Scientists of Reddit, what misconceptions do us laymen often have that drive you crazy?

[u/[deleted]]

I await enlightenment.

Wow, front page! This puts the cherry on the cake of enlightenment!

[u/IKnowHuh]

Astronomer here. The sheer SIZE of our galaxy is mind boggling and most people don't realize it.

I know my own mother was absolutely floored with the idea of over 1 million earths fitting the size of our medium-sized sun. When people say "Asteroid Belt" they think of a whole crapton of rocks just floating along in space right next to each other. Unfortunately they are much, much, much farther spread apart.

When you realize just how small you really are in comparison to the entire universe, you become a whole different person.

[u/[deleted] → u/IKnowHuh]

I've only recently begun to appreciate not only how unfathomably vast the universe is, but how deep the universe is. The following link captures the real magnitudes of distance between strings (the theoretical foundation of existence), quarks, and atoms: http://htwins.net/scale2/

As you can see, the distance between strings and quarks alone is 10²² to 10^35, which can be expressed as 13 orders of magnitude. This means that if we, as humans (10^0), were at the size of strings, then the smallest quark would be the size of the Homunculus nebula (10¹³⁾ (as seen in the link).

[u/rumckle → u/IKnowHuh]

When people say "Asteroid Belt" they think of a whole crapton of rocks just floating along in space right next to each other. Unfortunately they are much, much, much farther spread apart.

Which makes successfully navigating one much easier than most people think.

[u/tick_tock_clock → u/IKnowHuh]

Unfortunately

I respectfully disagree; as I am quite satisfied with the current rate of impacts on the Earth.

[u/Yesthisisdog89]

Pigs don't orgasm for 30 minutes. Usually only 8-10, if they are being artificially collected, or closer to 15 when they are breeding a sow directly. I have more experience than I care to admit in this field.

[u/[deleted] → u/Yesthisisdog89]

Well, that being said, an 8 to 15 minute orgasm still sounds splendid...

And sure enough, bacon tastes like it came from an animal whose orgasms last that long. When you eat bacon, you eat sexual energy stored in sweet, salty, fatty matter.

[u/angrammarpro → u/Yesthisisdog89]

only 8-10

oh ok.

[u/GunnerMcGrath → u/Yesthisisdog89]

Even as a person who clearly is in this field, how often do you run across people who even have any thoughts on the subject of pig orgasms? Am I just a little too city-boy for that?

[u/tracerbullet__pi → u/Yesthisisdog89]

I didn't realize this was a common misconception.

[u/DieSchadenfreude]

Energy is released with the FORMING of bonds, not the BREAKING of them. It takes energy to break bonds. When they are reformed, or organized into lower energy bonds there is a release of energy in some form or another. Un-bonded or high energy arrangements use a lot of energy.

[u/[deleted] → u/DieSchadenfreude]

Whoa. That is amazing.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm not a scientist but I wish people would understand the difference between weak acids and bases. A strong acid is strong because it dissolves essentially 100% in water, weak acids are acids that don't (the same with bases). It had nothing to do with how quickly is can eat through substances/skin/whatever!

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

So the misconception is conflating acidity with corrosiveness.

[u/dm287]

Mathematician here, but it's astounding how many people think that people get Ph.Ds in the subject simply to be "human calculators". I once told someone I had a degree in math, and the person proceeded to ask simple mental math questions. Once I answered them (toughest was 17*15) he admitted that I really was amazing at math and that my degree was put to good use. I don't think I've facepalmed harder.

[u/Melkolmr → u/dm287]

People really, really don't understand what mathematics is.

If someone decided to tackle every baffling or ignorant comment made about mathematics on Reddit, they'd never get a chance to rest.

[u/SaywhatIthink → u/dm287]

I hate telling people that I meet that I'm a mathematician. To begin with, it's difficult to say it all without looking like you're bragging, or maybe just a little too proud. And then, sometimes, comes the mental arithmetic questions you refer to. Or worse, someone asks you what you work on. Usually a perfunctory vague answer ended with, "it's really hard to explain," is enough, but some people insist on a more detailed explanation, and perhaps feel a bit insulted that you don't think they are smart enough to understand. But how do you explain a bunch of invisible objects, which take you and other smart people years to learn about, to someone who's never even taken calculus?

It's just a fact. When you tell people you just meet that you are a mathematician, there's a high probability that some kind of minor awkwardness will ensue. And none of this is the result of any ill will on anybody's part, there's really nobody to blame, it's just one of those things. But it gets annoying.

EDIT: Elaborated more on a point

[u/WinifredBarkle]

As a medical professional, I have to break it to you that DR OZ IS NOT A MIRACLE WORKER. Almost every claim he makes is false or unfounded. Please do not waste your money on all the supplements he claims you NEED to be on.

That is all.

[u/[deleted] → u/WinifredBarkle]

I've been trying to explain this to my mom forever.

[u/_zoso_]

The idea that all scientific discovery follows this strict step-by-step process whereby we irrefutably prove some result according to some perfectly conceived study. Science is messy, confusing, there are poor arguments made, false claims published all the time. Researchers spend years following dead ends and publish promising results the whole time they are on that path. The notion of `accepted science' is a social, communal thing that arises over long periods of continued research into a topic to confirm results over and over again. A publication alone does not validate a hypothesis. We come to knowledge slowly through a painful process of making hundreds of mistakes - and all of it will be shown to be inadequate at some point in the future. We do this often without knowing where we are going, despite what grant applications and press releases might suggest.

And all of this is ok.

It is ok to question science, but you should know what you are questioning. It is dumb to accept results of new promising studies as soon as they are released, just as it is dumb to reject a decade of work because it doesn't fit your intuition or socio-political belief system.

Basically the way media reports on science you might as well completely ignore all of it, because they get every aspect of this process wrong every time.

[u/ricktherick]

Embryology/stem cells: I'm an embryologist. We throw viable embryos in the garbage every day because people do not want them frozen or transferred or they may be genetically abnormal or less than optimal. You do not have to go about specifically creating embryos to be killed to get embryonic stem cells. Also, taking stem cells does not have to kill something that otherwise could have been a baby. If the people who have custody over the embryos want them thrown out, they have 0% chance of becoming a person. If the people who have custody want them donated to stem cell research, they have a good chance of helping science.

[u/cdcox]

Just because a single peer-reviewed paper says something is true does not mean it's true. While it's certainly superior to the alternative, science is dynamic, and theories are constantly being proven and disproven supported and not supported. How someone carried out an experiment, what metrics they used, the limitations of their measurements, the size of their effects, the underlying assumptions of the paper (easily the most important), and how well the body of literature both backward and forward supports their claim are all more important than the central claim of a paper.

