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Softening the blow at 0.999...

An editor commented in an earlier discussion that the inclusion of the 0.999... section can be offensive to those (indeed numerous, as the page documents) individuals who believe otherwise. We softened by blow by means of the comments on alternative interpretations (similarly sourced) of 0.999..., that empower the viewpoint that 0.999...<1 in the context of an infinitesimal-enriched number system. Some editors insist on deleting this material. Tkuvho (talk) 06:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if 'softening the blow' is appropriate in this context. This isn't moral viewpoints, it is mathematics. If there is one thing in this world that can give hard and fast answers, it is math. 0.999... is equal to 1, end of story. I suppose you can preface this with something like "in the commonly used base 10 decimal system... But I don't think we really need to be sympathetic to 'supporters'. AKA ill informed people. 66.129.58.144 (talk) 06:31, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm one of the three or four editors who removed the infinitesimal-enriched sentences. I did this for three reasons. First, the sentences are virtually incomprehensible to anyone not already well-versed in mathematics. For those who are well-versed in mathematics, it's unnecessary. Second, it's already covered in the 0.999... article. Third, it's unreferenced. Aside from all that, I don't believe it will "soften the blow" at all, since anyone who understands what it means will already understand why 0.999... equals 1. Tkuvho, please don't edit-war over this. 28bytes (talk) 06:45, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
No problem. @IP 66.129.58.144: to clarify a misconception, infinitesimal-enriched systems in common decimal notation empower a decimal string with an infinite hypernatural's worth of 9s, and falling infinitesimally short of 1. I will not pursue this issue if other editors do not support the inclusion. Tkuvho (talk) 10:49, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria added

1. Per discussion at AfD, in the spirit of improving the article, and complying with WP:LIST#Lead_section_or_paragraph, I've added clear, explicit, inclusion criteria. This is specifically to answer the AfD's implied demand for clear inclusion criteria. Do not delete this explicit article improvement. Deletion-favoring editors cannot in good faith prevent an article from being improved during an AfD discussion.

2. To answer one reverter's remark "no consensus was reached" - in fact, all comments addressing my improved inclusion criteria were positive, and no comments disagreed with their inclusion.

3. One reverter stated that articles shouldn't mention policy except in templates. Well, there's NO TEMPLATE, and I'm not in the mood/skilled enough to write one. Why can't a hatnote be completely custom, for the purpose of addressing guideline, and ongoing AfD discussion? Help! --Lexein (talk) 15:54, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

While inclusion criteria are necessary, inclusion criteria within the artcile should not be self referring to Wikipedia or Wikipedia policies. I cannot find that policy right now, but the criteria must be phrased and based on standard english/academic concepts. Active Banana (bananaphone 16:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Its a little bit covered here Wikipedia:SELF#Avoid_referring_to_.22Wikipedia.22 but there is a fuller explanation somewhere I think. Active Banana (bananaphone 16:17, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! Fair enough. But I still see value in a custom hatnote which is intended to be temporary, which refers to AfD and policy. Ah, well. It's commented out. --Lexein (talk) 16:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Lexein: The criteria you added does not match how the article was written. Now the opening paragraph doesn't match the list below. If you want to change the inclusion criteria that we've been using for the past year or so, fine, but you should seek consensus on the article talk page first. Now assuming that you can gain consensus, can you please tell us who's going to review the whole article to match the new criteria? And edit all the topic articles to include the common misconception? I appreciate your attempt to include inclusion criteria in the article, but you're creating a massive amount of work. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:34, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I'll duplicate my response here. First, no, the criteria do not match how the list was written. The way the list was written was the reason for three separate, different AfDs. These are explicit inclusion criteria, designed to address this AfD's and prior AfD's concerns about unclear inclusion criteria. Every list which has gone through this has had tighter inclusion criteria introduced. I made nothing worse - the original opening paragraph is still included as the opening sentence. The stated criteria merely reinforce and slightly expand upon it. Your discomfiture is understandable - I felt the same way when lists I contributed to suddenly faced AfD (technically LfD) and the requirement for tighter inclusion criteria. I hope you understand that pruning non-article-based items (or writing articles about their main topics) does, really, improve Wikipedia.
The fact that the opening paragraph doesn't "match" the rest of the list is good - the head should lead the tail. The rest of the list should gradually be conformed to match the lead paragraph. The list will be improved by this. Look at lists which have survived AfD and been improved in the process, for example List of indie rock musicians. It was a mess, then it got tightened up. There was some initial pain, but that's all over, and now it's far better for it. Admittedly, it's not as complex as this, but my point stands.
Second, it's not me that wants to change the inclusion criteria, they are necessitated by repeated AfDs. Discussion has occurred at the AfD page, not here, because quite understandably, that's where all the action is. My suggested criteria have not been opposed, and have been referred to positively. Okay, not by a lot, but still, nobody's smacked them down, not even the deletionists. If the existing inclusion criteria were clear (as they are not in the lead sentence), and were article- and source- based, then the AfDs would not have gotten as far as they did. Also note that I've really only added one criteria - the need for the common misconception's main topic to have an article which establishes that topic's notability. Example: Glass#Behavior of antique glass mentions the fallacy that it's a slow liquid. So, at List of common misconceptions#Chemistry we have, first item, that common misconception. Not hard at all. WP:RS, WP:N, are mainstays of article credibility at Wikipedia.
The criteria
  1. that the common misconception's including topic have an article is just Wikipedia-wide best practice.
  2. that an item be reliably sourced is already widely agreed-upon.
  3. that the common misconception be mentioned in its topic article with its sources is merely a cut-n-paste operation at worst.
  4. that the common misconception be current merely makes explicit the implied "current" in the title.
Third, I unreverted because of the urgency demanded by the AfD, and the requirement that improvements be made. This is very usual - AfD opens, article gets improved, AfD closes. I make no claim that my suggested inclusion criteria are final or perfect, but please consider them in the light of the Glass example applied to all other common misconceptions listed.
So no, I do not see the need to self-revert, because it is both usual and necessary to make improvements to the article in order to answer the AfD outright, and to base those changes on discussion at AfD, not at the article's talk page during exigent circumstances (during AfD, there actually is a deadline), and because the addition of explicit inclusion criteria are supported by WP:LIST#Lead_section_or_paragraph. Further, this AfD discussion was heading down "there have been no improvements to the article", while not discussing the concrete proposed improvements suggested by myself and others. It was time to add the clear, imperative inclusion criteria. I'm sorry you don't see it that way.
And as for me creating a massive amount of work, a) it's not that much work and b) it's not demanded by me, but by repeated AfDs.
--Lexein (talk) 17:16, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, where is this "inclusion criteria" written? I don't see a link to it, just discussion. It should be in a box at the top of this talk page. They're trivially easy to make. See this for example:

Please read before proposing new entries

Welcome to this article's talk page. This article represents the work of several contributors. Negotiation is required to find consensus for an accurate and complete representation of the topic.

New common misconceptions should be proposed on this talk page for community approval to add to the article. To qualify for inclusion, an entry must meet the following criteria:

  • criteria 1
  • criteria 2
  • etc.
Notes to editors:
  1. Any debates contained here are meant to improve the article. Reasoned, civil discourse is the best means to be taken seriously. Comments deemed to be uncivil or non-constructive will be summarily deleted.
  2. Please use edit summaries.

Modify as you like. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:58, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The current proposed inclusion criteria got reverted out momentarily, but they are now listed in the lead paragraph of List of common misconceptions, as suggested by WP:LIST#Lead_section_or_paragraph and raised by me in the WP:Articles_for_deletion/List_of_common_misconceptions_(3rd_nomination) - just look for 1234. That's where all the action was, so that's where they got brought up as remedial steps to improving the list. I like the idea of your banner, too. My proposals are intended to make the list article-based and source-based, and to head off the "no criteria" argument for future AfD. If consensus truly despises those criteria, well, then, too bad for me, and out they go. --Lexein (talk) 21:44, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

To say that you've "really only added one criteria" is imprecise, In fact, you've added them all, because none were displayed before. And I agree with you that, if they had been there before, the AfDs may not have been necessary. All in all, a very positive move. (But why could none of the other Keepers have done it at any other time in the past 18 months, rather than just making hypothetical argument?)
Now, how brutally do we apply these criteria to the article's existing content? HiLo48 (talk) 22:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I meant that the original lead sentence gently hinted at three of the criteria; I just made them explicit and imperative, and added one. As for why not in the last 18 months, well, explicit inclusion criteria are gnarly: they do imply extra work, some loss of content I like, and nobody wants to be the bad guy. I feel the other AfD keep editors, were vainly hoping (as I hoped) that the, more (thx for yours) deleters would approve of the proposed criteria and just say, "oh, that's all right then, keep." Mmmmmm, no.
As for enforcement, I've checked a few: glass(good), Vomitorium(has at least one book), Viking Horned Helmets misconception cites the weak about.com and the so-so straightdope.com, so I'll just improve them w/book & scholarly sources. So far, so good, thanks to past sourcing and article wikilinking work :) If an item gets in there with lame sources, and searches don't produce reliable sources, or if there's no sensible topic article for it, then move it to talk (park it for improvement), or delete it with a civil explanatory edit comment. Throw me a difficult one (maybe I've been cherrypicking), and we'll see. --Lexein (talk) 06:34, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Please note that (a) Misconception redirects here and (b) "Misconception" is the name of an episode of Law & Order. In order to provide navigational assistance to readers looking for either, we need to: keep the hatnote here; place a disambiguation page at Misconception; or make the episode the primary topic and provide a hatnote that links back to here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:01, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I made the dab page; this was easily one of the silliest hatnotes around. Hairhorn (talk) 15:09, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
"Enabling reader navigation isn't silly, although the hubbub around may have been. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:19, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Contradiction in the Black Hole section

The article says this:

"Black holes, unlike their common image, do not act as "cosmic vacuum cleaners" any more than other stars.[54] The collapse of a star into a black hole is an explosive process, which means, according to Mass–energy equivalence, that the resulting black hole would be of lower mass than its parent object, and actually have a weaker gravitational pull.[55] The source of the confusion comes from the fact that a black hole exists in a space much smaller but orders of magnitude more dense than a star, causing its gravitational pull to be much stronger closer to its surface. But, as an example, were the Sun to be replaced by a black hole of the same mass, the orbits of all the planets surrounding it would be unaffected."

So the claim is that a black hole has less mass than its parent star, and a weaker gravitational pull, but if the sun became a black hole, with the resulting lower gravitational pull, the planets would be unaffected. That cannot be true. Am I offbase on this?

Jamesfett (talk) 22:09, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

It reads "were the Sun to be replaced by a black hole of the same mass"; this is merely confusing rather than contradictory. Hairhorn (talk) 22:18, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Commented out warnings in the text of the article

(driveaway comment) It's customary to add hidden comments in articles that keep having problems in the same part of the text. Stuff like "Don't add people to this list without providing a source." or "DON'T ADD MORE EXTERNAL LINKS WITHOUT DISCUSSING FIRST IN THE TALK PAGE" sometimes accompanied by a link like "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:EL" (the guideline on external links). Some articles under discretionary sanctions have huge commented warnings at the top of the source text, so people will stumble on them as soon as they try to edit the lead. I don't think that there is any written guideline on this practice, but it's definitely common. In my experience, a well written comment can cause repeated problems to almost disappear. Every once in a while, someone will cause the problem in spite of the comment, but the important thing is that the overall frequency is heavily reduced. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:10, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Great suggestion, but note that every sub-section of the article can be edited independently without seeing a warning at the start of the article. Any such warning would need to be added to every sub-section, existing or new in the future. HiLo48 (talk) 23:12, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
Sounds good. How about "Please do not add any new items to the list without citing a reliable source. If you have any questions, please ask on the talk page." A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:19, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
Does anyone else want to comment on the proposed wording? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:52, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
I think this is a good idea. I think we could include the comment under every subsection, and if a new contributor creates a new section, well, we will only have to deal with them the old fashioned way.
For the wording, I suggest (our best approximations to) the inclusion criteria should be there. The invitation to seeking advice on the talk page also belongs. Since an agreement on good inclusion criteria may be some time away, I suggest we put up a non-perfect, non-terrible set of criteria as a temporary fix. It may mean that someone suggests something that should probably not be included, but it will prevent at least the most blatantly unsourced additions. As far as i can tell, the following set is at least better than nothing, and I don't think anyone would call them too strict?
1 The common misconception's including topic have 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 misconception.
3 The common misconception is mentioned in its topic article with sources.
4 The common misconception is current.
Perhaps also with a disclaimer that "A rigid consensus on inclusion criteria does not exist, but any item to be added to the list must at least fulfill the following:", and somthing along the lines of "If you have a suggested item that does not fulfil these criteria but you still think should be included, please suggest it on the talk page, but be aware that very strong arguments would be necessary. Dr bab 14:09, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm flexible. Your wording is fine, too. Although I would swap items 1 and 2. A Quest For Knowledge 14:20, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree about 1 and 2, I put them up in the order I found them in the Afd-debate. Dr bab (talk) 14:39, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
The text at the top of the article currently reads:
"Per AfD discussion and WP:LIST#Lead_section_or_paragraph, as of February 2011, new inclusion criteria have been added in the lead paragraph. SEE TALK. I do not understand why a non-template hatnote cannot mention policy!
these are new criteria, discussed in Talk and in Talk:AfD. The lack of clear inclusion criteria has been asserted as a reason for deletion, so please do not delete these criteria. Discuss in Talk. You can help by deleting or moving to talk any entries which do not comply with these criteria.
Shall I remove it and replace it with the following? And add it at every subsection?
------------------PLEASE READ BEFORE EDITING----------------
A rigid consensus on inclusion criteria for this list does not exist, but any item to be added to the list must at least fulfill the following:
1-The common misconception's including topic have 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 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.
If you have a suggested item that does not fulfil these criteria but you still think should be included, please suggest it on the TALK PAGE, but be aware that very strong arguments would be necessary.
-------------------------------------------------------
Dr bab (talk) 14:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
How about this?
------------------PLEASE READ BEFORE EDITING----------------
A rigid consensus on inclusion criteria for this list does not exist, but any item to be added to the list must at least fulfill the following:
1-The common misconception's including topic have 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.
If you have a suggested item that does not fulfil these criteria but you still think should be included, please suggest it on the talk page.
-------------------------------------------------------
I made 3 changes:
  1. I added "common" to the end of #2.
  2. I removed "but be aware that very strong arguments would be necessary." We don't want to scare away the newbies.
  3. I changed "TALK PAGE" to lower case for the same rationale as #2.
A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:47, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Sensible changes. I change have-has in #1 and fulfill to fulfil in the first line for consistency, and then add.Dr bab (talk) 07:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Done! For other editors that come along, I understand that these may not be consensus-based inclusion criteria, but I hope that we can all agree that with the wording "at least fulfil the following" this may keep some of the most useless items out. Dr bab (talk) 07:38, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

This needs a secion on circumcision

Hello wikipedia could you please tell me if my circumcised penis is less sensitive than a non circumcised one thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.221.87.29 (talk • contribs) 21:36, 8 February 2011

This isn't a proposal to add anything to the article. Please ask your question at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Science or read about it yourself at Sexual effects of circumcision. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:44, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Microwave cooking and Skin Depth

I think that the assertion that microwaves do not cook "from the inside out" due to skin depth is too much of a split-hair here. The article states that whole muscle tissue's skin depth for heating in a microwave is "as little as" one centimeter. Generally, the size of foodstuffs being reheated or cooked in a microwave are not much greater than two centimeters in depth. It would seem to me, then, one centimeter actually is fairly deep within the tissue and cooking from the inside out is a fairly descriptive way of describing how a microwave functions.

Thoughts? Jamesfett (talk) 22:06, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, the skin depth may usually be greater than the size of the food, but even in that case, it still doesn't get cooked "from the inside out". Everything within that skin depth is cooked the same amount. Perhaps this needs to be clarified in the article. 66.129.58.144 (talk) 04:14, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
I think that you don't microwave enough. :) I frequently put in stuff larger than 2 cm deep (like a whole bowl of pasta for a family of 7. The microwave is 20 - 25 cm tall and the depth of heating is only 1 cm. Sounds fair. Cavebear42 (talk) 11:46, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from JHKennedy4, 7 February 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} Could I, or someone else, add the common misconception that the pyramids were built by Jewish slaves? Reference: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191

JHKennedy4 (talk) 15:01, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

To be included, the item needs to be established as a Common misconception, and "for extra points", it should also say something about the prevalence of the misconception and amongst which population group it is held. It is possible that this item can be proven in such a way, but I am not sure if Skeptoid is a reliable source. It has won awards for contributions to science, but it is still "just a podcast". Looking at the web-based sources he presents in his post, one of them from Reuters, states that "Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts." The other web-based source (ancientsudan.org) mentions slaves only in the form of Egyptian slaves, and says nothing about pyramids. So the ancientsudan.org reference is at least not helpful in establishing anything about this misconception. To what extent the Reuters source supports the statement that "there exists a common misconception among X that the pyramids were built by jewish slaves" is open to debate. That something is depicted in films does not automatically, in my opinion, make it a common misconception. Although it could very well be the case for this item, there are many things that are erroneously depicted in films for artistic purposes, that does not make them common misconceptions. Furhtermore, we don't know on what basis Skeptoid makes this statement, it may be that he concludes on his own, personal, perhaps limited, experience of films about ancient Egypt.
I would suggest trying to find other sources on this subject. First and foremost to support the notion "there exists a common misconception among X that the pyramids were built by jewish slaves", and especially with an estimate about who/what X is (western christianity?, Peruvians?, movie industry people?). Additionaly, judging from some of the comments at the bottom of the Skeptoid article I think it would help the cause if you could also find more sources supporting the statement "the pyramids were not built by Jewish slaves". Dr bab (talk) 09:32, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
How about Egypt says Jewish slaves didn't build pyramids? Here's another article where Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass says that the Jews weren't in Egypt at the time when the pyramids were being built and didn't come to Egypt until 700 years later.[1] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Mr. Hawass suggests "If you would like more information on this subject please read the story about the pyramid builders in National Geographic's Novemnber issue." I went to the NG website and found: "Contrary to some popular depictions, the pyramid builders were not slaves or foreigners. Excavated skeletons show that they were Egyptians who lived in villages developed and overseen by the pharaoh's supervisors." [[2] I guess NG is a reliable source, but I am bit unsure about how to best phrase this. What about using the "commonly depicted" phrase, as that would also fit with the reference from Reuters above?
The pyramids in Egypt have been depicted in media [1,2] as being built by (jewish?) slaves (and/or foreingers), but they were actually built by Egyptian workers [3,4,5]. (Jews did not appear in Egypt until long after the pyramids were built[6,7,8]).
A source about religious people believing that the pyramids are built by jewish slaves built on a misinterpretation of the bible perpetuated by hollywood and other media would be great, as I am pretty sure it is a true statement. Can we source it? Dr bab (talk) 12:21, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
The above suggestion fails WP:SYN - wikipedia editors cobbling together more than one source to make an analyitical claim that none of the individual sources makes on its own. Active Banana (bananaphone 15:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
What's the claim that's not stated in either source? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:11, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Ha - humm.. looking at this one, I don't agree that it violates WP:SYN, but I do see how the point can be argued. But this one seems to be a good candidate to find proper sources for, so let's see if we can't find something better. At least among Jewish and Christian groups this appears like a common enough misconception, so it should be possible.Dr bab (talk) 21:17, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


Marking as not done because the request has been contested. Once a consensus has formed, any established editor can add the content. -Atmoz (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Napoleon - The Little Corporal

I read a long time ago in Vincent Cronin's book Napoleon (1970) that Napoleon earned his nickname The Little Corporal at the Battle of Lodi in 1796. There the 26 year-old general in command of the Army of Italy personally sighted several artillery pieces for his troupes of gunners. In the French artillery unit of the day, this job was usually reserved for the corporal of the unit. Can I add this into the main article as an alternative in the main article?

