Talk:List of common misconceptions/Archive 27

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Climate change entry

Is the newly-added entry about climate change really necessary? Sure, there is scientific consensus, and climate change denial is a thing, but does it really qualify as a common misconception? I question the neutrality and validity of that entry. Climate change denial isn't common enough to qualify much like other pseudoscientific topics that were discussed before DannyC55 (Talk) 04:23, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough if the consensus is to remove; I'm not attached to the entry and won't complain. I did wonder about the definition of "misconception" in deciding whether to add the entry (including how common an entry must be to qualify, which I believe is a question that has come up before) and why such an entry would not already exist here, but decided to just be bold about it. [1], [2], and [3] were my references. My thought was that even the "human-caused" part was worth highlighting since there appeared to be a large number of people who weren't confident in the belief that scientists consent on that aspect. Anderjef (talk) 04:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I question this. "The climate is warming and this is caused by human activities." The sources say it is primarily caused by humans, not that it is entirely caused. "No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view." Is this part of the misconception? I suspect that most people know that the official bodies agree that humans cause warming. People do have some disagreements, and so do some scientists. It is not clear to me what the misconception is. Roger (talk) 06:46, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll argue that this is clearly a common misconception, maybe one of the most common misconceptions of our time. Since the existence of global warming has become a political issue, many people form their beliefs about it along partisan political lines (and I accuse people on the left and right equally), totally ignoring any and all facts on the matter, and much misinformation and propaganda about it has been spread. We literally have more than one page about this. This RS sums up the commonness of the misconception nicely:

"If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again. ... outside Hollywood, Manhattan and other habitats of the chattering classes, the denial machine is running at full throttle—and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion. Since the late 1980s, this well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change. Through advertisements, op-eds, lobbying and media attention, greenhouse doubters (they hate being called deniers) argued first that the world is not warming; measurements indicating otherwise are flawed, they said. Then they claimed that any warming is natural, not caused by human activities. Now they contend that the looming warming will be minuscule and harmless. 'They patterned what they did after the tobacco industry,' says former senator Tim Wirth."

I'm sad to see some questioning if this addition negatively impacts the neutrality of this page. Reporting the straight facts should never constitute a breach of neutrality, yet I can hardly blame anyone for thinking that way, what with the current state of our politics on the issue. I beg you, gentle reader, to consider a hypothetical version of reality in which the existence of muons had become the subject of much polemical political debate. Would it impinge upon Wikipedia's neutrality, in such a reality, to unabashedly report that muons exist, when all scientific apparatuses competent to comment on the fact also report that muons exist, despite all the myriad political forces and demographics denying their existence? Of course not, muons exist, and it isn't partial of us to say so in a Wikipedia article, no matter the prevailing political whims on the subject. As long as we are not making any prescriptions about what should be done about climate change, and only reporting the fact of its existence, neutrality is preserved. Joe (talk) 10:18, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I just don't think climate change denial is 'common' enough to qualify. Yes, it has become a greater political and scientific issue in recent times, but it's still a fringe belief and not as widespread as other misconceptions in the article. Take other "politically charged" entries, like the one saying that global poverty is declining. Both the entry and the sources cited explicitly state that the opposite belief ("global poverty is staying the same or increasing") is widespread. I haven't taken a look at the sources for the climate change entry yet, but unless they contain some sort of survey or research showing that "climate change isn't happening/isn't man-made/isn't dangerous" are widely believed claims, then I don't think it qualifies. DannyC55 (Talk) 14:55, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

[4] "caused by human pollution/human activities" for US adults is only 65% (2017-2021). [5] "climate change is mostly due to human activity" is 50% for US adults (2014). Granted, I found these sources independent of the climate change Wikipedia pages.

And heaven knows that where I'm from, communal consensus on the existence of climate change is not something to take for granted (I'm quite sad to say). Anderjef (talk) 15:06, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I see. Well, if that's the case then the entry can stay, but the wording should clarify that it is indeed a common misconception, like the global poverty one. I can do that later. DannyC55 (Talk) 15:13, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I think you have some fair points. If climate change itself is not deemed a misconception (which I personally think it is), I would argue that the "human-caused" aspect of it is. (Sure the climate is affected by many factors, but is there disagreement to the cause of the current climate change?) And yes I felt the wording could be improved, but I was rehashing some of the material from the climate change page and fully expected adjustments to the entry by others. Anderjef (talk) 15:12, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes I agree with that. Even climate change deniers say that they don't deny that climate is changing, just the scientific consensus on human causes and the harmful consequences. I believe that's the biggest misconception when it comes to climate change. DannyC55 (Talk) 15:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

You need to be precise about the consensus, and the misconception. You could say: Most scientists agree that most of the recent warming is attributable to increased CO2 emissions. I do not think that there is a consensus on the harmful consequences. I am not sure about the misconception, as I think most people accept that. Roger (talk) 16:45, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree about the harmful consequences—consequences weren’t intended to be the focus (at that point, if individual consequences were deemed misconceptions I would list them as subbullets). IMO, both climate change and it being caused by humans are worthwhile inclusions, though I feel they would go well combined.

I also think it should be quite clear what proportion (i.e., “most” could be anywhere from 50-100% which provides a lot of wiggle room) of scientists and for how long have reached climate-change consensus. Anderjef (talk) 18:36, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

There is some significant subset of people denying global warming who are of the "It isn't happening" flavor and another significant subset of the "It is happening, but it isn't caused by humans" flavor, and yet another subset of the "It is happening, and it might be caused by humans, but that's actually a good thing! We'll have giant fruits like during the Jurassic!" flavor. The first two flavors are definitely widespread enough to warrant being included as misconceptions (and it's fine to roll them into one entry, as we do for other closely related misconceptions) and we have copious RS to back that up. The third flavor, well, I'm fairly certain that too is actually a misconception, but I don't know that I've got any RS to that effect, and even if we did have RS for the third one, since it deals with what might happen in the future, I'd be more reluctant to add it. Although there definitely is a scientific consensus that rapid global warming will have some negative consequences, who am I to say that we won't also have giant fruits "like in the Jurassic"? - I think we can leave out that third flavor and still cover the bulk of the misconceptions on the subject - the two flavors that are concretely described in the RS as common misconceptions. Joe (talk) 20:41, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with the premise of this point. The climate change entry isn't about climate change denial (which is pseudoscience), it's about the misconception that there is no consensus in the scientific community on whether recent climate change is anthropogenic. If somebody mistakenly believes that scientists are uncertain whether recent climate change is anthropogenic in origin, that is not denial, it is a misconception. Given that a significant proportion of the US population do not believe that the Earth is warming due to human activity, I think the climate change point is both (1) a misconception and (2) common. Scleractinian (talk) 06:39, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

It is called "consensus denial". See climate change denial#Taxonomy of climate change denial. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:04, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Vetting new entries first, on the talk page

Concerns about the length of this article have generated two different (not mutually exclusive) approaches: splitting the article, and refining the process or criteria for adding new items. I've started a new thread to deal with the latter approach only, based on discussion under "Splitting this article". I propose an addition to the editors' notes, given below, with a quoted change inserted:

READ THIS FIRST: Criteria for entries to this list

Whether an item should be included is often a contentious issue. It is preferred to propose new items on the talk page first. A rigid consensus on inclusion criteria for this list does not exist, but an item added to the list must at least fulfill the following:

The topic the misconception is related to has an article of its own.

The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.

The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.

The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete.

If you have a suggested item that does not fulfill these criteria but you still think should be included, please suggest it on the talk page.

I also suggest removing the {{Dynamic list}} template, as the wording suggests that an incomplete list might be remedied by adding as many well sourced misconceptions as possible. _signed, Willondon (talk) 21:13, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Two things:

I don't dislike you're proposed addition, although I'm reluctant to add anything. I am totally opposed to adding any hard-and-fast criteria that entries must be discussed in talk before being added, as this not only goes against the ethos of Wikipedia, it would also create an onerous burden on editors and greatly diminish the overall quality of the page. I know you're not making such a suggestion, Willondon, but others may, and I wish to express my absolute opposition to any such suggestions. As I said, I don't really want to add anything, but if we were to add your line, I'd suggest removing the phrase "If you have a suggested item that does not fulfill these criteria..." in favor of something like, "If you have an item that does not fulfill these criteria..." and not use the word 'suggest' twice over.

I oppose removing the dynamic list template. I happen to believe that this list would be improved by adding more well-sourced entries that meet the inclusion criteria. If there are notable common misconceptions, Wikipedia absolutely should cover them, and they absolutely should be included on a list of common misconceptions. If the over-burgeoning ocean of common human misconceptions is so enormous that such a page would be too large to be functional, then the solution isn't to cherry-pick some common misconceptions and leave out other equally valid ones; if there really are too many common misconceptions for one page, then the correct solution is to split the page, as has been proposed. I'm not sure if we're there yet, but regardless, that probably will be what must happen at some point, given that I'm sure there are plenty more common misconceptions that really do belong on this page. I believe that this is an incomplete list, and editors can help by adding more entries to it. Joe (talk) 21:48, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I hoped to start a thread that would separate splitting the article from refining inclusion expectations. _signed, Willondon (talk) 22:45, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

support. This sounds like good language to me for the READ THIS FIRST header.

Agree with your suggestion to change the Dynamic list template, but this is probably not the venue for that. It has it's own talk page, so that's probably the place. Oops. I misread your suggestion. I'd be in favor of changing the template, but that may not be so easy. Need to think some more about whether to remove it. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:50, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the template is fine for its purpose. I just meant to remove it here, or replace it with more appropriate text for this article. _signed, Willondon (talk) 22:16, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I guess while I'm at it, I would change the existing text from "must at least fulfill the following" to "should at least fulfill". Again, I don't like interpretations of guidelines and consensus to be phrased as laws. _signed, Willondon (talk) 22:24, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I like that "should at least fulfill" idea. That's my style! Joe (talk) 23:11, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not against vetting new entries on the talk page, I do it most of the time; having editors voice their opinions and reaching a consensus is never bad. I'm not of the opinion that this article is spiraling out of control in regards to its size (honestly I think it's only really a problem when editing) but refining the addition process by advising editors to propose entries in the talk page first before adding them would solve most of the perceived issues with this article. DannyC55 (Talk) 21:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Note: I made a request to add the line to the introduction at Template talk:Editnotices/Page/List of common misconceptions, and to change must to should, regarding the criteria. _signed, Willondon (talk) 17:57, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

This change has been implemented. I proposed a re-wording that seems to read better, comments cheerfully accepted. See Template talk:Editnotices/Page/List of common misconceptions Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:27, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I take issue with this wording: "Whether an item should be included is often a contentious issue. It is preferred to propose new items on the talk page first, especially if your suggested item does not fulfill these criteria but you still think should be included."

For one, whether an item should be included is actually rarely a contentious issue. The vast majority of entries get included without any talk page discussion at all.

For two, I strongly prefer that people add material, and if there is some issue with it, only then should it be brought up in talk per WP:BRD. Discussing everything that gets added to the page, when most of the entries that get added are perfectly fine as they are (plus or minus a little copyediting here and there) is tedious, onerous, and counterproductive to one of the goals of Wikipedia, namely, being a freely edited encyclopedia. If this page was about a living person or some hot-button current issue, then perhaps making such a suggestion would make sense, but it isn't and it doesn't.

