# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/41 "2010-05-19T00:48:54Z")
> [@Jet\_Jaguar](#): > > When I was a kid, we were taught that sauropods were too heavy to walk on land and must have lived submerged in water. Turns out that their legs were adapted to walking on dry land after all, and in fact the water pressure at the depth required to support their weight would’ve made breathing impossible. I remember seeing this in my Little Golden Book of Dinosaurs when I was about 5 years old. There was a painting of a (mislabeled) Brontosaurus with most of its body underwater and his long neck stretching to the top of the water so he could breathe. Dinosaurs were also portrayed with their tails dragging on the ground, and standing upright like Kangaroos. I understand that many older museum displays of dinosaur skeletons have their tails broken so they will conform to that posture ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/42 "2010-05-19T01:37:39Z")
I don’t know about you, but to me, Pluto is still a planet. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/43 "2010-05-19T01:46:11Z")
Just in case you don’t mind someone a little older chiming in I’m still stinging over the scolding I got from a Sociology 101 prof when I questioned his comment about _tabula rasa._ That would have been in 1972. Decades later I saw him on the street and reminded him. Asked him if he’d like to discuss it. He said he was busy. That’s what I get for being a smarty pants (Twice.) Teachers hate that. ---
**Author:** ![gitfiddle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/898d66/32.png) [@gitfiddle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gitfiddle)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/44 "2010-05-19T01:57:25Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > The U.S. Civil War was all about slavery. Being from South Carolina, I was taught the opposite, i.e. that everyone says it was about slavery but that was only part of it. I didn’t, and still don’t, buy the state’s rights argument. Any time I’ve ever heard it argued, it seems pretty clear that the economic or legal reasons for seceding wouldn’t have existed were it not for the question of slavery. Well, okay, I did buy it. What I mean is that, I remember thinking, “That doesn’t seem to make much sense, but the teacher said it.” Not exactly the best thought process to be encouraging in young people. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/45 "2010-05-19T02:14:00Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > . > > If you duck under your desk it will protect you from a nuclear bomb. > > 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. > > Columbus was a lucky moron, not a great explorer. Well, if the bomb is far enough away, it will. I never heard that. Of course I heard little of the contributions of the Soviets, and a lot about ours, but pretty much all nations do that. More or less, it was. Umm, no. Leading those puny ships that far across uncharted waters? Fantastic act of leadership. Yes, he was lucky in that America was there, but his drive, initiative and leadership were great. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/46 "2010-05-19T02:16:45Z")
> [@campp](#): > > I don’t know about you, but to me, Pluto is still a planet. Just a matter of interpretation and definiations. ---
**Author:** ![notsoheavyd3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/85e7bf/32.png) [@notsoheavyd3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notsoheavyd3)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/47 "2010-05-19T04:03:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Except that the book that Galileo did publish wasn’t really the book that Urban had given him permission to publish. Galileo asked for and got permission to publish a book describing the strengths and weaknesses of the two systems, but he only presented the strengths of the Copernican system and the weaknesses of the Ptolemaic system. Plus, the defender of the Ptolemaic system in the book is a thinly-disguised caricature of Urban himself, and is named “Simplicio”. I’ve heard this put as he basically called his college drinking buddy “Mr Stupid” and the pope didn’t take too kindly to that. Actually one thing I’ve learned in years is that Galileo didn’t actually have evidence that “proved” the earth moved. (What’s even weirder is Einstein had pointed this out.) The evidence he did have (phase of Venus and moons of Jupiter) were consistent with the Copernican and Tychonic systems. (The church ended up going with Tychonic since it explained the evidence and let them keep the earth in the center and unmoving.) Oh here’s a short bit from James Burke on it. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNbjNwna2aw&feature=related](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNbjNwna2aw&feature=related) ---
**Author:** ![notsoheavyd3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/85e7bf/32.png) [@notsoheavyd3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notsoheavyd3)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/48 "2010-05-19T04:04:57Z")
Oh, for those that care the big proof that the earth moved was that it caused the tides. It unfortunately seems that his explaination would result in 1 tide per day which is a little wrong:) ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/49 "2010-05-19T04:11:50Z")
