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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the List of common misconceptions article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

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Question for the audience--who supports deletion?

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 Misplaced Pages 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. Jess_talk|_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. Jess_talk|_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. Jess_talk|_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. Jess_talk|_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? Jess_talk|_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. Jess_talk|_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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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. Jess_talk|_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 ( 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? Jess_talk|_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 ( 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 It's not up to Misplaced Pages editors to determine whether a misconception is common. Instead, that job falls stricktly upon reliable sources to make that determination for us per WP:V If reliable sources say a misconception is common (or words to that effect), then that means it's a common misconception. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 06:59, 31 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 Because I and many of my friends find this page very useful in many discussions we had. Mario --87.149.122.207 (talk) 16:50, 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)

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)

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)

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/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)

Navigational Hatnote

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)

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)

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. 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. 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)

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 Misplaced Pages 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 , Barack Obama is a muslim, but in actual fact he is a christian.
• Many elementary school textbooks in both the US and Europe 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 .

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 Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 . 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)

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. 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." 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 as being built by (jewish?) slaves (and/or foreingers), but they were actually built by Egyptian workers . (Jews did not appear in Egypt until long after the pyramids were built).

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 ( 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)

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/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 the second link right after that is to a the culture behind it. is an essay about educating people on the misconceptions of epilepsy (it mentions burnt toast), featured on , an organization aimed to educated people on the disorder.

On a side note, the misconception about an epileptic 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)

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 (UTC)

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

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)

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. The misconception itself is much older, dating back to at least the late nineteenth century.

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)

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)

Obama

I concur with this edit. 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)

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)

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages editors of what "common misperception" actually means will either be completely arbitrary or original research. Active Banana ( 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)

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 ( 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 ( 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 ( 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 Misplaced Pages's guidelines and policies will not stop me from pointing out when gross violations are occurring. Active Banana ( 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)

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 ". 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)

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