I strongly oppose this proposed revision to Willondon's phrasing. Aside from my issue with to double-use of the word "suggestion," I'm quite happy with the current wording to the effect that one should suggest a proposed entry in talk if one's proposal 'does not fulfill the inclusion criteria.' Joe (talk) 20:43, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The current wording of the text added to the dropdown menu reads thus: "If you have a suggested item that does not fulfill these criteria but you still think should be included, please suggest it on the talk page."

I'm quite happy with it, except for one big flaw and one niggling little thing. The big thing is, we're missing an 'it', namely, it currently reads

If you have a suggested item that does not fulfill these criteria but you still think should be included...

When it should read,

If you have a suggested item that does not fulfill these criteria but you still think it should be included...

The niggling thing is that I don't care for the use and reuse of 'if you have a suggested item... please suggest it on the talk page' and I'd prefer it read something like:

If you have an entry that does not fulfill these criteria but you still think it should be included, please suggest it on the talk page.

Thoughts on this suggestion? If someone with editing privileges would go ahead and fix the missing 'it,' regardless of the other stuff, that'd be nice. Joe (talk) 20:49, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

The change has to be made by an administrator. I misjudged the consensus, though I let it rest for a few days before proposing the edit template change. Whatever our deliberations come up with, let's wait to be sure, before tasking an administrator with another change. I'm still thinking about it (I noticed, too, the awkwardness of referring to the talk page twice), but I don't know that I have anything more to say than I've said. _signed, Willondon (talk) 21:38, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking upthread, there were no objections, so it appeared that we had consensus and it's understandable that you asked the administrator to change it. I We now have one objection (from someone who earlier stated "I don't dislike you're proposed addition") and the change has been reverted.

I'll restate my position, which is that new entries should be proposed on the talk page and only included when there is consensus to include them. This is in keeping with WP:BOLD, which encourages readers "... to fix problems, correct grammar, add facts, make sure wording is accurate, etc." It does not say "feel free to add anything that you think might be somehow related", instead stating

"If you would like to make a significant edit—not just a simple copyedit—to an article on a controversial subject, it is a useful idea to first read the article in its entirety and skim the comments on the talk page. On controversial articles, the safest course is to be cautious and find consensus before making changes..."

Adding new entries to this page seems to me to be a situation where editors should "find consensus before making changes" as per the advice given on help pages. Note that the text that was added to (and then removed from) the template was not a rule but a preference.

I'd suggest the following language

READ THIS FIRST: Criteria for entries to this list

A rigid consensus on inclusion criteria for this list does not exist, but an item added to the list should at least fulfill the following:

1. The topic to which the misconception is related has an article of its own.
2. The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.
3. The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.
4. The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete.

Whether an item should be included can sometimes be a contentious issue. It is preferred to propose new items on the talk page first, especially if your suggested item does not fulfill these criteria but you still think it should be included.

It is my preference that new items be proposed first on the talk page. If that is the preference of enough editors that we have a consensus then we should state that in the template. So, lets hear from other editors: is that your preference or no? Thanks. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:29, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

(Reiterating here for anyone who can't be bothered to read the small book's worth of prior discussion above and in the Splitting the article section)

We should continue to follow WP:BRD on this page. Editors should not fill up the talk page with requests for comment on every entry they might add, not only because it doing so would be onerous, but also because it would needlessly gunk up the talk page with a bunch of sections. As discussed above, in the vast majority of cases entries are added without ever being discussed on the talk page.

I prefer that people don't suggest new items on the talk page first. I prefer that we continue to use BRD as our preferred standard. I prefer we don't make this the single longest talk page on all of Wikipedia. Given all that, I have to oppose this wording. I believe the current wording is fine as it is. Joe (talk) 17:35, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Please see the opening two sentences of WP:BRD which say "The BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (BRD) is an optional method of seeking consensus. This process is not mandated by Wikipedia policy..."

Also see WP:FOLLOWBRD for more discussion about how consensus is reached on the talk page. In sum, BRD is one of many ways to reach consensus that may be applicable in some cases, but is inappropriate in many if not most.

Looking upthread, we get a lot of suggestions that do not make it into the article. Dealing with them is not "onerous" and I would much rather see the talk page "gunked up" with suggestions than having poorly sourced or insufficiently common entries in the article itself. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:59, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that we should mandate BRD, but it is my preferred operational method for editing, and it is in fact the method that the vast majority editors employ when editing this page - that is, boldly adding content and then discussing it in talk if there is some issue, which there usually isn't. So as not to be misunderstood, I should be clear that I have no problem if any individuals wish to propose entries on talk first - people may of course edit however they please - I'm not suggesting that we should say "BRD is preferred," I don't want us to say anything is preferred.

Boldly adding content is actually the way the majority of editors who work on this page prefer to edit it, there is actually not a preference for entries to be proposed on talk first, and so putting anything to the effect that 'it is preferred to propose new items in talk' into the dropdown would be incorrect as a matter of fact. The majority of editors who use the page obviously do not prefer that, since they do not edit that way. In fact, correct me if I'm wrong Mr Swordfish, but I don't seem to recall you bringing up your recent "Men and women have the same number of ribs" entry in talk before adding it. It seems to me that even you do not actually prefer to bring entries up in talk before adding them.

My wish is for editors to follow their own editorial sense and employ whatever method they like. We should not mandate anything, we shouldn't even suggest anything is 'preferred'. It's fine to ask people to "please bring it up in talk" if a proposed entry doesn't meet the inclusion criteria, but I am strongly opposed to anything more. Asking everyone to perform extra editing steps when those steps are not needed in the vast majority of all cases is, in fact, onerous. Joe (talk) 03:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I've said what I have to say, and so has Joe. Let's hear from some other editors. Thanks. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 17:34, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I am somewhat opposed to expecting new entries be vetted by the talk page. It would be red tape for entries which would otherwise be determined to belong. I much prefer (such as with the climate-change entry) that if there is contention, it be introduced on the talk page with possible removal of the entry from the article meanwhile. However, I would stand behind the idea of non-met criteria leading to bringing it up in talk first. Anderjef (talk) 17:16, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Mark Jackson and Savannah James

I have to strongly disagree with Mr. Swordfish's removal of my contribution to the article "list of common misconceptions," in which I debunked the myth that Mark Jackson declared his sexual interest in LeBron James' wife during the television broadcast of Game 1 of the 2018 NBA Finals. Mr. Swordfish stated as his reasoning that it is not a common misconception, but I would argue that it absolutely is. It frequently resurfaces on social media (I can't count the number of times I've seen it over the years since it aired) and there are numerous articles about it online as any quick Google search would tell you. It is clear to me that many people — perhaps even the majority of people — genuinely believe that Mark Jackson declared his interest in having sex with Savannah James live on the air during an NBA Finals game. It is misinformation that needs to be clarified and countered, and I think it should be put back on the page. 2601:240:CB80:36A0:10F8:A459:B5A4:42C8 (talk) 00:07, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

My objection would be that it isn't a common misperception because it's on the radar even of only a very, very tiny slice of the population (just U.S. even, not even speaking globally). It's very U.S.- and basketball-centric. Even among the vast minority who follow NBA at all, I would guess the number of people who even know who Mark Jackson is, never mind what it's claimed that he said, is even far fewer. I respect your interest in NBA, but the social media you follow, the Google searches you perform, and the information calculated to be served up for your total on-line experience might make it seem that the misperception is far more widely perceived than it actually is. It's a niche misperception in the big picture. Only a relative handful of people would even know it's a thing, never mind whether or not it's true.

The original objection was based on lack of mention in the linked articles, which is one of the guidelines to including an item. The three Wikilinks were

• LeBron James: no match on "Jackson" or "2018" mentioning the incident;
• Mark Jackson: no match on "LeBron", "James", "wife" or "2018";
• 2018 NBA Finals: no relevant match on "LeBron" or "wife"; match for "Jackson" only says he was a commentator.

So the item really isn't as common as you might have thought it was, which is why I disagree with including it. _signed, Willondon (talk) 01:14, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not even clearly established as a misconception, common or no. The first reference treats it as true. The second says it's ambiguous: "Nobody may be able to figure out what Mark Jackson was trying to say here...". The third reference is a YouTube video that we're supposed to watch and employ original research to conclude that he didn't actually mean it the way it was reported in the first cite. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:26, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

While I still disagree with the idea that it's not a common misconception (among NBA fans at least), and I think the references do in fact back up my side of things, the idea that knowledge of the NBA isn't widespread enough for this passage to warrant inclusion on the primary Wikipedia article about misconceptions is fair. Thus I'll consider this debate thread closed at this time and I appreciate the ability to have an open discussion about it. 2601:240:CB80:36A0:419B:569:A441:9378 (talk) 00:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

"I would guess the number of people who even know who Mark Jackson is" I have never heard of him. I have heard of LeBron James due to Space Jam: A New Legacy, but I could not report anything about his career as a sportsman. Dimadick (talk) 12:09, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Spinach and iron

Text (largely taken from Spinach):

Although spinach is touted as being high in iron and calcium content, and is often served and consumed in its raw form, raw spinach contains high levels of oxalates, which block absorption of calcium and iron in the stomach and small intestine. Spinach cooked in several changes of water has much lower levels of oxalates and is better digested and its nutrients absorbed more completely. In addition to preventing absorption and use, high levels of oxalates remove iron from the body.

Basically, the misconception is that raw spinach is a good source of iron (and calcium), which it is not because oxalates block absorption. My issue is that while I have heard of spinach as being a good source of iron (though never heard of it touted for its calcium), I am not certain how common the misconception is. To me, it seems "Spinach is a good/great source of iron" is common, but I do not know how many of those who would make such a statement are aware of the caveat that this requires a certain method of preparation.

Also adapted from Spinach:

Fictional character Popeye the Sailor Man's strength gain from consuming cans of spinach is usually attributed to the iron content of spinach, but in a 1932 strip, Popeye says "spinach is full of vitamin A an' tha's what makes hoomans (sic) strong and helty (sic)".

I care a lot less about this one, but perhaps it is a common misconception that the source of Popeye's strength is the iron in the spinach, which, (according to Popeye) it is not and is rather the vitamin A content (which real spinach doesn't even contain)? Anderjef (talk) 23:57, 23 July 2022 (UTC) Anderjef (talk) 23:57, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Seems like an obvious case for a common misconception to me. Go ahead and add some combination of it, I say. Joe (talk) 11:13, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

References

Misconception or urban legend? (again): sperm in swimming pools

It is not possible to get pregnant from semen released in a swimming pool without penetration. The sperm cells would be quickly killed by the chlorinated water and would not survive long enough to reach the vagina.

I'd say this qualifies both as an urban legend (as it is spread through stories, either in IRL hearsay or online) and as a misconception (as it is a general "fact" that some believe to be true). As for how prevalent it is: it has managed to fool (or rather, make a fool of) an Indonesian government official, and I personally remember a heated debate about it in middle school biology class. If editors reach an agreement, it could be added to Non-penetrative sex or Swimming pool sanitation before turned into an entry.