Andrew Riddles (talk) 13:53, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I see two problems. How does Napoleon's doing the job of a corporal explain a misconception about his height (little corporal)? And secondly, even if there is some connection, do you have a reliable source for your claim? Cresix (talk) 16:34, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Suger Makes You Hyperactive

Should this be added to the article? I think the source is accurate, and it's definitely a common misconception if it isn't true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.179.156 (talk) 22:30, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

It's already there. Hairhorn (talk) 22:34, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I added the source to the article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:54, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Renaming the article

I feel that, based on what I see in the 3rd AfD discussion, many people are taking issue with the title, rather than the contents, of this article. Some in that thread have expressed the view that "common" is a value judgment. I envision this article as a catalog of notable, widespread misconceptions that have been published by reliable sources and thus do not see an issue. So perhaps renaming this article to "List of notable widespread misconceptions" would have less appearance of a value judgment and serve to clarify the purpose of this article, emphasizing that the misconceptions must be both notable in the sense of WP:NOTE and widespread (as determined by the reliable sources). I note that on 20:29, 8 January 2011, Gnevin renamed the article to "notable misconceptions" but this was reverted saying there was no consensus. So I would like to get a consensus on 1) if we should rename this article, and 2) what we should rename it to. Is "List of notable widespread misconceptions" too lengthy? If so, is there a better choice? Thoughts? Lgstarn (talk) 05:33, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

For the purposes of this discussion, I am copying and pasting a response and reply from the AfD discussion. HuskyHuskie (talk) made the following point in the AfD discussion: Indeed, the word "common" is problematic, in my opinion. "Common" has come to have a coloquial meaning along the lines of "frequently occuring", but this stems from its original meaning which relates to shared perceptions, that is, things we "have in common". While many of the facts are well-sourced in terms of their falseness (e.g., that the Vikings did not really have horns on their helmets) there is no adequate documentation to establish that these are ideas held in common'. I certainly do not mean to imply that every person on the planet need be aware of these misconceptions, but the English Wikipedia has become the de facto encyclopedia for the world, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask whether such notions are commonly held among the Fulani or Hmong or even the "westernized" Japanese. The article is POV because it presumes that Western misconceptions are misconceptions shared by the world. That may be true, but I would like to see the evidence. Response: there is a item in the article about the widespread misconception in South Korea that leaving a fan on at night can cause death, so this need not be (and currently is not) just a list of Western misconceptions. Your point about anything able to be "shared" by the entire world is taken, and I agree if that was the intended meaning of the word "common" it would be in fact inherently biased. However, I believe as http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/common shows, that is only definition 2) of the word "common." Definition 4) is "widespread," which is the intended meaning. As the beginning of the article states, "this list describes fallacious ideas and beliefs which are documented and widespread as well as the actual facts concerning those ideas." Renaming this article to "widespread" makes this distinction explicit. That a misconception is "widespread" -- if it meets WP:NOTE -- is absolutely verifiable and NPOV. I think this both establishes that "common" is an issue and that "widespread" is a better term. Lgstarn (talk) 07:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm not too sure whether changing "common" to "widespread" would help that much. The terms are still very fuzzy as to the degree of "commonness", in addition to having the problem of defining what population is being discussed. I have been trying to come up with satisfactory inclusion criteria, and I have come up with the following suggestion: A misconception is common/noteable if the misconception is printed in a reliable source without reference to it being a misconception, that is, that a reliable source is still spreading the misconception. Then we could have items of the following sort:
  • According to many American national newspapers [1,2,3], Barack Obama is a muslim, but in actual fact [4,5,6] he is a christian.
  • Many elementary school textbooks in both the US [1,2,3] and Europe [4,5] put forward the myth that Europeans in general considered the Earth to be flat prior to Colombus' voiage in 1492. Sailors and navigators of the time knew that the Earth was spherical, but (correctly) disagreed with Columbus' estimate of the distance to India, which was approximately 1⁄6th of the actual distance [6,7].
What do you think? Are there ways in which these criteria are not discriminate enough? Are they way too strict?
I will also post this to the AFD-debate.
Dr bab (talk) 08:25, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure that "widespread" is an improvement over "common", plus it's still possible to argue over how widespread something needs to be. Also, I don't think "notable" is a good requirement since that means that in order to make the list, the misconception has to be so notable as to be able to have its own standalone article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
I would add that the list may only contain entries that have been determined being notable for inclusion in other articles or that provide the basis for other articles. Nageh (talk) 08:48, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
Dr Bab, your criteria that notable sources still be spreading the "misconception" gets into issues with WP:NPOV. If a truly reliable source has published something, by definition it is no longer able to be called a misconception as "editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." We cannot do original research here - we can only rely upon reliable sources. As WP:V states "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." Fortunately, in your example, you will not find any reliable sources publishing that Barack Obama is a Muslim because such an assertion would simply mean the source did not fact check and are thus not a reliable source. So requiring that reliable sources still be spreading misconceptions is a nonstarter. Lgstarn (talk) 23:03, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
Fair enough, I should probably have written "otherwise reliable source". But you can't seriously mean that all sources taken as "reliable sources" in Wikipedia ALWAYS do thorough background cheks of all their statements? With RS in this sence I really had major media sources in mind, which certainly do sloppy jobs of checking their sources sometimes. So if we could write that "the New York Times ...blah blah blah" but in reality "blah blah blah [scholary source #1, scholary source #2]. Would this violate WP:OR? If not, would it mean that we could not make a decision about which source is actually "Reliable" without doing OR? Does this mean that a source that has been found do do a poor checking of their sources should no longer be on the RS list? Or can we work on a simple "voting" system between the reliable sources? Or give more weight to e.g. scientific journals on a topic in question rather than major newspapers? This will probably again violate RS?
WP:RELIABLE states Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is the best such source for that context. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. If a source does a sloppy job of fact checking, it would be considered less of a reliable source. We can weigh the different sources carefully to see if they are making a claim without doing OR, but if a large, reliable source is publishing a misconception and asserting it is true, that would certainly be the topic of numerous letters and probably an eventual retraction by a reputable source such as the New York Times. The bit about questionable sources in WP:RELIABLE is also good. Anyways, since this discussion is a bit abstract, I think it would be better if we had a concrete example of a misconception that was published by a "reliable" source and then refuted with a somehow even more reliable source. Back to the main header of this section, though, does anyone support the idea of renaming the article?  :-) Lgstarn (talk) 18:10, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

I do not support renaming the article. As mentioned somewhat above, any new name will end up with the same results. Whether we call it "widespread misconceptions", "notable widespread misconceptions", "prevalent misconceptions", "notable prevalent misconceptions", "pervasive misconceptions", "notable pervasive misconceptions", etc. etc. etc., we will end up back here at square one trying to decide how we define and source "common", "widespread", "prevalent", "pervasive", etc. etc. etc. I speak only partly in jest when I say that about the only title that might work is "Misconceptions that are reliably sourced as common in the general population", and I even doubt that would work. The problem is not the name of the article; the problem is hammering out what is meant by "common" and how "common" is reliably demonstrated. I think the discussions about that may be productive, but not renaming. Cresix (talk) 18:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

"Philo Farnsworth did not invent the television. "

That Farnsworth invented television is not a "misconception," it's a perfectly-defensible position in a controversy. recommend deleting this tendentious passage.HedgeFundBob (talk) 00:32, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

 Done - Thanks. Cresix (talk) 01:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

General Copy Editing

Since this is a protected article, I will submit the changes I would have done here:

1. This section is confusing.

The misconception is due largely to the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.[72] The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late nineteenth century.[73]

It says, "The misconception is due largely" then it says, "The misconception itself is much older". It can't be both.

2. This needs commas around the word "apparently" but not earlier two like this:

This myth has been commonplace in American culture at least as far back as the start of the 20th century and was attributed to William James who, apparently, used the expression metaphorically.

or break up the run-on sentence like this:

This myth has been commonplace in American culture at least as far back as the start of the 20th century. It can be attributed to William James who, apparently, used the expression metaphorically.

3. The link to the word "crap" does not seem appropriate since that article contains no etymology on the word.

4. e.g. was mis-used: ...although in some translations (e.g. the New King James Genesis ) this is rendered... i.e. is appropreate if you are listing one of mulitple. E.g. implies the only one (in which case "some" seems out of place.)

Cheers,

Cavebear42 (talk) 11:57, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

This article isn't protected from you. Established editors can still make edits. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:04, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Cavebear's comment on the use of e.g. looks simply mistaken to me. The abbreviation "e.g." means, roughly, "for example", which "i.e." means, roughly, "in other words". You can't say "...although in some translations (i.e. the New King James Genesis ) this is rendered..." unless the New King James Genesis is the only translation for which this applies! If, on the other hand, this translation is just an example (which seems to be the case), "e.g" is appropriate. Phiwum (talk) 20:08, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

phrasing

This is somewhat confusing, and I am not sure how to explain it. the title suggests that each item would be a misconception. a misconception being "the world is flat." however some listed items are listed "the world is round." understand? 98.206.155.53 (talk) 21:24, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

You are touching on an aspect of this that's been bothering me for some time. There is no control over the structure of items, and that makes it hard to apply the inclusion criteria. What do folk think of the idea of putting this in tabular form, much like List of UFO sightings? I can imagine having the headings - Misconception, Where?, Who? Sources, The truth, Sources.
That would be one mother of a table! If the length of some the current items was not changed, some of the cells would be huge! I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but I wonder if the same problem would still arise. If the first column of the table was "Misconception", don't you think some people would put it in the "world is flat" form and others in the "world is round" form? Even if another column was "The Truth", I think some people would still put "The world is round" in the "Misconception" column. If we have to clean up every item in a table, we might as well clean up the article as it is now in some nontabular form. Maybe I'm wrong. Cresix (talk) 23:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

American Politics

I think the common misconceptions about what the terms "liberal" "conservative" "socialist" "fascist" etc etc mean should be included in some way. The common use of these and similar terms in America aren't exactly accurate when one compares their use in the rest of the world. For example, the common belief by the American right that Obama is a socialist. I think there should at least be something about how the polarization of politics in the United States has lead to misconceptions (often misconceptions made by both the left and right about each other) about the definition of certain political terms. I'm not sure how these misconceptions about the definition of political terms should be explained (esp. with discussing politics potentially becoming very charged) so I propose we discuss the topic and add misconceptions we can agree upon.--Lerikson (talk) 01:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

We can't even come to an agreement about whether it's a common misconception that Obama is a Muslim. The chances of any degree of agreement here about how to define "liberal" or "conservative" are infinitesimal. Cresix (talk) 02:06, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Before we can discuss the topic, you'll need to provide reliable sources that demonstrate that state that these are common misconceptions (or something like that). What you wrote above looks like your own original research on the issue. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Seizures and burnt toast

The msiconception that people smell burnt toast before a seizure comes from a heritage moment commercial about Wilder Penfield and the Montreal Procedure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilder_Penfield#Pop_culture_references

The symptom of an oncomming seizure is called an aura. While that ONE patient smelled burnt toast before their seizure. The symptom is not universal. The triggers or auras of an oncomming seizure is as varied as the number of people who suffer from seizures. There is no universal symptom that you'll start having a seizure. that only way you know is if you had one before and recognize your own individual aura.

http://www.epilepsyontario.org/client/EO/EOWeb.nsf/web/How+I+can+Personally+Increase+Epilepsy+Education http://www.epilepsy.com/101/EP101_symptom tovasshi (talk) 17:58, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

 Not done - Please provide a reliable source that this is a common misconception. On a more personal note, I am a physician, and I've never heard of the "burnt toast" idea as being "universal", even among laypeople. Most physicians, and many other people, know that there are idiographic precursors that individuals experience prior to or during the onset of a seizure, but I've never met one person who thought it was universally experiencing a smell of burnt toast. Cresix (talk) 18:11, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

It's primarily a Canadian misconception. It came about when those heritage moments commercials came on tv. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNdM9JhTPJw http://www.howtospotacanadian.ca/2009/01/theyve-been-taught-to-both-fear-and.html

I have met many people (here in Canada) that believe smelling burnt toast means you are going to have a seizure or a stroke. Doing a web search of "burnt toast seizure" brings up all kinds of sites of people asking about it.

http://www.chacha.com/question/what-happens-if-you-smell-burnt-toast-a-seizure-or-a-stroke http://www.kgbanswers.co.uk/why-do-you-smell-burnt-toast-when-you-have-a-stroke/3486822 http://www.whfhhc.com/Stroke/92361.htm http://uk.ask.com/question/do-you-smell-burnt-toast-before-a-stroke

tovasshi (talk) 03:22, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, your meeting people that believe it is original research, not a reliable source. Also, web search hits is meaningless. I could web search "odd sounds" + "seizure" and get lots of hits. And finally, YouTube is not a reliable source. This is not a common misconeption. 15:10, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
YouTube postings by reliable, notable sources (Associated Press and others) can be considered reliable, see WP:VIDEOLINKS. Unfortunately, the YouTube link above is posted by an individual user, and is unfortunately WP:COPYVIO. --Lexein (talk) 15:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The youtube link is to the original minute the lead to the misconception which is referenced [here] the second link right after that is to a [writer describing] the culture behind it. [This] is an essay about educating people on the misconceptions of epilepsy (it mentions burnt toast), featured on [Epilepsy Ontario], an organization aimed to educated people on the disorder.

On a side note, the misconception about an epileptic [swollowing their tongue] should be added.

tovasshi (talk) 05:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

This, as a "common misconception" is a tough haul, because the sensation (as one example of an aura) is supported widely, and it is not a misconception per se, but may be merely a too narrow (not false) understanding of epilepsy.
  • howtospotacanadian.ca isn't notable or reliable source about epilepsy on its own, and the link is a funny anecdote but not a WP:RS reliable source.
  • EpilepsyOntario.org is a usable WP:PRIMARY source for articles about the organization, but not sufficient on its own as an authority on epilepsy- but any medical journal articles or books it may link to would be sufficient. The link you provided How I can Personally Increase Epilepsy Education in my Community - by Jaclyn Moneypenny is a personal account, not a medical or scholarly article, and mentions that "people associate the condition with burnt toast" and that "not all epilepsy sufferers smell burnt toast"
  • I found What is Epilepsy? about epilepsy in children which mentions that smelling burnt toast prior to a seizure has been reported, not that it's a misconception.
  • The linked YouTube video ("Historica Minute" or "By The Minute") for Historica Dominion Institute dramatizes one epilepsy sufferer's temporary pre-seizure sensation. If other reliable sources blame that video for a common misconception, that what's needed to support the claim of common misconception. The link to http://www.histori.ca at the end of the (rather melodramatic) video should have provided links to additional information or more reliable sources. Sadly, however, http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10211 shows the original, authorized video, but does nothing to provide reliable sources for any of its content.
So it seems that the misconception is about the number of epilepsy sufferers who smell burnt toast prior to a seizure (some, not all), not the fact of it. Better, more explicit sources about the origin of the misconception, if it is one, will help. Keep at it. Try Google News (archive) or Google Books. I gotta go. --Lexein (talk) 15:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
If the misconception is, indeed, about the number who smell burnt toast, that makes this item incredibly difficult to justify adding to the article. It's hard enough just to get reliable source that a misconception is common. To try to argue the case that it is a common misconception that 2%/a few/some/a lot/many/most/almost all people/etc. who have seizures smell burnt toast, frankly, is absurd. Let's please keep this as simple as possible: If it can be sourced that smelling burnt toast is a common misconception, add the item. Otherwise, let's not split hairs that it is a common misconception that, let's say, 35% of people with seizures smell burnt toast. Cresix (talk) 22:16, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree, and wasn't proposing adding complexity. Whatever's reliably sourced works for me, of course, which means this is a poor candidate for inclusion. Just to be very clear about what I was trying to say:
  • As stated, "(It's a common misconception that) (a lot of) people (a lot of the time) smell burnt toast before a seizure": is that really common and RS as such? No, as far as I've searched.
  • The corrective, "In one well documented medical case, a patient reported smelling burnt toast before a seizure. The case was popularized by a TV ad lauding the Canadian doctor who discovered the area of the patient's brain responsible for the sensation of the strong odor and the seizure" is supported by RS as two separate facts, without a causal link for - or foundation for - claiming it as a common misconception.
So, no inclusion. --Lexein (talk) 05:28, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree, any conclusions based on two separate facts without direct support of common misconception is synthesis and inappropriate. Cresix (talk) 16:25, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, this point highlights a problem with this list: it is American. The only non-American items are specifically highlighted as foreign. Every other "common misconception" has a big implicit "among young people from the United States it is a misconception that..." Every Canadian Gen Xer jokes about the "I smell burnt toast". It's our "I've fallen and I can't get up". As such, there is a very real association between the smell of burnt toast and epileptic seizures in Canada. Enough to merit inclusion in some localized subset of this list? I don't know... but this list is so firmly planted in America-centrism that it's hard to see how to include it. Pxtl (talk) 19:24, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Other items in this article may "highlight a problem ... it is American", but not this item. It's fine that you think "every Canadian Gen Xer jokes about the 'I smell burnt toast'", but that's original research and not acceptable for inclusion in the article. Whether were talking about Canada, the United States, or Timbuktu, we need a reliable source that this is a common misconception; and it can't be a synthesis of two separately sourced facts from which an editor has reached the conclusion that the misconception is common. The source itself must identify the misonception as "common", or a similar descriptor. Cresix (talk) 19:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Pxtl -
  • This is the English-language Wikipedia: the contents of this list are absolutely not intended to be American-only by any sort of consensus. Some apparent English-language-centricity is unavoidable, due only to the availability of sources/searches. You (and any multilingual Wikipedians) can help by (a) finding non-American or indeed non-English sources to support some of the putative English-language-wide (or are they world-wide?) common misconceptions (example: Vomitoria), and (b) finding Canadian, reliable, independent, notable sources that "smelling burnt-toast prior to seizure is a common misconception." Believe me, I genuinely tried to find any reliable independent notable sources but could not (yet) find one (or two.) Can you? By the way, is this item as common among Francophones as Anglophones in Canada? Or is it regional?
  • Take away point: IMHO it would be an improvement to this list to specifically label American-only misconceptions as such, where the sources (or other, newly located sources) support that assertion. It may take a non-local (e.g. UK or EU) source to localize a local (e.g. US) c.m., since local sources (any geographical sources) are typically not geo-aware. So far there seems to be consensus that stating locale where supported by sources is desirable. Examples of "U.S. only" items, please? --Lexein (talk) 06:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

what happened to Judaism in the Religion section

Until two days ago this page had a Judaism section within religion. Was there a reason to drop this? Was there any discussion? --Zachbe (talk) 21:23, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

The items do not meet the criteria as a common misconception. recently determined on this talk page:
1-The common misconception's including topic 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.
Additionally, there was never a consensus to add these items. Cresix (talk) 00:40, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Regarding point 1, Judaism does have an article. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:39, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but the misconceptions are not in that article (and I believe never will be; if someone adds something about having sex through a hole in the sheet, I'm sure it will be removed rather quickly), nor were the misconceptions adequately sourced here as common. Cresix (talk) 21:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Question for the audience--who supports deletion?

This section was created prior to my opening an AfD on the topic. That AfD was opened, received lots of comments, and was closed as trainwreck. As Amtaulic correctly points out, we cannot continue to discuss this here as if it's still an open question. Editors who still want to delete can file another AfD (although it's certainly inappropriate to do so now, so soon and while productive discussion is ongoing), but just saying you want to delete here does nothing and hurts actual work on the article.

Because of my experience with past AfDs on topics like this, I'm hesitant to take this article to AfD, as my gut feeling is that it will be kept under the grounds that the fundamental idea isn't flawed even if the current instance is. I disagree with this, because I don't believe that the topic of this article is sufficiently well defined or notable for it to ever reach an acceptable form. That is, I don't believe that we can adequately define what a "common misconception" is (does a "common legend" qualify? what about an "well-known urban legend"? how about something that is "regularly taught in school but is actually incorrect?"). I think that if we restrict this to only subjects for which the term "common misconception" is used in an RS, then we have a non-notable topic, because, as far as I know, there is no reliable research do document "Common Misconceptions" as itself notable. If we expand this to include other similar terms, we start running into all sorts of problems, as we've seen--does it have to be common among "everyone?" Does everyone mean worldwide (clearly not)? Does it mean "English speakers?" Can we include common misconceptions among only people in the U.S.? How about among physicians, or teenagers, or middle class people between the ages of 20 and 25 living on the west coast of the US of non-white ethnic descent? And if we really expand, I would argue that we could reasonably include half of what appears in Mythbusters, nearly everything in Lies My Teacher Told Me, and who knows how many other books of "Common but False" anecdotes. In other words, I'm arguing that not only is this article currently broken, because it lacks a clear inclusion criteria, but that we cannot produce a suitable inclusion criteria that will make this list notable and not original research.

