# Things we (should) know are scientifically false, but say anyway
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [August 30, 2007, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445 "2007-08-30T01:02:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/21 "2007-08-30T13:04:58Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
I guess this is a good as time as any to ask. What the hell _is_ electricity then?
[/QUOTE]
All I know is that when you let the smoke out of the wires it don’t work no more.
---
### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/22 "2007-08-30T13:13:47Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
And the electric field is one of those things that we know exist and know everything about except what it actually is, right?
[/QUOTE]
It isn’t anything: that’s the beauty of it!
---
### Author:  [@Ronald\_C.Semone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_C.Semone)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/23 "2007-08-30T13:27:43Z")
[QUOTE=Marienee]
That you catch a cold by not putting a jacket on, that kids get ear infections by not having a hat on, or any of the variations of this.
I used to respond by saying, “Well, the kids’ doctor has switched over to the germ theory of illness, it’s the latest thing.” But only a very few people got it.
[/QUOTE]
Actually the latest research (I’m too lazy to look-up the cite) has concluded that not wearing a jacket and getting cold in fact lowers the body’s natural resistance to cold germs and does indeed contribute to getting a cold.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/24 "2007-08-30T13:32:03Z")
I want to scream when articles come out about the possibility of life on other planets and people can’t seem to grasp that the term “life” doesn’t imply little green men. Trying to get people to understand that these “life forms” could be single-celled organisms.
---
### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/25 "2007-08-30T13:39:36Z")
\>Electricity as the “flow” of electrons.
What?! Electrical current IS a flow of charge, and in almost all cases, including anything on a wire, it’s a flow of electrons. An amp is 6.2e18 electrons per second. It may surprise people that even in a heavily loaded wire the average speed of the flow is only inches per second, and that in alternating current the flow moves a microscopic distance before reversing, but it’s still a flow by any reasonable definition, isn’t it?
Do we quibble about whether by “electricity” people understand an electrical current, or about whether “flow” can include things like electrons (which it can, if we can speak for example of the flow of traffic or the flow of immigrants)? Or does the slow speed bother us?
---
### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/26 "2007-08-30T13:51:42Z")
[QUOTE=Napier]
\>It may surprise people that even in a heavily loaded wire the average speed of the flow is only inches per second, and that in alternating current the flow moves a microscopic distance before reversing, but it’s still a flow by any reasonable definition, isn’t it?
[/QUOTE]
While you’re correct that electric current is defined as the movement of charge, and the electrons carrying that charge move very, very slowly, it is clear that electrical signals propagate near the speed of light–antenna design depends on that fact.
---
### Author:  [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/27 "2007-08-30T13:58:06Z")
[QUOTE=Lumpy]
Oh, and that [plutonium] glows a phosphorescent green as well.
[/QUOTE]
This is the best example so far of what I had in mind. We could include other erroneous film making conventions like PCs that make a lot of beeps, simultaneous thunder and lightning, and the view through binoculars that’s 2 circles instead of one.
---
### Author:  [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/28 "2007-08-30T14:23:00Z")
Chemicals: They are all bad for us and will kill us all. All things “chemical” are inherently bad, while all things “natural” are inherently good and therefore harmless.
I’m also very tired of the Hollywood convention of colored liquid spiraling through a reflux condenser coil as a short hand for a chemical reaction occuring. Spinning liquids around in lazy circles does not typically change their molecular structure.
---
### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/29 "2007-08-30T15:11:29Z")
The law of averages will make my weekend at the slot machines a winning one 'cause I’ve lost the last three weekends and everything always reverts to the mean.
Right?
Anyway, I’ve already pre-spent my winnings on a new car! 😉
---
### Author:  [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/30 "2007-08-30T15:26:06Z")
[QUOTE=sqweels]
Fossil Fuels:
Oil does not come from dinosaurs! It comes from coral and clams and crap like that.
[/QUOTE]
☹ I haven’t felt this ignorant since “pineapples grow in the ground.” Thanks.
---
### Author:  [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/31 "2007-08-30T15:28:56Z")
[QUOTE=ForumBot]
☹ I haven’t felt this ignorant since “pineapples grow in the ground.” Thanks.
