List of common misconceptions about science, technology, and mathematics

Each entry on this list of common misconceptions is worded as a correction; the misconceptions themselves are implied rather than stated.

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

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. [ 170 ]
Total population living in extreme poverty, by world region 1987 to 2015 [ 204 ]
Global surface temperature reconstruction over the last 2000 years using proxy data from tree rings, corals, and ice cores in blue. [ 224 ] Directly observed data is in red. [ 225 ]
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. [ 427 ] [ 428 ]
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