay eggs. A several minute argument followed, and I did not convince him he was wrong. I work in meat processing. Not that that's necessary to know that goats don't lay eggs, but it just made the argument all the more ridiculous. I'd literally seen goats born live countless times, and yet he argued.
Edit: I also worked at a caviar bar for a while, and many times had to hear from people who were horrified we were eating dolphin eggs. Beluga. I've heard that "mahi mahi is dolphin" more times than I can count. And from people who've eaten it even.
Edit #2: Meant "whale eggs" in the first edit. Mahi on the brain.
#33
North Carolina can't be in The South... its has North in its name!
DennyS (denzoren) 16 hours ago
I guess it's north of something, I'm in the Caribbean so it's north of me lol (I do understand that South means southern states).
#34
Unsweetened iced tea has no caffeine because it has no sugar.
#35
1. Neighbour told me he attended an international medical conference for work and he learned that women were "catching diabetes in their feet because of the sandals that they wear in the summer"
2. Little sister's friend said that a contestant on a singing show like X Factor came second after the finale because the contestant who won stole his phone and turned it off so he wouldn't get his votes when people texted in.
MindNumbinglyBoringJob 15 hours ago
This boys and girls is why social media is destroying the intelligence of the new generation.
#37
La Quinta is Spanish for "next to Denny's".
I thought they were making a joke.
They were not.
What do you think ?
T'Mar of Vulcan 5 minutes ago
Reminds me of that one screen shot of 'stupid people' that gets passed around, in which someone asks how South Africa can be "inside another country, Africa". Or how "South Africa" is a geographic region and not a country? (FWIW, if you mean the geographic region, you say SOUTHERN Africa.)
Antony Wills 8 hours ago
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T'Mar of Vulcan 5 minutes ago
Reminds me of that one screen shot of 'stupid people' that gets passed around, in which someone asks how South Africa can be "inside another country, Africa". Or how "South Africa" is a geographic region and not a country? (FWIW, if you mean the geographic region, you say SOUTHERN Africa.)
Antony Wills 8 hours ago
I love the grounded reality of Mr Harold Kendrick Mentorship program on Crypto & forex trading, despite the recession I'm so happy to withdraw $36,000 first payout from my trading account on the Liquidity-tradelite platform.. 𝐖ha𝐭𝐬a𝐩 him✙ 4474076001166..for Mentorship.
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