DannyC55 (Talk) 02:46, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Given what the lede of List of urban legends describes it would seem to fit here much better, as there's nothing unusual/spooky about it and it's not a story per se, it's just misinformation. - Aoidh (talk) 02:57, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I mean, it has been a subject of stories (such as one claiming that 16 girls got pregnant that way in a pool to it) and has a "fear inducing element", but more broadly, yes, it does qualify more as a misconception. DannyC55 (Talk) 04:10, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

There's nothing that says that it has to be one or the other; the lede for this article says that some of the entries are urban legends, and there are several entries here that are "duplicated" there. I do not think this is a problem. My editorial sense is that it's an appropriate entry as long as it's backed by the required sourcing. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:29, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I believe that the Snopes and Newshub sources are the best. I will add it to the Non-penetrative sex article under the Health risks section. DannyC55 (Talk) 22:18, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I've just added the proposed entry to this article. Good proposal Danny! Joe (talk) 22:22, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Well thank you, Joe. Which article did you add the misconception to first? (to fulfill criteria 3) DannyC55 (Talk) 22:32, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Oh, herp derp, I didn't add it anywhere else besides the Common Misconceptions article, I thought you'd already added it to the Non-penetrative sex article, but I see you haven't. I'll go ahead and add it there for good measure too. Cheers. Joe (talk) 11:11, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Heh, I assumed you did the same. Thanks for handling it all for me. DannyC55 (Talk) 16:49, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

RfC concerning the relationship between List of common misconceptions and List of topics characterized as pseudoscience

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus was reached to 1 allow topics to reside in both articles and 2 not add additional inclusion criteria to this page. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 22:57, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

---

There are two questions.

1. Should the two articles be disjoint, i.e. a topic that appears on one should not appear on the other. Yes or no?
   
2. If the consensus on question 1 is no, what criteria should be used to determine which pseudoscience topics to include on the list of common misconceptions?

Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:54, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment One editor proposed the following distinction between pseudoscience and misconceptions: A pseudoscience is something at least some people choose to believe despite the scientific community rejecting it, as opposed to misconception where people are not informed of accepted facts. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 19:54, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• 1. No. 2. A topic should be in a list of common misconceptions iff there are adequate sources showing that it is (a) common and (b) wrong. Some topics will have sources for both being a common misconception and being pseudoscience, some won't. -- Visviva (talk) 21:09, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• They are completely different things with very little in common. North8000 (talk) 21:23, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  Care to elaborate? What are the differences? Do you agree with the above proposed distinction? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:49, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  Pseudoscience is just a claim which is falsely purported to be based on the scientific method. Common misconceptions are just any common and incorrect belief. There is absolutely no reason why there couldn't be overlap in these two categories. That doesn't mean all pseudoscience is the subject of common misconceptions, of course, but there is overlap, and we should not arbitrarily exclude such material from this page. Joe (talk) 22:12, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

• 1) No, the common misconception article and the pseudoscience article should not be disjointed because some subjects characterized as pseudoscience are also the subject of common misconceptions. Also, the common misconception page naturally overlaps with other pages, since one of the inclusion criteria for the common misconceptions page is that the subject be featured somewhere else on Wikipedia before it can be added here. Joe (talk) 22:06, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• 2) No new criteria are needed to determine if pseudoscience subjects can be listed on this page, the common misconceptions page already has several criteria for inclusion, those criteria are already quite adequate, and we already include several subjects characterized as pseudoscience on this page, e.g., 'vaccines cause autism,' 'the Bermuda Triangle,' 'astrology,' etc., etc. Arbitrarily making it so that pseudoscience topics can't be listed here would make this page considerably less encyclopedic and lower its overall quality. As long as reliable sources state that a belief is common and incorrect, it may be included on this page. If the reliable sources also state that a common and incorrect belief is a pseudoscience, that shouldn't make any difference. Joe (talk) 22:06, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Visviva states succinctly, "A topic should be in a list of common misconceptions iff there are adequate sources showing that it is (a) common and (b) wrong." (note the mathematical jargon "iff" which stands for "if and only if"). Are you in agreement with that? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 01:48, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  Well, there are other criteria for inclusion on this page, so, keeping in mind that "wrong" and "common" are not the only inclusion criteria, yes, User Visviva's criteria of "wrong" and "common" are good. It's also two of the criteria that we already use, so we don't need to add it. I believe one of the inclusion criteria is something like, 'The item is reliably sourced with respect to the factual contents of the item, and that it is common' or something to that effect - which is why we already include several pseudoscience related topics which also happen to be common and wrong beliefs among the general public. Joe (talk) 02:19, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, to be clear I didn't mean to suggest any change in the list's current inclusion criteria, which seem perfectly cromulent to me. -- Visviva (talk) 02:47, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

• Comment The fact that we want to include some pseudoscience subjects on this page should not be misconstrued to mean that we want to include all pseudoscience subjects. Obviously many pseudoscience subjects are either not very common, were once common but are no more, or they may not even constitute 'beliefs' in such a way as would be required for inclusion on this page. However, in cases where any false claim is widely believed by the public (pseudoscientific or not) it may belong on this page. There's no need to start erecting arbitrary barriers. Joe (talk) 22:06, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• 1) No. 2) The criteria should be the same inclusion criteria this article already has, particularly "The common misconception is current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete." Some pseudoscientific topics are no longer widely believed, such as alchemy, while others are indeed still common misconceptions, such as astrology. If it can be attested that belief in a pseudoscientific topic is current and widespread, it should be listed in this article. --DannyC55 (Talk) 02:31, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
• 1) No and I only said above it should be avoided. 2) Given the discussions above any attempt at new criteria is going to be distorted so people can get in the items they want regardless of consensus, citations or reason. The criteria we have is fine as long as they are not distorted. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 03:41, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
• 1) No, but there should be some consolidation and consistency. 2) I am a great believer in having detail in one place only with links from other places requiring reference. So I suggest List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience be the repository of detail on all misconceptions regarding science, technology and mathemaice and the section Science, technology, and mathematics of the List_of_common_misconceptions article be consolidated into the List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience article leaving behind only links to the current misconceptions. Tom94022 (talk) 06:56, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree that it's best to have details on one place with links from other places. Note the sentence in the intro to this page:

  These entries are concise summaries of the main subject articles, which can be consulted for more detail.

  and the inclusion criteria #3 :

  The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.

  (Granted, a fair number of entries go into extraneous detail that should be reserved for the topic article, which is something I'd like to work on in coming weeks. But that's a topic for another thread.)

  Perusing the Science, technology, and mathematics section very few of the entries would be correctly classified as pseudoscience, so I don't think your proposal to move everything in that section to the other list would be workable. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:15, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

• 1) No There are a lot of lists on Wikipeida and sometimes it makes sense for them to have no overlap. For instance, if one list is a proper subset of another it can make sense to create a separate sub-list and require a one-or-the-other choice for each item. But that's not the case here - as Visviva notes above, some topics will have sources for both being a common misconception and being pseudoscience, some won't.
  2) There seems to be an emerging consensus that the current inclusion criteria is sufficient - a common belief that is incorrect (and meets the other criteria) is enough and we don't need to add additional criteria. That said, the notion of incorrect may be subject to editorial judgment. I think Richard-of-Earth and North8000 may have a point: for most of the items on this list it is clearly established that the "misconception" is wrong e.g. the earth is not closer to the sun when it's summer in the northern hemisphere, the "dark side" of the moon gets as much sunshine as the other side, Einstein did not fail math class etc. The pseudoscience entries are in some cases logically equivalent to Russell's teapot in that they are not falsifiable, in fact the notion of falsifiability is a key component to distinguish science from psuedoscience. The logician in me bristles at declaring something "false" when that something is not even falsifiable.
  However, the intro to this page clearly states that misconceptions "...often arise from conventional wisdom (such as old wives' tales), stereotypes, a misunderstanding of science, or popularisation of pseudoscience." so including some items that are also included in the pseudoscience list is within the purview of this page. And in practical terms, I don't think the article is degraded by the inclusion of a half-dozen or so single sentence entries about topics also included on the pseudoscience list. Which ones? I suppose we're back to considering each one on a case-by-case basis. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:04, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I think you've made a good summary, Mr Swordfish. When it comes to including 'unfalsifiable' beliefs, I'd like to console the logician in you by saying that, outside the realms of pure math and pure logic, it is not possible to prove or disprove anything absolutely. We could always be brains in jars experiencing nothing more than a vivid hallucination or dream, the universe could always turn out to be a simulation and all our theories about the 'laws' of physics could be overturned with the press of a key on some hyper-universal alien's laptop, or basal assumptions about uniformitarianism throughout time and space could turn out to be wrong and everything we 'know' is true turns out to be merely conditional. Hell, invisible and intangible pink unicorns could be real, and we'd never know. For this page, however, and for Wikipedia articles in general, we do not employ an absolute standard for claims, otherwise Wikipedia would be nothing but math and logic articles saying "2 + 3 = 5" and "bachelors are unmarried by pure deduction". We rely on reliable sources and consensus, and if the editors judge a source to be reliable and reach a consensus on what should and shouldn't be included, that's the Wikipedia standard of evidence.

So, when it comes to presenting anything 'unfalsifiable' as false, well, let me put it this way: if, hypothetically, the general populous was obsessively convinced that a magical teapot was orbiting the sun, despite a total lack of evidence for any such thing, and we had RS saying that Russel's Teapot was a common misconception, I'd be happy to add it to the page. It's possible to make reasonable assertions about what is very very very very likely false outside the realm of pure math and pure logic, given certain basal assumptions like 'reality exists and is related in some capacity to how we perceive it' and 'the laws of physics as we've transcribed them are a good-ish approximation of reality.'

All that said, I agree that we should be circumspect in our addition of any material that may, by a reasonable standard, turn out to be true. Some cryptozoologists employ pseudoscientific standards of evidence, and some cryptids approach invisible and intangible pink unicorns in their unbelievability, but if some cryptozoologist discovers an animal that was previously only the subject of folklore, it wouldn't be that surprising, and I wouldn't want an entry to the effect that "it is a common misconception that any cryptids exist." We should not include anything like that; anything where there's a, maybe not very large, but nonetheless reasonable possibility that the subject could turn out to be true. I'm happy to agree that we should be selective when it comes to the entries on this page (not least because the page is already very long) but also because I wouldn't want to have any entries which say "this is false" when this is actually true. However, when it comes to magical claims like the stars controlling the fates of humans, or mysterious and totally undetectable energy fields emitting from crystals to unclog equally mysterious and totally undetectable chakras - or any other claim that would need to totally overturn our current understanding of physics, biology, history, causality, etc., in order to be true - I'm happy to tentatively include a sentence about it, assuming it is also a common conception and meets all the other standards for inclusion on the page. Joe (talk) 01:11, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

• 1: No; there is logically a lot of overlap, and that's okay. 2: the current inclusion criteria are sufficient – a common belief that is incorrect (and meets the other criteria) is enough; we don't need to add additional criteria. I have no objection to the idea of the science section of the misconceptions list being changed into a soft redirect to the pseudoscience list, as long as we don't lose topical entries.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:04, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

(I am amazed that we appear to have reached a unanimous consensus on both points in this RfC. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Joe (talk) 15:05, 23 June 2022 (UTC))

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Vegan/Vegetarian diet entry

This entry was removed with the comment "Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics has a religious agenda, and therefore is not a reliable source."