> [@campp](#): > > I don’t know about you, but to me, Pluto is still a planet. If Pluto’s a planet then so are all the other larger-than-Pluto objects in the Solar System. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/50 "2010-05-19T04:22:30Z")
> [@ed malin](#): > > the key word in may original statement is ‘so’. evolution doesn’t happen to achieve some goal. It is a pity, then, that the word ‘so’ appears nowhere in your original post (nor in mine in any relevant position), and also a pity that nobody, certainly not me, ever suggested or implied that evolution happens to achieve some goal. You seem, rather incoherently, to be trying to correct mistakes that have not been made. > [@ed malin](#): > > there are many other animals that can climb and fly to the treetops, and there is less food available further away from the ground. All the flying and climbing animals can reach the lower leaves too (although I don’t think that many of them are leaf eaters), but many non-flying, non-climbing leaf eaters cannot reach the higher ones. > [@ed malin](#): > > see my initial response. evolutionary adaptations don’t occur to serve some future need. It was you who said that “pmgs” would have to know to mate preferentially with longer necked mates in order for neck length to be selected for (at least, that is as much sense as I can make of what you wrote). That is nonsense (as I think you are aware) and was certainly never said or remotely implied by me. What is not nonsense is that it is possible (and quite plausible) that a long neck might confer a selective advantage on an animal that is in competition with other animals for a food source that can be found high up. Darwin could see that. Why can’t you? And yes, I take your point that there have probably been multiple relevant selective factors at work. NOBODY HAS BEEN DENYING THAT. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/51 "2010-05-19T04:28:26Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > If Pluto’s a planet then so are all the other larger-than-Pluto objects in the Solar System. Do these other objects have satellites? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/52 "2010-05-19T04:35:19Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t know about you, but to me, Pluto is still a planet. The real problem here is that we insist on having a single category that lumps together objects as different as Mercury and Jupiter. Really, it’d be a lot tidier if we had completely separate categories for rockballs (like Mercury, Venus, Earth, Luna, Mars, and Ceres), gasballs (like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune), and iceballs (like Pluto, Eris, Quaoar, and Sedna). Then we could just say “Pluto is an iceball”, and nobody would be clamoring that it should be considered a rockball instead. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/53 "2010-05-19T04:36:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Except that the book that Galileo did publish wasn’t really the book that Urban had given him permission to publish. Galileo asked for and got permission to publish a book describing the strengths and weaknesses of the two systems, but he only presented the strengths of the Copernican system and the weaknesses of the Ptolemaic system. Plus, the defender of the Ptolemaic system in the book is a thinly-disguised caricature of Urban himself, and is named “Simplicio”. Well, I think it is fairly certain that Galileo _thought_ he had Urban’s permission to publish what he did. After all, he hardly _wanted_ to get arrested by the inquisition, and he did know the issue was sensitive. He had spent about a decade and a half under the previous pope being a very good boy, and not mentioning heliocentrism at all. He clearly _believed_ Urban was on his side and would protect him (and, indeed, as I said, very likely wrote the book largely to curry favor with him). Bearing that all in mind, I think it is also fairly certain that the character of Simplicio is not _intended_ to be caricature of Urban, even though it is possible that Urban may have taken it that way. (And even though he does lose most of the arguments, Simplicio really isn’t presented as an idiot.) ---
**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 19, 2010, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/54 "2010-05-19T04:51:20Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > It is a pity, then, that the word ‘so’ appears nowhere in your original post (nor in mine in any relevant position), and also a pity that nobody, certainly not me, ever suggested or implied that evolution happens to achieve some goal. You seem, rather incoherently, to be trying to correct mistakes that have not been made. go to the top of the page. this is what i was talking about: 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. > [@njtt](#): > > All the flying and climbing animals can reach the lower leaves too (although I don’t think that many of them are leaf eaters), but many non-flying, non-climbing leaf eaters cannot reach the higher ones. insects are leaf eaters, fly and climb, and there are a lot of them. i don’t understand the assumption that there is more food in the treetops. there is a lot more foliage at ground level than high in the air. plus