It’s kind of a fun idea, but as everyone has pointed out: every school is different, even of there is some centralized board of education, some times teachers just say dumb shit.
Also, when does a fact become a fact? Like, dinosaurs had feathers. It was theorized, then debated, then clarified, and now there are some reasonable consensus about it, but theropauds probably still aren’t presented as having feathers in some books. And what teachers know this?
Or you get common misconceptions that were never facts. Like you only use 10% of your brain. I don’t think science ever said that, but man the idea is/was really common.
There are also plenty of things in science that are taught that are technically incorrect, but give you a working model that you can build on later. The atomic model being a rather typical example.
That’s fair: abstraction. The technical wrongness of “orbiting electrons” as in the whichever-model serves a purpose: the truth is hairy, and more importantly not practically relevant if you’re calculating sliding boxes around planes and that sort of thing.
On the other hand, “10% of the brain” and similar nuggets of common “wisdom” are just flat-out wrong, often stupidly so. There’s very little use in that.
Oh. Yeah. That’s a good point. When I taught a dead language, I would tell my students that all grammars lie to you, but some of the lies are useful.
The Wittgensteinian Ladder. The pedagogical expedient misinformation.
There are 9 planets…
There are at least 9
Pluto is a dwarf planet. Planet. You wouldn’t say that a dwarf person isn’t a person.
You wouldn’t call a person a dwarf, period. So don’t do that. If you ever meet a little person, they’ll probably refer to themselves as a little person. You should just follow their lead
A dwarf planet is not a category of planets. It is a category of sub-planetary objects. This is how the term “dwarf planet” was adopted by the IAU in 2006. It did used to mean “type of planet”, but there are just too many of them, and they’re really too different from planets, so it literally does not mean that anymore. At least to astronomers.
Whatever a red car is still a car.
It’s dumb to say it isn’t a planet just because it hasn’t yet cleared its orbit. The decision to make it “not a planet” was also made by astronomers, not by planetary scientists. Like people with “Star” in their name know more about planets than people with “planet” in theirs.
Anyways it’s extra silly because if you have “real planets” and “dwarf planets” then what is the higher group containing those two? “Things that orbit the sun”? No, they should both be planets.
Speak for yourself
I’m torn on this one, cause recently they’ve been finding evidence of a ‘new’ 9th planet, way beyond Pluto’s orbit. So I’m on the fence of “there are 8 planets” and “there are 9 planets.” 🤔
Recently? I’ve been hearing about a possible large trans-Pluto object since before Pluto lost its status as a planet.
I must not be on the more scientific news places then, I didn’t start hearing about it until around last year–maybe the year before–, well after pluto got thrown out like last night’s trash.
There’s been “planet X” theories since the 50s
Happy cake day!
I’m of the believe that we made up the word planet and it can mean whatever we say it means.
That’s pretty much how it is. In ancient times, planets would have been objects that were distinguishable from stars in ways they had the ability to differentiate from. For example, with a telescope, any object that doesn’t shine like a star, that moves across the sky at a different rate than the stars, or maybe has visible rings.
Then once science found things that past science couldn’t account for, they redefined what a planet was, according to its size/gravitational pull or other factors, and which Pluto didn’t fit. Apparently due to Pluto’s small size, it’s not even a dwarf-planet, and by that measure is basically just a really big asteroid (we even know of asteroids that are bigger than Pluto).
I’m of the opinion we made up all the words, but those mouth sounds must have a strict meaning whenever possible. Words are important, they’re how you communicate concepts. Everyone should be precise with their words to the best of their understanding, if you have to redefine the word planet in every conversation the concept is diluted and you waste a lot of time
In this case, if Pluto is a planet, we have at least 13. We might discover another 10 or 20 if there’s no planet 9 hiding behind the kyper belt and it’s all dwarf planets… Ain’t no one got time to remember 30+ planets
30+ planets should be pretty easy. They name them after mythology. The 50 states aren’t difficult to remember, and those don’t have any sort of naming convention.
The issue is, as I understand it, we either have 8 planets (or 9, if there is an exoplanet), or a whole bunch of planets, depending on how narrowly we define them.
