Episode 45: Misconceptions--"Factoids" That Aren't Really Facts

In this episode, April debunks some common misconceptions and discusses why they are so "sticky" in our brains.

Episode 45 Show Notes

Definition of "factoid"--https://www.oed.com/dictionary/factoid_n?tab=meaning_and_use#4942990

Drs Carroll and Vreeman's great book debunking lots of health myths: https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Cross-Your-Theyll-Stuck/dp/0312681879

AOA's article discussing strabismus (crossed eyes): https://www.aoa.org/healthy-eyes/eye-and-vision-conditions/strabismus

Great article debunking several misconceptions your parents probably believed were true: https://www.uchealth.org/today/10-myths-you-may-have-heard-from-your-parents/

The five-second rule, explained: https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/the-origin-of-the-five-second-rule/

The Cleveland Clinic's article setting the record straight about body heat loss: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/body-heat-loss

The truth about chastity belts: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/medieval-chastity-belts-are-myth-180956341/

Why you should be more afraid of your tray table making you sick than the air on an airplane: https://www.aarp.org/travel/travel-tips/safety/avoid-airplane-germs/#:~:text=%7C%20An%20airplane%20offers%20the%20perfect,soggy%20tissues%20and%20dirty%20diapers

What "vomitorium" really means: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/purging-the-myth-of-the-vomitorium/

An in depth-discussion of the term "Xmas:" https://eu.news-journalonline.com/story/news/2023/12/06/xmas-vs-christmas-why-offensive-origins-history-greek-chi-means-christ/71810050007/

https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/xmas-origin

An extremely deep dive into the psychology behind misconceptions: https://philpapers.org/rec/DELIMA-3

Transcript

Episode 45: Misconceptions— “factoids” that aren’t really facts

I don’t know about your mom, but when I was little mine was fond of saying things like, “Don’t cross your eyes, they’ll get stuck like that!” or “Don’t go swimming until you’ve waited at least an hour after you’ve eaten or you’ll get cramps and drown.” Or “You better not swallow that gum—it’ll stay in your stomach and take seven years to digest.”

Even if you were told those things as a child, I hope you’ve figured out by now that they really don’t have any basis in truth. I mean, it’s highly unlikely you have gum stuck in your colon years after you swallowed it! 

In the last episode I talked about misinformation and disinformation. This episode is also about things that aren’t true. What’s different in this case is that the untruths we are looking at are things that you might have thought were true your whole life, or at least some portion of it. These are known as common misconceptions, and you might be surprised to find out that something you just assumed was true actually isn’t. While they can be about any topic, a lot of them are related to health and science, while some are cultural or historical in nature. I like to use the term “factoids” when referring to them—The Oxford English dictionary defines a factoid as “an assumption or speculation that is reported and repeated so often that it is accepted as fact.” Throughout this episode I’ll be calling them that, or myths, or misconceptions. But they all basically fall into the same category.

We’ll start by looking at some of the most common factoids, then we’ll talk about why they are so sticky in our brains and maybe give you some motivation to review your own knowledge of the world from a more skeptical viewpoint. Let’s get started! 

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First, we’ll take on some common health and Science misconceptions. We’ll start with the ones my mom was fond of repeating:

1.        First, is it true that crossing your eyes too much will cause them to “get stuck” in that position? Drs Aaron Carroll and Rachel Vreeman, authors of the book “Don’t Cross Your Eyes, they’ll get stuck that way: and 75 Other health myths debunked” assure us that is indeed not the case. Eye muscles are very flexible; they are designed to move in all directions and then return to their normal position quickly. You might strain your eye muscles by forcing them into a cross-eyed position for a long period of time, but you’re not going to cause them to get stuck there. Now of course there is an eye condition called Strabismus (which does often result in crossed eyes); the American Optometric Association says this condition can run in families, and sometimes occurs in people with strong uncorrected farsightedness, or those with Down’s syndrome. It can also happen due to a head injury. But you can’t get it simply by crossing your eyes too much or too often.

2.        And what about waiting an hour after you’ve eaten to swim? Urgent care specialist Dr Ian Tullberg says that a normal-sized meal will not cause you to have cramps while swimming. If you really stuff yourself, it might be uncomfortable to go swimming afterwards, but it would probably be uncomfortable regardless of whether you go swimming or not, so you might want to wait until your stomach issues subside before jumping into the pool.

3.        And another one, how long does chewing gum stay in your digestive system if you swallow it? Dr. Tullberg says only a couple of days; it’s not a digestible substance, so it just moves through the system along with everything else and comes out the other end pretty much the same as it went in. Yeah, I don’t want to think about that too much, but you get the picture…

Here are a couple of other health and science-y misconceptions you also might have thought were true. 

