We have previous written three lists on this topic and it is always a very popular one. This time we look at facts that are very commonly held but completely wrong. Feel free to add your own to the comments for others to read. If you want to read over the previous lists, here they are:
Top 10 Fascinating Facts That Are Wrong
10 More Fascinating Facts That Are Wrong
Another 10 Fascinating Facts That Are Wrong
The error: We have five body senses – sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste.
These are the traditional five senses, but there are in fact many more – some say up to 21. Obvious additions to the list are balance, pain, and temperature. Furthermore, we have internal senses which traditionally number four: imagination, memory, common sense (not to be confused with commonsense which many people lack!), and the estimative power. Mythverse has a very interesting article which covers a number of senses seldom mentioned. You can read that here.
The error: A rainbow has seven colors
We are, no doubt, all familiar with the old phrase “Roy G. Biv” used to remember the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. This series of colors was coined by Newton who initially excluded indigo and violet. While a rainbow does appear to have seven colors, it is, in fact, one continuous spectrum of color and it is merely an artifact of human color perception that makes it appear to be a series of bands. There are also things called supernumerary rainbows which have more than 7 bands visible to the human eye (pictured above – note the extra green and purple bands at the bottom of the rainbow).
The error: Drinking alcohol warms you up
This is entirely untrue – yet it is still commonly seen as an antidote to coldness in movies, and people still believe the myth about the St Bernard dogs with casks of liquor around their necks! In fact, when you drink alcohol, your body temperature drops! This is because alcohol allows more blood to reach the surface of the body, and more heat is radiated or conducted away. Any feeling of warmth experienced after drinking alcohol is explained by the fact that this flow of blood to the surface warms the skin and the ends of the sensory nerves in the skin, and these convey to the brain a sensation of warmth. The fact that alcohol actually lowers the temperature of the body was first announced by Sir B. Ward Richardson in 1866 to the British Association. [Source]
The error: Small earthquakes can reduce the chance of a big one
There is a common myth (particularly in New Zealand where earthquakes are common) that if you have a lot of small earthquakes, it helps to alleviate the pressures building up that can cause a big one. But this is not true. Seismologists have observed that for every magnitude 6 earthquake there are 10 of magnitude 5, 100 of magnitude 4, 1,000 of magnitude 3, and so forth as the events get smaller and smaller. This sounds like a lot of small earthquakes, but there are never enough small ones to eliminate the occasional large event. It would take 32 magnitude 5′s, 1000 magnitude 4′s, 32,000 magnitude 3′s to equal the energy of one magnitude 6 event. So, even though we always record many more small events than large ones, there are never enough to eliminate the need for the occasional large earthquake. [Source]
The error: You must wait 30 minutes after eating before swimming
While there is a theoretical concern based on the fact that the body diverts the circulation of blood to the gut and away from the muscles that this might possibly cause a cramp, no one has ever drowned because they went swimming with a full tummy. Going swimming after eating a big meal might make you uncomfortable, but it won’t cause you to drown. And even if you did get a cramp, in most cases you could easily exit the water before any real damage is done.
The error: The earth is dangerously overpopulated or is getting close to being so
This is a myth which has been around for quite some time – from the Anglican minister Malthus in the 18th century who said: “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man” to environmentalists who see humans as evil in comparison to the rest of nature. But, in truth, the world is a big place with plenty of space. So, how much land does it take to hold 6 billion people? To give you an idea, consider the small nation of Japan. It has about 143,000 square miles of area. One square mile has 5280 * 5280 = 27.9 million square feet. Japan has a total of about 4 trillion square feet, enough to give each person of the earth 670 square feet. If we housed people in families of four in simple two-level buildings (8 people per building, one family of four per level), each building could be on a lot of over 5300 square feet. If we used the American average of 8,000 square feet to four people, the entire population of the planet would fit into a space as big as Texas and Nevada combined – leaving the rest of the land for food production and entertainment venues. I should also mention that many countries in the west are now in a period of population implosion as families are getting smaller.
