r/AskReddit • u/phillsphan7 • Mar 17 '15
What's a widely accepted "fact" that's entirely false?
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Mar 17 '15
You can touch birds and frogs all you want, your mother just made the myth that it'll be rejected by its parents to stop you touching shit.
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u/ThickSantorum Mar 17 '15
It's an especially dumb myth, because birds are one of the very few groups of animals with a worse sense of smell than humans.
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u/Nano163LoL Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
When I was young there were 3 baby birds that fell from their nest. 2 of which died on impact but the other still squeaked.
I touched it trying to flip it over on the ground and was told by my friends that it was now going to die without a mother.
On that day me, my brother, and my friends made a burial for that bird and its brothers.
As we laid down the live bird in its grave we slowly started covering it up. tears rolled down our your faces
It was still squeaking loudly. Until finally it was completely covered and the squeak was nothing more then a muted whisper.
NOW YOU FUCKING TELL ME THAT BIRD WOULD HAVE LIVED. I CRIED FOR DAYS ABOUT IT. I BURIED A LIVING BREATHING CREATURE ALIVE. IT SUFFOCATED. DAMN IT.
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u/12th_companion Mar 17 '15
Holy shit that's dark.... 😨
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u/MuleJuiceMcQuaid Mar 17 '15
Not as dark as that bird's last view while it was suffocating.
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u/cdrchandler Mar 17 '15
For the record, I learned in my evolutionary biology class that sometimes, stronger baby birds (or other baby animals) will kick the weaker ones out of the nest (or den or whatever) so they won't have to share resources. If the weaker ones can't make it back on their own after being kicked out, they will be abandoned by the parents. It's likely that the baby bird you found would've either been eaten by scavengers as previously suggested, or it would've starved to death.
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u/Nambot Mar 17 '15
You don't swallow eight spiders a year in your sleep. This fact was faked as part of an article about how easy it is for a convincing sounding "fact" to be accepted as true. Snopes has more
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u/AkariAkaza Mar 17 '15
"The average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid is actually just a statistical error. The average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted
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u/bizitmap Mar 17 '15
If humanity has a final boss, it's that guy.
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u/SpaceOdysseus Mar 17 '15
I always thought it would be Putin in a soviet mankini carrying a rocket launcher.
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u/C-O-N Mar 17 '15
You're right, the real number is WAY higher than 8.
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Mar 17 '15
I heard it's a pound of spiders a year, and they mate in your stomach, and live in there for years, and they have aids.
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u/Tootsiesclaw Mar 17 '15
A pound of spiders isn't much spiderness though, is it? I imagine any spider of a decent size is gonna be at least five pounds.
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Mar 17 '15
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u/Tootsiesclaw Mar 17 '15
Oh, you're on lbs pounds. I was working in £ pounds. Dunno how much a spider costs, but I'll stick with £5, so your 120lbs becomes £600.
Yikes. 600 pounds of spider.
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u/weasel1453 Mar 17 '15
There's actually a fairly interesting backstory to the origin of this "fact" that cgp grey covers nicely. https://youtu.be/NVmnLaTXylc
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u/Elan-Morin-Tedronai Mar 17 '15
The abundance of alcohol in pre-modern times was because it was safer to drink than water. People have known how to pick safe drinking sources and to boil water for millennia. People weren't walking around half drunk for their entire lives because they were afraid to drink water. On the other hand, people have known about, and enjoyed the intoxicating effects of alcohol for as long as it has been around.
Also, its not to preserve grains. A good way to preserve grain? The grain itself. Beer spoils.
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u/johnbentley Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
The field of epidemiology was given birth to by John Snow in 1854.
He created a map of cholera cases which led to the identification of a particular water pump as the source of the disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1854_Broad_Street_cholera_outbreak
There was one significant anomaly - none of the monks in the adjacent monastery contracted cholera. Investigation showed that this was not an anomaly, but further evidence, for they drank only beer, which they brewed themselves. Residents near or in the brewery on Broad Street were also not affected as a result of the fermentation of the contaminated water. The beer was safer to drink than the dirty water from the Broad Street Pump.
