Talk:List of common misconceptions

Eskimo words for snow

Is this a "misconception" or a "controversial" assertion? The topic article states:

That there are an unusually large number of Eskimo words for snow is a popular claim that Eskaleut languages, specifically the Yupik and Inuit varieties, have far more words for snow than other languages, particularly English.

This claim is often used to support the controversial linguistic relativity hypothesis, also known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis or "Whorfianism". The strongest interpretation of this hypothesis, which posits that a language's vocabulary (among other features) shapes or limits its speakers' view of the world, has been challenged, though a 2010 study supports the core notion that these languages have many more words for snow than the English language. The original claim is loosely based in the work of anthropologist Franz Boas and was particularly promoted by his contemporary, Benjamin Lee Whorf, whose name is connected with the hypothesis. The idea is commonly tied to larger discussions on the connections between language and thought.

So, while the "misconception" is mentioned in the topic article, it is presented as a matter of dispute rather than a misconception. Linguistics is not my area of expertise, so I'm inclined to defer to the editors at the topic article who do not treat this as a misconception. i.e. we should remove this entry. Other opinions?

Mr. Swordfish (talk) 18:28, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

It's been a couple of days and nobody has stood up for retaining this entry. Absent someone arguing for it I will remove it in a few days. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:07, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Seeing no support for retaining this entry I'll remove it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:04, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm all in favor of keeping it removed, if this ever comes up again: it seems that it may actually be true that Eskimos have a disproportionate number of words for 'snow,' and the contention is more whether this is the result of some kind of geographic determinism or not. The former might be a common misconception (if it is indeed false, which it seems it may not be), but the latter is an obscure linguistic debate which seems unlikely to be 'common' (I'd be curious if someone thinks otherwise, maybe it's more common than I realize). I'm an inclusionist about most things, but if it isn't 1) a common misconception, or 2) a misconception at all, then it doesn't belong on the page. Joe (talk) 14:15, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Housing

[1] most wa voters think building more housing wont cool prices Benjamin (talk) 06:20, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Inflation

[2] "On the contrary, 44% of respondents give relatively incorrect answers, with examples such as “The hiking of prices of consumer goods to offset the countrys debt due to elites over spending and throwing money away.”, “Price gouging, especially for the greedy, by raising prices so high, that almost everything is too expensive”,..." Benjamin (talk) 19:38, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Is the sun green?

We have an editor who is edit warring to say that the sun is green. Does anybody think that this is correct or have a cite to support it?

I'm going to remove the assertion, but that will be two reverts and I don't want to violate the three revert rule. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:41, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Agreed that the source does not say that "technically the sun is green". In fact, it says "there are many absolutely correct and absolutely different answers to this seemingly simple question." I think we can consider the "green" edits to be vandalism and revert freely. --Macrakis (talk) 14:57, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Car color affects car insurance rates, accidents, and/or tickets

From my limited reading, it appears that (in the USA) car color conclusively does not affect insurance costs and risk of being pulled over/ticketed. It may impact the buy/sell price of a car and the accident rate.

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/us/news/auto-motor/does-car-color-impact-auto-insurance-rates-412670.aspx

https://adm.monash.edu/records-archives/archives/memo-archive/2004-2007/stories/20070613/black-cars.html

https://www.rd.com/article/car-color-accidents-risk/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300804/ Anonymous-232 (talk) 23:00, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

The first ref is useful for evidence of a misconception about red cars getting more speeding tickets and thus being more more expensive to insure, and I would support adding it, but the last three refs are not useful. They do not mention any connection between car colour and insurance costs or likelihood of getting a ticket. As for the reported minor differences in accident rates for various colours, so what? This list is a list of misconceptions, and there is nothing mentioned about any misconception related to colour and accident rates. Meters (talk) 23:18, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Hymen entry

@JoePhin added a cn tag to the assertion that "some women are born without one" and changed the wording of the first sentence from

Lack of a visible hymen is not a reliable indicator that a female has had penetrative sex

to

Lack of a visible hymen is not always an indication that a woman has had penetrative sex.

The cite says "Some people are even born without a hymen altogether, which doesn't seem to be a problem because as far as anyone can tell, the hymen has no biological purpose." so I think we have our cite. I'll remove the tag.