The error: Using a cellphone on a plane can cause interference and, consequently, a crash.
The FAA has tested all sorts of electronic devices for 25 years, at 100 times the RF interference levels—and nothing happened. The FAA simply states that no link between operating the devices has been proved. It’s been left up to the airlines to determine their own policy—and that policy is to put away your Blackberry. By using your cellphone during flight, you risk interfering with a flight crew—but the plane won’t crash. Consequently, some airlines are now allowing the use of cellphones during flights. [Source]
The error: When you get older, you become bad tempered
A recent study found that our personalities don’t change much after age 30. So, if you’re cheerful and gregarious in your 40s, you can expect to be the same in your 80s. Marked personality changes some seniors experience are due not to normal aging but to some related disease like dementia or stroke. This is something worth considering when you are planning to marry in your thirties – your future spouse probably behaves now the same way he or she will for the rest of his or her life. [Source]
The error: Sushi is raw fish
Sushi does not mean raw fish, and not all sushi includes raw fish. The usual Japanese term for raw fish is sashimi. The term sushi actually refers to the way the rice is prepared with a vinegary dressing. Toppings for the rice may traditionally include raw fish—but also cooked seafood, fish roe, egg, or vegetables such as cucumber, daikon radish, or ume plum. The dish constituting sushi and other fillings wrapped in a seaweed is referred to as makizushi, not sushi.
The error: In the United States, a policeman must answer truthfully when asked if he is a cop
Entrapment law in the United States does not forbid police officers from denying that they are police. It is more concerned with enticing people to commit crimes they would not, in the normal course of events, have considered. This is an error that is frequently seen in movies – or perhaps it is just that films are realistically depicting people who believe the myth – though I doubt it.
Earth is overpopulated – at least if we'd want all the humans to have the same life quality as westerners, Earth could not bare it. There are not much habitable land and compared to that we're in deep *****. Westerner families are getting smaller, but in under developed countries the rate of people being born is not decreasing. Human population is increasing.
In many areas we have exceeded the environment's ability to sustain ourselves.
The room there is to hold people has nothing to do with overpopulation. There are large uninhabitet areas and some areas could arguably fit more. That there is room is irrelevant to overpopulation.
Overpopulations means exactly that ; are the resources enough to sustain our lifestyle. (And at this rate, no they aren't.)
So #5 sadly is not a myth.
Moreover, they left out the obvious fact that there is only so much available farmland with which to feed an ever growing population. Just because there is room for everyone to exist doesn't mean there will be room for us to develop the resources to sustain such a population
You don’t need land to grow a lot of things- hydroponics, anyone? The earth is definitely not overpopulated nor are we close to using up all our resources. #5 is a myth, no matter how much you want to believe it isn’t.
The Pressing issue is not food or housing its water, in china they are struggling to provide clean water and so cholera is an ever growing threat, they predict this for other major cities within the next few years
The population issue is to do with resources rather than space.
Having X amount of square feet per person is meaningless when that X amount of square feet doesn't contain the necessary resources to support that person's consumption. The amount of land on earth which can be utilised for the production of food, for example, is a tiny percentage of the earth's total land area due to the simple fact that most of the surface of earth is unsuitable for growing crops or farming animals. Mountains, deserts, infertile soils and climatically unsuitable areas account for most of this.
Another less well appreciated issue is the total energy available to humans, which is provided entirely by the sun (neglecting nuclear and geothermal processes). Given that the earth has a finite surface area available for the fixation of this energy, a situation occurs in which the total energy consumption exceeds that which is available in a sustainable way. Humans have gone past this point, and we have gotten away with it so far because we have 'amplified' the total energy available to us by burning fossil fuels, which are basically a stored form of energy from the sun. When these run out, which they will, humans will find themselves in a situation where their total energy requirements exceed the energy available to them. With a global population of almost 7 billion, this WILL happen; and that's why the generally accepted sustainable population on earth is around 2 billion, if we are all living a confortable western lifestyle.