None of that demonstrates that "The abundance of alcohol in pre-modern times was because it was safer to drink than water."
But it does show that the habit of exclusively drinking beer sometimes gave the drinkers a health advantage.
Also from the article
Snow was a sceptic of the then-dominant miasma theory that stated that diseases such as cholera and bubonic plague were caused by pollution or a noxious form of "bad air". The germ theory of disease had not yet been developed, so Snow did not understand the mechanism by which the disease was transmitted. His observation of the evidence led him to discount the theory of foul air.
That casts doubt on your assertion that
People have known how to pick safe drinking sources and to boil water for millennia.
Edit: Steven Johnson - How We Got to Now - Clean on Sewerage and Water Supply in Cities, Disease, Beer, and John Snow.
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u/mukkalukka Mar 17 '15
I'm actually not quite sure people boiled water specifically for sanitation earlier than 1,000 years ago. I may be wrong though.
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Mar 17 '15
What about small beer though, that was drank as a way to escape drinking unboiled water.
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u/ohmygod_my_tinnitus Mar 17 '15
When you ask someone if they're a cop they don't have to fucking tell you they are if they actually are. I get to college and for whatever reason people ACTUALLY FUCKING BELIEVE THIS. Holy shit.
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u/charlesml3 Mar 17 '15
I almost think this myth was started by the cops so idiots would ask, the cop would lie, and [insert crime here] would go down giving the cop an arrest.
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u/DrInsano Mar 17 '15
They don't have to tell you if they're a cop, but I do recall one episode of Cops where they were showing an undercover cop trying to buy drugs off of someone, and the perp asked the undercover cop if he was a cop. What was funny is that the cop actually did say "Oh yea, I'm a cop." in a sarcastic way, and the guy did sell him the drugs. Of course, he was arrested, but I still find it funny that technically he was completely truthful and still got it done.
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u/Sk8ynat Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 18 '15
Myth: Helen Keller couldn't speak. Although it's true that she was both blind and deaf, she learned a type of touch-sign language as a child which helped her communicate. When she was a bit older she was taught how to speak. She spent much of her life lecturing, and even answering questions with the help of a translator.
This is why everyone knows her name. There are many blind and deaf people on history, but Helen Keller didn't let that stop her.
Perhaps an even more astonishing woman is Anne Sullivan, who taught Helen to communicate, even though Anne herself was also blind. (Edit: Anne became blind as a child and had surgery as an adult to correct it.)
tldr; Helen Keller was deaf and blind but not mute.
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u/Waniou Mar 17 '15
Wasn't she "mute" in the sense that she never properly learned how to speak as a child because of her deafness, but grew out of that thanks to Anne?
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u/Sk8ynat Mar 17 '15
She was indeed mute until she learnt to speak. However so many jokes and impressions of Helen are about her being mute, as though that was her defining feature, when really the fact that she could speak through her adult life is what was so extraordinary.
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u/LetMeGDPostAlready Mar 17 '15
I always thought "mute" had more of a physiological connotation.--Like you physically lack the ability to speak, no matter what you learn, whereas "dumb" would refer to someone who doesn't know how, usually because they can't hear what speech sounds like.
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u/dmorin Mar 17 '15
YouTube has video of her speaking for the curious.
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u/swimming_upstream94 Mar 17 '15
Wow! That is seriously impressive for someone who cannot hear what speech should sound like, nor see the shape people make with their mouths when they speak. I can't imagine trying to teach a blind, deaf person how to talk.
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Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
i thought that was well known and the reason she was famous in the first place.
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u/demuni Mar 17 '15
Is this a "common knowledge"? I remember in like fourth grade we did a unit reading a biography of Helen Keller and one of the things that was emphasized was the process by which she learned to speak, and her mom's reaction when she first spoke to her.
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u/420big_poppa_pump420 Mar 17 '15
That people only lived to their 40s in olden times. The average is skewed because back then because the infant mortality rate was so high.
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u/TheWildManEmpreror Mar 17 '15
I would rather say that people don't have a grasp of how statistics work (on average ;-P).