Yeah this is the correct take. Either Pluto (and by extension, any object of similar size) is a planet, which would mean there’s thousands of Pluto-sized planets in the solar system; or pluto is ‘too small’ to be a planet. Which is the answer they (Sci community) settled on, because if every comet/asteroid is within the threshold definition of ‘planet’ then there would be no point in distinguishing planets at all.
Kinda like how we have dwarf-stars and supermassive stars 1000x bigger than our sun. If they were all the same size there would be no point defining them beyond ‘star’.
Pluto being too small isn’t actually the grounds on which it got demoted. The size requirement is just being massive enough to reach hydrostatic equilibrium - that is, be heavy enough that it’s round. Pluto does meet this one
The one it fails is clearing its orbit. This basically means being much heavier than everything else in the same orbit. Be gravitationally in charge of your orbit. The other eight are all hundreds if not thousands of times heavier than everything else in their orbit (not including moons, since they’re gravitationally bound to the planet anyway), whereas Pluto is less than a tenth of the total mass in its own orbit. Ceres is actually more gravitationally dominant over its orbit than that, although still nowhere near the eight planets.
This one sounds a bit weird at first, but I kinda like how it has such a massive delineation between the things we instinctively think of as planets and everything else.
It’s also the fact that Pluto doesn’t have its own orbital slot. It is clearly something that escaped Uranus at some point, that’s why their orbits intersect. A planet doesn’t just have to have a certain size, it also has to have its own distinct orbital path.
What about Uranus
Edit: or is that a moon 🤣 I crack myself up!
I’m sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Oh…what’s it called now?
Urectum.
Lmao I love Futurama
I ended up making a site that will let people submit facts. They will be fact checked by my till I have the filtering completed. Please check it out and let me know what yall think. It was made to be extensible
There are just two years to select and “two facts” in total? Or it doesn’t work on mobile as expected.
The Y2K issue was real, but a lot of people spent a lot of effort to fix it before it became a problem. The dire warnings were exaggerated, it was never going to end the world, but the problem really did exist and it really could have led to some pretty serious issues especially with financial institutions.
Sorry, it was just a place holder while testing the database. Once I have an entry or two I’ll remove it.
Get back on your shit!
I went to a Christian private school.That list would take down the website for days!
It just gives you the address of the nearest preschool to start over XD
Only if an incompetent made the site. User input is a drop in the bucket compared to aggregation, searching, and now “AI”.
Quickly need to query half a billion results…
Oh hey, I have one for you! I was taught that the Christian flag was the oldest flag in the history of the world.
I went to religious school. Graduated thirty four years ago. That list would be mighty long.
I went to religious school. Graduated thirty four years ago. That list would be mighty long.
The list: Everything we taught you.
In the beginning…
Pretty much
Funny thing, I think back to how batshit that education was, and I’d say it was way more moderate bordering on sensible compared to the horseshit they teach today.
It’s getting worse, not better.
bordering on sensible compared to the horseshit they teach today.
Hey! Horseshit isn’t as bad as what they teach today!
- Colorful Ponies Association
I help my kids with their schoolwork. It’s pretty reasonable, and also offers plenty of opportunities for me to talk with them about deeper issues that schools don’t have time or expertise in teaching. However even the basics they offer are okay, without any parental kibitzing.
Full disclosure: I live in Holland.
Full disclosure: I live in Holland.
Well, it’s not Finland, but I guess is good enough. And teachers probably have better work enviroment and pay than in Russia.
Fun fact: we do have bad schooling and overloaded teachers in here… Not to mention the bullying problem that even the ex-president was worried about. The quality is dropping because +300 students are being crammed under the same roof. And the politicians are only making it worse by not letting the teachers do their job and are cutting costs. (Constantly shifting how to do their job) This will not go down well for any students that have even minor difficulties in learning…
Good schooling in Europe? Big shocker 😅
Even just the map of the world is outdated pretty much by the time it’s taught.
In 2023 Micronesia made a fairly minor change from the former name, “Federated States of Micronesia”. But, in 2022 Turkey now wants you to use its metal name: Türkiye.
Then there’s the new country of South Sudan, Bougainville on its way to splitting from Papua New Guinea. And Kosovo shows another problem – whether its an independent country or not depends on who you ask. That includes regions like South Ossetia, Transnistria, Catalonia and Taiwan.
