Talk:List of common misconceptions

This page in the news

Business Insider "stealing" our stuff. we're credited though.

http://www.businessinsider.com/science-misconceptions-and-myths-2013-7 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr swordfish (talk • contribs) 20:07, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Contested detail of water-immersion wrinkling

The statement: "This may have evolved because it gives ancestral primates a better grip in slippery, wet environments," is not affirmed by the related article.

In the Wrinkle Wikipedia article under water-immersion wrinkling: "However, a 2014 study attempting to reproduce these results was unable to demonstrate any improvement of handling wet objects with wrinkled fingertips. Furthermore, the same study didn't find any connection between fingertip wrinkling and touch sensation."

This strikes me as a detail that is better left out without more thorough investigation and confirmation. As it stands, the claim is merely an interesting idea and could be misleading or taken as fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.118.66.58 (talk) 02:48, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Subject inclusion

Forgive me for asking what I'm sure has been hashed out multiple times (I'm not seeing a clear answer that evidently applies to the current page), but is there a list of subjects that are/are not appropriate for the list? It seems like everything relating to politics is conspicuously missing, for example. Despite there remaining several well publicized misconceptions about recent U.S. Presidents, for example, the names Obama, Bush, or Clinton don't appear once. Is this because there are already organizations like PolitiFact that point out misconceptions to the extent that they shouldn't be considered misconceptions any longer (something closer to "imposed ideological misconceptions")? Just curious. I don't have a pet misconception I'm looking to add or anything -- just haven't given the page any thought before :) --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  15:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Just search the talk archives in the box above for "Obama", "Bush", "Iraq War", etc. For example: [1] [2][3][4][5]. A lot of these are over at List of conspiracy theories or one of the sub-lists of conspiracy theories linked there. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:29, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I did find some of those, but I'm having trouble finding concrete guidelines. The Obama religion issue's exclusion is clear, being a statement of personal belief, but others are not clear to me. Putting aside those discussions on subjects that reliable sources have not described as a common misconception, it seems the line is drawn ambiguously based on differing definitions of "misconception," source of the misconception, or other factors not clearly stated here -- and especially not in the article's lead, which only says "erroneous beliefs that are currently widely held about notable topics."

The easiest example for me to point to -- and please know that it's only an easy example and I have no intention of re-adding this, which was already removed by consensus -- is the sustained belief that the United States did find WMDs in Iraq (and variations thereof). There are multiple polls/papers that have been published in reliable sources well after their nonexistence was made clear showing a surprisingly large percent of those polled still believed it was the case. These polls were presented by news media precisely in the context of ~"erroneous belief that is currently widely held about a notable topic."

I see in a couple threads people bring up intentions of the source of the misconception, but I can't believe any article would frame inclusion criteria in terms of such evaluations by editors. Anyway...I wish I had a less charged example to use. Trying to stick to what defines this article rather than making arguments about the incident itself. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  22:04, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Before you call it a "common misconception", you have an uphill battle to prove that it is a misconception at all. That's why it isn't here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMD_conjecture_in_the_aftermath_of_the_2003_invasion_of_Iraq#Stockpiles_transported_to_another_country_conjecture

http://www.nysun.com/foreign/iraqs-wmd-secreted-in-syria-sada-says/26514/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/sep/18/inside-the-ring-syria-iraq-and-weapons-of-mass-des/?page=all

Primium mobile (talk) 18:19, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

The New York Sun and the Washington Times? No Fox News? Do you have any reliable sources to cite? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:16, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Neurotoxicity of alcohol

"Alcohol does not necessarily kill brain cells.[235]"

The citation doesn't really support the claim very well, in my opinion.

More importantly, the claim is contradicted by a substantial amount of available data. *All* addictive drugs cause long term abnormalities in the brain. Alcohol in particular has well-documented neurotoxic effects (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotoxin#Ethanol). Alcohol is a potent neurotoxin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.163.96.202 (talk) 16:46, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 July 2014

In the first entry of Invertebrates (subsection of Science – Biology) it says:

"Species of the planaria family of flatworms actually do become two new planaria when bisected or split down the middle."

Please change to:

"Species of planarian flatworms actually do become two new planarians when bisected or split down the middle."

As clearly said in citation for sentence, this is about planarians (which is a non-monophyletic group, an example of folk taxonomy; not a family) rather than the specific genus Planaria. No family called "Planaria" exists; in biological classification, family names always have a "-dae" ending. Please also remember to change the wiki link (planarian vs. planaria). Regards, 62.107.209.193 (talk) 13:07, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Done EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:21, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Early microwave ovens did cook from the inside out

The first generation of microwave ovens operated at in the .915 MHz band, where the skin depth is much deeper than the 2.45 GHz presently used. In that era they did cook food from the inside out and, as the saying goes, "No story; the lies are all true." Due largely to concerns about the reseonance of the human head on the part of regulators whose understanding of the quality factor "Q" of resinators left much to be desired, U.S. government pressure was applied to manufacturers to raise the frequency to 2.45. See various Wikipedia articles, beginning with "Microwave Oven."

This may be too fine a point for the blunt instrument of "common misconceptions," but there is a difference between a statement that is no longer true and a statement that was at one time true.