I read through these once. For those where I've been in the wrong, it's two patterns repeating. Either that I learned something in school / as a kid, and it was "correct" at the time but now we know better. Or that the common belief has just always been wrong.
Examples include that "glass is liquid", "bulls hate red", "touching a baby bird will make the mother abandon it", "you only taste salt on part X of your tongue" etc.
I've never believe that one. I have sometimes eaten a little bit of salt in the form of grains and it was completely obvious that I could taste the salt all over the top of the tongue.
I cannot for the life of me understand how anybody ever came to believe something like that.
It's not like modern people don't have plentiful access to cheap salt, sugar, citrus/lime juice, etc.
> "glass is liquid"
This one makes a lot more sense but the belief that old glass panes in windows are thicker at the bottom because glass is liquid rather than it being an obvious consequence of the manufacturing method -- blow a glass bubble and cut it up and flatten the pieces -- also seems insane to me. It's on the level of Americans believing rail gauges are derived from the width of Roman carts and refusing to accept that people used (and still use) many different rail gauges.
I read through these once. For those where I've been in the wrong, it's two patterns repeating. Either that I learned something in school / as a kid, and it was "correct" at the time but now we know better. Or that the common belief has just always been wrong.
Examples include that "glass is liquid", "bulls hate red", "touching a baby bird will make the mother abandon it", "you only taste salt on part X of your tongue" etc.