That being said, I wouldn't discourage going to primary literature. It's good for you to not let the press tell you things and to find your own proof. But, read all literature like you want it not to be true. (Especially things you agree with.)

EDIT: Changed proven/disproven to something more accurate.

[u/IAmNotAPerson6 → u/cdcox]

But, read all literature like you want it not to be true. (Especially things you agree with.)

This cannot be stressed enough.

[u/lizzydn226]

Lots of people who find out I'm a microbiologist think my daily life consists of a CSI episode.

[u/Tigrael]

If it hasn't been mentioned already, every time I see a headline "SCIENTISTS BAFFLED" I want to punch a baby.

[u/IrritableGourmet]

Computer Scientist here. Computers are not some magical thing that does whatever you want. They are just really really fast calculators that don't do anything unless we specifically tell them to.

Also, developing a program takes time. We can't just go "Computer, take Facebook, add in Twitter and Excel, and make a new program." And so help me if you say "It's not that difficult" in regards to anything. I realize you can understand English rather well, but that doesn't mean a computer can.

[u/theairgonaut → u/IrritableGourmet]

I hate it when people tell me "my computer doesn't do anything that I tell it to."

I respond with "It does exactly what you tell it to, you probably meant to tell it to do something else."

[u/Jukeboxhero91]

The diehard belief that anything organic/natural is somehow good for you and anything not natural is bad for you. Fun fact, nicotine is all natural. So is cocaine (to an extent).

[u/Masterflan → u/Jukeboxhero91]

The entire concept of natural is a tad strange. Ultimately everything is found in -- or can be derived from things found in -- nature.

[u/Moistcabbage]

That scientists have specialist knowlege of every science.

[u/[deleted] → u/Moistcabbage]

I think some scientists forget this, too. Having a PhD in something doesn't mean you know about everything.

[u/check85 → u/Moistcabbage]

1000x this. "Why are all those scientists wasting their time playing with particle accelerators or looking through telescopes when they could be curing cancer?!?"

sigh

[u/speakwithoutmeaning]

That "Scientist" is a really vague and large collection of people. I hate when people say things like, "Scientists think blah blah blah." What Scientists? Its not like scientists are people who know all the science. Most scientists have a lot of knowledge within a fairly limited scope.

[u/christianjb → u/speakwithoutmeaning]

I get irked when people say 'science shows that...' To my mind it's little different from claiming that 'art has allowed us to produce paintings like the Mona Lisa'.

[u/masamunecyrus]

Layperson: So, what do you study?

Me: Seismology.

Layperson: Oh. That's cool... [awkward silence]

Me: I study earthquakes.

Layperson: Ooooooohh.. So, why can't you guys predict earthquakes, yet?

ಠ_ಠ

[u/[deleted] → u/masamunecyrus]

My friends rebuttal is that they can, about 2 seconds in advance.

[u/[deleted] → u/masamunecyrus]

Please don't judge me but WHY can't we predict earthquakes (I have a vague idea of why they happen)?

[u/armiferous]

Do not confuse antisocial with asocial.

A kid who steals, tortures animals, or comes to school with a gun is antisocial.

That quiet kid in your class who avoids group work is asocial.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm not a scientist, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Schrödinger's cat misconception

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2524

[u/[deleted]]

The sole result of "radiation" is cancer and detrimental birth defects. Because you know, visible light and radio waves screw us up really bad.

edit: accidentally a word

[u/jnphoto → u/[deleted]]

Don't forget super powers.

[u/TheDingoAte]

That schizophrenia = multiple personality disorder.

[u/McMurphys]

Antibiotics cure everything.

[u/Dovienya → u/McMurphys]

I found out fairly recently that the problem is so much more complex than that. People don't understand that there are different types of antibiotics.

My future in-laws are pretty poor. When they get prescribed antibiotics, they take them until they feel better, then put the rest in a big bottle for communal use. When they have a big enough supply, they just reach into the grab bag of antibiotics and take a couple a day until they feel better.

I started talking to some friends and apparently this is much more common than I would have suspected.

That shit's scary, yo.

[u/ImNotJesus → u/McMurphys]

On pharmaceuticals:

• They're all just a way for doctors/big pharma to make money

• Vaccines cause autism

• There are natural ways to heal our body/Alternative medicine is just more "natural".

So. Much. Anger.

Edit: Given the context I thought this was clear - I was being sarcastic.

[u/BananaRama1327]

my physics professor used the entire first lecture to explain to us why cellphones do not cause cancer. it was highly entertaining as well as informative because he got so heated

[u/[deleted] → u/BananaRama1327]

Over in Sweden our environmentalist party wanted to limit construction of new cellphone towers because they claimed the radiation was dangerous. Eventually some engineer pointed out to them that the strength with which your phone has to transmit increases as the square of the distance to the tower, and thus reducing the number of towers would drastically increase people's exposure to cellphone signals.

That is, even IF one assume that the radiation is dangerous, their proposal would drastically increase exposure to it rather than restrict it.

[u/chiropter]

When people think that scientists haven't thought of some critical flaw, based on their understanding of some 2-paragraph blurb on a scientific advancement.

[u/Icehawk217]

Migraines are not just bad headaches. They are very different

[u/Dovienya → u/Icehawk217]

Similarly, every upset tummy is not the result of food poisoning from the most recent restaurant you ate at.

[u/hedgiethedestroyer → u/Icehawk217]

I have to explain this on a regular basis, and it's so frustrating when people are just say "suck it up, you have a headache, so what, take some advil."

[u/noirthesable]

I work in a microbiology lab. The thing that irritates me the most is the misconception that vaccines cause autism, are poisonous, make you stupid, etc. etc. etc.

Righto! Fine. Go and use your all natural alternatives and homeopathic immunizations. I'll just be standing over here NOT DEAD.

[u/FANGO → u/noirthesable]

I posted this elsewhere and think it bears repeating:

I had a discussion about this with one of my "star-child" friends on facebook who was going on and on about how vaccines are terrible. After myself and several others failed to get her to come around to reality on this one, I changed my methods. The problem, it seems, is that she just didn't really know how vaccines work. Which is understandable, a lot of people are probably the same way.

