You may very well love science, but do you actually know anything about it? What are its favorite movies? How many slices of pizza it will eat when in a judgement-free zone? … No? I knew you didn’t really know science. You probably believe a lot of things that aren’t true. Many people accept these myths as “scientific fact,” but they are just fluff. These are some of the most common scientific misconceptions (and you probably believe most of them).
1. You can get arthritis from cracking your knuckles. – Untrue, but it might give your mom a heart attack if you keep doing it while she’s trying to focus on driving.
2. A penny dropped off the top of a tall building will kill someone if it hits them in the head. – It would tumble too much for it to ever fall fast enough. If you really want to kill a bystander, drop a large bill and watch them get trampled.
3. Our behavior is affected by a full moon. – Nope! You were just being your true jerk self that night.
4. It takes seven years to digest swallowed gum. – As if. Even a chewed up stick of Big Red can’t wait to get away from you.
5. We only use 10% of our brains. – Sorry, but we use 100% of our brains. Which is too bad, because it would have been so money if we only used 69%.
6. Antibiotics will get rid of a virus. – Antibiotics kill bacteria, not viruses. If you want to kill a virus, you’ll need a wooden stake–wait…
7. A dark side of the moon exists. – There is no dark side, you dummies. The moon might not seem like it rotates, but it’s always twirling, twirling, twirling on its axis, albeit slowly.
8. The Brontosaurus is a dinosaur. – There’s no such thing as a Brontosaurus. Which means Fred Flintstone was probably eating Apatosaurus ribs in that reality show he and his family were on.
9. “Sugar Highs” are real. – Giving kids too much sugar won’t make them hyperactive. They’d wreck your house even if you gave them baby carrots. Especially if you gave them baby carrots.
10. Lightning never strikes the same spot twice. – It’s just not true. The Empire State Building gets struck by lightning about a hundred times a year–and you’re not going to accuse a National Historic Landmark of lying now, are you? I didn’t think so.
(via iflscience) As famed chemist The Notorious B.I.G. once said, “If you don’t know, now you know.” Don’t feel bad about being kept in the dark, though. Most people have fallen for these “facts,” hook, line and sinker. Help others correct their misguided beliefs by sharing this post.
