Talk:List of common misconceptions/Archive 19

Dr. - In the front of a name does not mean Medical Doctor
I see way too many doctorates implying they are Medical Doctors or have a M.D. by simply placing "Dr." in front of their name or telling people to call them Doctor. This is a growing misconception and applies to all the pseudo sciences like sociology and psychology. I would also include Psychiatry but somehow they were able to attain MD's even though they do not diagnose, treat or cure any disease — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.50.119.13 (talk) 01:06, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Please read the section at the top of this page that begins "please read". I have removed the other section you added -- there's no sense piling up things that don't meet the criteria for this article. Looie496 (talk) 04:08, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Are you insinuating the previous comment is not a misconception? 68.50.119.13 (talk) 23:32, 29 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not a common one, nor is it sourced, nor mentioned at the main article. siafu (talk) 00:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)


 * There are other problems with it. Your comment reveals many misunderstandings. It is perfectly proper to call a PhD or holder of any other doctorate "Doctor." This does not imply they are an M.D.. That some people think so is a misunderstanding. Look up "Doctor (title)." Also sociology and psychology aren't generally consider pseudosciences, but psychiatry often is, but that's not a consensus opinion. Psychiatrists are first M.D.s, and then specialize in psychiatry. It's not the other way around. Psychiatrists are allowed to diagnose, treat, and cure any medical condition, just like other M.D.. (For more about controversies about whether psychoanalysis is pseudoscience or not, look here.) -- Brangifer (talk) 03:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Circumstantial evidence is not irrelevant evidence
Far too often in the popular press, we see an attorney objecting by saying "that's circumstantial evidence". In truth, all evidence falls into one of two categories: circumstantial and eye-witness. Therefore, the great majority of legally relevant evidence is circumstantial. Its degree of relevance and importance is to be determined by the jury (or the judge if it's not a jury trial). Middlenamefrank (talk) 20:47, 11 April 2013 (UTC)


 * If that's the case then it is a common misconception that attorneys frequently successfully object to circumstantial evidence. Jack 203.106.160.221 (talk) 22:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The gringo misconception is not very readable as it is.
This is how it is:

The word "gringo" did not originate during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the Venezuelan War of Independence (1811–1823), the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), or in the American Old West (c. 1865–1899) as a corruption of the lyrics "green grow" in either "Green Grow the Lilacs" or "Green Grow the Rushes, O" sung by US-American soldiers or cowboys;[120] nor did it originate during any of these times as a corruption of "Green go home!", falsely said to have been shouted at green-clad American troops.[121] The word originally simply meant "foreigner", and is probably a corruption of Spanish griego, "Greek".[122]

This is how I'd have it:

The word "gringo" did not originate in any of the following ways: during the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the Venezuelan War of Independence (1811–1823), the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920), in the American Old West (c. 1865–1899) as a corruption of the lyrics "green grow" in either "Green Grow the Lilacs" or "Green Grow the Rushes, O" sung by US-American soldiers or cowboys;[120] during any of these times as a corruption of "Green go home!" (falsely said to have been shouted at green-clad American troops).[121]

It truly originated this way: the word originally simply meant "foreigner", and is probably a corruption of Spanish griego, "Greek".[122]

Jack 203.106.160.221 (talk) 22:12, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Should more be included?
I like the list here, but I'm wondering if more should be included or not. Some people think that dog's mouths are cleaner than humans, which they aren't or that the golden spike that connected the railways in the US was real. As long as you can find more information about other bogus things that people think is true, I hope that you include them on the page.

65.214.69.226 (talk) 23:52, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Those are good ones, but: you are hereby enthusiastically encouraged to review the inclusion criteria (above), and add an item which meets all four. --Lexein (talk) 07:27, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

caduceus is a symbol of medicine even if it was chosen in error
The caduceus is a symbol of medicine even if it was not well chosen or was chosen in error.

14:11, 11 May 2013 (UTC) Michael Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.229.11.14 (talk)

Parthenon, Euclid and the Golden Ratio
The fact that the Parthenon antedates the first preserved mention of the golden ration is irrelevant. Most Greek texts have been lost, and the Greeks may have used the golden ration before it was written down. Either the Parthenon instantiates the golden ration or it doesn't, and of course if it did, it would prove that the Greeks used it before Euclid mentioned it.

14:32, 11 May 2013 (UTC) Michael Christian

Mixing alcoholic drinks
I have heard many times that if you mix alcoholic drinks (I.E. beer and sprit or beer and cider) then you will get more drunk/have a worse hangover. If this is not true then I feel it should definatly be in this list.

I am however having trouble finding good studies on the subject. It is a subject that seems to have a lot of speculation and hearsay about it. Here a few links saying that mixing has no effect: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/health/07real.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1368381631-SWMu8LXCO4+hhwrEi8YcMQ http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/accidents-hazardous-conditions/dui1.htm

I have equaly seen a study saying that mixing some diet drinks and alcohol leads to a higher reading on a breathalyzer test than the alcohol alone: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23216417 It seems possible it could be chemicals in the diet drinks raising the reading on the breathalyzer falsely (?) (as the tests are often effected by non-alcohol chemicals). However otherwise this may be true in which case obviously it should not be in this list.

Regardless I would like to be able to settle this as I have wondered about the accuracy of this advice for some time. Thank you. 80.7.27.189 (talk) 18:15, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Based on my own personal experience, I also think that there are a few misconceptions out there about this, including that the order in which the drinks are enjoyed (like beer before wine is ok, but the oposite will give a worse hangover). I have also read articles that debunk some of these as "myths". But before they can be included here, we would need to fulfil the four criteria:
 * The common misconception's including topic has an article of its own.
 * Done, as there are articles on Alcoholic beverage, Hangover etc.
 * The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.
 * This means that we would need a reliable source that states that [X] is a misconception, and we would require there to be no ambiguity about [X]. As such, we should be vary of "disclaimers" such as "however", "in certain cases", "other studies suggest" etc.
 * The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.
 * Once we have sources, there should be no reason not to get this included at Hangover
 * The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete.
 * Should not be an issue.
 * I did a quick search and found it mentioned in a Norwegian newspaper, but it is not really clear about this being a "common misconception". I encourage you to look harder andto try to find a source for this! Dr bab (talk) 09:34, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Chewing gum entry
Regarding the gum entry, the misconception is treated in the article chewing gum. The sources state that it is a misconception, and that it is common. Thus it meets all the criteria for inclusion. I don't understand the objection, or the removal. Please discuss. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:25, 22 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Some other sources:
 * http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2201099/What-happens-swallow-chewing-gum-mistake-And-doesnt-stay-stomach-seven-years-.html
 * http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/healthy-eating/myth-or-fact-gum-stays-in-your-stomach-for-years.html
 * http://www.dukehealth.org/health_library/health_articles/myth_or_fact_it_takes_seven_years_to_digest_chewing_gum
 * http://tappmd.com/hot-healthy/myth-or-fact-chewing-gum-takes-7-years-to-digest/ 19:35, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Apologies, I thought I'd posted here but actually put it on my own Talk page (I'll delete it from there, anyone interested see History). This is what I said (with original timestamp):

Re chewing gum taking 7 years to pass thorough the body: the criteria for inclusion (show when editing the page) are that an item added to the list must at least fulfill the following:
 * The common misconception's including topic has an article of its own.
 * The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.
 * The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.
 * The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete.

This doesn't meet at least 1 and 3, so doesn't belong, as I put clearly in my edit summary when I deleted the paragraph. (The same can be said of an awful lot more, but the chewing gum case seems particularly implausible).

Unless it can be demonstrated to meet the criteria, this needs deleting. Without further ado. Pol098 (talk) 19:42, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I see that the myth is indeed mentioned in the article (it should have been linked, it is now). I still don't think it's a common misconception and that it doesn't belong, but let's see what others think. Pol098 (talk) 20:21, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Unless I'm critically misunderstanding what "including topic" means, the including topic is chewing gum, which meets criteria 1. The misconception is mentioned in the topic article with sources, so that also meets criteria 3. I don't see why it would be removed (and if you'll excuse a bit of WP:OR, I can tell you that it is indeed a common misconception where I live). - SudoGhost 20:25, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems a worthwhile inclusion. This is a common misconception both in my area and very popularly found around the internet. --Sgtlion (talk) 11:24, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Lion's den
I removed the entry on the Lion's den misconception. The cited source (wiki.answers.com) is not a reliable source, nor does it establish that this is a common misconcpetion. Furthermore, there is no mention of this misconception in Lion; on the contrary it seems to imply that there are such things as a lion's den: "female giving birth to a litter of one to four cubs in a secluded den (which may be a thicket, a reed-bed, a cave or some other sheltered area)" [My emphasis]. Dr bab (talk) 09:34, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The tone of that entry should have been enough of a giveaway.   Hot Stop   13:51, 27 May 2013 (UTC)


 * SUPPORT removal of the entry. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:16, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Salieri and Mozart
This entry cites only one source, which does not state that this is a common misconception. The parent articles do not state that it is a common misconception. Further, I doubt that it is common to have even heard of Salieri, let alone his alleged transgressions.

I understand that Salieri was depicted this way in two fictional treatments, but it is unclear how widespread these two versions were seen, or what percentage of the audience believed it was historically accurate. So, without citations establishing that this is a common misconception, it fails to meet the criteria. Other opinions? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:22, 29 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I would suspect that the movie Amadeus is the only reason that most people have even heard of Salieri. He's not really know very well for his music, except among a small number of classical music scholars, but instead for the fictional rivalry with Mozart that was used to sell tickets. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:27, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I see that the entry has been restored with the following cite:


 * ^ Jeal, Erica (December 18, 2003). "The feud that never was". The Guardian Company. "Then, in 1823, Salieri - hospitalised, terminally ill and deranged - is said to have accused himself of poisoning Mozart. In more lucid moments he took it back. But the damage was done. Even if few believed the ramblings of a confused old man, the fact that Salieri had "confessed" to Mozart's murder gave the rumour some semblance of validity. Today, although we know it's almost certainly false, the image of Salieri as poisoner persists."

My reading of this source is that it establishes that the misconception exists, but does not establish that it is common. Absent evidence of commonality, the entry does not meet the criteria for this article. I'm going to remove it again - please either find a reliable source that clearly meets the criteria or discuss here before restoring again. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:42, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 31 May 2013
Enhitti (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. No proposed edit. Begoon &thinsp; talk  02:37, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 31 May 2013
I'd just like to point out that the second point (about Nero) is invalid. It is not a common misconception that Nero played the fiddle. It is actually a point made by a source (Suetonius) that is just as reliable as Tacitus. The two sources contradict each other on Nero's actions, but that does not mean that you can simply say that Suetonius' version is incorrect as in fact, we will never know which one was truly incorrect. Additionally, both sources do mention that Nero played an instrument. Maybe not the fiddle, but he did certainly play an instrument, and therefore it is valid for Suetonius to have mentioned Nero's tendency to play an instrument, and you cannot simply use that point to disprove the source. I understand why someone may have made the common misconception (notice the irony) to assume that Tacitus' version is the correct one (because many would argue that Tacitus is more reliable than Suetonius) but it is actually a matter of great debate deciding which source is correct - we simply will never know no matter how much we speculate. Thus we cannot simply choose one and tell everyone that the other is a 'common misconception.'

Leli2515 (talk) 22:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template.  Begoon &thinsp; talk  02:37, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It could be an expression for all we know. That's what I always took it as, not some literal event.  Played a fiddle while his city burned.   D r e a m Focus  22:17, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Cartwheeling knights
I have two problems with the recently added material about knights in armor doing cartwheels:


 * It is irrelevant to the misconception - in the interest of keeping these entries short, non- essential material should be moved to the parent article.


 * It is unclear that the cited source establishes this as fact. A "fifteenth-century manuscript" is a primary source and we must be careful in using it as it may be subject to interpretation.   For instance, it is possible to find old manuscripts that describe dragons, devils, and cows jumping over the moon but that doesn't mean any of those things existed. I'd need to see more than just a title, author and page number before accepting this rather extraordinary claim as reliably sourced.

I'm going to remove it (again); let's try to reach consensus here on the talk page before restoring it. At minimum, the sourcing needs to be improved. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:18, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The misconception is that they had trouble moving about. Showing they could do cartwheels, shows just how well they could move.  What I gave was a valid reliable source.  The book mentioned it, and said there was a manuscript from the 15th century showing this even.  There is video footage of people on YouTube in modern day recreations of plate armor doing cartwheels.  The History Channel had a problem I saw years ago that mentioned plate wearers centuries ago doing cartwheels.  How many reliable sources do you need?  Daily Life in the Middle Ages By Paul B. Newman  says "It is fully articulated, permitting the human inside a surprisingly wide range of movement with the freedom to perform physical activities ranging from mounting a horse to swinging a sword to doing cartwheels to scaling a ladder."   D r e a m Focus  00:08, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

The cartwheel comment seems rather unnecessary, and distracting. Sure, it demonstrates that they could do a lot, and I imagine they could jump up and down and dance as well, which could probably be sourced. The misconception, as sourced and articulated currently, is that it was difficult to move about wearing plate armor and that knights who fell would be essentially helpless. The text already handily deals with that; I don't see any need to add additional commentary on the things they could do, at least on this page. The page at plate armour is the best place to include additional details and textual development like the cartwheels bit; what is desired here is a concise and brief description since this is a list covering many topics. siafu (talk) 14:58, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Other opinions please. Should this be in or not in the article.  And should I use the reference I had before, the new one, both, or something else?   D r e a m Focus  00:11, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Who cares is they could do cartwheels? It's slightly amusing, but trivial. The critical question was, did they require cranes to mount their horses? Could they fight on foot? Were they like a helpless overturned beetle if they fell down? I've heard these things many times, amounting to the general idea that knights were militarily useless, a waste of resources. There's probably some anti-elitist politics here, using they as symbols of a top-heavy social structure. Battle of Agincourt and all that. I'd rather add a well-sourced sentence shedding more light on their fighting ability than this cartwheels nonsense. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:12, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that prove how very flexible they were? If you could do a Cartwheel (gymnastics) then you could do anything.   D r e a m Focus  04:33, 3 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure, if we had not choice but to infer things about the armor indirectly. If we had no direct information about fighting ability in plate armor, then we'd have to shift focus and look instead at something unrelated, like cartwheels. And I don't know that doing a cartwheel proves you can do anything. Does it prove that? Seems really roundabout to have to demonstrate that a cartwheel is a fit test for whether one is an agile fighter or not, when we could simply cite sources that tell us straight out that you could be an agile fighter in plate armor. It's an interesting detail that belongs in another article. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 05:06, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Suggested addition: never store a car battery on concrete
I've just added the paragraph below to Automotive battery, describing the myth that you should never store a lead-acid battery on concrete, with mentions of the popularity of the myth at Snopes.com, Car Talk and Popular Mechanics:

In the past, storing lead-acid batteries on the ground, or on concrete or cement floors, was believed to cause batteries to discharge or be otherwise damaged, but this is no longer a concern. In spite of this, the advice to never leave a battery on a concrete floor persists. Modern batteries use tough polycarbonate cases that do not conduct current or allow moisture to pass, and maintenance free batteries are the norm, so large amounts of leaking acid are rarely seen, providing no route for current to flow. One battery manufacturer even prefers storing new batteries on concrete in the summer to keep them cooler, decreasing the natural discharge rate. Early batteries had wooden cases, and could absorb moisture from wet concrete, giving current a route to discharge. Another explanation for the admonition to avoid concrete is that wooden cases in the earliest batteries encased a glass jar, which could be broken by swelling wood if the wood casing became damp. Later hard rubber cases were porous and had a high carbon content, leaving another route for current leakage, but modern plastic cases are five or more times better insulators than rubber, and the terminal seals to not leak as they once did.

--Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:34, 2 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Well-sourced, but I question the overall commonality. Using snopes lends some credence to that claim, but they never explicitly investigate whether urban legends are actually commonly held; the other sources (Car Talk, Popular Mechanics, etc.), are somewhat specialty for car enthusiasts and gearheads (I'm a fan of both, myself).  Compare this with the 3,000 mile myth, which is much more widespread; I would definitely support including that one (or the common belief that you can "burp" the gas tank, e.g.) before the battery on concrete advice. siafu (talk) 15:07, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * "No End to Battery Storage Debate" is an apt headline. There's no end to this debate. Tom and Ray Magliozzi say the question comes up again and again. This example is from 1999. Car Talk had addressed the question previously in 1991. Again in 2005. Here is a 2010 example, not from Car Talk. Another unconnected example, from 2007. The Washington Times said in 1996 there are "mixed feelings" about storing batteries on concrete.The list criteria say "The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception." So far we have 10 or 11 citations saying it's a common misconception. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:41, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Common where? Mature aged person here, worked in motor industry areas in Australia. Never heard of it. Not denying that it may exist in some places, but where? HiLo48 (talk) 21:11, 3 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This is another example of the difficulty of scope that pops up form time to time. It is frequently cited as an example that "a common misconception among particle physicists" is not a common misconception. So maybe a "common misconception amongst car-geeks" is common? Or is that also too narrow? How and where should we draw the line?Dr bab (talk) 11:44, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Probably narrower than just car-geeks. I suspect it might just be American car-geeks. (Hence my previous question.) But if we stay consistent in this already appalling article, that's OK. We have a misconception about electric fans and Koreans. HiLo48 (talk) 11:47, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The metric for determining whether a misconception is common or not is whether it can be established via citations in reliable sources. Whether you or I have personally heard of it is irrelevant.


 * That said, I do not think the sources cited so far have clearly established the commonality. This is somewhat of a judgement call, but may take is that while it may be common to a small subset of auto enthusiasts, it is not common in the general population.  For instance, http://www.thebatteryterminal.com/TechTalk_Batteries_on_Concrete.htm says: "At least once a month,     someone calls and asks this question or asks for clarification on the     subject", but this is from a technical forum.  In my line of work (computer software) there are many many questions that come up every month in the forums, but I wouldn't suggest any of them for inclusion in this article because while they may be common to computer programmers, they are not common in the general population.