It is unclear whether this accusation is true, or if it matters if it is. I have restored the entry, pending discussion here. Is this true? Does it matter? I'm not seeing anything about a "religious agenda" at either Academy_of_Nutrition_and_Dietetics or https://www.eatrightpro.org/about-us so I'm unclear on what the objection is. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:59, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Regardless of any "hidden agenda", ACEND is recognized by the United States Department of Education as a reliable authority on the quality of nutrition and dietetics education. I tried digging for any information about this "religious agenda" and found nothing. Also, not to disregard the good faith policy, but the editor in question has only made 40 edits. Best to let this one go.「HypeBoy」^TALK 12:53, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Deep web entry

This entry was recently removed and restored. I'm not seeing anything in the topic articles establishing that this is a common misconception. Perhaps someone could point out where this material resides, otherwise I'm in favor of removing the entry as failing the inclusion criteria. (as an aside, after reading both the dark web and deep web articles I'm not sure that there is a well established difference. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:03, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised that you don't understand the difference between the deep web and the dark web after reading our articles. Both articles seem pretty clear to me but perhaps there are parts than could be improved.

I did a quick search and found these sources that suggest the confusion is common:

Britannica: The Deep Web and the Dark Web have been conflated in public discourse. Most people don’t know that the Deep Web contains mostly benign sites...

Kaspersky: While many news outlets use "deep web" and "dark web" interchangeably, much of the deep portion as a whole is perfectly legal and safe.

Investopedia: The dark web and the deep web are also often erroneously used interchangeably.

Business Tech Weekly: While the media often uses the terms deep web vs dark web vs shadow web interchangeably, they do refer to different areas of the web.

Heimdal Security: Many times the two terms are used interchangeably as if they are more or less the same thing. This is very inaccurate, as the deep web just refers to non-indexed pages, while the dark web refers to pages which are both non-indexed and involved in illegal niches. CodeTalker (talk) 21:34, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems like an obvious common misconception to me (I'm afraid I've run afoul of it myself). Further, the Dark web and Deep web pages are pretty explicit, from the Dark web page:

The dark web forms a small part of the deep web, the part of the Web not indexed by web search engines, although sometimes the term deep web is mistakenly used to refer specifically to the dark web.

and from the Deep web page:

The first conflation of the terms "deep web" with "dark web" came about in 2009 when deep web search terminology was discussed together with illegal activities taking place on the Freenet and darknet. Those criminal activities include the commerce of personal passwords, false identity documents, drugs, firearms, and child pornography.

Since then, after their use in the media's reporting on the Silk Road, media outlets have taken to using 'deep web' synonymously with the dark web or darknet, a comparison some reject as inaccurate and consequently has become an ongoing source of confusion. Wired reporters Kim Zetter and Andy Greenberg recommend the terms be used in distinct fashions. While the deep web is a reference to any site that cannot be accessed through a traditional search engine, the dark web is a portion of the deep web that has been intentionally hidden and is inaccessible through standard browsers and methods.

It's a keeper. Joe (talk) 03:30, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Splitting this article

So this article has currently reached 491,000+ bytes, and is one of the largest on the wiki, and is far too long. I propose splitting it by section:

• List of common misconceptions in arts and culture (currently 139,699 bytes)
• List of common misconceptions in history (currently 90,720 bytes)
• List of common misconceptions in science, technology, and mathematics (currently 251,570 bytes)

This is the easiest way to split it, since they are already sorted by section. @Richard-of-Earth, Mr swordfish, JoePhin, Macrakis, Onetwothreeip, and Zsteve21: Blubabluba9990 (talk) (contribs) 14:54, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree the article is way too big. Editing it is a pain sometimes because of how slow my computer gets. Splitting the sections into articles would solve that, but I think it would make stuff like linking (or just plain casual reading) needlessly complicated. I abstain for now. DannyC55 (Talk) 15:15, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. People interested in particular areas could just watch the specific pages. This page could be redirected to Lists of common misconceptions and that article would be formatted something like Lists of English words, but with a bit of prose about what a misconception is. All three new articles would have the similar lead sections. We could put links on the side and/or bottom to the sister articles. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 15:18, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I noticed a number of other aticles that are already splits/forks of this article:

• List of common misconceptions about the Middle Ages
• List of common misconceptions about language learning
• UK telephone code misconceptions
• Scientific misconceptions
• Common English usage misconceptions
• Common misunderstandings of genetics
• Urban legends about drugs
• Tornado myths
• COVID-19 misinformation
• Vaccine misinformation
• Misinformation related to 5G technology
• 9/11 conspiracy theories

Some of these could be merged or be merged into. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 21:51, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Agree that the article is too long. But my preference would be to shorten the article by a) removing entries that are not that common (see WP:ONUS - Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion) and b) shorten the individual entries. Note the sentence in the intro "These entries are concise summaries of the main subject articles, which can be consulted for more detail." (emphasis mine). A fair number of entries go off on tangents and are not "concise summaries".

So, I am not in favor of splitting the article at this time.

I've considered proposing that in addition to the current inclusion criteria we have a more rigorous process for adding new entries i.e. first propose the addition on the talk page and then see if there's consensus to add it, as opposed to dozens of people adding things and then (seemingly) needing to find consensus to remove each one. Yes, this might appear to go against the "be bold" WP:BOLD dicta, but as that help page states "On controversial articles, the safest course is to be cautious and find consensus before making changes." Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:36, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd be strongly opposed to that sort of thing. We don't need to vet every addition to the page (or pages, if we split), and if there's some issue with an entry, there's nothing wrong with hashing it out in talk, just like we do for any Wikipedia page. That sort of restriction puts an unnatural and unnecessary hamper on the editing process. In the vast majority of cases, someone adds an entry, someone else edits it a bit, and that's that. No reason to change a thing. Joe (talk) 18:34, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Here's the thing: we seem to be adding entries at a rate of almost one entry per day. At ~300 new entries a year the article is growing at a rate that's unsustainable. Splitting won't resolve the matter if we keep letting new entries be added at the current rate.

My preference would be for us to sharpen our editor pencils and see about cutting out some of the extraneous material. But I don't want to be the editor of doom, so I'm looking for help here with trimming the existing entries.

As for adding new entries, it seems to me that adding a new entry is a sufficiently substantial change that a discussion on talk would be warranted prior to the change. Re-reading WP:BOLD, it encourages readers "... to fix problems, correct grammar, add facts, make sure wording is accurate, etc." It does not say "feel free to add anything that you think might be somehow related", instead stating

"...changes to articles on complex, controversial subjects with long histories or active sanctions, or to Featured Articles and Good Articles, should be done with extra care. In many cases, the text as you find it has come into being after long and arduous negotiations between Wikipedians of diverse backgrounds and points of view. A careless edit to such an article might stir up a latent conflict, and other users who are involved in the page may become defensive. If you would like to make a significant edit—not just a simple copyedit—to an article on a controversial subject, it is a useful idea to first read the article in its entirety and skim the comments on the talk page. On controversial articles, the safest course is to be cautious and find consensus before making changes..."

What do other editors think about vetting new entries before they are added to the article? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:38, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

There are currently 380 entries on the page. One year ago, in July 2021, there were 336 entries. Two years ago, in July 2020, there were 407 entries. Three years ago, in July 2019, there were 377 entries. Over the course of 3 years, we've had a net growth of 3 entries, one entry per year on average, not ~300 per year. The notion that this article is growing out of control and permanently gaining "almost one entry per day" is ludicrous. People add entries, people remove entries, and the number of entries stays about the same as ever. There is absolutely no justification for trying to impose abnormal editing procedures on a page like this, nor is there any reason to think that splitting the article would not significantly reduce the size of the split articles for a long time to come. I remain absolutely opposed to your proposal. Joe (talk) 08:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Actual data is quite helpful. Seems that the "crisis" of the article growing out of control was a misperception on my part.

If the article is in fact relatively stable in the number of entries then there's no urgent reason to take action, splitting or otherwise. Of course, the stasis is predicated on entries being removed at roughly the same rate that they are added.

I take issue with characterizing the proposal to discuss on Talk before adding entries as "abnormal". It's most definitely in line with the help page which states for "a significant edit — not just a simple copyedit — to an article on a controversial subject... find consensus before making changes..." This is the normal process, or it should be. Perhaps there's no need to formalize it as part of the inclusion criteria here, but it's the way things are supposed to work.

Again, I would like to hear opinions from other editors about this. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I think a mention among the criteria would help, but not formalized as a rule. I agree this is a normal process. Many list articles have nebulous criteria that need interpretation by the community, and I think vetting additions on talk first is a good thing. But as Joe mentioned, the BRD cycle works fine for culling new entries after discussion in talk. In my opinion, vetting first adds a marginal value nevertheless; my suggestion would be a note in the editors' notes, where the criteria are currently provided, to advise that new entries should be discussed on talk first.

Phrasing would be important. I see many editors taking an unfortunate attitude toward guidelines, consensus and conventions, speaking of "violating the Manual of Style", "using an illegal source" and "breaking the infobox rules". Hopefully, it would be received as advice, not a legal document. I suspect some fear that describing a guideline developed by the community will be taken as an oppressive edict from on high. With good phrasing, the spirit of the advice should come through.

I also question the text generated by the {{Dynamic list}} template: "This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources." For an article of this nature, I feel like it's saying "The set of natural numbers is infinite. You can help complete the set by adding new ones with a reliable source." My two cents. _signed, Willondon (talk) 14:49, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Mr Swordfish, you're citing these items that talk about edits made "to an article on a controversial subject" or "changes to articles on complex, controversial subjects," but all entries on this page are specifically not controversial. I think it may have been formally stated at one point in the lede, although it may have been changed at some point, that this is a list of non-controversial common misconceptions. Regardless of whether it is stated in the lede, I've always thought that you and I agreed the article should only contain subjects on which the misconception is more or less definite fact, and remove any controversial material. Take, for instance, the recently proposed and rejected entry about how "none of the current supreme court justices committed perjury when talking about whether they would or wouldn't overturn Roe v Wade." Now, I'm sure I don't know whether that's true or not - it wouldn't surprise me if the various justices, being themselves lawyers, obfuscated anything they said to the point where it couldn't be legally described as perjury. It also wouldn't surprise me if a House Committee (or some other such body) found a bunch of them guilty of perjury at some point in the near future. One way or the other, we shouldn't include anything where the misconception is controversial, and, as a matter of fact, we don't. You followed BRD with that entry, and it didn't get included, just like what should normally happen on any Wikipedia article that isn't about a living person or a contentious current event. I'm happy to continue keeping the entries on this page non-controversial, and as long as they remain so, there's no need for us to employ onerous rules that everyone submit entries to talk before adding them. Forgive me for calling your proposal 'abnormal,' I didn't mean that in such an overly negative way, I literally just meant to convey my opinion that what you're proposing would not be in line with normal editing procedures for a Wikipedia page. I could have put it better, something like, "This page is not controversial, and so requires no such extraordinary editing procedures." Joe (talk) 19:58, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Given the volume of discussion on this talk page, I would conclude that "controversial" is apt. Whether to include an entry is very often subject to differing opinions here.

See https://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/argument.php.html Mr. Swordfish (talk) 20:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's what's controversial: not the topics themselves, but whether an item is worthy of inclusion. Some list articles lend themselves to easily navigated criteria; this one doesn't. That's why I think a mention with the criteria notes, that consensus encourages suggesting a new item on the talk page first, would at least establish a community understanding that inclusion is often a controversial matter, and that discussion beforehand is the preferred approach. Nobody will face criminal charges, or violate their probation terms by adding an item without discussion; but it would set a default understanding that the status quo is preferred where there is any revert to a bold edit that is requested to be discussed. _signed, Willondon (talk) 20:58, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Just as with the "~300 entries per year" thing, I believe you may have a somewhat skewed impression of how 'controversial' many of these entries are.

