• will_a113@lemmy.ml
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    20 days ago

    That humans came out of Africa once and then settled the rest of the world. In reality there was a constant migration of humans in and out of Africa for millennia while the rest of the world was being populated (and of course it hasn’t ever stopped since).

    I love how much DNA analysis has completely upended so much “known” archaeology and anthropology from even just a couple decades ago.

      • will_a113@lemmy.ml
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        20 days ago

        Gene sequencing wasn’t really a thing (at least an affordable thing) until the 2010s, but once it was widely available archaeologists started using it on pretty much anything they could extract a sample from. Suddenly it became possible to track the migrations of groups over time by tracing gene similarities, determine how much intermarrying there must have been within groups, etc. Even with individual sites it has been used to determine when leadership was hereditary vs not, or how wealth was distributed (by looking at residual food dna on teeth). It really has revolutionized the field and cast a lot of old-school theories (often taken for truth) into the dustbin.

  • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
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    20 days ago

    Taste buds are arranged by flavor in four sections of the tongue. Complete load of horseshit.

    Multiplication tables (I still know them mostly). I have a calculator on damn near every device now.

    Things will always get better <-- this one is the biggest lie of them all

    • BellaDonna
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      20 days ago

      Eh, it’s more like our definition of what a planet is changed. I still think of Pluto as a planet.

      • lordnikon@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        Pluto is a great test for what type of person someone is.

        If someone says Pluto is still a planet. They have a personality where they are immovable and can’t accept scientific change and everything has to be how they first learned it.

        If they do say pluto is a new kind of dwarf planet they are more accepting of new information and belive in the scientific method and love to be wrong. Since it means we learn something new.

        It’s a great quick test when meeting new people.

  • Luke@lemmy.ml
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    19 days ago

    Basically everything I can recall being told in D.A.R.E program classes (war on drugs era propaganda taught in public schools in the USA) was utter nonsense and fabricated bullshit. After actually having personal experience with most of the substances they vilified, none of the effects - good or ill - are what I was taught in that ridiculous program.

    On the contrary, some of the fear tactics they used made me curious to investigate on my own. The breathlessly scared rural teacher describing the mind bending effects that “magic mushrooms” was supposed to have sounded fascinating to teenage me. In reality, they are very fun and therapeutic to use, but nothing like the wild Alice in Wonderland mind journey they made it sound like it would be.

  • bonegakrejg@lemmy.ml
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    20 days ago

    I would say “cursive is how adults write, you’ll need to know it”, but that wasn’t true then either.

    • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      “You need a pen licence because that’s what you use at work”.

      Um no. Secretaries, lawyers and journalists used typewriters and engineers used propelling pencils. Builders had these odd rectangular shaped pencils that could write on anything. Fitters and boilermakers used chalk.

      Only schoolchildren used biros.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    20 days ago

    A huge number of aspects of the US’s geopolitical enemies, and its own mythologization of the Founding Fathers and early settlers.

    There was also a really bad political test with liberalism on the left and conservativism on the right, and we had to take a test and put what we got in front of everyone, which was very strange.

  • hddsx@lemmy.ca
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    20 days ago

    -Coequal branches of government

    -Separation of Church and State

    -Life terms for SCOTUS ensures political impartiality

    -The second amendment was so that we could defend ourselves (see: redcoats)

    -Bohr system

  • Meron35@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    Physical Vs chemical changes.

    It was typically taught that physical changes are differentiated from chemical changes because they could be “undone” or that they had “no chemical reaction.” Which was very confusing, because you can’t uncut paper, and dissolving stuff in water clearly results in different chemicals being produced, yet both were examples of physical changes (actually the latter is sometimes taught as a chemical change). Furthermore, most chemical changes are actually reversible.

    It has since been recognised that this classification is BS, and most changes actually exist on a continuum.

    • multifariace@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      I am teaching this next week. It is sometimes painful how simplified we have to make content for middle school. You are expressing what science teachers hope for from students. You were curious enough to explore further and ask questions, the true purpose of science.

  • RebekahWSD@lemmy.world
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    20 days ago

    We don’t know what the appendix does, the whole pluto thing, I think the Oxford comma is going out of style, and cursive in general.

    But I love cursive, mine was “very nice” according to my teachers.

    • SoulWager@lemmy.ml
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      20 days ago

      Eh, Pluto isn’t really something proven false, just that we found more objects like Pluto that made more sense in their own category. It’s classification, like there weren’t always separate categories for feature films and short films, there wasn’t a separate category for dwarf planets when it was just Pluto.

      Oxford comma is useful. I think what’s getting popular is just complete disregard for spelling and grammar.

      • Widdershins@lemmy.world
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        20 days ago

        My handwriting turned around after I got a fountain pen. I went from doctor to pre-med handwriting. Having to think more about how to form the letters has me taking my time. No need to rush when I’m writing with a fancy pen full of cool ink.