 * Moreover, this "misconception" was once sound technical advice that has simply been eclipsed by technological progress, so I don't think it merits inclusion. This article would be way too long if we tried to include every instance of no-longer-necessary technical maintenance issues. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 11:51, 4 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I have my doubts that it was ever sound technical advice, but it could still be a common enough misconception, IF the sources convince us. But the geographical extent needs to be clarified. HiLo48 (talk) 11:58, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

There's currently half dozen entries in the list that are specific to American culture. Seems acceptable.The Automobile Storage Battery, published in 1919, has copious details about car battery maintenance, and makes no mention of this issue. You would think that in 1919 you'd see the largest problems with leaky wooden battery cases, and the book does cover quite a bit about acid leakage, and discusses building a shop with a floor that can stand up to the acid that apparently was spilling everywhere all the time. But nothing about floors making batteries drain.The earliest example I can find is from 1983, Popular Mechanics. There are two more examples of believing in the myth from the 90s and, both from authors who have several published books on automotive topics.From what I can tell, this myth began quite some time after impermeable polycarbonate battery cases became common, in the early 1980s, and spread during the period when maintenance free batteries were replacing those with open tops. By the late 1990s it was taken as a matter of faith among a number of automotive experts. A few years later, the myth began to be debunked. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:07, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposed text
I'm not totally sure whether there is strong opposition or not, but here is a proposal for the actual wording of an addition to the article: Automotive batteries stored on a concrete floor do not discharge any faster than they would on other surfaces, in spite of worry among Americans that concrete harms batteries. Early batteries might have been susceptible to moisture from floors due to leaky, porous cases, but for many years lead-acid car batteries have had impermeable polycarbonate cases, and are maintenance-free, so they do not leak battery acid.

Note that Popular Mechanics wrote in 2000 that the concrete worry is an "urban legend", yet in 2005 published a car care book warning to "keep battery clear of concrete;" so it goes. Good? Not good? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:29, 10 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and added it, assuming nobody objects. Other transport related items I want to suggest are the misunderstanding of how bicycles and motorcycles turn (see Countersteering and Hurt Report), the myth that you should never use the front brake of a motorcycle or a bicycle (sometimes that you should never use the back brake!), and the belief that putting wider tires on your car increases the size of the Contact patch and/or the coefficient of friction with the road. The 3,000 mile myth has already been mentioned as well. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:30, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

The eye evolved to be most sensitive to sunlight
This is a very common misconception, especially in the scientific community. The basic idea is that, upon observation that the solar spectral irradiance peaks at 502 nm, very close to the human eye's peak sensitivity of 555 nm, one asserts that the eye naturally evolved to have "optimal" sensitivity of daylight.

This is quite false, yet quite pervasive. A detailed discussion of the issue is given in this article from Am J Phys:. The very first sentence: "'Many people believe that evolution has produced a human eye whose color sensitivity roughly matches the sunlight spectrum.'"

The source then lists a dozen respectable sources, including journal articles on the subject, that have committed this error. Among these:
 * Keneth R. Lang, Sun Earth and Sky (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1995), p. 210.
 * J. D. Mollon, "The Uses and Origins of Primate Colour Vision," J. Exp. Biol. 146, 21–38 (1989).
 * James T. McIlwain, An Introduction to the Biology of Vision (Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 1996), pp. 5–6.
 * Evan Thompson, Colour Vision (Routlidge, London and New York, 1995), pp. 51, 169.
 * Albert Rose, Vision Human and Electronic (Plenum, New York and London, 1973), pp. 49–50.
 * Robert M. Boynton, Human Color Vision (Holt, Rienhart and Winston, New York, 1979), p. 51
 * This misleading statement is repeated in Peter K. Kaiser and Robert M. Boynton, Human Color Vision, 2nd ed. (Optical Society of America, Washington, DC, 1996), p. 6.


 * Robert M. Boynton, "Human color perception," in Science of Vision, edited by K. N. Leiboveic (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1990), p. 218.
 * David K. Lynch and William Livingston, Color and Light in Nature (Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 1995), p. 222.
 * Laurie White, Infrared Photography Handbook (Amherst Media, Amherst, New York, 1996), pp. 28–32.
 * Robert Sekuler and Randolph Blake, Perception, 3rd ed. (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1994), p. 201.

Every one of these perpetuates the same misconception. I've heard this statement dozens of times in conversation and online. Googling "human eye peak sensitivity sunlight" will yield uncountable cases of this misconception used to explain the 555nm sensitivity of the eye, and occasional discussions of the misconception itself. This certainly meets the criteria for inclusion. Moreover, this should be noted in eye, human eye, or visual perception.— wing  gundam  01:51, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * How does it meet the criteria for inclusion? Does the related topic have an article?  Is it mentioned in that topic article?  I can only see the abstract of the linked article, but I don't see that it says anything about that being a misconception. - SudoGhost 08:24, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * From the abstract, "Therefore the oft-quoted notion that evolution led to an optimized eye whose sensitivity peaks where there is most available sunlight is misleading and erroneous." We can't legally provide a copy of the article here. Try Google (or your local university library) — wing  gundam  22:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Hang on.. I think you should at least let Siafu get the chance to respond before undoing the edit. This article is very concervative when it comes to including new items, which it has to be. So let's seek other editors' opinions here before adding anything.
 * I had a look at a few of the sources, and I find it a very interesting, if perhaps a bit technical. I also found it interesting that it is somewhat related to an old discussion on here where it was debated wether the misconception that "the sun is not yellow" should be included.
 * Due to the technical nature of the misconception, I think one way of getting some QA on this is to first take it to eye, human eye, or visual perception and discussing it there. That would get the opinion of editors with presumably more knowledge on the subject. It is also a criteria that any misconceptions on here are mentioned in their parent article, partially for that reason, so inclusion in one of those articles (or Solar spectrum or any other suitable "parent article").
 * Although we may very well end up including this misconception, I think we should remember that there is no deadline and take our time to do a torough discussion here first. I look forward to hearing the views of other editors, particularly if we have any evolutionary biologists or experts ub spectrography (I think we might). Dr bab (talk) 08:42, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is mentioned in a parent article, Wien's displacement law, as an example of misinterpretation of the law, and the common misconception that arises.
 * Because this relates to evolution of the eye as well, and its ability to sense color, this should be probably be mentioned in either Evolution of the eye, Evolution of color vision, or Evolution of color vision in primates. — wing  gundam  22:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Since not everyone can access the entire article (Soffer & Lynch in Am J Phys), here are a few choice quotes:

From the introduction:
 * "Many people believe that evolution has produced a human eye whose color sensitivity roughly matches the sunlight spectrum.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 Some authors only hint but others state the case even more strongly, i.e., that both the solar spectrum and the color sensitivity of the eye peak very nearly together at around 560 nm in the green. Such an agreement could hardly be accidental, so the implication and reasoning goes, and therefore the human eye must have evolved to possess a near-optimum color sensitivity."


 * "We will show that the apparent wavelength coincidence between the solar spectral radiant power (radiant power per unit bandwidth)11 and the eye's spectral sensitivity, its spectral ability to elicit a visual response, is artificial and often misleading. It results from the choice of units in which the solar spectrum is plotted. Comparing spectral radiant power to sensitivity is like "comparing apples and oranges."...Furthermore, we will demonstrate that, on the contrary, the spectral sensitivity of the eye does not depend on the units used, and suggest that the eye is poorly optimized to take full advantage of all the visible and the enormous amount of infrared light that is available in the environment."

from the conclusion:
 * "We have shown that, contrary to the belief expressed by many authors, the eye is only weakly optimized to take full advantage of the available solar spectrum. The erroneous belief often arises from a blind faith in the power of evolution to optimize absolutely, coupled with a misunderstanding of the nature of density distribution functions. That misunderstanding appears in a diverse range of scientific literature. Other constraints upon the eyes' evolutionary optimization besides the Sun's radiance were also important, such as the historically significant influence of the transmission of water, the susceptibility of potentially available biological materials such as photopigments to UV damage, and the instability of possible infrared sensitive photopigments."

My take is that Soffer and Lynch make a compelling case. That said, it's just one article; I'm not an expert in this field and therefore am not familiar enough with the literature to determine whether this article is an outlier, I would echo Dr Bab's advice to take it slow, vet this material at an article that (presumably) has more specialists as editors, and only then add it to this article. I'm also not convinced that the misconception is sufficiently common to warrant inclusion - perhaps it could be included as an example of misconceptions about evolution. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:50, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * There's no question they demonstrate the notion is false. It is a misconception.
 * The question is whether or not it's sufficiently common to be included here. Obviously, not everyone knows what a photon's wavelength is. Not everyone believes the eye evolved. However, I think the article that makes a convincing case that, whenever photon wavelength is understood, this misconception exists. They demonstrate that "in a diverse range of scientific literature" and in many textbooks, people believe the evolution drove the eye to match "peak solar emission".


 * I did not see your comment and signature further up there at first Wing gundam; I only noticed the two comments at the bottom. I'd say that a mention in Wien's displacement law probably fulfills the parent-article criteria, but I'd advocate that this is added to some of the other articles that you mention. I'll probably see if I can put it in somewhere myself.
 * For this list, we have a challenge in determining whether or not this is "common". It is probably quite common among "people who have done high school science (and remember some of it) but has not gone on to study spectroscopy or the human eye". To me, this is a sizeable population, and I would be OK with including it. I may be biased though, as I myself is a member of such a population. And I'd be much more comfortable if we could have some "yardstick" by which to measure things. Dr bab (talk) 06:18, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Peanut butter
In question: "*George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter, though he reputedly discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes."

Source that directly contradicts it: (read the paragraph starting "Agricultural chemist")

Edit summary reverting my content removal:

Your conclusions? Red Slash 01:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * That source doesn't directly contradict it -- it's ambiguous at best. And in any case inventors.about.com is not a reliable source in the sense of WP:RS. Looie496 (talk) 01:33, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This is way murkier than I first thought. peanut-butter.org is obviously not a hugely reliable source either, and the American Scientist assertion is completely unsupported. Neither of these are really saying anything we can pass on with full certainty and authority, right? Red Slash 02:15, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Check the guy's article. Carver was often credited with the invention of peanut butter. While he may have made peanut butter, the preparation arose in other cultures independently. The Aztecs were known to have made it from ground peanuts in the 15th century, and Marcellus Gilmore Edson was awarded U.S. Patent 306,727 (for its manufacture) in 1884, when Carver was 20.[47][48]   D r e a m Focus  04:11, 7 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Here's (more recent) patent information:, ,

And by the way, in my edit summary was based around the fact that you should have discussed it before removing the entry and not left a comment about it on the page itself. EvilKeyboardCat (talk)


 * Hey, no harm no foul, but I don't think you showed a good understanding of WP:POINT. I removed content because I thought it was untrue/unverified. You can call the edit unproductive but there was no larger point. Red Slash 08:48, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The brightness of the Sun as seen from other planets
This one has fascinated me for a long time -- I'm bending the rules a bit by proposing it, because none of our articles really provide a proper explanation right now, but the facts are definitely true:


 * The Sun would not appear dimmer if viewed from Mars, Jupiter, or more distant planets. The apparent size of the Sun would shrink, and the amount of light it casts would shrink correspondingly, but each point on the Sun would look just as brilliant from everywhere in the Solar System, out to the orbit of Pluto.  This happens for the same reason that the brightness of a light bulb in a room does not appear to change as a viewer moves toward it or away from it. At the orbital distance of Neptune or Pluto the disk of the Sun shrinks to the smallest size a normal human eye can distinguish from a point (one arc-minute of visual angle), but it still casts an amount of light comparable to ordinary indoor illumination.  Only from beyond Pluto, where the disk is too small for the eye to resolve, would the Sun appear to grow dimmer.

Our articles on the Sun, sunlight and extraterrestrial skies cover some of this, but don't really raise the issue of dimness, unfortunately. Plenty of extra-Wikipedia sources are available, though. Looie496 (talk) 20:44, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I can in no way see how this would belong in this article. I don't see evidence of a common misconception or source stating such.--Asher196 (talk) 21:23, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Not only that, but it contradicts what's in other articles, for instance The sun from Mercury and the inverse square law. Are we proposing new physics here?  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:48, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It doesn't contradict those articles. The amount of light from the Sun varies as the inverse square of distance, but the perceived size of the disk also varies as the inverse square of distance, so the amount of light per unit of apparent size (measured in squared degrees of visual angle) remains a constant.  The Sun from Mercury has 10 times the apparent size as the Sun from Earth and sheds 10 times the amount of light, so the amount of light shed from each point on the disk is the same. Looie496 (talk) 14:16, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * This sounds like original research. Do you have a source for this claim?  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 17:09, 19 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Stating that "the sun would appear dimmer from point X" does not imply to me that the speaker means that the actual visible disk of the sun shows a reduced luminous flux, but that it provides much less light at point X. This is a true statement, and not a misconception at all.  The very particular point you are making is not at all a refutation of a commonly held belief or misconception. siafu (talk) 17:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Lights camera action
This new section only cites one source, a self-published one at that. I think we need to do better, citation wise. Also, there is also no mention in the parent article, so it fails to meet the inclusion criteria. I see that it has already been removed by another editor, but I think the entry is salvageable and may make a good addition to the article. If the misconception can be reliably sourced, it could be added to Filmmaking which already describes the steps in a manner different than "Lights camera action" and then it would meet the criteria for this article. Other opinions? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:54, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Concur. Revisions w/sources should be proposed here for this entry and the parent article, until criteria are met. --Lexein (talk) 08:22, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Newfoundland was already a popular fishing site for the European powers by the time of Columbus?
There's no citation on this line, and it conflicts with the articles on Newfoundland (island) and the History of Newfoundland. These articles indicate that Newfoundland only became a popular fishing site 5-10 years after 1492. I suggest removing it. 173.79.112.175 (talk) 05:37, 28 June 2013 (UTC)
 * removed, thanks. Hairhorn (talk) 05:52, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Pilgim fathers?
Please can we place a reference here as to who "pilgim fathers" are. Quite a lot of people using wikipedia don't live in the USA and actually don't even have a mental image of what a pilgim father (or mother) would look like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.44.8.83 (talk) 10:58, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Invention of radio
There is a well researched and cited article on the invention of radio that establishes that no single person was responsible for the invention of radio. A recent edit changed the Marconi entry to say that radio was invented by Tesla, in contradiction to the parent article. The basis for this claim was one article (http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_whoradio.html) that doesn't seem to establish the claim, at least in my reading of it.

I've reverted the entry. If wikipedia is going to say "Tesla invented radio" it needs to be done first at the parent article where the editors are presumably more well versed in the topic rather than here. Other comments? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 10:56, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * "No single person was responsible for the invention of radio" is a strong assertion. It's more neutral to say "For the controversy about who invented radio, see invention of radio". --Dennis Bratland (talk) 14:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. siafu (talk) 15:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I've edited the article to reflect this suggestion. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:10, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

External Links?
An editor has removed the entire External links section from the article, Following WP:BRD, I've reverted their bold edit, and am starting this discussion on the article talk page. Should this article have an external links section, why or why not? If so, which links should we have? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:26, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Al Gore: Drafter
The article says that "Al Gore drafted" the High Performance Computing and Communication Act.

Gore may have SPONSORED the Act, but in all likelihood, it was drafted by the Senate's Office of Legislative Counsel, which has the job of writing legislation to be introduced by Senators. Sometimes (rarely), Senate staff will do it. But, never the Senator himself.

Recommend switching to "Sponsored." Also, it's just the "High Performance Computing Act" -- "and Communication" is wrong.

It's P.L. 102-194, which can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov/ (direct link doesn't work).

63.169.85.17 (talk) 21:53, 31 July 2013 (UTC) cefulmer@gmail.com

Reader feedback: clarify what is, and is not ...
24.151.176.163 posted this comment on 7 September 2012 (view all feedback).

"clarify what is, and is not true. I assume everything isn't true thats on this list. for example if the sentence reads 'this did not happen' then I believe it true but if it merely reads' this happened.' I assume it is false because it is on this list."

I agree. The entries should standardize into some format. I would suggest something like the first sentence of entry should be an approximation of: "Although it is widely believed that X, actually Y." It may make the page seem formulaic, but I think the page would be more valuable that way, and people would be much less liable to misread it, which is kind of important for this page. Qed (talk) 21:49, 31 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I think this has been discussed before and decided on the present format. One reason is that if you present the misconception, some people will only remember the misconception. Another reason is that it makes for an awkward format. Sjö (talk) 06:51, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Reader feedback: Misconception about islam
41.130.212.50 posted this comment on 10 February 2013 (view all feedback).

"Misconception about islam"

on 16 July 2013 at 16:05, Coin945 said marked this post as useful and said "I think this refers to the misconception held by many ignorant people that all Muslims are terrorists." I don't agree; I think the set of people who think *all* Muslims are terrorists, are simultaneously bigoted, and numerically incompetent, and thus probably represents a very small population of people (even if they are given plenty of air time on television).

On the other hand, there may be actual misconceptions about Islam, that I am not aware of (because I may harbor these misconceptions; I am not enough of an expert). For example, the business about not cutting your hair, wearing turbans, or veils, are these cultural or religious? The difference between things in the hadith (sp?) versus Qur'an ... what is their relative importance? And the differences between Sunni and Shia -- it just seems like this is fertile ground for misconceptions in general. I know that "jihad" is actually supposed to mean a "personal struggle" rather than some sort of fanatical militancy. That might be a good place to start. Qed (talk) 18:47, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
 * There are hundreds and hundreds of stereotypes. See Category:Ethnic and racial stereotypes, Category:Stereotypes, Stereotypes of groups within the United States, and Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the United States. By definition stereotypes are misconceptions, particularly if you're talking about the over-generalization all X are Y. The See also section here should lead readers to categories, lists and navboxrs about stereotypes, but they can't all be added to list of common misconceptions. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:42, 1 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Well, I am not talking about basic stereotypes. That should be its own category, or perhaps not be in the scope of this article.  In fact, I think prejudice is a *reason* for a misconception, rather than a misconception itself.  So, "all Muslims are terrorists" fits that (but is not widespread enough, I think, to be considered a real misconception).  But "jihad is a kind of fanatical militancy" is a fallacy perpetrated by the media and thus is a cultural misconception.  I we should be more interested in this kind of real misconception. Qed (talk) 19:38, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Chinese word for "crisis"
Should Chinese word for "crisis" be included under words and phrases? It's called a "widespread public misperception" in the article and so seems to meet the inclusion criteria. Sjö (talk) 07:46, 2 August 2013 (UTC)


 * You would need to establish that it is "common". I've never heard of it before; that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not common, but establishing the commonality will be harder than for misconceptions that nearly everyone has heard before.  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:00, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I've actually heard the saying, but from our article it's unclear if it actually is a misconception. Hot Stop talk-contribs 14:39, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
 * This one is a good candidate. The article cites several speeches when it's been used, and you can easily find a couple dozen more. I'd look at commencement speeches. I counted more than 30 examples at google books. I'd like a more elaborate explanation in the article Chinese word for "crisis" for how the particle ji acquires a meaning, but as far as this list goes it's within easy reach. Just add more examples. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:57, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Double negatives obscure meaning of entry on thermostat use
This entry reads as follows: "When the ambient temperature is low, it is not true that temporarily decreasing the temperature setting on a building's programmable thermostat (e.g. at night or when it is unoccupied) rather than maintaining a steady temperature will save little or no energy.[296] A common myth is that if the building is allowed to cool, its furnace has to "work harder" to reheat it to a comfortable temperature, counteracting or even exceeding the energy saved while the temperature was allowed to drop. Actually this practice can result in energy savings of five to fifteen percent as the heat lost by a warm structure in a cold environment is proportional to the heat difference between the inside and outside of the structure." The entry cites as reference the following website: Thermostat Myths Please read the above paragraph and cited reference very carefully.