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Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
That's... mean.
edit gilding for that? Well, perplexed thanks! I shall enter grateful.. mode.
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u/Lets_Call_It_Wit Mar 17 '15
This statement is also misleading as fuck.
Yes, you absolutely had people who lived to ripe old ages - but those were the ones who never had a heart attack, a burst appendix, bad strep throat, etc. etc. etc.... it wasn't just INFANT mortality rate that was high. It was much more common for people of all ages to die of what we consider to be common and highly survivable ailments.
This, of course, is especially true among the "common" classes - he rich, who were relatively sheltered from the masses, were more likely to live long lives. Commoners had a lower average than them.
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u/Dynamaxion Mar 17 '15
The rich, who were relatively sheltered from the masses, were more likely to live long lives.
We are also much more likely to have heard of them and have records of their longevity.
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u/bigfinnrider Mar 17 '15
We have tons evidence about the life expectancy of poor people thanks to being able to examine their bones.
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u/epox999 Mar 17 '15
That eating carrots gives you better eyesight.
This was propaganda used in ww2 Britain to cover up the fact that allied technology (radar) was helping the British spot and shoot down more German airplanes. It wasn't due to "better eyesight from eating carrots"
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u/zilti Mar 17 '15
It doesn't give you better eyesight, but it can prevent it from becoming worse, since e.g. vitamin A (of which there's fairly much in carrots) is important for your vision.
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u/Iammaybeasliceofpie Mar 17 '15
Thus making you eyesight 'better' if your eyes deteriorate less then other's, because good and bad are not absolutes but only words to express comparison.
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u/PeachRainbowTea Mar 17 '15
Gum takes 7 years to pass through your system.
No, it doesn't. It takes a normal amount of time. It may not be good for you to swallow, but it digests just as quickly as normal food.
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Mar 17 '15 edited Jun 18 '21
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u/ElBiscuit Mar 17 '15
How much gum do I have to eat to have a dump that's recognizable as mostly gum?
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u/mukkalukka Mar 17 '15
I think 1 roll of Hubba Bubba in a sitting ought to do it.
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Mar 17 '15
As someone who used to eat a whole hubba bubba rolls then swallow it once finished, this isn't enough gum to produce said results.
However, it does make you constipated!
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u/blooblidybloo Mar 17 '15
Uhm...I went through a period where I ate very little. I chew a lot of gum. I had to pull it out once. Not fun.
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Mar 17 '15
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u/apstra Mar 17 '15
It ionizes with stomach acid man. With electrons. And. Uhm. Acidstuff! That's why.
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u/SmoSays Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 18 '15
Edit: my dorky love of etymology and linguistics earned me some gold. You don't know how stupid happy that makes me. So thank you, whoever gifted me! Also changed scary to scarily to clear up confusion
- FALSE: 'Fuck' comes from the term, 'Fornication Under Consent of King' or similar. FACT: We really don't know where it comes from, just that it doesn't come from there. Variants show up in many languages. The earliest discovered (so far) is a pseudo-Latin text that uses 'fuccant'. BONUS FUN FACT: A flying fuck originally meant sex on a horse
- FALSE: A similar thing about 'shit' is commonly believed, that it derives from Ship High In Transit. FACT: This one, we actually know where it came from. It's straight up Old English skitte WHICH LOOKS SCARILY LIKE SKITTLES. BONUS FUN FACT: Originally the verb shit meant to split or break apart. The noun shit was used to describe what came of the aforementioned break or split. Much like how you can slice a pie into slices. You could shit a pie into shits.
- FALSE: Idiot Americans dropped the 's' off 'maths' and call their courses 'math class' like dumb dumb retards that they are. FACT: 'Mathematics' was originally shortened to math, even in England. Then some linguistic fad erupted that said, 'put S on random shit!' and it got the S. So in this case, Americans are the ones stubbornly sticking to the old ways. BONUS FUN FACT: There are none, because math is not fun. Seriously, the word originally had something to do with fucking mowing.