As for the wording, the cite states:

"Not only do hymens generally have holes in them from infancy, but there's also nothing else about them that can be used to reliably indicate sexual activity. For one thing, the tissue is fairly elastic in adults, so penetration doesn't necessarily cause any lasting changes."

So, the previous wording seems to better reflect the source. "Not always" would be true even if the indication was correct 99.9% of the time. Instead, it's just generally not a reliable indicator at all so we should say that. I'll restore the previous wording. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:22, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for moving the relevant citations to after the text. I didn't check any of the citations that appeared before the 'born without a hymen' statement, so I missed it. As for the reliable/not always wording, I think I prefer 'not always,' since in this case, what is and isn't 'reliable' is a little vague, whereas 'not always' is 100% accurate, no matter what the actual numbers (which I don't believe we have RS for) may be. What the entry is really trying to say is that the lack of a hymen is not a perfectly reliable indicator of conventional sexual activity, which it is of course not. We could just add the word 'perfectly' in before 'reliable', or we could say 'not always', either way. I'd be curious to know your thoughts, Mr. Swordfish. Joe (talk) 00:06, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

It is not our business as editors to make technically correct but misleading statements. Not always implies that whatever is under discussion usually occurs but there are exceptions. For instance:

If you flip a coin 32 times you don't always get 32 heads in a row.

is a technically correct statement, but would be misleading. Likewise, your language is misleading. Traditional virginity tests are unreliable, as clearly stated in the source (please read the excerpt above). Our job is to accurately reflect what the source says, not to obfuscate via a parsed "technically correct" dissembling wording.

Traditional virginity testing is pseudoscience and we should avoid language that gives it more credibility than is warranted (i.e. none). I would strongly object to inserting misleading qualifiers like perfectly that imply such tests have any reliability to determine virginity status one way or the other. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:58, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm afraid you may have misunderstood me, I'm talking about the first sentence that mentions the lack of a hymen, not the second sentence about traditional virginity tests. Modern scientific forensic rape tests assess many things, including the condition of the hymen, and while it is often not conclusive in and of itself, the hymen's condition is an indicator of whether or not conventional sexual activity has occurred. In many cases the absence of, or damage to, the hymen is indicative of conventional sexual activity, and the same Perlman source we're currently citing goes into that. Given that, I think the wording choice of 'not always' is superior to the current vague and potentially misleading phrasing - what is and isn't "reliable"? I think everyone would tell you a different cutoff point. We should strive to be precise. Joe (talk) 07:31, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Please take a look at this source [3] which clearly lays out some of the myths and misconceptions about this topic:

Myth #3: vaginal examination of the hymen can determine whether sexual assault (specifically, nonconsensual penetration) has occurred

FACT: alterations of the hymenal appearance are non-specific and, without corroboration with history and/or other forms of evidence, no medical or legal conclusion may be inferred by hymen examination alone

also

In some settings, clinicians who evaluate women and girls suspected of being victims of sexual assault, or suspected of having engaged in intercourse (with or without consent), rely on an examination of the hymen for their assessments. The hymen is a small membranous tissue outside of the vaginal canal that has no known biological function. We reviewed published studies about the hymen to help guide clinicians in evaluating whether or not a hymen examination would be a valuable practice.

We concluded that an examination of the hymen is not an accurate or reliable test of sexual activity, including sexual assault, except in very specific situations.

and the first sentence of the Summary:

There is no evidence that examination of the hymen is an accurate or reliable test of a previous history of sexual activity, including sexual assault.

and

Ultimately, evaluation of the hymen tissue, if visible, in and of itself, without supportive history, physical examination, or other forensic findings, could never answer the question of whether an individual – child or adult – had consensual or nonconsensual sex.

Given this, "not always" does not reflect what the sources say. "Not reliable or accurate" is a far better reflection of what the sourcing says.

That said, upon reading the sourcing I think that the entry should be reworded to use "examination of the hymen" instead of "Lack of a visible hymen" since that more accurately reflects the sourcing. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't be opposed to that "examination of the hymen" wording, and I think a portion of the ncbi source you've added should be incorporated as well, namely, that it is not considered best practice to rely solely on the condition of the hymen when determining whether a woman has had sexual intercourse, e.g. "avoid relying solely on the status of the hymen in sexual assault examinations and reporting". Something along the lines of,

"On its own, an examination of the hymen is not a reliable test of a woman's or girl's sexual history."

