We humans are a weird bunch. Some of us are shooting a spacecraft at an asteroid to demonstrate that it's a viable technique to protect the planet but others still insist that swallowed gum will stay in our stomachs for 7 years.
Interested in hearing the most prevalent misconceptions, Reddit user FM596 made a post on the platform, asking everyone to share myths that are passed from generation to generation, and that people still believe in. Turns out, there's no shortage of those! Continue scrolling and check out some of the most-upvoted entries.
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That certain animal 'parts' have healing/magical properties. Like tiger whiskers protect the wearer or rhino horn cures impotence and hangovers.
We managed to get in touch with FM596 and they agreed to tell us more about what inspired their post. "One of the reasons I decided to ask this question was to see how many people will mention the thousand-years-old-myth of supposedly living in a democracy (in any country)," they told Bored Panda.
"Democracy was real and has existed only once. After it was violently destroyed, leaders used the word democracy to mislead us into thinking that what we have is the best we can get."
"Out of the 12,000 comments, only 12 people mentioned that myth, just 1 out of 12,000, or 0.008%. That says a lot about the level of political edification we get from the state."
Boys playing with dolls (or other traditional feminine toys) will turn them gay. Or that anything will turn people gay or lesbian.
Trickle down economics.
If rich people were putting their money back into the economy, there wouldn't be any billionaires.
However, after going through the replies, FM596 thinks not all of them are valid. "First, not everything posted as a myth is, indeed, a myth. Many [of the entries] are half-truths, others are imprecisely expressed or misunderstood, and others are definitely non-myths."
The Redditor believes that, "we are ignorant on many critical subjects, because: "a) we get a really bad education from the state, and b) we are being bombarded daily with misleading information that aims to serve the best interests of the powerful few -not the people, and that's a fact, not a myth, that's the world we live in."
That being out in cold weather will make you catch a Cold. The cold is a virus you catch from others and nothing to do with the outside temperature.
There is basis of truth in this one. People stay inside more during cold weather. Spending more time with other people in an enclosed space makes you more likely to be exposed to any viruses that might be around. Also, studies have found that airborne viruses are carried farther by the more denser cold air. Therefore, there is a greater chance of airborne viruses touching a person rather than ending up on the ground.
That you have to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person report.
Ironically, as much as we like to think that we value truth, we have also designed the world in a way that makes it really hard for it to travel between us.
There's a well-known MIT study from 2018 that analyzed the spread of news stories on Twitter. Using data drawn from 3 million platform users from 2006 to 2017, the researchers, led by Soroush Vosoughi, a computer scientist who is now at Dartmouth, found that fact-checked news stories moved differently through social networks depending on whether they were true or false.
"Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth," they wrote in their paper.
That the hymen is a freshness seal like a snapple cap, has any bearing on virginity, and your first time should hurt and cause bleeding
Religion, easily.
I get that people believe in religion but they have zero proof that any of it is true.
That GMOs are bad. Without GMOs, we wouldn't have a lot of the food we have today.
We've been eating GMOs for 1000s of years. That's what selective breeding does. Some of the foods we eat would be poisonous in their original forms
That we use 10% of our brain. Power or capacity, this was actually proven to be b******t.
That shaving makes hair grow back thicker and longer.
When you shave, the hair is cut in two. The lower part of the hair is now the top, where it used.tot be the middle of a hair. The original top of the hair had to move up to skin level and further on and was damaged doing so. And damaged means thinner. So the cut side is al the way up and as thick as possible. And this is what you experience when it grows further on. Massive and thick hair.
I got pregnant in 2002 and people legit told me I shouldn't raise my arms over my head because the cord would wrap around the baby's neck. Not just great grandmas telling me this either. People at my restaurant job fussed at me all the time for getting things off high shelves. Insane.
This was hilarious! Can those people please draw a pic on how they think your arms and the cord ia connected?
That your generation is always the last good generation.
Swallowed gum will stay in your stomach for 7 years. Never seen a single wad of gum in the hundreds of thousands of stomachs I’ve looked into.
That fish only have a 5-second memory. My fish are fed automatically on a timer and they know dinner time better than my goddamn cat.
That your hair and fingernails still grow after you die. It's mainly an optical illusion. Your skin decays and shrinks, causing hair and fingernails to look like they've grown.
That birds will abandon their babies if they have a human scent on them.
That cats kill babies.