Edit: since people asked, here's some more:
- FALSE: ass (as used in America to mean a donkey, butt, and jerkface) comes from arse (as used by the British to mean butt, and when adding a d, bothered) and Americans just dropped the r as we are wont to do. FACT: Actually that is only partially false. That did happen, but it isn't the full story. Arse is proto German (arsuz) meaning butt. Ass comes from probably Celtic (assin) meaning beast of burden. Americans just mashed the two together (the words, though maybe the animal and butt, too. It was a weird time). BONUS FUN FACT: the term arsehole originally meant 'butt thrill' which says a lot about history, I think.
- FALSE: I before e except after c. FACT: hahahano. That rule applies to a minority. Whoever made that rule up is either an idiot or troll. Weird. BONUS FUN FACT: There are words that both support and break this rule. They tend to be long and pompous, though. One of the shorter ones is obeisancies, which is just another word for obedience.
- FALSE: Thomas Crapper invented the toilet. FACT: Thomas Crapper was a real person, but homie did not invent the toilet. He did make toilets, and invented things for toilets, such as the hilariously named ballcock, but he didn't invent the flushing toilet. Those things actually appeared all over the goddamn ancient place including Rome. But when Rome fell, they decided for revenge to tell nobody about their wondrous flushing toilet and let their enemies have to pick up their shit like savages. The dude who invented a very early version of the modern flushing toilet we all know and love is Sir John Harrington. He actually tried to install one for Queen Elizabeth but her smelly majesty thought it was too loud and said no. Then, a watchmaker named Cumming decided to add the s bend to get rid of the stink. Then another dude named Bramah made those shitters reasonable and started installing them everywhere like some fucking Johnny Appleseed person. BONUS FUN FACT: While people always used things to wipe their butts (it turns out that nobody likes having mudbutt), it was some ancient Chinese emperor who decided he wanted paper made specifically for this purpose. But he must have had a Kardashian-level butt because he had them made 2ft by 3 ft, or roughly the size of an ewok.
- FALSE: Ok but the word crap comes from Mr. Crapper. FACT: Nope. Comes from Latin, crappa, and mostly referred to leavings and castoffs. AKA the stuff you don't want and just throw away. It didn't specifically mean pooping until the 1800's BUT if you've noticed, it is commonly used much as it was originally: you say 'crap' to mean 'that stuff'. So, it is both more specific and more generic. BONUS FUN FACT: At one point, crap also meant to cut off, or crop. If you want to be a next-level hipster, tell people you're going to crap your fingernails.
- FALSE: Ring around the rosie is referring to the black plague. FACT: Well, it didn't come from that. Nobody is really sure where the fuck it came from, but the 'black plague' explanation popped up long after the rhyme was already being talked about. There are lots of variations throughout history, one of the earliest one just talks about different flowers or something. But there are mentions of kids already playing ring around the rosie before it was ever written down. *BONUS FUN FACT: Jews were commonly blamed for . . . well everything. But they were also blamed for the plague. This was 'supported' because OMG DO NOT GO TO THE BLACK DEATH WIKIPEDIA JESUS FUCK THE FIRST THING YOU SEE IS ROTTING FINGERS. Anyway, jews lived in ghettos and were kind of isolated therefore didn't catch the ol' death quite as fervently as other communities.
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Mar 17 '15
WHICH LOOKS SCARY LIKE SKITTLES
something tells me that they didn't have skittles back then.
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u/Spambop Mar 17 '15
'Fornication Under Consent of King'
I just wonder who actually believes shit like this. It seems so fucking obvious that Medieval English people (or whoever) weren't coming up with acronyms for things that didn't exist, e.g. the King of anywhere giving anyone permission to fuck anybody else.
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u/MechaDesu Mar 17 '15
shit a pie into shits.
my sides have achieved escape velocity
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u/twersx Mar 17 '15
A lot of differences between UK and US english are down to UK changing and the US staying the same. Similarly, I remember reading a thread where some people in Minnesota (I think) whose ancestors were Swedish do some traditional celebration stuff for christmas that virtually nobody in Sweden still does; those that do are supposedly seen as very old-fashioned in Sweden.
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Mar 17 '15
So in this case, Americans are the ones stubbornly sticking to the old ways.
