Facts learned in school that later turn out to be untrue

Yes you are right. I have learned that there are nine planet, but now it has changed and today found out that Pluto is not planet and found a new planet I don't know its name..Science is goes on changing and what is true turn out to be untrue as you said and also agree with that they must say at this time it is true and there may be occur changes as technology develops.

i remember we were taught that men came from apes. and even school later on, taught our children that it's untrue. this always come to my mind whenever this question is being asked.

This also applies to the study of history. You would be amazed at how history changes. So much is recorded as true fact, when in fact, it is not. Many years after an historical event, researchers discover that certain situations did not occur as recorded. An example would be the Russion Revolution. Many countries record in history what they want the childern to learn, not what is the truth.

I think thats what might be called a generalised fact. To be exact, the world is an oblate sphere. (Flattened at the poles) I suppose that teachers under university level have to simplify and generalise somewhat in order to get something of the subject into as many heads as possible.

I have never encountered a book that states scientific facts without basis. Facts that become "untrue" are merely theories that get disproved by scientific studies based on new experiments. With the aid of technology, the universe is easier to study and tinker on. I wouldn't say things that we "learned" in the past are useless. These "facts" became basis for new theories and studies. That is why science always moves man to never stop exploring and re-exploring. the "sun is the center of our solar system" will cease to be true when our sun finally bursts into a supernova... and where will we be? The more we learn about things, the more we realize there are more things yet to be learned and uncovered. We just need to always keep an eye out for the world that changes every second.

During my secondary school days in Nigeria during the mid 1980 's I was taught by my geography teacher that we have 9 planets in the solar system. However, with the recent finding by scientist, that has been proven to be wrong. we now have more than 9 planets in the solar system. Infact, a lot of claims that was made by writers in the textbooks that we use so many years back had been counter-claim with new facts and findings. I think it is good for knowledge and we will all continue to learn and learn till we unravel the truth.

I remember one of my biology textbooks in the early '70's mentioning that only some people could roll their tongues,that it was a genetic oddity and that it wasn't known if it had any significance..more recently,I've since read that it has been found you can learn to roll your tongue if you didn't have the ability already,so the ability has been refuted as some kind of genetic marker!

Hi savypat, I've often thought about the same thing. I went to school in the 1940's and 1950's and some of the things they taught than, we know to be false today. I would agree with your suggestion. Blessings.

High school California history, my teacher was talking about the Chumash Indians and how they were grub eaters, didn't do much, no culture, etc. Sunday I went to the California Indian Museum, and you should have seen some of the beautiful baskets and thing those people made....

Some of the problem is that they keep insisting on saying that such and such an event or thing occured on such and such a date and only some times do they say "We think" or "In Theory". They pass things off as being fact when in reality its just a guess. I heard them doing this yesterday on some show talking about Dinosaurs and I'm like and "And you know all this how?"

I had the blessing of having a scientific father that taught me that everything we learned was not a universal truth. I feel that not even math is "true" as it´s just a manmade way of trying to explain the complex universe. So that when Teacher said something, I checked it and accepted only foe the time being. I taught that to my children, grandchildren and students as I think that knowledge is more important than the other one.

One of the things I learned from school that I found out to be untrue when I arrived in real world is, money is the root of all evil. Although it is somewhat true, but they failed to explain it further. Money is only good or bad depending on the person holding it.

I learned that Pluto was a planet and not its not . You're right, with a world ever changing, we cant make sure that what we know to be true not, will still be true in 5 years. You're right, they should teach kids now and tell them that this is true for NOW but might not be in the future. But I have a feeling that kids dont listen so much in class anymore , so they might not remember as much since they can always check it out on the net via their cells!

Well in theory it's round. After all it's not flat. And I would automatically assume that it would change shape because of whats it's made out of. I think that is plain logic. I don't think that it's science that had the facts wrong, it's the people who thought. I think science has evolved 10 fold since I was a kid.