The "misconception" is that decreasing the thermostat's setting will NOT save energy. As the paragraph and reference explain, doing so WILL in fact save energy. The grammatically problematic first sentence was originally changed by Loodog to read as follows: "When the ambient temperature is low, temporarily decreasing the temperature setting on a building's programmable thermostat (e.g. at night or when it is unoccupied) can save a significant amount of energy." Essentially confirming the confusing nature of the original sentence, Mr swordfish reverted the edit, stating "revision contradicts the source." I noticed what was going on, restoring the edit and pointing out that this was a grammar fix. To be clear, although the first sentence is technically grammatically correct, it is clearly obscuring its meaning. This is yet again confirmed by the fact that Mr swordfish reverted this edit again, stating that it "completely reversed the meaning." This would almost be funny if it wasn't leading to an edit war! I am going to revert the edit a second (and final) time, and I ask that all editors read (and re-read if necessary) the paragraph, the cited reference, and this talk section. Thanks. Blacksun1942 (talk) 13:02, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I guess I was confused by the comment associated with the edit: "it is not true that this won't not never save no energy". Re-reading it I now understand that it was meant to be humorous, and that the entry is better with the new wording that doesn't not avoid using double-negatives.  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:26, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Indeed, that was my intent.--Louiedog (talk) 00:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Tower of Babel
I was reading Lexicon by Max Barry, where it was pointed out that a "common misperception" about the Tower of Babel was that it was destroyed by God when he confounded everyone's languages, but in reality he did nothing about the tower directly and the people just left off building when they couldn't understand each other. I don't know if we can include this or not, so I'm asking here. ö  Brambleberry   of   RiverClan  21:29, 8 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Either nothing to do with religion, or all of it, belongs here. I lean towards the latter, but that would make this a very big article. The only practical response is to say to leave all religious stuff out. HiLo48 (talk) 22:04, 8 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Huh? There is already a section related to religion. I think it is appropriate. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 22:14, 8 August 2013 (UTC)


 * What? OK, we'll complete the section. How about a section that points out that every religious belief except yours is a misconception? If you have none, that's "every religious belief is a misconception". OK? HiLo48 (talk) 06:30, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Glad you've offered to complete the section. But this has little to do with religious belief. It's just a common misconception about what the Bible says. It seems that the only source so far, however, for the misconception, is Max Barry's Lexicon. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:46, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not entirely clear if God did the scattering, or they scattered themselves. But he certainly didn't touch the tower directly. RSV: "5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused[a] the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." Martinevans123 (talk) 23:16, 8 August 2013 (UTC) [Footnotes: (a) Genesis 11:9 Compare Heb. balal, confuse.]
 * There's a large difference between fact-checking common beliefs, like "Does the Bible say the forbidden fruit was an apple? Or not?" and fact-checking every single scriptural assertion against the historical record. There could certainly be one or more lists of conflicting facts, assertions, or beliefs about Biblical hermeneutics, but those differences over how you interpret scripture aren't the same as common misconceptions. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * We've had something similar before on the devil. A misconception along the lines of: "Many people think the bible says X about the tower of babel but the bible actually says Y" would work, but something like "Many people think X about the tower of babel, but the bible says Y" would not, since the bible would not be a reliable source about what happened to the tower of babel. Dr bab (talk) 12:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * So what did happen to the Tower of Babel? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:34, 9 August 2013 (UTC)


 * @Dr bib Yes, of course—I guess Bambleberry had this in mind. --Chricho ∀ (talk) 14:18, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I did have this in mind; many people think the Bible mentions God destroying the Tower, but instead the Bible says construction stopped when nobody understood each other. ö   Brambleberry   of   RiverClan  23:04, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Does it? It says they stopped building the city....? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:42, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Some editions say they started building the rest of the city but stopped the tower; some editions say they stopped building the city altogether and went their separate ways. Either way, the tower was left half-finished and not destroyed. ö   Brambleberry   of   RiverClan  15:08, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Which are they? The King James' doesn't. The ESV doesn't. The Living Bible doesn't. None of the 43 versions listed here does. Even the Orthodox Jewish Bible says "So Hashem scattered them abroad from there upon the face of kol Ha’Aretz; and they left off building the Ir." We certainly don't know that it was "half-finished". We just know that it wasn't destroyed, (well not according to the Bible, anyway). Martinevans123 (talk) 15:42, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * If it is of relevance, all versions of the Norwegian Bible too just says the people stopped building and spread across lands. Does anyone have access to a Bible saying otherwise? Babel itself can't have been abandoned though (well, it the Bible anyway), because it makes a re-appearance in the 2nd Book of Kings. Petter Bøckman (talk) 08:55, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think the Tower's city's later re-appearance is an essential point, Petter. I'm not sure if any bible version makes it clear where the tower (migdal) was in relation to the city (Ir), i.e. if it was inside the city then it would be abandoned by default. I'm also not sure why any Norwegian Bible would depart that much from the original Hebrew in that verse. (There are two Norsk versions listed in the source above). Martinevans123 (talk) 09:06, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The Norwegian Bible was just to point out that other language bibles have the same wording, it is not particular to the Englisg and Jewish versions. We should probably check the Vulgata as well. Interestingly, I found the misconception right here on WP too, see The Tower (Tarot card), where there are some nice illustrations we could use should this make it into an entry. Petter Bøckman (talk) 09:20, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is wrong. And a brilliant idea for the illustration. (I'll now have to dig out my Latin dictionary.) Martinevans123 (talk) 09:27, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * As the Tower of Babel article tells us: it is other, non-Biblical sources which have the tower destroyed: the Book of Jubilees, Cornelius Alexander, Abydenus, Josephus and the Sibylline Oracles. ".. God overturns the tower with a great wind. In the Midrash, it said that the top of the tower was burnt, the bottom was swallowed, and the middle was left standing to erode over time." But these are hardly as well-known as the Bible. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:35, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I see the Vulgate has "... et cessaverunt aedificare civitatem" and not "et cessaverunt aedificare turrem": Martinevans123 (talk) 10:38, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems that T. G. Pinches thought this: "The Tower, notwithstanding what had been said as to its destruction, remained, and when, as happened from time to time, its condition became ruinous, some energetic Babylonian king would restore it. Alexander and Philip of Macedon began clearing away the rubbish to rebuild the great temple of Bclus (Bel-Merodach) connected with it and there is hardly any doubt that the Tower would have been restored likewise, but the untimely death of the former, and the deficient mental caliber of the latter for the ruling of a great empire, put an end to the work. The Tower therefore remained unrepaired..."
 * And he places it here: "This structure was situated in the southern portion of the city, not far from the right bank of the Euphrates, and according to Weissbach, is now represented by a depression within which is the original rectangular core of unbaked brick." Martinevans123 (talk) 15:53, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for text
The biblical account of Tower of Babel is usually thought to end with the Lord destroying the tower. This is a misconception, in all version of the canonical Bible the tower, or the whole town, is abandoned when the Lord confuse the tongue of the builders, so that they can no longer understand each other.(ref Lexicon) The popular image of the tower being destroyed by lighting or fire, a common image in art and literature, originated from non-biblical sources: the Book of Jubilees, Cornelius Alexander, Abydenus, Josephus and the Sibylline Oracles.(ref from these) A town or city state called Babel appear later in the biblical story, in the second Book of Kings.(ref bible)


 * If this is the "misconception" then I strongly disagree with it's inclusion in the article. All we have here are differing versions of the story. The "canonical" version has the tower abandoned, while other versions tell a different tale.  It it not for us to say which is correct.  And unless we can establish that many people think the Bible says the tower was destroyed, instead of just remembering whatever version of the story they had heard, then it's not a misconception at all.


 * We had a similar issue a month or so ago with Sherlock Holmes. It is true that this fictional character never said "Elementary, my dear Watson" in any of the books written by Arthur Conan Doyle, but this fictional character did say it in numerous "non-canonical" films, plays, etc.  So it's hardly a misconception to think he said it.  He did.  Likewise, the tower was destroyed in some versions of the story.  It's not a misconception to think it was.  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:18, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree, Mr swordfish. So far we seem to have only one source for this "misconception". Martinevans123 (talk) 12:32, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I suppose this hangs on how canonical the canonical bible is. People better versed in biblical science would be better to answer this than me. Petter Bøckman (talk) 12:59, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, quite (although I also think that people's "conception" of what the Bible says about many things is ever-diminishing, in the UK at least. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:11, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Irregardless again
Hey,

We can't weigh 3 blogs, no matter how eminent their writers, against the opinion of several reliable reference works (if OED and Collins dictionaries aren't a reliable source for words, what the hell is?)

The most one can say is the status of this word is disputed. This goes to the heart of descriptivism vs. prescriptivism, which is something we shouldn't take a position on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Risingrain (talk • contribs) 10:05, 15 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Agree that the status of the word is disputed, but what is undisputed in reliable sources is the fact that it is word.  The misconception is that somehow non-standard or slang words are not "real" words.


 * OED, Collins, and every other modern dictionary list it as word - these are reliable sources. Ann Curzan, Mignon Fogarty, John McIntyre, et al are experts in the field and are not just "bloggers".  Again, these are reliable sources. OTOH anonymously-written style guides that happen to be hosted on second-tier university websites that repeat folk tales are not reliable sources. This has been discussed at length - please see relevant discussion in the archives. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:46, 15 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The point is not whether it is a word, but whether it is correct English. 'kray' is a word, but it isn't a word acceptable in written English. I did not dismiss them as "merely bloggers", I think you know I was pointing out that self-published sources are inferior to mainstream-published sources. Do OED and Collins say it's correct English? Risingrain (talk)... Why it matters 16:30, 15 August 2013 (UTC)


 * The point is that it is a word. Many people harbor the misconception that it isn't, but it appears in every modern dictionary as a word. That's the misconception.   Whether is is "correct English" or not is irrelevant to this article. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:54, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the better wording would be, "It is commonly thought that typical dictionaries are prescriptive, but in general they are descriptive. Some government bodies like Académie française and the Real Academia Española prescribe and define an official language, but no such body exists for English. Some publications, or organizations like universities, use stylebooks to define acceptable English within their scope." --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:12, 15 August 2013 (UTC)


 * While I tend to agree with you that this is the deeper misconception, I can't recall ever hearing someone say "Dictionaries are prescriptive." Usually, by the time someone understands the difference between prescriptive and descriptive they understand that dictionaries are descriptive.  So, you would need to find reliable sources establishing that as a common misconception and I don't think it would be easy.  Meanwhile, examples of people saying "irregardless is not a word" are as common as dirt.  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:16, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "Dictionaries are prescriptive" is a shorter way of saying "if it's in the dictionary, it's 'real' word, if it's not in the dictionary, it's not a 'real' word." I'd cite The Story of English (1986), or any number of similar sources that appeared since. My point is only that the misconception can be generalized a bit. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:28, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Who are the 'many people' who dispute that it is a word? Risingrain (talk)... Why it matters 22:31, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * etc --Dennis Bratland (talk) 22:38, 15 August 2013 (UTC)


 * From the Merriam Webster Dictionary:


 * "Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless


 * This misconception is quite widespread, and we have numerous citations to support that it is a misconception and that it is common. If you'd like more evidence, see the 100,000+ examples at https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=%22irregardless+is+not+a+word%22 Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:34, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Speed of electron section deletion
I concur with User:Dennis Bratland's revert of the new section "Electrons do not move at the speed of light..." due to it not meeting all of the above inclusion criteria. The misconception isn't in the main article Electron, the two sources cited don't mention the misconception, and one of the sources is not very good. Worthy of improvement, though, not least (to me) because of a recent elegant paper directly referencing electron speeds (insignificant in hydrogen to ~.58C for mercury 1S electrons), discussed here: "What does mercury being liquid at room temperature have to do with Einstein's Theory of Relativity?". Scientific American. July 31, 2013. --Lexein (talk) 08:38, 21 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I also concur with the revert because the entry failed to meet the inclusion criteria. However, I do think this is a good candidate if we can adequately source it.  Many people think that the electrons in wires move at nearly the speed of light when the electron drift speed is actually on the order of meters per hour.  While the speed of electrons while in "orbit" within an atom is interesting, I doubt that there is any common conception, mis- or otherwise, among the general population. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 11:56, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah yes, in-atom speed vs transmission speed. Veddy eenteresting. --Lexein (talk) 08:11, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

I haven't put a lot of time into this, but I think we might have the makings of an entry here. The parent article, speed of electricity deals with the issue, stating that electrical signals travel quickly while the electrons themselves move slowly. It does not state that it is a common misconception, but that can be added.

This difference in speeds is well supported, so no problem there. The question is, can we reliably source the fact that it is a current (no pun intended) common misconception? Here are some links to establish that:  Common Misconceptions Regarding Electric Circuits "Charge flows through circuits at very high speeds." http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/circuits/u9l2e.cfm

"ELECTRICITY" MISCONCEPTIONS IN K-6  TEXTBOOKS - - -William J. Beaty 'THE "ELECTRICITY" INSIDE OF WIRES MOVES AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT? Wrong. In metals, electric current is a flow of electrons. Many books claim that these electrons flow at the speed of light. This is incorrect. Electrons in an electric current actually flow quite slowly, at speeds on the order of centimeters per minute.' http://amasci.com/miscon/eleca.html

<li>Electron Speed in Superconductor "It is a bit of a misconception that electrons move at the speed of electricity through a wire. Electricity moves move like a wave, with many electrons moving as a direct result of the movement of other nearby electrons.  In a typical piece of copper wire, the Electrons themselves only reach speeds of about 2 cm per second, depending on the amount of current present." http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy05/phy05004.htm

<li>"When you flick a light switch the light comes on straightaway. A common misconception is that this is because the electrons leave the power supply and travel very quickly through empty wires and then back to the power supply again. In fact the electrons are already there everywhere in the circuit and they all start moving very slowly at almost exactly the same time.  Just like a wheel, there's no part that begins first." http://furryelephantscienceteaching.blogspot.com/2010/03/speed-of-electrons-in-wires.html

<li>"It is a common misconception to believe that the velocities v of     individual electrons in a wire are comparable with the speed of light c      because electrical signals do travel down wires at nearly the speed of light." http://www.cv.nrao.edu/course/astr534/AntennaTheory.html </ul> I'm not overwhelmed by the quality of these sources, but think they may be "good enough" for our purposes. What do others think? I'd like some consensus that these sources are adequate before writing the entry. Of if someone else wants to carry the ball on this, that's fine too. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:04, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

No offence taken at the revert; I'm glad it's leading to some discussion on a proper addition. Alex Klotz (talk) 14:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't see this as a common misconception so much as an example of the unremarkable fact that scientists describe nature with great precision and lay people express the same concepts in generalities. In common practice, you see lay people saying that radio/telephone/internet communications travel "at the speed of light" . Sometimes the phrasing can be a little loose, implying that the electrons go through the wires at the speed of light, but in most cases it's clear from the context that the central point is that the signal moves at (more or less) the speed of light. The relevant idea is that it's much, much faster than the speed of sound, for example.<P>More generally, we could find any number of cases where specialists cringe at the sloppy terminology of the press and public, but it's a different class of error than a widespread urban legend or misconception. Examples of imprecise language by non-specialists could be collected on a new list, perhaps. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:19, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Rule of Thumb origin
I went through the archive to see if the origin of the rule of thumb had been hypothesized as coming from a rule I had been taught in the Navy called "Règle du pouce" (Rule of thumb, http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigation_c%C3%B4ti%C3%A8re#D.C3.A9termination_de_sa_route ). The rule states that a nautical route should always be traced more than a thumb away from dangers on a map, as the innacuracies in the position scales roughly as the map inaccuracies. Is it worth quoting this as a potential origin of the expression?
 * Not without a verifiable published source to back it up. Looie496 (talk) 14:33, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Size of the Universe
Here's a nice one ready for the picking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe#Misconceptions  Basically 13.72 billion years is the *age* of the universe, but since it's size has been expanding (faster than the speed of light) during this time, the universe we see is actually from its closer position, though today those positions are further away. This is to be distinguished from the actual size of the universe, for which we have a known lower bound, but is different from the observable universe. Qed (talk) 02:36, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:45, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I think this might be hard to express, because the universe we see is basically a lightcone-slice of spacetime. That's probably not what people are thinking of when they visualize the size of the universe. Looie496 (talk) 14:27, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * And I think it might be difficult to adequately source. "The size of the universe is 13.72 billion light years" is a misconception, but is it common?  I hardly think so.  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:17, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Well ... I've heard a lot of people say the wrong thing with respect to the size of the universe. The impression I have is that 13.72 billion light years is very common.  (Ok, ok, I used to think this, satisfied?)  But the other point is that if museums are printing such things on placards or people who know better say it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k&t=11m31s and then promulgate it publicly, then I think it's fair to say a lot of people have got it wrong. Qed (talk) 19:38, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I still wouldn't say it's a common misconception. Something can be wrong, can be publicly available, and still not be common.  This certainly doesn't appear to be a common misconception at all. - Aoidh (talk) 21:54, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmmm ... ok, this is written by one Simon Singh: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2005/sep/30/highereducation.uk, here's "smarterplanet.com": http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/in-six-minutes-see-137-billion-light-years-of-universe/3021 , and lol, here's Phil Plait, the "Bad Astronomer", teaching us all sorts of wrong things about the "edge of the universe": http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2012/12/12/hubble_sees_distant_galaxies_group_of_seven_galaxies_at_the_edge_of_the.html , here's particle physicist Victor Stenger (a famous atheist author) making a similar mistake: http://www.generationterrorists.com/articles/god_the_failed_hypothesis.shtml ("The farthest distance we can ever hope to see, what is called our horizon, is 13.7 billion light-years from Earth."; that's the age of the oldest light, which originated from points that were much closer than 13.7x10^9 light years away (4x10^9 light years? Idk, I am just guessing) and which currently are much further away than 13.7x10^9 light years away (apparently 46x10^9 light years away)), Page 1 of "Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present" by Cynthia Stokes Brown (http://books.google.com/books?id=HOaCuk6Wly0C&pg=PA3&lpg=PA3&dq=%2213.7+billion+light+years%22&source=bl&ots=362HOTojza&sig=xAEQcvZ-PYsUh7dlDvoQOvrUxhc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=foMqUrTRC4bCigKco4G4DQ&ved=0CHMQ6AEwCThk#v=onepage&q=%2213.7%20billion%20light%20years%22&f=false), here's the Rock Star particle physicist Brian Cox making the same mistake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8C2Un6Gjhk&t=5m0s , and just for fun, here's world renown evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins struggling with a straight-up explanation by a fairly articulate and competent astrophysicist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGenk99YDwY&t=8m15s .  So, I'd argue that there are many popular sources of information on this subject which have clearly got it wrong, which should be corrected, or should know better, and yet do not.  I'm not sure I know how to get more raw data on what the general population thinks -- Google didn't help me much with that. Qed (talk) 02:25, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Those sources might show that people get it wrong, but there's a difference between a few people being wrong and it being a common misconception, and none of those sources appear to verify that this is a common misconception among people. Are there any sources that straight up say "This is what people commonly believe; they are mistaken"? - Aoidh (talk) 03:33, 7 September 2013 (UTC)