I believe this came up a year or two ago in a related discussion, and I'd like to re-emphasize, that I do not wish to give any women reading this page the misimpression that, if they have been raped, there is no possible test that can be performed to determine if they've had a sexual encounter one way or the other: such tests do exist and they are entirely scientific. In their fervor to discredit the entirely discreditable two-finger test, I fear some editors have far too radically tried to over-correct this entry to the point that it veers into vaguery and, at several points in the past, outright falsehood, though such edits have been reverted. For example, I recently reverted an edit that had gone unchallenged for far too long, someone replaced the original "traditional virginity tests" wording with something like "1800s virginity tests" - I'm sure whichever editor made this edit thought that it sounded more punchy or that it better discredited the two-finger test (the traditional virginity test being referred to), but of course, the fact is that the two-finger test is still being administered to this day in various parts of the world, and tests to determine whether someone has had sex were not invented in the 1800s. NPOV is important, especially when dealing with subjects that many readers (and editors) find sensitive or upsetting. I'm curious to know how you feel about this wording proposal. Joe (talk) 13:41, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

This entry is about virginity testing, not rape kits. If you read the article about that process it does not involve examining the hymen, since as per the source cited above doing so is not "accurate or reliable". Note that the word "hymen" does not even appear in the article on rape kits. Unless some other editors want to weigh in, it's time to move on. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I was commenting mainly about previous iterations of the entry - the current entry is mostly fine. If you don't have any objections to the proposed edits, I'm happy to call it there. Joe (talk) 14:06, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I thought we were done, but apparently not. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 01:40, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Stating

By itself, an examination of the hymen is not a reliable indicator that a woman or girl has had penetrative sex... (emphasis mine)

strongly implies that there is some other thing or things that in addition to an examination of the hymen would allow someone to draw reliable conclusions about a women's sexual history. So, what is this additional "thing" or "things"? Please show your work, including links to reliable sources.

We seem to have agreed that this entry is not about forensic tests (ie rape kits) which need to be done within a narrow 2 or 3 day window to be valid. If that's your argument, please say so.

Including "By itself," implies that there are valid virginity tests, which is very strongly at odds with the topic article which dismisses them as "pseudoscience". I'm removing the unsourced misleading language. Please try to reach consensus here before continuing to edit war. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 01:40, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Section ordering

Do we have a convention for the ordering of sections and subsections? Recently, an editor reordered the subsections of the religion section asking "doesn't it make sense to put Judaism before Christianity?" I can't say I disagree, but looking at the article sometimes we order things chronologically (e.g. the history section), sometimes we order things alphabetically (eg the Science, technology, and mathematics section) and sometimes I can't tell what order we use (e.g the Biology subsection).

I think it makes a lot of sense to present the history subsections in chronological order. I'm not convinced that doing that for the Religion subsection is best, partially because it's not clear whether Buddhism predates Judaism or the other way around. I can't say I have strong feelings about this one way or the other, but thought it worth bringing up for discussion. Other opinions? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:51, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

The rule on Wikipedia is "order it somehow." We need all the sections to be ordered, but we don't need the ordering to be the same for all the different sections. It makes sense for the history ones to be chronological, and it doesn't make sense for the math, technology, or religion ones, since many of those misconceptions don't relate to a single event, or span a large range of time. I'd personally say we should keep the original religion order the same as before, but it really does not matter in the grand scheme of things, as long as it is ordered according to some principle. Joe (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think a strictly chronological order makes sense; agree with your concerns about Buddhism. However, it makes sense to group the Abrahamic religions together as they're related belief systems, and when they are grouped together, it makes sense to consider Judaism first as it's the base for the other religions. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:40, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Proposed Entry: Constantine I did not establish Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire

Previously added 22 March, removed by Mr Swordfish without explaination. Presumably because not introduced in this talk page first.

The misconception is noted on the Edict of Milan's own page. As far as I can see crtieria 1, 2, 3, and 4 are met. If not please illuminate. Rayguyuk (talk) 00:34, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I see in the Edict of Milan article where it is mentioned, though without sourcing to back up the claim. I don't see that criteria 2, 3, or really even 4 are met here. - Aoidh (talk) 01:16, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

thanks. is https://study.com/academy/lesson/edict-milan-history-facts.html a suitable source? the author is an MA in World History and a BA in History and Political Science from Northeastern University. They specifially state:

"A popular misconception holds that the Edict of Milan established Christianity as the official state religion of the Roman Empire. This is incorrect. While Constantine converted to Christianity during his reign, it would take another few decades, until the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 CE, for Christianity to be made the state religion."