Then there are things that students are taught that we’ve known are wrong for over a century, but the fully correct version is too complex for anything below a university course. Like, Newton’s laws are appropriate for high school, but they’re known to be incorrect and are simplifications of Einstein’s refinements. But, they’re close enough for most purposes, and understanding Einstein’s stuff is pretty hard. Same with models of the atom.
And, history is another subject where the deeper you dig, the more the generalizations you’re taught are shown to be wrong. The names and dates might be the same, but the reason X happened is often a whole lot more complex than the simple reasons given in high school.
I went to visit my mum and dad last year and I found a globe in my sister’s old bedroom from our childhood. It was interesting seeing the handful of countries on there that have since changed.
My globe has the USSR, a very different looking Europe, Ceylon, Formosa and tons of colonies on it. Thanks for that thing, grandpa.
In high school, (mid 90s,) I tracked down when the odd globe we had at our house was produced. It must have been made in 1952 according to the encyclopedias. Tons of countries that no longer existed. Strangely enough this particular globe showed the major water bodies as black, not blue.
I remember a teacher very excitedly explaining the outdated nature of the map mounted on the wall and showing us the current map. Us 4th graders were not super impressed, but as an adult I’d be just as excited as the teacher
Like, Newton’s laws are appropriate for high school, but they’re known to be incorrect and are simplifications of Einstein’s refinements. But, they’re close enough for most purposes, and understanding Einstein’s stuff is pretty hard.
There is difference between good enough approximation and completely wrong. Some of stuff was last.
Same with models of the atom.
Not same. Physics textbooks for I had had planetary model, while chemistry textbooks explained quantuum mechanics model.
Yep. Newtonian physics got us to the moon. If quantum mechanics had been involved with the technology of the time, nothing would have gotten built.
GPS looks sadly at your comment
That’s just everything that looks at me.
I don’t think outdated maps is as important as other things. Because two reasons. Maps are expensive to replace, and maps are politics. So no matter how you print the map, someone will think it’s wrong.
Now if they thought you this knowledge about the maps, that would be really cool.
Better still there were a bunch of facts that were false when they were taught to you but for some reason were still taught to you.
Like the obvious one, the tongue doesn’t actually have different regions on it for tasting different things, a fact that you probably didn’t believe even back then because anyone with a sugar cube and 5 minutes can disprove that.
First thing I did when I read that was to put rub something all over my tongue just as a sanity check. When I tried to tell someone they went bonkers trying to defend the school book. From that point on I never took anything school books or adults said as fact without evidence.
Some classics:
- lactic acid buildup makes your muscles hurt after a workout
- blood that’s returning to the heart and lungs is blue, blood that’s leaving your heart to go do it’s thing is red
- sugar makes kids hyper
All three of those things have been thoroughly debunked, and are demonstrably false, and yet we teach them all the time. Sometimes it’s even SCIENCE TEACHERS that are repeating these things, and sometimes it’s right in the textbook!
Don’t forget how chocolate, even in tiny amount, will kill a dog. My mother told this to my kids, and they were all confused because our dog ate a bunch of chocolate easter candy and she was fine.
Dogs, and cats although they’re unlikely to actually eat it, cannot eat artificial sweetener as their livers cannot break it down and it becomes toxic to them in moderate quantities. It is often used in a lot of cheaper chocolate, particularly American chocolate. Sugar’s fine though, other than the obvious issues with it.
Somehow dogs cannot eat large amounts of artificial sweetener, got changed into dogs cannot eat small amounts of sugar.
I think it CAN be harmful to some dogs though!
My 6th grade science teacher taught us that blood is red but that some people think it is blue until it touches air because our veins look blue under our skin. He explained how the different wavelengths of light are absorbed differently and they was why it looks that way. Two years later my 8th grade science teacher taught us that blood is blue until it touches air. She was not happy when I told her she was wrong. I even explained it and told her to go talk to the other teacher if she still did not understand. She still would not listen to me. Over half the class was in the same sixth grade class as me but I was the only one that either remembered or was willing to stand up to the teacher. I finished losing faith in the education system on that day.
My first grade teacher also taught us blood was blue hahaha
Just billionaire blood. Prove me wrong
Anyone know where i can get a billionaire to test this?
Well my 6th grade science teacher told us that Chernobyl was fortold in the book of revelations and it meant that the world will end soon. Public school. In New England. In the 90s. The 1990s.