I'd like to get a sense if anyone else feels the same way I do, as there's no point in me AfDing this just to get a nebulous "no consensus" result that doesn't actually improve the article. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:03, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree completely that this article is pointless. A good Wikipedia article that is a List of... would list instances of something that is clearly defined, usually in another article. The first sentence of this article should read something like "This is a list of common misconceptions together with the truth in each case". But look closely at that link. It points straight back here. It's a circular link. There is no definition! We have a list of undefinable things. Why? I shall partly nswer that. A lot of the entries are of the form "I know something you don't know. Therefore I'm smarter than you." I don't think such a list belongs in a global encyclopaedia aiming to be as good as it can be. HiLo48 (talk) 01:13, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I disagree with deletion. I think this article serves a useful purpose, and is documented and supported by reliable sources. Additionally, as long as we stick to finding sources which explicitly call something a common misconception, I think we have valid inclusion criteria which makes the list non-arbitrary. I discussed this briefly in one of my comments above. If we have a problem now, it's that we're using only one article to encompass all possible fields of misconceptions, which makes this page unwieldy. If we split the article into specific topics, as has been proposed multiple times in the past week, I think many of these issues would go away. Jesstalk|edits 01:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
You speak of depending on reliable sources saying that something is a common misconception. Yes, that can be achieved for some entries, but if we looked for exactly those words in the sources, I suspect a lot of the article will just have to go. Are you happy if I delete all such entries right now? If we allow some flexibility, how much? That's venturing into WP:OR and WP:SYNTHESIS. Many times the word myth is used in the article and on this Talk page instead of misconception, without any certainty as to what that means either. I can't see how splitting it up would help the absence of a reliable definition either. HiLo48 (talk) 01:50, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
HiLo48 is hitting on my key point. If the article is going to be kept, we need to define exactly what the inclusion criteria are. We need to define whether or not the exact words have to be used, and, if not, what other words or ideas are compatible. We also need to clearly define among what population the conception must be "common". I'm thinking here of the 0.999... section, and whether or not its okay that this is a misconception is specifically among school students, or a previously rejected entry which was specifically a misconception among physicians, or the question before about something being a misconception specifically in France. I not only have no answers to these questions, but posit that we will never obtain answers that allow us to get beyond original research and notability problems. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I stand by my comment. I think it's reasonable to expect quality sourcing can be found for enough content to constitute an article, if indeed there isn't quality sourcing for all of it now, along with sourcing which is explicit about the concept being a "common misconception" or using an obvious synonym of one of those words. I don't see any reason why any such issue could not be discussed on the talk page and develop into clear consensus, and hypothesizing that certain simple problems will be insurmountable in the future appears to be poor reasoning for deleting what is otherwise fine content. Jesstalk|edits 04:13, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
It's a nice thought, but we'll be debating "obvious synonyms" of "common misconceptions" until the cows come home. I just started checking existing sources, starting at the start of the article. It took until the seventeenth source to find the exact words "common misconception". Some said nothing of the kind. Some said myth. One wittily said "mythconception" but not common. Who is going to work on those first 16? (And obviously the 250 odd other sources.) HiLo48 (talk) 04:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Common = "Widespread; prevalent."
Let's stick with that definition and keep this article which I personally find to be informative and fascinating. Go ahead and make some clearer criteria, but how hard is it to use your editorial judgment to determine if something is a widespread, false belief? AerobicFox (talk) 05:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

"does a "common legend" qualify? what about an "well-known urban legend"?"
A list of well known Urban Legends would be good for that.AerobicFox (talk) 05:27, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Because our "editorial judgment" already disagrees, and I believe the problem is intractable until we get a strong, clear definition. For instance, I consider the "misconceptions" of teenagers in general to not qualify here (as that is a matter of lack of maturity), while the "misconceptions" of a country (France) or profession (physicians) probably qualify. Furthermore, I believe that if we are going to take this article for what it claims to be, then myths, many urban legends, old wive's tales, and the like, all qualify. I actually believe that if the article is called what it is currently, then we are fully justified in including almost anything that Mythbusters has ever covered (that was proven false), since basically the whole point of that show is to test common myths. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:39, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Clearer criteria is fine. Not all urban legends are false though, so those wouldn't appear here, and not all urban legends are commonly believed, some are even commonly ridiculed (Alligators in the sewers), and these would not qualify either. AerobicFox (talk) 05:47, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
@Hilo48 If you think we need a clearer understanding of the scope of this article, you should start a new discussion so we can hash out any of those issues. Proposing the article be deleted because you forsee that such a discussion won't be helpful seems premature. Jesstalk|edits 06:14, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I didn't propose deletion, but I did agree with the proposal. As Qwyrxian said, there has already been some discussion on the potential for definition, and it wasn't good. I'm getting no response from the "keepers" here to the issues I'm raising anyway. No response to the "1 out of 17" research I did. Lot's of disagreement in this thread. It all tells me that those hoping for cooperation on definition for every item have rocks in their heads. Please respond to the specific challenges already raised. Don't leave at generalisations like "I think it could work". HiLo48 (talk) 06:26, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I understand you weren't the proposer, and I am not arguing "I think it could work". I'm arguing that deleting the entire article because you "think it won't work" without trying it first is premature. If we have an issue, we can address the issue then... but first start a new section to discuss the issues you want resolved, and if that fails, then we can talk about where to go next. Jesstalk|edits 07:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Another test case

I see another great test case that was added, removed, and just now re-added: the fairly commonly held belief (20-24% of US'ers) that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Does that belong? I can see a very sound, logical argument for both inclusion and exclusion. Under what criteria can we definitively determine whether this belongs in or not? Qwyrxian (talk) 07:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Either would be OR. Do we have a RS which explicitly says it's common? Jesstalk|edits 07:47, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Are you saying that we can't call 20-24% common? What if it was 80-90% Are you saying that the inclusion criteria is "must include the word common"? If so, what other words are you (and other editors) willing to accept that are synonymous? For me, 20-24% is a close enough synonym to anonymous. And, even ignoring all of that, if there is an RS which says it's common, can it then be included? Qwyrxian (talk) 08:02, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Just to keep the threads in-tact, I replied to your section below. I don't care where we talk about this, but let's try to keep it in one place. Jesstalk|edits 09:10, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Common = "Widespread; prevalent."
20-24% is neither, and from my experience it is a more common belief that people who think he is Muslim are stupid than it is that he is Muslim. AerobicFox (talk) 16:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

While someone said this below, your experience is irrelevant as far as this and all other Wikipedia articles are concerned--whatever we decide the article is about (if we can), each entry needs support from a reliable source to prove it meets the inclusion criteria. For me, 20-24% is common, widespread, and prevalent. But, again, here we see the problems with these "mushy" words. A more thorough followup is below. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The sources call it a misconception, but doesn't specifically use the word "common". Instead it gives a percentage. 20% of Americans is 60 million people, and that's the low estimate of the number of people who believe that. I think that's more than enough to qualify it as "common", but if not, we need to establish a threshold of what % (or perhaps total number of people) believes something qualifies as common. Certainly if it said 80% nobody would be disputing it is common. Also, what if a source specifically calls something a "common misconception" but reveals only 10% of Americans believe it? VegaDark (talk) 18:58, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Allow me to be pointy for a moment

Can we interpret statistics to count something as common? For instance, a research study discussed in this NYT article One adult American in five thinks the Sun revolves around the Earth". That's 20%--that sounds common to me, and there's no doubt it's a "mistake" (which the article does of course point out). But the article doesn't say "misconception", so perhaps we can't include it here. If the article said "common mistake," could we include it? It says that, regarding examples like this, "Americans don't have a clue." That sounds close enough to me. What about the very common misconception that the Earth is only 6000 years old (I'm sure I could find a statistic about that as well). Or am I unfairly choosing sides in an "open debate" to call that a misconception? What if I find an article in a Hindu journal that says something like "50% of the world has the common misconception that there is only one God, something which we know to be false because of (cite religious text Y)." Now that obviously doesn't belong, but how is it different from the 6000 year old example? What if I find a reliable source claiming that Global Warming is a common misconception? Or, on the contrary, a reliable source that says that Global Warming denial is a misconception? Technically, if our definition is just "labeled as a common misconception in a reliable source" qualifies, then I have to put either one or both in, if I can find it. But, of course, I might have a problem if one is a "common misconception" and one is a "typical mistake..."

Note that, if I were adding these to the article, I would be being pointy. I'm not, but I am putting them here to assert that this problem is insoluble--not because we haven't tried, but because we have an article without a clearly defined topic. Now, maybe, somehow, we can come up with a topic clear enough to resolve some of my pointiness...but I doubt it will solve anything in the long run. Qwyrxian (talk) 08:02, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposing hypothetical examples doesn't help, largely because there are issues beyond their prevalence. For example, that a Hindu might say it's a "common misconception" that there is only one god is irrelevant, because that can't be documented as an actual misconception. It seems appropriate to stick to actual examples in the article. Your Obama section above is a good one. To use a certain percentage as common, we would have to first establish consensus, clearly label it within the article, and find some justification within reliable sources to use the figure. I don't expect that can be done. So, yes, we would have to find a reliable source which says the belief is "common", explicitly. Per WP:V, "the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth"; It doesn't matter if it is actually common, it only matters if it's been documented in reliable sources that it is. Jesstalk|edits 09:08, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
OK, picking up on the Obama example, you may well find a source that tells us the situation in America, but this is a global encyclopaedia (as you should be able to tell from my spelling there). There is unlikely to be a reliable source telling us the global situation. So, do we accept "common in one country"? "Common in part of a country"? How big does the country or part of a country have to be? HiLo48 (talk) 09:42, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I am one of probably a lot of people who was made aware of this article through a recent xkcd comic. My initial reaction (although I liked the article and enjoyed reading it) was that I could not understand how this article could survive WP:NOR and other guidelines. Reading the article and the talk page, I found that my first reactions were not entirely unfounded. I enjoyed a lot of the article, but clearly a lot of the "misconceptions" put in here are not common, and some - like "does lightening strike twice" - are not (in my opinion) even misconceptions. Also, when you look at the discussions about things like 0.999..=1 and "birds are dinosaurs", it illustrates the difficulty in defining what a misconception is and what makes it common. And how much work and effort will need to be put into discussing every new item from every conceivable angle. I see Jess' point that anticipating a problem in the future is not a reason to delete, but I'm inclined to disagree. The best proposed inclusion criteria would probably be the suggested one about the exact phrase "common misconception" appearing in a reliable source. Of course, this has the problems outlined above that it would lead to items that are certainly not what most people would think of as common misconceptions being included just because someone, in some context, described it as a common misconception. Maybe it could be solved by demanding multiple, independent, sources; but I'm not sure about that either. I don't think a deletion debate would lead anywhere, and if that is the case then the best thing would be to agree on some form of inclusion criteria and make the best of it. Dr bab (talk) 15:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
"My initial reaction (although I liked the article and enjoyed reading it) was that I could not understand how this article could survive WP:NOR and other guidelines."
Classic case of WP:IGNORE.
Common should be defined as before the reader reads this they will have thought it was true. Many people believe sushi is raw fish, and before reading this thought that was true. It's inclusion is therefore warranted.AerobicFox (talk) 16:36, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
If by "classic", you mean that the application ignored providing evidence that the conditional portion of the instruction "prevents you from improving the encyclopedia" and just applied the final portion "ignore the rules", then, yep "classic" application, but not appropriate application.Active Banana (bananaphone 19:21, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
AerobicFox, we can't do that, because even for the most widespread misconception imaginable, there will still be a very sizeable portion of people (particularly among academic circles who pursue WP) who will correctly understand that it's complete junk. As we've seen, editors keep claiming that since they didn't believe it, that means the misconception isn't common enough. That's OR. We must have an objective standard, and finding the exact phrase in reliable sources seems reasonable. As Hilo and Dr bab correctly point out, this may lead to entries which are common among a non-global demographic. However, I don't see a problem. If 90% of India incorrectly believes the U.S. is really a province of Canada, and we have multiple reliable sources to document it, that fits the inclusion criteria implied by the title. Indeed, it is a "common misconception" in India. It simply doesn't need to be global in order to be useful or notable; If it's notable enough to be reported properly, then it's notable enough to be included. Some minor study conducted in a guy's broom closet which says that 90% of the people in a small hamlet incorrectly believe something, which then gets no publicity, therefore doesn't belong... no matter what phrasing it uses. This standard appears to be in-line with how we determine the reliability of sources and notability of topics within other articles on the site... so I don't see how it'll be any more problematic here. Can we just try it, and if we have a problem, address the problem then? Jesstalk|edits 19:17, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
Going back to Obama and percentages, if we're not going to accept some percentage as equivalent to "common", then I don't think we should accept any other synonyms either. Thus, a "widespread misconception" is not acceptable, nor is a "common error". Either we accept a broad range of synonyms (i.e., we use editorial judgment), or we accept none. And as I think about how to write this, I feel like I'm getting, in my mind, to the core of why this article needs to be deleted: it doesn't meet WP:N. This is clearly an informational list, not a navigational list, so doesn't fall under one of our typical exceptions (like List of people from Country X) pages). As an informational list, the article must be about a topic of underlying notability. There is nothing fundamentally notable about the concept of "common misconceptions". And if we are requiring inclusion based on the phrase used (i.e., if we don't accept synonyms, we don't accept percentages, etc.), then we're literally saying "This is a list of things that have all been described using the same phrase." By that argument, we could have an article title "List of things that have been described as awesome" where we would, of course, require a reliable source to use the word "awesome". We cannot have an article that has no actual topic other than a shared descriptive phrase. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:08, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
Quite frankly, there is a lot of neat stuff compiled in this article. I would hate to see it go, but I also know that it probably doesn't belong in an encyclopedia.Asher196 (talk) 00:16, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
  • support deletion I dont know where exactly to place my comment, but I also think this clearly fails the indiscriminate content definition and is just a dumping ground for "stuff I heard one day". Currently non-encyclopedic and unlikely to ever be. Please contact me on my talk page if this is officially nominated. While the page is on my watch list I rarely check in because of the overwhelming deluge of non-sense this article attracts. Active Banana (bananaphone 19:03, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
  • also support deletion (I think I argued for that somewhere further up anyway) Content should be saved but can be incorporated in existing articles (probably already is 95%). Also: Please contact me on my talk page if this is officially nominated. --Echosmoke (talk) 22:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
  • oppose deletion, and knowing Murphy, here is a placeholder line while I form and write a scintillating rebuttal. --Kizor 20:57, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose deletion This article is well-referenced and informative. It serves as a reference point for others, and does not fail the criteria of an encyclopedia entry. It has a clear topic, which is consistently followed. Just because there is potentially more information that could be added to this, and the line of where to stop is fuzzy, does not interfere with the legitimacy of this as an encyclopedia entry; I do not see a reason on the official reasons for deletion that this article is disqualified by. "Common" should be considered statistically significant, not a majority.... the definition should allow some flexibility in use, as this is an encyclopedia written by everyone. I would personally say if you have met someone who believes in one of these, that it qualifies as "common" enough. Shooting from the hip, I'd say that just about all of these fall into this category. But I also think people should not be bound by my definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.69.117.238 (talk) 02:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose deletion This is a very high traffic page delivering quite useful information. Although defining what should belong here and what shouldn't is going to be a difficult task that will most likely involve a lot of argument, I think it is an endeavor that should be undertaken. 66.129.58.144 (talk) 22:01, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose deletion This article is very useful and informative, and there are a lot of references. It shouldn't be deleted only because we can't agree what 'common' means. Perhaps it would be best to discuss whether or not it is common in here, and add or remove facts from the main article, but not delete the whole article. 189.13.44.15 (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Support deletion Most of this stuff is silly.
  • Oppose deletion This is one of Wiki's gems. It is linked from high volume websites, gets plenty of hits, encourages people to click and read more on the subjects and I actually learned something reading it. It would be a shame to let it go. Cavebear42 (talk) 11:41, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Support deletion One can't be sure what is "learned" from this article is true as there are some gross-inaccuracies as well as complete logical fallacies this article is rife with. Plus the idea is pretty stupid, IMO. Changchub (talk) 17:26, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, but there was an AfD that is over now. For the moment, we are trying to make this list "less indiscriminate" by finding suitable definitions for what we mean by "common" and what are "notable" misconceptions. IMHO, policies aside, which of course we must adhere to, the primary goal of this entire project is to collect notable information and thereby increase the knowledge of readers. There is potential in this list if we can manage to work out suitable inclusion criteria. For the moment I invite you to join this discussion. Nageh (talk) 17:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Support Deletion There's no way in the world a reader would search out this list unless he or she was looking for an amusing list of indiscriminate information. Misconceptions common enough to be notable can be covered in the appropriate articles: Sushi is a good example. Another possibility is moving it out of article space: see WP:WEIRD. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PhGustaf (talk • contribs) 23:21, 14 February 2011

The AfD for this article has come and gone. Why are people still responding to this thread? If you want to re-propose that this article be deleted, go right ahead, through the proper WP:AFD channels. ~Amatulić (talk) 23:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


It is incorrect to claim that a close of an AfD as "trainwreck"/no consensus prevents discussion from continuing. Active Banana (bananaphone 23:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Can we get a consensus of what constitutes "common"?

Ok, now that we know this article is going to be kept, let's work to get at least some better criteria for inclusion. All other issues aside, can we figure out just how "common" something needs to be to be included? Let me give a few numbers and examples to think about.

Do we want to list "common" as to the world population? I don't think that's even possible. According to our article on human, there are about 6.9 billion people on this planet. I think one would be hard pressed to find a common misconception that is shared (even at some minor level) across all communities and regions in the world. There's just too many different cultures, traditions, beliefs, and societal systems across our planet for anything to be a global common misconception. Does a source simply need to say "common", or may we extrapolate what constitutes "common" based on what sources provide? I would argue it isn't original research to label something common if we come to a consensus on this page of a population threshold requirement to be listed here. While sources may simply list something as a "common misconception" without reference to whom it may be a misconception to, I think it is understood that the author is referring to it being a misconception within the society or culture the author lives in. For instance, if we listed a hypothetical article that claimed it was a common misconception that The iPhone was AT&T only, I think it would be understood that the vast majority of the world population probably doesn't even know what an iPhone is, let alone have a misconception as to what network it is on. Does that mean such a misconception wouldn't belong on this page? I would argue it absolutely would belong. I believe the only way for this page to exist is to list common misconceptions amongst specific cultures/populations/religions/etc., not by taking a stance that something needs to be a "worldwide" misconception.

I think it's all about the way we word our entries. For instance, if we did want to list the hypothetical iPhone misconception, I think perhaps a good way of listing it would be "According to United States-based CNN.com, it is a common misconception that the iPhone is still only on the AT&T network." That wording would give the reader a good idea that this probably isn't a worldwide misconception, but rather something that would be understood to be a misconception amongst likely readers of CNN, such as Americans or perhaps other western countries. We also need to come to a consensus as to just how small of a community a misconception is worth noting for. If 50% of China had a common misconception, I think we would all agree that is enough. What about 10% of China? What about 1%? Do we want to do this based on a percentage of population of a given location/group, or by a number of people? 1% of China is still over 13 million people. 100% of Luxembourg is about 500,000 people. If 80% of the population of Luxembourg had a misconception would that be enough to be "common"? I would argue, once again, it's all about the wording. If a Luxembourg-based source stated a misconception without specifically saying what population it applied to, we should simply state it is a Luxembourg-based source giving the information to let the reader decide. Moving away from countries, what about cities? What if 50% of Chicago believed a common misconception. Is that common enough for this page? What about a smaller city? What if 95% of the 8,790 people in Eagle Point, Oregon believed a common misconception? What if we specifically decide that a certain amount of people isn't enough, but a reliable source comes along and specifically calls something a common misconception, also listing a number of people who believe it which is under the threshold we established to include? There's lots of things we need to come to a consensus to just to determine what is "common". I would be rather lenient with what we allow in that regard as long as we make it clear just what type of population we are talking about holds the common misconception in question. I don't have a problem listing as a common misconception, for instance, an incorrect belief that 40% of people who live in Chicago have, so long as we make it clear in the listing that it's only a belief amongst Chicago residents. If this opens the door for a lot of entries, so be it. If the page gets too long we can split it off appropriately.

Finally, we need to think about not just locations, but groups of people such as religions or ethnicity. If 10% of Christians believed something is that enough? What about 10% of a much smaller religion, Scientologists? It might take a long time to get consensus on some of this but a discussion will be beneficial. VegaDark (talk) 07:16, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