If it's suitable I can fill in the missing citation on the Edict of Milan page. I would believe this then meets criteria 2, 3, 4 as the source is dated 2023. yes? Rayguyuk (talk) 00:55, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

This is a list of common misconceptions. You'd need to establish that some sizable number of people have some conception of the Edict of Milan and that those conceptions are incorrect. My sense is that few people have even heard of the Edict of Milan, let alone have some opinion about it. I'm willing to be proven wrong, but study.com appears to be a crowd sourced site and is not a reliable source. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 02:12, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

It was the credentials of the author I was appealing to, not study.com as a whole.

Even so, here's Bart Ehrman, distinguished professor at the university of North Carolina (MDiv, PhD), author of 6 NY times best sellers on early Christianity...

"..a third thing that is commonly said about the emperor Constantine and the council of Nicea that is also wrong ... (for some inscrutable reason) that Constantine made Christianity the “state religion” of the Roman empire. This too is wrong. ... He and his co-emperor Licinius agreed to a kind of treaty of peace for the Christians, the famous “Edict of Milan” in 313 CE. This brought an end to the persecution. Constantine did NOT, however, make Christianity the state religion."

source: https://ehrmanblog.org/constantine-christianity/

So this illustrates that this is 1) popularly held ("common") 2) refuted by credible source and 3) contemporary

I agree with what you say that most people with the misconception are unlikely to have heard of the Edict of Milan itself, it's just that this is what they're usually unknowingly referring to since it made Christianity legal but not the state religion.

So I suggest I reframe the popular misconception as "Constantine made Christianity the state religion" as that's more specifically what Ehrman refers to, and I will add reference to the Edict of Milan as clarification rather than the misconception itself.

As to whether or not you've personally heard of it, surely you should let credentialled experts speak for themselves as to what's common or popularly wrong. I can cite elsewhere in Ehrman's publications where he explains that the misconception is popular due to it being referenced in The Da Vinci Code book and films. 2A00:23EE:2680:931:7CC3:5CDE:2761:5049 (talk) 10:09, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

My undergraduate topology textbook says that it is a common misconception that in a metric space, compactness is the same thing as closed and bounded. Now, I wouldn't advocate adding that as an entry here since few people even know what a metric space and compactness are. As editors, we need to use our editorial judgment to decide how common something must be to include it here. My judgement on the entry at hand is that it's in the same category as the misconception I mentioned above. Just because there is a reliable source supporting it is not enough to include entry. Of course, different editors may have a different judgement and if there's consensus to include this entry I'm not going to fight it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 18:43, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry but that is quite a false equivalance. The Constantine misconception is stated in the Da Vinci Code film and book collectively viewed by hundreds of millions of people. The film has been on worldwide release for almost 20 years. It's in the top ten rated films for 2006. The book alone was bought by 80 million people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code). Read by countless more.

"SIR LEIGH TEABING: 'So Constantine may have been a lifelong pagan, but he was also a pragmatist. And in 325 anno Domini, he decided to unify Rome under a single religion, Christianity.'"

https://transcripts.thedealr.net/script.php/the-da-vinci-code-2006-1bXN

Bart Erhman writes for a popular audience, he has written 6 New York Times bestsellers on Christianity. When he says this is a "common" misconception about Constantine he's referring to his audience, the hundreds of millions who have seen or read The Da Vinci Code and absorbed the false idea that Constantine was the one who made Christianity the religion of Rome. To the extent that he wrote a specific book rebutting these popular misconceptions from the film: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Truth-Fiction-Vinci-Code-Constantine/dp/0195307135.

I'm not sure how much more evidence can be put. It's a plainly false fact put forward in a film and book enjoyed by an audience of hundreds of millions. A highly credentialed scholar and popular author in this area says it is a "common" misunderstanding. A misconception so extant that he wrote a book aimed at the general public setting the facts straight. I severely doubt even half of the rest of this page is attested in this way. Rayguyuk (talk) 02:57, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

The first sentence of Constantine the Great and Christianity says:

During the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (306–337 AD), Christianity began to transition to the dominant religion of the Roman Empire.

