What is something that has been proven wrong but the majority of us still believes in?

1. Touching a wild baby animal will cause its mom to abandon it. It will not. Put the bunny back.
   — MidnightDaylight


2. That the stages of greif do not always happen in order-Denial Anger Bargaining Depression and Acceptance. The psychologist who made this regreted having an order. You can go from Acceptance back to Anger to Depression to Denial. They are more like states of grief.
   — doghome107


3. Polygraphs - i.e. lie detectors - do *not* work. They measure your heartrate, blood pressure, breathing patterns, and skin conductivity via sweat. All of these are controllable. A famous serial killer, [Gary Ridgway,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway) passed the polygraph, and we would never have found out. With practice, one could easily and reliably fool it. Sociopaths and psychopaths who murder - people without any strong emotions - can easily fake it because they can just not be nervous.
   — RobertCactus






4. It's fine to throw rice at weddings. Birds will not pop after eating it. Even if it did somehow cook in them, rice isn't made of concrete and would just disintegrate. Any person who has ever chewed rice, should know this. Many animals also naturally eat grains without dying. It's probably not the best thing for them and I find the whole thing weird in general, but it's WAY better than throwing confetti.
   — Nillabeans


5. The whole "frog in a boiling pot" metaphor isn't actually true in practice. If you heat water to the point that the frog isn't comfortable, it'll jump out. Edit: People who've remarked that it isn't literal but a metaphor - you're right, it is. But I've experienced plenty of people who think it's also literally true, myself included. Also thanks for the PMs! :)
   — PM_UR_NUDES_4_RATING


6. The man who popularised the idea of "Alpha" and "Beta" members of wolf packs spent the rest of his career trying to convince everyone he was wrong The main points being: 1. Since a wolf pack is usually made up of male, female, and their offspring, the breeding male is "alpha" by default, since his pack is his children. So there's little sense in calling the head wolf an alpha when it's really just the father of the pack. 2. It is fair to refer to the top wolf in a pack as the alpha in packs that are unrelated, and "complex packs" where there are multiple breeding partners. Unrelated packs don't happen in the wild though, and complex packs are rare.
   — AGMarasco






7. That a low frequency of meals lowers your metabolism. There is no study supporting this, and most that test meal frequency actually find the opposite to be true.
   — Crifa


8. Bats are blind
   — Living_Granger


9. If you shave your hair grows in thicker
   — remarqer






10. That "lone wolves" are smarter and bolder and an ideal way to structure your life/business plan. Wolves are not meant to be solitary. A lone wolf only occurs as a temporary circumstance in life and will not survive if left to itself for a prolonged period. Much like people.
    — Sloane__Peterson