1) The vast majority of entries on this page were added and edited without any discussion whatsoever. The fact that we editors have long drawn out discussions about a relatively small proportion of them doesn't mean the entries are controversial, it means we're sticklers for detail (not a bad thing). And in the exceptional cases where an entry is actually controversial, like the "current supreme court justices didn't commit perjury" thing, we employ BRD and it doesn't end up included.

2) This is just an impression of mine, but if we wanted to we could actually go through the old talk and check; I feel that in more than 50% of cases, the main issue we discuss on this talk page is whether a misconception is common or not, not whether it is actually a misconception. The Elvis Costello thing is unquestionably a misconception, but some editors question whether it is common. Isn't that the issue with the majority of things we discuss? And further, in the minority of cases where the question is whether something is or isn't a misconception, and not whether it is or isn't common, the fact that we discuss it does not mean that the misconception itself is controversial. Again, we're just sticklers.

3) Lastly, on a quite positive note, I must say that this is one of the least contentious actively-edited Wikipedia pages I've ever spent a lot of time working on. There are far, far worse pages where the editors are constantly warring, and some editors feel real possessive ownership over an article, and nothing is ever done or improved because every little change must be obsessively scrutinized and reverted if it doesn't perfectly conform to the page owners' standards. This page, happily, is not like that, and the overall quality of the page is much higher for it. Sure, the editors have their disagreements, but we mostly get along, and more often than not we come to a simple consensus about what should and shouldn't be included without too much strife and without having to invoke more arcane and onerous procedures. Take my recent Tea entry as an example. We discussed it, we came to a consensus, and that was that. That's how the majority of entries that get discussed on talk end up - correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we've only had two or three RfD's in the last two years, and one of those actually ended with a unanimous consensus! A marvelous thing.

On Wikipedia, the pages with the best quality are the ones which are most freely edited. I am extremely opposed to adding bureaucratic requirements for normal Wikipedia editing that would only reduce editorial freedom and thereby reduce the page's quality - particularly when everything is already working as intended. Joe (talk) 21:34, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Mr. Swordfish that the first step should be reviewing the current entries and making them more focused and concise. I think we can include the necessary information for most entries in two lines. For example:

The common image of Santa Claus (Father Christmas) as a jolly old man in red robes was not created by The Coca-Cola Company as an advertising gimmick. Despite being historically represented with different characteristics in different colors of robes, Santa Claus had already taken his modern form in popular culture and seen extensive use in other companies' advertisements and other mass media at the time Coca-Cola began using his image in the 1930s.

More concise and focused:

The common image of Santa Claus (Father Christmas) as a jolly old man in red robes was not created by The Coca-Cola Company in its advertising. Santa Claus had already taken this form in American popular culture and advertising by the late 19th century, long before Coca-Cola used his image in the 1930s.

Or:

Netflix was not founded in response to co-founder Reed Hastings receiving a $40 late fee from Blockbuster over his rental of Apollo 13. Co-founder and former CEO Marc Randolph said Hastings made up the story to give Netflix a "convenient story" as to why it was created and how its business model operated. The company was actually founded after both Randolph and Hastings were inspired by Amazon and wanted to offer a similar service. Hastings himself said in a 2005 interview with Inc. that "there was no Aha! moment" in coming up with the company, undermining the supposed origin story.

More concise and focused:

Netflix was not founded after its co-founder Reed Hastings received a $40 late fee for a Blockbuster rental. Hastings made the story up to summarize Netflix's value proposition. In fact, its founders were inspired by Amazon.

The body of entries shouldn't go into sources (that's for the footnotes and the target article) or trivia (why mention which movie Hastings supposedly rented?) or explanations of why the item is false ("undermining the supposed origin story"). --Macrakis (talk) 20:22, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

These were both good edits, and I've just copied some of your proposed text to the article. Also, I agree that we should be trimming entries - I think most of them are probably about the right length, but no doubt, there are some that could be shortened without removing vital context. Joe (talk) 22:03, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Splitting might be a good idea, but we must have a consensus on what the names for the new articles should be. I think three divisions for culture, history, and science are fine, but maybe something more like, "List of common scientific misconceptions"? I'm not sure, we should all discuss that separately. Joe (talk) 18:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

There is already an article Scientific misconceptions. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

For one thing, that's not a list article, for two, that's not common scientific misconceptions. N-rays were a scientific misconception, but they were not a common scientific misconception. Joe (talk) 06:11, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

You are right on both counts, my bad. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 23:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I concur that this article is too big and should be split. Splitting by arts/culture, history, and science/tech/math sounds reasonable to me. Anderjef (talk) 19:43, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Does the byte count above include material inside ref tags? If so, it would overestimate the size of the article. Most entries are (and in my opinion, all entries should be) one to three short sentences with several references. This means that the "body" of the article is a small fraction of the over all byte size.

As an aside, we didn't make the list of 100 longest Wikipedia articles last year. (https://www.buzzfeed.com/fjelstud/the-100-longest-entries-on-wikipedia) Mr. Swordfish (talk) 18:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

On a related note, would someone explain to me (if it is possible in the first place) how to check where a link appears on every Wikipedia page - I mean, if I wanted to check all the Wikipedia pages that link to 'common misconception' and 'list of common misconceptions' and 'common misconceptions' etc., how would I do that? If we do this split, someone (I'll volunteer) should go through and change all the links on all the pages to go to the correct new history, culture, or science common misconceptions page. Joe (talk) 18:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

@JoePhin I think you're looking for the left submenu item What links here (under "Tools" on desktop). Otherwise you could probably search. For List of common misconceptions, that links goes to here.

Changing all the links is a tall task—more power to you if you decide to do such an undertaking. Anderjef (talk) 19:41, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you Anderjef! I shall check it out. Joe (talk) 06:13, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

This page should be kept mostly as it is, but I'd be okay with shunting some of the "less common" misconceptions to the more specific lists. Benjamin (talk) 05:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not strongly in favor of splitting the article, I'm also not opposed to it. I admit I have some sentimental attachment to keeping the article as it is, and I don't think there's anything wrong with very-very-very long articles in principle (there's lots of common misconceptions, it's not our fault they number so many), but, at the same time, if an article gets big, I can see the utility in splitting it. Maybe it's wrong to try to hold on to something and force it to stay the same, when it naturally changes and evolves the way any good Wikipedia article does. Maybe trying to stop an article like this from splitting is like trying to stop a cell from undergoing mitosis. That said, if we aren't all on board with the idea, perhaps we should instead focus on cleaning up the few entries that don't belong and systematically trying to shorten entries where they can be shortened without compromising on context/understand-ability. I mean, it may be that we should go through and do that anyway, regardless of whether we split or not.

Anyway, in the meantime, someone mentioned they were having difficulty editing the article because it gets laggy (I get the same thing) - just as a suggestion, if you edit by section and work in source editing mode, it only loads the text in that section alone, which is usually much easier on your computer. Joe (talk) 06:22, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Oppose blanket split — I have no idea if this was already mentioned, because I'm not going to read through the swaths of text above, but unless sources are provided which demonstrate that a "List of common misconceptions in arts and culture" is a notable topic on its on, I would definitely oppose the original proposal. The existing sub articles are independently notable; this being said, I strongly suspect common misconceptions on science alone has been covered in multiple reliable sources (like the Nature article by Scudellari in further reading), so perhaps that one is an exception, which would definitely help with article size. Aza24 (talk) 19:53, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Convert to WP:LISTOFLISTS: This article is probably in the category of too general or too broad as per WP:SALAT, but it could still be useful as a navigational tool to find the list you're looking for. The void century (talk) 21:01, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose — it's a long article because it's a lengthy topic. Lists are not normal articles, and can be longer than is typical. And this is an exceptional list. It isn't too general or too board, in fact the opposite is true: the topic is clear, concise, and intuitive enough that the article itself has become a cultural fixture. It should be kept as it is. Perhaps there is ongoing editorial discussion on how common "common" is (just as there is ever ongoing debate in law on what the word "reasonable" means), but that's a separate question. The article should not be split. —wing gundam 00:20, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

This thread has been up for a month now, and my read is that there is no consensus to split the article. I would suggest closing the discussion and removing the notice from the article. Other opinions? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 12:30, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Looking through the opinions and reading some of the arguments, (particularly some statements by Mr Swordfish and wing gundam) I believe I have been swayed to the "oppose splitting the article" side of things. I hadn't thought about it this way, but as wing gundam said, the topic of the article is actually very specific as it is. I also agree with Mr Swordfish that the best thing to do (right now anyway) is to try to ensure brevity in all the entries. I wonder if we might also look through the references and "clean them up" some - not get rid of any, just remove unnecessary "meta-data-y" type stuff, in order to reduce the byte count. I'm not sure how much of that can be done, but I'm going to look at it a bit to see if we can trim the info in refs without reducing their quality.

Anyway, with me changing my mind, I think there's now actually a weak consensus against splitting the article (at the very least there's definitely not a consensus to split it, as Mr Swordfish said). We should close the discussion and remove the template. Joe (talk) 16:06, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Abortion/Supreme Court case

I have removed text stating that there is "common misconception" that the Dobbs Supreme Court case banned abortion across the United States. This was cited to the Archdiocese of San Francisco, a press release by the California governor, a random op-ed by a Republican state senator, Ohio Right to Life, etc. are all inappropriate sources for factual statements in Wikivoice. None of these organizations has expertise in the law or public opinion, and all have a dog in the fight. (At least some sources actually predated the issuance of Dobbs). The other sources simply don't firmly establish that there is a "common misconception" about the scope of Dobbs sufficient to meet the "rigid" inclusion criteria outlined at the top of this page.

I also think that, inadequate sourcing and weight issues aside, it would be inappropriately recentistic to include this here, given that the decision was issued only a few weeks ago. What is a "common misconception" depends in part on length of time that an idea has been circulating.

Per WP:ONUS, this material should not be restored unless consensus is obtained for it. Neutrality^talk 15:12, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

We actually previously established a consensus on this, both in talk and with the collaborative editing of the entry by several editors (search for a comment by @Benjaminikuta: in talk above for the brief and unanimous discussion). Anyway, if this were a matter of scientific knowledge, I would agree that the sources you brought up were inadequate. However, as a matter of public opinion, they're quite adequate.

Further, the Sexuality Research and Social Policy paper which you happened not to mention in any of your edit summaries treats this as a common misconception, and it is a reliable source by any standard. For reference, I'm thinking particularly of the,

"65.7% of the sample incorrectly answered that abortion would be illegal everywhere if Roe v. Wade were overturned"

statement in the Knowledge and Sentiments of Roe v. Wade paper.

If you have some more recent study that contradicts this finding, that may be the grounds for discussion. However, if not, we're happy to use sources that are a few years old (or older) on this page. It's entirely possible that it would be more appropriate for us to be having this discussion on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization page, which I notice you've also edited to remove these RS. Oh well, hopefully this discussion won't metastasize to more than two pages.

