# Myths you were taught in school **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 12, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952 "2005-10-12T20:15:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/61 "2005-10-13T14:49:39Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#): > > > [@CurtC](#): > > > > Are you sure that’s what the book said? After all, there was a famous account just like this, except that the person wasn’t Columbus, it was an ancient greek. Could your young mind have mixed up the facts? > > I remember reading the same thing about Columbus in third grade – it must be in a textbook somewhere. As did I. There were even little drawings of him standing there in his hat watching the ships disappear. I don’t know if it was specifically taught, but in elementary school I did come away with the distinct impression that the Pilgrims wrote the Dec of Independence and Constitution. I also remember reading a book about dinosaurs in 2nd grade. It was about how they died in the great flood. In a public classroom. 😕 ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/62 "2005-10-13T15:02:42Z")
> [@csharpmajor](#): > > That red is the hottest colour. > That Hitler would have gone on to kill Asians if he ever managed to finish with the Jews. > That “artist” isn’t a _real_ job (the teacher said all artists actually had office jobs and just drew in their spare time) > > Nothing too scandalous. Maybe we live in enlightened times. Concerning the Hitler part: There is a good chance if Hitler conquered all of Europe and was given a chance he would have turned next on other groups. I would think Muslims and then Eastern Asians. I understand the Hindi Indians may have been ok because they were Aryans but he may have forced them to convert? All speculation, but it does seem likely there would have been a new group to fuel his hatred when the Jews were gone. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/63 "2005-10-13T15:03:03Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#): > > …, and all of them appear to be religious-orientated sites, so they are obviously biased and likely lying… Generalize much? ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/64 "2005-10-13T15:17:47Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > Generalize much? It’s not a generalization, its a fact. 😉 Or have you ever ran into a religious site that didn’t lie or decieve on the topic of evolution? I sure haven’t, and I been around in these debates a long, long time. (ok, only 10 years or so) ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/65 "2005-10-13T15:19:50Z")
> [@HubZilla](#): > > That whites went in a kidnapped the slaves from Africa (like in Roots) This isn’t a myth unless you were taught this was the ONLY way whites got African slaves during the TransAtlantic slave trade. You generally get slaves five ways: as captured POWs, during slave raids on (generally) coastal communities, by people paying penance for indebtedness/criminal behavior, by people bred as slaves – and in modern times, by either selling or abducting young women and sexually available girls and boys as prosititutes for the sex trade. Slave raids are a pretty well documented phenomenon in every culture that practiced slavery. **Spectre of Pithecanthropus.** To the best of my knowledge, author Alex Haley maintained that the Mandinkas captured in the slave raid in 1767 Gambia that stole Kunta Kinte were abducted by whites sailing aboard the ship, the _Lord Ligonier._ ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/66 "2005-10-13T15:41:39Z")
> [@Taran](#): > > I’ve heard of this myth a few times, but never been taught it. Why would George Washington want to throw a dollar across the Potomac in the first place? Because he wasn’t going to dive in for just a ha’penny? 😃 I was taught that if I did it enough I’d go blind. So far, so good… 😉 Seriously - the myth of the Brontosaurus. I was really interested in dinosaurs when I was a young boy (what young boy isn’t?), and I even remember breakfast cereals with plastic dinosaurs inside. I thought I knew most of them, and it was absolutely humiliating to be corrected by a youngster, and to find that there was no such thing a Brontosaurus. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/67 "2005-10-13T15:48:54Z")
Not so much a myth as just an aside: I had an incredibly incompetent high school history teacher- the kind you’ve all had in some subject or other probably who basically just read the book aloud and mispronounced half the words (you should have heard her strain on Liliuokalani and Kamehemeha [sp]). I wrote a history of Turkey for her that I forgot was due until a few minutes before class and then made up from whole cloth (stating that its greatest leader was King Sulta, thus all it’s rulers from then on were called Sultans) and other such “facts” and got an A. Anyway, my favorite of her comments was while “teaching” the robber baron era. “Rich people used to have really big balls back then and had special ornate rooms in their house to hold them in.” ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/68 "2005-10-13T15:54:10Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > **Spectre of Pithecanthropus.