These stories are so crazy to me …… sometimes it seems looks I got a better secular education from my religion school in the 1970s, with nuns. For many years the science teacher was the only lay teacher, never mentioned religion and we were certainly never fed any of that creationist crap from anyone.
It was not a Jesuit school but they really left a great impression of the long history Jesuit pursuit of knowledge and science
Yup, because people 2000 years ago knew exactly what a nuclear reactor is and that one would explode 1900 years later. How the hell do people come up with this?!
You unlocked a childhood memory of my insane conspiracy theorist father ranting about “wormwood” in connection with Chernobyl.
Wormwood, aka Artemisia absinthium, is the active ingredient in Absinthe.
Found it. Seems it’s also an angel from Revelation? Guessing this is what that 6th grade teacher was on about, too:
https://www.endtime.com/articles-endtime-magazine/chernobyl-third-trumpet-revelation/
(Warning: brain worms galore)
tldr:
Is it merely a coincidence that the name of the memorial complex remembering those that died fighting the nuclear fires of Chernobyl is the exact same name of the fallen star called Wormwood referred to in the third trumpet prophecy of Revelation 8?
A teacher not able to fathom being corrected by a student. Terrible and terribly common. Afraid to lose their authority, perhaps? I had this happen to me at around 8 or 9yo : I corrected my teacher on a specific conjugation (the infinitive of a verb), but she wouldn’t admit she was wrong. That day I swore I’d respect anybody in a discussion, even when I thought I was right and they were wrong. I would consider their take at the minimum
My 7th grade science teacher told us that air is a perfect mixture. I raised my hand and said “how is it a perfect mixture when some cities have smog alerts, and the ozone layer hole?”
I want sent to the principal and told to never question teachers, they know more than I ever will. It was then I kind of gave up and saw behind the veil on education.
This is also crazy to me - correcting the teacher was at worst a way to get extra homework and present the facts to the class.
Except computers. Those teachers were lost and welcomed any help
It was a mistranslation of a German paper. Somehow it stuck
I remember when they taught me this in kindergarten didn’t believe them for a second
I think that already exists? I remember seeing it on Lemmy some months ago. I’ll try to find it.
We could call it thefactsbook
factsbook
I started a subreddit called facefacts at one point, was gonna debunk Facebook bullshit with a JS bookmarklet, but got too busy with work, then Trump flooded the zone and deleted my Facebook and twitter accounts.
oh I get it, my grandma goes on there so often, she must be trying to get true information
Public school book adoption is between 8-12 years (Texas). And they only have to meet 50% of the state learning objectives. I hope the point of this post of to encourage life long learning and developing critical thinking skills.
Got em!
damn what a shit website.
Some of these things are just like, shit we’ve known since the 60’s repackaged as “hey we’re pretty sure this isn’t that anymore”
Cool concept, but the facts given are a very basic start.
Pretty sure a Redditor coded it in a morning in response to this tweet.
Whois lookup says this. Doesn’t discredit the “hastily thrown together in an hour” idea, though.
Created: 2023-10-02 02:12:17 UTC
It says right at the bottom of the page that it was inspired by a tweet. With the same wording as this post.
I want to say 2-3, it was a quick job for sure ;-)
Damn, impossible to read from a mobile phone
That was fuckin’ awesome, thank you!!
I knew I’d heard of a site that did this already. Couldn’t remember the name, though. Thanks!
This assumes that your teachers were up to date
Actually, this is a really really amazing idea.
Set country as an option, and private/public school (different lies…)
It’d be great to let us all face our biases _
different lies
A Japanese person asks, “What did my school get wrong about Japan’s involvement in World War II?”
is given an exhaustive history of the World War II Pacific Theater
Hard to call it a bias when that was the accepted convention for a large portion of the population.
Can’t really blame someone for being taught something than never having it come up again.
Yeah like the food pyramid. That’s not my bias, that was the government fucking up
That was big business fucking with the government on purpose.
Yup. Sucks ass how many of us they conned
Biases? Ignorances, is that the word you meant?
A little of column A and a little of column B.
I’ve actually seen a website that is exactly this.
Can’t remember the URL, but can confirm it exists (existed?) and it was an interesting website to read.
Same, I want to say it was a NYT page? Or something like that. Not a dedicated site.
Could be, it’s been a while. Or maybe there’s been multiple sites.
Likely, yep!