This is an extremely clear cut, extremely common, misconception. I'm not going to question your neutrality (aha) in deleting this material, but I do find it odd that you seem to be ignoring the Sexuality Research and Social Policy paper. Perhaps you just missed it? Joe (talk) 17:33, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The discussion you point too involves a discussion between you and a single other user - before I challenged the content. Hardly an establishment of consensus. The Sexuality Research and Social Policy paper is from 2020, which is from two years before Roe was actually overturned. Both WP:SYNTHESIS and already outdated. Neutrality^talk 01:39, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

This discussion is continuing here on the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization page if anyone is interested. I won't reiterate everything I said there here, besides to say that if using RS from the past is WP:SYNTH, then we're in big trouble, because all the RS we use on Wikipedia are from the past! Either this is a crisis of unimaginable magnitude, the repercussions of which may mean the end for all of Wikipedia - or - using sources from the past might just be WP:NOTSYNTH. Joe (talk) 09:19, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

"Dinosaur" as pejorative

A new entry states:

• Although the word dinosaur can be used pejoratively to describe something that is becoming obsolete due to failing to adapt to changing conditions, non-avian dinosaurs themselves did not go extinct due to being unable to adapt to environmental change as was initially theorized. Moreover, not all dinosaurs are extinct (see below).

I'm not seeing what the misconception is here. Perhaps someone could elaborate either here on the talk page or edit the entry to clarify. Should we add a similar entry for "Chicken" (roosters are not particularly cowardly) or "Crabby"? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:30, 12 August 2022 (UTC) Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:30, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Historically, scientists believed that the faunal changeover between the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic was due to changes in climate which mammals were either better able to adapt to or "pre-adapted" for, whereas dinosaurs were fundamentally unadaptable. This view was largely based off a perception of dinosaurs that is now no longer considered accurate. Further, scientists know now that non-avian dinosaurs didn't go extinct due to being "unable to adapt," but rather, as the result of a cataclysmic mass extinction event. The general view that dinosaurs were inherently unadaptable, and indeed, that 'dinosaurs went extinct because they couldn't adapt to the ice age' or 'dinosaurs were destined to go extinct' or 'nature chose dinosaurs to go extinct' or somesuch, persists among the public and in popular media as a holdover from the previously accepted scientific view, however (see Lucas). The misconception isn't that "the use of the word dinosaur as a pejorative is wrong," that's just illustrative of the cultural perception of dinosaurs. We could just as easily say,

• Non-avian dinosaurs did not go extinct from an inability to adapt to environmental change, despite cultural depictions of non-avian dinosaurs as lumbering, slow-witted, and uncompetitive against more energetic, intelligent, and adaptable mammals. Initial attempts to explain the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs involved outdated ideas that evolution might proceed along pre-ordained patterns, that evolutionary lineages might age, deteriorate, and die like individual animals, or that dinosaurs may have been unable to adapt to environmental changes like mountain-building, dropping temperatures, or volcanic eruptions due to inherent biological qualities. These explanations are no longer considered scientifically valid, however the public perception that dinosaurs were fated to go extinct due to their unadaptability remains. Moreover, not all dinosaurs are extinct (see below).

(Please note, for this version of the entry, the two sources used above would need to be used in addition to those already being used)

There's no need to explicitly mention the pejorative use of the term dinosaur, as "dinosaur as a pejorative word" is not necessarily the crux of the misconception, though it is illustrative of the actual misconception: the view of dinosaurs themselves as unadaptable. However, I actually prefer the current wording over this potential re-write, as I think it sums up the cultural perception much more efficiently than spelling it all out. We could spell it all out, though, if someone prefers.

If someone has RS indicating that people actually wrongly believe chickens are cowardly (rather than it merely being a turn of phrase), then we could certainly consider including that as a common misconception, although I'd have to see the RS first before commenting on it one way or the other. Joe (talk) 15:50, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

References

Too big

This page - at 518,115 bytes - is currently the seventh largest on Wikipedia. How can it be reduced, or subdivided? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:52, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

We actually recently had an extensive discussion about this. The current consensus is to not split the article. Joe (talk) 03:43, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Not only that, but if you look at the ratio of cites to text it's much higher than is typical for a Wikipedia article. The 518,115 bytes grossly overestimates the size of the actual text. According to this article, (https://www.buzzfeed.com/fjelstud/the-100-longest-entries-on-wikipedia) this page doesn't even make the top 100 longest Wikipedia articles.

That said, I agree that many entries are too long and that there are some entries that should be trimmed. But anyone can help with that. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Strongest men

[6] "Contrary to popular theories of men's physical attractiveness, there was no evidence of a nonlinear effect; the strongest men were the most attractive in all samples." Benjamin (talk) 13:06, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Eight cups of water

This misconception is widely reported. Google even claims it appears in an earlier version of this list, but there is no Wikipedia article about it so I guess it has been removed or never added to this list. This is perhaps the most exhaustively supported source. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/25/upshot/no-you-do-not-have-to-drink-8-glasses-of-water-a-day.html Nlight2 (talk) 07:04, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Seems like the appropriate topic article for this entry would be Drinking#Human_water_requirements. It treats the "eight glasses of water" as a matter of ongoing dispute rather than as a misconception. Perhaps that's correct, perhaps it is not, but that would have to be resolved on that article's talk page before it could be added here.

Yes, there was once an entry like this. See https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=List_of_common_misconceptions&oldid=1080536495#Nutrition,_food,_and_drink Here's the talk page discussion concerning it: Talk:List_of_common_misconceptions/Archive_17#Nutrition,_food_and_drink:_Point_1.

Several editors objected because they "had never heard of it" which is not a good reason in my book. I'd support restoring it, pending resolving the issue at the topic article. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I have heard of it, which is a terrific reason for inclusion.--Jack Upland (talk) 17:22, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm all in favor of inclusion. Joe (talk) 13:16, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Evolution and paleontology, or English language?

Two entries currently under the "Evolution and paleontology" heading:

• The word theory in "the theory of evolution" does not imply scientific doubt regarding its validity; the concepts of theory and hypothesis have specific meanings in a scientific context. While theory in colloquial usage may denote a hunch or conjecture, a scientific theory is a set of principles that explains an observable phenomenon in natural terms. "Scientific fact and theory are not categorically separable", and evolution is a theory in the same sense as germ theory or the theory of gravitation.
• "Fit" in the phrase "survival of the fittest" does not refer to the physically fit. Rather, "fittest" indicates the genetic variant (among a class of variants) with the highest rate of reproductive output. Furthermore, the use of "survival of the fittest" to mean "natural selection" is said to be misleading as survival is only one aspect of selection and not always the most important.

(I know I just added one of these.) Are we sure these entries belong under #Evolution and paleontology rather than #English language?

In other news, there's some inconsistency in italicizing versus quoting words as words per MOS:TERMS. I share in this blame. Whoops. Anderjef (talk) 08:45, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I believe both are well-placed in the Evolution and paleontology section, since they both deal with misunderstandings of scientific terminology relating to evolution. Also, thanks for adding that fitness entry, I believe it nicely compliments the other entries, and we really should have had an entry specifying the difference between biological and physical fitness a while ago. Good stuff :P

We should go through and make sure that when we're refering to a word or phrase "as a word" that it's always italicized instead of in quotation marks. I'll do that sometime soon if no one else feels like it. After we get it standardized, we should try to maintain the standard with new entries. Joe (talk) 10:00, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

References

First Council of Nicaea entry

This was recently added:

• The First Council of Nicaea did not establish the books of the Bible. They had almost all been established by 300 A.D. by different communities across Christianity.

I'm not sure it meets the inclusion criteria of being treated in the topic article, or that it is both common and current. The only reference is to HowStuffWorks, which is not exactly a first quality source. Biblical history is not my thing so I'll defer to other editors on this one. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 15:34, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The Series 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯

There's a misconception that the series 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ converges to -1/12 under the standard definition of convergence (which was likely popularized by the pop-math YouTube channel Numberphile). Is this misunderstanding common enough to warrant addition to the math section? SamCLowe (talk) 03:07, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion Sam, thank you for making it! I've gone and added an entry on this subject. Cheers! Joe (talk) 06:34, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

This is not treated as a misconception in any of the topic articles, hence it fails the inclusion criteria. Granted, the Numberphile video was widely viewed and is incredibly misleading, but a meme video from eight years ago does not mean that this misconception is currently "common". Agree that a non-mathematician will have difficulty understanding the Riemann zeta function, but very few people are even aware of the Riemann zeta function. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:17, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Assuming we can resolve the lack of treatment as a common misconception in one of the topic articles and find a reliable source establishing it as a common misconception, I would support including the following language:

• The sum of all the positive natural numbers added together (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯) is equal to infinity, not ⁠−+1/12⁠. Since the value of the partial sum increases with each term it diverges away from any finite value to infinity. In specialized mathematical contexts, such as Ramanujan summation, divergent series can be assigned to a finite value, but the association of ⁠−+1/12⁠ with 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ in this context is not the same as the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ equaling ⁠−+1/12⁠ in any conventional sense. A widely viewed Numberphile YouTube video on the subject may have contributed to the misconception that 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ is equal to ⁠−+1/12⁠ by misleading viewers over the difference between mathematical equality and the assignment of values in Ramanujan summation.

Mr. Swordfish (talk) 14:45, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Understanding analytic continuation, or even knowing what it is, is not necessary in order to have misconceptions about analytic continuation. That people don't understand various aspects of math (and I'll count myself among them, though I remember learning this one in calculus, it's faded somewhat over the years) is the whole reason why this is a misconception in the first place. As for its commonness, I'd say the RS adequately demonstrate it's commonness and current-ness, although somewhat indirectly. We could also use this Scientific American article which describes it a little more explicitly as a common misconception.

You don't think the 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ article describes this as a common misconception? Did you read the "In popular media" section? Seems like we're already covered on that front, but maybe we should be more explicit there, too? Based off the RS, I'm confident this is a common 'pop math' misconception. You know, the sort of thing that people who think they're nerds will smugly tell you while being wrong about it. Kind of like that dumb joke, "Don't trust atoms, they make up everything," when atoms actually make up less than 5% of the stuff in the universe, never mind light, dark matter, dark energy, etc. One doesn't need to know what baryonic matter is in order to have misconceptions about baryonic matter. Joe (talk) 05:34, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh, P.S., your proposed edit is fine and dandy, Mr Swordfish. Joe (talk) 05:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

The "In popoular media" section says that the Numberphile video was viewed 1.5 million times in the first month, but doesn't comment on how many viewers actually believed the result. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with infinite series knows that you can't add divergent series term by term or rearrange their order of summation. So I'm not sure how many of those 1.5 million viewers watched it and concluded it was crap. Meanwhile, the NYT article is quoted as saying "This calculation is one of the best-kept secrets in math. No one on the outside knows about it." which implies it is not at all common. I've re-read the Scientific American article, and while it's a very good exposition of the subject I'm not seeing where it claims that it's a common misconception.

That said, if I'm the only one objecting on those grounds I'll stand back. We'd need to add the cite to the Scientific American article at the end. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:55, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I think you have good grounds for objection. In my opinion, this is yet another case where the conception (misconception or not) is on the radar of such a tiny fraction of the general populace that it doesn't pass the "common" threshold. _signed, Willondon (talk) 14:13, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Eh, if other editors don't consider it to be common enough, that's that. I still personally think it qualifies, though. Oh well. Joe (talk) 17:07, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Ice's slipperiness

Proposing the entry (see Ice):

• The low, observed coefficient of friction of ice is thought to be a result of the combination of pressure melting (melting of a thin layer of ice caused by the pressure of a contacting object), friction heating (melting of the ice while a material skids or skates across it), and preexisting semi-liquid ice on the surface (a theory suggesting that ice molecules at the ice boundary cannot properly bond with the molecules of the remaining mass of ice and thus are free to move like molecules of liquid water) rather than just pressure melting or friction heating.

