Things everybody knows that are actually wrong

[12th Doctor]

"Everyone thought the world was flat until Columbus discovered America." Unbelievable something Washington Irving pulled out of his ass several hundred years ago is still taken as 100% truth by so many people who should know better.

Amen to that.  I can't stand when people say "The Church thought the world was flat."  Not only is that wrong, but that is way wrong.  People knew the Earth was round 3000 years ago.  The Church painted pictures of Christ holding a globe in his hands.

[12th Doctor]

The Satanist child sacrifice myth is one that won't die.  Along with the Proctor & Gamble canard...

Though, oddly enough, they have recently discovered the bodies of thousands of children who were sacrificed to Baal, which was long believed to be a myth.

[12th Doctor]

everyone seems to think the line is "Luke, I am you father," when the actual line is "No, I am your father."

No...that's not true.  That's impossible!

[12th Doctor]

"Everyone knows that Europeans brought their genocidal ways to the New World.  The Indians were too peaceful to understand the nature of this kind of war."

While what the White Man did to the Indians was not right, the Native Americans reached a level of genocide long before the white settlers arrived that had not been seen in Europe for thousands of years and would not be see again until Hitler.

[12th Doctor]

I don't know if these qualify but:

Jews are the richest ethnic group in the United States
The United States has the highest standard of living in the world.
Native Americans had little or no impact on "European" American culture
Europeans took over the New World because they had a more "high tech" culture
Malthusianism is a discredited theory
Western Culture got more high tech first because of Greek philosophical constructs
Christianity materially slowed down the advance of science
Most folks thought the world was flat when Columbus lifted anchor [I see this one was already noted above]
Slavery was never common north of the Mason Dixon line
As a percentage of the US population taking casualties, the Civil War was the worst in US history
The US population was largely uneducated prior to public schools becoming common
Smaller class size improves the quality of education in general
Unions in general increase worker wages over what they would otherwise be
The Normans were of "French" origin

First off, the supposed effect that the Natives had on American government (a recently popular theory) has been shown to be massively over stated.  The Iroquois League had very little, if any effect on the political thought of the Founders.

Malthus is fully discredited when it comes to human population science.  The only people who still follow his theories are radical population control enthusiasts.

I've never heard anyone, who knew anything, claim that the Normans were of French origin.  Who have you been talking to?

And yes, while other countries do have higher standards of living, the standard of living of the United States per is size and demographic diversity absolutely dwarf any others.  In fact, the fact that the United States is an affluent, populous country is somewhat remarkable.

[12th Doctor]

As a percentage of the US population taking casualties, the Civil War was the worst in US history

What was?

King Philip's War.  At one time, almost the entirety of the European population was barricaded in Boston.

Not really the US at that point...

Yeah, I think they count this stuff starting from Independence (or at least from the point of high colonial status) for a reason.

[12th Doctor]

But Malthus attempted to apply his theories to the world as a whole, and used them to predict a population crash.  He maintained that food supplies would never match population growth rates, among other things.  His contention concerning other resources has also proven incorrect.

As Julian Simon pointed out, Malthus' primary contentions were based on the notion that technology stands still, which admittedly, humanity really had not advanced that much technologically in the last 1500 years when he was writing.

This is like a defense I once read of why Marx is still relevant today, which was printed in the forward of the 150th anniversary edition of the Communist Manifesto.  Marx, it said, had predicted globalism!

Yes, Malthus' theories apply in certain places at certain times.  But he used his theories to predict global problem brought on by population increase (and he was talking 1 billion people, not 10 billion).  This simply has not panned out, because of the previously mentioned basic flaws in his assumptions.

Being correct with part of his theory does not mean he has been redeemed.  In fact, while it is not his fault, people have stretch his theories into the present day to support positions that are ridiculous and horrible.

Malthus' only concern was material resources.  As Simon pointed out, Malthus didn't see people themselves as resources, because he lived in a time when viewing the lower class as a growing, swarming, uneducated, uncouth burden on gentile society was quite fashionable, even though this too was starting to change in his age, and he failed to recognize it.

Simon's notions can be boiled down quite simply... the more people you have around, the more minds you have to think sh**t up and the faster technology has progressed as a result, essentially negating the assumptions of Malthusian population dynamics.  This too has limits, but to say that the presence of more people is going to lead to a crash, for certain, is just plain wrong.

[12th Doctor]

What I am saying is that Malthus was right for the near entirety of human history until 1800 or so, and then wrong because the world finally changed fundamentally, which Malthus did not foresee. Just what those changes were is another topic. You might peruse the book, The Birth of Plenty, to read about this in more detail. That is all I am saying. And in some instances, in some places, he is still right.

