List of common misconceptions

These entries are concise summaries; the main subject articles can be consulted for more detail.

Common misconceptions are viewpoints or factoids that are often accepted as true, but which are actually false.

They generally arise from conventional wisdom (such as old wives' tales), stereotypes, superstitions, fallacies, a misunderstanding of science, or the popularization of pseudoscience.

Some common misconceptions are also considered to be urban legends, and they are sometimes involved in moral panics.

View full version with citations References can be found at the full versions of the three included sub-articles:

Classical sculptures were originally painted in colors.
Seared tuna
Crystallized honey
Kappa-maki contains cucumber and no seafood
Fortune cookies are rarely found in China
A microwave oven, c. 2005
Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca
Chinese word for "crisis"
Violent crime rates in the United States declined between 1991 and 2022.
Immigrants had lower arrest rates than citizens in Texas, 2012–2018
No evidence supports Mary Magdalene having been a prostitute.
The fruit in the Garden of Eden is not named in the Book of Genesis .
A BJJ black belt with a red bar indicating first degree
The ancient Romans did not use the Roman salute depicted in The Oath of the Horatii (1784).
A vomitorium in a Roman amphitheater
Medieval depiction of a spherical Earth
Portrait of Marie Antoinette
The phrase " let them eat cake " is misattributed to Marie Antoinette .
George Washington's dentures
Napoleon was not especially short.
Albert Einstein , photographed at 14, did not fail mathematics at school.
The flag that Betsy Ross purportedly designed
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished chattel slavery in the United States nationwide, not the Emancipation Proclamation (red areas only).
The Wendell O. Pruitt Homes and William Igoe Apartments complex
The dark side of the Moon illuminated by the Sun.
The Earth's equator does not line up with the plane of the Earth's orbit , so for half of the year the Northern Hemisphere is tilted more towards the Sun and for the other half the Northern Hemisphere is tilted more away, causing seasonal temperature variation.
A satellite image of a section of the Great Wall of China , running diagonally from lower left to upper right (not to be confused with the much more prominent river running from upper left to lower right).
The color of a red cape does not enrage a bull.
The dodo was intelligent and inedible despite popular belief
A female Chinese mantis simultaneously copulating with and cannibalizing her mate; this does not occur every time mantises mate.
Aerodynamic theory does not predict that bumblebees should be incapable of flight .
Sunflowers with the Sun behind them
An ichthyosaur and plesiosaur by Édouard Riou , 1863. This old representation of a plesiosaur lifting its head is not accurate.
Dimetrodon , the iconic sail-backed synapsid , was not a dinosaur, nor did it live at the same time as the dinosaurs.
Aegyptopithecus , a prehistoric monkey predating the split between apes and other Old World monkeys and the division of Old and New World monkeys , making it more closely related to humans than to New World monkeys.
Total population living in extreme poverty, by world region 1987 to 2015
Global surface temperature reconstruction over the last 2000 years using proxy data from tree rings, corals, and ice cores in blue. Directly observed data is in red.
Ozone depletion is not a cause of global warming .
Cooling towers from a nuclear power plant. The white clouds are harmless water vapor from the cooling process.
Death rates from air pollution and accidents related to energy production, measured in deaths per terawatt hours (TWh) (left). Carbon emissions measured in tons per gigawatt hour (GWh) (right).
The Cape of Good Hope and Cape Agulhas , the southernmost point of Africa
Leaving electric fans on while asleep is not dangerous .
The bumps on a toad are not warts and cannot cause warts on humans.
A 230-volt incandescent light bulb.
Marble bust of a man with a long, pointed beard, wearing a taenia, a kind of ancient Greek head covering in this case resembling a turban. The face is somewhat gaunt and has prominent, but thin, eyebrows, which seem halfway fixed into a scowl. The ends of his mustache are long a trail halfway down the length of his beard to about where the bottom of his chin would be if we could see it. None of the hair on his head is visible, since it is completely covered by the taenia.
Classical historians dispute whether Pythagoras made any mathematical discoveries.
The incorrect equal-transit-time explanation of aerofoil lift
Some neurons can reform in the human brain.
An incorrect map of the tongue showing taste zones. In fact, all zones can sense all tastes.
One version of the Bermuda Triangle area