Popular Myths

It still amazes me what myths persist in our culture.  The head-banging icon is not because of how stupid people are (although usually I use it for that), it's because I continue to be amazed at how stupid (or misinformed and uninterested in becoming informed) people are.

Here's one of my particular pet peeves:

Humans only use 10% of their brains -

This media darling has been around for at least a century. Fortunately, it's just not true. MRI imaging clearly demonstrates--with fancy colors no less--that humans put most of their cerebral cortex to good use, even while dozing.

http://www.livescience.com/bestimg/index.php?url=myths_10percent_brain_03.jpg&cat=myths 

Another is the life-expectancy myth.  I can't tell you how many times I've heard both the above myth and this one in various "motivational" speeches at conventions.  The idea behind this second one is that the average life expectancy at any given age in history (which age depends on who is telling the story) was anywhere between 30 and 45 years of age, making today's life expectancy double that of our ancestors.  This is not true.  The reason it's not true is because of how an "average" is figured.  We have not made exceptional strides in medical advancement of prolonging the lifespan.  Yes, we have made some strides and we have increased our life expectancy by about a decade or so, but that doesn't "double" the life expectancy of people.  No, where we have made advancement is in infant care and in *quality of life* of the elderly and the ill, and not nearly as much in prolonging life in general.  In previous eras, our child mortality rate was much, much higher.  So when you factor in the numbers of child-deaths to the total number of years each person lived, you bring the average way down.  But chances are, if you made it to adulthood, you were probably gonna make it to 60.

http://lifetwo.com/production/node/20070716-dramatically-longer-average-lifespans-fact-myth-or-something-else