4.        What about the five second rule—how safe is food that has been dropped on the floor? A delightful article by Science Friday podcast host Johanna Mayer looks at the scientific investigation into the validity of this so-called “rule.” The result of that investigation? Longer contact times did result in the transfer of more bacteria, in general (so the longer food stays on the floor the sketchier it becomes); however, the type of food dropped, as well as the type of surface the food was dropped onto, did play a fairly large role in how “safe” it was. Dropping a hard piece of candy onto a carpet, for instance, is probably fine to eat if you pick it up quickly. This is because the hard surface of the candy doesn’t allow easy transfer of microbes, plus a carpet’s top surface is generally less dirty because dirt and dust tend to filter farther down into the carpet. On the other hand, dropping something wet, like watermelon, onto the floor and then picking it up to eat is a big no-no, even if you pick it up within five seconds. That’s because bacteria and viruses can transfer to a moist surface really fast, so stay safe and just don’t eat it. The researchers’ overall conclusion is that it’s probably best not to eat food that’s fallen on the floor, just because there’s no specific time limit that determines whether it’s safe or not. But, you know, they’re not trying to tell you what to do.

5.        How about the belief that half of your body heat is lost through your head? Your mom may have insisted that you wore a hat when it was cold outside because of the commonly held belief that you lose much of your body heat through your head. This idea has been around for quite a while; nobody is quite sure where it originated, although an article in the Cleveland Clinic says it came from an old Army field manual that stated 40-50% of body heat escapes through the head. When you think about it, it doesn’t really make any sense. I mean, would wearing clothes but no hat cause you to lose the same amount of body heat as wearing a hat but no clothes? Now I’m thinking about Tom Hiddleston just wearing a hat and no clothes…but anyway, it simply cannot be the case that you’d lose an equal amount of body heat in those two circumstances, and a more recent study determined that an adult only loses about 10% of their body heat through their head. Now, because a child’s head is bigger proportionally to their body than an adult’s, they might actually lose a little more than 10% of their body heat through their head but there’s still no way that it would be 40-50%. 

6.        And finally--The idea that the recirculated air on an airplane is full of viruses and bacteria isn’t necessarily true, although the facts are a little tricky. Airplane air is highly filtered to remove around 97% of microbes, so it’s probably cleaner than the air in your office or even your home. But that doesn’t mean that you won’t catch an illness during a flight: if someone is sneezing or coughing within a few feet of your seat, you’re likely to get exposed to their germs before the air has a chance to get filtered. And AARP’s article “Ways to avoid germs and other health hazards on a plane” says that the interior surfaces of an airplane are where most of the bacteria and viruses are found. Despite each airplane being thoroughly cleaned at night, microbes can settle on surfaces as people travel throughout the day. The most common places germs can be found on a plane are tray tables, seatbelts and seat pockets, so make sure you sanitize your personal space before you get comfortable and use a hand sanitizing gel often during the flight. And if you hear someone coughing in your general vicinity, putting on a mask might also be a good idea.

Pretty fascinating, right? Well, now I’m on a roll, so let’s examine the truths behind a few equally interesting historical misconceptions out there that you may have heard and believed:

1.        Here’s one from ancient Roman times-many people are under the impression that a vomitorium was a place where overindulgent Roman citizens would go to purge themselves during a huge feast so they could go back and eat more. But the word doesn’t mean that at all—sure, Romans were not above overindulging themselves, but they didn’t have rooms specifically for barfing, if they were going to do it they probably did it into a chamber pot or went out and barfed in the street and left the servants to clean it up. According to an article in Scientific American, Vomitorium was actually the term for a large entrance/exit, usually from a stadium, theater, or other public venue. Vomo, in Latin, means to “spew forth,” and in this case it has to do with the spewing forth of large numbers of people as they entered or left these buildings. Ok, that’s enough about vomit…

2.        Another interesting tidbit--Chastity belts were not a real thing in medieval times. An article in Smithsonian Magazine refers to them as pieces of hardware that a man would use to lock up his wife’s “nether regions” when he went away so he could be assured she would remain faithful to him until he returned. The thing is—chastity belts didn’t exist in reality; the idea was more allegorical in nature. Nobody seriously thought that locking up a woman’s genitalia was a good idea, and it certainly was neither logistically nor hygienically feasible. A wife who was told to keep herself only for her husband did not literally wear a metal belt to accomplish that. Now, there are a few examples of chastity belts out there, for instance the British Museum has one, but those were made long after the Middle Ages and were meant more as amusing social commentary or as pieces of artwork, they were never meant to actually be used. Now, do some people in today’s society wear them? Um, yes; but modern usage is fairly rare, consensual, and mostly contained to the BDSM community.  Ok, I’m just going to leave that one to your imagination.

3.        Let’s do one more—did you know that the term “Xmas” did not originate from a devious plan to take Christ out of Christmas? According to journalist Cheryl McCloud from the Daytona Beach News-Journal, the term Xmas was used as early as 1021 AD. The letter X stands for the first letter in the Greek word for Christ; this letter has been used as shorthand to refer to Christ for more than a thousand years. It was a common abbreviation, used by such great authors as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lewis Carroll. YourDictionary.com states that the term has been misunderstood due to our modern interpretation of the letter X--some people have the mistaken idea that X in this case means that Christ has been “X-ed out”, which is an idiom meaning that something should be removed or disregarded. So, the next time you see the phrase “Merry Xmas,” remember that it’s not disrespectful—it’s simply an abbreviation. That being said, you probably wouldn’t walk up to someone and say “merry Xmas,” because that sounds odd, and since it IS an abbreviation, it’s generally considered too informal to use in holiday greeting cards or Christmas essays. When might it best be used? Well, when space to write it out completely just isn’t there, like on a small gift tag, or when you’re signing your name on a card and there’s simply not enough room left to write out “Merry Christmas.” All things considered, it’s better to just write it out instead of using the abbreviation whenever possible.