 * It may be fair for you or I to say that, having satisfied our personal credence functions, but we still need a source that specifically identifies it as a common misconception to include it on this wikipedia page. siafu (talk) 22:22, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

"In fact, many meteorites are found with frost on them"
Nope. There is a single second-hand account of this from 1917. Not "many", and is probably a common misconception (not a "fact") in itself. Kortoso (talk) 18:13, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Here is another source, Harold Y. McSween, that mentions two found with frost. Colby, WI, 1917 and Dharamsala, 1866, cold enough to "benumb the hands" that touched them. But some have been hot. It probably shouldn't say "many". --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:49, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

New Cooking entry - Washing poultry (specifically turkey)
Hi, first time posting to a talk page.

Historically my family and I would rinse off poultry with water before we cook it. However, apparently all this does is increase the likelihood of spreading salmonella all over your kitchen - rather than rid the bird of any bacteria or anything like that. In other words there is no reason to rinse poultry off with water before cooking it.

SourceTransformer (talk) 04:14, 17 September 2013 (UTC)


 * We need independent evidence that this is a common misconception. That means, firstly, that more than just your family had this belief, and secondly, that it actually spreads salmonella all over your kitchen. HiLo48 (talk) 06:10, 17 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Here are some postings on the subject:
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/24/dining/24WASH.html?_r=0
 * http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2012/11/17/thanksgiving-food-safety/1707879/
 * (SourceTransformer (talk) 16:58, 17 September 2013 (UTC))


 * This is interesting information and probably good advice, but Wikipedia is not a how-to guide. What, exactly, is the misconception here? There are thousands of things people do "wrong", and preparing a turkey is one of them (don't get me started about the overcooked, dry, inedible things that get served in the US on the fourth Thursday in November, but I digress...).  We can't possibly list them all, nor should we. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:45, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The misconception seems to be that washing one's turkey in the sink is a good and effective way to prevent the spread of salmonella. I'm not at all convinced of its commonality, though; in order for it to be a common misconception, turkey-washing would have to be both widespread and widely understood to be for this reason (eliminating pathogens).  Without the second point it would be as Mr. Swordfish indicates, just a how-to tip. siafu (talk) 20:13, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Caffeine causes dehydration
This is pretty thoroughly verifiable although caffeine does have a mild diuretic effect, it is insufficient to prevent hydration when compared to the large quantities of water that make up the majority of the mass of most caffeinated beverages such as soda or coffee. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kingfrito 5005 (talk • contribs) 05:04, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Life expectancy - questionable sources
'''It is true that mean life expectancy in the Middle Ages and earlier was low; however, one should not infer that people usually died around the age of 30.[3] In fact, the low life expectancy is an average very strongly influenced by high infant mortality, and the life expectancy of people who lived to adulthood was much higher. A 21-year-old man in medieval England, for example, could by one estimate expect to live to the age of 64.[4]'''

The references given for this section (and the "Life expectancy variation over time" section in Life expectancy) are really scant, and neglecting broken links boil down to a science blogger (in reference 3: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/05/01/falsehood-if-this-was-the-ston/) stating that: "One reasonable estimate for life expectancy during the “Paleolithic” might be derived from estimating life expectancy for modern day foragers." This is quite an assumption, and even if it were taken to be plausible it's too weak imo to place this in an authoritative list on common misconceptions. I think this entry should be removed until at least better sources can be provided. --110.174.212.132 (talk) 13:04, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Physics: ambient temperature & heat saving
The last sentence of this paragraph has to be "is proportional to the temperature difference between", see Thermal conduction. To be precise, the sentence has to be something like "is proportional to the temperature difference between a and b when only considering thermal conduction." 78.50.65.206 (talk) 22:17, 17 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Agreed about the heat/temperature distinction. I have left out the detail about the constraints on the proportionality because they are not particularly relevant and the statement is true enough without them (at least in the colloquial sense of "proportional"). Maybe a less technical wording of "is primarily dependent upon the temperature difference between the inside and outside of the structure" is better without getting into unnecessary details about the assumptions of the model. 0x0077BE (talk) 01:40, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Adding information
Please add the citation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_engineering_of_the_Indus_Valley_Civilization for the use of flushing in Indus Valley. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.36.40.22 (talk) 03:25, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Someone can add information to list of common misconceptions if they can.

174.4.52.12 (talk) 02:37, 5 October 2013 (UTC)


 * That's how it works here, but they must have reliable sources. Do you have a suggestion? -- Brangifer (talk) 02:57, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Embassies and consulates misconception, take 2
This is not encyclopedic. There's been a discussion at before but the sources provided aren't convincing - they're not reliable sources, or don't support the claim. And a key source used in the article flatly contradicts the so-called common misconception: "Professor Julio Echeverria of Quito's Flasco University said Britain "has a long-established tradition in Europe of respecting diplomatic missions", which under international law are considered sovereign territory." It seems pretty clear that the extent to which embassies and consulates are or are not the territory of the country they represent varies, depending on the law of the host nation, and the definition of 'sovereign territory'. Quito is the capital of Ecuador. But, Assange has not been arrested; the UK appears to have been bluffing. It's rather conclusive proof that, to a meaningful extent, they are sovereign territory in the UK. (The UK seems clearly to be in violation of Article XII of the Convention on Diplomatic Asylum, incidentally.) It's hardly clear that "embassies and consulates are the territory of the country they represent" is a misconception, because in some ways and cases, it's true. I'm not sure if this entry is salvageable; if we narrow the definition of what we're identifying as a misconception enough, we're left with something that probably isn't a common misconception at all.--Elvey (talk) 00:15, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree. This is one of many cases where a term means one thing in the jargon of specialists, and something else in the broader sense normally encountered in the everyday vernacular. The previous discussion and the Embassy article dismiss the popular phrasing "the embassy is foreign soil" as incorrect, when in fact it is correct in a general way, but imprecise if it were meant as legal language. In precise legal language, embassies don't have full extraterritoriality.<P>In the sense that the host governemnt can't touch a refugee in an embassy, which is all that the TV shows, movies, and novels intend, as well as cinematographic lives like Assange's, it is tantamount to foreign soil. Embassies don't have full extraterritoriality, but the have it to the extent intended by the vernacular phrase.<P>I don't think this list should include "gotcha" entries, where loose-but-servicable vernacular terminology is held to the tortured standards of specialists. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:53, 27 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree. In any meaningful way (expert or vernacular), embassies are not foreign soil. You don't need a passport or a visa, there are no customs or trade restrictions and you are not subject to the law of the mission's country. As for the sources in the article, Slomanson is a law professor and van Panhuys has authored several books about law and appears to be reliable (at least his books are quoted by others according to Google Scholar). I'm surprised that you can equal a newspaper article with two books written by legal scholars. Sjö (talk) 05:51, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Passports, visas, customs and trade restrictions are required at some border crossings or for some travelers, but not all. They are not necessary conditions. When the phrase "foreign soil" is used, it is generally correct as far as the context. It is not foreign soil in every respect, but it is in the respect that the speaker is interested in.--Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:33, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You say you know what the speaker is interested in, which is a claim that I think that you can't make without sources. On the contrary, it takes ten seconds of googling to find an example of how the phrase "foreign soil" can lead to confusion about other aspects such as jurisdiction or defence matters.
 * You are right that not all border crossings require a passport or a visa, but the point is that even in the case of countries that do require a passport or a visa for residents of the host country, you don't need it to enter their embassy and as far as I know they can't even require it. Sjö (talk) 17:22, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Sometimes passing through an embassy's doors is like crossing a regular border - e.g. the Chinese government regularly arrests North Koreans who have snuck in to China just as they attempt to enter a South Korean embassy in China. (According to a TED talk I watched by a North Korean).
 * Your first example is an anonymous Internet handle on an open forum. We can't draw any conclusion from that. Your second example is "President Reagan tried to justify U.S. shelling in Lebanon as a reaction to attacks on our embassy: It was because of shelling our embassy. Now that's United States territory." Leaving aside technical debates on the legal term "territory", which may be an appropriate way of describing an embassy, Reagan's basic point was that an attack on a US embassy is tantamount to an attack on the US. Which is widely understood to be a fact. To this day we retaliate against embassy attacks with drone strikes. Followed by much heated debate on the legality.<P>It's a fact that questions of national jurisdiction are a murky area of law, and there is wide disagreement and numerous unresolved jurisdictional disputes. Wikipedia doesn't have the authority to declare it less murky than it is. This is not a common misconception, it's something experts disagree over, depending largely on how they define their terms and how technically precise they wish to be. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:46, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I tossed it. Well said, team. Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 22:37, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Indeed.!--Elvey (talk) 17:35, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Sex and athletic performance
"There is no physiological basis for the belief that having sex in the days leading up to a sporting event or contest is detrimental to performance.[235] In fact it has been suggested that sex prior to sports activity can elevate the levels of testosterone in males, which could potentially enhance their performance" The evidence used to support this is extremely weak, and there are, in fact, clear physiological mechanisms responsible to up to 147% eleveted testosterone levels folowing abstinence demonstrated by http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12659241?dopt=Abstract, which have evident evolutionary explanations. Moreover, in the area of sports performance, it would be wise to also respect the experience and expertise of long standing coaches who were able to produce elite, Olympic-winning athletes, rather than one poor review - which was the so called 'scientific evidence' being used on que quoted section above.

189.38.143.162 (talk) 18:11, 8 November 2013 (UTC)


 * The cited sources are not poor; they're quite good. If the received wisdom of long standing coaches, or anyone else, were accepted at face value, this list wouldn't exist at all. The point of it is to show cases where superstition has been put to the test.<P>There is a problem, however, with criterion #3 of this list: no linked article mentions the misconception. It's not in testosterone. Nor in Sexual abstinence or Celibacy. If that isn't rectified then the entry should be removed. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Atmospheric Entry
The Astronomy section states: "When a spacecraft reenters the atmosphere, the heat of reentry is not (primarily) caused by friction, but by adiabatic compression of air in front of the spacecraft.[123][124]" Neither source uses (or implies) adiabatic compression. Adiabatic compression implies that heat is not transferred to the surroundings. The NASA source even states that the reason the heat shield exists is because heat is transferred: "This hot gas then impinges on the front of the spaceship, and transferring heat to the surface. That is why it has to have a heat shield." The very first line of the very first source from the adiabatic article says that adiabatic involves no heat transfer. Somebody please remove the word "adiabatic". 50.27.117.145 (talk) 23:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Adiabatic is correct; it implies that there is no heat transfer into the gas to make it hot. siafu (talk) 01:44, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Columbus in the U.S.A.
"Columbus never reached any land that now forms part of the United States of America"

The U.S. does have some holdings in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guantanamo Bay Naval Base). Not sure, but I think Columbus did visit some of those areas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.151.109.26 (talk) 00:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Violence, again
Opposition to the addition of this entry (just re-added ) was unambiguous, the vagaries were never resolved to any of the opposers' satisfaction, and prior opposition was unswayed. When in doubt, leave it out. This list is not a mouthpiece for little-known, and little-considered items. Also, what's the rush? Is someone in a hurry to publicize a book? --Lexein (talk) 15:46, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Opposition was based on the belief that it surely isn't true, but I can't find a single source that says it isn't true, but I know in my heart that it's not true nonetheless. But, here's the simple question that I don't think any opponent can answer: What of the four criteria does it fail to meet? Ego White Tray (talk) 17:05, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * See WP:IDHT. Nobody wants to repeat again why it fails the criteria. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:52, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Repeat? I never heard the reason, and I read the entire previous discussion several times. Ego White Tray (talk) 18:01, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, there certainly was no consensus, regardless. The item, per that lack of consensus, doesn't have to go home, but it can't stay here. (He said, trying to lighten the mood a bit.) --Lexein (talk) 18:19, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
 * It did not fail the criteria; it failed to gain consensus for inclusion. siafu (talk) 16:53, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, that is the fairest statement to make: not having consensus for inclusion. That said, we have the letter, and the spirit, of the inclusion criteria to consider. Though the proponents of the item have worked hard to narrowly meet the letter of the criteria, the item is missing something which has led to the lack of consensus. If I'm reading the sources right, only Pinker is being cited that there is a misconception, and Pinker is used at the start and end of the item; seems like over-reliance on a single source(author). The support and opposition to Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature are in such conflict (including assertions of confirmation bias), that it seems beyond scope for us to hash it all over again. IMHO it has escalated to the point that we (I) really should throw up our hands about it.
 * Suggestion The addition of an additional criterion:
 * #5: Proposed misconceptions should not be in current hot dispute among sources and their critics . Or something to that effect.
 * --Lexein (talk) 18:27, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * That seems unnecessary; it's already the case that everything currently in any article on wikipedia must nominally reflect editor consensus. This would just be restating that again?  As for Pinker, we could certainly trawl his many hundreds of sources for additional sourcing, since the claim that this is a common misconception is not original to him, but reliance on the one book is certainly easier.  I don't have a print copy of The Better Angels of Our Nature, just the ebook, which makes it much more difficult to look through the references, which is why I haven't volunteered to do so. siafu (talk) 18:32, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Oops - I've clarified what I meant above. I meant dispute among sources, not dispute among editors. --Lexein (talk) 19:00, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The claim that violence has declined is not at all in dispute. We asked opposing editors for sources that dispute it, but they couldn't find any - the sources that they claimed disputed it, in fact, supported the basic point. The claim that there is dispute is like the creationist logic that since there is dispute about certain details, the entire theory is wrong - there is real dispute about how much violence has declined and why it has declined, sure, but not against the basic point that it has. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:59, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * That is a repetition of the same arguments made before. It is a fact that adding the entry failed to gain consensus. We should not to re-argue the previous discussion. A repetition of the same arguments by the same editors here on the same talk page as before won't have a new outcome. It's time to either drop it, or move to a new venue, as suggested in the disupte resolution process. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 05:10, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree that the entry failed to gain consensus for inclusion. If it was just me, I'd let it go, but I'm not alone here. (I don't think it adds to the discussion to restate my reasons for opposing the entry.) Mr. Swordfish (talk) 23:33, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I still do not fully understand why it did not reach consensus, perhaps the topic is too very emotional to some. I agree with Dennis and Mr. Swordfish, let it be, at least until there are more sources illumination the topic. Petter Bøckman (talk) 10:59, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree that something like this (how dangerous the world is) probably belongs on this list, but I have to say unilaterally adding it when it has failed to reach consensus in the past is not a good idea. There was a recent conference at Cato on a related subject called "Dangerous World?", and it's a subject that is addressed in many venues. I could see it eventually going on the list. That said, I can understand why one would keep it off even if you believe it. It doesn't really have the right "feel" of the things on this list like viking hats or the equal transit time fallacy - it seems a bit more consequential, which means that people are going to try to dispute it (because it has policy implications), and we don't want to get anywhere near that sort of thing in this lightweight but high-profile list. I imagine it would be easier to make a case for something like, "Children are less likely to be abducted or harmed by accidents than they have ever been" or another more limited claim that has fewer "worldview" implications than the general talk of the state of world violence. 0x0077BE (talk) 14:16, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Narrower statement
In the earlier discussion, I asked if editors could agree with a narrower statement about levels of violence, but the discussion never started. A frequent objection I heard is that it's too broad. What would be a narrower statement? Ego White Tray (talk) 15:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
 * User 0x0077BE suggested "Children are less likely to be abducted or harmed by accidents than they have ever been". The problem with this is that there (as far as I know) is no common misconception that children are more likely to be abducted or harmed in accidents today than previously. If reputable sources for this exists (both sources that it is a common misunderstanding and sources that children are less at risk), then 0x0077BE is more than welcome to formulate an entry. Petter Bøckman (talk) 07:49, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't actually have time to do that at the moment, but I believe I read that it was both a common misconception and untrue in Bryan Caplan's Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids. He likely has blogged about the subject as well, that might be a good place to start. I do think that it's a fairly common refrain to refer to "these dangerous times", so anecdotally it seems likely that it's a common misconception. I don't feel strongly about it, though. 0x0077BE (talk) 18:42, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I like Petter's idea, and I would say it is absolutely a real misconception, and there shouldn't be much trouble finding cites for it. It would probably go in the law/crime section. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:24, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Edit request, 5 December 2013
One hypothesis is that to fuck in English and the similar use of ficken in German, originated in several Germanic speaking places in Europe at about the same time during the middle ages, among students, who were all in minor religious orders, who knew Latin, and who otherwise spoke Germanic languages. The words are simply student slang deriving from the dog Latin amorem facere meaning to make love. Because to begin with the words were somewhat obscure and inoffensive, usage spread widely and the knowledge of their origin was soon lost. Subsequently, their sexual meaning turned them into rude words, but ficken rather less so than to fuck. Fuck degenerated into an insult, its use was frowned on, so it stayed largely out of printed sources until the 20th Century. There is no specific evidence for this hypothesis apart from the usage of the word in the languages concerned over many centuries. However, it seems far more likely to be true than the various alternative suggestions, unless it can be clearly ruled out on linguistic grounds. Could this hypothesis be circulated more widely and hopefully attract critical comment? Shirley49 (talk) 01:51, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Shirley49 (talk) 01:51, 5 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: we would need good sources to meet the criteria listed in the Inclusion 3/Criteria box at the top of this page. The article Fuck has a good section on the uncertain etymology of this word, but it doesn't establish that the views that you list: (a) all exist, (b) are misconceptions, (c) are common. --Stfg (talk) 10:43, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The light from dead stars
One misconception I think should be mentioned here: Many people believe that the light of the stars we see at night has taken millions of years to get hear, so that by the time we see that light, those stars are already dead. The truth is that the stars visible to the naked eye are within a few dozen to a few hundred light years of our solar system, and a few hundred years is a very short time in a star's life cycle. I feel that this should go in, but I do not have a source for this. Does anybody know of one? TornadoLGS (talk) 20:55, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
 * This is one example of debunking the notion; there are others out there. When I look for examples of the light-from-dead-stars aphorism, most of them are in poetic and literary fiction sources. I suppose it doesn't make that much difference, but ideally you'd like to see the misconception in non-fiction sources. The hard part is to figure out which Wikipedia article should cover this. The misconception must be described in some other article before being added here. Maybe night sky. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:12, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 January 2014
When speaking much more than 7% of your communication is verbal. The myth that 93% happens through non-verbal clues was created in 1971 by the book Silent Messages but this limited experiment was debunked later. http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=2043156

Sytses (talk) 09:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Any proposed new entries to the article must at least fulfill the following:
 * The common misconception's main topic has an article of its own.
 * The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.
 * The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.
 * The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete.