[/QUOTE]
Wait, you mean they don’t grow on pine trees? 😉
---
### Author:  [@Furious\_Marmot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Furious_Marmot)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/32 "2007-08-30T15:43:07Z")
[QUOTE=sqweels]
Fossil Fuels:
Oil does not come from dinosaurs! It comes from coral and clams and crap like that.
[/QUOTE]
At the risk of being pedantic: Kerogen (the source of organic material for hydrocarbons) is typically derived from the remains of plankton, usually algae, foraminifera, etc. Rocks composed of coral and clams and crap like that can be an excellent reservoir (as can many other rocks), if the porosity within and among the grains is preserved after burial, and if hydrocarbons migrate to the high porosity rock from the organic rich, but usually low porosity source rock (typically shale).
---
### Author:  [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/33 "2007-08-30T16:03:47Z")
[QUOTE=The Chao Goes Mu]
I want to scream when articles come out about the possibility of life on other planets and people can’t seem to grasp that the term “life” doesn’t imply little green men. Trying to get people to understand that these “life forms” could be single-celled organisms.
[/QUOTE]
In the same vain U.F.O. does not mean spacecraft driven by intelligent life from another planet. U.F.O. means just that, Unidentified Flying Object.
When the “military” has secret records that confirm pilots have seen U.F.O.s it means bascially- the pilot saw an object in the air, never got near it enough to identify what it was, period.
If you’re at a concert and someone on the other side of the arena throws their cheeseburger in the air but you’re too far away to tell what it was, congratulations, you’ve just seen a U.F.O.
---
### Author:  [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/34 "2007-08-30T18:17:55Z")
[QUOTE=sqweels]
Wait, you mean they don’t grow on pine trees? 😉
[/QUOTE]
Yes, pineapples do grow on pine trees.
But around here in Minnesota, where we have forests full of pine trees, the cold weather means that we only get little, brown, stunted pinapples called ‘pine cones’. They have to be growing in warm, winter-less places like Hawaii to produce the big, beautiful, edible pineapples that you see in the grocery store.
I’m sure this must be true, because my uncle told me this when I was just a little child.
---
### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/35 "2007-08-30T18:20:55Z")
In space, lasers make noises, and spaceships hit by them blow up very loudly.
---
### Author:  [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/36 "2007-08-30T19:16:47Z")
[QUOTE=Furious\_Marmot]
At the risk of being pedantic: Kerogen (the source of organic material for hydrocarbons) is typically derived from the remains of plankton, usually algae, foraminifera, etc. Rocks composed of coral and clams and crap like that can be an excellent reservoir (as can many other rocks), if the porosity within and among the grains is preserved after burial, and if hydrocarbons migrate to the high porosity rock from the organic rich, but usually low porosity source rock (typically shale).
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the clarification.
---
### Author:  [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/37 "2007-08-30T19:18:36Z")
[QUOTE=t-bonham@scc.net]
Yes, pineapples do grow on pine trees.
But around here in Minnesota, where we have forests full of pine trees, the cold weather means that we only get little, brown, stunted pinapples called ‘pine cones’.
[/QUOTE]
Pine being my least favorite flavor of ice cream.
---
### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/38 "2007-08-30T19:56:28Z")
If you say steam is vaporized water, do not in the next breath that it is what you\*\* \*see \*\*\*when you boil water! :mad:
---
### Author:  [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/39 "2007-08-30T20:03:09Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Evolution having a predetermined goal; the idea that you can say, “evolve” a human and get a big headed supersmart guy, and that being what our descendants will become.
[/QUOTE]
Or any individual representing “the next step in human evolution”. _Natura non facit saltum_, and all that.
---
### Author:  [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2007, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445/40 "2007-08-30T21:29:49Z")
Despite over a century of dedicated research, nothing has ever been demonstrated that MIGHT prove the existence of ghosts and ESP. But people still talk about these things, as if they were real.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445.md?page=1)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-we-should-know-are-scientifically-false-but-say-anyway/417445.md?page=3)