Refuted memes that won't stay dead

[Lumpy]

There was pushback by some early Christian theologians who dismissed the “pagan” Greek ideas about a spherical Earth and promoted a flat Earth. But I’ve never read that the Orthodox or Catholic churches ever made a flat Earth a matter of official doctrine.

@DrDeth

some say he just thought Asia and Japan stuck out much further than they really did, He had heard of islands out to the far East of China,

A combination of all three: underestimating the size of the Earth, over-estimating the eastward extent of Asia, and believing that the Japanese islands were much further from the Asian mainland than they really are. Columbus seems to have gone with a “best case” scenario for seeking to reach Japan.

[DrDeth]

@Lumpy

A combination of all three: underestimating the size of the Earth, over-estimating the eastward extent of Asia, and believing that the Japanese islands were much further from the Asian mainland than they really are. Columbus seems to have gone with a “best case” scenario for seeking to reach Japan.

Makes sense,

[SCAdian]

@Q.Q.Switcheroo

“It’s round as your hat!”
“It’s flat as your head!”

“What was that?”
“French horns.”

[RivkahChaya]

@solost

When I was a kid there was a refuted but persistent idea that everybody in Christopher Columbus’ time thought the Earth was flat, but he alone figured out it was round.

I was taught this IN SCHOOL, by a licensed teacher (albeit, one in her last year, who retired after my class-- and yeah that was a done deal before she had me in her class-- I did not drive her to it) in the first grade. 1974.

While I admit that 1974 is a long time ago in the human lifespan, in regard to scientific progress, this teacher should have gone to the “round earth” seminar at some point in her long career.

In regard to who knew about the round earth in Columbus’ time, King Ferdinand certainly had that kind of education, and probably Isabella, too. If anything, they knew the earth was round, but not exactly how big it was, and what Columbus sold them on was his idea of the size of the earth, and what lay between the west coast of Spain and the east coast of China (a whole mass of civilizations, getting tired of living in an undiscovered land, but Columbus convinced the royals it was just a little bit of water).

[Andy_L]

@Lumpy

But I’ve never read that the Orthodox or Catholic churches ever made a flat Earth a matter of official doctrine.

Augustine seems to have believed that the Earth was round (though he’s a bit wishy-wahy about it) - but he was sure the other side was uninhabited (which means he understood how big it was (the other side from Italy wasn’t Japan, say))

[Chronos]

@DrDeth

Yeah, but remember, that is cherry picking because they were also dead wrong about many things.

The word “they” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, there. Eratosthenes was a scientist. Aristotle and Plato were loudmouthed trolls. None of what the trolls said was reliable, but most of what the scientists said was pretty good (albeit limited).

[DrDeth]

@Chronos

Aristotle and Plato were loudmouthed trolls.

Vizzini Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates?

• Man in Black- Yes.*
• Vizzini Morons.*

[echoreply]

@RivkahChaya

I was taught this IN SCHOOL

That reminds me of the little story I tell that fits into the “refuted memes” of this thread, but exactly which variation of the meme is refuted is going to depend on who you’re talking to, when it is, and which part of the US you’re standing in (or at least went to school in).

For context, this is all in Texas (one of the US southern slave states, which attempted to secede during the US Civil War).

In elementary school we learned that the US Civil War was fought over slavery.

In middle and high school we learned that the US Civil War was fought over long simmering issues of states’ rights, economic disparity, industrialization, and representation in the federal government.

In university we learned that the US Civil War was fought over slavery.

[Lumpy]

As I am frequently fond of saying, the South was fighting over slavery; the North was fighting over a state’s right to secede.

[Andy_L]

Plato didn’t say much about science as I recall - since he was focused on drawing attention to the world of Ideals, so much purer than the world of real things - but Aristotle was a real scientist who got a lot of things right, through careful observation (dissection, examination of historical records, etc.). The fact that he got some things seriously wrong does not make him not a scientist any more than Galileo’s errors make him less than a scientist (or the fact that Newton spent most of his time on nonsense means that his scientific work was wrong - or wasn’t considered authoritative in his time).

Aristotle understood that the Earth was round - and since Aristotle was treated as a source of knowledge almost at the level of the Bible itself throughout the Eurpopean medieval period, I think it’s clear that anyone educated by the Church in medieval Europe knew that the Earth was round, too.