 * At present, it fails the first three criteria. We would need better sourcing to add it to the page.  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:50, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 January 2014
Please change the last entry in the Disease list (#Science:Biology) from "Bathing does not dries the skin in people with eczema." to "Bathing does not dry the skin in people with eczema.", as the "does not dries" formulation is grammatically wrong.

ShingetsuKurai (talk) 14:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks. Ego White Tray (talk) 15:23, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Mathematics
Why is mathematics listed as a subcategory of science?JDiala (talk) 04:04, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Maybe the same reason that universities award science degrees in math? See Math. Hairhorn (talk) 04:09, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Common misconception
Can I get a reference to the commonly held misconception that fossil fuels are derived from "dead dinosaurs"? I just added this to the page for petroleum: "It was once commonly thought that fossil fuels, like petroleum, were derived from so-called "dead dinosaurs". However, further scientific investigation has revealed that this cannot be the case, as fossil fuel formations have been dated to as many as 300 Ma, whereas the first dinosaurs did not appear for another 75 million years."

Source: Horn, Geoffrey M. (2010). Energy Today: Coal, Oil and Natural Gas. New York, New York: Infobase Publishing, Chelsea House Publishers. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-4381-3220-4.

Thanks in advance. 24.20.203.54 (talk) 07:03, 11 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I also added: "Further evidence of such an unlikelihood was discovered by German chemist Alfred E. Treibs who noticed that oil contained fossilized remnants of chlorophyll, suggesting a possible plant-based origin for the substance."


 * Source: Safina, Carl (2011). A Sea In Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout. New York, New York: Crown Publishers, Crown Publishing Group, Random House. p. 239. ISBN 978-0-307-88737-5.


 * I don't anticipate this addition as controversial, so I'm forgoing waiting for additional consensus before requesting the edit. Let me know if I'm wrong about that. 24.20.203.54 (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm withdrawing my 'edit semi-protected' request for now, as I originally had no idea in suggesting this additional page content that so much of the discourse would be so heavily rooted in debate bordering on conspiracy theory. Someone rightly pointed out the Geoffrey Horn book I cited was a kids book, which I took to mean that it was common knowledge, until they also pointed out that Mr. Horn also writes Bible story books for children. I seem to have stepped in it this time. I'm in the process of trying to decide which more reputable sources to cite. 24.20.203.54 (talk) 22:12, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't add it. Your statements don't refute the basic point, which is that oil is formed from extinct animals. It only refutes colorful speech. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:13, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanksgiving
''The thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony, widely believed to be the "First Thanksgiving", was not the first day of thanksgiving on the North American continent. Preceding thanksgiving days were held at the Spanish colony of Saint Augustine, Florida in 1565,[20][21] in Frobisher Bay in 1578,[22] in French Canada beginning in 1604, in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607,[23] and at Berkeley Hundred in 1619,[24] in addition to numerous similarly themed indigenous celebrations.[25] The association of Thanksgiving Day with the Plymouth celebration was largely the work of 19th-century writer Sarah Josepha Hale, who campaigned over multiple decades for a permanent national Thanksgiving holiday.''

This doesn't look right. First, the feast of November 1621 was first identified as "the first Thanksgiving" in 1841 by Alexander Young in his book [Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers of the Colony of Plymouth.] His exact words were, "This was the first Thanksgiving, the Harvest festival of New England." This had little effect at the time, but the cause was taken up in 1848 by George Barrell Cheever. Even then it took another 40 years for the idea to catch on. I am not aware of Sarah Josepha Hale being involved in the "first Thanksgiving" issue.

"not the first day of thanksgiving on the North American continent" This is the real problem: Nobody ever said it was. This has never been a popular misconception. For one thing, the word "thanksgiving" has more than one meaning. In a broad sense, it can mean some Indians giving thanks to their gods. As the Pilgrims understood it, a thanksgiving was a special day when people went to church and conducted themselves as if it were a Sunday, with no recreation or entertainment allowed. The feast of November 1621 was not such an event. Furthermore, when Americans speak of Thanksgiving today, they mean the modern American holiday, which has antecedents going back to 1660s New England. The 1621 event was merely a notional archetype, enlisted more than two centuries after the event. So there are definitely misconceptions here, but not the ones this article describes.

Incidentally, Thanksgiving was already observed in many states and well on its way to becoming a holiday long before Sarah Josepha Hale took up her crusade. She just saw which way the trend was going an jumped on the bandwagon. It's a popular misconception that Thanksgiving would not have become a national holiday without her. Zyxwv99 (talk) 18:47, 19 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Actually, I would say that most people do think the Plymouth Thanksgiving was the first. People understand there are two meanings of Thanksgiving, the generic giving of thanks and the historical thanksgiving meals, which most Americans think is Plymouth. I'd say keep the entry; however, removing the sentence about Hale seems to be a good correction. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:48, 26 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Really? Do people really think that nobody had ever given God thanks at a meal anywhere in the Americas before the Pilgrims? Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 04:56, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess you're not American and don't understand the American conception of it. It's not merely a meal where people thank God. It is a specific historical meal where the struggling colonists were helped by the Indians and they celebrated their friendship with a feast. The various feasts listed were similar circumstances to the Plymouth one. Ego White Tray (talk) 05:04, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You are right, and there is a specific conception in America of a specific historical meal where the struggling colonists were helped by the Indians and then celebrated their friendship with a feast occurred in or near Plymouth Rock. Did that feast not happen? If not, that then makes this a common misconception. But if people in Florida had their own sort of thanksgiving feasts? What on earth does that have to do with the common conception of the Pilgrim one? Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 06:03, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The misconception is that the pilgrim feast was the only such feast, and the reality is that early colonist and Indians had several such feasts together. That said, the line about "similarly themed indigenous celebrations" only muddies the issue and adds nothing, so I'd say that should go. This entry needs revision and clarification, but shouldn't be deleted altogether. Ego White Tray (talk) 17:15, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't disagree, necessarily. I'd like to see your suggested paragraph for this entry. Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 02:40, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, having read more on the topic, I'm not entirely sure this is salvageable. The Puritans held days of Thanksgiving to celebrate various good events in their lives, and these were common in England before they even came to America. As a result, Thanksgiving meals were relatively common among early colonists. That said, the modern US holiday unquestionably traces its roots to the Pilgrim Thanksgiving in 1621 and none of the others had any influence over the modern holiday. So, we need something like, While the US holiday of Thanksgiving has its origins in a Pilgrim feast in 1621, such feasts were actually common at the time and the 1621 feast was not in any way unusual. Ego White Tray (talk) 06:05, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The problem with Thanksgiving is that, although there are misconceptions, the real story is complicated. Over the last month, I have spent about 100 hours researching it for the Thanksgiving (United States) article and still don't have enough information to make any edits yet. The Church of England had two sorts of thanksgivings, occasional and annual. Both kinds were like extra Sundays. The main event was going to church in the morning, then spending the rest of the day as if it were a Sunday, no work allowed, no entertainments or recreation. Puritans and separatists were opposed to all annual holidays which they felt were "dead ritual" but wholeheartedly approved of occasional thanksgivings, which fit in with their ideas on Divine Providence, e.g., acknowledging God's intervention in the affairs of man through whatever recent event was being celebrated (as well as divine punishments acknowledged on fast days.) The one exception was Gunpowder Treason Day, the fifth of November, the Church of England's one annual thanksgiving. To the Puritans it was their biggest holiday and the only annual holiday they celebrated. For some reason it was not celebrated by New-England Puritans. While the Pilgrims and Puritans had many occasional thanksgivings, the holiday we call Thanksgiving started out as the traditional New-England style thanksgiving, which was first observed with some degree of regularity in the Connecticut Colony in the 1650s, and in the Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1660s, not every year, but every two or three years, not on any fixed date, but generally in late fall. (It didn't become annual on a fixed date until 1942, although from 1863 it was nearly so.) It was not a harvest festival, but usually something about "the blessings of the year" which could include the harvest. Back then the calendar year began in March, so this was apparently the agricultural year. Before that it was observed sporadically for several decades, but with no clear beginning. The feast of November 1621 was not an officially declared thanksgiving, but apparently a Potemkin-village hunting-and-fishing feast held during a low-grade famine after a partial crop failure, the purpose being to impress the local Indians. At the time the Pilgrims were trying to establish diplomatic relations, and apparently it worked. At the time the Indians couldn't decide if they wanted to massacre the Pilgrims or have them as allies. It all depended on how weak and vulnerable the Pilgrims looked. The event may have also been for the benefit of the "Strangers" among them, some of whom had previously threatened to mutiny because they didn't want to live under Taliban-style religious rule. This may have also been a faux Gunpowder Treason Day to give the Strangers a chance to blow off a little steam by lighting bonfires and discharging firearms. Although the feast of November 1621 may indeed have been the model and archetype of the traditional New England style thanksgiving, there is not enough evidence to say one way or the other. When the holiday got linked to the event in the 1840s, the link came from theologians who supplied no real evidence to back up their assertions. To them it just so "obvious" that there was no need to prove it. Zyxwv99 (talk) 15:15, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Redheads
The extinction of the redhead gene is simply a hoax. It's like that false study showing Bush as the president with the lowest IQ in the history of the United States, hoax that was taken as true by many journalists and politicians. Or like that story which states that music is tuned at 440 Hz by decree of Goebbels to maintain the people at an altered state, hoax repeated in TV frequently by some musicians. I think that that content should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by User344 (talk • contribs) 11:19, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This brings up a good point. Common misconceptions are notable for being commonly held ideas. Hoaxes are "a dime a dozen" and for the most part don't meet notability guidelines. Maybe we should start requiring references to demonstrate that something is in fact a common misconception. Zyxwv99 (talk) 14:39, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * We already do, see the inclusion criteria at the top of this page, particularly, the item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception. Looie496 (talk) 16:25, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that was sarcasm? Face-smile.svg I'm removing it. Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 03:43, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand this last comment. Anyway, I'm restoring the entry, as it is well sourced and meets the four criteria for inclusion.  Perhaps it started as a 'hoax', but if enough people continue to believe it then it qualifies as a common misconception. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 17:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think Mr. Swordfish has the right idea. My view is put it back, but reword it to include blonds and redheads in a single entry. Something like The redhead and blonde genes are not going extinct...' Ego White Tray (talk) 03:05, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Request to add GMO safety to the food/health section
There's currently a large misconception that consuming genetically modified foods is potentially dangerous to your health. Many people believe it causes cancers or is less healthy than consuming organic foods, and there are a lot of studies which counteract both of these assumptions. We would also have to touch on the economic issues surrounding GMO foods because there are a few somewhat legitimate reasons to be concerned about the corporations who conduct GE science (although there are a lot of myths and misconceptions there too). As for going point by point through the inclusion criteria:
 * The common misconception's main topic has an article of its own: Genetically modified organism
 * The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception: some links to scientific data and studies would be required (and I would be willing to get to the hard research if the addition went through) good overviews which include study links include Scientific American, Nature, and Slate
 * The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources: easily done.
 * The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete: it is a current misconception.NerdyWizard (talk) 23:45, 3 February 2014 (UTC)


 * As much as I would love this, as I think that it is a pernicious and terrible assumption, I really don't think it passes the sniff test as it is closer to a (possibly manufactured) controversy than a misconception. I would also love to put up there that it's a common misconception that homeopathic medicines contain active ingredients, or that acupuncture works, but it's kinda beyond the scope of this article (and not really worth the battles anyway).
 * A more specific reason for not including this is that the wording is way, way too broad. "Genetically modified organisms" is a whole class, some of which would undoubtedly be harmful (what if I genetically modified a tomato that has neurotoxins in it? That would definitely be harmful to your health), even though they are not inherently less safe than their "non-GMO" (to the extent that that's even a thing) counterparts. If there were a common misconception like "a certain brand of GMO corn gives you malaria", that's a specifically testable claim. Even the more limited claim that by nature of being GMOs they are less safe or healthy is still a bit broad because of the definitions of health and safety, making it nearly impossible to prove. So, I vote no. 0x0077BE (talk) 00:05, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * All one needs to do is focus things on a more specific tangible misconception. Possibly from Genetically_modified_food_controversies. The article should be doing for GMO and climate change etc what it does for evolution, IRWolfie- (talk) 00:35, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that if such tangible, specific misconceptions exist, then they would likely be appropriate here. The parallel to evolution is a good one, but I don't actually see any such misconceptions noted in that section that you could attack. The closest one would be something about horizontal gene transfer maybe, and even then unlike in the evolution case where there are clear misunderstandings about the nature of the mechanisms or the confidence of scientists, this one is a question of degree - horizontal gene transfer is possible but not likely. That's a bit "fuzzy" for this page, especially given the subject matter. 0x0077BE (talk) 01:00, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think you're sort of correct in assuming that adding the section could possibly start a slippery slope of many manufactured misconceptions, but the article itself is starting down a slippery slope. It is, after all, a commonly held misconception that consuming GE food is harmful to your health. It could also be opening a huge can of worms and generally piss a lot of people off. NerdyWizard (talk) 01:29, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You could also easily limit the scope. A lot of people think GE foods cause cancer and there is no proof of that.NerdyWizard (talk) 01:34, 4 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Too political. Do you see anything about climate change on this list? Guns? The Israeli–Palestinian conflict? Are there objective, tangible misconceptions related to each of these passionate debates that could be debunked here on this list? Yes. Do they belong here on this list? NO. Wikipedia lists like this should not be used to move the ball forward or back in ongoing political battles of the day. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:51, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:NOTCENSORED. That something it too political is a poor argument. But, the problem with many of the topics that you mentioned is that there are few clear-cut misconceptions where you can say "many people believe X, but that is wrong". Sjö (talk) 05:53, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You mischaracterize my point as having to something to do with offensiveness? The problem is in inability of editors here, in a short space, to treat this subject fairly. It's possible for an article to cover all points of view fairly, but to select a one or two particular facts and move them over here is inescapably POV pushing. This page should not be used in that way. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:30, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Herr Bratland here; this isn't a matter of censorship, especially since the issue is very well covered in other articles. No one is suggesting that this is an inappropriate topic for wikipedia, just for this particular article. siafu (talk) 17:08, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, I took it that you meant the topics are too inflammatory for ant statements to be labeled as misconceptions. I'm sorry if I misunderstood. Sjö (talk) 20:45, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Recent removals
has removed several entries from this page recently, some I agree with, some questionable:


 * 1) Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute
 * 2) Sympathy for the Devil was playing when the Hell's Angels killed a woman at Altamont
 * 3) Black holes and gravity
 * 4) Chameleons changing color as camoflage
 * 5) Caduceus as a symbol for medicine
 * 6) Thanksgiving
 * 7) Sharks getting cancer

Of the above, I feel that Magdalene and the Rolling Stones, Thanksgiving and shark entries should be retained.