The lede goes on to say:

Some scholars allege that his main objective was to gain unanimous approval and submission to his authority from all classes, and therefore he chose Christianity to conduct his political propaganda, believing that it was the most appropriate religion that could fit with the imperial cult. Regardless, under the Constantinian dynasty Christianity expanded throughout the empire, launching the era of the state church of the Roman Empire.[1]

Is that all that different than your quote from the da Vinci code:

So Constantine may have been a lifelong pagan, but he was also a pragmatist. And in 325 anno Domini, he decided to unify Rome under a single religion, Christianity.

The Da Vinci Code is a work of fiction that presents "an alternative religious history" and has been roundly criticized for its many historical inaccuracies. This particular claim doesn't stand out as more egregious than all the others, and actually seems to have support from some scholars. Is the alleged misconception that Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire? I think we can agree that this didn't happen until several decades after his death. OTOH, if people think that Constantine was responsible for bringing Christianity to the Romans, that's not really a misconception. Perhaps there's an entry to be had here, but it would seem to be "The Da Vinci Code has a lot of historical inaccuracies that some people believe." We'd need to turn that around to present it a a positive statement of fact and I'm not sure how to do that. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:26, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

"Is the alleged misconception that Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire? I think we can agree that this didn't happen until several decades after his death. OTOH, if people think that Constantine was responsible for bringing Christianity to the Romans, that's not really a misconception."

yes, you have it exactly. I am perhaps not making the point clearly or succintly enough. The misconception indeed asserts that he "made Christianity the official religion (or state religion) of the Roman Empire" when he did not.

Other sourced pages are clear about the use of the terms "official religion" or "state church" to not mean Constantine growing Christianity in the general sense, but specifically the act of state that made Christianity the single state backed religion of the Roman Empore.

Constantine_the_Great_and_Christianity "the state church of the Roman Empire declared by edict in 380" which of course Constantine didn't do because in 380 he'd been dead for 43 years.

History_of_Christianity: "Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, expressing tolerance for all religions, and legalizing Christian worship. As the first Christian emperor, Constantine did not make Christianity the official religion of the empire, but the steps he took to support and protect it were vitally important in the history of Christianity."

Christianity_as_the_Roman_state_religion: "On 27 February of the previous year, Theodosius I established, with the Edict of Thessalonica, the Christianity [...] as the official state religion, reserving for its followers the title of Catholic Christians"

Constantine did not make Christianity the official religion or create the state church.

As for the popularity of the misconception in this form we have:

Bart Ehrman: "It is widely believed (for some inscrutable reason) that Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire. This too is wrong."

We have Sir Teabing in the Da Vinco Code saying Constantine "in 325 anno Domini,... decided to unify Rome under a single religion, Christianity" which while perhaps technically true in one sense (he "decided"), it is easily gives the wrong impression that some singular act took place in 325 AD which achieved this "unification of the Roman Empore under Christianity". | In 325 AD modern estimates put the percentage population Christians in the Roman Empire at 10-20%. Constantine wanted the minority religion _Christianity_ to be unified, he did not "unify the Roman Empire under Christianity". He gave Christianity room to grow, he did not make it the state religion.

Richard Dawkins promulgating the misconception in exactly this form:

"It's ... the adoption of Christianity as the Roman Empire’s official religion by the Emperor Constantine in AD 312 — that led to Yahweh’s being worshipped around the world today"

- Richard Dawkins, Outgrowing God, 2019 (https://archive.org/details/outgrowing-god/page/12/mode/2up?q=historical)

and again on page 21..

"[Constatine] made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire" (ibid)

I suggest The Da Vinci Code implicitly saying it, and Richard Dawkins explicitly saying it, with Bart Ehrman calling it "widespread" establishes it as a popular misconception. I'm sure I can continue to find other examples. Rayguyuk (talk) 00:36, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I fear that the tale of Lactantius and Eusebius about the Vision of Constantine, and the medieval forgery of the Donation of Constantine have a lot to do with spreading this particular misconception. By the way, Constantine I was not even the sole Emperor in 312, and the edict of Milar was also authorized by Licinius. Dimadick (talk) 02:35, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Calcification

A common misconception is that calcification is caused by excess amount of calcium in diet. Dietary calcium intake is not associated with accumulation of calcium in soft tissue, and calcification occurs irrespective of the amount of calcium intake. Benjamin (talk) 23:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC) Benjamin (talk) 23:13, 30 April 2024 (UTC)