In short, there IS a population problem. A big one. This planet CANNOT sustainably support 7 billion people; over 1 billion are already starving.
Side note: Only 0.014% of water on the earth is actually available for drinking. It's not hard to appreciate the worrying implications of that.
I was going to reply with something similar, but I suppose now I don’t need to. Well done!
Are you aware that a large amount of food that could be eaten is thrown away? About 50% in the US alone. Lack of resources like that are not a problem, because we don’t use them up.
Good thing to know about the cop, I always wondered if true
good list
i always thought sushi’s raw.
why aren’t cellphones allowed in flights anyways.
am i first?
Not sure if it's true or not, but a friend of mine who works on planes said (now days) they have the policy about banning electronics and cell phones so the host/ess can get your full attention whilst explaining the flight procedures (especially taking off and landing) and also to make it somewhat more enjoyable for those around you, rather than interference with the aircraft.
guess not
my friends mom used to make me sushi and real good sushi, she used to put hot dog meat with tiny pieces of lettuce, rice obviously, and something else.
i never believed the airplane thing, ever since i was little, last year in september when i went to florida i was playing my ds and listening to my zune when the flight attendant told me to put it away.
i said why and she told me that it would cause interference and i said ok. she left and i started using it immediately so when the flight was in the air she walked by and said it wasn't safe for me to be using it. i said sorry lady but the second you were out of my peripheral vision i pulled it right out and continued to use it and we are still alive. she was upset but she was hot so it was ok.
the alcohol one was stupid and i always called my uncle stupid for believing it and i always swam after eating just to get my mom mad when nothing happened.
What a boss!
Oh and what about the treasure that lies at the end of the rainbow?
I disagree with number 5, although its possible for large populations to live harmoniously, our effect on the world, with the population increase could very well, with the advent of unsafe global practices end in our demise.
yes, the way the author tries to present his case is an illusion. Humans are not yet responsible enough (case in point the author's irresponsibility to include this subject in his list) to handle such a massive population, if we were we wouldn't have 100,000 deaths a day contributed to starvation, 16,000 of those being children. If alleged statistics were always true, we would all be millionaires in network marketing companies! Get two to get two and bam! before you know it, you have more people in your down line than there are in the world!
While the planet may have more than enough physical space for huge amounts of people, the technological means we have developed for supporting them are destroying our natural ecosystems.
"Any feeling of warmth experienced after drinking alcohol is explained by the fact that this flow of blood to the surface warms the skin and the ends of the sensory nerves in the skin, and these convey to the brain a sensation of warmth."
So it warms you up.
Temporarily. Overall, your core body temperature would go down.
number 7 gave me a small headache
My grandma always warn me to don’t do any running after eating or you’ll get appendicitis.
Nice list!!
Great photos, even a couple of hotties!
“Roy G. Biv” was taught to me by an Augustinian monk. It would be a good phony name to use on the internet!
Please tell me that what you allege about St Bernard dogs is wrong. I need to hold onto that myth!
Darwin read Malthus and asked himself who would survive.
So the 20-year-olds with the perfect bodies are gonna change?
Every 20-ish hottie in Chicago loves sushi and the ones I know drag me to Sushi Wabi! Is that how they stay slender?
It is well-known in ***** circles that cops will lie about being a cop.
I love the myth-buster series!
Well done, Jamie!
Mike
No 1 – the myth comes out of how any evidence arising out of an undercover cop situation may be used in court. Under many legal systems world wide, an individuals confession may be expelled from evidence if the individual would have not confessed or said something completely different. This is why cops use non-cops to get confessions to avoid these problems.
people who believe the cop one are idiots, if that were to be true think of how many dead undercover officers there would be, those that believe that are also the ones that believe speed traps and radar guns are entrapment as well, sorry no one made you speed
another myth should is saying you are number one or close to the top makes you special, sorry only your school teachers and the sign on your classroom door say you are special
Ok few. I thought you were going to say that cops are good people. If someone were to say that, then next they’d be saying how great the insurance companies are.
eloquently and interestingly explained. kudos!!!!
my friends and I were just talking about #1. thank you Jamie for proving that I was right!