 * For Magdalene, the misconception is that people know she was, which is not true.
 * For the Rolling Stones, it was only deleted on the grounds that "there's no way which song was playing during a killing at a concert forty years ago is a common misconception)" which is really weak grounds.
 * It may have been a quackery scam, but thinks to it, the sharks cancer misconception is common - why it's a misconception is irrelevant, so I hope you don't remove the vaccine/autism entries on the same grounds.
 * The Thanksgiving entry should be discussed in the existing section above, not here. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:45, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Given that the black hole misconception was restored due to long-standing consensus, I'm assuming we don't need to comment on it here? I'm going to say that I'm a strong keep on that one, for the record, though, honestly, almost all of these entries had consensus as, more than almost any article on Wikipedia, this article has been scrutinized for content. I'm really not comfortable seeing how many were removed with no discussion, even if I would have been on the "remove" side of the discussion for at least some of them. 0x0077BE (talk) 22:22, 29 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The one I feel most strongly about is the Mary Magdalene one. Saying "Mary Magdalene being a prostitute is a misconception" is Absurd, with a capital A. The Catholic Church has thought for centuries that she is the same woman as the unnamed prostitute, and just because that is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible doesn't mean it's wrong. That's absolutely ridiculous. The Thanksgiving one we can discuss up in its section, but I ripped it out because there was nothing redeemable in the whole paragraph. Nobody would ever think that the Pilgrim Thanksgiving festival was literally the first time anyone had ever eaten food in thanks to God on the American continent. That's absolutely ridiculous. That's not a common misconception. As far as the concert one, it's such a tiny, obscure event on a historical scale (I mean, terrible for the woman and her family)--how many people in a thousand have heard of this event? One? Maybe? As far as sharks, is it really a commonly held belief? There's no citation for that, but I have no case beyond that for its deletion. Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 04:53, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Mary Magdalene
"For Magdalene, the misconception is that people know she was, which is not true." - Ego White Tray, above
 * "The one I feel most strongly about is the Mary Magdalene one. Saying "Mary Magdalene being a prostitute is a misconception" is Absurd, with a capital A. The Catholic Church has thought for centuries that she is the same woman as the unnamed prostitute, and just because that is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible doesn't mean it's wrong. That's absolutely ridiculous" Red Slash, above
 * Based on that, I would assume you would support deleting most of the three wise men entry as well. In that case, most of the common beliefs about them are details that aren't in the original Gospels. Mary Magdalene is the same thing, the misconception arose from people adding details that weren't in the gospels, so they are very similar. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:59, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The wise men thing is different--nowhere in our article does it say "there weren't three wise men". It just says, statement of fact, "the Bible doesn't say there were three wise men". The text I took out said, point blank, "Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute." Holy flip, who on earth is the BBC to make that claim? Did they exhaustively examine the archaeological evidence to determine what exactly her profession was? ... No, actually, the BBC never came close to making that claim. They simply noted the easily-corroborated fact that it's not in the Bible that she was a prostitute. The assertion that the Pope was flat-out wrong comes only from Wikipedia, saying it as a fact when it's not even remotely conclusive. (As an aside, fifteen centuries of church traditions probably didn't come out of nowhere. Regardless, even if they did, the idea of her being a prostitute is absolutely not a provable misconception unless we can somehow prove that she was not. The argument from silence is not convincing.) Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 06:12, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Then we can reword to resemble the wise men entry: "The Bible never says that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute." After that, the remainder of the entry stands as accurate and appropriate. Ego White Tray (talk) 17:19, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

When it comes to contentious religious issues, we should be careful. Just as an example, there's a common misconception that "immaculate conception" is about Mary's virgin conception of Jesus, when actually it's about what happened after Mary's mother and father had sex: that God intervened at conception to make sure Mary wouldn't inherit Original Sin from Adam and Eve. This is a misconception that could be corrected without offending Catholics, and without making any assumptions about whether any of these people ever even existed. The problem with some of the more contentious issues is that Catholics and Protestants have been using them as propaganda against each other for centuries, in the process justifying the slaughter of millions. I'm talking about the European wars of religion. Every religion has beliefs and dogmas that only make sense to the followers of that religion. Their holy books are full of contradictions. Most followers of religions with holy books have beliefs that they would swear are in their book, even though they're not.Zyxwv99 (talk) 22:19, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, this is not one of those issues. Or am I mistaken? Ego White Tray (talk) 22:45, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, then my question becomes: if we reword it, is it still a big enough deal to be included? Is the common conception that the Bible says so, or simply that she is? If the first, we can include that a la the wise men. But if the common conception is that Mary was a prostitute, we have no evidence to contradict that and should remove the whole paragraph. (As an aside, I think there's a misconception that there are exactly three wise men according to the Bible, which is why I don't oppose that entry.) Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 01:04, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see any stark difference between the wise men thing and the Mary Magdalene thing. It seems to me that most people aren't even aware that there might be reasons to believe that she's not a prostitute, yet the second section in the article on her is devoted to this concept, including the strongly-worded opening statement that it is almost universally accepted that she was not a prostitute (with 3 citations). I'd be fine with a non-contentious "in the Bible" statement, though it seems to me that a stronger wording would also be justified. 0x0077BE (talk) 22:11, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Glad to see this section was restored, Red Slash, but I take issue with the way that it's been put back. First, it reads as if the gap between current scholarly opinion on the matter and the conceptions people have are smaller than they are. I think it would be better to reformulate it with a wording that indicates that while she has been historically identified as this reformed prostitute, current scholarship indicates otherwise. Including the dissent by the catholic church is fine, but I think it fits logically at the end of the paragraph. The other problem I have with it is that the claims about Pope Gregory and the Catholic church are unsourced. Are these WP:OR or do you have WP:RS for them? Last I checked, this view was not represented in the full article on Magdalene. 0x0077BE (talk) 20:08, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * And I'm glad to see your helpful commentary. I stretched it too far with the "hotly debated" part; somehow I missed that Vatican II basically set aside the historical claim the Catholic Church had made. Serves me right for trying to simply edit the previous blurb. I have all-but-completely rewritten it now. Tell me how you like it. Red <b style="color:#460121;">Slash</b> 21:23, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Rolling Stones
"For the Rolling Stones, it was only deleted on the grounds that "there's no way which song was playing during a killing at a concert forty years ago is a common misconception)" which is really weak grounds." - Ego White Tray, above
 * "As far as the concert one, it's such a tiny, obscure event on a historical scale (I mean, terrible for the woman and her family)--how many people in a thousand have heard of this event? One? Maybe?" - Red Slash, above
 * This concert is actually very well known, especially in the United States, and is almost as well known as Woodstock. Largely its fame comes from representing the end of the peaceful idealism of the hippy movement. Just because you're not aware, doesn't mean no one is. Ego White Tray (talk) 05:01, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Sharks
"It may have been a quackery scam, but thinks to it, the sharks cancer misconception is common - why it's a misconception is irrelevant, so I hope you don't remove the vaccine/autism entries on the same grounds." - Ego White Tray, above
 * "As far as sharks, is it really a commonly held belief? There's no citation for that, but I have no case beyond that for its deletion." - Red Slash, above
 * Just do a Google search for "sharks don't get cancer". Tons of search results, many listing it as a common misconception, fortunately not many claiming that it's true. And, again, the fact that it was one guy's quackery is irrelevant - the vaccine/autism nonsense was also one guy's quackery. Ego White Tray (talk) 05:09, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Defibrillators
Could someone cite and add the misconception that defibrillators are used to restart hearts, when they're actually for cardiac arrhythmias, not cardiac arrest? 24.4.197.241 (talk) 10:04, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Clarification of the origins of the surname "Crapper"
Can we add in an alternate root for the surname "crapper?" I have been contacted by a relative who is a professor in ancient clothing and cloth manufacture who says the origins of cropper is from someone who did the next job after the napper in the finishing of broadcloth, using cropping shears.

"A workman who shears the nap of cloth; a cloth-shearer; also, a machine for doing this." Electrokin (talk) 17:14, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Above citation is in ref tags, so her eit is inline:: 1711 R. Thoresby Diary (1830) II. 89 A fund for the aged and poor croppers at 2d or 4d per cloth. 1888 F. Peel Risings of Luddites 42 The discontented croppers of Liversedge.
 * I'm going to say the sourcing on that claim is poor. I'm not really sure what everything is supposed to be in that reference, there are a lot of years and possibly quotes there, but all in all it looks like original research, both the hearsay from a professor (not citable) and the contemporary sources calling people croppers. Those both seem to be primary sources, meaning that we have to draw our own conclusions from them. It's possible that "cropper" is the name for a totally different job from the one that we have listed, but that that job never gave rise to a significant surname. Find a source in a reliable publication that connects the dots for us and we can possibly reword. 0x0077BE  [talk/contrib] 01:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm going to say the sourcing on that claim is poor. I'm not really sure what everything is supposed to be in that reference, there are a lot of years and possibly quotes there, but all in all it looks like original research, both the hearsay from a professor (not citable) and the contemporary sources calling people croppers. Those both seem to be primary sources, meaning that we have to draw our own conclusions from them. It's possible that "cropper" is the name for a totally different job from the one that we have listed, but that that job never gave rise to a significant surname. Find a source in a reliable publication that connects the dots for us and we can possibly reword. 0x0077BE  [talk/contrib] 01:45, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 March 2014
In the paragraph that begins

Alcoholic beverages do not make one warmer.[229] The reason that alcoholic drinks create the sensation of warmth is that they cause blood vessels to dilate and stimulate nerve endings near the surface of the skin with an influx of warm blood. This can actually result in making the core body temperature lower, as it allows for easier heat exchange with a cold external environment.[230]

Please add

Alcohol intoxication dulls pain and may prevent a person from recognizing frostbite symptoms until it is too late to prevent permanent damage to the body.

71.109.145.18 (talk) 18:27, 8 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Do you have a reliable source for this claim? 0x0077BE  [talk/contrib] 18:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Even with a source, it isn't relevant to debunking the common misconception. The frostbite warning is already there at Alcoholic beverage, though unsourced.--Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:48, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — &#123;&#123;U&#124;Technical 13&#125;&#125; (t • e • c) 19:15, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Immaculate Conception
It is the Roman Catholic belief that Mary, unlike all other humans, was not in a state of original sin from the moment of conception.

Roman Catholics believe that Jesus, a human (and God), was without sin from the moment of conception. Furthermore, three other humans (Adam, Eve, and John the Baptist) are believed to be without original sin (though the phrasing "from the moment of conception" is wrong for John and difficult for Adam and Eve). I recommend removing the phrase "unlike all other humans". Yla1031 (talk) 04:22, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The cited source doesn't say anything about "all other humans", either. ✅, thanks. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 12:48, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Opposable Thumbs
How about this? While the thumb is often mentioned as one of the signature characteristics in humans, this manual digit remains partially primitive and is actually present in all primates. In humans, the most derived digital feature is the hallux. 71.236.253.188 (talk) 21:41, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Primary Colors

 * The primary colors are not Red, Yellow, and Blue, whether by paint or by light. The primary colors for light (or additive colors) are Red, Green, and Blue. The primary colors for pigment (or subtractive colors) are Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow. The "Red, Yellow, Blue" explanation probably arose from people mistaking Magenta for Red and mistaking Cyan for Blue, or possibly from mixing up the additive/subtractive primary colors' charts with each other.

NOTE TO MODERATOR: I apologize, I don't know how to add in the reference tag, so here's my link to a site explaining this: http://www.rgbworld.com/color.html

Maoman123 (talk) 19:56, 29 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You'd first want to have this misconception added to RYB color model and/or Primary color and Additive color. But first you would want to go to the talk page and seek consensus for the idea that the RYB model is "wrong" or a misconception. The historical RYB model was apparently practical. And then considering the four (or more) psychological primary colors, it becomes much harder to declare any of these numerous color models "misconceptions". I think this is is another example of using physicists' definitions as the final arbiter of truth for fields outside physics.<P>In any case, the misconception first must be described and well cited in another article, then it can be considered here.--Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:26, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 April 2014
The contents menu is missing topics and is out of order. Please update the contents menu to reflect the article.

Ksariash (talk) 14:27, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

To prevent the ToC being too long, it has been restricted to level 1, 2 & 3 headers, so the sub-sub-sub headings, such as Vertebrates and Invertebrates under Biology, do not show. - Arjayay (talk) 16:59, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
 * ❌ The Table of Contents (ToC) is automatically generated, so it cannot be out of order, and cannot be manually amended

Humans equal Chimpanzees?
The paragraph which says,


 * Humans did however evolve from a species of extinct chimpanzee, dubbed Pan prior [170][171] The two modern species (common chimpanzees and bonobos) are humans' closest living relatives and some anthropologists and primatologists accept that humans are not only descended from an extinct chimpanzee, but are themselves a species of living chimpanzee.[172][173]

Appears to cite only one scientific source, plus Jared Diamond who is not a palaeoanthropologist. Does his book present the current consensus among all palaeoanthropological scientists? I majored in this field in college 4 years ago and none of my textbooks or professors subsumed Homo into Pan. If this is not agreed by the vast majority of palaeoanthropologists, I think it is misleading to present this as THE consensus, especially if only Jared Diamond believes it. At the very least, additional and more scientific sources should be cited to support this claim.

It would be simpler to say what anthropologists do agree on: that we share a recent common ancestor with chimpanzees and it was not a human creature. -- 209.162.56.112 (talk) 22:59, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I would try to discuss this at Chimpanzee–human last common ancestor, where there are additional citations and examples. For example, it adds that Richard Wrangham also uses Pan prior'. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:11, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * In fact Wrangham appears to be the only such citation on that page, and he's the same guy cited in this article. So that's still only one scientist and one non-scientist, not at all a consensus. I brought it up on the talk page there. 209.162.56.112 (talk) 03:56, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh certainly, such a claim should be removed. I don't know that there is any consensus that humans branched away from an already established Pan branch.  I've been watching this field for a long time, and besides Diamond and Wrangham, have never heard this. Qed (talk) 02:48, 9 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Likewise, people are also descended from theromorph reptiles, but I am not a theromorph reptile. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:35, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I love you guys.
To everyone who's made this article such a valuable resource, keep up the good work. Almost every entry is an enlightening tidbit. I wish Randall Munroe had his way. --Qwerty0 (talk) 18:13, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Belated thank you from the many editors who have fought to improve and maintain the quality of this article, in the face of opposition from deletionists and from editors who can't or won't get on board with the four inclusion criteria., we'd welcome your involvement here, or indeed at any Wikipedia article which interests you. Jump into the fray/party! --Lexein (talk) 09:26, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Lucifer is not the devil
Most people believe that Lucifer is the devil. Lucifer is actually another name for the planet Venus. The misconception comes from a misinterpretation of chapter 14 of Isaiah. In verse 12, it says "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!" Many people think this is referring to Satan being kicked out of Heaven. It's actually referring to a king who would call himself the morning star. There is a Wikipedia article about Lucifer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer


 * Where is the evidence that "most people believe" that? HiLo48 (talk) 06:36, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * If you were to ask random people what Lucifer is, almost all of them would tell you that it's the devil.
 * Silly comment. I'll try asking some random people next time I'm in India or China. MOST people don't live in places like the religious parts of the USA. HiLo48 (talk) 00:10, 26 April 2014 (UTC)


 * This is yet another example that scriptural interpretation and the actual meaning of simple words changes over time, and that there is contradiction between and within religious faiths. As with other religious contradictions and variations in hermeneutics, I don't think it is appropriate for this list. It lacks the simple, cut-and-dried nature of the kinds of common misconceptions we have collected here. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:49, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * This is all moot unless we have sources showing that this is a common misconception.--Asher196 (talk) 15:56, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Even if there are sources that say many people believe this, I still don't think it belongs in the article, for the reasons Dennis Bratland gave. 07:31, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * While this may have been a mistake originally, it has certainly entered into both common parlance and "official canon" of English for many centuries. For example: Paradise Lost, Book X, lines 424-5: "Pandemonium, city and proud seat/Of Lucifer." This, IMO, ruins the "common misconception" aspect of it, since language is itself defined by the common conception. siafu (talk) 15:58, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * This is an example of a misnomer, not a misconception. For example, the positive and negative ends of a battery were named before electrons were discovered. By then it was too late to change the name because everyone was already using those words in their present senses. As a result, electrical current flows in the "wrong" direction. Misnomers are a normal part of languages. The only exception is if someone makes an issue of a word for political or other reasons, and enough people campaign against its use, at which point it becomes a politically incorrect or offensive term. If enough Venus-worshippers complain about this, maybe something will change. Wiccans and feminists have already gotten people to stop using "old witch" as an insult, so sometimes that works. Zyxwv99 (talk) 13:22, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

irregardless/non-standard words
The section about non-standard words is a bit misleading for the casual reader: It seems to primarily argue that language is dynamic and grows naturally, and that many new words are not part of a language at first, until adopted. It uses "irregardless" as an example, claiming despite appearing as a word in numerous dictionaries, "irregardless" is sometimes dismissed as "not a word". This does not mention the fact that Wikipedia's own page on "irregardless" notes that dictionaries usually mark the word as non-standard, Merriam-Webster going as far as explicitly telling people to use regardless instead.

I believe the sentiment of the segment is that "irregardless" is a word, even if it is an incorrect word. But that important distinction is not made clear, and is, in fact, blurred by the third sentence, where the section suddenly concerns itself with correctness.

I think this part of the article would be clearer if it began with an explicit statement that there is a difference between arguing whether something is a word or not, and whether it is correct or not - and that "irregardless", for example, is a word (as evidenced by its inclusion in dictionaries), but not necessarily a correct or advisable part of the English language.

Should I be mistaken, and that segment's goal was to argue for the inherent correctness of new words (like "irregardless") by way of arguing that the fact that they're not common doesn't make them wrong, then this segment should be removed as a massive equivocation. While the intent of the common person may be to attack the correctness of "irregardless" when they say "that's not a word", "not a word" and "incorrect" are not, in fact, the same thing. To turn the complainers' argument around and argue that because such words are -evidently- words, they are inevitably also correct, would be as wrong as the original complaint.