This is a thoughtful essay, and I shared the opinion that numbers matter. However, after considerable thought, numbers and percentages don't matter to Wikipedia editors in most cases, because we quote or paraphrase sources. We are under no obligation to interpret them. If a source is so unclear in its meaning that it foments intense, or uncivil debate, it's not really an appropriate source.
A. If a reliable, independent, notable source states "common misconception" (or synonym thereof) we accept it at face value. The more agreeing sources, the more common is it: the spirit of WP:GNG general notability applies. If there are many sources, we only need cite the highest quality, most reliable, most representative sources, say, two. If there is controversy or sources citing that a misconception is not common, or not a misconception, we may choose to cite both camps, or not include the item at all, in brief discussion here.
B. If a source only uses statistics, and doesn't distill them qualitatively to "common" or "uncommon", we don't interpret the source, we quote it. If supporting sources exist stating "common", we cite one of them too.
C. If a source uses adjectives of lower magnitude than "many" (discuss here!), and "common" can't be straightforwardly inferred, then we have to quote the source, not interpret it, or don't include the item.
D. This is the English language Wikipedia, published worldwide. Of course it's sensible to state locale or population where it is explicitly supported by sources. But I don't think unstated locale or population are reasons for exclusion.
--Lexein (talk) 15:18, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
This is the serious issue that was never appropriately determined nor answered during the recent and former AfD and multiple discussions on this talk page and reason why this page should not exist. As I stated in the AfD "What % level = common? Is 25% "common"? How about 10%? or to be declared "common" does it have to be over 50%? Of what population group? Can something that is described as a "common mis-belief among US high school students" count? What about "a common misbelief among Estonian high school students"? Or "a common misbelief among members of the Estonian graduating class of 2010"? Can we include something that was "a common misbelief among the graduating class of 1944?" All in all every criteria I have seen is completely arbitrary and leads to a random indiscriminat POV biased collection of factiods". Any determination by Wikipedia editors of what "common misperception" actually means will either be completely arbitrary or original research. Active Banana (bananaphone 15:24, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
We cite the source or quote it - we don't have to interpret it or evaluate it. If source(s) don't say "common", we don't either. See (B) above. Further, if only one source exists, it's not very well supported as common, is it? --Lexein (talk) 15:31, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree 100% with Lexein's analysis. It's not our role to come up with a percentage or other mathematical threshold for "common"; we simply tell our readers what the reliable sources say. If they say a misconception is "common" (or some reasonable variation), then we can include it. Let's not make things more complicated than they need to be. 28bytes (talk) 15:44, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I also agree with Lexein. We should let reliable sources determine what is common or not. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I absolutely agree we should simply quote the source when it doesn't specifically say "common" - such as what was done with the Obama factoid mentioned above. But we still have to come to a consensus as to list it on this page or not, which necessarily requires us to come to a consensus about what % or total population or whatever is enough for us to put it on this page in the first place. We don't need to list something that 10% of group x believes as a "common misconception" vs. simply quoting the source, but when someone comes along on the talk page and proclaims it isn't common enough to actually be included on the page we need to have a set of guidelines to follow for this page to determine if it really is "common" or not, which "quoting the source" doesn't solve at all. VegaDark (talk) 04:39, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
VegaDark, to address some of your concerns: I would support refining the inclusion criteria to say that "generally, misconceptions that are excessively limited in scope (e.g. by locale, time period, demographic subset) are not included." I would not want to quantify "excessively limited in scope", instead leaving that to the common sense judgment of the editors here. Going by that criterion, most reasonable editors would probably agree that "a common misbelief among Estonian high school students" would be "excessively limited in scope" but that "50% of China" would not be. 28bytes (talk) 15:59, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
On the percentage issue, are those above rejecting percentages really telling me that if we get a source that says "90% of US people believe X, which is wrong," then it doesn't belong in this article? If nothing else, I would argue that "90% of people believe X" is a synonym for common, just as much as "typical" or "regular" or "frequent" would be. It is absolutely arbitrary and capricious to say simple use of a vague, undefined term is sufficient to define a topic such that the topic meets our notability standards. Just saying that we'll quote the source doesn't answer the issue, because it doesn't tell us which things can go on this list and which cannot. Qwyrxian (talk) 16:34, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I would agree that "90% of US people believe X, which is wrong" would be reasonably interpreted by most editors as a common misconception. I just don't see the need to define a set cut-off percentage in the criteria, and I think attempting to do so would cause more problems than it would solve. I think there's a good-faith but misguided attempt to define the criteria so mathematically that even a robot could accept or reject each proposed addition according to the criteria without any need for editorial judgment, and I don't think that's realistic. There will always be gray areas, and we're always going to need editorial judgment to determine whether something should be included, precisely because there's no generally agreed percentage for "common." Sure, 90% is common. 3% is not. Numbers in between will require editorial judgment (i.e. consensus among editors on the talk page), and that's not a bad thing. 28bytes (talk) 16:58, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
So 90% and 3% are clear. But the Gray area for a term "common" is HUGE. Is 10% "common"? or 20%? 25% is not but 26% is? 60% of high school students valid but 7% of the American Public is not common? There is no workable definition. Active Banana (bananaphone 17:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
So what do you suggest? 28bytes (talk) 17:08, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
WP:LIST is clear: "The contents of an article that is a stand-alone list should be clear. If the title does not already clarify what the list includes, then the list's lead section should do so. Don't leave readers confused over the list's inclusion criteria or have editors guessing what may be added to the list." If we cannot set up criteria that rarely call for interpretation we should not have the list. Active Banana (bananaphone 17:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
This seems a bit like a red herring. How many entries in the list only contain sources which list percentages without also calling the misconception common? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Again, Active Banana, what do you suggest? 28bytes (talk) 17:28, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
@AB Also, that discussion belongs in an AfD, not here; If there's agreement that the article should be kept, then taking up a bunch of space on the talk page complaining about it isn't productive. As to the initial proposal, I agree that setting a standard percentage is not appropriate, and agree that generally interpreting percentages as our inclusion criteria is OR. I think it is probably ok to accept sources which indicate a percentage intending it to be a clear synonym for common (i.e. "This misconception is likely believed by 90% of..."), but that should be done only in clear, indisputable cases. If there's any disagreement, then the sourcing is contested, and should be improved in order to keep the content.   — Jess· Δ♥ 17:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
There was NOT agreement that the article should be kept. The result was "trainwreck". Active Banana (bananaphone 18:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes, well, we win some, we lose some, eh? If your philosophical objection to the article existing in any form is preventing you from suggesting ways to improve it, then it's probably best you find a different article to work on. This isn't WP:DRV. 28bytes (talk) 18:38, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
the fact that i have no faith that the content and criteria can in any way be determined that would actually fit within Wikipedia's guidelines and policies will not stop me from pointing out when gross violations are occurring. Active Banana (bananaphone 20:48, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Careful, this absolutist position (refusal to acknowledge, agree to or approve of proposed improvements to the criteria, declaration that there cannot ever be sufficient improvement to the criteria, and continued insistence on the deletion of the article after a clear no-consensus on its deletion nomination) is on the face of it disruptive to this forward-going discussion of improvements. More to the point, please offer proof or examples to show that the current explicit criteria fail to rarely call for interpretation. --Lexein (talk) 22:51, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Maybe red herring, maybe just edge cases. It is a fallacy to declare that lacking criteria to address edge cases invalidates the core criteria. In practice, the best-qualified common misconceptions are multiply sourced, forming a source consensus as to "common" (or synonym), solving our dilemma. For those sources which cite percentages of populations, other agreeing sources interpret those results for us, either stating or strongly implying "common," again solving our dilemma. For edge cases like items for which only one source exists (anywhere!), they're on the bubble, and may not merit inclusion. For the other edge cases, such as unclear, disputed, or conflicting multiple sources, a brief discussion, applying the court-tested "reasonable person" standard, settles the outliers handily - if not, we employ the maxim, "when in doubt, leave it out", solving the dilemma. We encourage multiple agreeing, reliable, independent sources - the sources rule, not our interpretation of them. --Lexein (talk) 22:51, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
We seriously disagree because I dont see that the criteria are in trouble simply on "edge" cases, but on most cases. Active Banana (bananaphone 22:56, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
Well, suggest better criteria, and where sources aren't good enough, add or at least suggest better ones. Thanks. --Lexein (talk) 00:52, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

I would seriously suggest leaving out ALL political and religious topics. The reasons are demonstrated in the Obama...Muslim discussion above. If someone is told something wrong (or even just arguable) by religious or political leaders that they choose to believe in spite of all evidence to the contrary, it's somethig quite different from a misconception. HiLo48 (talk) 17:43, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

That might be going overboard. After all, the religion section is quite good. Maybe just excluding current political misconceptions and/or disputes? 28bytes (talk) 17:50, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I think it needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis. I don't see anything wrong with the item, for example, on Al Gore claiming to have invented the Internet. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I like the part on the forbidden fruit not necessarily being an apple as that is indeed a very common misconception.AerobicFox (talk) 18:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree. I think this is a prime example of the kind of items this article should contain. Dr bab (talk) 21:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
We need some sort of source either explicitly stating that something is a "common misconception" or statistics implying the same. Because of the nature of this article I'm not sure we're going to find one set of criteria that works for everything. Some things we're going to have to take it on a case-by-case basis. Voiceofreason01 (talk) 19:54, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


I welcome this discussion. I fully agree that we to as large extent as possible name the sources, "according to so and so.." When several sources are used, we try to use an umbrella term, "several western newspapers" etc. I also think that percentages could be quoted when they are available. Personally, I think a source that can point to a survey are a lot more valuable than just the phrase "common misconception". Regardless of what faith we may have in our reliable sources I don't think most journalists would have any qualms about calling something a "common misconception" based on nothing more than their personal perception of the fact. In most cases, the statistics will be the better choice, but then we have to interpret percentages. And regarding Lexein's item B, it is impossible to not interpret a statistical source and only quote it: by deciding to include and quote the statistic we have already interpreted the statistic to mean "common", or it would not be on our list.

I would like to point out, regarding 28bytes suggested criteria: "generally, misconceptions that are excessively limited in scope are not included." Even if we sidestep the difficult gray area debates on limited scope that will arise when we DO know the scope, there is still a big problem that for most items we don't know the scope. In most cases a writer will not specify what he or she means by "common" or "many people", and it will be up to the editors to first interpret what the scope is and then determine if it is "excessively limited or not".

I don't agree with leaving out religious and political items on principle, but we will have to somehow distinguish between misconceptions, urban legends, old wives tales and superstitions.

In closing, I want to say that although I was on the "delete" side of the AfD argument and sympathize with many of the points raised by Active Banana above, I am here to try and improve the article and hope we can avoid a 4th Afd. This is because I like large portions of the article, and even though that is not an argument to keep the article, it is an argument to start searching for such arguments. Dr bab (talk) 20:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Into which of your categories of "misconceptions, urban legends, old wives tales and superstitions" does the Obama-Muslim rubbish fit? HiLo48 (talk) 21:35, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I haven't the faintest idea, but that is not unique for the Obama-Muslim-rubish. Maybe some items belong in several categories. The Obama-muslim-rubish may be a case of a conspiracy-theory-turned misconception? In my opinion, the reason why it is difficult to include the obama-muslim-item is not because it is religious or political in nature, but because we have a difficult time in establishing wheter it is a common misconception, itself not surprising considering that we are currently trying to establish the meaning of "common".Dr bab (talk) 21:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


(edit conflict)One of the reasons I think an article like this is worthwhile to keep is because many entries are indeed what we have learned in elementary school from our textbooks! Obviously, we cannot define percentage numbers for when a misconception becomes common. Let this be up to the sources. If they say it is (1) a misconception, and (2) that it is common, or shared by many/most people or frequently thought etc. then interpret it as a common misconception. If a source says that it is shared by 90% or something and it is truly notable then there will be other sources that express in one way or another that it is a common misconception. The second issue we must consider is notability since there are many sources that claim "common misconceptions". We'll take our standard guidelines on notability and reliability here. This could also address the issue of "common misconceptions within some small, remote group". If there is a reliable source (or more than one) that says so then we may include it. Thoughts? Nageh (talk) 21:46, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

This "in textbooks" thing was one reason why I thought we could maybe use published misconcetpions only, i.e. "according to source A, x is y, but in reality, x is z [source B, C, D]". But this would violate WP:SYN unless we had a third source stating that this is a common misconception. That is a suggestion of course, that we need:
1-A source naming X as a common misconception. 2-A source perpetuating X without saying that it is a misconception. 3-Sources disproving X and giving the correct version.
This could probably work for the Columbus Flat Earth misconception for example, where we could use a school textbook, one of several sources dismissing the myth and then some sources on the real story. Now this would probably prune away way too many items for the majority of editors to agree, and almost certainly there are other problems with these criteria that I haven't thought about yet. But I think at this stage that all ideas should be thrown out there. Dr bab (talk) 22:06, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't think we need to require a source for 2. If we have reliable sources for 3 stating that something is a common misconception this should do. Nageh (talk) 22:13, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone above called for a test example using percentages. I believe that the previously mentioned question about whether or not to include "Obama is a Muslim" falls exactly under this issue. If you'd like another one, how about the fact that 35% of Americans think "say that the effects of global warming either will never happen." ([http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.asp Gallup survey). In fact, if we're going to allow percentages, then, reasonably, every single false belief which gets over a reasonable percentage (whatever reasonable is) should be included. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:06, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

At what point is something a misconception and at what point is it simply ignorance or an argument based on politics or dogma? Dr bab (talk) 06:44, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
A fascinating question. I would argue that unless we can define what "misconception" means precisely, then we must allow reasonably similar concepts. People "conceive" of Obama as Muslim. That "conception" is a mistake. Thus, it's a misconception. We can't purport to examine the causes of the misconception, unless we're going to include that in the inclusion criteria; if we do so, though, we'll need an outside reliable source that defines misconception a certain way--we can't just choose our own definition. Qwyrxian (talk) 07:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
That "conception" is more than a mistake. It's a stubborn insistence in continuing to believe in something despite masses of perfectly good evidence to the contrary. I have a word for it. Stupidity. It NOT a misconception. It's the same as an adult believing in the Easter Bunny. HiLo48 (talk) 07:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
I assert that most of the people who believe it have not seen or heard of the contrary evidence, just as with any misconception which would make this list. These misconceptions all have plentiful evidence to the contrary, which is why we can definitively say they are untrue. We can remove entries which are not notable, or where the sources have a clear bias or alternate meaning, but removing them because we think the idea is stupid is WP:OR, to say the least.   — Jess· Δ♥ 07:41, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
They have heard that Obama is a Muslim, but have not heard that he is Christian. Right, because that's what they want to hear. Hardly a "misconception". Nageh (talk) 09:55, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Afterthought: If the "misconception" developed because of rumors (and people decided to believe them rather than properly informing themselves) then maybe we should demand that misconceptions need to be (or have been) widely purported by textbooks or other notable sources. Nageh (talk) 10:30, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Unless there are some very sheltered people in America, I simply cannot believe that. I am not American. I don't live there. I live a very long way away. I've seen heaps of evidence that he is not Muslim, including him saying himself that he is a Christian. I suspect the "belief" that he is a Muslim is driven by bigotry and political blindness. I doubt if telling the truth here will make any difference to what they think, even if they read it. It's like Wikipedia telling a fundamentalist creationist that evolution is real. Their response? Go away and create Conservapedia. No. Believing Obama to be a Muslim is not a misconception. Being likely to accept the truth when they are told it should be part of the definition of a misconception. HiLo48 (talk) 08:31, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
If you do a Google search on the subject, there are some sources (some would pass WP:RS, others would not) that discuss this issue. Once such article I found was here which reveals there's a belief that, like the Jewish ethnicity, you can be "born" a Muslim, which contributes to the misconception. There's other articles mostly pointing towards conservative media propagating this myth. While undoubtedly there are those that, when presented with all the evidence in the world, would still believe that Obama is Muslim, I think there is a large group that would also change their views. There's no way to know for sure one way or another of course, so we can only go by what we have sourced - that it's a misconception that over 60 million people in America have. If we have reliable sources that explain why it has become a misconception (and I think there are), I would support including that information in the entry to give the reader a better idea that perhaps it is at least partly a "willful" misconception. VegaDark (talk) 08:49, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Whether people who believe that Obama is a muslim have or have not seen evidence to the contrary is difficult to guess at, probably there are examples of both. But for the evolution-items we have in here, everyone who has gone to school should have been presented with evidence to the contrary yet we still include those. Perhaps we should remove those as well? I like the suggestion "likely to accept the truth when they are told it" but I fear that it may be difficult to find consensus about what "people" will believe when they are told something.Dr bab (talk) 08:53, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Some have suggested leaving out political/religious issues. In that case, you must leave out anything for which you're relying on textbooks (for example, the flat earth/Middle Ages belief, or the Columbus was first belief), because textbooks are determined in large part by governments, through the use of local school boards and "standards." But, in any event, we can't leave them out, if we have a source that says it's a common misconception. We can't have it both ways: we can't say that "our inclusion criteria is that we look for reliable sources that say the magic words 'common misconception'", but then choose to leave out a category based on our political beliefs. Again, the cause of the misconception is irrelevant, the field of the misconception is irrelevant. If it isn't then we have to both retitle the article and create different inclusion criteria (something like List of common misconceptions about science or List of misconceptions perpetuated by school textbooks). Qwyrxian (talk) 10:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

We've now touched on another way to be confused about the truth. That is being deliberately misled by others. We really are bumping into some challenging territory here. HiLo48 (talk) 11:01, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
U.S. students are very deliberately and intentionally mislead about Columbus and when the spherical earth was well known (at least, based on what I've read). To clarify, the definition of a misconception is "an erroneous conception; mistaken notion." (Dictionary.com; same defn in Random House College Dictionary 1988 (sorry, my paper version is old)); "a false or mistaken view, opinion, or attitude" (World English Dictionary); "a mistaken belief, a wrong idea" (wiktionary). These definitions say nothing about the cause of a misconception, and would include cases where people are deliberately misled. Qwyrxian (talk) 12:43, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
@Nageh, It's not just because "that's what they want to hear". I think you underestimate the power of media and like-minded communities which create an atmosphere sheltered from other sources of information. If a family watches only Fox news, for instance, their children are being raised in an environment where the news, their parents, and likely a sizeable portion of their friends may have all been long purporting that Obama is, or might be a Muslim. That's hardly believing something because "that's what they want to hear". The point is, this is a difficult issue to broach, and any way we are likely to do it is WP:OR. We simply can't make assumptions about the backgrounds, intelligence levels, or hidden motivations of the people we're reporting. We have to report reliable sources without that kind of judgment. If you would like, I would still support the idea of breaking the "political", "science", and "religion" sections off into their own articles and linking them here... which would allow us to have more specific inclusion criteria applicable to those domains.   — Jess· Δ♥ 16:25, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that it's a common misconception among many Americans that Fox News is a quality source? ;-) It's still a choice to watch a news service that feeds its viewers garbage. HiLo48 (talk) 17:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
Sure... in the same way it's one's choice to accept the things they're told in other mediums and not put time into independent research; The argument that "people who believe this are willfully ignorant" can be applied universally across the entire article. There's no way to make that judgment fairly or objectively, so we shouldn't.   — Jess· Δ♥ 23:26, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

OK. Been thinking about this since my last post. I think the right approach now, to see if it works, is to use sources that say "it's a common misconception...", but we must say where and/or among whom. That may require a little bit of analysis of the source. For example, an American article intended for an American audience may refer to a misconception common among Americans, and not elsewhere, but not clarify the latter point. It's usually extremely obvious when that's the case. Using such regional sources for a global encyclopaedia, we MUST clarify such matters. HiLo48 (talk) 23:34, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

  • So you're proposing removing everything where a single source doesn't use the specific phrase "common misconception"? I think that's way too restrictive. What if one sources says misconception, and another source says common? One if a source says "prevalent misconception" or something synonymous with common misconception? What if a source says It's a misconception that 99% of people believe? All of these instances belong on this page whether or not a source specifically uses the words "common misconception." I agree with stating where and among whom, however. VegaDark (talk) 00:12, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
Ah, sorry, didn't want to emphasise that issue. Yes, people should be free to try convince one another that the writer meant the same thing as "common misconception". My concern was about geographical issues. It's in my example in that post. Another would be where the misconception is real, but restricted to people interested in a particular topic. People outside that field of study may never have even thought about it. My point is that we must clarify geographic or topic based limits to a misconception. HiLo48 (talk) 00:29, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
re: "Yes, people should be free to try convince one another that the writer meant the same thing as "common misconception". " No they shouldnt. They shouldnt have to. Per WP:LIST the criteria for inclusion should be straightforward and RARELY require any convincing by anyone that what is presented in the source meets the criteria for being on the list. Active Banana (bananaphone 19:13, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia editors can argue about anything. As I pointed out at the AfD, the dispute over whether it's "The Beatles" or "the Beatles" has been going on years. In any case, do you have a suggestion for improving the article, and if so, what is it? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
My suggestion is that there is no way to develop suitable criteria that meet WP:LIST / WP:OR / WP:NPOV and until edtiors can in fact do so and prove me wrong, the article should be deleted, as it is the burden of the person wishing to include material to show that it meets Wikipedia standards. Active Banana (bananaphone 19:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Active Banana, but I could see we weren't going to get a deletion, and when I get the chance I will take on one of those debates about the wording. And can we please forget the Beatles example! It's unhelpful, overused and irrelevant. HiLo48 (talk) 19:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Iceberg Lettuce has no nutritional Value

This is probably one of the most common misconceptions I run into on a regular basis when it comes to food. I am sure we could get good sources for it, since the American Dietetics Association recognizes this myth [3]. I think it should be included in the nutrition section *when we find such sourcing*. --MATThematical (talk) 21:18, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

 Not done - The source you link does not identify this as a common misconception (only as a myth; there's a difference). Please provide a reliable source that this is a common misconception. Cresix (talk) 22:01, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Can we please define common then. I am looking at a few sources that might suggest that it is a common misconception, but without some guidelines for what common means how can we decide? And was the "not done" referring to an attempt at finding good sourcing? I'm a bit confused I never asked it to be immediately included in the article? I did say that I think it should be included, but this was obviously referring to when proper sourcing is found, based on the sentences that preceded it--MATThematical (talk) 22:23, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
That has been discussed at length on this talk page. You might want to review discussion here and in the archives for the past two or three months. But "common misconception" is certainly more than being identified as a "myth", being mentioned on snopes.com, one editor's opinion such as "I hear this a lot", or someone who "asked all my friends and they have the misconception". There have been hundreds (if not thousands) of items suggested that each suggesting editor feels is common, but few of them are reliably sourced as common. Some guidelines that have been placed in the article (only seen if you edit) are:
1-The common misconception's including topic 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.
I'd suggest that if you find a source that you think supports the idea that this is a common misconception, post it here and get opinion. Hope this helps. BTW, sorry if "not done" confused you. We get a lost of requests to add an item by editors who can't edit the article because it is semi-protected; I mean't it to indicate that you have not provided a reliable source that the misconception is common. Cresix (talk) 23:49, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Add topic request: Electrical Energy (for example within the Physics section)

You might add the following topic: Unlike common belief, electrical energy is not transmitted within the conductor wires but outside them (otherwise a transformer would not function). The wires just have the purpose of guiding the electrical energy. See Poynting vector for a more thorough explanation. Mebg (talk) 22:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

 Not done - Interesting, but please provide a reliable source that this is a common misconception. Cresix (talk) 23:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
Many if not most elementary schoolbooks compare electrical circuits to water pipes (and the electrons being water molecules). In water pipes, energy if definitely transported within the pipe (and water transformers do not exist). See http://amasci.com/miscon/ener1.html for the unnerving results of such analogies and how much it takes to refute them. See also http://amasci.com/miscon/eleca.html#poynt which actually is one part in a huge bunch of misconceptions taught in schoolbooks. Maybe this excellent article (or its header http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html ) should be added to the reference list. Mebg (talk) 16:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
As an Electrical Engineer, I completely disagree with the notion that electrical energy doesn't flow within conductors. Transformers function via induction: they produce a magnetic field that induces a current in a closely-placed, separate coil. Electrical current certainly flows through conductors. It may not be the only transport mechanism for electromagnetic forces, but saying it doesn't flow through wires is not correct. See the discussion on drift velocity for more information. Jamesfett (talk) 22:01, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
Electrical current flows within conductors, not energy. Your thoughts about transformers may be completely explained by the Poynting Vector (and actually and most paradoxically, most of the energy flows outside the iron core too, not within it, but that is a different story). And so the point remains: electrical energy is transported outside conductors. That it should be transported within conductors is a common misconception, as your and other electrical engineer's contributions so nicely prove. Even electrical engineers do not always get field theory right. And again, the very fact that there exists a phenomenon like induction (not known in water pipes) might open your eyes to the fact that electrical energy is transported outside the wires although it is admittedly counter-intuitive. Mebg (talk) 23:36, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I am also an electrical engineer. Both definitions are right. It depends on your view of energy. I don't think it needs to be here. Cavebear42 (talk) 11:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Please explain, with references, which view of energy supports the notion that electrical energy is transported within conductors? IMHO, this view can only be maintained if electrons are viewed as lumped particles without any outside field, a notion transported in the "water pipe" analogy. However, this is not supported even by one-century old field theory, let alone modern physics. Even your point shows we are dealing with a very common misconception. Mebg (talk) 23:36, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Conclusion and request: We are dealing with a common misconception, please include in the list. If not, please ask hard-core physicists with a strong background in electromagnetic field theory for arbitrage. Especially, anyone who thinks energy transport happens within wires, please provide a scientific, peer-reviewed refutation of the notion that energy transport is equivalent to E x H .Mebg (talk) 23:36, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the electromagnetic theory showing that (most of) the energy flow is through space outside the conductor is impeccable. However, applying that theory to wiring a house is sort of like using relativistic equations of motion to design an automobile. It is a more precise description, that is much more complicated, and is of no practical relevance ( to those particular situations – both are relevant in other situations). We don't have a section saying that f = ma is a common misconception. The fact that physicists can explain things in more sophisticated ways than electricians can is no surprise, but it does not mean that electricians are wrong to use the simpler conceptual model that works flawlessly in the domain in which they apply it. Ccrrccrr (talk) 14:56, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Fever

The entry for fever really needs to be revised or removed. It currently begins with, "Fever does not harm the brain or the body..." but then, at the end (in the "fine print" so to speak) it adds, "Extreme fever... is, however, harmful...". I don't think this should thus be considered a "common misconception" for inclusion on this page since it is true in cases where the fever is high enough. It would be better, I think, to err on the side of caution and let people continue to pay close attention to fevers and seek help if they are worried. Let's not be smart alecs, here; someone could get hurt. -- Mecandes (talk) 18:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

I fully agree. As well as being very poorly written, and written in a way that goes nowhere near fitting the inclusion criteria, this could easily be seen as a case of Wikipedia breaching its own guideline of not giving medical advice. I will remove it. HiLo48 (talk) 20:59, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Meteorites hot?