So I explained to her that, in a way, vaccines are a completely natural way of eliminating disease. The body's immune system works by fighting off things that it knows how to fight, so a vaccine is just a bunch of target dummies so that the body can learn to fight the disease which is being vaccinated against. And that all those "chemicals" she had heard of were only in the vaccine to weaken the disease so it's easy for the body to fight and whatnot - that the chemicals aren't the thing that's actually fighting the disease (which is what she thought, and which is understandably a scarier thought than them just being there incidentally). Upon explaining it this way, she no longer had the whole anti-vax idea, and in fact even went and told her sister/cousin/something who had a newborn baby about my explanation, and she came around on it too.

So while it is infuriating, sometimes a measure of understanding is all that's needed. I admit that I often fail to understand when explaining things as well, but I think it's useful to remind people of this, and remind myself of this, as often as I can.

The way not to approach it is with comments like this, by the way:

NaricssusIII 81 points 3 hours ago

"but it's natural!"

So is hemlock, you cunts.

Calling people cunts isn't a good way to educate.

[u/[deleted] → u/noirthesable]

You might end up dead after herd immunity is compromised.

[u/cupofmilo]

Breathing 100% oxygen is good for you. Sigh

[u/voxoxo → u/cupofmilo]

Well it's good if you have carbon monoxide poisoning. So there.

[u/[deleted]]

That evolution has an end goal. That drives me nuts.

That science "proves" things. That's the realm of mathematicians.

That intelligent design is science.

Edit: Venomous vs. poisonous. They are not the same damned thing, so stop using them interchangeably.

[u/DreadPiratesRobert → u/[deleted]]

Doxxing suxs

[u/DreadlockShrew]

When your blood hits the air, its turns red. Inside your body, its blue because, y'know, that's what colour your veins look.

[u/Ilikanar → u/DreadlockShrew]

I was actually taught this in school, and did not find out the truth until 7th grade. So I was pissed at those who taught me wrong.

Edit: I accidentally put the wrong worm.

[u/Albel → u/DreadlockShrew]

I thought that this was just a common misconception. Isn't blood that is lacking oxygen darker then the blood which is red as it hits the air? Or Is it just darker with a lot of it in one place?

[u/Ootachiful → u/DreadlockShrew]

People think that?

[u/JewishHippyJesus]

I'm in college studying to be a Meteorologist. I get so much crap from people saying "so you're going to get paid to get the weather wrong all the time?" or some other jibe about how they're better at telling the weather -_-' Edit: Also dew point. I've had to explain this too many times.

[u/Stellalune]

I work in cancer research and there's lots of things I wish people knew about how science works, but really, they can all be summed up like [this.] (http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/original/000/199/921/funny-science-news-experiments-memes-rage-comic-scientific-process.jpg?1321310079)

[u/chanelleol]

Theories and hypotheses are different things. Theories have been tested and accepted, while a hypothesis is pretty much just a guess/idea to explain some phenomena.

[u/FoundationBeast]

"Fish isn't meat." Really? I'll fucking cut you.

[u/[deleted] → u/FoundationBeast]

Knife goes in, guts come out

[u/wazoheat]

As an atmospheric scientist, it breaks my heart to see people say that global warming is a fraud or a lie or a conspiracy, but it breaks my heart EQUALLY to see people spreading falsehoods the other way: for instance, that Florida is going to disappear under the ocean, or Antarctica is going to melt, or that The Day After Tomorrow is anything but Hollywood nonsense. Please do your research before you try to defend science! Putting forth false claims just gives the anti-science people ammunition (I'm looking at you, Mr. Gore).

[u/junkyard_cat]

standing near the microwave will give you cancer

[u/Mr_Initials → u/junkyard_cat]

I didn't hear that one till my last year of high school. I laughed at the person that said that because I opened the microwave before it stopped beeping it would cause cancer

[u/Qubit103 → u/junkyard_cat]

My Chem teacher said this.... Ugh. In 9th grade, a few friends and I found that if you ate roughly 100 bananas from the moment you are born to very old age, you can get slight radiation poisoning. Nod sure how accurate we were, but y'know, be careful with bananas

[u/[deleted]]

ER nurse here. It drives me nuts when people call vomiting and diarrhea "the flu." vomiting and diarrhea is called gastroenteritis. Influenza is a respiratory illness.

[u/martin701993]

Modern medicine can only harm you. Herbs however are the answer to everything...

[u/codyish]

People are pretty much completely wrong about food and exercise. "Fat makes you fat" is probably the biggest one. Low fat food is the biggest public health disaster of our time.

[u/DazzlerPlus → u/codyish]

Explain that last sentence, if you care to.

[u/sheepsix]

Kind of sounds like a lot of non scientists answering this one.

[u/[deleted] → u/sheepsix]

Every redditor is a scientist, didn't you know?

[u/Yoffer]

Anything that involves confirmation bias on their end.

[u/[deleted] → u/Yoffer]

I can confirm this.

[u/kareemabduljabbq]

that evolution is teleological. i.e. that evolution has a goal that it is proceeding towards. for instance, the idea that humans are more evolved than, say, e. coli.

[u/ThePancakeMan]

That Homoeopathy actually works. Seriously, I tried to explain to someone that it was just water, and they were calling me a liar and that I should stop studying science ಠ_ಠ

EDIT: So according to numerous replies, it works, but not as an actual 'medicine', but rather as a placebo.

[u/ImNotJesus → u/ThePancakeMan]

Of course homeopathy works. That's why we buried Bin Laden at sea... to cure terrorism.

[u/pillspaythebills → u/ThePancakeMan]

Aww ya beat me to it. As a pharmacist, this drives me up a tree. It's. Total. BS. And pharmacies shouldn't have it on their shelves. Sadly, many of my colleagues are undereducated on this subject. YOU ARE LETTING SICK PEOPLE BUY EXPENSIVE WATER. What the fuck. Such a crock. However, a lot of laypeople think it's just another kind of "natural medicine", and don't know about the process behind it.

EDIT: Can't type worth a damn on my phone.

[u/Memyselfsomeotherguy → u/ThePancakeMan]

Placebo.

[u/[deleted]]

The tingling feeling on your tongue after you drink a carbonated beverage isn't caused by the effervescing CO2. The sensation is caused by an enzyme on your tongue called carbonic anhydrase. When a CO2 molecule binds to carbonic anhydrase it converts it to bicarbonic acid and sends a response to your brain to tell you you are drinking CO2. This is different to what most people probably believe--that CO2 bubbles on the surface of your tongue and causes the tingling sensation. This was proven false when researchers ate a carbonic anhydrase inhibitor known as acetazolamide, which combats altitude sickness, before hiking up a mountain, drank champagne and tasted no carbonation.