Basically, this section should decide what it wants to talk about -the process of word creation, or the question of word correctness-, focus on that, and clearly differentiate between the two. 2A02:8108:380:145C:0:0:0:3 (talk) 15:02, 27 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your comments. This item is the end result of several long discussion threads, and it reads as if it was written by committee, because it was. My own take is that it is overly complicated and contorted and as you point out lacks focus, but it is the compromise that several editors agreed to.  If you look back at the history of this page you'll see much simpler versions of this item.  For instance, this one from May 2012:


 * "Irregardless" is a word. The Merriam-Webster online dictionary states that, "The most frequently repeated remark about it is that 'there is no such word.' "[91] According to Mignon Fogarty, this is an English misconception. "You shouldn't use it if you want to be taken seriously, but it has gained wide enough use to qualify as a word."[92]


 * My opinion is that this version is better than what is there now, and I think it clearly implies the distinction you would like to see. Since wikipedia works by consensus we would need to reach a new consensus to change the current item.  What do you think of the version above, or do you have other suggested language? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:48, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The phrase "if you want to be taken seriously" is a little vague. Taken seriously by whom? The Story of English make the point that these are not language rules, but etiquette rules. Etiquette varies by context. Adhering too much to standard English in some context can make you look like a fool, and you won't be taken seriously. So the assertion "that's not a word" is a way of saying "we don't talk that way here, and those who do talk that way don't count". In most languages, dialects are recognized and given respect, at least when spoken in an appropraite context. But Americans have a hard time with the concept of dialect, and want to believe there is only one English. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:29, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * It should be pretty obvious that "if you want to be taken seriously" means "if you want to adopt the appropriate spoken register for the situation," where the situation is formal writing or speech. But really, "Americans have a hard time with the concept of dialect, and want to believe there is only one English"? The proscriptive attitude towards particular registers and dialects is neither particularly American nor particularly novel; similar treatment is given to dialects in the UK that are perceived as being lower class, uncultured, or "country" (like Brummie and Scouse) by those who are perceived (by themselves or society at large) as being higher class, urban, or cultured (i.e. the London accent-- the de facto "official" form of English English). There is certainly a misconception, and a common one, in the assertion that words like "irregardless" are objectively not words, and I think that the past version exhibited by Mr. Swordfish does capture that sufficiently well IMO, without having to delve into the issue of variability and dialects and registers. siafu (talk) 18:47, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Since the primary point to be made, in the current version, the suggested archive version and the previous comment, seems to be that words are words, independent of how correct they are in the particular language context you're currently operating in, why not just phrase it like that?
 * An expression's status as a "real word" is independent from its acceptance as "correct" in a particular language or dialect. The fact that scholars do not consider a word a proper part of a given language does not change its acceptance as a word. A common example of this is the word "irregardless" in modern English: Though several dictionaries have added it to their collections, it is frequently marked as "non-standard", with Merriam-Webster going as far as advising the reader to "Use regardless instead".
 * There is no contest that "irregardless" is a word. It is just not considered proper English. (The same is true for many other slang or colloquial terms and neologisms.)
 * 2A02:8108:380:145C:0:0:0:3 (talk) 03:41, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Misleading paragraph/Incomplete Explanation
Please forgive me if I am doing this wrong. First time using the Wikipedia Talk system, as well as trying to request an edit to a Semi-Protected page.

The Paragraph entry about Microwaves in Common Misconceptions is a little funny.

"The functional principle of a microwave oven is not related to the resonance frequencies of water, and microwave ovens can therefore operate at many different frequencies. The resonance frequencies of water are about 20 GHz, which would be much too large to penetrate common foodstuffs. Microwave ovens work on the principle of dielectric heating.[78]"

This is worded in a way that is seems that Water is not as involved in the heating process as it seems. It only explains that it's not a vibration but does not go on to explain what actually is the cause of heat. I felt that it should be noted that it works with water but not in that way. It explains in the article on Dielectric Heating from the source. "...a microwave oven just exposes the water molecules to the intense electromagnetic fields in strong, non-resonant microwaves. The frequency used in microwave ovens (2,450,000,000 cycles per second or 2.45 GHz)..."

It's very confusing on what the article is trying to explain.

I think it should read

"The functional principle of a microwave oven is not related to the resonance frequencies of water, and microwave ovens can therefore operate at many different frequencies. Water molecules are exposed to intense electromagnetic fields in strong, non-resonant microwaves in order to create heat. It should be noted the resonance frequencies of water are about 20 GHz, which would be much too large to penetrate common foodstuffs effectively. Microwave ovens work on the principle of dielectric heating and not vibration.[78]"

Because upon first reading that part, though it is correct about vibration not being the cause, I thought that water was not part of the source of heating at all. So my edit should clear up what exactly is causing the heat.

Done I think there are a few problems in your paragraph, but it is an improvement over the current text. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 18:36, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Contested detail of water-immersion wrinkling
The statement: "This may have evolved because it gives ancestral primates a better grip in slippery, wet environments," is not affirmed by the related article.

In the Wrinkle Wikipedia article under water-immersion wrinkling: "However, a 2014 study attempting to reproduce these results was unable to demonstrate any improvement of handling wet objects with wrinkled fingertips. Furthermore, the same study didn't find any connection between fingertip wrinkling and touch sensation."

This strikes me as a detail that is better left out without more thorough investigation and confirmation. As it stands, the claim is merely an interesting idea and could be misleading or taken as fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.118.66.58 (talk) 02:48, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Neurotoxicity of alcohol
"Alcohol does not necessarily kill brain cells.[235]"

The citation doesn't really support the claim very well, in my opinion.

More importantly, the claim is contradicted by a substantial amount of available data. *All* addictive drugs cause long term abnormalities in the brain. Alcohol in particular has well-documented neurotoxic effects (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotoxin#Ethanol). Alcohol is a potent neurotoxin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.163.96.202 (talk) 16:46, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Subject inclusion
Forgive me for asking what I'm sure has been hashed out multiple times (I'm not seeing a clear answer that evidently applies to the current page), but is there a list of subjects that are/are not appropriate for the list? It seems like everything relating to politics is conspicuously missing, for example. Despite there remaining several well publicized misconceptions about recent U.S. Presidents, for example, the names Obama, Bush, or Clinton don't appear once. Is this because there are already organizations like PolitiFact that point out misconceptions to the extent that they shouldn't be considered misconceptions any longer (something closer to "imposed ideological misconceptions")? Just curious. I don't have a pet misconception I'm looking to add or anything -- just haven't given the page any thought before :) --&mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  |  15:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Just search the talk archives in the box above for "Obama", "Bush", "Iraq War", etc. For example: . A lot of these are over at List of conspiracy theories or one of the sub-lists of conspiracy theories linked there. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:29, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I did find some of those, but I'm having trouble finding concrete guidelines. The Obama religion issue's exclusion is clear, being a statement of personal belief, but others are not clear to me. Putting aside those discussions on subjects that reliable sources have not described as a common misconception, it seems the line is drawn ambiguously based on differing definitions of "misconception," source of the misconception, or other factors not clearly stated here -- and especially not in the article's lead, which only says "erroneous beliefs that are currently widely held about notable topics."
 * The easiest example for me to point to -- and please know that it's only an easy example and I have no intention of re-adding this, which was already removed by consensus -- is the sustained belief that the United States did find WMDs in Iraq (and variations thereof). There are multiple polls/papers that have been published in reliable sources well after their nonexistence was made clear showing a surprisingly large percent of those polled still believed it was the case. These polls were presented by news media precisely in the context of ~"erroneous belief that is currently widely held about a notable topic."
 * I see in a couple threads people bring up intentions of the source of the misconception, but I can't believe any article would frame inclusion criteria in terms of such evaluations by editors. Anyway...I wish I had a less charged example to use. Trying to stick to what defines this article rather than making arguments about the incident itself. --&mdash; <span style="font-family:monospace, monospace;"> Rhododendrites <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk  |  22:04, 14 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Before you call it a "common misconception", you have an uphill battle to prove that it is a misconception at all. That's why it isn't here.
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMD_conjecture_in_the_aftermath_of_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Stockpiles_transported_to_another_country_conjecture


 * http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iraqs-wmd-secreted-in-syria-sada-says/26514/


 * http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/18/inside-the-ring-syria-iraq-and-weapons-of-mass-des/?page=all

Primium mobile (talk) 18:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The New York Sun and the Washington Times? No Fox News? Do you have any reliable sources to cite? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:16, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 July 2014
In the first entry of Invertebrates (subsection of Science – Biology) it says:
 * "Species of the planaria family of flatworms actually do become two new planaria when bisected or split down the middle."

Please change to:
 * "Species of planarian flatworms actually do become two new planarians when bisected or split down the middle."

As clearly said in citation for sentence, this is about planarians (which is a non-monophyletic group, an example of folk taxonomy; not a family) rather than the specific genus Planaria. No family called "Planaria" exists; in biological classification, family names always have a "-dae" ending. Please also remember to change the wiki link (planarian vs. planaria). Regards,

62.107.209.193 (talk) 13:07, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please 20:21, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Early microwave ovens did cook from the inside out
The first generation of microwave ovens operated at in the .915 MHz band, where the skin depth is much deeper than the 2.45 GHz presently used. In that era they did cook food from the inside out and, as the saying goes, "No story; the lies are all true." Due largely to concerns about the reseonance of the human head on the part of regulators whose understanding of the quality factor "Q" of resinators left much to be desired, U.S. government pressure was applied to manufacturers to raise the frequency to 2.45. See various Wikipedia articles, beginning with "Microwave Oven."

This may be too fine a point for the blunt instrument of "common misconceptions," but there is a difference between a statement that is no longer true and a statement that was at one time true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.109.144 (talk) 23:33, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't see that information in Microwave oven (which only mentions 915 MHz, not .915). Anyway, a greater skin depth still doesn't mean that food is cooked from the inside out, only that the energy is distributed more evenly. Sjö (talk) 07:22, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Having a greater skin depth just means that the radiation had a greater penetration; the greatest radiation exposure (and therefore heating) will still be to the outer layers. Microwave ovens do not, and have never, cooked "from the inside out." siafu (talk) 09:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Brontosaurus
We have discussed and rejected this entry previously with the consensus view being that this is not a misconception, but just a matter of formal science and popular parlance using different words for the same thing. In any case, the "misconception" is not treated in the parent article, which merely states that "Brontosaurus is considered a junior synonym and has therefore been discarded from formal use." Since the entry fails to meet the criteria for inclusion, I'm removing it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:03, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

This page in the news
Business Insider "stealing" our stuff. we're credited though.

http://www.businessinsider.com/science-misconceptions-and-myths-2013-7 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr swordfish (talk • contribs) 20:07, 3 July 2013‎

Color of the sun
It seems to be a very common belief that the sun looks like the image on the page Sun. Namely, that it is orange and splotchy. At the time of writing, this fails the second criterion. The misconception is not mentioned on the Sun page. I think that it should be added there and added to this list. — DanielLC 21:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestion, but could you please read the section at the top of this page titled "Inclusion 4/Criteria"? Best regards, Looie496 (talk) 01:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Fidel Castro
There is a common misconception that Cuban dictator Fidel Castro was a baseball star drafted by the New York Yankees or Washington Senators. Should this be addressed? 65.94.101.138 (talk) 14:48, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
 * See the 4 criteria for new entries above. For one thing, it is not addressed in the article on Fidel Castro, so it fails the third prong. If you can find sources that it is 1. a misconception and 2. commonly held, you may want to take them over to Talk:Fidel Castro and see about getting it added to the article there. If it passes that bar, you have the relevant sources, and the misconception is current, then it can be added here. Honestly, I doubt that this is likely. 0x0077BE [talk/contrib] 17:01, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Seeing stars in daytime
I've heard this twice: that if you are at the bottom of a well in daytime and look up, you can see stars. The implication is that, by removing side sources of light to your eyes, you can see past the daytime sky to the stars. The snopes page debunks this. 97.125.92.171 (talk) 02:22, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Evolution
Existing section: A common argument against evolution is that entropy, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, increases over time, and thus evolution could not produce increased complexity. However, the law only applies to isolated systems, where no transfer of heat or matter between the system and its surroundings is allowed. The Earth is not an isolated system, as it absorbs and radiates the Sun's energy. Entropy must only increase in the universe as a whole. '''Proposed addition:	    Conversely, the second law of thermodynamics is an absolute and universal law of physics; the law applies to isolated systems and to all open systems as well. Studies explain that the open (not isolated) system of Earth is a necessary condition but is not sufficient to account for the increased complexity produced by evolution. Clausius’ statement that the entropy of the world tends to increase is more likely to have come from observing local examples such as ice melting than thinking about the universe as a whole. '''LEBOLTZMANN2 (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Evolution does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.


 * Do you have any sources that show that this is a common misconception?--Asher196 (talk) 18:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, please read the "inclusion criteria" at the top of this page.--Asher196 (talk) 18:26, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

This section was recently deleted and restored. Rather than continue the edit war, let's discuss here. My take is that neither of the two cited sources for the section qualify as a reliable source - one is self published and the other appears to be aggregated material from a usenet group. Citing reliable sources is a bedrock principle of wikipedia, so the onus is on the editors who are in favor of retaining the section to provide reliable sourcing. Otherwise, we have no choice but to remove the material. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
 * It should be removed as there's no RS saying it's a common misconception. I've not seen any news articles or anything else addressing this issue.  Eve rgr een Fir  (talk) Please &#123;&#123;re&#125;&#125; 19:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Agree that material that is not backed up by a reliable source should be removed. But I thought it fair to give the proponents of this section a few days to come up some reliable sources. Not seeing any thus far I think it's now ripe to remove the section. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:37, 2 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Talkorigins Archive is considered a WP:RS on matters of evolution and creationism, but here is a mention in New Scientist that says it's one of "the most common myths and misconceptions": and the National Center for Science Education calls it "One of the cornerstones in the crumbling foundation of creationist "science"":.
 * FYI: A similar addition has also been unsuccessfully proposed at Talk:Objections to evolution. Sjö (talk) 16:05, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * The site talkorigins.org is not a usenet aggregator, it is a collection of articles written by respected authors in the field. It is generally considered a reliable source on Wikipedia. The consensus on WP:RSN deemed that it shouldn't be considered less reliable than a primary source, with reliability of a specific author determined on a case by case basis. There is ample sourcing establishing that creationists have a common misconception about the second law of thermodynamics, as indicated above and in the article. ~Amatulić (talk) 16:24, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

It isn't hard to find lots of mainstream citations to support that this misconeption is commonplace. Variations on this argument, that complexity can't arise from entropy, date back to Darwin. It probably belongs here. But I don't see the relevance of the part in bold above about the second law being a universal absolute. That's kind of going off in the weeds on a different subject. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:36, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

James Cook
I have not seen a misconception about James Cook on this article but I believe there is one. I was taught that he discovered Australia but he wasn't the first European to visit there. This should be on the page.PlayStation 14 (talk) 12:39, 2 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Cook was the first European to have recorded contact with the east coast of Australia. No one said he discovered it, and if there was anyone there before Cook they never told anyone about it. Being first doesn't mean much if no one else knows. Primium mobile (talk) 17:05, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Flat Earth
Is there any evidence that it is a common misconception that people today believe that medieval Europeans believed the earth was flat? I think most people today know that they didn't.Tarview (talk) 13:29, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
 * We have a whole article dedicated to this misconception. It is also linked in the article. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:41, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Old people in medieval Europe
It is true that life expectancy in the Middle Ages and earlier was low; however, one should not infer that people usually died around the age of 30.

It's worse, actually. I've frequently seen the belief that in the Middle Ages or other pre-modern societies, literally nobody lived beyond the age of 30 or so (or even 25). That there were literally no old people around! Completely ridiculous, considering how human societies without even moderately old people would find it extremely hard to retain traditions and any sense of history, and family structures would also be almost impossible to maintain, since children would become orphans almost as soon as they were born (unless people had already born children by 5 or 10), nor would the grandmother hypothesis or the patriarch hypothesis make any sense, but this seems to be something that a lot of people believe indeed, as this Cracked article also indicates. That is, people take average life expectancy (at birth) for maximum life expectancy, without thinking through the consequences. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:38, 5 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Where have you seen that? Even if you have the belief that the average person always died young, there are countless examples of the upper class in the history books where exact dates of both birth and death are known. They start teaching that to children today relatively early in their education. I've never heard anyone say that there were "no old people at all".


 * Thanks for the Cracked link. I love those articles. Primium mobile (talk) 13:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I can't give any specific examples. But I have definitely seen several instances where people flatly denied the existence of people older than a certain cutoff in pre-modern societies, medieval, ancient or prehistoric, because I did wonder how anyone could support such a ludicrous idea with a straight face when it is so obvious that a human society like that could not work. The Cracked article supports this observation of mine, that's why I have linked to it, although I am unsure whether it can be used as a reliable source. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:57, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Duck and cover
I just learnt of another misconception not mentioned yet in the list. As expounded in Duck and cover and Duck and Cover (film), the duck and cover advice is actually useful, despite the widespread perception that the film is scientifically inaccurate or outdated, or mere propaganda. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:01, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Isaac's age at the time of the binding
Most paintings and literature depict Isaac to be young, perhaps teenage, during the Binding of Isaac. This question came up in religious studies a few years ago, and I went to the local library to look it up. I found Hebrew traditions that maintained that Isaac was much older, between 30-40 years old, and that this event was a coming-of-age for him. Does this ring a bell with anyone? It is also listed on the Binding of Isaac page that his age was likely 37. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slippyshoe (talk • contribs) 03:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Required reading
This article should be required reading for everyone ever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:470:67:22F:FC17:FD60:8584:BE04 (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * No it shouldn't. HiLo48 (talk) 22:07, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Maybe the OP has been reading xkcd? Sjö (talk) 10:21, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

TSA
In response to this revert by, a reliable source that supports that the misconception is Additionally, the misconception was stated as fact by high-profile individuals and bodies, including
 * "Still, the ability of Americans to function in modern society without government-issued photo identification is frequently exaggerated. Proponents of restrictive ID laws often assert that it is impossible to board an airplane, drink a beer, check in at a hotel, or enter a federal building without government-issued photo ID.  These claims are both untrue and irrelevant."  (footnote omitted)
 * the 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, "Building Confidence in U.S. Elections" (page 90)
 * the Seventh Circuit in Frank v. Walker (page 7)
 * Pat McCrory
 * Nikki Haley
 * Rush Limbaugh
 * Bryan King, Arkansas senator and sponsor of the Arkansas voter ID law
 * Woody Burton, Indiana representative
 * lawyers for the state of Texas in Veasey v. Perry, and

I think the Levitt source is sufficient. In the alternative, the sheer prevalence of the misconception among high-profile individuals and bodies should merit a listing in the article. RJaguar3 &#124; u &#124; t 03:19, 8 October 2014 (UTC)


 * The Levitt source is the only one that speaks to the issue, and then only weakly-- I would not consider it acceptable, myself, as it does not seem to be based on any actual research. Using any number of individual instances as evidence of prevalence is original synthesis, and not valid sourcing on wikipedia. siafu (talk) 12:07, 8 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It certainly seems like a common misconception, but I think that is right that it would be WP:SYNTH to include it just based on the fact that it's not true and we have a bunch of sources saying it is. I could see it being included if we see some secondary sources discussing it as a common misconception. Additionally, you could start by including the fact that it's not true in the Transportation Security Administration article, which states the opposite.  0x0077BE  [talk/contrib] 16:52, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 November 2014
Change: The accused at the Salem witch trials were not burned at the stake; they either died in prison (about 15) or were hanged (19) or pressed to death to: The accused at the Salem witch trials were not burned at the stake; they either died in prison (about 15) or were hung (19) or pressed to death

change hanged to hung for correct grammar

19df (talk) 01:24, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅: . G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 01:38, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Absolutely not. I have reverted. Pictures are hung but people are hanged. Moriori (talk) 01:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

