Misinformation

For the last decade or so I’ve had a thought running through my head. “To get as close to the truth as possible, take whatever the general public believes and reverse it.“

If the general public says it’s good, it’s bad. If they say it’s definitely up, it’s definitely down. If they think it’s healthy, it’s probably not.

With this in mind I watched a Ted-Ed video about misinformation. After watching it I thought that if my idea is correct, maybe this is one of the ways it happens.

The video discusses how in 1901, a man named David Hänig published research that led to what we know today as the taste map: an illustration that divides the tongue into four separate areas. It has since been widely taught in schools and published in textbooks and newspapers.

There is just one problem… the map is wrong. It’s not even an accurate representation of what Hänig originally discovered.

I can’t say for sure if it was in school or not but I remember hearing about this taste study as a kid and believed it to be true. Maybe you did too. This video explains why.

There is a natural human tendency to trust something because it was written in the paper, seen on TV or posted online. Or is it more likely that it’s a totally unnatural human tendency that has been installed into us by the system we live in? Either way keep this in mind.

The next time you want to argue with someone who doesn’t agree with you consider that they might have been misled by a lifetime of misinformation.

And you might have been too.