I've tried to understand this belief. So if you stand outside and it's windy, that's perfectly fine. But if you're inside, and you open two windows, that's deadly, even if there's no draft to be felt. I think some people think it's even more deadly if you can't feel it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/1csstle/draft_myth...
Cold, drier air in contact with your mucus membranes lowers your defenses against viruses. It's that basic. In just regular cold air -- not hypothermia.
I'd love for this random thought to be confirmed / corrected.
Now the flu is virus, but it could still have a mind to perceive the seasons in it's infected running state.
Thinking back, there was a lot of other bullshit I was told as a child that adults believed, but that seemed wrong to me:
- Tongue map, the idea that certain tastes can only be felt on certain regions of the tongue, even got taught that one in school in 5th grade. I never experienced that sensation, it always felt like every region of my tongue can sense any taste. The teacher went as far having us apply different tasting substances to different regions to "experience and confirm" the lesson. I still could not feel it, which makes it really scary to think how indoctrination can override what one's own sense tell you. Either everyone else was just going along with the BS, or they successfully had gaslighted themselves into believing the lesson.
- The idea that people on Columbus's time thought the earth was flat. How could he ever have gotten enough funding and personnel for what would have been seen as a suicide mission?
- The Great Wall of China being visible from space. Sure, it's really long, but it's quite narrow. So why would this structure specifically be the only man-made structure visible from space? I guess it depends on one's definition of "space", but then it is not the only mman-made structure visible from "space", and as such nothing special in that regard.
There is probably more stuff that I can't think of right now.
I strongly suspect the rumor was started by parents wanting kids to leave them alone for a nap, but it’s extremely extended. Somehow showers don’t count.
It’s mainly caused by extreme sudden temperature change, not much to do with the stomach.
Funnily enough, even medical pages in Spain will talk at length about the medical phenomenon without mentioning that little detail.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_goose
Maybe it's hard for us to realize how filled with superstition the world used to be; and how so little was understood and in such minuscule proportions compared to today, such that most anything could appear plausible under the right circumstances.
But the theory that birds were migrating to somewhere else is likely older. It's even plausible that bird migration was the mainstream theory/assumption, not the hibernation theory.
Indeed, Google Books Ngram Viewer shows that the phrase "migratory birds" was already in use before the 18th century, so before the first known Pfeilstorch in 1822:
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=migratory+bird...
The current German term for a migratory bird, "Zugvogel", apparently became common around 1750: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Zugvogel%2CZug...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_migration#Historical_view...
What did people in Africa think? I mean, they also saw birds disappearing.
1. I wonder what weird stuff people believe today that is absolutely bonkers..
then a few moments later...
2. Oh hang on, some people still think the earth is flat, nevermind.
> Besides migration, some theories of the time held that they turned into other kinds of birds, mice, or hibernated underwater during the winter, and such theories were even propagated by zoologists of the time.
From our late scientific-era perspective it's really difficult to appreciate how badly intuitive understanding of cause and effect can let us down.
The small number of long-distance travelers and cultural contacts between the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe did result in lots of valuable learning; this particular bit of learning just took a while.
E.g.: https://www.fastcompany.com/3024267/this-interactive-map-sho...
The idea that something can casually travel thousands of kilometers was beyond the realm of fantastical
edit: But it seems people did know since 3000 years, not all were trapped in superstition and ignorance.
This should become some kind of business jargon aphorism: "Focus groups are the arrow storks of user migration" or something like that.
SurvivorBias.png except it's a silhouette of a goose with numerous red arrows drawn over it.
So, where Africans tried and failed, Germans succeeded.
api•5mo ago
fnordian_slip•5mo ago
https://wiki.lspace.org/Klotz
a3w•5mo ago
Symbiote•5mo ago