with giraffes we are only talking about 20 ft. up. i have seen credible studies showing there is no more food in the treetops than at ground level. i didn’t vouch for their conclusions, but i’ve seen nothing like scientific evidence denying this. do you know of some? i’d like to see it. > [@njtt](#): > > It was you who said that “pmgs” would have to know to mate preferentially with longer necked mates in order for neck length to be selected for (at least, that is as much sense as I can make of what you wrote). That is nonsense (as I think you are aware) and was certainly never said or remotely implied by me. What is not nonsense is that it is possible (and quite plausible) that a long neck might confer a selective advantage on an animal that is in competition with other animals for a food source that can be found high up. Darwin could see that. Why can’t you? obviously i was making snarky comments about evolution being a means to an end. you thought i was aware that this was nonsense. you thought right. > [@njtt](#): > > And yes, I take your point that there have probably been multiple relevant selective factors at work. NOBODY HAS BEEN DENYING THAT. i didn’t say you were denying it. my only disagreement with you is about the quantity of food available in the treetops (the tops of 20 ft. trees). let me state my position clearly: evolution is not a process of adaption to achieve a goal. and i see no conclusive evidence that giraffes evolved long necks because there is more food available in the treetops. maybe it all happened that way. but maybe seeing predators a long way off made the difference. maybe a mutation involved in long necks protected pmgs from a disease that wiped out its predators or competitors. maybe female giraffes just dig long necks. do you just like to argue? maybe we can find a better topic. check out my views on racism in the ‘odd descriptor in sam cooke’ thread. or how about ‘superman could beat the hulk’. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/55 "2010-05-19T04:53:14Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Do these other objects have satellites? Does Mercury? ---
**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 19, 2010, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/56 "2010-05-19T05:33:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The real truth is, the primary reason Galileo got persecuted is that he was one of the biggest assholes in history. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great scientist and this doesn’t diminish that, but he seemed to take a positive delight in pissing folks off. Especially folks with a lot of power. and he is still giving the finger to the church! ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/57 "2010-05-19T06:07:48Z")
In high school I took a Spanish class. Our teacher spread the myth that Castilian Spanish sounded like it did because the king had a lisp, and since he was king then everybody talked like he did. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/58 "2010-05-19T08:26:42Z")
Columbus did make a trip to Iceland some time before his voyage of 1492 and therefore potentially could have read/heard the sagas. But it really doesn’t matter if he had. The lands they describe, Greenland and Vinland, were not what he was looking for when he made his voyage in 1492. If they had been, he’d have sailed west from Iceland and not the Canaries, which is where he actually sailed from. > [@EdwardLost](#): > > 90% (or whatever) of DNA is junk. > The five kingdoms of life. The figure for junk DNA is still quite high (98%, I think), although they’ve recently found that some stuff that was thought to be junk actually has a purpose. But it’s not enough to change the number. When I was in school, “2 kingdoms” was still commonly taught, although a third one and perhaps a fourth was widely accepted by biologists at the time. The third (Protista) was actually mentioned in our HS biology textbook as a potential change/improvement. It’d been proposed about a century earlier – good to see the school books keeping up with the science. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/59 "2010-05-19T09:50:26Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > 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. I was never taught any of these in school. > [@Chronos](#): > > The wheel is just a special case of a level… Sounds interesting. Go on… ---
**Author:** ![Oglomott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oglomott/32/3543_2.png) [@Oglomott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oglomott)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-inaccurate-or-flawed-history-science-etc-lessons-was-i-taught-in-school-as-a-kid/539924/60 "2010-05-19T10:02:41Z")
I went to school in the 1960’s. We were taught that you MUST wait at least one hour after eating before you went in swimming, otherwise you would suffer terrible cramping, or some other indescribable suffering. We actually saw educational films that taught this. At beach picnics, pool parties, etc. some adults actually counted it down on a clock or watch. The one hour figure varied between a half hour to two hours, depending on what source you believed. [Previous 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) [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=4)