[Chronos]

@Andy_L

but Aristotle was a real scientist who got a lot of things right, through careful observation

Eh, not really. Plato’s position was that the world didn’t exist. Aristotle’s position was that the world existed, but that the way to learn about it was, not observation of the world itself, but just thinking a lot about it. A lot of his conclusions could have been proven wrong even with very simple observations, that he was easily capable of performing, even with the tech of the day. He just didn’t think it worthwhile to do so.

Both of them, and the high regard with which others held them, delayed scientific progress in the West by centuries at least.

[Ludovic]

Not to mention the achievements that Socrates himself could have accomplished had he not been permanently pissed.

[Moriarty]

@Chronos

Aristotle’s position was that the world existed, but that the way to learn about it was, not observation of the world itself, but just thinking a lot about it. A lot of his conclusions could have been proven wrong even with very simple observations, that he was easily capable of performing, even with the tech of the day.

Like the number of teeth in a woman!

[DrDeth]

@Lumpy

As I am frequently fond of saying, the South was fighting over slavery; the North was fighting over a state’s right to secede.

True. more or less, until the Emancipation Proclamation. Then Lincoln made it more about slavery. However, this ended any British support of the CSA.

@Andy_L

but Aristotle was a real scientist who got a lot of things right, through careful observation (dissection, examination of historical records, etc.). The fact that he got some things seriously wrong does not make him not a scientist any more than Galileo’s errors make him less than a scientist (or the fact that Newton spent most of his time on nonsense means that his scientific work was wrong - or wasn’t considered authoritative in his time).

I concur.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Moriarty

@Chronos

Aristotle’s position was that the world existed, but that the way to learn about it was, not observation of the world itself, but just thinking a lot about it. A lot of his conclusions could have been proven wrong even with very simple observations, that he was easily capable of performing, even with the tech of the day.

Like the number of teeth in a woman!

I’ve heard this before, but I wanted to check for myself.

Here’s a video I found about that. This guy’s point (which he backs up by showing what Aristotle actually wrote): Aristotle was, indeed, mistaken about women having fewer teeth than men, but it’s unclear why he was mistaken. But it’s not because he didn’t do observations; this accusation comes from Bertrand Russell.

History of science 5: Did Aristotle really think women have fewer teeth?

So to summarize, while Aristotle did make mistakes, he didn’t make stupid mistakes and anyone who thinks he made stupid mistakes is making a sort of second-order stupid mistake by failing to realize that Aristotle was not a fool.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@echoreply

In elementary school we learned that the US Civil War was fought over slavery.

In middle and high school we learned that the US Civil War was fought over long simmering issues of states’ rights

‘Like what?’
‘Well, there’s slav— hey, wait a minute.’

[echoreply]

@The_Other_Waldo_Pepper

‘Like what?’
‘Well, there’s slav—

Yeah, pretty much.

But it was exactly like “refuting a meme that won’t stay dead” where the meme was the Civil War was about slavery. “Saying it was about slavery is far too simple, there were long standing conflicts between the industrialized states of the north and the agrarian states in the south…” fill in some lost cause blather.

Got to university, and it went back to slavery being the root cause. The other things might be true and important, but as you suggest, mostly had their origins in conflicts over slavery.

[Andy_L]

@Chronos

Plato’s position was that the world didn’t exist. Aristotle’s position was that the world existed, but that the way to learn about it was, not observation of the world itself, but just thinking a lot about it. A lot of his conclusions could have been proven wrong even with very simple observations, that he was easily capable of performing, even with the tech of the day. He just didn’t think it worthwhile to do so.

Both of them, and the high regard with which others held them, delayed scientific progress in the West by centuries at least.

I agree about Plato - and I agree that mindless following of Aristotle delayed Western science by centuries. But mindless following of anyone would delay science (see the hampering of British mathematics caused by devotion to Newton). While it is a common meme (see, this is on topic) that Aristotle sat and thought and did no observation or experiment, that is not true. He observed and dissected animals*, and used other people’s observations to make conclusions about long-term changes.