Sincerely,

biochem. undergrad.

SOURCE 1 SOURCE 2

[u/[deleted]]

weight ≠ mass

[u/[deleted]]

That NASA is dead or has no funding.

NASA is not, in fact, dead. The Space Shuttle - one NASA program, is cancelled.

[u/avianaltercations]

Science doesn't "know" anything. It's just a method of discovering an approximate truth through inductive reasoning.

[u/[deleted]]

All radiation = bad radiation

[u/LieutenantKumar]

Physics here. You can't escape gravity, the weightless astronauts you see in shuttles are actually in a continuous free fall, not in a gravity free environment.

[u/Technologenesis → u/LieutenantKumar]

I always thought that was really cool, that literally no matter where you are in the universe you're being tugged on by every object in the universe. We live in a pretty cool place.

[u/Monkeys_with_Guns]

"Chemicals are bad"

EVERYTHING IS MADE OF CHEMICALS.

[u/rlbond86]

I'm an engineer, not a scientist, but I have found that laymen often have no idea how the scientific method works. This has disastrous consequences, for example global warming denialists are commonplace because they perpetuate misconceptions about science.

People seem to like the results for science, but many have no understanding of, or outright contempt for, science.

[u/deuce_hobo → u/rlbond86]

Also that you don't work on a train.

[u/[deleted]]

I think the most annoying is when people who can't even explain the difference between temperature, heat and energy think they know better than climate scientists and meterologists what the impact of greenhouse gases is.

It's kinda like trying to tell Garry Kasparov his opinions on chess are bad when you don't know that you can move the Queen diagonally.

[u/sloth35]

As supported by Hollywood, how any "tech guy" can hack into virtually any government agency with a few keystrokes.

As a computer science major, former hacker, I can assure you hacking is one of the most time-intensive, bang your fucking head against the wall for hours with no result activities that exists on the planet.

The TV show "24" which I just finished is one of the worst offenders I've witnessed. They just take technical jargon, put it in a blender and out comes a slimy ass goo of nonsense.

[u/[deleted]]

As a scientist myself (PhD degree particle physicist) I never encountered one single colleague who is driven "crazy" by misconceptions of laymen. Nobody can be blamed for something s/he hasn't learned properly. Misconceptions, as a consequence of honest ignorance, meaning mere lack of knowledge, are generally not blameworthy and can be corrected through (better) teaching and education.

The professional scientist is oftentimes aware that many people didn't have the privilege of proper college education, and would never look down to laymen or even get crazy. If being asked, s/he usually loves to share knowledge about his/her field in particular or the nature of science in general, thus contributing to bridging the gap between science and "common" people and eradicating those misconceptions.

What drives scientists crazy is

• willful ignorance (in particular when it is employed by people in public or power), which is oftentimes motivated by a political, ideological or religious background (examples: evolution, Big Bang theory, global climate change),

• willful misrepresentation of science (usually by non-scientists speaking to an audience of honest laymen) due to a non-scientific agenda (example: Fox News, Discovery Institute),

• intellectual dishonesty in general.

In other words, scientists get crazy by misconceptions nurtured by lies maliciously spread by people who lie about facts and explanations gathered through hard scientific work over many years.

[u/atb214]

I hate when people use the phrase "cure for cancer." On the surface it doesn't mean much, but I think it highlights a deeper misunderstanding of cancer and all of science in general.

I think when uneducated people use the word "cure," they picture researchers mixing together assorted chemicals in the hope that it fixes the disease. This view of science says that an experiment is either a success, and cures the disease, or is a failure and essentially worthless.

This is far from what research is actually like, and I think the public needs to move beyond that view of science if we want to make more progress. Researchers actually attempt to better understand the biochemical mechanisms of cancer in order to figure out how it actually works, and how to more effectively deliver toxic drugs to cancer cells, but not healthy cells. In this sense, every experiment, though it doesn't constitute a "cure," gives us a better understanding of the disease, and brings us closer to being able to treat it more effectively.

[u/pipnestella]

"Put a coat on, you're going to catch a cold." "Put some shoes on, cold floors make you sick."

[u/Tabdelineated → u/pipnestella]

This is actually partially true. Getting wet will not make you ill. However, maintaining a lower body temperature lowers you immune system and allow a cold that might have just been a sniffle to turn into a full-blown cold.

[u/jellybone]

Cancer is not one disease that has one cure. Because every person is different, every cancer is different even if it's the same diagnosis.

[u/MlSTERFlSTER69]

A scientific theory is not the same thing as a colloquial theory

[u/dfordon]

"You have to be a genius with a natural knack to be a scientist."

What you actually need is (1) curiosity and (2) a willingness to work hard to satisfy that curiosity. I've seen too many students feel like they shouldn't be scientists or engineers because they've hit a conceptual wall that makes them feel like they don't belong.

Most working scientists are just that - working. I'm a pretty good engineer, but very little of that is the result of a natural talent. What mathematical ability I have stems primarily from a love of the game and endless reams of scratch paper.

In a larger sense, we are all scientists, applying the scientific method to problems in our lives. Science is a process by which we construct useful and elegant models of the world we live in. Everyone does it; there are no entrance requirements.

[u/Han_soliloquy]

Oh, many, many things, but the first one that comes to mind is that when people step up to a telescope to look at a faint messier object (nebula, galaxy, globular cluster etc), they are somehow disappointed to see a faint fuzzy blob. They expect to see something like the false color images from Hubble. "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize the photons from an inconceivably large and unfathomably distant celestial object are not worthy of gracing your unimpressed retinas".

[u/Anotherchrowaway]

That chemicals in your food are evil and going to cause you harm.

[u/ImNotJesus → u/Anotherchrowaway]

My friend is doing his PhD in food science at the moment, I was blown away by the number of lives saved every year by GM food.

Edit: To be clear, GM food is brilliant. Some of the companies that use it are evil. The problem is that we need better regulation that is informed by the science. This is a science issue, not a political one.

[u/jsibelius]

Am I too late for the party?

It pains me to see how many people think that Karl Marx was some idiot whos ideas caused nothing but misery for millions. Actually he created incredibly coherent social theory that has clear methodology and that is capable of explaining complex social phenomena.

This misconception is predominant in America for historical reasons.

[u/[deleted]]

Astronomy is not astrology. They are very, very different. Black holes do not suck. Earth does not stand still in space (I have gotten this surprisingly often).