I’ve run into this so many times since having kids. And it’s not the older grandmas making these statements. I’ve had 20 year olds tell me that you can’t have cats if you plan to have babies because “they’ll steal their breath” or some other variation. No amount of reasoning or rationale will dissuade them of this belief
I've always hears that this come from cats that end up sleeping on a baby and the baby can't breath. I have no idea if this is true or not.
Cats will naturally cuddle up to a warm little body. If it also smells good, especially if it smell like milk, then bonus. Thing is, cats will generally just lay next to a baby, not on top of them. While I can see the concern stemming from the fact that infants may be too young to have developed the instinct to turn their heads away if something is blocking their breathing, as a lifelong cat owner—-since my own infancy—-I can tell you that they do not lay on top of anybody who isn’t the person—-the adult—-who regularly feeds them, and even that is a rare occurrence. Every cat I have had, and I’m now 61 years old, has either loudly meowed or touched my face with their paws or their cold wet noses (the most effective way to wake you up from a dead sleep) to remind me it’s time to feed them. But only if I’m sleeping through their normal feeding time, since cats are creatures of habit.
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Never heard this for children, only for pregrant women. Maybe this myth was born from the need to protect pregrant women from toxoplasmosis. But, then again, raw meat is much more dangerous for toxoplasmosis.
In the last 6 months I have heard that 1. My kids will get asthma from cat fur. 2. My kids will get a pendicitis from cat fur. 3. My kids will get sick often from the cats. All 100% false. Literally the opposite, kids who are exposed to animals have stronger immune systems and are less likely to get asthma. Most effective with indoor/door pets. Now, the cats stealing baby's breath does have a grain of truth. If it is super cold, cats will snuggle up to warm baby, generally laying on top of the baby. That is where the myth came from. The only article I found with this as a COD for an infant is the parent left sleeping baby outside in a stroller in the winter. This is common in some countries. Outside cat found a warm spot, unfortunely for the baby.
When my kids had a baby, their cat wouldn’t come near him. She was two years old when he was born and she was spoiled rotten. When they first brought the baby home from the hospital, she looked at him like “Who the hell is this?!” She actually had sibling rivalry. After a while she got used to him.
I heard this when I was pregnant, too. This coming from my SIL who didn't understand why she shouldn't smoke when pregnant ... because how would the smoke get down to the baby?
Some cats really love their new humans and make good protectors and watch cats for them. Look at that video of the babysitter that tried to hit a kid and the cat took off after that sitter and attacked her and good, too. That baby sitter was Afraid and should have been terrified!
Absolutely not! In all of my experiences, cats love babies. (Especially the females, must be some kind of parental instinct.)
Cats won't, but if they have toxoplasmosis, and you catch it from them, which can happen when cleaning the litter box, it can absolutely kill a fetus. It is estimated that about 60% of humans have it.
My cats always cuddled with my babies but under my watchful eye. My current cat Lilly has absolutely no problem planting herself right on my face when I'm on the computer or reading, lol
How about keep your cat away after you bear children because they will drink your milk,,,, just What tha...?
Yes, it's an urban legend and no one knows of anyone it's ever happened to - because it's never happened. As a youngster our cat had to be put down as this flake from round the corner INSISTED our cat had tried to do this. It was a house cat and was rarely out but she caused such a stink that the cat was put down. A real Karen..
That's on your parents then, to even consider doing that. Because legally they didn't have to.
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When I was a kid, my cat loves to feel my pulse. He likes to lie on my neck. I could imagine, that this fear, that a cat steals the breath of a baby, comes from behavior like this. Maybe there was an accident, when a cat did this?
I hope you mean you knew someone. You don't want to be associated with such a person right?
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I heard that when babies have spit up on their out fits, cats will snuggle up an lick off the milk spit up. I guess someone who doesn't like cats saw this event and decided to spread vicious lies.
My grandmother believed they could steal the breath from anyone and swears she woke up once in her late teens at a relative’s with a cat stealing her breath. She actually liked my cats throughout my life, but they were not allowed in her room while she was sleeping.
Is there a grain of truth here in that cats can carry diseases that can be harmful to a young baby?
Only if you don't scoop the litter for a few days. The risk is extremely low if you have inside only cats
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Ok, so I had a kitten when I had given birth to my son. Yes, she would sneak into his bassinet & sleep against his face b/c a) it was warm & b) he smelled like milk. B/c he was too little to move his head if he couldn't breathe, we decided it was best to find another home for the kitty. I think the "steal their breath" thing stems from situations similar to mine.