** To the best of my knowledge, author Alex Haley maintained that the Mandinkas captured in the slave raid in 1767 Gambia that stole Kunta Kinte were abducted by whites sailing aboard the ship, the _Lord Ligonier._ I haven’t read the book, but I did see the miniseries recently and I’ve statyed in a Holiday Inn Express. In the miniseries he was captured by Africans and sold to whites. (White traders rarely went very far inland because there were African diseases they had little or no immunity to and it was dangerous and time consuming.) One thing I was taught in school is that “America shouldn’t feel guilty about slaves because the ones they brought over were slaves in Africa already”. While there’s some “squint and look sideways” support for this, it’s also true that the American market is _why_ so many Africans were enslaved in their own country. (We were also taught that we rescued them from cannibalism, a comment so stupid I’ll let it be it’s own commentary.) I’m amazed at how little time is given in high school history classes to the native cultures that were here for thousands of years and in some cases living in towns (and in central America metropolises) that were centuries old with highly advanced agriculture. They’re usually dispatched in the first week of class. It’s also amazing how little time is given to the mechanics of the slave trade (or even the fact that only- I can’t remember the statistics, but about 15% as memory serves [I stand willing and ready to be corrected] of the slaves were brought to the United States). ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/69 "2005-10-13T16:07:30Z")
I also remember being taught that Columbus watched ships disappear gradually over the edge of the horizon and thus concluded the world was round. The myths I remember most and the ones which put me off history for years concerned the way the American Revolutionary War was taught. From first through 6th grade (ages 5 to about 11), each year I was told how e-e-evil the English were for imposing unreasonable taxes on the poor, oppressed American colonists and was given the impression that everyone in the colonies whole-heartedly supported the overthrow of their British overlords. The problem was, I was English, as were my parents the rest of my family. I knew we couldn’t be that bad, therefore, in about 6th grade, I decided history was bunk. I also learned it was no fun being the English kid in a small town during America’s Bicentennial! :eek: Since then, in one of the universe’s little jokes, I’ve loved two men and been very good friends with another all of whom were history buffs. I’ve even seen and enjoyed _1776_ with two of them, both on video and on stage. The colonists did have some very valid points and I consider the founding of the USA to be a good thing overall, but it was hardly as one-sided as I was taught! CJ ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/70 "2005-10-13T16:13:44Z")
There are physical limits regarding how fast you can make logic chips switch states. You’ll never see a computer faster than about 40 MHz. Silicon just can’t work that fast. (yes, that’s MHz, not GHz - this was when 1 MHz 8 bit processors were screaming fast little miracles of technology) ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/71 "2005-10-13T16:16:15Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > There are physical limits regarding how fast you can make logic chips switch states. You’ll never see a computer faster than about 40 MHz. Silicon just can’t work that fast. > > (yes, that’s MHz, not GHz - this was when 1 MHz 8 bit processors were screaming fast little miracles of technology) I was taught the same sort of thing, only with the upper limit being just south of 4 GHz. ---
**Author:** ![melondeca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@melondeca](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melondeca)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/72 "2005-10-13T16:23:35Z")
I was taught that a line is never drawn up. A particular teacher asked me to come to the blackboard and draw a square (I don’t even remember the reason why). One line down, across, up and then he freaked out before I could even finish my square. He started yelling at me saying that I did it all wrong. Everyone knows that lines are only drawn from top to bottom, NEVER bottom to top. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/73 "2005-10-13T16:23:45Z")