"When a meteor lands on Earth (after which it is termed a meteorite), it is not necessarily hot."

Does this not imply "It is a common misconception that when a meteor lands on Earth it is necessarily hot"? To summarise the sources:

Phil Plait at Badastronomy.com writes in "Commenting on an up-and-coming person as having "a meteoric rise":
Addendum: many people think that a meteorite, after it hits the ground, is very hot and glows red(a).
The American Meteor Society says, in their FAQ:
9. Are meteorites “glowing” hot when they reach the ground? Probably not(b).

Altogether, I think that this item is fishy at best. From the second source, it isn't even clear that it is a misconception (all of the time) which I guess is why the "necessarily" got inserted in there. I am of the opinion that these sources do not demonstrate that it is a misconception that meteorites are hot after impact, nor that this misconception is "common", and I move that the item is deleted. Dr bab (talk) 07:09, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

With no objectons here after over a week, I have decided to remove the item. I post it here in case the removal is contested:
  • When a meteor lands on Earth (after which it is termed a meteorite), it is not necessarily hot. A meteoroid's great speed during entry is enough to melt or vaporize its outermost layer, but any molten material would probably be quickly blown off (ablated). The interior of the meteoroid probably does not have time to heat up because the hot rocks are poor conductors of heat. Also, atmospheric drag can slow small meteoroids to terminal velocity by the time they hit the ground, giving the surface time to cool down.[1][2][page needed]
Dr bab (talk) 10:33, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Voltaire misquotation

Hello,

Do you think the misconception that Voltaire said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" should be added? It was actually said by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, but this seems to be a very common misquotation, along the same lines as "let them eat cake". InverseHypercube (talk) 23:58, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Not without a reliable source that it is a common misconception that Voltaire said it, and that doesn't mean finding a half-dozen websites that misattribute it to Voltaire. Most people probably have no idea who said it, and most people know very little about Voltaire. I think if you randomly select 10 people off the street, the chances are almost zero that any one of them thinks Voltaire said it. Cresix (talk) 00:25, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I thought it was fairly widespread; perhaps not. Thanks anyway! InverseHypercube (talk) 01:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Separate section for quotations?

I think it would be appropriate to create a separate section for misquotations, since they represent a major category of popular misconceptions. This wouldn't mean that it would have to be extended, simply separated. Besides, I don't think they belong in history, since they are often said without historical context. InverseHypercube (talk) 00:08, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

We already have a List of misquotations. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:16, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I am aware of that. However, would it not be advantageous to separate misquotations into a separate section, considering how widespread they are? As well, as historical misconceptions they are fairly trivial comparing to the others in that section; compare the paragraph about the Emancipation Proclamation to the one about John F. Kennedy's quotation, "ich bin ein Berliner". InverseHypercube (talk) 00:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
If there already is a list of misquotations, then should not "Let them eat cake" and all other misquoutations be moved there? Dr bab (talk) 08:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I think they are already there, but this does not exclude them from being in "common misconceptions", since misquotations are a form of misconception. InverseHypercube (talk) 08:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Attempt to draft list criteria that meet WP:N WP:IINFO WP:LIST WP:OR

Many of those who !voted keep at the recent AFD claimed that while the current list inclusion criteria were faulty that proper criteria were simply a matter of editors putting their heads together. While, I am from MO - Show me. Active Banana (bananaphone 00:01, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

crickets.

The current criteria:

Inclusion criteria are as follows: a misconception's main topic must have its own article; the misconception must have reliable source(s) which assert that it is a common misconception (or synonym thereof); the misconception and its reference(s) must be present in the topic article; and the misconception must be modern rather than ancient or obsolete

Issues:

  • "must have its own article" / "the misconception and its reference(s) must be present in the topic article" -- fails the "dont self reference Wikipedia" rule
  • "which assert that it is a common misconception (or synonym thereof); " -- requires broad interpretation by a reader or editor as to what "common misconception" is and particularly what would qualify as "synonym thereof" thus failing WP:LIST and WP:OR
  • "must be modern rather than ancient or obsolete" - when exactly is "modern" 1950? 1700? again failing WP:LIST and WP:OR. Active Banana (bananaphone 19:23, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the "self reference Wikipedia" is an issue. For that particular criterion, Wikipedia is not being used to source anything; that's covered in the other criteria. As for "synonym thereof", I fail to see how it fails WP:LIST; please explain. The criterion does not identify every single synonym, but guidelines on Wikipedia never cover every single possibility; if they did, we would never have any disputes. Requiring that the misconception will be reliably sourced as "common" or a synonym will not eliminate all the differences of opinion, but it can go a long away in providing a basis for removing some of the more obvious examples of non-common misconceptions (e.g., "urinating on a wound inflicted by a jellyfish has remedial effects"). Just because "synonym" is not perfect doesn't mean it has no use and should be discarded. Same with "ancient or obsolete"; there will be disagreements, but it also will serve as a basis for removing obvious outdated misconceptions. Cresix (talk) 19:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
I cant find it at the moment, but the concern is not about using Wikipedia articles as a source, which is clearly not allowed WP:CIRCULAR, it is about Wikipedia articles referring to Wikipedia policies and other Wikipedia content such as the existance of another Wikipedia article. The article content needs to stand by itself outside of Wikipedia without dependance on Wikipedia. Active Banana (bananaphone 22:02, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
Doh - it was linked right there in list content Wikipedia:SRTA "The goal of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, not merely to perpetuate itself, so the articles produced should be useful, even outside the context of the project used to create them. This means that while articles may refer to themselves, they should not refer to "Wikipedia" or to the Wikipedia project as a whole " Active Banana (bananaphone 22:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
And re the vaguaries of synonyms "The contents of an article that is a stand-alone list should be clear. If the title does not already clarify what the list includes, then the list's lead section should do so. Don't leave readers confused over the list's inclusion criteria or have editors guessing what may be added to the list." "common misconceptions and synonyms" are FAR too vague to meet the requirements outlined in LIST. Active Banana (bananaphone 22:06, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

But the content of List of common misconceptions does not reference Wikipedia. If a reader (not an editor who clicks "Edit" and sees the criteria in hidden comments) reads the article, he/she will not see a single reference to Wikipedia. There may be links to other articles, but that's common. So I still fail to see the problem with "self reference Wikipedia." As for "synonym", we could go through a thesaurus and list every synonym of "common", but I think that still would not satisfy you (I don't mean that as a personal comment; I mean satisfy your standards for the guidelines). I continue to disagree that "synonym therof" should be rejected per se. As I said, it may not be perfect, but it's better than nothing. Wikipedia is full of imperfect policies and guidelines. We may have to agree to disagree on this one. Cresix (talk) 23:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The lead of all articles including list articles IS INDEED PART of the article. And the lead needs to decribe the inclusion criteria and the current inclusion criteria state the need for an entry to have a Wikipedia article. Active Banana (bananaphone 23:51, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
I still don't see that there is a problem, but if others agree that the lead is "referencing Wikipedia" and that this violates WP:LIST, then my opinion is remove it and only include the criteria in the hidden comments and on this talk page. Again, our goal is improvement, not perfection. Cresix (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
  1. Preliminary remarks to the originating editor: the title for this section, "Attempt to draft criteria ...", is misleading - the words "Attempt to disqualify ..." would better reflect the originating editor's intentions so far. Be scrupulously honest in discussions: the claimed "many keep voters" absolutely did not refer to the four new criteria as "faulty". Don't mislink policy links - state them explicitly: the show me wikilink to WP:BURDEN implies that you are considering deleting the criteria. WP:BURDEN, FYI, refers to not only a) the requirement that adding editors provide sources to defend reinstating a deleted portion but also b) encouraging deleters to make some effort to help find those needed sources, or make the improvement themselves. However, if you merely meant that you would be deleting list items which do not meet the existing criteria, and leaving informative edit summaries, and perhaps discussing those deletions here, then please do so with a few items that really bug you, and discuss them here, since they might be controversial. As for "crickets", there's no WP:DEADLINE. The fact that you posted at 00:00 and posted again at 19:00 the same day means nothing because nobody knows what time zone anybody else is in, or cares. Nobody really cares to obey your demands. Only polite cogent discussion merits responses and further discussion. As for show me, you still haven't shown me an example of a List item which proves your points; last I heard, you hated all of them, rather indiscriminately. Even the one about "glass is viscous". (I'm beginning to wonder if ActiveBanana is now complaining because the criteria as stated prevent the wanton deletion of disliked items?)
  2. The claim of "the article lacks clear inclusion criteria" was used (incorrectly) as a reason for deletion. Most lists do not at this time include their inclusion criteria in the body of the list, but rather in the discussion, or in a few cases in hidden comments. The notion of criteria in the lead section is probably not really mature yet. To answer the question of why the criteria are listed in the List's lead paragraph now, that's because of the strident complaints in AfD about "no stated criteria" by delete-voters, who deliberately refused to propose or agree to any criteria which might help. Something simply had to be done. So I first proposed them in Talk:AfD, and after nobody objected to them per se (not even the delete-ishers), and two interested editors commented positively about them, I rolled them into the top of the article, in order to demonstrate positive progress in the midst of an AfD.
  3. I do see value in rewording the lead paragraph (leaving the explicit criteria in comments for editors so that readers don't have to see any sort of Wikipedia self-reference) to possess the same meaning as the explicit criteria, so that Wikipedia is less self-referenced. For example (just off the cuff): "These misconceptions about notable topics have been reported by reliable sources from many locales around the world. They have been mentioned in literature in their topic area (such as "glass is viscous", or Viking horned helmets)." This language states the requirement for a topic's notability without explicitly referencing Wikipedia. The original List's lead sentence was rather weak tea, but the four criteria sentences can be rewritten to completely satisfy any allegation of circularity, while still clearly representing the meaning of the criteria. Only editors care about the exact policies/guidelines/essays/per-article-consensus, not general readers.
  4. It was asked above, why "the common misconception's main topic must have its own article"? Here's the serious answer: this is based on the behavior of many, many lists (example: List of indie rock artists which have survived xfD, cleanup tags, and deletionists, wherein the logic is: if a band is notable enough for its own article, and reliable sources within that article refer to the band as "indie", then the band is worthy of inclusion in this list. Therefore, here, if the common misconception's topic is notable enough for an article, then that topic provides one leg (of four) for a misconception's inclusion here. Any misconception in which the main topic does not have an article is simply not notable enough for inclusion. (Are you seriously objecting to this criteria?)
  5. It was asked above, why must "the common misconception be mentioned in its main topic article?" Again, this is the serious answer: this is based on notability, based on sources. If sources about the topic of the article also mention the misconception, then both the topic and the misconception are notable enough for inclusion in this list. Of course, obviously, multiple sources are best. If the most-interested editors of an article do not deem a misconception (or its sources) strong enough to merit inclusion in the main article, then the misconception has no place in this list, either.
  6. It was stated above ""which assert that it is a common misconception (or synonym thereof); " -- requires broad interpretation by a reader or editor as to what "common misconception" is and particularly what would qualify as "synonym thereof" thus failing WP:LIST and WP:OR" No. It fails nothing. First, ActiveBanana, it's disingenuous to misquote, by deliberately leaving out the two key words: "Reliable sources" in your attempted indictment above. In this List, the sources assert "common misconception", not us. Don't forget that we're using sources here. Sources. Sources, sources, sources. SOURCES, SOURCES, SOURCES. Second, who says "requires broad interpretation?" Only one editor, so far. The use of the phrase "broad interpretation" above is incorrect - it's not a verb. To interpret broadly is to generalize more broadly than the original meaning, for example, to claim that nailclippers are a weapon. Or to say that the phrase "common misconception" requires Wikipedia readers and editors to "interpret," rather than understand immediately by application of intellect, education, and experience, or a dictionary. There's no "broad interpretation" needed. The definition of "synonym" is rather unambiguous.
  7. It was asked above "Why should the item be current, rather than ancient or obsolete?" Given the trouble a few editors are having with current common misconceptions, it just stands to reason that excluding really old ones that nobody has anymore (like the notion of phlogiston, a terracentric planetary system) just made sense. Commonly, "common" implies "current," currently. Ancient or "solvd" misconceptions would go in Really old common misconceptions that aren't common anymore. Just as consensus shifts over time, some misconceptions are generational, or millenial. A few are perennial.
  8. ActiveBanana, and I realize that this is belaboring, but it really would be better to refer to "criteria #2", rather than to misquote them in abbreviated form. Your de minimus writing of "Common misconceptions and synonyms" above is, by itself, misleading. The intended, and quite easily-understood meaning is this: "If (hopefully multiple) reliable, notable source(s) refers to a misconception (or synonym) as "common" (or synonym), that's good." The meaning of the word "synonym" is anything but unclear: it's "means the same thing." "Most baby boomers in Canada" is synonymous with "common" within the baby boomers of Canada population, but note: "most" is "common" enough, so we might as well quote the source, rather than paraphrase or interpret it. As I've written before, if there's any doubt over the meaning of the source, quote it. If there's any doubt about the reliability (blog) or notability (college newspaper) of a source, or whether it says "common misconception" clearly enough, then perhaps that source isn't good enough to use.

--Lexein (talk) 12:50, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

TLDR everything, but WP:DEADLINE says in part "We can afford to take our time, to consider matters, to wait before creating a new article until its significance is unambiguously established." and "There is a deadline—or many small deadlines—we aren't aware of. People die, move away from editing or reading, Little Johnny's homework is due. Meanwhile we have (as of 2010) articles that have been unreferenced since 2001," This is one of those long dragging issues where people keep claiming there is no deadline and yet are not taking any action to actually address the issue. No we are not going to publication next week and NEED to have an answer by tomorrow to make the press deadline, but this issues has been dragging on since the first AFD IN 2006. If we cannot come up with some solution that meets the Wikipedia guidelines in 4 1/2 years, can you really honestly claim that one exisits? And if you do, then use this section to layout your ideas as to article criteria that will actually meet the guidelines. Active Banana (bananaphone 00:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Yes, Active Banana, criteria exist. They're not perfect, and they will not prevent every problem this article has encountered. But they do have reasonable merits, and they do not involve policy problems that you have articulately addressed (i.e, they can be adjusted to address minor problems). I would like to see more detailed responses from you to Lexein's points, because so far, you haven't provided anything that amounts to reasonable objections to the current criteria. Cresix (talk) 00:17, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
  • ActiveBanana, either read everything and respond in good faith, or WP:DISENGAGE. "TLDR" is lazy, and is not good faith participation in the discussion which you started and perpetuated. The only deadline clock that matters here stopped when the AfD closed after the criteria were created. Now it's up to you to make constructive suggestions, not vague nonspecific claims of "failing" multipage, multisection guidelines. Your claim that "people keep claiming there is no deadline and yet are not taking any action" is false. To broadly claim that the existing criteria don't meet WP guidelines(plural), then ignore direct responses (oh, say, #3 above), to question their origins, then ignore the replies, then to demand again that others "use this section to layout your ideas as to article criteria" is simply not good faith discussion. --Lexein (talk) 12:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I had a nicely acerbic comment here, but came to think that this might've been an unfortunate word choice if Banana meant "DR everything yet." Let's see how this goes. --Kizor 10:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
They are not "vague claims". The criteria above clearly clearly fail Wikipedia guidelines for list inclusion. It is not just that occassionally a few items might require debate - nearly every proposed inclusion will. It is up to the people who say that this article can be crafted in a way that meets policy to actually do so. And yes the clock is still ticking. Active Banana (bananaphone 01:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Active Banana, you have completely failed to state how "the criteria above clearly fail Wikipedia guidelines for inclusion".
"It is not just that occassionally a few items might require debate - nearly every proposed inclusion will": Claiming that the criteria are inadquate because you predict that nearly every proposed inclusion will require debate is meaningsless. If you can't give specifics of what the problems with the criteria are now, you have failed to make any case whatsoever.
Once again, specifically address the points that Lexein made. Otherwise, this section is finished and should be archived. Cresix (talk) 01:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Boiling frog

There is an article about boiling frogs; it seems to me this merits a place in this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.225.20.229 (talk) 22:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The article to which he's referring is Boiling frog. This would probably be a good addition if someone cares to go through the sources on that page. Unfortunately, I'm fairly busy at the moment.   — Jess· Δ♥ 00:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I looked through those sources. As far as I can determine, none of them identifies the misconception as common. Cresix (talk) 02:47, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Protein in vegan/vegetarian diets: PCRM

Hello, is there a more neutral source for this information?

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is to vegetarianism as the Center for Consumer Freedom is to smoking and eating meat.

Perhaps a direct link to the research rather than the synthesized article?