It comes from people who apparently can't close the door to the nursery and instead decide to get rid of their pet because it's too much work. Hopefully rhe cat got a good home, she clearly didn't before
Load More Replies... They don't 'kill babies' but, just like any other animal, might carry infectious diseases which can be passed on to humans.
You really are true to your name huh. That's such a stupid statement to make.
Load More Replies... In the 1980's in New Zealand, a cat did, indeed, climb into the baby's cot and smothered the baby. That's why you should keep the cat out of the baby's room and if it tries to jump into the cot, it should be punished.
Don't punish a cat, ever. Learn how to train it without punishment
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About twenty years ago we had an outdoor party in October- a little chilly- and a couple kept their sleeping baby in her stroller. I look over at some point and one of our cats was snuggled in the stroller...right on the baby's face. I freaked out and grabbed the baby. She was fine but to this day it makes me sick to stomach.
Circumcision is medically beneficial enough to be *routinely* done to every male infant born, rather than just like.. you know… waiting to see if it’s actually necessary.
Pit bulls can lock their jaws. If they bite you then you have to kill them because their jaws are locked.
No, I am not kidding. I’ve heard this BS from the elderly and from kids. They just keep repeating this nonsense.
Only if it is a hybrid created in a Chinese research lab and one of its parents was a snapping turtle.
90% of the myths surrounding pregnancy and childbirth.
If the baby’s heart rate is fast it’s a girl. If you crave sweet things it’s a girl, if you are carrying “high” it’s a girl.
They’re the only ones I can think of at the moment but there are so many other myths out there.
funnily enough I had a major sweet tooth in both my girl pregnancies and was craving savoury foods with my boy. Didn't know about that belief though...
Lightning never strikes the same place twice.
As Fleetwood Mac would say, “Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice.”
Someone can be tested to determine their virginity status. Hymens aren't barriers, they aren't supposed to be broken, and they heal when they do tear. No one, not even a doctor can look at someone and know they're a virgin or not.
Bulls become angry seeing the color red.
Bulls become angry when men in stupid Prince outfits taunt them while crowds cheer and then the poor bulls get speared. Absolutely disgusting.
That reading in dim lighting will cause you to lose your eyesight.
If you watch the TV too much or too close, you will go blind
One that's still not known well is the white people in the south and middle America that think they are part Cherokee. You're like 99.9% sure to be wrong. Your family is wrong. There wasn't a "Cherokee princess" or any of that. It's a folks tale basically. And your grandma was told the same as a kid, she told your mom, hour mom td you.
People get defensive about this because you have to accept that A) Your family accidentally mislead you on something your whole life, and B) you don't have some magic Cherokee princess Native American blood. You're just white.
This is what happened with Elizabeth Warren. She was told this tale and believed she was part Cherokee. I was also told this and believed it while growing up. Almost all of my friends were told the same about themselves too.
Just a folk tale passed down the generations
100% true. I heard the same c**p my whole life. Did the old 23&me test... ZERO native DNA. I'm literally more Neanderthal than Native American.
Carrots improve vision. Has to be on the list for top propaganda campaigns. Started in WWII to cover for the use of radar. Still to this day more people I meet believe it than don't.
Carrots contain beta-carotene which is converted to vitamin A in the body, which in turn binds to a protein in the eye to make rhodopsin. Rhodopsin is a light-absorbing molecule necessary for low-light and colorvision. In turn, the absence of vitamin A can cause nightblindbess. So in a way, carrots can improve your eyesight.
Note: this post originally had 54 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
That removing a gray hair from your head will cause ten more to grow back.
Right? LOL because if it were true balding people would gladly pluck the grays to get two more.
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How do you add more? That spinach has an amazing amount of iron. Like all dark leafy greens it has some, but not a lot. Someone mad an error with a decimal point many years ago and some textbooks picked it up and for years it was taught.
That removing a gray hair from your head will cause ten more to grow back.
Right? LOL because if it were true balding people would gladly pluck the grays to get two more.
Load More Replies... How do you add more? That spinach has an amazing amount of iron. Like all dark leafy greens it has some, but not a lot. Someone mad an error with a decimal point many years ago and some textbooks picked it up and for years it was taught.