Excellent list! This is more like it. This more than makes up for the below par lists the last couple of days.
Keep it up!
I have a doubt about number 9. Is the spectrum continuous or is it discrete cuz i thought that only certain frequencies are permited but not all of them
@jfrater when will you post those submarine stories
I’m pretty sure the traditional internal senses you mention (memory, imagination etc.) aren’t actually senses i.e responses to stimuli. They certainly aren’t mentioned in the Wikipedia article you refer us to.
Here I was hoping my husband was going to mature. There goes that fantasy lol
Thank you.
nice!!!
Oh great, another one of them great american debates…. Re grumpy old men, age might not have anything to do with the grumpiness, but it has a lot to do with the treatment that is meted out to them when they become a ‘burden’ on us. Child is the father of man,isn’t it? …Or has it become the other way round?
Otherwise a good list. Hadn’t heard of all these myths either.
the earth IS dangerously overpopulated.
you talk about space, but that really isnt the issue. the issue lies in the fact that there are not enough resources for those people. even if you can pack everyone into japan, that doesnt mean every one will be fed, cared for, etc.
if all the people in the world were placed in japan it would be very easy to feed and care for them
i was surprised at #8 – it always seems to work to keep me warm on a cold manchester night. what about mulled (sp?) wine, surely that would warm you up?
also, i love thomas malthus, he’s so miserable and pessimistic. his idea of “positive” population checks are stuff like war, famine and disease
The five senses are ways our body inputs information. Imagination and common sense and so on are NOT. They are thought processes using information gathered by our other senses not senses themselves. Pain and temperature are part of our sense of touch. It is all info being sent up our nerves to our brain.
I also have to argue against the population one. Sure if everyone in the world was crammed into japan there might be a little room to move around in, but not enough to grow food, and sanitation would be a problem. Also, A large chunk of the world`s land is not suitable for human habitation, ie. Desert, mountain, swampland, etc…the real problem with population growth is that it creates conflict. If a group needs resources and someone else has them there will be a fight over them eventually.
It was always so, from day one.
Re #3: Speaking as an increasingly cantankerous 40-year-old, you are more likely to express your negative opinions because you care less and less about upsetting people as you get older.
But really, what is it with the music the kids listen to these days? And why don’t they pull their trousers up properly?
@Emmett Brown (26): I take it you are an mba student,right?
The Mountain Bothies Association?!
#4 was featured in one episode of Mythbusters. They concluded that there was reason for airlines to ban cellphones aboard planes because cellphones operate in a wide range of frequencies whose potential effects on the plane’s electronics haven’t yet been comprehensively studied by the authorities. This means that we do not yet know if cellphones are indeed harmless to planes or that we are not yet aware of which cellphones frequencies interfere with that of the planes; the airlines simply aren’t willing to take the chance.
My take on overpopulation: I agree with what others have already mentioned about the problem having more to do with resources rather than space. Additionally, if we project the global rate of population growth into the future but maintain our current techniques of gathering, harnessing and distribution of energy and natural resources, then obviously we have a big problem. I think the key here is keeping the rate of population growth at par with research & development of more efficient and sustainable methods of getting energy and making use of our natural resources like aeroponics, in-vitro meat, solar power, thermonuclear fusion and recycling.
@Butterfish (28): Exactly how I feel about bellbottoms and tight shirts with extra large collars.
I have long thought that the colour “indigo” in the rainbow was pretty redundant. I figured that “purple” could pretty much cover the ground currently covered by “indigo” and “violet”. It would also make the rainbow correlate with the colour wheel: red+blue=purple; blue+yellow=green; yellow+red=orange.
I was also surprised at # 8, I thought they gave sailors rum in the good old days when it was very cold out at sea.