I have no idea what your second line means. I suspect it is a US-centric view of the world. If you think you have a better source, please share it with us. HiLo48 (talk) 21:02, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
The PCRM page cites 13 sources, but they are largely primary sources rather than secondary ones, and it make take some doing to find a particular one that backs up the claim in this entry. I'm not convinced this is even a popular misconception; it also papers over the fact that a vegan diet does need supplementation (or fortification), just not for protein. Hairhorn (talk) 21:10, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
I too have doubts about whether this is a common misconception, but the first source does say "If you are not a vegetarian, then these might be some common misconceptions you hold about vegetarianism." I'm not sure if the word "might" helps the case either way. HiLo48 (talk) 22:01, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure that saying "this is a common misconception about x" is the same as saying "this is a common misconception"... many people may have no idea one way or the other about x. (This is the reason, for example, "misconceptions" about special and general relativity have been removed). Hairhorn (talk) 22:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Sorry for the confusion. I was comparing two groups on each end of the spectrum. The PCRM appears to be a biased vegan group as the CCF appears to be a biased meat-eating lobbying group. I chose CCF because it was mentioned on PCRM's page, and vice versa. Unfortunately I don't have a better source, which is why I asked here, but the point Hairhorn raises may make it moot anyway. I think that the misconception is that the common person would have such a previous notion about the subject in the first place. 24.18.68.104 (talk) 12:04, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 Done I just added an article from the September 2010 publication "Today’s Dietitian" Vol. 12 No. 9 P. 20 entitled "Defending Vegan Diets — RDs Aim to Clear Up Common Misconceptions About Vegan Diets " that includes the following text "Inadequate or poor-quality protein intake continues to be one of the most commonly voiced concerns for vegans among consumers and some health professionals. 'A common misconception is that you can’t possibly get enough protein if you don’t eat meat or consume dairy products,' says Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, nutrition advisor for the Vegetarian Resource Group and a vegan herself for the past 20 years. 'And that’s just not true.' " This article also includes the Vitamin B-12 supplementation concern raised above, so I went ahead and added it in. I hope this resolves this issue. Lgstarn (talk) 10:27, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Hairhorn. The overwhelming majority of the Earth's population probably can't even spell "protein", much less discuss the relative protein contents of meat-based vs. meat-free diets. In fact, it's such a ridiculous claim that I'm not even sure it's a common misconception amongst opponents of vegetarianism or veganism. In any case, it does not belong here; it belongs in a "criticism" section in Vegetarianism or Veganism, if anywhere. DES (talk) 12:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Since there are only at most 1.8 billion speakers of the English language, it is a tautology that the overwhelming majority can't spell "protein." This is an English-language Wikipedia, however, and to assume we have to take into account readers who don't speak English is absurd. Also, WP:VERIFY states "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." More than just one reliable source says this is a common misconception. Thus, whether or not you personally think it is true is irrelevant - the question is only, "does it meet the inclusion criteria and Wikipedia policies" and it quite clearly does. Lgstarn (talk) 16:46, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
Are you being dense on purpose, or were you born that way? Did you really think that I literally meant that an overwhelming majority can't spell the word "protein"? If I had written, instead, "wouldn't know what proteins are if one bit them in the ass", would you have concluded that I sincerely believe that proteins are capable of literally biting people?
Anyway—to actually suffer from this misconception, a person would have to:
  1. have an opinion on vegetarian or vegan diets, which implies at least a basic knowledge of what they contain
  2. know what proteins are, and have some sort of idea (correct or not) that different food types contain different amounts of protein
I find it very hard to believe that someone who meets both criteria could also not know that vegetarian and vegan diets are based on high-protein non-meat foods such as legumes and lentils. How can they not have heard of soy milk, soy burgers etc.?
That, of course, is my personal opinion, and therefore WP:OR; but regardless, "common" in the "reliable sources" you refer to must perforce mean "common among critics of vegetarian and vegan diets", not "common among the general population".
Picking an example from my own profession, I'm sure I can find reliable sources which state that it is a "common misconception" that an atomic test-and-set operation is quick and cheap (actually, it can bring the computer to a screeching halt), because it is indeed common among those who belong to the small set of people who know what an atomic test-and-set operation does but not to the even smaller set of people who know how it actually works. I've encountered plenty of people who suffer from that particular misconception. Does it belong here? No, it belongs in an article about atomic operations, if anywhere.
At the other end of the scale, you have the "killer fan" myth, which does belong here because belief in it is nearly universal in a large and readily identifiable group of people (South Koreans).
DES (talk) 20:12, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
You aren't arguing based on inclusion criteria or Wikipedia standards, you are arguing based on your personal preferences and thinking that common misconceptions need to be "nearly universal." That's not the inclusion criteria as currently stated. They are: "the misconception must have reliable source(s) which assert that it is a common misconception (or synonym thereof); the misconception and its reference(s) must be present in the topic article; and the misconception must be modern rather than ancient or obsolete." Which one(s) of those aren't met? What other Wikipedia criteria are not met? You ignored my point about WP:VERIFY, and said the "reliable source" (by quoting it, are you insinuating this source is not reliable? If so, why isn't Today's RD a reliable source?) must mean something other than what it says. However, the source and others are quite clear: this is a common misconception. Here is a bit of speculation on my part, but I hope you will find it instructive. I believe the roots of this misconception likely trace back to the studies of Mendel and Osbourne in 1914 based on rats, which found rats could not get enough protein from plant sources. It was later found that the same is not true for humans, however. In 1971, Frances Moore Lappe’s best-selling book, Diet For A Small Planet, stated that plant proteins need to be balanced, but this was later recanted by the author herself. All of this makes for quite a strong common misconception, which I assure you is quite common in the general population (I've even heard it many times in my extensive travels in China). Of course, I'm just a dude on the Internet, and you shouldn't believe me. You should believe reliable sources. And the reliable sources are describing this common misconception. Take a deep breath, and "rely" upon the reliable sources! That's the WP:VERIFY way. Lgstarn (talk) 04:01, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, sources—even reliable ones—are using the phrase "Common Misconception" without concern for the debate on this talk page. The example of DES is relevant, in my opinion. In the present case, the statement comes from an adviser on vegan diets. She has probably heard various questions about veganisms repeated to her innumerable times, and so from her point of view they are common misconceptions. This is in my opinion one of the greatest challenges to this article, and one that is not limited to this particular item. For editors to ourselves differentiate between the various meanings of "common misconception" becomes problematic and is one of the main issues I had with this article in the recent Afd. My best suggestion so far is that we try to identfy the source or type of source when we list the items, so that it becomes slightly more clear what may be meant by "common misconception" in each case. For the present item it could be beneficial to phrase it along the line of "According to RD's specialicing in veganism.." or something.
On a slightly longer timescale, I am hoping that we can refine the inclusion criteria to adress this problem on a more general and satisfactory level. Perhaps it could be an idea to demand coverage in national media, or coverage from a source that is unrelated to the field in question.Dr bab (talk) 08:04, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Dr. Bab, take out the job title of the quote, who happens to be an advisor to a vegan group (but is also a RD and Ph. D.). Right before that, the article asserts: "Inadequate or poor-quality protein intake continues to be one of the most commonly voiced concerns for vegans among consumers and some health professionals." The quote was from that advisor to support the claim and support the source saying "it is a common misconception" and "it is just not true." The reliable source (Today's Dietitian) in question has a readership of 110,000 and *is* national.
Where in WP:RELIABLE do you see justification for requiring reliable sources come from some nebulously defined "national" media? Where in WP:RELIABLE do you see anything about requiring coverage from a source that is unrelated to the field in question? Since the field here is food and health, there is no source that could ever meet your criteria: the NYT has a food section, and has a health section, and is thus not unrelated. You want to "demand" coverage in this or that source, but again where in any Wikipedia policies is there support for your demands?
The sources currently backing this up are many and varied: "Today's Dietitian", "American Council on Exercise", "Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine," "The dietitian's guide to vegetarian diets," and "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition." The list could go on and on but is already a huge overkill given the other items in this page. It is not necessary to say "according to RDs specializing in veganism" since this can be found asserted as a common misconception (in the sources cited) by a nutritionist, dietitians, physicians, and scientists. So you could say "according to nutritionists, RDs, physicians, and scientists" but that would be absurd.
On a broader note, in virtually every single talk item on this page, the Afd is mentioned again and again and used as a platform for bringing up certain items over and over again. People are jumping in to bring up points that aren't even related to the heading to try to bring up their pet issues. Isn't it getting a bit old? Indeed, it is quite telling that you say it is unfortunate that they are using the phrase "common misconception" without any concern for the debate on this page. What is unfortunate, in my mind, is that the debate on this page has become an extension of the trainwreck Afd discussion rather than actually talking about the issues at hand. If even half as much work went into the actual article in question as is going into the talk page, the actual article would be much improved, and the world would be a better place for it. Lgstarn (talk) 09:36, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
On a final note, DES' example is *not* valid because this common misconception is asserted to be among "among consumers and some health professionals" not among computer scientists who have difficulties understanding semaphores. Lgstarn (talk) 10:07, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
I think some of my general comments were taken as attacks at this item in particular.
The suggestion of stricter demands for sources are not based on anything in wikipedia policy, but an attempt to avoid the list from becoming indiscriminate based on what I see as a difficulity in "common misconception" being a phrase that is often used without being founded in anything other than the writer's own perception. And the suggestions were simply that: a suggestion, a place from which a debate might start. You present good arguments as to why my initial suggestion is not an improvement on the current situation. This gives me ideas on how to work towards a better set of criteria, but we'll take that discussion later. I did not intend to imply that these stricter criteria should suddenly come into effect and suddenly be applied to this item alone, I was rather using the present discussion as an example of why such criteria might be necessary.
The quote you present in your second comment is perfect in my mind, because it helps defining what is meant by "common misconception" in this case.
I did in no way mean to imply (And I honestly don't think that you thought I did) that every writer should check this talk page before using the phrase "common misconception", only that we need to keep in mind that the phrase is very sensitive to context, target audience etc. That is also my motivation for pushing that the sources are apparent in the phrasing of each item wherever practical. Not only to differentiate between experts and laymen, but also to give a geographical locale, etc. For the record, I agree that writing "according to [List of umpteen categories of professionals].." is absurd. Finding the best phrasing is not easy, but just writing "it is a common misconception that.." is also not very satisfactory.
There are a couple of discussions running at the same time here, but I probably support this item being left in the list. Dr bab (talk) 10:48, 10 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your well-reasoned comment. Regarding the issue you are trying to work through in a broader setting, I think it is quite simple: the reliable source should be asserting that it is a common misconception, not just using that phrase as a turn of speech. Editors can decide when and where that is the case for each reliable source. Here is an example: "There’s a common misconception that Gary doesn't take a one-and-dones." http://www.espn980.com/includes/blog/index.php?action=blog&blog_id=1&post_id=1810 This source (which is not reliable in any case since it is a blog) is not actually asserting that Gary "doesn't take one-and-dones" is REALLY a common misconception, it's just a turn of phrase. On the other hand, here is another example: "it's a common misconception that the Great Wall of China can be seen from space. Numerous astronauts confirmed that the statement, originated by "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" in 1932, isn't true. However, specialized satellite radar images have detected the structure." http://traveltips.usatoday.com/description-great-wall-china-13938.html This source is clearly arguing that it is indeed a common misconception, as it provides supporting evidence to back up that claim. So, in my mind, the source should have actual support that the item in question is a "common misconception" -- which is already stated quite clearly in WP:RELIABLE: "sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made." The criteria for these things already exist perfectly well in Wikipedia standards, and this article does not need (and should not have) special extra criteria that are outside of Wikipedia policies and procedures. The answer to all such issues can (and should) be found within the three core content criteria: WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:VERIFY. Lgstarn (talk) 21:50, 10 March 2011 (UTC)


I undid the most recent edit to this item. It added "Further, about 30% of people can't process the simple proteins of a vegetarian diet and are better off on a balanced omnivorous diet including meats." without a source. If this could be sourced it would probably undermine this items inclusion here, but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. As of now, it more shows that this is in fact a real misconception (among a group of Wikipedians ≥ 1).Dr bab (talk) 08:22, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

"Common misconceptions" in evolution

I contest almost everything what is described as "common misconceptions" in evolution. Most of these are definitely not common misconceptions but rather religious-like beliefs by certain groups in the U.S. only. Nageh (talk) 08:23, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

This is an inherent problem with this article, and more items should probably specify among what population they are common misconceptions. For the (mind-numbingly astounding) misconception about humans and dinosaurs, this could maybe be fixed by removing the first sentence and rephrasing the item as follows:
According to the California Academy of Sciences, around 41% of U.S. adults mistakenly believe humans and dinosaurs co-existed.[103] The last of the dinosaurs died around 65 million years ago, after the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, whereas the earliest Homo genus (humans) evolved between 2.3 and 2.4 million years ago.
In this form, no claim is made about adults outside the US.
Since there is such a lot of focus on the evolution-creationism "debate", surveys might exist on other of the items too, and they may be rephrased to give information about who these misinformed individuals actually are. Unless a source can be found that establishes that it is a "common misconception" that evolution is "just a theory" for example, it should be removed. This demand for sourcing obviously applies to all items on this list, and I anticipate that several items will be changed and/or removed as sources are sought and/or found. Dr bab (talk) 11:52, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
The second sentence of your suggested re-write also needs to be sourced to a source talking about it being a misconception, otherwise the content is in violation of WP:SYN. Active Banana (bananaphone
Is it really? I thought SYN is if you state a conclusion that's not stated in either source. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:10, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
I think this depends on how we can understand 41% of americans. If we allow that "41% of americans believe..." is equivalent with the statement that "it is a common misconception among Americans that..", then the second sentence can be seen as "flavour", or "additional information" which I don't see can be a problem. However, we are running back into the "percentages-to-common" conversion problem. What if the source said 27%, 13% or 2%? I guess that what Active Banana claims is WP:SYN is that we have a source that says 41% of americans believe X", and another source that says "X is wrong", but we don't have anything that says that "X is a common misconception". It is the (correct) conclusion we deduce based on the two pieces of information. Dr bab (talk) 21:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

The main problem with this part is that one source is cited, and it relies on one group of people's beliefs. One could easily say that "41% of Americans CORRECTLY believe..." One cannot call something a misconception if there is no proof for either side.

By that standard we could not include anything on the list. There are misinformed people who believe anything, for example that the earth is flat. Presented by any kind of evidence, it is very easy for these kinds of people to claim "that is just one side of the argument", as if these things were a matter of opinion. We must go with what is the main stream view of the matter and keep out fringe beliefs and hokum. Otherwise we might as well include the common misconceptions that earth has not been visited by calypso dancing cyber gnomes from outer space or that gravity is nothing more "than a theory". Dr bab (talk) 07:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Geometry

The point, line, plane, circle, and sphere that are defined as fundamental elements in Euclidean geometry are commonly supposed to exist but in reality are impossible to construct. Source: Synergetics (Fuller). Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

... or at least Plato thought so. This strikes me as more of a philosophical or mathematical issue than a misconception. Fuller isn't exactly a neutral source, either. Hairhorn (talk) 14:50, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Removed "knives are more lethal than guns"

I removed the following item based on a lack of sources establishing it as a common misconception and a suspicion of WP:SYN:

  • It is often asserted that knife attacks are more dangerous than an attack with a firearm ("knives are more lethal than guns").[3] While self-defense instructors often make a point of emphasizing that a knife attack may very easily result in death,[4] there is no statistical evidence that knife attacks are more likely to result in death than an attack with a handgun. A 1968 study claimed that gun attacks are five times more lethal than knife attacks. This figure has since become a controversial point of dispute in gun politics. A review of several studies published in 1983 concluded that lethality of wounds from handguns is between 1.3 and 3 times higher than lethality of wounds from knives.[5]

The source for the first sentence is a quote by the Chairs the Criminal Bar Association (in England?) stating "knives are more lethal than guns". The second source is Bladecombat.com which lists various myths about knives and guns which basically can be summarised as "It is really dangerous to have someone come at you with a knife, and using a gun for protection may not be very helpful". I could not obtain the third source, but based on the phrasing of the item it does not seem to ascertain that it is a common misconception that knife attacks are more dangerous than gun attacks. If it does, I suggest the item is re-written to highlight this before it is being reintroduced, and that the relevant quote is placed in the reference list.Dr bab (talk) 09:18, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Robert Fulton

I scanned the source and can't find that it says there's a common misconception about this bloke. --Dweller (talk) 21:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done - Removed; no evidence this is a common misconception. Cresix (talk) 01:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Baseball

I know there are a lot of Americans who use Wikipedia, but can the identity of baseball's founder truly be described as a common misconception? I'm sure it's a common misconception in America, possibly Japan, some parts of Canada... but in Europe? The rest of Asia? Australasia? Africa? South America? Is the problem here the usage of terminology by RS aimed at that RS's readership? There are some very obscure facts about cricket that cricket writers refer to as common misconceptions that would require significant deciphering for most Americans. --Dweller (talk) 21:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that if you can find a reliable source about a common misconception held in any country, it should be considered. Currently there is an item about a common misconception in South Korea that sleeping in a closed room with an electric fan running can be fatal. No reason any country should be excluded. Cresix (talk) 01:38, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Cresix, but I would like the items on the list to be phrased so that the source and/or the population in question becomes clear (i.e. "According to The New York Times it is a popular myth that baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday.", or "Several US media sources report it as a widely held misconception that.."). Baseball is actually such a special case that I guess everyone would assume it is a US-only myth simply by the fact that it is about baseball. Another concern I have is that when I went to the The Abner Doubleday myth on Origins of baseball it says that "The myth that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in 1839 was once widely promoted and widely believed. [emphasis added]". Does this disqualify this misconception as non-current? I would guess that plenty of sources abound, this being baseball and all, maybe some can be dug up by the US crowd? Or we could seek guidance on the Origins of baseball talk page. Dr bab (talk) 07:36, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Removed bottled water not healthier than tap water

I removed the following item:

  • Bottled water, vitamin-enriched water, and sparkling water are not healthier than tap water.[6] In fact, many studies have shown that bottled water often contains mixtures of bacteria, fertilizers, and a variety of pollutants.[7]

The sources provided did not establish that it is a common misconception that bottled water is healthier than tap water. Furthermore, whether this is a misconception or not will depend very much on the quality of the tap water in whatever locale one is considering, as well as the bottled water available for purchase in the same area. Dr bab (talk) 11:00, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

I concur, until it's strongly sourced as a common misconception. --Lexein (talk) 11:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
I agree that it depends on locality. Finding a source for it being a common conception would be easy. Proving that it is a misconception might not be possible, as it depends on the quality of local and imported water supplies. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 08:26, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Mathematical Misconception that Past Events Determine Future Probabilities

It is a popular misconception that future probabilities depend on past events. For example, many people believe that since a coin flipped landed 'heads' 5 times in a row that it is very unlikely to land heads a 6th time. When in reality the probability of it landing heads the 6th time is the same as any other flip- 0.5. This seems obvious when you think about it for just a couple seconds, yet I see people make this mistake enough that I think it should be included on this list. I don't have a source for this, but seeing as this is a well known mathematical truth, it should not be difficult to find a reliable source. 130.225.166.194 (talk) 11:43, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

It's a common phenomenon that people prefer having a hypothesis to accepting randomness. This is not always unreasonable and 6 successive 'heads' gives tentative support for a hypothesis that the tossings are not fair. Even if the 7th toss is 'tail' the person may cling with confirmation bias to their hypothesis. Checking whether a coin is fair demands more stringent tossing and math that most will accomplish, and in practice it is not likely that one will demonstrate the ideal 50:50 probability. The alleged misconception could be generalized to lack of appreciation that mathematics uses abstract models (such as what the poster calls "mathematical truth") that never exactly match reality Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)
This misconception is known as the gambler's fallacy. It is indeed fairly common. Here are two sources: Data Matters: Conceptual Statistics for a Random World and The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science.  --Lambiam 01:17, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Satan

Odd. There's quite a few biblical passages that refer to him being in heaven, not on earth. The Book of Job certainly implies it, but this passage says it in black and white. --Dweller (talk) 21:43, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done - Removed; no evidence this is a common misconception. Cresix (talk) 01:35, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the wording "constantly on earth" merits removing the whole paragraph; the misconception was not about him "being constantly on earth", but that he 'lords over hell'. The wording could have been changed to "it often refers to his being in heaven and on earth" or similar. Perhaps examining the given source would help? Most people believe that the Bible refers to Satan as residing in "hell". References to "abyss" and "lake of fire" (KJV and etc. render several different Greek words/phrases as "hell") deal with him being "cast into" them rather than his living there. Perhaps commentary on the common conception of Satan which stems from (?) The Divine Comedy would also be in order? There's bound to be sources for that. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 07:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Case study of superstitions versus misconceptions: Egg balancing

Are superstitions and misconceptions the same thing? A definition may be difficult, but in my mind a misconception is a wrongly held belief that you hold because you have been misinformed by bad sources, whereas a superstition is a belief you hold even though authorative sources and/or common sense tells you differently. In other words, a misconception is held because of a lack of information but a superstition is held in spite of information to the contrary. E.g. people think that most people in Columbus' day believed the Earth was flat because they have seen that description in popular culture, and they have never read "real history books" on the subject. But people who believe you should knock on wood to ward off bad luck probably know that there is no rationale behind this belief, but in my opinion the fact that they still choose to believe as they do does not make it a misconception. Also, when you hold a misconception and you are corrected, you are generally surprised and respond with "Oh really? I can't believe they thaught us that when it was wrong" or something of the sort. Whereas getting the "correct" information about a superstitious belief would not provoke that kind of reaction at all.

Which brings me to the egg-balancing. Being neither Chinese nor a reader of 1945 Life magazine I had never heard of this before seing it in this article and my obvious reaction was "Who the smeg believes that?". I think this should sort as a superstition rather than a misconception and thus does not belong in this article.

The Urban Legends link even refers to this belief as "the quaint superstitious belief". The Knoxnews source uses first "an old wives' tale that just never seems to go away" but then later calls it "misconception" and "myth".

To summarise my concerns:

1-Can we differentiate between misconceptions and superstitions in any way?

2-If yes, can it be done generally, or do we have to try each case by itself?

3-If we can differentiate between superstitions and misconceptions, should we exclude superstitions from this page?

4-Based on 1-3, Does the egg-balancing act belong on this list?

My own answers would be: 1:probably, 2:case-by-case, 3: superstitions should be excluded, 4:no. Dr bab (talk) 11:09, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

No one have any opinion on this? Would anyone oppose the deletion of this item? Dr bab (talk) 08:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
I interpret silence as no contention, and have moved the item here:
  • It is not easier to balance an egg on its end on the first day of spring.[8] In fact, the ease or difficulty of balancing an egg is the same throughout the year. This myth is said to originate with the egg of Li Chun, an ancient Chinese folk belief that it is easier to balance an egg on Li Chun, the first day of spring in the Chinese calendar. In Chinese Li means setup/erect, Chun spring/egg. Setup spring is a Chinese solar term, literally interpreted as erecting an egg for fun. It was introduced to the western world in a Life article in 1945, and popularized once again by self-titled "urban shaman" Donna Henes, who has hosted an annual egg-balancing ceremony in New York City since the mid-1970s.[9][10][11]
Dr bab (talk) 09:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow, that revert was quick

HiLo48: Lambiam added a new entry to the article about the Gambler's Fallacy.[4] Twenty-six minutes later, you reverted the entry with an edit summary of "No clear evidence presented that it is a common misconception".[5] Three books were cited:

  • Understanding Probability: Chance Rules in Everyday Life
  • The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology and Behavioral Science
  • Data Matters: Conceptual Statistics for a Random World

Did you actually check all three books or was your revert just a knee-jerk reaction to a new entry added to the article? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

We MUST have evidence that the exact words "common misconception" (or something very similar) have been used to describe the false belief. I cannot check the books. Those words WERE NOT used in the added text. In normal circumstances I apply good faith, but for this article we need much stronger evidence than sources we cannot check. HiLo48 (talk) 20:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
No, that's not how verifiability works. There is no requirement that sources be online or easy to check. See WP:SOURCEACCESS. If you dispute an edit, then go to a library or a book store or ask the editor to upload a scan of the pages in question. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:10, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
For what it's worth, in Gambler's_fallacy#Psychology behind the fallacy, there are 6 references, and it is described as something "most people erroneously believe". I'd say there is clear evidence that this is a common misconception. – jaksmata 21:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
The inclusion criteria, if valid, says nothing about using the "exact words 'common misconception'". --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 22:04, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I am happier about the new online reference, but not fully convinced. HiLo48 (talk) 00:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

"We MUST have evidence that the exact words 'common misconception'".... definitely not. We need only evidence that the misconception is widespread. We don't need some catch-phrase to appear in a source. A journal article that describes statistical measurements that most people react to the 4-coin-toss problem the same way, and the fact that we already have an article on the Gambler's Fallacy with sufficient references, should be sufficient. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

The 2nd inclusion criterion states - "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 second part of that was written (perhaps not as well as it could have been) to highlight that the words "common misconception" or something very similar MUST appear in at least one source.