My primary concern is that I'm not confident in asserting the correct explanation is a combination of the three factors (pressure melting, friction heating, and semi-liquid surface) when Ice calls the frictional properties "an active area of scientific study." Anderjef (talk) 21:34, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The idea that ice is slippery primarily due to friction or pressure melting is most certainly a common misconception. However, the research is ongoing and I'm not sure it's sufficiently settled to include an entry here. The recent research indicates that ice is slippery because the outer layer contains a layer of molecules that are not held tightly to the crystal structure and this layer is not really solid or liquid; friction or pressure melting play a very small or negligible part.

I'd support an entry for this, but I think we need to be careful and get everything in order before adding it. The proposed text above would need some work prior. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 23:43, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I was thinking I'd also heard the semi-liquid boundary layer explanation was thought to be increasingly supported over the other two, but looking at the Ice article, it seemed (judging purely by the article text) the conclusion there was to mention the combination of all three as the comprehensive theory/explanation, so that's how I worded the proposition. There's also some coverage at Ice skating#Physical mechanics of skating. Anderjef (talk) 05:09, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Reading the source material, it appears that the "pressure melting" explanation has been discarded, but it's no clear whether the friction explanation or semi-liquid boundary layer explanation (or some combination thereof) is the currently accepted explanation.

I think we're on solid ground to say the following:

• Ice is not slippery due to pressure melting. While it is true that increased pressure, such as that exerted by someone standing on a sheet of ice, will lower the melting point of ice, the effect is too weak to account for the lowered friction.

Although it's usual to include a correct explanation when presenting the misconception, I'm wary of going into details about the two main explanations since it appears to be an ongoing controversy. My own view is that the friction explanation can't be right since ice is slippery even in the absence of motion (hence no friction and no heating), however it may play a significant role once there is motion.

Anybody got a link to the Modeling the friction of ice article? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't have a link, but I support your revised version of the entry in the absence of scientific consensus about how big or little a role friction plays. Anderjef (talk) 20:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, it's not about a big or little role, it's all about friction.

What's unclear is how much the friction is decreased due to heating from friction. A lot of the source material is sloppy about this distinction, so the confusion is understandable. I've been confused by that myself when reading the sources.

My understanding is that when an object, such as an ice skate, is stationary there is no heating due to friction but the ice is still slippery. As the skate begins to move, the friction causes the some heating which (at least in theory) causes the ice to heat and changes the coeffiecent of friction due to temperature change. Since there is some temperature where the ice is "fastest", the heating from friction would decrease the friction at lower temperatures and increase the friction at higher temperatures. But I can't find a source for this, so we'd be in WP:OR territory to include this. But I did fine a nice cite, which I'll add to the draft. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:37, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

References

Trotsky ice pick/ice axe

I propose an entry on Leon Trotsky's murder weapon:

Leon Trotsky was not killed with an ice pick, – a small, screwdriver-like tool for chipping ice – but with an ice axe – a larger tool used for mountaineering.

The misconception seems very common and is mentioned in both Leon Trotsky and Ice pick.

DannyC55 (Talk) 22:01, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

I think that's a misnomer rather than a misconception.--Jack Upland (talk) 23:16, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Misnomers, wrong or inaccurate uses of a name or term, are a type of misconception, assuming they're being used with the genuine belief that the inaccurate term is accurate, so that's no barrier to inclusion.

No doubt some hear the words "ice pick" and correctly envision the murder weapon as an ice axe, because they're suffering from a misconception about what an ice pick is. Others will hear the word "ice pick" and wrongly envision the murder weapon as an ice pick, because they're suffering from a misconception about what type of object was used to kill Trotsky. (I fell into the latter category, once upon a time)

I'm all in favor of inclusion, I'm surprised we didn't have this already. Joe (talk) 13:01, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

What?--Jack Upland (talk) 18:02, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Agree. This is the kind of nit-picky lawyerly parsing that serves to diminish the overall quality of this article. When translating from Russian, "ice pick" and "ice axe" are probably not well distinguished.

How long before we add this entry:

• The earth is not actually spherical or round, despite numerous claims to that effect. It is actually an oblate spheroid.

Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:36, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

That isn't the same situation. Ice-pick and ice-axe are two completely different things - apparently many people think Trotsky was murdered with the first, whereas in fact it was the second. In this case, confusion over the meaning of the terms has probably caused the more material misconcpetion to arise. W. P. Uzer (talk) 06:11, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

It's a common misconception that the Earth is an oblate spheroid, so I certainly wouldn't want to perpetuate it on the common misconceptions page by claiming that it was true! Oblate spheroids are perfectly smooth geometric objects generated by the revolution of an ellipse about its minor axis. The Earth's shape is better approximated by an oblate spheroid than a sphere, due to the slight flattening caused by the Earth's rotation, but that approximation is by no means perfect. For those of you who have never visited the Earth before, it's surface is coated in all kinds of interesting mountains and valleys and holes and caves that would give a topologist a nightmare trying to come up with a name for!

I'd be happy to include an entry to the effect:

Geoid undulation in false color, shaded relief and vertical exaggeration (10000 scale factor).

• While it is true that the Figure of the Earth is better approximated by an oblate spheroid than a sphere, the Earth is neither a sphere or an oblate spheroid, and no simple geometric shape describes the shape of the Earth with perfect accuracy and precision. Even if some model could be produced that perfectly described the exact topology of the Earth, the changing nature of the Earth's surface would immediately render such a model imperfect. (See also: coastline paradox and geodesy)

(I should say, I'd be happy to include this, assuming we could find RS calling it a common misconception, that is. The references given above only demonstrate the truth of the statements, not that it is a common misconception. I'm perfectly confident this is a common misconception, indeed I've met people who become violently upset when you tell them that the Earth isn't the shape they were taught in grade school, but we'd actually have to find the RS to that effect first)

~ ~ ~

Anyway, I agree with User W. P. Uzer that the scale of the misconception "the Earth is an oblate spheroid" and the scale of the misconception "an ice pick is an ice axe" are on completely different levels, and that while we might have a debate about the meaningfulness of the former, there's no debating the latter; this ice pick thing is a clear cut misconception. Joe (talk) 15:24, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

References

Habits

[7] People underestimate the degree to which habits influence their behavior. Benjamin (talk) 21:27, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Trends

[8] "we get long-term cultural trends wrong" Benjamin (talk) 13:39, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Snakes

I recently heard "snakes don't have legs" presented as a common misconception, but to me it's on a technicality so I'm seeking additional opinions. Adapted from Snake skeleton and Pelvic spur:

• Snakes including boas and pythons have vestigial legs resembling spurs or claws, often protruding on either side of the cloaca and used during courtship, mating, and in some species combat, although no living snake shows any remains of the pectoral girdle.

References

This next one is a pair of venomous-snake identification methods that I see a number of issues with as a possible misconception. Adapted after review of Micrurus tener, Sonora palarostris, Kingsnake, Milk snake, and Mexican milk snake:

• Neither snake head shape nor the mnemonic "red on yellow, kill a fellow; red on black, friend of/to Jack" (or "venom lack") are reliable means of identification of venomous or dangerous snakes. Nonvenomous snake species including Sonora palarostris and kingsnakes use Batesian mimicry of their colors to trick predators into thinking they are venomous. Not all (venomous) coral snakes can be identified by the rhyme.

References

My concerns:

1. Is head shape actually an unreliable method (I briefly noticed there seem to be a number of sources pointing both ways)? Also, I didn't find head-shape identification mentioned on Wikipedia anywhere.
2. If not generally reliable, is the issue with both methods only that nonvenomous snakes get mislabeled as venomous or that the methods are only reliable in certain geographic areas (the U.S.)*? (If geographically constrained, how "common" are we talking here?)
3. How widespread is the misuse of the methods? (How widely are any caveats known?)
4. Assuming both are viable as misconceptions, do head shape and the mnemonic belong in the same entry? (I think they would.)

* From Micrurus tener: "Other nonvenomous snakes resemble the Texas coral snake as a form of Batesian mimicry. In the U.S. only, all three species of venomous coral snakes (Micrurus fulvius, Micrurus tener, and Micruroides euryxanthus) can be identified by the red rings contacting the yellow rings."
From Kingsnake: "[The mnemonic applies] only to the three species of coral snakes native to the southern U.S.: Micrurus fulvius (the eastern or common coral snake), Micrurus tener (the Texas coral snake), and Micruroides euryxanthus (the Arizona coral snake). Coral snakes found in other parts of the world can have distinctly different patterns..."

Anderjef (talk) 01:56, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

On the subject of snake legs, the statement "extant snakes do not have legs" is true. The vestiges which some snakes have are homologous to hind legs, but they are not, themselves, legs. One wouldn't say that a bird's wing is a leg, or that an orca's flipper is a leg, or that human forearms are legs, or that a python's pelvic spur is a leg, because a leg is defined as "an appendage on which an animal walks." It's true that bird wings, whale flippers, human arms, and python pelvic spurs all evolved from legs, but they are no longer legs.

On the subject of the method of determining whether a snake is venomous, I'm all in favor of including the proposed entry. It seems to be factually fine, and I'm not at all concerned about the geographic constraint of the misconception - we include many misconceptions that are only common in certain areas/contexts, and that's all to the good. I'm not even sure this misconception is particularly geographically constrained (for all that it's usefulness may be geographically constrained), but if that's the case, we might mention something like "this is a common misconception in this part of the world," whatever this part of the world happens to be, in the entry. Joe (talk) 04:55, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

(The term 'vestigial leg' is somewhat misleading, in much the same way that the term 'dwarf planet' is misleading, because both are trying to convey that the thing being described as a leg/planet is not a leg/planet, despite using that very word. But vestigial leg basically just means 'a thing that once was a leg, but which no longer functions as a leg') Joe (talk) 05:00, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the venom entry, neither of the provided sources go into head-shape identification, and the first reference (http://www.wildlife-removal.com/snakecolorrhyme.html) actually suggests it is a reliable method. https://kysnakes.ca.uky.edu/snake_characteristics is the one other source I've found so far calling head shape unreliable. Most just passively mention triangular head shape as a reliable means of IDing specifically vipers, albeit somewhat subjective. Anderjef (talk) 15:14, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Widespread Myths You Probably Thought Were Facts

Here's good article on MSN that editors of this article can use as a source for this article: Widespread Myths You Probably Thought Were Facts A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:23, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Popeye & spinach entry

The item says "...Popeye the Sailor Man's strength gain from consuming cans of spinach is usually attributed to the iron content of spinach..." but I can't find support for that in either the topic article or the referenced cites.

