25 Things We Learned In School But Have Since Been Disproven

Information can evolve as new evidence emerges; it’s a fundamental aspect of the scientific process. As our understanding of the world deepens, we need to revise what we know. This also implies that certain knowledge acquired in school may become outdated in our lifetimes, as discussed by members of the r/ask online community in a popular thread. Below, we’ve gathered some of these users’ reflections on the facts that have changed since their school days. Take a look to explore what they have to share.

#1

Image source: astarisaslave, cottonbro studio / pexels

“High school’s gonna be the best four years of your life!”

Reader, it was not the best four years of my life

#2 Animals don’t use tools.

Image source: Canadianingermany, Mike R / Wikipedia

#3 That microwaves kill all the nutrients in food.

Image source: Acrobatic_Sport_4580, osseous / flickr

Bored Fox: Does anyone know where this myth started? I heard it was some chef who was trying to get people in his restaurant. :D

Ace: It’s been around for decades in one form or another, most probably originated from the fact that they use radiation, and radiation is “bad”, right? More recent social media platforms and the tendency of some to believe any old conspiracy theory keeps the myth alive.

Comedy Clumbers: Could have been (heavy sigh) my mother. She made us LEAVE THE ROOM until it dinged. She might still do this, but I’m enforcing LC for my own mental health, so can’t say for sure.

#4 That the English language has comprehensive and consistent rules.

Image source: FafnerTheBear, Ivan Samkov / pexels

#5 Pluto being a planet

Image source: TheKiwiQueen, NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker

#6 You can’t carry a calculator all day!

Image source: Heximalus, Karolina Grabowska / pexels

#7 Grade school in the US, mid 1970s: We will be converting to the metric system soon.

Image source: tlf555, Los Muertos Crew / pexels

#8

Image source: Ambitious-Try-3289, Mike Bowler / flickr

A lot of things that we learned about dinosaurs when I was in elementary school turned out to be wrong. We thought they were scaly and reptilian, turns out a lot of them had feathers, and were very brightly colored, and were more like birds in a lot of ways than reptiles. Dinosaurs we thought existed like brontosaurus, turned out to not have actually existed.

Just everything dinosaur. Everything dinosaur was wrong.

#9 Basically any idea promoted by the D.A.R.E campaign

Image source: Mort332e, Jay Reed / flickr

#10 Blood is blue until it is oxidized

Image source: Blue-Cuboid-Thing, Karolina Grabowska / pexels

#11 If you learn well, you`ll get a good job and will have a nice future. Total BS.

Image source: Steven_Dj, RDNE Stock project / pexels

#12 My teachers used to say “Video games will make you braindead.” Turns out video games were all about solving puzzles and problem solving and ended up increasing the cognitive abilities and critical thinking skills for children from a young age.

Image source: dasaigaijin, Jessica Lewis ? thepaintedsquare / pexels

#13 Nerves can’t regenerate and electron orbitals are circles. Basically, science keeps getting better and I had no idea these had changed for a long time.

Image source: Accomplished-Bad-481, RF._.studio / pexels

#14 That you have to do lots of extra curricular activities, sports, and volunteer work just to get into any colleg. Joke’s on them. I went to college 10 years after high school so none of it mattered.

Image source: greeneyes826, Mary Taylor / pexels

#15 1970’s elementary school – Global Cooling was in process. We would be out of oil by the end of the 80’s

Image source: Elvisruth, Guillaume Falco / pexels

#16 Trickle down economics

Image source: DntQuitYaDayJOB, energepic.com / pexels

#17 Areas of taste on the human tongue

Image source: prosperosniece, Pavel Danilyuk / pexels

#18 Gen X here. We’ll run out of oil by 2000.

Image source: RredditAcct, Istiaque Hossain / pexels

#19 That Christopher Columbus discovered America. Just ask native Americans about this one.

Image source: Hungry-Performer-363

#20 Cracking your knuckles will cause arthritis, plus basically everything in history class.

Image source: DanOfAllTrades80, Eren Li / pexels

#21 The food pyramid

Image source: drifters74, bigbrand . / flickr

#22 That your permanent record really does follow You for Life a bunch of Bologna

Image source: confessionofanartist, cottonbro studio / pexels

#23 While I was in college biology our teacher said she was forced to teach us that cell walls were rigid because that’s what the text book said but, she told us, it was not true–the phospho-lipid cell wall had just been discovered. So we learned it wrong and corrected all at the same time.

Image source: OutOfBody88, Monstera Production / pexels

#24 Just about everything they taught about nutrition was a lie… which is kinda insane when you think about it. An entire generation who doesn’t know how food works in your body

Image source: pigtailrose2, Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas / pexels

#25 Earth had 4 oceans. The 5th ocean plot twist was revealed to me in my late 30s. I didn’t know, guys!! Could someone please update Gen X when this stuff happens? There should at least be a weekly memo or something. We are all over here failing easy trivia questions because no one told us that there was a 5th damn ocean. ?

Image source: 27Jarvis, Kellie Churchman / pexels