> [@Plynck](#): > > Because he wasn’t going to dive in for just a ha’penny? 😃 > > I was taught that if I did it enough I’d go blind. So far, so good… 😉 > > Seriously - the myth of the Brontosaurus. I was really interested in dinosaurs when I was a young boy (what young boy isn’t?), and I even remember breakfast cereals with plastic dinosaurs inside. I thought I knew most of them, and it was absolutely humiliating to be corrected by a youngster, and to find that there was no such thing a Brontosaurus. Good news for you, your young friend is mistaken. While the proper and official name for the Bronto is Apatosaurus the Brontosaurus name is an excepted alternate name for the beastie. The story as you probably know goes back to the great dinosaur hunters. In 1877, Othniel Charles Marsh published notes on his discovery of the Apatosaurus, and then in 1879 described another, more complete dinosaur — the Brontosaurus. In 1903, it was discovered that the apatosaur was in fact a juvenile brontosaur, and the name Apatosaurus, having been published first, was deemed to have priority as the official name; Brontosaurus was relegated to being a synonym. From the great master Cecil himself. [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2\_011.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_011.html) So while the original Bronto was given the wrong head and possibly feet. You can use Brontosaurus as a synonym for Apatosaurus ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/74 "2005-10-13T16:35:06Z")
**Sampiro.** I’ll take your word for it. I’ve never seen ROOTS on TV, although I’ve read the novel several times and the source material indicates the slavers were white. But the Gambia is an extremely narrow (30 miles, sometimes as little as 13 miles) and long country (300 miles from the Atlantic), the Gambia River is a major waterway and everyone in the country lives along it. Juffureh village is less than two kilometers from the river itself. There’s little need to go very far inland or risk or disease if your intent is to conduct slave raids in Gambia, and no real need to involve the local slave market, either. [Map.](http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ga.html) Barring some other fact, this is more like a “myth taught by television.” ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/75 "2005-10-13T16:38:26Z")
> [@jrfranchi](#): > > From the great master Cecil himself. [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2\_011.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_011.html) :smack: Shame on me for not first going back to drink at the Holy Font. :smack: It is especially embarassing, because I now remember reading this some time ago. However, in my own (limited) defense, I decided to Google “Brontosaurus” before posting and found [this](http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/brontosaurus.html) at the top of the list. Thanks, plynck ---
**Author:** ![cowgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@cowgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cowgirl)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/76 "2005-10-13T16:39:49Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > My understanding is that the jury was still out on that. In fact, here’s a scarily complete page on it: > [@Epimetheus](#): > > Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by this? By all accounts it doesn’t appear that it is wrong: Hm … in light of this, perhaps the myth that I was taught was that the peppered moth story is wrong! I am surprised to hear the religious/anti-evolution link, those kinds of arguments (ie anti-evolution for religious purposes) don’t usually get much play around here. I guess it goes to show my naivite. Thanks for the wiki link, it is scarily complete. I can’t wait to clear a few hours from my schedule to read it. And forward it around to a few people … ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/77 "2005-10-13T16:54:32Z")
> [@GrahamWellington](#): > > Some people have difficulty learning, myself included, and as we all come to learn, people that don’t do so well in school are looked down on and end up with low quality lives and basically being societies niggers … **GrahamWellington** , using “nigger” for the sheer hell of it is not allowed on the SDMB. Don’t do this again. ---
**Author:** ![Leviosaurus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Leviosaurus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leviosaurus)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/78 "2005-10-13T16:57:11Z")
As a young tyke in the Seattle area I was taught that Mt. Rainier was permanently dormant and would never erupt again. I remember telling this to my mother as she drove me home from school, and her responding “Hmmm… [I don’t think](http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2002/fs034-02/) [that’s quite right](http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Vhp/C1073/active_volcanoes_washington.html).” ---
**Author:** ![Giant\_Spongess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/94ad74/32.png) [@Giant\_Spongess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giant_Spongess)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/79 "2005-10-13T16:58:10Z")
> [@Fortean](#): > > The whole thing about how haemoglobin is blue, and turns red when it comes into contact with oxygen, so you bleed red, and veins going to the heart are blue, while aorta coming from the heart are red, because they have picked up oxygen along the way. > > Actually, now I write that, I’m confused. Is that the real explanation or the myth? Somebody help me out here! That is, in fact, wrong. Blood is red whether or not it’s oxygenated. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952/80 "2005-10-13T16:58:29Z")
Snigger. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/myths-you-were-taught-in-school/325952.md?page=5)