*See Aristotle’s “History of Animals”; here’s a quote, illustrating that Aristotle got his hands dirty (or goopy):

Generation from the egg proceeds in an identical manner with all birds, but the full periods from conception to birth differ, as has been said. With the common hen after three days and three nights there is the first indication of the embryo; with larger birds the interval being longer, with smaller birds shorter. Meanwhile the yolk comes into being, rising towards the sharp end, where the primal element of the egg is situated, and where the egg gets hatched; and the heart appears, like a speck of blood, in the white of the egg. This point beats and moves as though endowed with life, and from it two vein-ducts with blood in them trend in a convoluted course (as the egg substance goes on growing, towards each of the two circumjacent integuments); and a membrane carrying bloody fibres now envelops the yolk, leading off from the vein-ducts. A little afterwards the body is differentiated, at first very small and white. The head is clearly distinguished, and in it the eyes, swollen out to a great extent. This condition of the eyes lat on for a good while, as it is only by degrees that they diminish in size and collapse. At the outset the under portion of the body appears insignificant in comparison with the upper portion. Of the two ducts that lead from the heart, the one proceeds towards the circumjacent integument, and the other, like a navel-string, towards the yolk. The life-element of the chick is in the white of the egg, and the nutriment comes through the navel-string out of the yolk.

When the egg is now ten days old the chick and all its parts are distinctly visible. The head is still larger than the rest of its body, and the eyes larger than the head, but still devoid of vision. The eyes, if removed about this time, are found to be larger than beans, and black; if the cuticle be peeled off them there is a white and cold liquid inside, quite glittering in the sunlight, but there is no hard substance whatsoever. Such is the condition of the head and eyes. At this time also the larger internal organs are visible, as also the stomach and the arrangement of the viscera; and veins that seem to proceed from the heart are now close to the navel. From the navel there stretch a pair of veins; one towards the membrane that envelops the yolk (and, by the way, the yolk is now liquid, or more so than is normal), and the other towards that membrane which envelops collectively the membrane wherein the chick lies, the membrane of the yolk, and the intervening liquid. (For, as the chick grows, little by little one part of the yolk goes upward, and another part downward, and the white liquid is between them; and the white of the egg is underneath the lower part of the yolk, as it was at the outset.) On the tenth day the white is at the extreme outer surface, reduced in amount, glutinous, firm in substance, and sallow in colour.

The disposition of the several constituent parts is as follows. First and outermost comes the membrane of the egg, not that of the shell, but underneath it. Inside this membrane is a white liquid; then comes the chick, and a membrane round about it, separating it off so as to keep the chick free from the liquid; next after the chick comes the yolk, into which one of the two veins was described as leading, the other one leading into the enveloping white substance. (A membrane with a liquid resembling serum envelops the entire structure. Then comes another membrane right round the embryo, as has been described, separating it off against the liquid. Underneath this comes the yolk, enveloped in another membrane (into which yolk proceeds the navel-string that leads from the heart and the big vein), so as to keep the embryo free of both liquids.)

About the twentieth day, if you open the egg and touch the chick, it moves inside and chirps; and it is already coming to be covered with down, when, after the twentieth day is ast, the chick begins to break the shell. The head is situated over the right leg close to the flank, and the wing is placed over the head; and about this time is plain to be seen the membrane resembling an after-birth that comes next after the outermost membrane of the shell, into which membrane the one of the navel-strings was described as leading (and, by the way, the chick in its entirety is now within it), and so also is the other membrane resembling an after-birth, namely that surrounding the yolk, into which the second navel-string was described as leading; and both of them were described as being connected with the heart and the big vein. At this conjuncture the navel-string that leads to the outer afterbirth collapses and becomes detached from the chick, and the membrane that leads into the yolk is fastened on to the thin gut of the creature, and by this time a considerable amount of the yolk is inside the chick and a yellow sediment is in its stomach. About this time it discharges residuum in the direction of the outer after-birth, and has residuum inside its stomach; and the outer residuum is white (and there comes a white substance inside). By and by the yolk, diminishing gradually in size, at length becomes entirely used up and comprehended within the chick (so that, ten days after hatching, if you cut open the chick, a small remnant of the yolk is still left in connexion with the gut), but it is detached from the navel, and there is nothing in the interval between, but it has been used up entirely. During the period above referred to the chick sleeps, wakes up, makes a move and looks up and Chirps; and the heart and the navel together palpitate as though the creature were respiring. So much as to generation from the egg in the case of birds.

[Andy_L]

Then it’s clear that by the Middle Ages, every educated person knew the Earth was round - they would have been taught Aristotle, and Aristotle’s correct arguments for the roundness of the Earth

[DrDeth]

Sure, most anyway.

Eratosthenes also estimated the size of the sun- he was way, way off.