This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
I learned that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. And that busywork and adhering to the rubric is far more important than learning or producing anything useful.
I mean learning to follow a rubric actually was useful for me. Projects have scopes and expectations. Rubrics are those.
For most people, yeah. A lot of work is tedious.
I went in hoping to learn some cool knew facts and already knew them all. Feels bad man.
Also seemed like more so myths than stuff that was actually taught and then later revised.
It's a neat website, but it is very America specific.
For example, I'm Australian and I wasn't taught about slavery or genocide of our native people in high school. Hell, I was taught that the Stolen generation was a misnomer and children were only taken voluntarily or as an act of mercy... I graduated in 2008 so it wasn't exactly the dark ages. Referring to the planned exterminations of the natives as "battles" and "conflicts" at best was another one. they didn't even mention the shit that went down in Tasmania.
it's not just the dumb stuff like food pyramids and taste zones, even in schools today history is being glossed over
I’m also a 2000s Australian high schooler and we had a notorious lack of Australian history taught to us. My school preferred to teach us the histories of pretty much every other country but our own. We didn’t learn a single thing about indigenous history at all, bad or good.
And then we struggle to understand the divide between the yes/no vote on The Voice.
Strange. The site doesn't quite work properly for me. I set my decade, then changed it so I could see my parents and all the myths were the same.
Then I clicked around and they are the same for every decade that I selected.
That's odd, thanks for pointing it out. I'll see if I can't make a fix
I graduated in 2003. My DARE teachers basically taught drug abstinence and telling an adult about people offering you drugs. The really didn't talk about gateway drugs and what it does to your brain. This was in Illinois.
You're not the first person to mention some regional differences. Think this is opening up a bigger research project of year graduated to region!
Update with context for you all since this post is unexpectedly taking off,
This was a small project I made in 5 hours as just a "huh, this would be neat to make!" and as a first coding project. I mostly shared it expecting a little bit of feedback but nothing too major, clearly I underestimated what to expect from it lol.
There's been a lot of really good suggestions for how to improve the site and make it better, so thank yall for that! Things I'm planning on doing are:
-Making open source so people can edit. Its just basic HTML and JavaScript so nothing too complex there
-Suggestions box on the site
-Some type of regional variations listed on the site
-If possible, more obscure myths and more tied to the curriculum of schools
-Optimizing the site for mobile
Probably more to come as well, but no estimates on a timeframe since I'm very much so new to this haha
Edit: Additional clarification, yes this site is only viable for Americans right now. Would love to help make it work internationally but I'm sure not the person to try and say what people in other countries were taught in school, so if someone wants to help with that lmk!
It should work better on mobile devices now, but if there's any repeated issues let me know and I can try to fix them.
It should also be public on Github, check out the description tab on the website for more info. My first time making a project open source (or even having one at all) so lmk if there's any issues!
Perhaps put the context that this only applies to one country mate 😂
Most of the selections give you the exact same outcome. Neat idea, but it needs work.
One thing that's kind of funny to me about this is the 1940s, which has a lot of the ones from modern times...
You were probably taught at some point that we'd never be able to map out the entire human genome due to its complexity. However, in 2003, we documented the first 92%, and in 2022 we documented the remaining 8%.
I could be wrong (and I'd be super interested to hear if this was the case), but... Were we teaching kids about the human genome before we even knew the structure of DNA and before we knew that DNA carried genetic information? I know we knew DNA existed, and it was probably hypothesized that it could play a roll in genetics before the Hershey-Chase experiments in 1952, but I'm not sure whether most schools would talk much about anything resembling the human genome in the 1940s? What would have been in the curriculum then? It's actually kind of wild how much the scientific landscape has changed since then.
Did anyone else learn that eggs are dairy products? (Meaning, the word 'dairy' encompasses both eggs and milk. Not that eggs are somehow produced by cows)
Cool site, maybe you can open source it, so people can contribute improvements. I have a few ideas myself:
I could add those functionalities myself if needed.
A fun fact about taste for you - there is actually no such thing as a 'taste map,' or the idea that different areas of the tongue result in you tasting different things. At most, there's just different regions of sensitivity to taste!
Always thought this was weird and didn’t make sense to my tongue.
You might've been taught that lemmings are known to commit suicide because they're just that unintelligent. Turns out, this isn't true - they're smart enough to stay alive!
I blame the video game.
Blame Disney, they're the one who funded the "documentary" about them.
You were probably taught at some point that people in the time of Christopher Columbus all thought the world was flat. However, this is a myth that pervades history - most people knew the earth was a globe! (Source)
Goddamnit! I've heard that so often already.
And then I learned separately that even the Greeks already knew not only that Earth was round, but even its circumference at a pretty good accuracy.
These two 'facts' genuinely had me thinking we must have lost a ton of knowledge from the Greeks...
The Renaissance was fueled in part by the fall of Constantinople and all of the Greek texts that came with those who fled to Italy.
When I was in school, Pluto was still a planet. And it still is in my heart!!
I've never understood this obsession. Odds are you've never heard of Ceres, but it was once called a planet. It's now considered a dwarf planet, like Pluto. Pluto is also less massive than Eris, so if you include Pluto you should also include Eris. None of these have cleared their orbit though.
I understand it's frequently just a joke, but it's always rubbed me weird because some people actually became science skeptics because "suddenly Pluto isn't a planet" or whatever. Really the reason is because the list would get really long if we included everything.