Plenty of reliably sourced material about how spinach has less iron than commonly believed, but nothing that I have seen about how many people mistakenly believe spinach gives Popeye strength due to its iron content. (I'll leave aside for now the question of whether this article is the proper venue for erroneous beliefs about fictional characters.) I've added a citation needed tag for now, but we should either fix this soon or delete the entry. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 00:45, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I introduced the entry and am okay with its complete removal. Doesn't seem common to me; I noticed it in investigating the iron content of spinach. Supposedly, Popeye's creator never claimed it was the iron content, so if anything, it seems to be an extension of the spinach-iron misconception. Anderjef (talk) 01:06, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

I passionately read Popeye comic book stories in my childhood, and I still enjoy watching the Popeye animated films. I have never heard of any association with iron content. The stories treat spinach as a performance-enhancing substance, which grants Popeye temporary superpowers. Not all that different than Hourman (Rex Tyler), a superhero who gains hour-long power boosts from ingesting an experimental drug of his own creation. Dimadick (talk) 14:14, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

The Steamboat Willie Misconception

It is a common misconception that Steamboat Willie was the first cartoon with sound but the real first cartoon with sound was 'My Old Kentucky Home' by Fleischer Studios. https://www.fleischerallstars.com/my-old-kentucky-home.html that is a source I could find backing me up. On the wikipedia page for the song My Old Kentucky Home https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/My_Old_Kentucky_Home the cartoon is mentioned under 'Appearances in media' but without a citation. I believe we should add that 'My old Kentucky home' was first and came out 2 years before Steamboat Willie. Bunty's Great Grandson (talk) 05:27, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

I think this fails inclusion criterion #2:

2. The item is reliably sourced, both with respect to the factual contents of the item and the fact that it is a common misconception.

I'm not convinced that this is a common misconception. While the Steamboat Willie article does state that Steamboat Willie wasn't the first cartoon with sound, it doesn't give a source for this misconception.

Edderiofer (talk) 07:51, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Neither topic article treats this as a common misconception, and I'm not seeing anything in the cited sources to support that it is a common misconception. Perhaps it is, but we need better sourcing and according to the inclusion criteria the entry does not meet the requirements. I've removed the entry (while traveling, so I was not logged in while making that edit.) Mr. Swordfish (talk) 21:29, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

There also seems to be a misconception that it was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, while it was actually Plane Crazy. Even if Plane Crazy was just a screen test instead of an official episode, it was released before Steamboat Willie. - Munmula (talk · contribs) 16:00, 12 October 2022 (UTC)

I do agree that it's a common misconception, and I seriously considered putting it on the main page. However I couldn't find enough credible sources that discussed it, so I never did. Mount Patagonia (talk) 05:54, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Disney could not find a distributor for Plane Crazy, so Steamboat Willie was the first Mickey Mouse film to actually be distributed to movie theatres. And by the way, the earlier Fleischer sound films were using the Phonofilm process, which had problems with the fidelity of the sound. Dimadick (talk) 07:44, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

A love letter to you, my fellow editors

I salute you all.

I'd just like to take a moment to thank all of you who spend your time adding to, trimming, pruning, fixing, tweaking, and generally maintaining this page, and of course, the rarely-seen page watchers who only occasionally swoop down to revert vandalism but otherwise just lurk. We editors don't always see eye to eye, but it is precisely the push-and-pull of all our efforts that synthesize together to make this wonderful page as nice as it is.

I truly love you all for everything you've contributed. I love this page, too, it's such a fine little offshoot of the larger Wikipedia project. This page is one of the more complete repositories of interesting and useful information on the web relating to misinformation, and if the value the average reader gets out of it is one-tenth the value I got out of it when I first came across it, then it might be one of the most valuable pages on the whole internet. That's just my opinion, of course. Thanks for all your hard work, and please know that I appreciate you dearly.

Yours, Joe (talk) 20:35, 18 October 2022 (UTC) :3

Food and Cooking

The item says "Botanically, but often not in everyday language, the following are fruits: allspice, beans, capsicum (bell and chili pepper), maize (corn), cucumber, eggplant, nuts, okra, pea, pumpkin, rice, squash, tomato, wheat, and zucchini.[31][32][33] Likewise, rhubarb and carrots, while sometimes culinarily or legally treated as fruits, are botanically vegetables.[34]" but botanically there is no such thing as a vegetable. Any number of websites will confirm this. Sumithar (talk) 13:40, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I see. A combination of reading too much about the fruits and confusing myself. I have modified it for now to finish "botanically are not so." Anderjef (talk) 15:45, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

I would argue for excluding the entry entirely due to the words being used in different contexts, academic vs general. This partly mirrors the exclusion of borscht due to the way English uses the word differently than it is "authentically" used, and the dark ages entry is similarly controversial due to academic historians taking issue with the way the time period is discussed in popular culture. When people say a pumpkin isn't fruit they aren't talking about the academic usage, and there will be plenty of ways academics use words differently than the layperson, but that doesn't mean they all constitute common misconceptions. Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 08:35, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Agree. This is simply an example of a disagreement between common language usage and scientific (botanical) classifications. Agree that technically strawberries are not fruit while tomatoes and eggplant are, but I don't think calling things by their common name meets the criteria of a misconception. "Tomatoes are poisonous" is a misconception (an archaic one so not includable here) while "Tomatoes are vegetables" isn't. There are lots of examples like this and I don't think we should include them: King Crabs are not crabs, Cuttlefish are not fish (but humans are from a cladistic standpoint), Catfish are not cats, Seahorses are not horses, Fox squirrels are not foxes, etc. I've removed the entry. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 13:01, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. --Macrakis (talk) 14:03, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. The belief that tomatoes (and all these other things) are not fruits represents a genuine incorrect belief that there is something fundamental about tomatoes that makes them different from, say, grapefruits, when in fact, they are both fruits. Incidentally, the misconception isn't that "tomatoes are vegetables," the misconception is that "tomatoes aren't fruits." It could be said that the broader misconception is that 'fruits aren't vegetables,' 'vegetable' is just a word that means plants, plant matter, or edible parts of a plant, and fruits are always one of those three (sometimes not edible to humans, but edible to something). The fact that carrots (which are roots) are sometimes considered fruits is equally egregious. This is an extremely common misconception, particularly, a misunderstanding of science.

Are we going to delete all our scientific misconceptions (the dark side of the moon isn't dark, crystal healing doesn't work, vaccines don't cause autism, etc.) because, while all those things may technically be true, if you screw your head around backwards and look at it from the commonly wrong perspective some notable percentage of the general public holds, it turns out the common misconception is no misconception at all! The dark side of the moon is dark (if you use the wrong definition of the word dark), crystal healing does work (if you count the placebo effect, and also 'wHo KnOwS, ThErE's No PrOoF aNd EvIdEnCe ThAt It UnEqUiViCoAlLy DoEsN't WoRk!'), and vaccines do cause autism, if you listen to what Andrew Wakefield has to say on the subject, and really, aren't ALL perspectives on scientific issues equally valid? No. All perspectives on matters of scientific fact are not equally valid, and Wikipedia should privilege actual science over unscientific nonsense. The fact that the argument "don't worry, this is just a simple case where science disagrees with what people commonly believe, that doesn't make it a common misconception" is being used in an unironic way here boggles my mind. That's the very essence of a common misconception.

If we have any RS saying that people actually believe cuttlefish are fish, then we should include it as a misconception. If no RS say that, and we have no reason to think people actually believe cuttlefish belong to a taxonomic group they don't belong to, then bringing it up as an example is a red herring. We do have RS saying that people commonly and wrongly believe tomatoes are not fruits. This meets every criteria for inclusion in this page, and I strongly support its inclusion. Joe (talk) 15:27, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

We're not talking about science as a popularity contest; your analogy isn't valid. We're talking about words that have more than one definition. I do agree that "are botanically vegetables" isn't a good phrase. VQuakr (talk) 15:42, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

More relevant discussions are whether bananas trees are actually trees (entry removed) and ice age referring to previous periods of ice ages vs period with glacial ice on Earth (entry removed). Rollinginhisgrave (talk) 17:48, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

The assertion here was that it is common for those who would say "tomato is not fruit" to either not recognize botanical usage can differ from other usages or that botanically a tomato is indeed a fruit. As such, under this clarification, perhaps the provided list(s) could do with refinement. Otherwise, I could see grounds for removing the entry based on insufficient commonness (commonness for which no source was provided), but not due to language's flexibility (as was caveat-ed with the phrase "but often not in everyday language"—consider how the sentence reads with that phrase removed). Anderjef (talk) 11:43, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Definitions can be wrong. The once-common belief that whales are not mammals is an example of that. Happily, these days people commonly accept that whales are mammals, but if we were making Wikipedia back in the 1700's, "Whales are mammals" would be a perfectly good correction to a common misconception for this list. So too with "tomatoes are fruits." The fact that the common man has an incorrect definition in his head doesn't mean it isn't a misconception, that's exactly what a common misconception is. Joe (talk) 17:59, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

I don't think an unscientific definition is necessarily wrong, it's just... unscientific. If people know (or at least know of the existence of) the scientific definition AND believe something doesn't meet that definition when in fact it does (or vice versa), that could be a misconception. If people simply have a different definition in their heads, and believe that the thing doesn't meet this definition when it indeed doesn't (but it does meet the corresponding scientific definition) (or vice versa), then that doesn't seem like much of a misconception to me, just a difference in the use of language between scientists and non-scientists. Or just between contexts where people are speaking scientifically and where they know they are not. W. P. Uzer (talk) 19:34, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

If the classification of 'fruits' as fruits was arbitrary, I'd agree. Someone mentioned misconceptions about 'what is a tree,' and since trees have evolved dozens of different times throughout Earth's history, the 'trees' are not a biologically real taxonomic group, and therefore the boundaries of what is and is not a tree can be somewhat fuzzy. The same is not true for fruits. The belief that there is something fundamentally different about tomatoes that makes them different from bananas and oranges is wrong. It's no different than if lots of people believed whales weren't mammals, or pandas weren't bears, or humans weren't animals, etc., etc. It is a misconception, and it is common, what more do we need? Joe (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

@JoePhin: no, that's not how words work. I get that you wish English were a prescriptivist language without polysemes, but it isn't. We use context clues to determine which usage applies; the chef that doesn't consider cucumber a fruit isn't "wrong" [9]. VQuakr (talk) 22:51, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with words, nothing at all. If one believes that tomatoes are fundamentally unlike oranges, apricots, and lemons, one is wrong in that belief (just as one would be wrong to think that oranges are fundamentally unlike apricots, tomatoes, and lemons, etc.)

It doesn't even matter what words one uses to express this view, it remains wrong no matter the medium. Joe (talk) 23:02, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Nope. Just because they are all fruits in the botanical sense doesn't mean they are in the culinary sense. Which are you selecting if a recipe calls for a fruit compote? Your definition of fundamental is arbitrary. VQuakr (talk) 23:15, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

@JoePhin: got a source for the "once-common belief that whales are not mammals" claim? People used to use the word "fish" to refer to all sea creatures, a broader usage than the scientific or common usage today, but that wasn't because they were ignorant of what a mammal was. It was because the definition of the word changed over time. That's language evolving, it doesn't mean that the previous usage was "wrong". VQuakr (talk) 21:01, 18 October 2022 (UTC)

Linnaeus' classification of whales as mammals was not uncontentious at the time, and only after a number of famous dissections had been performed did the scientific community broadly accept whales as mammals, sometime in the latter half of the 1700's. Needless to say, public knowledge of the fact that whales suckle their babies as humans and other mammals do did not instantaneously spread throughout the global population after the scientific community came to broadly accept it. Happily, the idea that whales aren't mammals is no longer common, and so, not being a current misconception, we don't need to include it on this page.

That said, however, the fact that whales are more closely related to humans and other mammals than to, say, birds, may still be a common misconception to this day. In fact, it's quite possible that we should include an entry to the effect that "Different organisms on Earth all derive from a single universal common ancestor, and consequently all living things are related to one another. Different 'kinds' of animals and plants were not specially created, as is attested in several religious traditions." (or something similar). Just glancing at the creationism page, it seems like there's strong evidence that it's a very common misconception. Joe (talk) 22:24, 18 October 2022 (UTC)