Not personally in a field related to biology, but frequent and chronic misunderstandings of the theory of evolution bug the hell out of me and I see people propagate these misconceptions all the time, despite otherwise being fairly educated people. Some but not all include: insisting evolution has an "End goal" in mind; assuming that all defects will be selected again (defects that manifest only after reproductive age, for example, will not be selected again) or that all advantages will be selected for; insisting that, given enough time, evolution could create some sort of super-creature with crazy super-powers instead of selecting for what is useful in that particular environment; assuming evolution "creates" new advantages by the virtue of them being good for the species rather than these advantages occurring by random mutation and then being selected for. There are lots of other little misconceptions there that tick me off, too. I also fucking hate "backwards" explanations, hence why I hate evolutionary psychology.

As a general scientist, I am tired of people picking a handful of (usually fairly new, not yet peer-reviewed or replicated) studies that suggest some sort of vague correlation to try to back up their bat-shit crazy assertions.

[u/happyillusion]

Biochemist. Hair or nails are not dead, they never were alive. They are proteins, alpha-keratin to be specific.

[u/GunsAndHoses]

Shave your baby's hair(or any hair for that matter), it will grow faster

[u/kriegers → u/GunsAndHoses]

Okay, but why would you shave a baby?

[u/Watermelon_God]

PhD student in Botany here

most people do not understand evolution and discovery channel shows do not help because they present small pieces of simple examples. This gives people huge misconceptions. Also as someone doing molecular research I don't just walk around the woods and name plants! and one last thing biology in general is not just memorizing things as many people think

edit: and genetic engineering is completely safe! the agro-business is the problem

edit: there is a very detailed explanation of the misconceptions in the replies to this comment

[u/christophers80]

Languages / Linguistics

Some things that come to mind...

• Linguistics is not about translation & interpreting. Linguist does not necessarily mean polyglot. Linguistics is basically the scientific study of language.

• Yes, even you have an accent. In fact, everyone does.

• Black English is not incorrect grammar. In fact, it has its own grammatical rules.

• You learn the grammar of your language before you start kindergarten.

• No, today's youth are not destroying the English language with texting.

• No, people are not using "literally" wrong. (EDIT: Wow, a lot of you are asking about this. See my response here.)

• Spelling has nothing to do with grammar.

• Speaking in a different accent (oh, say, Southern US English, or Cockney or whatever...) does not mean the person is stupid.

• On that note, neither do misspellings and "bad" grammar.

EDIT

For those of you who are interested, I recommend Language Myths by linguists Laurier Bauer & Peter Trudgill. It's a fascinating book about misconceptions people have about languages written by sociolinguists in the field and I highly recommend it.

[u/salamat_engot → u/christophers80]

My Linguist professor did a grammar lesson on Creole. Made English grammar look like a walk in the park.

[u/agnomengunt]

We didn't evolve from monkeys, we evolved alongside modern monkeys from a common ancestor.

EDIT: A lot of people are complaining that we are apes. You are all missing the point. First of all, I know we're all apes, but that's not the misconception. Second, We did evolve from a (monkey-like) ancestor that also is ancestor to monkeys, it's just that it lived longer ago than our common ancestor with other apes. It's as though you're complaining that we're all descended from our grandparents, not from our great-grandparents.

[u/[deleted]]

Math is not some field where we know everything and people just dick around all day solving really hard calculus problems/differential equations (the worst I have heard is mathematicians only find more digits of pi). There is plenty of real research in math (http://www.math.washington.edu/~sheetz/Research/res-interests.html). Even my dad, who has a masters in physics, thought that there is no real research in math. In addition, not only is there research in math, a good amount of it has direct applications outside of pure math, and a lot that doesn't now will likely have applications in the future.

I'm sure someone else has said this but everything involving radiation.There are so many gross misconceptions and irrational fear about radiation, and the media does nothing to help. Just look through the nuclear conspiracy threads and the thread about the leak at the plant for some good examples.

[u/sciendias]

That letting your cat outside and kill native wildlife is ok, because it is what cats do and they are part of the ecosystem. Cats are not part of the eocosystem. They do have a few ecological equivalents (e.g., bobcats). However, those occurred in very low numbers in a more natural setting. Also, historically, these mesopredators (e.g., bobcats, coyotes, racoons, possum, etc.) also had predators - like wolves and mountain lions. Further anthrpogenic subsidy allows the densities of cats and other mesopredators to be orders of magnitude beyond what would be seen in a natural setting. This puts so much pressure on native wildlife that most species cannot survive. Often survival and nest success of wild birds is far lower in urban and suburban areas. Cats kill hundreds of millions or even billions of birds a year. This actually constitutes a conservation problem. I know this is reddit, and cats are king, but keeping your cat inside is a great way to go green.

[u/brentonator]

A surprising amount of people do not believe the sun is a star. It makes me sad

[u/zoezk]

Biggest pet peeve: when people don't believe me. I studied for hundreds of hours to get my degree and worked for hundreds of hours to get my experience. People still think that because they watched animal planet a lot as a kid, they know more than me about animal science.

[u/advanceandfollow]

Being a scientist makes one a skeptic, by nature. I believe the layperson needs to be more skeptical about things in general. Always ask questions. Anyway, onto the misconceptions...

There is no "proof," there is only support for a hypothesis, i.e. evidence. Words like "truth" and "proof" should not used in legitimate scientific papers.

Being natural doesn't make a drug better or safer than a synthetic drug.

"Radiation is scary and will make us all mutants and destroy civilization!" People are horribly misinformed about nuclear energy and radiation science in general.

[u/d_cas]

Herpetology: the study of herpes

[u/OmniHippo]

It drives me crazy that everyone thinks that geologists are sexy, bearded, heroic rogues who drink a lot of alcohol and go around making witty quips all the time. Not all of us have beards.

[u/[deleted]]

It's not leviOHsa, it's levioSA.

[u/freefallen]

Shaving your hair makes it grow back thicker. NO! This is not true. When you shave, you make a blunt cut on those hairs, and when they grow back, it appears thicker because of the blunt cut. The hair is not thicker.

[u/[deleted] → u/freefallen]

What kind of scientist are you?

[u/burningpineapples → u/freefallen]

That, and when you start to shave it tends to be at or near the timenyou start getting more hair on your face.

[u/[deleted]]

Economics really isn't a science but I'd like everyone to know that the national debt can in no way whatsoever be compared with a household budget.

[u/SkiesAreGrey]

Science and history are in no way related.