I remember my little brother coming home from DARE convinced that my dad was an alcoholic for having a single beer after work then said little brother breaking down in tears over it. Good times.
LOL, I cracked a beer open one night and my kid laughed, pointed, and yelled out,"You are a Homer!!"
EDIT: I also remember when DARE came to my school and this cop had a big baggie of weed on his table. I said,"Damn! That's a lot of weed!"
Then the cop replied, very seriously,"THAT'S ENOUGH MARIJUANA TO KILL YOU!!"
My friends and I just laughed and walked away.
"Probably didn't know we could map the human genome... but in 2003..."
I graduated high school in 2003, and had already heard the human genome had been mapped before entering high school. It may not have been true at the time, but I never once heard that it wouldn't be completed due to the complexity. lol
Actually quite a few of these were already being taught at my high school before it was more common knowledge. Like the stuff with Columbus and Edison. Which now makes me think my school was actually more progressive than I initially thought.
I graduated in the 2000's and the only falsehood from this list I remember being taught was the one about taste buds.
Yea I feel like a lot of these came from friends or other sources, and not necessarily from school.
Pretty cool site. I like that you’ve included sources for most of the points. I was aware of the 2000’s falsehoods, but I’m sure there are many who aren’t!
Thanks! I'm hoping to update it with some more obscure ones, but I think the fact that I had a little bit of trouble finding true myths is a good thing haha
Cool concept but your site really needs some work done. I heard in school that lemmings would kill themselves and i went in the 2010s. This is only one such example, the best thing you could have done is map out which myths are most common where instead of the decade, and it would also be useful to add a important corrections list for the more important facts which you probably were misinformed about.
It just listed a bunch of myths and old wive's tales that no one at the time thought were very credible anyway. Literally all of the "facts" they list were common chain letter/email memes that everyone trotted out at parties to sound smart and hip. Nobody ever believed what DARE told us, we always knew Christopher Columbus was an asshole, and every first aid class I've taken recommended against the whole tilt you head back thing.
@ElderWendigo @MiraLazine agree to disagree, a lot of those things I was definitely taught - if not in school then at least by adults who thought it common knowledge. Especially the nosebleeds (I had them all the time as a kid, and the amount of blood I ended up swallowing is..... A lot.) and knuckle cracking (my guess - started by teachers annoyed by kids making knuckle-noises during class)
Christopher columbus was definitely taught as an "American hero" up until he wasn't.
• Contrary to what DARE might have taught you, marijuana is not considered a substantial gateway drug, with the best evidence being limited in nature, and with most marijuana users not going on to use other drugs. (Source) Yeah learn all that DARE BS.
• You were probably taught at some point that we'd never be able to map out the entire human genome due to its complexity. However, in 2003, we documented the first 92%, and in 2022 we documented the remaining 8%. (Source) nope I was told we will map it soon
• This one got shared by school nurses all around, but did you know that you shouldn't tilt your head back if you have a nosebleed? This could cause you to choke or vomit as a result of blood going back into your throat, or - more severely - trigger a vomiting reflex and cause inadvertent harm. (Source) Nope but my mom is a doctor so I leaned from a lot from her
• You were probably taught at some point that people in the time of Christopher Columbus all thought the world was flat. However, this is a myth that pervades history - most people knew the earth was a globe! (Source) Yup
• On the topic of Christopher Columbus, you might've been taught that he was a pretty upstanding guy, or at minimum just that he was average in terms of morality. Take a second to Google his relationship to slavery and genocide. (Source) EHHH kind of, we talk briefly about him mass cutting off people hands and enslaveing people.
• A common myth that gets thrown around a lot in health classes is that cracking your knuckles can cause arthritis. This, as it turns out, isn't true - it's perfectly safe to crack your knuckles as much as you'd like. (Source) Heard that in school mom said it was wrong, I heard both the myth and the fact
• The original food pyramid was introduced in 1992, and seemed to imply that there were different tiers of 'importance' to what food you ate. Since changed in 2011, this was deemed an inaccurate and potentially harmful way to view food intake. Food is food after all! (Source) Nope never learned that there where tiers of food each part is good for you
• A fun fact about taste for you - there is actually no such thing as a 'taste map,' or the idea that different areas of the tongue result in you tasting different things. At most, there's just different regions of sensitivity to taste! (Source) Nopw, saw taste map never learned that it was supposed to show where you taste things
• You've no doubt heard of this myth, perhaps not just from school - the idea that we only use 10% of our brains. This isn't true - we use all parts of our brains, just at different times since each neural location has a specific purpose! (Source) Yeah heard that
• Another common myth is the idea that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb. He was in fact not the inventor, just someone who helped to optimize its efficiency. (Source) yeah heard that
• There's a good chance when you were younger, you heard classical music in the classroom to try and make you smarter. However, this is a myth - there is no such link between music and intelligence (or that we can measure intelligence for another matter!) (Source) Yeah heard that
• You've probably heard a lot about Thanksgiving being a supposedly peaceful gathering among Pilgrims and Indigenous Americans, but this is actually a myth - it led to a bloodbath brought on by colonial settlers. (Source) Yup heard that.
The drop downlist for me is white text on white background, Android using Connect for Lemmy. It's fine when I try in browser.
I literally had creationist bullshit in my text books, so I'm thinking this site won't cover everything...