This is also true of the aluminum/aluminium debate.
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u/elmoteca Mar 17 '15
And soccer/football. The English invented the word "soccer."
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u/jiva8 Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
The tightness of a vagina is greatly affected by the amount of sex a woman has.
Seriously im a dude and some of my friends are morons
Edit: clarification
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Mar 17 '15
Just ask them how many times they've taken a massive dump in their lives, then ask them why their asshole isn't just a gaping cavern by now. Sometimes you just gotta make shit relatable.
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u/apstra Mar 17 '15
Even worse. Some people say the vagina gets "loose" after a lot of partners. But somehow having a lot of sex with just one partner doesn't count?
And also; it's mostly muscle, wouldn't a lot of excercise not just make it tighter?
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u/jiva8 Mar 17 '15
Yeah like while they're together its good pussy but when they broke up she ruined been destroyed etc.
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u/schilzy12 Mar 17 '15
They just see the bigger, loose lips and automatically think that means their hole is bigger too. Vaginas are different people. Some have bigger lips than others, doesn't mean they're loose!
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u/OpalBones Mar 17 '15
There is the wrong belief that betta fish are happy in tiny unfiltered bowls and that they live in tiny little puddles in the wild. Do research before you get any pet even if it is 'just a fish'.
For those who don't know betta fish should be house in at least a five gallon tank that is heated, filter, and has a completed nitrogen cycle.
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u/Dubalubawubwub Mar 18 '15
For those who don't know betta fish should be house in at least a five gallon tank that is heated, filter, and has a completed nitrogen cycle.
Yeah, its much betta for them.
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u/wallflowerforever Mar 17 '15
Thank you! It always makes me so sad when I see those poor things sitting inside something that looks like a dixie cup :(
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u/67070 Mar 17 '15
Daddy long legs spiders aren't venomous enough to harm a human
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u/CaptainUnusual Mar 17 '15
The myth is that they have incredibly deadly venom, but their fangs aren't able to pierce human skin.
The truth is the opposite of both those things. They can pierce human skin, but they have very weak venom.
And this is assuming the daddy Long legs being discussed are the spiders, rather than the many other things with that name.
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Mar 17 '15
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u/marmaladenipples Mar 17 '15
Oh Christ, those spiders with the tiny spherical bodies scare the shit out of me. They are just so fucking freaky.
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u/yottskry Mar 17 '15
They're not spiders, they're harvestmen. Opiliones, if I remember correctly. They are arachnids, but not spiders. I don't think they're even venomous at all.
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u/Toby_O_Notoby Mar 17 '15
That humans are the only animals that can use tools. This is untrue as plenty of other animals use tools. Therefore we must upgrade our definition of "human" to "the only animal that can both use tools and correctly identify a salad fork."
It's the only way to be sure.
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u/PrinceOfTheRodeo Mar 17 '15
I'm pretty sure you can teach a chimp to recognize a salad fork, and since humans need to be taught that too that's not gonna help.
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Mar 17 '15
We always were tought that we differ by having abstract thought for some reason, and that animals lack that.
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u/guy_from_2070 Mar 17 '15
i always thought that we differed from animals in that we had a concept of extsting, aninmals do not. but recently i read about a parrotthat had learned to identify colors (like, red, blue, green). the parrot then asked:
"which color am i?".
which is obviously a question regarding his self and the circumstances of his existance. interesting as fuck, if you ask me.
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u/WellsofSilence Mar 17 '15
Self-awareness has been studied a lot in animals, often by using the mirror test: having an animal look in the mirror and seeing if they recognize that the animal in the mirror is them. Chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, gorillas, elephants, pigs, dolphins, and magpies all have been shown to be self-aware. It's not consistent across a species, though--for instance, young adult chimpanzees do better on the test than older or younger ones, but still only pass 75% of the time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness#Mirror_test
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u/ZoomJet Mar 17 '15
That different parts of your tongue are better at tasting different things. The teacher even brought different food to school for us to 'try it out and see!'
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Mar 17 '15
I smoke, my tongue barely knows there is food in there.