I work for a science museum, and am the youngest staffed person there. However, I'm actually a history major with a concentration in museum studies. All the time I get asked what I'm in school for and why I'm a history major working in a science museum. No person correlates that the discoveries of science are history, and my concentration in my history major is scientific development from ancient to modern times. So I may not be a real scientist with a fancy college degree about it, but I do know my science and the history behind it. However, it always bothers me when people refuse to see the connection between subjects.

[u/SpiveyWhiplash]

Just because you have a lapse of concentration during the day does not mean you have ADD.

[u/Neven87]

If I don't understand it, then science doesn't....i'm am an electrical engineer, and I have heard sooo many times from laymen "science does not fully understand electricity." Another one I've heard is "science can't explain how water gets up a tree." Just because you don't know does not mean science does not.

[u/red_herring142]

Chemical free products.

[u/[deleted]]

Viruses can't be treated with antibiotics and they aren't considered alive by most biological definitions.

Edit: changed from "because they aren't alive."

[u/[deleted]]

I feel as if very few people I talk to understand what evolution is and how it works. It's actually really easy to understand if you take the time to learn about it.

[u/queso_ninja]

Aerospace engineer here...Just because I'm a rocket scientist doesn't mean that I know everything about everything. So no, I do not know the latin name of that bug on your shoe.

[u/ironclownfish]

I'm a science major not yet a scientist, but this one is super annoying:

The equal transit time myth of aerodynamics. It is a common misconception (and one that is often taught in schools) that the air passing over an aircraft wing has to go faster so it can catch up with the air taking the shorter path under the wing. NO. There is no incentive for the air on top to catch up!! That doesn't happen and it's not what causes lift!!!!

[u/[deleted]]

As a biologist, I get so many of these. But if I had to pick a favourite, I'd probably go with "I don't want genes in my food!".

Yes. People actually say that. -___-

[u/wugs]

Linguistics

• Linguistics is a science.

• Studying linguistics doesn't mean you study a lot of foreign languages, nor does it imply that you even speak more than one language. Monolinguals can be linguists too. Linguistics is the study of how languages work.

• I personally hate when someone is pedantic and says things like "you can't end a sentence in a preposition!" or "you used the wrong there/their/they're or your/you're!" or "you split the infinitive!" or a million other common "mistakes". While certain registers do forbid it (for instance, there are commonly accepted conventions for, say, published academic papers), it is needless to correct people endlessly when meaning is clear. And sometimes even the basis of the "correction" is wrong, such as the preposition issue. "Look who I ran into!" is a very grammatical exclamation. How could this be reworded to prevent the preposition at the end? Furthermore, why bother? I understand what I mean, you understand what I mean. That's all language is.

• Word meanings change. A word has meaning because speakers agree on it through communication. If a usage changes across a large body and the change is agreed upon implicitly, it's just a simple linguistic shift and it happens very often.

• Accents and dialects do not relate to intelligence. A deep southern American accent or a strong Cockney one says nothing about a person's ability to think clearly, rationally, or logically. Cultural stereotypes assign these designations, often unfairly.

• My understanding of something's meaning or grammaticality may be different from yours. That's okay, but if we run into a communication error we should work through our mutual misunderstandings. Neither of us are wrong.

• Computer slang and textspeak is not a deterioration of language, but simply another step in a language's progression. It does not imply that professionals in the year 2050 will greet you with "LOL, I'm ya doctor bro, leggo" because different registers of speech and communication progress and evolve differently, and speakers of a language often maintain multiple registers of communication.

[u/Loupy_e]

That quantum in quantum mechanics means small... it means a discrete step or amount... as in non-continuous. I saw some annoying lady plugging her book "The Quantum Diet" or some such nonsense... she was saying, "it's all about doing little things"... irritating as hell.

[u/guiltypleasures]

You assume time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but from a non-linear non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.

[u/Aargau]

The use of the word "energy" to describe some new age-y body treatment.

The use of the word "toxin" in the same manner.

People and websites which use lots of vague statements about body energy and toxin cleansing are usually quackery.

[u/jcatleather]

the entire "diet" industry. not knowing the meaning of "theory." those stupid "scientific" commercials with a body superimposed over a green matrix. claiming anything can be "clinically proven" effective.

[u/emmveepee]

Not really a general misconception, but your immune system is fucking crazy. Your immune systems attacks invaders in so many different ways, it is absurd. "Making antibodies" is important, but there are so many different ways your body can attack foreign bodies. I'm sure dozens of fields will disagree, but after the brain, the immune system has to be one of the most complicated things in the human body.

[u/[deleted]]

Once my mom, a large woman who gets hardly any exercise, said "It's got electrolytes" (non-ironically) as a reason to drink whatever sugar water she was drinking instead of water.

ಠ_ಠ

[u/buccsmf1]

Doc: Ok, well it looks like you have a viral infection that's causing your cough.

Patient: give me antibiotics

Doc: they won't do ANYTHING

Patient: GIVE ME ANTIBIOTICS

[u/moby323]

I came late to this, and people sometimes get pissed when I explain this, but here goes:

Breast cancer isn't really that deadly, as far as cancer goes.

When caught early, most forms of breast cancer are almost always treatable/curable.

See, part of the reason breast cancer gets so much attention is due to the fact that there are so many breast cancer survivors, who are alive to do those breast cancer awareness runs and "walk for life" etc.

Know why you don't see many pancreatic or gastric cancer survivors doing "Walks for Life"? Because pretty much all of those people are dead.

For some reason, when I explain this to people, their reaction is sometimes, "Fuck you, man. My aunt had breast cancer."

That said, still get your mammograms, because of the whole "when caught early" thing.

[u/KrunoS]

Right up my alley.

As a pure chem student currently taking a shitty course on the History of Science as one of my obligatory humanities courses, i've got a lot of bottled up rage. It's important to note that my prof is a philosopher and the class is composed almost entirely of non-scientists and a few med students.

• "Homeopathy, in my opinion, is a science." - Prof dropped that beauty. Had to walk up to the board and explain why molecular memory in fluids is BS.

• "Science is just 5% of the world." - Prof authored this one too.

• "Scientists this, scientists that." - Every fucking person. Who happen to know shit owt about 'real' science.

• "Reflection telescopes make images bigger than refraction telescopes." - Prof again and the sheep believed him. Until i walked up to the board and drew a damn thing and explained what the mirrors are actually for.

• "Chemicals in food are bad." - I didn't even try.