If you choose to continue this fight, I will resubmit this article for deletion. It was precisely because I expected that some editors would not be able to conform to the inclusion criteria that I agreed to let it live. Your attitude proves that its existence cannot be justified. HiLo48 (talk) 01:33, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

As much as I think there is a problem with this article, IronMaidenRocks is correct that we cannot reject the sources simply because they are offline. I would ask, though, that whoever it was that added the statement provide us with some sort of idea just what it was that the books said, so that we can better just whether it meets the 2nd inclusion criteria. I don't need a scan--I'll AGF a quote from someone. I think HiLo48 is being a bit extreme, but the underlying point is that we have to be careful just how far we are willing to stretch in terms of the sources what counts as a "common misconception." If we're going to accept "widely held belief (that is wrong)" then I'm going to have to insist that we also accept any percentage results that are over 25-30%, as those are clearly the same meaning (to me). Qwyrxian (talk) 01:56, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
HiLo48: You can submit this article for AfD to your heart's content. But you're still going to have answer the same question that you couldn't before: What policy(s) does it violate and how does it violate them? Content disputes are not a valid reason for deletion. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:09, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
When I first saw this section of the article it only had offline sources, and none of the wording included anything like the words "common misconception". I am now happier with the content, but agree with Qwyrxian that we must be very careful with what goes into the article. I don't want to repeat all that was said in the deletion debate, but there were a lot of awfully valid points highlighting the difficulties surrounding this article's existence. This is not simply a content dispute. HiLo48 (talk) 02:26, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Qwyrxian, the source from the Gambler's Fallacy article is available on Google Books. Just click the ISBN, then go down to "search for this on Google Books". --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:18, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, most of us above agreed the exact words "common misconception" don't need to be used. Also, offline sources can absolutely be used although I'll admit the possibility of abuse for sourcing something with offline sources is higher. That doesn't mean we should immediately delete it though (AGF), but rather should try and verify it (Google books as mentioned above is a good idea). VegaDark (talk) 09:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion Criteria in Text of the Article

Please don't include messages to editors in the article's text. That's why we have tags. It would probably be in the article's best interest if you sought consensus with the main body of Wikipedia that an article can have a set list of inclusion criteria. It sounds like WP:OR to me. Do you have sources that define what a 'common misconception' is? Do those details given perfectly fit your rules for inclusion?

One user said that consensus was not reached about criteria - if that is so, stop trying to force the criteria onto the article and use only Wikipedia's guidelines. Its concerning to me that editors are inadvertently going above the rest of Wikipedia and make they're own rules. As we have seen from the preceding discussions, we have not, apparently, actually defined what items should be included in the list. Its also annoying that we're vetting new information by this criteria, and yet none of the older material has been examined; many of them having Snopes and blogs as sources. Reliable sourcing is much, much more important than adhering to these article specific rules. Please show me a Wikipedia policy suggesting that guidelines for individual articles are even allowed. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 22:02, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Please see my description above. Also, it is common practice on lists with unclear inclusion criteria to explicitly list that in the article. That is actually not for editors, but for the reader, so that they understand what this article is defining as a "common misconception". Qwyrxian (talk) 22:28, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Its also common practice to avoid and delete lists like this. It would be better to have an article called "common misconceptions" (similar to the article on fallacy) and discuss misconceptions therein. Then it would have a rational to be further broken down into separate articles like "common misconceptions of/in..."; an article titled "list of common misconceptions of astronomy" would never be allowed to stay. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 22:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Oh, I strongly agree with deleting this list. But if it stays, it must have specific, clear inclusion criteria. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
My position is exactly the same as Qwyrxian's. There was a very extensive and quite painful debate on this which only reached a very begrudging agreement from me to allow the article continue to exist ONLY on the condition that we applied very explicit inclusion criteria AND listed those criteria in every section of the article as messages to editors. HiLo48 (talk) 00:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
"begrudging agreement from me to allow the article continue to exist ONLY on the condition"
Nobody has to follow guidelines that you set out. The results were no-consensus, not appease Hilo with his demands for explicit inclusion criteria for every section.AerobicFox (talk) 02:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
"me to allow the article continue to exist"
Lol, I didn't realize you were allowing this article to continue to exist, I thought you just failed at getting it deleted.AerobicFox (talk) 02:20, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm glad I got your attention with the strength of those points. Of course I don't have personal control over the article, but please recall that the result of the RfD was not a defeat. It was a train wreck, and that was due to the mass of poor quality of arguments presented. You will know which side I believe most of those came from. HiLo48 (talk) 02:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
You don't need arguments. In Wikipedia's perfect form, its just a collection of paraphrased quotes with attached sources. Make the guidlines conform to sources and Wikipedia's standards. No debates or rivalries needed! Work together! ~Spreads Rainbow across the sky!~ Personally, I think the best COA is to move the article to Common Misconceptions or similar. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:00, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
One of the points I made in the RfD discussion (more than once because some didn't seem able to read or understand it) was that to understand a List of common misconceptions, we need a Common misconception article where such a thing was defined. But we have the fundamental problem that while we do have an article with such a name, it redirects straight back to this article. That means that the content of this article is defined by the content of this article. Stupid really. HiLo48 (talk) 06:42, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
First of all, please let's wait with another Afd until we've had a few more months to see how this turns out. If it were to be nominated now, the result would most likely be exactly the same as last time, with the addition of a lot of (rightfully?) angry comments about being too quick to re-launch the Afd.
Secondly, I disagree that we should not be very strict with new items even though other items on the list may be in bad shape. By being very strict, it means that we avoid a lot of clean up later, and the items that do get added to the list will be so with much better sourcing than they otherwise might. Furthermore, people are working on re-phrasing, re-sourcing and removing bad content.
Thirdly, that we require good sources to name somthing a common misconception is necessary in order to avoid a system based on WP:OR or WP:SYN. If a "common misconception" can only be sourced to blogs etc. then it is probably not notable enough for inclusion. Many of the items on the list have been covered as common misconceptions in major media, these are probably the kinds of misconceptions that should make up this list. Not the 43rd and 44th common misconception about astronomy.
Dr bab (talk) 07:52, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I agree. We should hold to the standards you just mentioned. I do think that specifically looking for the words "common misconception" is going to steer us away from misconceptions which are actually common. From what I've seen of the article, blog pages and Q&As are the commonly accepted sources. That needs to change: the items we already have need to be reviewed and new items need to be held to those standards. Its better to use reliable sources that imply a misconception is common, rather than unreliable sources which plainly state that a misconception is common. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 08:26, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I would say that we should use reliable sources that state that it is a common misconception, but I agree that we should not hunt for the exact phrase "common misconception". Maybe we agree, as long as the implication you're talking about is "explicit enough". From an above example, I don't think the information that children colour the sun yellow is sufficient, but the statement "many people find it hard to believe" is. Dr bab (talk) 09:04, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
About source quality: I favor weeding out blogs which are not affiliated with a newspaper or other WP:RS (that is, not under an editorial policy with fact-checking), and weeding out Q&As which aren't in WP:RS. We have the option of tagging any marginal sources with {{Dubious}} after better sources can't be easily found, or deleting really bad sources. In the AfD discussion and previously in Talk I advocated a thorough source review; in that light, I've reviewed several items, and found better sources for one or two, but haven't yet made the time to add them to the article. I figure patience is good. --Lexein (talk) 08:29, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Vitaman C Does not Prevent or Cure Colds

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5184850

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/cold-and-flu/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100172929

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jul/18/medicineandhealth.sciencenews —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.20.4.100 (talk) 19:58, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

 Not done - Please provide a reliable source that this is a common misconception, not just sources that vitamin C does not prevent or cure colds. Cresix (talk) 20:28, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
The first link says:

But, contrary to popular belief, a mega-dose of Vitamin C is not an effective cold remedy.

I think that is sufficient. –CWenger (talk) 20:33, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
CWenger is correct. We need to stop this machine-like insistence that a source must contain the exact phrase "common misconception". A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:43, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Actually I agree. It wasn't "machine-like"; just a careless error. I missed "popular belief" when I read over the sources. Cresix (talk) 20:51, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
While the application of the inclusion criteria need not be totally machine like, it does have to be pretty strict. The earlier failure to have strict inclusion criteria was precisely what led to the last RfD. In this case I can accept that "contrary to popular belief" is good enough, but I am still concerned that we have to have this discussion for almost all additions to the article. Very few other Wikipedia articles cause so much trouble with attempts to add garbage. HiLo48 (talk) 21:48, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I was going to add this, and thus had a close look at the sources to see how I could create a nice paragraph out of them, but then I noticed that there may actually be two different misconceptions here. On the one hand, it is the belief that mega doses of vitamin C functions as a remedy for flu and/or cold, and another is that daily intake of vitamin C prevents flu and/or cold. I went to Vitamin C to see if something could help to clarify, and found the following:
"Routine vitamin C supplementation does not reduce the incidence or severity of the common cold in the general population, though the largest analyses suggest supplementation may slightly reduce common cold duration".[12][13]
This is suggestive that there may actually be an effect after all. Going to the first of the sources given here (which seems to be the original source for the other sources also), I found:
"This review is restricted to placebo-controlled trials testing 0.2 g per day or more of vitamin C. Regular ingestion of vitamin C had no effect on common cold incidence in the ordinary population. However, it had a modest but consistent effect in reducing the duration and severity of common cold symptoms. In five trials with participants exposed to short periods of extreme physical stress (including marathon runners and skiers) vitamin C halved the common cold risk."
The last sentence I guess may be what I have seen elsewhere written as "limited effect for extreme athletes". But what about "modest but consistent effect"?
Do we have a misconception here, or is it simply a case of insufficient data? I think this comment by the author of the review may be suggestive of the latter:
Despite finding that vitamin C did little to help protect people against common colds, however, Dr Hemilä said more scientific studies were required to investigate whether the vitamin helped to treat colds and pneumonia in children. Vitamin C was not a panacea, but neither was it useless, he said. "Pauling was overly optimistic, but he wasn't completely wrong."
I don't have access to medical journals, so I can't check the second source quoted in the Vitamin C article.Dr bab (talk) 22:17, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
It all depends on the wording. The title of the section says "...prevent or cure colds" I'm not aware of any evidence that Vitamin C can do that. But there are certainly studies that suggest it can reduce the severity of cold symptoms. Higher up in this discussion the word remedy is used. I'm not sure if that means cure or relieve. I would avoid it. HiLo48 (talk) 23:05, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure about this. Its giving medical advice about something that seems uncertain. Could cause some people to stop taking vitamin C when they have a cold, when it could actually be helpful in some way. Is this really necessary, How many medicinal products with "it doesn't quite have this one effect" are we going to add? The source for commonality of the 'misconception' says "a mega-dose of vitamin C will not remedy a cold". I agree that that's a common thought in the US; when people get a cold, they think they should take excessive amounts of vitamin C. But it doesn't say "many people believe vitamin C prevents or cures colds" which is pretty extreme, considering how it is a common conception that nothing can cure a cold. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 11:44, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
I found the second source from the Vitamin C article, they sum up in their abstract that: "Doses of vitamin C in excess of 1 g daily taken shortly after onset of a cold did not reduce the duration or severity of cold symptoms in healthy adult volunteers when compared with a vitamin C dose less than the minimum recommended daily intake.". The article is available here.Dr bab (talk) 09:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Back and to the Left

JFK's head moving "back and to the left" when he was shot is often used as "evidence" that there was a second gunman on the ground. In actuality the head would move toward the shooter and not away. There's no shortage of people who believe in the conspiracy surrounding his assassination and I'm not going to address it as a whole, but this particular aspect of it is certainly a common misconception —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.69.172.148 (talk) 05:02, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Right now it reads as if it's YOUR conspiracy theory. Wikipedia depends on sourced content, so to add that content you need to find an independent reliable reference that, firstly, describes it as a common misconception (or similar), secondly, has an article here, and thirdly, presents the "correct" interpretation. Good luck. HiLo48 (talk) 05:07, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/headwnd.htm
The section headed "1HSCA178" addresses the source of the misconception. The movie JFK and Bill Hicks' stand up routines played no small part either. The sections headed "1HSCA403" and "1HSCA404" discuss the actual physics and experiments conducted. I can recall watching a video in which a ballistics expert shot melons wrapped in packing tape with a rifle, much to the same conclusion. Unfortunately, it's unlikely I'll dig it up on the internet. I'm sure there are plenty other credible sources from people who ran the same experiment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.69.172.148 (talk) 05:46, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Again, the inclusion criteria for this article are quite explicit. Do have a look at the lead of the article. What you have presented so far does not satisfy the second of those criteria. HiLo48 (talk) 05:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Blue ice

incorrect, there is one model of european aircraft that does flush waste directly out of the plane, but only when crossing sea. I suggest it be changed to reflect that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.67.248.117 (talk) 18:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

[citation needed] DES (talk) 09:11, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Proof that 0.9r = 1

It might be a good idea to add a simple proof that 0.9 recurring equals one, rather than simply stating it as fact. A simple proof is that:

10*0.99999... = 9.999999...
9.99999... - 0.999999... = 9
Therefore 9*0.99999... = 9
9/9 = 1
So 0.99999... = 1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.126.186.107 (talk) 23:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that's necessary. It's properly sourced. This is not a math article. Cresix (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Agreed, there is a link to the article, that is sufficient. I don't think any individual item should be any longer than this one already is. Dr bab (talk) 07:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
Thirded. If the reader is curious to learn more, there's a "main article" link they can follow. 28bytes (talk) 07:40, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

I have a different concern about this item. I'm not sure it can be called a common misconception when most of the people who allegedly have the misconception have never actually thought about it before the question is posed in some study of mathematical understanding. If you ask people to guess about something that they've never heard of before, and they guess wrong, that doesn't mean that they had a misconception before you force them to guess.Ccrrccrr (talk) 14:15, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

I think this is an important point. Can we hold misconceptions based on a lack of information or must it be based on a presence of misinformation? Dr bab (talk) 11:17, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
For that item, we have sources that directly say it's a common misconception. That's all that matters. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:16, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
I disagree with two different aspects of that argument. Firstly, I don't think we have airtight evidence from the sources that it is a common misconception. "Many people find it hard to accept this simple fact" is not the same as "many people think it is false". it is true that we have a source that uses the term "common misconception", but I'm not sure that the author of that statement had a solid basis for making it. And what it seems we have the most solid information on is a study showing that people often get this wrong when posed the question. That means that they didn't figure it out correctly, not that they were walking around thinking incorrect things about it before they were asked.
The second aspect I disagree with is the "that's all that matters" statement. There's all kinds of nonsense that can be found in lots of sources. As editors, we need to be critical readers of sources.
Ccrrccrr (talk) 02:22, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
We will rarely (perhaps never) have "airtight evidence" that any misconception is common. I think editors are on thin ice if they try to determine whether an otherwise reliable source "has a solid basis" for stating that a misconception is common. If we have to debate for every reliable source how much of it is "solid basis" and how much is "all kinds of nonsense", the debate will be endless and nothing will ever be added to the article. Wikipedia has guidelines for what is considered a reliable source; usually that works fairly well. If by "critical reader" of sources you mean does the source fit Wikipedia's standards for reliabiliy, and do the statements in the article accurately reflect what's in the source, I agree with you. But if by "critical reader" of source you mean which parts of a reliable source is "nonsense", I think that usually will be an unworkable endeavor. If a source is reliable, the usual procedure for challenging information contained in the source is to find another reliable source that contradicts it. So rather than us debating whether the information in the source has a "solid basis" or is "nonsense", the task for anyone wishing to dispute the source is to find another reliable source that disputes it. I orginally opposed inclusion of this item, but with a reliable source clearly stating that it is a common misconception, I must find contraditory evidence in order to challenge it. Cresix (talk) 02:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Cross-checking sources often solves such problems. I don't think its ours to judge, on our own, what part of a source 'has solid basis', but it is important to make sure the source has their facts straight. If two or more sources came to the same conclusion independently or by using the best available information, that is when you can rest easy. There's no harm in finding secondary sources if individuals have concern. Of course, its no one's obligation to find more than one credible source. Perhaps that should change in order to improve Wikipedia's reputation as a reliable source. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 08:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
My issue was not with the credibility of the sources. My issue was that the hypothesis the sources support is "if you ask people to figure out this question, they come to the wrong conclusion." To me that is irrelevant to what I think is the criterion for inclusion here which is whether people are already going around thinking something that is false about this. That's a subtle point, and perhaps it appears that I am playing games to avoid playing by the rules here. But I would point out there's nothing in the Wikipedia guidelines that says that a given fact has to be included in an article just because there is a reliable source for it. Ccrrccrr (talk) 22:03, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Hair regrowth.

I dont think the source for the hair regrowth item is a scientific or otherwise researched source. It is almost a counter "myth" that shaved hair does not grow back thicker....Is there any source which shows measured results. I have seen a person who had surgery on one leg, and 9 months later the hair on that leg is definitely longer, darker, thicker. Feebee06 (talk) 09:52, 19 February 2011 (UTC)


Looking at the lecture notes which was given as citation - it doesn't say that *nails* don't continue to grow after death. The citation in the Nail (Anatomy) article is more specific and should be used here as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.229.164.19 (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Spelling Error

A small thing, but I think this sentence means to use "smoothing" instead of "smooth":

"They can, however, prevent damage from occurring in the first place, smooth down the cuticle in a glue-like fashion so that it appears repaired and generally make hair appear in better condition."

I don't see an edit button, so I assume this page is locked down or something, but I wanted to help. Spelling errors often make things appear less valid than they are.

Not a spelling error. It's grammatical with parallel sentence structure (using the verbs prevent, smooth, and make). Cresix (talk) 15:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 Done: It is a grammatical error, however, and I have changed it per the request. If you want to keep "smooth" the sentence structure would have to be altered somehow. –CWenger (talk) 15:47, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

No, it's not a grammatical error. It has perfectly parallel sentence structure. "Smooth" is a verb. So the parallel structure uses the verbs prevent, smooth, and make. This is fundamental English grammar. The only grammatical change would have to be preventing, smoothing, and making, which wouldn't make sense. Cresix (talk) 15:50, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I see your point now. But in that case I recommend a comma after "repaired" so it is clear to readers that these are three separate potential benefits. –CWenger (talk) 15:57, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
No problem. A comma is optional before "and" in seriation. Cresix (talk) 16:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
Thanks! I find it helpful in this case because the benefits are so long and the comma helps the reader realize a new one is coming. –CWenger (talk) 16:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

monty hall

monty hall problem is the subject of a common misconception. Should it be added here? Tkuvho (talk) 17:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

This one has potential, although we need a source that it is a common misconception. It is similar to gambler's fallacy, which is already in the article. If it is added, it might be appended to that item. Cresix (talk) 17:12, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
I know this isn't really a legitimate argument, but y'all may want to look at Talk:Monty Hall problem before adding it here--that page has '22 archives' of people debating the exact details of the various solutions, their merits, etc. I think that importing the problems there to this page might be more trouble than its worth. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:16, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
On the other hand, we could refer people who object (most likely because they don't intuitively consider it valid) to those archives to review all the discussion. I suspect all the arguing merely confirms how widespread the misconception is. I'll admit, when I first heard this one I didn't believe it. But after learning more about probability, I finally came to accept it. Cresix (talk) 00:31, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Two points... Firstly, as Cresix has said, it would need a reliable source to say it is a common misconception. Secondly, must it be named after an American game show host? Even the Monty Hall problem article says that it had been described much earlier. I recall studying such a problem in high school well before it got the Monty Hall name. (Which I had never heard of until today.) Of course, that wasn't in the USA. We MUST avoid this US-centrism. HiLo48 (talk) 00:48, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Also, I just noticed that there's an open Arbcom case related to the article. I think that spreading it here is a bad idea. If it does come, though, "Monty Hall problem" is, as far as I can tell, the standard name used, if in mathematical treatises on the subject, and certainly the most commonly used term for the problem. The treatment of the problem does postdate the show (per our article, first described in 1975). Qwyrxian (talk) 01:41, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
This is a common misconception, just not a very popularly known one. Most people will assume that removing all but two doors leaves their odds at 50/50, while not realising that their odds of picking incorrectly are much higher. However, probability doesn't matter in individual instances. The way I see it, if it is probable then at some point it will happen. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 06:38, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Are not the Monty Hall and the Gambler's Fallacy more "incarnations of human beings' inherently poor grasp of probability theory" than misconceptions? Several examples exist that shows how people will make the wrong choice when making judgements based on intuition or gut feeling rather than on careful calculations.Dr bab (talk) 07:42, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Most misconceptions result from a poor grasp of something, whether it's factual information or the weaknesses of intuitive decision-making. How is this one different? Cresix (talk) 01:12, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Well, I see a misconception as a "wrongly held belief", often based on poor information. These probability-items are not something that in my opinion define as "held beliefs", more as "problems that are incorrectly solved". An illustration: misconceptions can often show up in conversation; someone tells you that Baseball was invented by Abner Doubleday or that the great wall of China is visible from the moon. But no one will start a conversation about the Monty Hall problem without allready knowing the solution, and using it as a kind of interesting riddle. I know that there are no demands for misconceptions to frequently show up in conversation, but I still do think this illustrates a difference between these classes of "misconceptions".
It may be that as very noteable (and named) problems, the Monty Hall and/or Gambler's Fallacy can justifiably be included here, but I think we should limit ourselves to a couple of items of this sort at maximum, since there are many more out there like them. Dr bab (talk) 08:11, 17 March 2011 (UTC)
Again, I don't think we should get into defining what misconception means - we should rely upon reliable sources. If a reliable source supports something as a common misconception or easily identifiable synonym, that's enough. We don't need to limit ourselves to a couple of items, but rather only to the notable ones. Please see WP:NOTPAPER which states: Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, but a digital encyclopedia project. Other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page, there is no practical limit to the number of topics Wikipedia can cover, or the total amount of content. Lgstarn (talk) 05:30, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
Ok, I still feel the two are different, but unless there is a sudden influx of items of this sort I am happy to let the matter rest. Dr bab (talk) 07:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

I still see no conceptual difference between this type of misconception and most other misconceptions. It may be true that "no one will start a conversation about the Monty Hall problem without already knowing the solution", but that doesn't mean that people don't have opinions about how someone should make such decisions based on their erroneous understanding of probabability; for example, I have no doubt that many people who watched Monty Hall's Let's Make a Deal had opinions about which door a contestant should select. The misconception is still held, just not articulated as the "Monty Hall problem". Cresix (talk) 16:20, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Editorializing

Can we remove the word "Although" from the phrase that begins "Although fraudulent research by Andrew Wakefield..."? DrSaturn (talk) 14:16, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Why? Grammatically and contextually, it makes sense. Cresix (talk) 18:12, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Drugs

There should be a drugs section, there are numerous misconceptions about drugs, like LSD being horribly dangerous and so forth —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.209.13.27 (talk) 12:07, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

No, not without a specific misconception that is identified by a reliable source as a common misconception. Cresix (talk) 15:59, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
There's bound to be reliable material that considers this topic; however, I'm sure such a search would lead to several editors linking to sources which describe marijuana as a panacea. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 07:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

There are several cited examples in List of urban legends about illegal drugs. The blue star tattoo legend, strawberry quick meth, and bananadine have their own articles. Some of these are based largely on Snopes articles, though. The number of misconceptions in the wild about LSD alone would be enough to fill a sizable article if there were citations for them! --FOo (talk) 02:22, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

New entry in section Astronomy: Center of the universe

Many people (I did so too) believe that our universe has a center where all matter constantly moves away from since the big bang. However, there is no center. Source: http://www.universetoday.com/36653/center-of-the-universe/ I remember there used to be a wiki page dedicated to this topic, but it seems gone now. Wonder why... (Eroock (talk) 00:54, 7 March 2011 (UTC))

If you're requesting an addition to the article, you must address all of the following:
  • Does the misconception's including topic have an article of its own?
  • Provide a reliable source that it is a common misconception.
  • Is the misconception mentioned in its topic article with sources?
  • Is the misconception current, as opposed to ancient or obsolete?