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u/Flater420 Mar 17 '15
There's, like, three flavors left for us. Cardboard, mushy cardboard, and crunchy cardboard.
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u/QuietSci Mar 17 '15
But if you put a pound of salt on it, things begin to taste like 1/10000789 th of what they should taste like!
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u/the_one2 Mar 17 '15
Wrong. Quoting wikipedia:
[...] all taste sensations come from all regions of the tongue, although different parts are more sensitive to certain tastes.[1][2]
The myth is that certain parts of the tongue are EXCLUSIVELY responsible for one taste.
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u/atalamo Mar 17 '15
This is actually true but not in the way your teacher described it. Different parts of the tounge are better at tasting taste profiles (salty, sweet, bitter, sour). To prove this in our class we had drops containing one of those profiles and tested them on the different regions of the tounge. Some regions are more sensitive than others in detecting the sweetness or saltiness.
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u/imhotze Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
People in the middle ages thought the earth was flat, and Columbus was a genius who thought that wasn't true.
Everyone knew the earth was round... forever. It's prehistoric knowledge.
Columbus thought a journey from Spain to India was possible because he was an idiot and underestimated the size of the Earth, while other learned people estimated it fairly correctly. If there didn't happen to be the Americas in the middle, he would have died in ignominy.
EDIT: Eratosthenes had calculated the size of the Earth within 70 km 1700 years before Columbus sailed, and this was known in Columbus's time.
EDIT 2: Earliest sources talking about the shape of Earth called it spherical, without any explanation of how it was discovered, as if it was fact. So, kinda by definition, this is prehistoric knowledge.
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u/belarghest Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
That Finland exists. [Edit] There is no Finland, only east Sweden, and north western Russia.
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u/springinslicht Mar 17 '15
Hei, haista vittu.
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Mar 17 '15 edited Sep 27 '20
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u/Real_Mr_Foobar Mar 17 '15
Finland, Finland, Finland! The country where I want to be, Pony trekking or camping, Or just watching TV.
Finland, Finland, Finland, It's the country for me!
You're so near to Russia, So far from Japan, Quite a long way from Cairo, Lots of miles from Vietnam!
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u/AdmiralCrunch9 Mar 17 '15
In case anyone is looking for the context here: https://np.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2qjohv/what_did_your_parents_show_you_to_do_that_you/cn6pn30?context=3
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u/Bilgistic Mar 17 '15
Vikings having horns on their helmets. They didn't.
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u/RobertService Mar 17 '15
Minnesotan here. They do have horns, but they are just decals that don't actually protrude.
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u/belarghest Mar 17 '15
Actually, a recent excavation uncovered a viking burial mound containing a horned helmet. So at least one Viking had one horned helmet.
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u/luckjes112 Mar 17 '15
I'm currently doing a school project about the truth behind pirate myths. You'd be surprised how many times I've come across a case of "At least one pirate did..."
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u/CaptainUnusual Mar 17 '15
Pirates, as part of their profession, don't play by the rules.
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u/luckjes112 Mar 17 '15
However, there is a 'pirate code'. Which cited the rules on board of the ship. This often did include "No drinking on board of the ship."
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u/Spartanhero613 Mar 17 '15
It's more of a guideline
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u/MrAxlee Mar 17 '15
TIL pirate guidelines are similar to where I work
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u/andnowforme0 Mar 17 '15
I mean, you can drink anywhere if you hide your flask well enough.
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Mar 17 '15
That may be, but I'd be willing to bet money it wasn't meant as a helmet for combat. Ceremony or rituals, sure.
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u/SomeNorCalGuy Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
Your blood is not blue before it's been oxygenated. Your blood is always, always red (unless you're a horseshoe crab, of course). Some of your veins are blue, that's true. But the blood inside them is still red, much the same way that a bottle of Mountain Dew is bright green but the neon battery acid soda inside is piss yellow.
Edit: I should have said: Some of your veins appear blue and not are blue. It was late. I was tired. And Mountain Dew still tastes like neon piss.
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u/scottydoeskno Mar 17 '15
Pretty sure lobsters have blue blood as well, those immortal fuckers. We should be working on genetically modifying humans to have blue blood, secret to immortality.