Mayby it was just the warm sensation of the neat rum going down. Great list Jamie thonks.
@astraya (33) – this is probably just another myth, but i heard someone included indigo as well as violet because they were superstitious and wanted there to be 7 colours in the rainbow, and for some reason its stuck.
I’m a bit concerned with the senses and the population one. The five senses are supposed to be physical ones while imagination can’t really be considered a sense. As one commentor (Rob, I believe) said above, things like memory are given to us through the initial five senses, and temperature and such are touch as well, although in a different manner. The population one doesn’t really make sense, how can 7 billion people all fit in an area the size of two states?
Glad to see the reactions on #5, I was really worried when I read this “myth” because it is harsh reality!
In fact we exceeded our sustainability in the middle ages. This issue goes further than living space and food resources. Soil and resources (if possible!) need time to replenish, this means that this “space” can not be used and has to be left alone. That’s why the European Union has issued the fishing quota to allow these fish to gain population and escape extinction.
Another fact on these fish; because only the big ones get caught and the smaller ones (of the same species) escape through the net (don’t know the exact word here…), the species itself is getting smaller, and that’s just evolution… Survival of the fittest, smartest or just survival of the one with the best odds of surviving! In other words, just genetics.
Anyhow; earth might be a big place, but it’s getting seriously crowded. Possibly not where you live, but take a look in India, Brazil, South Africa, … just to name a few. Not exactly my idea of a nice place to come home to. Can you imagine all these people having the same living standards as we (in the Western world) do? … Check out the ecological footprint, it may surprise you…
“The error: Sushi is raw fish
Sushi does not mean raw fish, and not all sushi includes raw fish. The usual Japanese term for raw fish is sashimi. The term sushi actually refers to the way the rice is prepared with a vinegary dressing. Toppings for the rice may traditionally include raw fish—but also cooked seafood, fish roe, egg, or vegetables such as cucumber, daikon radish, or ume plum. The dish constituting sushi and other fillings wrapped in a seaweed is referred to as makizushi, not sushi.”
Yes, thank you!
I disagree with no. 5. True, we would be able to squeeze ourselves onto a few countries, but not all the land on earth can sustain life.
“We are, no doubt, all familiar with the old phrase “Roy G. Biv” used to remember the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.”
I’ve never heard of that in my life….
I’m just good at remembering colours haha
Cool list, JFrater!
I knew of all but one of these and that was the 5 senses. That was kind of neat to know. I have been studing up on Japan with my kid and I alread knew about the sushi myth but friends still tell her that it’s sushi and not sashmi.
Also, if older folks who were already grumpy during their lives then have a stroke or get dementia, then will it worsen their already grumpiness?
Got parents with both and the answer is yes. Yay for me.
#5 IS mythical with the present way we operate. We could feasibly put everyone in Australia. We could use the remaining land for cattle, crops, etc. Energy could be nuclear, tidal, wind and solar. There’s plenty of fresh water in the form of ice and snow as well as springs. Water sustains other forms of life for food.
We could feasibly clone animals and plants for food.
Of course this would require something resembling global socialism or that preposterous Zeitgeist movement, which I oppose vehemently.
The question is whether all these techniques would/could upset the balance of nature and whether it’s a smart idea to concentrate the entirety of Earth’s population into one specific area, increasing the likelihood of extinction. And of course farmers, cultivators, pickers, ranchers, bottlers, etc would have to live close to the food sources for cultivation, slaughter and butchery.
No, none of this is really feasible, but it also is ridiculous to think that this planet cannot sustain itself or the lifeforms which reside upon it.
And I always thought that one would feel warmer in the cold by reducing their body temperature.
this list rocked my world.
i have previously forgotten to turn my phone off during a flight from London to Moscow and it recieved a call (voicemail – so a missed call) when we started to decend and the plane didn’t rattle. so i think Nokia N95′s are ok for British Airways 747′s (i think).
eitherway, if it was a choice of ‘possibly’ crashing and not recieving a phonecall for a few hours i know which i’d choose.