Cresix (talk) 01:07, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but this was not on the quite exhaustive list "44 misconceptions about astronomy" quoted in another discussion above. I couldn't find anything on Universe or Observable Universe, but I didn't read the articles thoroughly, I only searched for "center" in the article text. Dr bab (talk) 09:22, 7 March 2011 (UTC)
Just so that I'm on the same page... They're saying that we know there was a big bang because the universe is expanding? That's a logical fallacy. The absence of a center makes the concept of a singularity false, unless they have a reasonable explanation. Are they saying the whole existing universe, except to where matter has spread, is the area of the singularity's origination? --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 05:58, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
It's a more than three dimensional thing. One interesting analogy I've read is that of the surface of a balloon as it's being inflated. It's expanding in many (not really all) directions, but has no centre. HiLo48 (talk) 06:32, 16 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, the source related what you said about the balloon. I think I understand what it means, but a simple analogy can only say so much about such a theory. There was no real attempt to explain the analogy given in the source (I am weary of this: sometimes analogies are purposely vague so that audiences infer meanings convenient for the speaker). As I see it, the balloon did have a place of origination, a starting point from before it expanded outwards. Scientists who support the Big Bang theory claim there was a 'singularity' were all existing matter was contained, if I remember correctly, was so dense that it achieved critical mass and "exploded" from that central location. If this is the correct understanding of the theory, how can the theory still be held as viable without a detectable point of origination? The source is not saying there is no 'center because of dimensions' its saying there 'is no center because no place of origin can be detected'. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 07:53, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I see now, its basically saying "the whole is the center" or that what was once the singularity is now everywhere. While I'm not sure that is a logical conclusion (such a 'singularity' left no trace, and yet it is said the big bang left high levels of radiation throughout the universe; how is that possible?), I at least see clearly what they mean. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 08:07, 18 March 2011 (UTC)
I found another source that should meet the requirements listed above, here http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/faq.htm#e1 and further down http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/faq.htm#m9 (Eroock (talk) 03:43, 20 March 2011 (UTC))

Edit notices no longer necessary in article body

User:Mindmatrix has created a template displays the "criteria for inclusion" edit notice on any attempt to edit, so this notice is no longer necessary in every section in the body of the article, freeing up 23K of space. These edit notices have been removed (twice now) because it is now displayed automatically. This is a more elegant solution than including it over and over again in the article. Especially, if the notice requires copy-editing, it can be done in one place instead of many places. See Template:Editnotices/Page/List of common misconceptions. ~Amatulić (talk) 00:53, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Excellent solution. Thanks for the explanation. HiLo48 (talk) 01:59, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Bravo! Dr bab (talk) 07:12, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Very good. Wish I'd thought of it. --Lexein (talk) 04:37, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Hibernation of Bears

Hello Could we include the common misperception that bears hibernate in a true sense under the biology heading? see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation see note at bottom of http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/satoyama/hibernation.html http://www.bearaware.bc.ca/bears/bears_content_grizzly4.html

Recommend inclusion as "Bears are commonly referred to as 'hibernators', but bears do not hibernate in the true sense, as they can be roused from the state, and their body temperature does not drop significantly. While some people still use the term 'hibernate' when referring to bears, it is a misnomer, as behaviourally, bears undergo 'winter sleep' or 'winter lethargy'."

Cheers A2freema (talk) 19:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)Ange

Do you have a reference evidencing that this is a common misperception, as opposed to just a loose use of "hibernation"? From what I can see neither of those external links speak to that point. – ukexpat (talk) 19:37, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Obama

I concur with this edit.[6] This item was added during the crazy period when 3 high traffic web sites in a row mentioned this article. Now that things have slowed down, I think we might need to take a critical look at some of the items that were added. In my opinion, this item is more a conspiracy theory than a misconception. It's appropriate for List of conspiracy theories article (where I'm pretty sure, it's already mentioned). A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:57, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

  • I added it, and the sources call it a misconception that more than 60 million people have. I also recently saw an article about this that said the belief wasn't just among tea party type people who "choose" to believe the misconception, but a good portion who believed it were democrats or African Americans, proving it is an actual misconception, not just a group of people who choose to ignore the truth. I'll have to see if I can find that again, but either way it is properly sourced as-is. I wouldn't be opposed to include additional information such as that some believe this misconception is propagated by his political opponents, should a reliable source be found that says that, but as long as it's sourced I don't think we can pick and choose and say "well, yeah, it's a common misconception, but..." Unless you're saying it isn't actually a common misconception. And it's sourced specifically as a misconception which 20-24% of Americans have (20% would be more than 60 million people) so if you aren't considering that "common" then we are going to have to have a discussion about what constitutes "common". And if you are arguing that it isn't a misconception, we have reliable sources that say it is, so you are going to have to provide equally reliable sources that dispute that. And, even if you did find that, I would still consider that worthy of a mention on this page that some sources consider it a misconception while others dispute it is a misconception. VegaDark (talk) 06:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
If "20% of americans believe..." is the same as "it is a common misconception that.." then I guess it is also true that "41% of americans believe.." also means the same? (look at the point about evolution above). Where do we draw the line here? Conversely, if we remove the Obama item, then we should also remove the dinosaur-item?
What bothers me about this is that we will end up removing what in many ways are the most verified items: the items that actually rely on a survey and thus makes the "commonness" nice and quantified. Whereas if something is described using the ambiguous term "common misconception" with no further sources or elaborations, then we can include it as reliably sourced. I'm sure there are items on the list that are held by fewer people than 41% of Americans for example. I understand that we can't easily define a percentage limit for "common", but this nonetheless bothers me.Dr bab (talk) 06:35, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but this matter is heading towards one where we could say that it's a common belief among non-Americans that Americans are stupid. If official Americans sources publicly say he is not a Muslim, yet Americans still "believe" he is, it's hard to come to any other conclusion, unless it IS politically driven, then it's not a misconception, is it? It's dogma. HiLo48 (talk) 07:32, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I think it's a matter of many Americans in question not paying attention to/not being aware of the public sources stating he is not Muslim, not so much distrusting the sources and choosing to believe he is a secret Muslim. At least I hope that's the case for the sake of the country. VegaDark (talk) 07:45, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I think this highlights the difficulty of properly classifying content of a political or religious nature. HiLo48 (talk) 08:02, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
How about adding that to List of conspiracy theories#US Presidency instead (with a "Main article: Barack Obama religion conspiracy theories" line similar to the "Main article: Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories" line that's there now), and then adding List of conspiracy theories to the See also section of this article. Would that be a good compromise? 28bytes (talk) 17:27, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
I'm fine with adding it List of conspiracy theories. I don't think a link in our See Also section is necessary. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:30, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
It's been added back.[7] I don't think there was an consensus to add this. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:05, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
On the contrary, I don't think there was a consensus to remove it. See the discussion below where multiple users are making an argument for its inclusion. VegaDark (talk) 18:15, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
There is clearly still a discussion underway, here and at the bottom of the page. Not a friendly move just sticking it back in. HiLo48 (talk) 18:17, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
VegaDark: The way WP:BRD is supposed to work is that you can boldly add the item, but if it's been reverted, then we proceed to discuss the change. Only after consensus has been reached should the item be restored. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 18:36, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
As stated above, "This item was added during the crazy period when 3 high traffic web sites in a row mentioned this article" - It's basically been in there since then (over a month?). I think this isn't the case of me adding something and someone quickly reverting it, and me adding it back, it's the case of something that's been in the article for a while and someone out of the blue removes it after no clear consensus to do so. Additionally, before I originally added it I mentioned it first on the talk page and there was no opposition to it. Thus, I think the "status quo" is to keep it in the article until consensus deems otherwise, not to remove an item that's been in there probably more than a month now and only re-add it once consensus deems it is appropriate. I'm mostly concerned that everyone who seems to want to remove this wants to based on it essentially being a "manufactured" or "willful" misconception where nobody arguing this has actually provided a reliable source stating that. Right now the only reliable sources that have been presented say it is a misconception that 20-24% of Americans have. As of now any and all assertions that it is manufactured by Obama's political opponents or a willful misconception is conjecture and original research at best. I think it's a huge double standard to require items to be reliable sourced to add, but based on a whim of someone asserting something without sources backing them up gets to remove an item. Also, even if we get a reliable source stating that this 100% is a manufactured or willful misconception, that doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't be included in the article. There's no consensus that such misconceptions do or do not belong either way, and there's an ongoing discussion below. I don't think simply reverting (I'll note at this time that this was an inappropriate use of the "revert" function, as well, as that should only be used for vandalism and not good faith edits) my edit was very productive. I won't re-add it again until consensus decides one way or another, but I will say I think it is inappropriate to remove it at this time before consensus decides one way or another. VegaDark (talk) 00:05, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
You're missing the point that the reason why it wasn't quickly reverted was because of all the contant changes and edit requests. In any case, I'll bet it was reverted out. Probably more than once. I'll look it up when I have more free time. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:42, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
I think the item needs to stay. Its a common misconception in the US that fits into the article well. I don't see what the difference is between including a misconception among 41% of males from California, and 21% of Americans. The list is incomplete, we know that: I don't see the need to make "only the most common misconceptions!" part of the article; how do you quantify that? --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 14:58, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

I have an editing question. Is it necessary to have "who prays every day", (though it is mentioned in the article)? Isn't that part of being devout? As a devout Christian myself, Lord only knows I pray all the time... I know it is only a minor issue in the grand scheme of Wiki-life, but it caught my eye. Thanks! P.S. I'm sorry but I don't know how to sign wiki pages... 24.177.203.132 (talk) 05:55, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

It's what the White House spokesman was quoted as saying in the source. Are you telling us that someone who doesn't pray every day isn't a Christian? (You sign posts here by typing ~~~~ at the end of your post.) HiLo48 (talk) 05:33, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Sorry if I implied that, not at all what I intended. But if he is devout than he prays, right? But, if it is there because of the article, no worries, I understand! Cheers! 24.177.203.132 (talk) 05:55, 19 March 2011 (UTC)
Per Cresix and others above, a politically-appointed White House press secretary is not an independent or WP:reliable source. It is, in fact, the very quintessence of an interested and unreliable source. Find a source for his twenty-plus years of Christian church attendance and use that instead if people really insist on the information's inclusion here rather than, eg, at conspiracy theories. [A further point is that the item — if included — deserves a treatment of the related point that the Americans who believe this consider a person considered Muslim if his father is, similar to maternal Jewishness.] The independence and reliability of the source though is the first thing to fix. — LlywelynII 22:41, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
First, you have no idea whether the information on the White House website about Obama's religious beliefs was written by the press secretary. And even if it was, the President is ultimately responsible for what is said about him on the website. Secondly, religious beliefs are self-stated. If Obama says that he is a Christian, he is a Christian. No one beside Obama can verify what his personal religious beliefs are. His religious beliefs are not verified by his church attendance. And finally, there has been a consensus to leave the information as it has been. You are seeking a change in consensus. It is you who needs to stop reverting and wait until the consensus process completes itself. Cresix (talk) 22:55, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
Okay, Obama says that he is a Christian. But is there a common public belief that Obama says that he is something other than a Christian? It seems possible that many people know that Obama says that he is a Christian, but they do not regard him as a Christian anyway. Roger (talk) 00:14, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
According to a sourced statement in the article, 20 to 24% of Americans believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Now, we might debate whether that percentage is high enough to consider this a common misconception; I personally think it is a substantial number, considering that a President's self-stated religous beliefs have never been disputed in recent history. But that issue is an altogether different issue than whether Obama self-identifies as Christian; that is indisputable because it is officially stated on the President's official website, and the only way to determine someone's religious beliefs is by their own personal statements; not church attendance; not whether they have been baptized; not whether a particular religious group has that person on their list of member. Only by self-statement can a person's religious beliefs be determined. Cresix (talk) 00:30, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
So no one has shown that there is any misconception. You don't know that those 20% agree with you about how religious beliefs are determined. Roger (talk) 01:49, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I think you may have missed the point. I made two different points. The percentage of 20-24% is not about how religious beliefs are determined. It is the percentage of Americans who think that Obama is a Muslim. My other point is that the only way to determine a person's religious beliefs is by that person's self-statements about religious beliefs. If anyone can tell me a better way to know what is in a person's head regarding their religious beliefs, please let me know; I don't know anyone who is able to read a person's mind to know what their beliefs are. Cresix (talk) 01:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I keep trying to understand how people can continue to believe something when a strong authority tells them they're wrong. That's not a misconception. It's a denial of reality. HiLo48 (talk) 06:26, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Only if you define "reality" as "what a strong authority tells you". Even strong authorities can be mistaken, and they have even been known to lie on occasion. DES (talk) 07:37, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
But for Wikipedia to describe the belief that Obama is a Muslim as a misconception, WE must be believing that authority. Do we know for sure? If we do, then that 20-24% are choosing to believe something else. That's not a misconception. That's a conscious choice to believe something that's wrong. If we don't know for sure, then we cannot call it a misconception. HiLo48 (talk) 07:41, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure this 'misconception' really belongs here, but if it stays in, this edit may need discussion. Hans Adler 17:07, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Simple question. IS Obama a Muslim? HiLo48 (talk) 17:57, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I don't think that's the point, but how about this: If you are a Muslim and you deny your faith in public, then as far as I know you get into serious trouble with other Muslims. Maybe if you are US president and convert to Islam someone would write you a fatwa allowing you to keep this secret and continue to attend Christian services. But probably not before you run for the post. So if he is a Muslim, then we have the following options: He is a closet Muslim, nobody but his family knows it. Or he converted while running for presidency, or as a president (maybe out of spite because of the silly rumours). In which case there is a smoking gun fatwa somewhere.
Come to think of it, can we be sure that Obama, or the US, exists? I have never seen either of them personally.
But what do you think about that edit? I think it's pretty Muslim. Hans Adler 18:56, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
I think it's all part of a picture that says this item should not exist. FACT: Obama is Christian. (We do seem to accept that here.) FACT: There has been massive publicity to that effect. FACT: Millions of people in America say that they think he is a Muslim. CONCLUSION: They're either stupid, or in denial, or playing politics in a very odd way. They DO NOT have a misconception. HiLo48 (talk) 19:05, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
An alternative is that they have a mindset as described in Bob Altemeyer's book The Authoritarians: They couldn't care less about facts. What counts for them is following the party line as expressed by Fox News and right-wing blogs. They are simply refusing to play our game of reality-orientation. Only authorities, such as the Bible or your father, count. Hans Adler 19:12, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Exactly, and I bet that if you said to them, "No he's not and here is the evidence", they would respond that it's all a conspiracy, rather than accept it. Same goes for the birthers. – ukexpat (talk) 19:12, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it's a choice. One they have a right to make. But it's NOT a misconception. HiLo48 (talk) 19:28, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
It may be a misconception for some of that 20%. As you say, it is not for many others. There are different explanations for those poll results, and the Wash. Post source even said so. Roger (talk) 22:55, 22 March 2011 (UTC)


My apologies, I reverted the edit that made the item only reflect the Wash. Post. source before I saw Hans' invitation to discuss it. I still beleive we should give a range of poll results rather than choosing one, but the phrase about reasons for giving the wrong answer should maybe be put back in. I agree with HiLo48 that this is not a misconception, but how can we prove it? We cannot say anything about Obamas religion other than accept his own personal statement on the matter. Likewise, we cannot say anything about what people actually know/believe about Obama or what (mis)information this "knowledge" is based; all we have is their answer in the poll. Dr bab (talk) 07:38, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

If the threshold for a misconception is that only 20% of Americans believe it to be true, this page would have a nearly infinite amount of scientific content that could be included. Average understanding of most nuclear technology, for example. 206.10.158.35 (talk) 22:20, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I think most people would accept Obama's personal statement about his religion. But that may not be true for the 20%. Either the item should be deleted, or it should be noted that there are multiple explanations for the poll results, and misconception is just one of them. Roger (talk) 23:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Just thought of another perspective on this. Those who don't believe what Obama says are choosing to not believe a politician. Rather than labouring under a misconception, maybe they're just being sensible ;-) HiLo48 (talk) 01:22, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I understand that you were trying to be funny HiLo, but I think you actually touched on the truth of the situation; they are choosing not to believe a politician. After all, Bill Clinton "Never had sex with that woman...". Regardless, it is a sourced misconception, and should probably stay. I also think the [neutrality is disputed] should stay.--Asher196 (talk) 02:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
Yes, it technically fits the criteria for having an item in the article, but, to me, that just highlights the fundamental problem with finding sensible criteria for this article. It was a much discussed matter during the last RfD. To use the almost random happenstance of some "reliable" source having used that particular term to describe something before we allow it to appear in an article here does not appeal to me at all. HiLo48 (talk) 03:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
I thought it was one of the most beneficial modern examples on the list. I hear people say 'that Muslim Obama' and 'we got a Muslim running this country' every once in awhile. I don't personally care, but its just incorrect. The assumption stems from the reasoning "his name rhymes with Osama" and perhaps a dislike for his skin color. Also, the neutrality of the source is dubious, but I don't think its inclusion is was seen as a POV edit - am I right? So why the POV statement tag? Isn't there a more accurate tag? --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 04:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
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  2. ^ Plait, Philip (2002). Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, from Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax". John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-40976-6.
  3. ^ E.g., The Times, 17 May 2008
  4. ^ E.g., bladecombat.com, alljujitsu.com
  5. ^ Lethality Effects of Guns, in Guns in American Society, ed. Gregg Lee Carter , 2002, ISBN 9781576072684, p. 356-358. The 1968 study cited is F. E. Zimring, 'Is Gun Control Likely to Reduce Violent Killings?', University of Chicago Law Review 35 (1968), 721-737. Zimring's study classes as "knives" any edged or pointed weapon, resulting in a reduced death rate compared to attacks with long knives. The 1983 study cited is J. D. Wright, P. H. Rossi and K. Daly, Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in America, New York (1983), pp. 199-209.
  6. ^ Aubrey, Allison (April 3, 2008). "Five Myths About Drinking Water". National Public Radio. Retrieved January 16, 2011.
  7. ^ Olga Naidenko, PhD, Senior Scientist; Nneka Leiba, MPH, Researcher; Renee Sharp, MS, Senior Scientist; Jane Houlihan, MSCE, Vice President for Research (October 2008). [http://www.ewg.org/reports/BottledWater/Bottled-Water-Quality-Investigation "Bottled Water Quality Investigation: 10 Major Brands, 38 Pollutants"]. Environmental Working Group. Retrieved January 20, 2011. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ "Egg Balancing on Equinox". Snopes.com. Retrieved 2009-08-29.
  9. ^ Carlson, Jen (October 31, 2007). "Donna Henes, Urban Shaman - Gothamist: New York City News, Food, Arts & Events". Gothamist. Retrieved 2009-08-29.
  10. ^ "You can balance an egg on its end today … and any other day". Knoxnews.com. Knoxville News Sentinel. March 20, 2008. Retrieved 2009-08-29.
  11. ^ "Can You Balance Eggs on End During the Spring Equinox". Urbanlegends.about.com. March 25, 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-29.
  12. ^ Hemilä, Harri; Chalker, Elizabeth; Douglas, Bob; Hemilä, Harri (2007). "Vitamin C for preventing and treating the common cold". Cochrane database of systematic reviews (3): CD000980. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD000980.pub3. PMID 17636648.
  13. ^ Audera, C (2001). "Mega-dose vitamin C in treatment of the common cold: a randomised controlled trial". Medical Journal of Australia. 389: 175.
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