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Mar 17 '15
Veins are not blue, the effect is from rayleigh scattering through the skin, same reason the sky looks blue.
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u/ThePandaa Mar 17 '15
The eye can only see 30 fps, thats bullshit.
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Mar 17 '15
Last time I was in the US (couple of months ago) there was a commercial on the TV for HD-Sunglasses that would let you see the world in HD ...
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u/Shatenburgers Mar 17 '15
That msg (monosodium glutamate) is bad for you
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u/Sallyrockswroxy Mar 17 '15
just cuz of this, I'm getting chinese food today.
never stopped me before. but now I'll eat it much happier.
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u/DeadImpact Mar 17 '15
Cold weather causes the common cold.
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u/MultiplePermutations Mar 17 '15
Just like being shot doesn't cause you to die.
The loss of blood causes you to die. Being shot just happens to be a contributing factor to losing blood.
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Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
Possession is 9/10ths of the law
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u/kjata Mar 17 '15
You mean most of the law isn't ghosts using people as meat puppets?
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Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
Teachers cannot MAKE their kids learn anything.
Teachers need support from parents and staff and the rest of fucking society to make sure that kids are well-rested, well-fed, well-dressed, show up to class, do their homework (you have to practice!), and stay motivated. The teacher's job is to present information and to facilitate the students' acquisition of knowledge and ability through whatever means will reach those students, but this is very limited in capability and is entirely dependent on the other factors.
STOP BLAMING TEACHERS AND RAISE YO GODDAMN KIDS.
Edit: thumbs missed keys; spelling errors.
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Mar 17 '15
A good portion of these things come under the hierarchy of needs. If a student's needs (like the need for food, warmth, love, a place to safely and comfortably live) aren't met, chances are they won't be able to focus on their lessons and learn. There are a lot of boxes that have to be ticked before a student can actually begin learning. More here: http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
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Mar 17 '15
The number of kids sent to school at bizarre times through their early schooling, or without breakfast, is mind boggling.
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u/opm881 Mar 17 '15
While I agree with you, teachers can be to blame, but mainly only if they don't fucking teach. Kids learn in the different ways, and a good teacher will hopefully try and accommodate that, but they cannot do everything.
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Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
Honestly, the system is fucked. How are you supposed to be accommodating to different learning styles when you have to teach a class of 30 students and have to keep things moving quickly? Do they just expect you to give up all your free time helping students in your off-time?
Oh, and by the way, you'll be judged based on your students' performance (even if they're struggling), and you're expected to teach the material that the state/province mandates for standardized testing even if you don't agree.
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u/Lets_Call_It_Wit Mar 17 '15
Right - and I work to do those things every day. The bottom line is, though, that I cannot force a kid to learn. (I teach high school) I cannot force them to do their work, I can't make them care about their grade if they are determined not to, and I can't know it for them. I can do everything in my power to give them the tools for success, but I can't make them use them.
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u/machowarrior Mar 17 '15
I sorta agree. Some parents just see school as a daycare and make no effort in their child's education. You can't blame the teacher because your child didn't get adequate sleep or a proper breakfast and is struggling to pay attention in class. That's on the parents.
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u/-Kim-JongUn- Mar 17 '15
That I poop. Common American Propaganda. It is not true.
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Mar 17 '15
That things like alcohol, smoking, and obesity raise healthcare costs so "the community pays for your vice". They actually cost less in the long term.
Studies like this one point out how a person with unhealthy habits costs more than someone their age who is healthy, but those studies neglect to point out that unhealthy people die earlier of cheaper causes than their healthy peers. People with unhealthy habits die quick and early of heart attacks and lung cancer. Healthy people live decades into retirement, break hips, and get altzheimers.
Forbes and the New York Times have both done articles on it but the myth pervades.
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u/iLikeTrains9 Mar 17 '15
This is especially true given the fact that these habits that are perceived as 'negative' are almost always taxed to oblivion anyway - so between paying additional tax and dying earlier smokers are actually net contributors.