Music

 We’ve just looked at some of the most common myths and misconceptions; you might have realized that you have been wrong about at least one of them your whole life. Some of them, like the ones about vomitoriums or chastity belts, don’t’ really make much of a difference in our lives, although it is interesting to learn the truth about them. But others, like eating food that fell on the floor or thinking that it’s the air on a plane that’s full of germs when it’s really the tray table seat that will get you sick, could actually affect the choices that you make on a daily basis. Why are these factoids so sticky in our brains? It’s because of where and when we learned them, and who told them to us. Many of these we learned in childhood, and our parents were often the source of these misconceptions.

Now before you get the wrong impression here, I just want to assure you that my goal is not to trash the teachings of parents and society. My mom was kind and loving and smart and she taught me so much about life that I will always be grateful for. There’s plenty of truth and wisdom and virtue and good solid common sense that’s been passed down to us from our forebearers. But being able to discern what is indeed worth keeping and passing on from what isn’t is one of the hallmarks of good critical thinking.

 According to emergency room doctor Ian Tullberg, many of these myths and misconceptions often had a good purpose: attempting to keep kids safe, healthy and well behaved, which is a parent’s job, after all. Parents are our very first sources of information about the world. When you were a kid, you counted on them to teach you what they knew, just as they counted on their parents before them, who probably were THEIR source of many of these misconceptions. And if those misconceptions weren’t corrected at some point, you probably kept on thinking they were true, just as you believed the vast majority of what your parents taught you that was good, solid information and advice. And it’s not just families, a lot of myths and misconceptions came from the culture and society in which we were raised, and they’ve been passed down within our communities as true. And because they were meant to be accepted as fact, we never bothered to look for evidence that would either prove or disprove them.

We tend to believe misconceptions due to all the things I’ve talked about in previous episodes--cognitive shortcuts like heuristics and confirmation bias, the illusory truth effect (which has to do with repetition and how information is easier to believe the more we hear it), and motivated reasoning (in which we justify our beliefs rather than look for the truth). Our brains prefer quick, easy-to-process narratives over ideas that are more complex. And when our families and social groups reinforce those ideas, they become entrenched in our brains. 

A 2019 article in the philosophy journal Synthese, titled Ignorance, Misconceptions, and Critical Thinking, states, “If a person has both good reasons to believe and evidence for something, their belief is more likely to be true. On the contrary, if a belief a person holds is not based on good reasons and evidence, it is more likely to be false. However, this is not always the case. It is also possible that a person holds a false belief for good reasons.” What qualifies as a good reason? For many of us, just the fact that our parent told us something is a good reason to believe it, because we trust that they wouldn’t intentionally provide us with incorrect information. But if we never take the time to determine whether there is good evidence to support a belief, we are basing it solely on the idea that our parent wouldn’t tell us anything that wasn’t true.  

Family and culture shape a child's foundational understanding of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, and these things often become part of our core identity. Here’s the problem-- it’s not just about factoids like the ones I mentioned before; so many of our ideas about the world, including implicit and explicit biases about things like race, class, and gender, are often inherited from our families and societies. And just like those factoids, these biases are often left unexamined and can end up guiding our actions without us even being conscious of them. So you can see that even though some, if not most, of the misconceptions I debunked earlier in the episode are fairly innocuous, our tendency to simply trust that those things are the case often extends to our beliefs about much more important issues.

And just like the kinds of slow, thoughtful, critical evaluation that we should always be doing when it comes to those important issues (and which I’ve spent many episodes discussing so I’m not going to repeat myself here), we can do the same kinds of things with common misconceptions. I’m not saying you have to undertake a comprehensive evaluation of every single factoid you learned in childhood, nobody has time for that. But these things do pop up occasionally, and when they do I hope that before you just repeat something that you’ve always thought was the case because it seems to fit with what’s happening in the moment, you stop and realize that you’re not quite sure why you think this factoid is indeed true. These are the times when Google and even ChatGPT can be your friend. Doing a quick search about a factoid can let you know whether or not your belief is generally considered to be correct, or if it’s misleading or even false, along with any evidence that proves or disproves it. You might find that the truth is far more complicated and interesting than you originally thought.  This can be an eye-opening and humbling experience, but my guess is you’re strong enough to occasionally reevaluate your ideas about the world without crumbling to dust. And the less we perpetuate misconceptions by passing them on to people who trust in what we say, the better our world will be.

And that’s it for this episode. I hope you found this enlightening, and if you think someone else might also, please share it with them. Oh, and don’t forget to check out the show notes, and if you haven’t subscribed yet, I’d love it if you did. And I hope you use the information in this episode to help you think it through.