When you’re at school, it seems like everything is a cast-iron fact. In reality, that isn’t the case.
Our understanding is being updated all the time, meaning that things you were taught at school are probably already out of date. To give you an insight into how things have changed since you were last in the classroom, thenerdwhocodes put this question to the good folks over at r/AskReddit:
What was a fact taught to you in school that has been disproven in your lifetime?
Here are the top lessons you might have to unlearn …
1.
‘We would never be able to detect planets around other stars because they’re too far away (1970s).’
-2EscapedCapybaras
2.
I was taught that only certain parts of the tongue could “taste” certain flavours. I think sweet was the tip of your tongue so if the tip of your tongue ever got severed you’d never be able to taste anything sweet ever again.’
-azninvasion2000
3.
‘My son, this year, was taught that we only use 10% of our brains by his 4th grade teacher. We use all our brain. That was something debunked ages ago.’
-sumthingawsum
4.
‘Depending on when you went to school you may have heard a lot of different theories about what killed the dinosaurs. The original proposal that it was an asteroid only dates back to 1980 and took quite a while to gain acceptance and then popularity. Even then the theories about mechanism for how it caused the mass extinction event has continued to evolve ever since.’
-kblaney
5.
‘That I wouldn’t always have a calculator on hand all the time. I really think whoever pushed for that to be a cell phone feature was just pissed at teachers telling them that.’
-D3adp00L34
6.
I’m going to use nursing school. We were actively taught that opiate painkillers were not addictive if used for legitimate pain. So we just threw opiates at people. I remember a provider writing an Rx for 100 oxy for someone with kidney stones. WITH REFILLS. The patient actually asked if he needed to worry about becoming dependent, and my clinical instructor told me to tell him it was fine as long as he followed the dosing instructions on the bottle. Of course, now we know we were basically stooges for the Sackler family, and we were helping start America’s opiate crisis.’
-Sophia–Petrillo
7.
I remember learning at a young age that Komodo dragons have venom.
And then I remember learning a few years later that they actually don’t have venom, that their mouths just hold so much bacteria, that’s what makes their bites so deadly. They’re not venomous after all! They just cause sepsis from their dirty gross mouths. No venom, just germs. They just got all those tooths and no toothbrush or floss. That’s why they’re so grouchy.
And now current day, yes, they are actually venomous.’
-Pm_me_baby_pig_pics
8.
‘I very much remember learning that the Pilgrims and the Indians became bffs over Thanksgiving dinner.
Learning about the Trail of Tears ripped me apart.
-Antique-Zebra-2161
9.
‘I hope you know this will go down on your permanent record.’
-kirkaracha
10.
‘That there were only 112 elements (elements of the periodic table, that is). In fact, we found #113-118 in 2016.’
-FinTecGeek
11.
‘I believed with a 97% probability that I, if not very careful, would die in quick sand.’
-Prestigious-Bike-593
12.
‘That the Boomers retiring meant we would graduate into the best job market ever.’
-caseybvdc74
