Old wives tales survive because of their persistence in the mind. It's hard to forget the first time you heard your mom say, "Don't make a face like that otherwise it'll freeze!" We repeat these adages because they're easy and they get the point across. What we may not consider is the damages they'll cause to us now, a world of science and logic (Most of the time). Myths are just that, and they need to be exposed to be doubted.
Reddit user, u/DeJeaNerates, wanted to know what myths should we drop when they asked:
What's a myth people should stop believing?
Guys, Seriously, Stop Doing This One
Just saw this on here the other day and nearly stroked over it:
DO NOT PUT BUTTER ON SKIN BURNS.
If you do, you're gonna have a bad time.
Get To The Facts
That weed has no negative consequences around it and can't possibly cause any harm whatsoever.
btw im all for legalization but weed worshippers tend to spout off nonsense about it.
You Can Charge As Much As You Want
To discharge electronics completely before recharging.
This is only true for the older nickel style batteries, but almost everything produced today has lithium-ion batteries. A lithium battery's ability to hold a charge DECREASES the more times it's charged and discharged.
The best case scenario to keep your phone's battery in good shape is to charge that MF'er as much as humanly possible, not to let it die on you.
Sorry To All The Pre-Pubescent Boys Out There
SHAVING DOES'T MAKE HAIR GROW THICKER
The only reason this APPEARS to be true is because shaved hair is no longer tapered, giving it a thicker appearance. Same for the pulling of grey hairs. If you don't affect the follicle of the hair in some way, you won't affect its growth.
This One Hits Close To Home
Cracking knuckles is bad for you
cracks neck
What a relief.
Also, joints crack naturally, so doing exercises is somehow bad?
Still Probably Not Allowed In Willy Wonka's...
The fact that chocolate is insta-death for dogs.
I still wouldn't recommend feeding your dog chocolate, but if your dog licks something chocolate it's very unlikely to die. It's more often than you'd probably expect that I'm hanging with someone and they freak out over their dog getting a small bit of chocolate. It's obnoxious and unnecessary.
That Breaks A Couple Dozen Movie Plots In Half
"You only use 10% of your brain"
Then again if you believe in that myth, you actually might only be using 10%.
we use 10% of our brain in the same way we use 33% of a traffic light
It'sssssssss Not Real
That when a snake stretches out its body near a human or animal it means it is "sizing up its prey". This is a complete myth with no basis in reality, snakes are ambush predators and if they had to stretch out to size up prey they'd never get a meal and would risk being injured by its prey.
Know The Difference
That wrong=stupid. I feel like a lot of the issues with the world today is that no one wants to be wrong, making them look stupid. Being wrong is how you learn, and no one will belittle you if you say "whoops, I was wrong. My bad"
Ditto with ignorant=bad.
People always assume that being called ignorant is a bad thing, and the reality is that being ignorant simply means "you didn't know". So now you know, you can learn and improve. It's only a bad thing if you are ignorant about something, and refuse to learn more while continually spouting your opinion about it.
Ignorance is not a problem, because you can always learn. Willful ignorance or blatant denial of reality is extremely harmful.
Just For The Record:
Being autistic, I have a few myths regarding autism I'd like to clear up:
- Vaccines don't cause autism. No-one knows for certain what autism is caused by, but vaccines aren't one of them. The signs of autism simply occur at the same age when most kids get their vaccines. You might as well say that autism is caused by potty-training.
- Not every autistic person is like Rain Man or Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. Autism has a lot of common traits (stimming, lack of social awareness,hyper-fixations, hypersensitivity, etc), which manifest differently from person to person. Some exhibit a few very obvious traits, others have several minor traits. It's like a big buffet where everyone takes different numbers and amounts of the same group of food.
- Even if you give an autistic person your firstborn, they can't spin straw into gold for you. Autistic people can only spin straw into copper. Not as valuable, but much more versatile in industrial applications.
Got an old myth you need to dispel? Let us know!