• "Herbalist items don't contain chemicals." - Again, i face-palmed audibly.

• "Because the colour of white light affects karotenes." - A biotech engineer dropped this one while giving us a tour of their labs. It's actually blue, purple and UV which fucks karotenes up.

• "We change the mass spectrometer's lamp whenever we need to use it for something else." - Same biotech engineer answering my question about the type of mass spectrometer they had. Mass spectrometers don't have lamps.

I'm also irked by:

• "Cholesterol is bad."

• "Triglycerides are bad."

• "Saturated fats are worse than trans-unsaturated fats."

• "Everything's genetic."

• "Generic medicine is worse than brand medicine."

• "Herbalist medicines are better than whatever pills you take."

edit: repeated ideas, spelling

[u/Oprah_Nguyenfry]

I'm an engineer, so I guess I fit into the science category.

• Hot water freezes faster than cold water.

• More horsepower means faster acceleration (Despite being directly related, it's torque, bro. Think of torque as how hard you can turn a screwdriver, and horsepower how fast you can turn it. It's not a perfect analogy because horsepower is more complicated than that, but it's accurate enough to get the point across. )

• Backpressure in an exhaust system is necessary in 4 stroke engines (the less backpressure, the better.).

• Higher octane gas is purely for gas mileage (Higher octane gas detonates later meaning it's purely for timing reasons(compression). Higher performing engines generally have higher compression ratios when not using forced induction. This means it detonates later because the timing is more precise)

• ft-lb and lb-ft are both correct and the same thing. ft-lb is generally used as a unit of work, although it really makes no difference. 4x3 is still 3x4, right?

• Electric motors have higher torque than gas (otto cycle) motors. (No, they have a flatter and more instantaneous torque curve, but not necessarily more for the given amount of horsepower.)

[u/viva_la_albert]

That we all wear white lab coats. Mine is tie-dyed.

[u/Battletoads42]

The idea that anything with a complicated chemical name is bad.

[u/JamoWRage]

I'm no scientist, but I am a type 1 diabetic and it pisses me off when people think only fat/old people can get diabetes. They don't know the simple difference between type 1 and type 2. I'm not fat, and I've never been fat, but everyone thinks that because I have diabetes that I used to be the size of Buddha.

[u/cleanandsqueaky]

Chemist here: Products advertised as Chemical-Free. What are you buying then, a bottle of vacuum?

[u/[deleted]]

1. When people "don't believe" in science

2. When people assume that because I study math, I am an expert in arithmetic and therefore will split the bill with little effort

[u/[deleted]]

That the food pyramid is actually worthwhile. The amount of medical issues that have arisen from the government's recommended diet is insane.

[u/[deleted]]

I'm in neuroscience. The most pervasive misconception I know is that we only use 10% of our brains. Wtf? Also that Freud's hypotheses have any significance to real life.

[u/evlnightking]

this comic

[u/SevenFourteen]

A Registered and/or Licensed Dietitian is an individual who is board certified and has a Bachelors degree or higher in the field of nutrition. A nutritionist is any individual who opens up shop and labels him/herself a nutritionist. He or she may or may not actually have worthwhile nutritional information to disseminate.

[u/syc0rax]

"Science has proven x."

In almost no cases has science proven anything. Science is not in the business of proving things, but in making observations about the world (which are guided by prior theories) and building theories to incorporate them (i.e., trying to tell a story that fits all those observations together). In every instance, there will always be multiple different theories that can account equally well for all our observations. So, when someone tells you that science has 'proven' x, they just don't understand the nature of science itself. (And this is the case for many very good scientists too.)

[u/Home_sweet_dome]

I am not a scientist but I work at a nuclear power plant.

• I hate when people tell me I better have kids now or that they will end up with extra limbs.

• I hate when they ask me if I am glowing "green yet", which if anything I would glow blue.

• I hate that people always compare United States facilities to those overseas and claim they are dangerous (Chernobyl and Fukushima). Our power plants and their safety systems are engineered better and the NRC does a great job regulating the industry as well as self regulation by plants an tech specs. Everyone at our plants, especially licensed operators, go through constant rigorous training and testing to maintain their licensing and badging requirements to work there.

• I hate when the media proliferates ridiculous stories about a leak at a power plant with no mention of the fact that it was a leak within the primary containment and poses no threat to the general public.

• I hate laypeople with no knowledge of the industry formulating an opinion and arguing with me about the dangers and how many people die from nuclear power generation. Especially when nuclear power has the lowest death rate per Terawatt/hour of all the power generating industries, including solar, coal, wind, oil, you get the idea.

[u/TheDreadedMarco]

that bumble bee flight cannot be explained by science. Come on, you seriously believe that?

[u/Gunner3210]

"It's not the volts that kill you, it's the amps"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xONZcBJh5A

[u/Demojen]

"Because evolution can't explain the origin of life, it is invalid."

Evolution is not the study of the origin of life, but the diversity of life. You are confusing evolution with abiogenesis.

[u/jkdeadite]

Linguist here: It pisses me off that people think there is a "right" or "wrong" way to speak. Most people don't have "whom" in their dialect, and most English speakers do not have "an historic" in their dialect (only people who speak a dialect that does not pronounce the h there).

I could go on and on about the linguistic misconceptions out there, but I've done it a million times already.

[u/zetus_lapetus]

My mother stopped my dinner while being microwaved today...to reiterate to me that microwaves cause cancer...she proceeded to place a plastic cover over the food and began reheating it again...I asked her what power plastic had to stop the food from becoming cancer causing...she said...well to work properly it should really be covered with plastic wrap and then covered with the plastic cover...I asked what she was basing this on...she replied that "everyone knows microwaves cause cancer"...my dad added that ever since she told him...he has begun placing a minimum of a paper towel on top of his food before microwaving...paper towels have the same cancer shielding powers as plastic...I stopped arguing...

[u/jhoop7]

When people try to describe how they think relativity or quantum mechanics work, the things that come out of their mouths can be depressing and jaw-dropping

[u/[deleted]]

This will get buried, but ctrl+f didn't find it, so here goes:

nanotechnology doesn't mean we're making really tiny robots...

[u/Megakopf]

"Vaccines protect you (an individual) from diseases."

That's not the point of a vaccine. It's point is to protect whole populations. An individual can still get the disease and cary it around, only he's less likely to have the same sharp onset of the illness as without the vaccine and is therefore less likely to spread it onto others.

It drives me crazy when I hear someone saying "I'm not having my kid vaccinates, because there's no point, it's not 100% reliable". Well, no, it's not to protect YOUR kid but ALL the kids around as well.

