# What inaccurate or flawed history, science, etc. lessons was I taught in school as a kid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 18, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924 "2010-05-18T19:38:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gitfiddle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gitfiddle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gitfiddle)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/1 "2010-05-18T19:38:39Z")
I’m talking about pre-college. I’d like to know what children were being taught from the mid-eighties to late-nineties that we now know/strongly believe to be wrong. I’m not sure of specific examples to give for what I’m looking for, so I’ll give some hypotheticals. I remember learning in Chemistry that heavy metals in the body could never be removed because heavy metals don’t bond with any other elements, so say now we’ve learned that there are ways to coax them into bonding with other elements, and those opened the prospect of getting them out of the body. The only example that comes to mind is one that I’m pretty sure I didn’t learn much about in school to begin with, but it’s the fact that El Cid might have actually been Muslim and that the whole history celebrated in Spain might have been constructed after the fact (badly paraphrased here, but discussed in [this documentary](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-768956312207897325#) about 65 minutes in) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/2 "2010-05-18T19:50:23Z")
giraffes have long necks so they can eat leaves at the top of trees. there was supposed to be less competition for the leaves in the treetops. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/3 "2010-05-18T19:51:02Z")
One of the biggest science myths taught to kids is that glass is a liquid, but just flows very, _very_ slowly, and we can prove this because really old glass is thicker at the bottom of the window pane. Calling glass a “liquid” is a GROSS over-simplification of it’s material properities. It’s an amorphous solid, which basically means that it’s a solid that lacks a firm crystalline structure. Old glass is thicker at the bottom because of manufactoring techniques. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/4 "2010-05-18T19:56:37Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > One of the biggest science myths taught to kids is that glass is a liquid, but just flows very, _very_ slowly, and we can prove this because really old glass is thicker at the bottom of the window pane. And that we don’t know how bumblebees fly, that water swirls down drains in opposite directions in different hemispheres, that frogs won’t jump out of boiling water if you turn the heat up slowly enough, and a jillion other “strange but true” facts that are strangely false. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/5 "2010-05-18T19:58:06Z")
In early elementary school you learn that Columbus sailed the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and discovers America. Then many years later, from the same school system, you learn that he **actually** never set foot in North America proper, but rather what he “discovered” was Hispaniola and Cuba. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/6 "2010-05-18T20:00:15Z")
> [@ed malin](#): > > giraffes have long necks so they can eat leaves at the top of trees. there was supposed to be less competition for the leaves in the treetops. That isn’t true? Why do they have long necks then? ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/7 "2010-05-18T20:07:24Z")
> [@ed malin](#): > > giraffes have long necks so they can eat leaves at the top of trees. there was supposed to be less competition for the leaves in the treetops. Is that a fact or a hypothesis? [This article (PDF)](http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/182/Giraffe/WinningByANeck.pdf) does suggest that the long neck results from sexual selection rather than feeding competition, but it the case it makes hardly seems conclusive. It does not convince me, anyway. (On the other hand, it is quite old, so maybe there is more evidence by now.) ---
**Author:** ![gitfiddle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gitfiddle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gitfiddle)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/8 "2010-05-18T20:12:18Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > In early elementary school you learn that Columbus sailed the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and discovers America. Then many years later, from the same school system, you learn that he **actually** never set foot in North America proper, but rather what he “discovered” was Hispaniola and Cuba. I think when I was a kid, we were also just starting to learn that the Vikings came to North America long before Columbus. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/9 "2010-05-18T20:21:36Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Is that a fact or a hypothesis? [This article (PDF)](http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/182/Giraffe/WinningByANeck.pdf) does suggest that the long neck results from sexual selection rather than feeding competition, but it the case it makes hardly seems conclusive. It does not convince me, anyway. (On the other hand, it is quite old, so maybe there is more evidence by now.) I have seen video of giraffes having neck fights, like they were going at eachother with whiffle bats. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/10 "2010-05-18T20:35:06Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > One of the biggest science myths taught to kids is that glass is a liquid, but just flows very, _very_ slowly, and we can prove this because really old glass is thicker at the bottom of the window pane. > > Calling glass a “liquid” is a GROSS over-simplification of it’s material properities. It’s an amorphous solid, which basically means that it’s a solid that lacks a firm crystalline structure. Old glass is thicker at the bottom because of manufactoring techniques. and the glazers installed it that way. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/11 "2010-05-18T20:35:14Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > In early elementary school you learn that Columbus sailed the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and discovers America. Then many years later, from the same school system, you learn that he **actually** never set foot in North America proper, but rather what he “discovered” was Hispaniola and Cuba. We were taught that Columbus was unusual in thinking that the world was not flat. Few, if any, educated people at the time believed that. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/12 "2010-05-18T20:36:53Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > In early elementary school you learn that Columbus sailed the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria and discovers America. Then many years later, from the same school system, you learn that he **actually** never set foot in North America proper, but rather what he “discovered” was Hispaniola and Cuba. Well what were the names of the ships then? :rolleyes: The fact the Colombus never set foot on the mainland is less important than the fact that everyone in Europe found out about all these “new” lands as a direct result of his voyage. > [@gitfiddle](#): > > I think when I was a kid, we were also just starting to learn that the Vikings came to North America long before Columbus. They “came to” NA, but they didn’t see to it that the knowledge became widely disseminated. (They left behind clues in the form sagas that Colombus then heard, so they get partial credit.) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/13 "2010-05-18T20:43:40Z")
> [@Johnny\_Angel](#): > > I have seen video of giraffes having neck fights, like they were going at eachother with whiffle bats. That is as may be, but it is hardly proof that that is the main reason why they evolved long necks. Humans use their fists for hitting each other, and even for fighting over potential mates, but I hardly think that is **the** reason why we evolved hands. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/14 "2010-05-18T20:46:07Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > We were taught that Columbus was unusual in thinking that the world was not flat. Few, if any, educated people at the time believed that. I just don’t understand how this myth perpetuates. How could anyone living near mountains or the coastline not realize that the mountain/coast disappears over the edge of the earth? And that at a certain point, you can see the ship’s sail but not its hull? Even in third grade, when the teacher said “They thought the earth was flat”, I was like “Not a chance they did.” Anyway, what about the Bohr model? That was defeated in the 1920s but still taught. Or how about the “fact” that lactic acid causes muscle soreness? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/15 "2010-05-18T20:55:09Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > That is as may be, but it is hardly proof that that is the main reason why they evolved long necks. Humans use their fists for hitting each other, and even for fighting over potential mates, but I hardly think that is **the** reason why we evolved hands. Wait, I thought we were cynically writing off the “eat more leaves” theory. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/16 "2010-05-18T21:05:12Z")
Might I add: Galileo was persecuted by Church authorities because they thought his views about the solar system were dangerous to Christian faith (or contradicted the Bible, or were new and scary, or because they were not comfortable with the implication of a bigger universe), and he courageously stood up to them because of his love of the truth. Note: I am not denying the fact that Galileo was tried and punished (though rather leniently, by the standards of the time), ostensibly because of his astronomical views; I am denying the motivations that are usually ascribed on each side. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/17 "2010-05-18T21:13:35Z")
I was taught some phenomenally stupid stuff in grade school – but it was, I think, the teacher’s fault, not institutionalized error, as most of these are. If you want a good rundown of flawed history, read Richard Schenkman’s books, especially _Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History_, _I Love Paul Revere, Whether he Rode or Not_, and _Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of World History_. I practically guarantee that you’ll find something you learned in school that’s been overturned, or at least seriously questioned. Schenkman doesn’t have an ideological axe to grind, unlike Loewen, so there’s not much to dispute there. He combed through history journals and books to find these facts, and presents them without a lot of detail, but gives you the references. It’s like a historian’s version of Jearl D. Walker’s _The Flying Circus of Physics_, which I also recommend in this regard – lotsa refined interpretation of physics, showing things they got wrong in school. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/18 "2010-05-18T21:18:40Z")
Airplanes fly because of “[the low pressure created on the top of an airfoil](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2214/how-do-airplanes-fly-really)”. I also may have been taught that we only use 90% of our brains but it’s hard to remember that long ago. > [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Or how about the “fact” that lactic acid causes muscle soreness? Awesome! More ignorance fought! ---
**Author:** ![Dahu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dahu/32/3416_2.png) [@Dahu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dahu)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/19 "2010-05-18T21:42:06Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > (They left behind clues in the form sagas that Colombus then heard, so they get partial credit.) Is this true (the bit about Columbus knowing of the sagas)? Got a cite? ---
**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:** [May 18, 2010, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/20 "2010-05-18T21:44:22Z")
74westy beat me to the punch with airfoils. Atoms are so small that we will never be able to take pictures of them. If you duck under your desk it will protect you from a nuclear bomb. Computer processors will never run faster than about 40 MHz. There’s just too many physical limitations that will prevent us from ever making them faster than that. The U.S. and the Soviet Union both fought against the Germans in WWII, but the Soviet’s contribution was fairly minor compared to the whole war. The U.S. had the best tanks in the war too. The U.S. Civil War was all about slavery. The founding fathers all agreed on what the government of the U.S. should be like, and they didn’t have politics like we do now back then. You should have seen the looks on my Canadian cousin’s faces when I explained to them what the war of 1812 was all about. > [@sqweels](#): > > The fact the Colombus never set foot on the mainland is less important than the fact that everyone in Europe found out about all these “new” lands as a direct result of his voyage. Columbus was a lucky moron, not a great explorer. The reason other folks didn’t want to try what he did was that they more correctly calculated the size of the earth and realized they wouldn’t make it around. Columbus totally whiffed the calculation and figured that the earth was only about half the size that it is. Fortunately for him, there happened to be land over here that no one knew about, otherwise the bumbling moron would have gotten his entire expedition killed. American Indians are still misnamed as Indians to this day because the freaking moron didn’t even have a clue where he was. And yet the history books still teach what a great explorer he was and how he was somehow smarter than everyone else. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924.md?page=2)