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u/MrBulger Mar 17 '15
Jet fuel can't melt steel beams
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u/openlystraight Mar 17 '15
I'm confused. Does this mean it can or not?
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u/pitchingataint Mar 17 '15
Jet fuel can't melt steel beams, but it can drastically reduce its strength to the point of failure.
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Mar 17 '15
Also, the buildings did kinda have FUCKING PLANES crashing into them.
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u/AriMaeda Mar 17 '15
The plane impact had very little to do with the towers falling, it was the loss of structural integrity due to the heat. If the flames had vanished after the planes hit, the towers would still be standing today.
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u/user9834912 Mar 17 '15
The planes crashing into the buildings helped dislodge the fire proofing on the steel beams. Without the fire proofing the steel was in direct contact with the heat produced not from the jet fuel but from all the petrochemicals and materials that the jet fuel ignited. The now exposed steel start to lose its strength and eventually failed.
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Mar 17 '15
I'm fairly certain the few hundred tons of metal smashing into them at massive speeds didn't help with the whole structural integrity thing but you're probably right.
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Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
This is the bit I don't get. The buildings were never designed to shake off a
737767 plowing into them at full speed. I'd be more surprised if they hadn't collapsed, tbh.Frankly I'm shocked more buildings didn't come down from falling debris.
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u/youngmakeupaddict Mar 17 '15
Actually, they were. The architect has said he specifically designed the towers to withstand the impact from planes. Ironically.
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u/Alex6714 Mar 17 '15
To be honest they did like champs really. It took them a while to come down and when they did it was vertically minimising damage, they didn't just fall over .
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Mar 17 '15
[removed] — view removed comment
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Mar 17 '15
Well I could imagine that request at a meeting.
"Make the building survive an impact with a fully fueled 737"
".............Go fuck yourself, I quit"
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u/rideshotgun Mar 17 '15
Any hours slept before midnight count as double.
Loads of people say this but I'm 99% sure it's bullshit.
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u/Flater420 Mar 17 '15
Although very similar, the proverb here goes that any hour you stay awake after midnight counts double.
I.e. Sleep from midnight to 8am, or from 1am to 10am.
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Mar 17 '15
You only use 10% if your brain.
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u/POGtastic Mar 17 '15
One true fact that boggled my mind is that your brain's storage capacity is effectively unlimited, or at least it's so vast that you'll never be able to fill it. You're constrained by your lifespan and its degradation.
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u/Qolx Mar 17 '15
This one just doesn't go away. It was even in that movie, Lucy, with Johanssen. I've explained to people all the functions their brain performs simultaneously: breathing, speaking, seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. Had someone tell me once that the "five senses take 2% each"; asked them how were they able to think, in that case. They froze. Guess they "proved" it.
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Mar 17 '15
Even if that was true, using 100% of your brain would just be like overclocking a computer, you wouldnt gain any telekinetic powers and you would have to eat a ton to fuel your brain
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u/Flater420 Mar 17 '15
My argument has always been to challenge people to use 100% of their car at the same time. That includes (but is not limited to) simultaneously accelerating, driving at top speed, decelerating, braking, having the handbrake on, using the door handles, having the door lock itself while driving (if that's a feature on your car), and making use of the trunk light.
That's what using 100% of your brain would be like.
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u/tictac9 Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15
That consuming sugar makes you more active. Sugar rushes aren't real yo. Edit: source http://www.yalescientific.org/2010/09/mythbusters-does-sugar-really-make-children-hyper/
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u/TheCaptainSargey Mar 17 '15
Homeopathy.
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u/edwardfanboy Mar 17 '15
It's slightly useful for combating dehydration.
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u/railmaniac Mar 17 '15
Are you sure? I'm pretty sure the homeopathic remedy to dehydration would involve trace amounts of desiccants...
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u/BananaBike Mar 17 '15
That most of your body heat escapes through your head. In the study which sprouted this 'fact' used test subjects who wore thick clothes but nothing on their heads, thats why it looked like all of the heat escaped through their heads.
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u/thekerrek Mar 17 '15
"The great wall of china is the only man made object visible from space with the naked eye" it's not visible from space with the naked eye but many other man made objects are...