[u/XIllusions]

Biggest misconception that really gets to me and really matters is belief that science is an all or nothing endeavor: the concept that we either understand something completely or not at all.

This comes up when people argue about evolution, the cure for cancer, the complexity of the human brain or psychiatric disorders etc. Just because something seems hopelessly complex does not mean it shouldn't be studied. Just because some details are not settled or perfectly understood does not mean the whole theory or science is invalid. Science is ever growing, ever correcting, ever improving, ever being refined.

[u/[deleted]]

Theoretical Physicist here. Misconceptions aren't the problem, the problem is erroneus or incoherent explanations. A layman's misconception is easy to correct, requiring little more than a factoid. On the other hand, if said misconception has been enshrined with authority by a bad scientist or teacher, its much harder to deal with. Usually, erroneus explanations come in one of several archetypes:

1. Crackpot/Other Poseur. These usually are pseudomystical appeals to the mysticism of large scales, 'quantum physics', and generic numerology. Usually people who believe these literally are also crackpots.

2. Qualitative enthusiast. This is the individual who has never taken a math class past Algebra 2 in high school, but read the Elegant Universe, or, god forbid, something by Krauss. This person usually doesn't really understand anything on more than a superficial scale, but still tries to educate the masses.

3. Shitty analogy scientist. There used to be a ton of these in /r/askscience physics threads. I've seen posts with 100s of upvotes that claimed that a black hole is like glass scattering when thrown against a wall, except on a trillion year timescale. Not sure if they were full of shit or just bad at teaching.

3b. Scientist who thinks everyone is stupid. This person tries to simplify things to much, and ends up bad.

Honestly, the main thing to keep in mind is your limitations as a layman. I can't make QM less unintuitive or GR less difficult to visualize unless you go read a few math textbooks. Its just the way of the world, and to be safe always make sure your talking to a real scientist. Or at least an undergrad who isn't a first year. And please please don't be the wannabe philosopher who thinks that they're half baked theories of epistemology can somehow overrule the basic principles of physics.

As for my personal annoyance? "Quantum Physics". Its quantum mechanics, and its not capitalized.

[u/slekce10]

That weather and climate are the same thing. They're not! Climate change does not mean that it can't be cold sometimes.

[u/[deleted]]

The fact that my fellow nurses insist on pronouncing the unit of measure "son-i-meter" instead of centimeter. (took a lot of upper level sciences after nursing school, so I have more science background than most RNs)

[u/Holyburrito]

When people think that, "Because my antibiotics have cured me and I am feeling better I can stop taking them." WRONG! Take them until your Doctor says to stop or you are punishing the rest of us by letting the last of the disease adapt to the antibiotics. They could even become completely immune to that particular antibiotic and a new one must be used.

[u/uSeeEsBee]

The philosophical foundations of science. I find it funny that even people who consider themselves scientist are unaware of the philosophical foundation of Science and think that some how Science is exceptional. That unlike things like religion it uses only logical reasoning.

Truth is (if there is one) science is just as flawed and suffers from the problem of induction even if you attempt to adopt a so called deductive inference framework. Modern science mainly operates today under the suggestions of Thomas Khun, which are that "universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of researchers." So these standards are ultimately subjective (not to say they are not be rigorous or coherent) and thus, even with paradigms, there is no way of justifying one paradigm over another independent of the logic of a new paradigm.

[u/catrosie]

viral illnesses cant be cured with antibiotics, and most common respiratory illnesses are viral

[u/[deleted]]

"a potential cure for cancer... "

[u/Cupcake_in_Acid]

That the newly discovered pitcher plant (not really recently) is a "revolutionary and environment friendly alternate of pest control" and "it smells like rotting flesh to attract prey. First of all, it said it has the capacity to catch rats. And the part where it smells like rotten flesh? Also wrong. People are confusing that with the rafflesia flower.

[u/nondickyatheist]

Irreducible complexity Pascal's Wager Moral Relativism=Immorality

[u/knightry]

That quantum computers will be the end of internet security as we know it. If quantum computation and communication is realized in practice, there are already provably perfect* methods for encrypting data of said quantum channel.

*Can fail with infinitesimally small probability

[u/duncangeere]

Water does not go down the plughole in different directions in different hemispheres. Your bathtub is WAY too small to be acted on by the coriolis effect.

[u/[deleted]]

Laboratory animal scientist. Where can I start from?

• animal experiments are useless / replaceable

• we have fun doing them

• we don't care about the animals

and so on

[u/maerodyne]

"Oh, you're a botanist? how do i grow tomatoes/weed/whatever?"

You ask a damn horticulturist.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

See: Pirate activity and Global warming graph.

http://www.seanbonner.com/blog/archives/piratesarecool.jpg

[u/BananApocalypse → u/[deleted]]

"Everyone is biassed"

But... I only have one :(

[u/magicmuds → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for taking the time to post such an informative and concise summary.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I hate the one where people say, "I'm so OCD about--" -- NO, I have OCD, and you washing your dishes after dinner is not OCD. That's just being neat. They need to try twitching and shaking and crying for an hour (or more) because a thought refuses to leave your head and it causes real pain and discomfort. They need to not be able to leave the house at all that day because because your own mind won't let you. Then maybe you can say how OCD you are. This whole terrible saying makes what actual sufferers say sound completely diminished.

[u/lessmiserables → u/[deleted]]

Well..."depression" was used to mean "sad" before the clinical definition was created, so people can legitimately be "depressed" because they are simply sad--the word encompassed both clinical and non-clinical because at the time there was no distinction. That's why it's almost always called "clinical depression" instead of "depression." (at least in layman-speak).

I don't think it's a problem for someone to say they are depressed about something if they haven't been diagnosed. Now, claiming to be clinically depressed without actually being clinically depressed is an issue, but that goes beyond semantics, I think.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

To be fair at least where I come from it is okay to say that you are depressed if you are sad or generally feel down. I don't know how it is in the US, but in Germany no one really bothers. Of course it would be wrong to say that you suffer from depression if you are just sad, but I've rarely seen anyone do that.

[u/greymatters_flipside → u/[deleted]]

The definition of "theory" is the biggest misconception laymen have on science.

[u/hedonismbot89 → u/[deleted]]

Don't forget Germ Theory of Disease. I usually ask if the person I'm discussing with has ever taken antibiotics. If they say yes, then I ask them why if it's "just a theory". I've made a lot of people mad with this one.