November 11 2014 Edit Request
The "the enemy of your enemy is your fried" attributed to Machiavelli can be found in Kautilya's Arthashastra. Please refer to the Wikipedia article.
 * You need to source both that it's wrong and that it's a common misconception. I am also not sure that we want to open the can of worms of common quote mis-attributions here, that could be a whole article in itself. 0x0077BE  ( talk ·  contrib ) 14:21, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

November 12 2014 Edit Request
I'd like to see totem poles added. From the main article: "There have never been any restrictions on vertical order; many poles have significant figures on the top, others on the bottom, and some in the middle." 68.96.49.184 (talk) 00:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * See the four inclusion criteria at the top. Where are your sources that say it's a common misconception? 0x0077BE  ( talk ·  contrib ) 14:21, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Hydrogen Peroxide bit is likely based on misunderstandings of fad studies
See the Talk page of Hydrogen Peroxide. I suggest just stripping out that item--184.63.132.236 (talk) 01:01, 3 December 2014 (UTC)


 * ❌ for now. The entry is fairly well sourced, and there should be a greater consensus before it is changed.  G S Palmer (talk • contribs) 03:33, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Photographic memory
There is a widespread misconception that some people have the ability to look at a picture and remember it in photographic detail. I have encountered this so frequently, particularly on Quora, that I think it belongs here (in the "Brain" section). Our article on eidetic memory covers the topic pretty well, explaining that the myth is widespread and that there is no solid evidence that any such thing exists, particularly in adults. If there is approval for the idea of adding this, I'll propose some text. Looie496 (talk) 15:29, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Pruitt–Igoe
I was skeptical that Pruitt–Igoe winning awards was a common misconception, but a search of "Pruitt–Igoe award" (or prize or similar terms) turns up a half dozen hits at Google books, or Questia,, from the late 60s to 70s. Starting around the 80s the hits change from instances of the misconception to debunking, leading to the Pruitt-Igoe Myth paper and documentary. So I think the sources exist to make this worthy of inclusion. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:46, 3 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Well, if we can source it as a common misconception we can re-add the section. I'm unconvinced it's common outside of the world of those who follow architecture closely, but will defer to consensus of the editors here.   Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not so much in the world of architecture, but public policy in general. It seems to be used as an example of the failure of efforts to help the poor, or the failure of government to change the way the world is. The statement that it won architecture awards is meant to show the undeserved confidence of social engineers and how silly they look in retrospect. That the supposed award came from the AIA is meant to attack the credibility of experts in their attempts to fix the ills of society. It's one of those cases of someone in such a hurry to make their point that they didn't think to fact check, which is why it's just the sort of thing this page is about. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:55, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I added a second source describing this. Tom Wolfe repeats this pretty much verbatim in From Bauhaus to Our House, as well, and he might well be where this got started. Daniel Case (talk) 05:58, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Law and Order
The section on Legislation and Crime omits the myth of "Law and Order."

Consider, if you will, the biggest misconception of all &mdash; the mathematically disproven (but widely held) belief that rule-driven systems are inherently orderly, predictable, stable, or well-regulated.

Rule-driven system are now understood to be mathematically chaotic, erratic, dysfunctional, and susceptible to corruptly gaming the system.

Reference: "Punishment and Violence: Is the Criminal Law Based on One Huge Mistake?" by James Gilligan, Harvard University; published in the Journal of Social Research, Fall 2000.

Moulton (talk) 12:24, 27 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't think that the inclusion criteria are met. Sjö (talk) 07:44, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Learning styles
Learning styles are widely used in education in USA and many other countries, to differentiate learning. Especially the learning modalities theory (kinesthetic, visual, auditory) is nearly universally known, yet no scientific study has found any basis for it. The main problem, of course, is that many educational institutions spend resources on differentiation based on learning modalities or other learning style theories, and in light of scientific evidence, this seems like a waste of resources. The article on Learning styles starts with the basic premise, and follows up with major criticism on paragraph two. In addition, the Criticism section is about half the actual article. Would this article qualify for the list (and start a new topic on Education)? --Tarmo (talk) 08:37, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Has there been any scientific study that has found a basis for any generalization about human behavior? A lack of consensus within a field is not the same as a common misconception. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:32, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Rumour of black men disproportionately serving in the United States military
Can we include this common misconception? It's easily verifiable, as the U.S. government (among other groups) keeps "census" data regarding the population and racial/ethnic makeup of servicemen in the military. Yet people still believe the old rumour (likely from the Vietnam era) that black troops are disproportionately serving in the military relative to their percentage of the population of the U.S. as a whole. Also untrue is that black troops make up a disproportionate amount of the combat arms MOSs. The racial/ethnic makeup of the U.S. military mirrors that of the United States as a whole.StrangeApparition2011 (talk) 19:39, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It needs to be verifiable that there is such a belief in order to appear on this page: you need to find articles which are about the belief. It's not enough that it can be verified to be false. --ColinFine (talk) 19:57, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * April 4, 1967 |CX3411600118&userGroupName=k12_histrc&zid=bcd0672aae73e39b4a6af7c0f9473a01 speech, "Beyond Vietnam", by Martin Luther King, Jr.: "The poor treatment of the Project 100,000 recruits highlighted the discrimination that other African American soldiers faced in Vietnam. [...] Only 2 percent of officers in the U.S. armed forces were black, even though blacks made up a much larger percentage of all military personnel during the Vietnam War. [...] But the most disturbing statistic in the minds of many African Americans was the number of black soldiers who were killed or wounded in combat. A high percentage of blacks and other minorities were assigned to dangerous combat duty in the early years of the Vietnam War. In fact, African Americans made up 20 percent of U.S. combat units in 1965 and 1966. As a result, black soldiers accounted for 25 percent of Americans killed in Vietnam during those years."<P>The article Project 100,000 cites a number of sources which agree that poor and minority soldiers were discriminated against and suffered high casualties. The Oxford Companion to Military History says, "The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of blacks ever to serve in an American war. During the height of the U.S. involvement, 1965-69, blacks, who formed 11 percent of the American population, made up 12.6 percent of the soldiers in Vietnam. The majority of these were in the infantry, and although authorities differ on the figures, the percentage of black combat fatalities in that period was a staggering 14.9 percent."<P>I hardly had to even try to find those examples; I expect there are hundreds more that you could cite. Now we need to see evidence that these assertions are false... --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:13, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * So the sources say that at that time there was an overrepresentation of black men. That doesn't show that there is a current misconception. Sjö (talk) 08:45, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The "old rumour" that blacks served disproportionately in Vietnam is not a rumor, it is a historical fact. In 2011 it was a fact that black women served at twice the percentage of their overall representation. Conservative activists seem to want to crow that circa 2006 blacks were not overrepresented . Which, phrased a specific way, is kind of true, but there are caveats.<P>We can cay with certainty that the proportion of minorities has varied over time, and that not everyone at any given time had an accurate guess as to what that statistic was. But there was originally a basis for the belief that blacks were serving more, and subsequently some things changed and others didn't. This should be sorted out in an article like Military history of African Americans and perhaps if a clear statement can be worked out, then it should come here. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The "old rumour" that blacks served disproportionately in Vietnam is not a rumor, it is a historical fact. In 2011 it was a fact that black women served at twice the percentage of their overall representation. Conservative activists seem to want to crow that circa 2006 blacks were not overrepresented . Which, phrased a specific way, is kind of true, but there are caveats.<P>We can cay with certainty that the proportion of minorities has varied over time, and that not everyone at any given time had an accurate guess as to what that statistic was. But there was originally a basis for the belief that blacks were serving more, and subsequently some things changed and others didn't. This should be sorted out in an article like Military history of African Americans and perhaps if a clear statement can be worked out, then it should come here. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

You're wrong. The percentage of blacks serving in the U.S. military in the Vietnam era was proportionate to their population of the United States. It wasn't until the draft was abolished, AND the late 1970s-early 1980s rolled around that the number of black in the military ballooned. NOT during Vietnam. And eventually that regressed to the mean as well. http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-great-draft-dodge-20141212

And here are the demographics for the U.S. military for 2012. If for some reason this link doesn't work (it might have problems), then just Google "2012 u.s. military demographics", and it's the first link. http://www.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2012_Demographics_Report.pdf StrangeApparition2011 (talk) 09:13, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * This page isn't the place for me to bat away straw man arguments. Per the list criteria, please take this to an appropriate article, such as Military history of African Americans, and demonstrate the existence of the misconception and the debunking of it. Then come back and suggest adding it here. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:26, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I'd love to know how it's a straw man argument when it's addressing exactly what you said. Hey, whatever, don't include the myth. I've seen tons of popular rumored not make it to this article. But don't act like I'm strawmanning when you said yourself that the "rumour" of disproportionate service in Vietnam was not a rumor, but historical fact.StrangeApparition2011 (talk) 19:14, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The sources I cited specifically referred to the time period when Project 100,000 (a real thing that actually happened, not a rumor) and cited data showing a disproportionate number of blacks in uniform, and even more in enlisted ranks, and even more in combat units, and also a disproportionate number of casualties during the period in question, which in King's case was only 1965 and 1966. The Oxford Companion gave different statistics for a different period, 1965-69, but which agreed with the general conclusion.<P>The straw man you constructed was to pretend I had simply said blacks were always overrepresented, and that they still are to this day. The only citations you gave refer to the present day, and ignore the historical source of what you claim was a 'rumor'. The right-wing activists make a similar straw man: they don't focus on the specific years in question, but total up data for the entire Vietnam war, and they don't break out the data on enlisted vs officer, and combat vs non-combat. The only way this is a common misconception is if you put words in others' mouths, accusing them of over-generalization. If you've "seen tons" of evidence otherwise, then cite that "tons" of evidence and put it into Military history of African Americans, and then come back here. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:46, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I Didn't say that you said that they ALWAYS were. Perhaps you're assuming that's what I meant, but that's not what I said. I mentioned AFTER Vietnam because it was relevant to what *I* was saying. Also, you were the one who busted out the stats for 2012 first, that's why I responded with that. And just in case we're unclear (because it somehow matters) I'm far from anything that could be considered right-wing in general.StrangeApparition2011 (talk) 00:57, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

On Linux being more secure by design
This seems to be a largely unconfirmed statement. While it might be true for some configurations it's probably reasonable to assume that it varies a lot with the specific software that is used (for example how well phishing is prevented by the default mail client and/or service) and the relation to other operation systems is also subject to frequent changes. A valid comparison definitely requires scientific rigor which cannot be found in the linked article. I would recommend to remove only that last sentence. 2003:6F:8C68:896F:C5DE:72DB:7D16:86ED (talk) 22:37, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Fundamental Attribution Error and Mathematics Section
This one might be worth mentioning in the psychology section. It possibly overlaps too much with fallacies, but the intersection set is likely non-empty and quite often these things seem to be misconceptions about how culture, humans, biology and our universe work. The math section also contains the gambler's fallacy by the way (if we decide to keep it, it might be worth adding the hasty generalization fallacy, just to cover the worst misconceptions about our causality based universe, otherwise it might be worth adding links to related lists). 2003:6F:8C68:896F:C5DE:72DB:7D16:86ED (talk) 12:06, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 January 2015
This is for the popular misconceptions Wikipedia page. As to vomitoria. The entry strongly implies that the whole Romans vomiting thing was a myth. But it's not. No it's not a regular part fo the meal, and no vomitoria were not places to do it, but it was common enough at decadent banquets that writers had to rail against it. Please fix.

167.10.240.1 (talk) 22:44, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Stickee (talk) 02:03, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 January 2015
Changing link from scrabblefinder.com to wordfind.com, specifically footnote #94. Scrabblefinder.com has moved all content to wordfind.com.

http://www.scrabblefinder.com/word/irregardless/

should now be

http://www.wordfind.com/word/irregardless/

Asterixasterix (talk) 02:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done  B E C K Y S A Y L E S  03:07, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 February 2015
This is for the popular misconceptions Wikipedia page. As to linking this page to 'Sugar High'. The expression 'sugar high' refers to a temporary elevation in mood and activity from sugar - typically, the delight of someone who has had candy. The expression has been misappropriated by those arguing whether sugar impacts hyperactivity. Unlike a 'sugar high', hyperactivity is a long term condition not attributable to sugar. Please fix. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gatorshoes (talk • contribs)

✅ Linked to Sugar where there is more information. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 10:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Order of major sections
Is there any logic to the order of the article sections--History, Food and cooking, Legislation and crime, etc.? Should they be switched around according to some organizing principle, maybe alphabetical? Rracecarr (talk) 07:55, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I propose demoting the current major sections 'Legislation and crime' (2 entries), 'Food and cooking' (9), 'Words and phrases' (10), 'Sports' (2), 'Religion' (13 in 4 subsections), 'Literature' (1), and 'Music' (2), to subsections of a major section to be called 'Arts and culture' or some such. Also, combining the 'Science' and 'Technology' sections.  So the major sections, in alphabetical order would be: 'Arts and culture', 'History', and 'Science and Technology'.  Rracecarr (talk) 15:59, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Sounds reasonable. Can you make the edits in your user space first so that we can take a look before committing to it?  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:45, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Here it is: Rracecarr (talk) 15:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. Other opinions?  Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:15, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Ok, making the change. Rracecarr (talk) 17:53, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Misconceptions about Autism
What are some misconceptions on Autism? Frogger48 (talk) 06:51, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That it's synonymous with savant syndrome. This misconception probably comes from the movie Rain Man. 71.223.123.244 (talk) 20:31, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 February 2015
Pit bull Terriers do not have a jaw locking mechanism. Many people believe that Pit bulls are able to lock their jaw when they have a hold of something, which is completely false. Pit bull's jaws ae no different from any other dog, they have no special mechanism that allows them to lock their jaws. Pit bulls do have a large amount of muscle in their jaws and they are known for not giving up easily, which makes people think they have the ability to lock their jaws.

Mrwinter98 (talk) 19:07, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This meets the criterion of appearing in the subject article, Pit bull. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:47, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Size
This article is at more than 250,000 bytes. I suggest that we split it into three at least. Than simply leave here a brief overview and link to each. Thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:44, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you're counting refs and other HTML code. The readable prose size 73 kb, or a bit over 12,000 words. Article size says 30 to 50 kb or 4,000 to 10,000 words is about normal for an article. So it's a bit overlarge for an article, but not egregiously large. But that applies to articles, for lists WP:SPLITLIST says you don't necessarily have to take that approach. So a slit might be appropriate but really only if we have in mind a natural, logical place to make the cut. Summary style won't help so instead it would have to be split by topic.<P>My take is that readers don't usually start at the top of this list and read all the way to the bottom, like they might for an article, so the size isn't really an issue. One good way to get the size down to a more manageable level would be to just copyedit the entire list to be more succinct. All of the repeated phrases like "it is a myth that..." or "it is a common myth..." can be deleted. We only need to say "It is not true that X". Another thing we can shorten is all the entries in the form, "X is not true, but Y is true". We don't need to mention Y, only that X is a not true. To find out about Y, readers can click on the linked article. We could easily get this down from 12,000 to under 10,000 words with a little editing. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:18, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I would propose
 * List of common misconceptions within arts and culture
 * List of common misconceptions within history
 * List of common misconceptions within science and technology
 * This would bring all the heading levels up one levels which will make it easier for people to find stuff
 * Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Or we could remove misconceptions that are not common. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 12:25, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes we could split this into three and remove from the main article the less common one. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 00:31, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I've started Draft:List of common misconceptions to see how far I can get just by deleting redundancy, wordyness and off-topic rambling. So far I'm at about the end of the Arts and culture section and I've cut about 6k bytes. I think getting it well below 10,000 words is pretty realistic. Not counting citations, which aren't really a size problem but even there this list has a lot of Bombardment which can be pruned back to a more reasonable level too. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:49, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

3 entries on birds removed
These 3 entries on birds all fail the criteiron of the misconception being described in a linked article. Otherwise they are good but first they should be written up in the appropriate article:
 * It is not harmful to baby birds to pick them up and return them to their nests, despite the common belief that doing so will cause the mother to reject them. It is however still best to leave a baby bird alone, as the parents will usually be close by.
 * Birds have a keen sense of smell. James Audubon decided birds used visual queues rather than smell and then in 1820 did poorly designed experiments to prove it, and then wrote about it.  This has been thoroughly disproven by modern biologist Gabrielle Nevitt.
 * A duck's quack actually does echo, although the echo may be difficult to hear for humans under some circumstances.

--Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:24, 4 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I've restored the duck quack item because it's discussed in a parent article echo and therefore meets the inclusion criteria.
 * My opinion about the first item is that it is reliably sourced and should be included. However, in order to conform to the inclusion criteria it needs to be added to a parent page somewhere.
 * As for the smell thing, my reading of the reliable sources is that some birds have a keen sense of smell, some others have a limited sense of smell, and the vast majority of species have never been tested. Not sure what the misconception is or what we should state as "correct". Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:09, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The misconception is that birds can't smell. This misconception was promoted by James Audubon who was a pioneer of bird observation and did a lot of great work, but was not a very rigorous scientist.  He pre-formed his hypothesis and then stopped looking when he found evidence he was convinced proved his point.  He only tested vultures, and the first scientist that actually tested vultures quickly disproved his point on that species.  As you say, other species have not been tested, and in fact, I don't think there is any well tested evidence at all that birds can't smell, and every species tested shows it can smell.   This misconception came to my attention because of the bird/nest misconception above it (which I see you also removed) -- which incorrectly said that birds can't smell, repeating Audubon's original assertion and reasoning almost verbatim.    The refutation of a misconception itself contained a misconception. sigh.  --ssd (talk)

Wine/Beer/Food biases
Should wine/beer/food biases be added to this article? See biases listed in Wine tasting. Some wine examples, red vs white wine (color bias), France vs California vs other regions (geographic origin bias). If you think it should be added, then please add it. • Sbmeirow  •  Talk  • 12:09, 10 March 2015 (UTC)