Agree with number 5……the population alarmists sound like a page from Erhlich’s diatribe.
we COULD put everyone together, but think of the magnitudinal effort we would need to make a sewer system for 6 billion people, whatever goes in must come out…..
Those concerned with overpopulation, our governments have been practicing population control for a while, wars, giving babies shots, flouride in the water, sterilization agents in water, aids, cancer, SWINE FLU SHOTS, the first case of swine flu was reported in New Jersey in the seventies in an army camp… maybe they should’ve tested in a third world country first, oh wait….
And besides, you’ll be a long time dead before overpopulation really becomes a problem. And the Illuminati have plenty of space for everyone
@Joanne (31):
In fact, it takes a lot of energy to recycle, more than the energy saved from recycle. The best option are the other two: reduce and reuse. Wich are cheaper and more useful.
Ha! I always knew the 10th one until venom.
Here is a fun fact: if people say they are going to have a drink “to get warmed up” and you point out that alcohol does not really warm you, they don’t like it. Most people are not information junkies like me. They like alcohol better than they like having their misconceptions corrected.
No 5…. the truth is that the Earth is able to sustain about 4 billions using current intensive agricultural methods.
Using traditional agriculture without nitrate fertilisers and pesticides, less food is produced and fewer people sustained, perhaps in region of 500 – 1000 million.
Hence we are already over-populated
So I wonder is there’s a term for the ‘myth of no myth’, really, the fact that declaring something not a myth is in reality the basis for creating the same myth effect, only in reverse.
I really do wonder about the definition of ‘myth’ in this post. Of course, I’m also very very propaganda paranoid and don’t rely on much information unless I see some transparently reliable data. I’ve been on the internet for most of my adolescent years and into adulthood and have learned when to disbelieve and be leery of information I see. Complacency kills, and I refuse to believe or chase after ‘the easy way out’.
Most notably, 8 5 and 1 could easily be reasoned away to the honest. No, drinking does not allow you to go outside in the snow without a jacket, you dumbass. However, It is a convenient excuse for a drink if you want it to be. Yes, it’s easy to say there’s plenty for everyone when we live in squalorous abundance, so don’t worry about those ‘other people’ who just can’t figure out things for themselves, right? I mean honestly, can we please stop allowing ourselves to strain resources on crap that serves very little purpose otherwise when there’s necessity to be met? And yes, wouldn’t it be wonderful if such a question could give such easy free-reign to criminals to pursue as they like without incriminating themselves.
So yeah, it’s easy to try and think everything’s easy and carefree when the problems seems too immense or out of your hands. I’d encourage everyone to think on that.
And yeah, as #31 pointed out, cellphone use is banned these days because cell companies would ***** themselves at connection rates for a single call placed within range of hundreds of towers. No engineer would allow himself the embarrassment of creating a device that could easily kill any number of people by turning on a massively popular and pocket-sized device.
After reading that I have to point out that I feel it was terribly proof-read and not at all edited, apologies.
Excellent list certainly has me thinking!
On the topic of overpopulation, even if you had everyone in a tiny place and used the rest of the world for farming, power etc…who does the farming? If the people were in texas/nevada and the sheep were in switzerland how do you get them?
People that are saying that pain and temperature are felt through other senses, how about a headache? Or a fever? Not sure how they work. Interesting topic though.
Roy G. Biv may be an American thing, I learned ‘Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain’
Oh you worrisome wilsons, stop being so anxious about the overpopulation scenario. Come Dec 21, 2012 and the problem will be long gone before you can say hay. Yay!
#2 THANK YOU for finally explaining this to the masses!
#5 – plenty of room here in canada for everyone if the world population gets too high haha
@Miss Info: Yes you are correct. Im sure the Illuninati have everything under control. Same with the Rothschilds. O well nothing to do but wait till we all slaves. Caaaan do.