Malthus didn't print most of his work on the topic until after 1800.  Even if you start from the dat of his first work, 1798, two years is not a long shelf-life for an idea.

[12th Doctor]

Even if you go by the high end estimate of 90% native fatalities from European diseases, the settlers still needed a massive technological advantage to maintain a foothold.

That Salem witch trials were burned instead of hanged [and there were a fair percentage of men too]

Or that it was an American phenomenon.  The Euros that stayed behind killed many MANY more innocents.   link

Witch trials had largely gone out of fashion in Europe by the time Salem rolled around, as had Inquisitions, and all the other like.  There was one last major flare up in Germany I think about 50 years before Salem, but that that time much of Germany was still a backwater of Europe.

[12th Doctor]

Winston Churchill once said:

"The only statistics I trust are the ones I doctored myself."

Churchill never said this, often repeated, quotation... even in jest.

The original quote is actually:

Ich glaube nur der Statistik, die ich selbst gefälscht habe.

And as you can guess from that, it was utter Nazi propaganda, that was actually picked up upon by the Labour Party and Left-wing intellectuals and used by them against Churchill in later years.

[12th Doctor]

Non-Russian languages were banned in the Soviet Union.

Ummm... who believes that?

[12th Doctor]

We need a special thread for "what I think everyone thinks that is wrong, but hardly anyone actually think that" thread.

[12th Doctor]

Death pannels are real

(seriously, how can anyone believe that?)

Well, it actually is true, just not the over-dramatized version that sells copy.  The funny thing is that Liberals charged the existence of "Death Panels" in insurance companies long ago.

[12th Doctor]

Anyway back on track:

The Spanish Inquisition.

I hate to say it since it's sort of a backhanded defense of Catholicism, but the Spanish Inquisition wasn't anywhere near as remotely bad as the classic portrayals of it. Rather than the exquisite tortures one thinks of, the vast majority of those submitted to it were merely questioned and then forced to make some sort of public confession and apology for their "heresy", and maybe pay a fine. Very few people were executed and the infamous tortures weren't all that commonly used either.

Not only that, but Rome was usually more instrumental in stopping inquisitions than it was in starting them.  Indeed, it ordered an end to the Spanish Inquisition.

Inquisitions instigated by Rome were rarely violent.  Only a small percentage of them resulted in any bloodshed at all.

[12th Doctor]

The majority of Italians speak Italian and Spoke Italian during this period. Actually only at the very most 10% did. Perhaps as low as 2.5%

I have many conditions and corrections to place on your long list, but I will pick on this one, in particular...

It depends on how you define "Italian".  All people in Italy spoke one dialect or another of the language.  But what we now think of as "Standard Italian" was derived from from Tuscan... and by "derived" I mean that it was Tuscan, though modern Tuscan has gone its separate way from the standard, as all dialects lucky enough to be picked as a standard ultimately do.  It was used as a standard in the upper-classes simply because most Italian intellectual work was written in this form going back to the 1400's.

While this could be said of any language, even today most Italians do not speak the "Standard" in unofficial contexts.  In fact, a four year old child from Venice and a four year old from Sicily would have serious trouble speaking to one another, because most children are not taught the standard until they go to school.

[12th Doctor]

Eh... what the Hell.

Thinking of Jmfsct here...

All original Christian thinkers (including it seems, Paul) denied the existence of demons and of the Roman gods. Actually no, they believed they existed but that they were inferior to the Christian God.

Paul mentions demons in his letters, so I am not sure who thinks of Paul in particular.

The thought on this has been cyclical.  Clearly, the very early Jewish writers were polytheistic, not in that they believed in many gods, but they believed that their god was the god who had power over all others.  By the later writings, this thought has changed to something more clearly monotheistic, but the idea of demons has become a bit more prevalent (duelist).  There seems to have been a reemergence of the "greater than all those gods" mentality in very early Christian writings. 

However, by the 6th century, it is very clear that the Church has become strictly monotheistic, and believed that witchcraft, and pagan religions were pure non-sense.  I am reminded of a quote (and I honestly can't remember who said it) "If you walk into a village of pagans, worshiping a tree, then do not cut it down, but rather consecrate it to Christ, and direct them to worship Christ there, as they would normally assemble.  The idea being that they feared nothing pagan anymore, because it was bogus, and so had nothing to fear by taking over pagan festivals, practices, etc so long as they were done in the name of Christ.

The European interest in the evils of witchcraft reemerged as a popular front, not from Rome, during the Black Death, and Rome (or actually Avignon, at this point) fought against it bitterly, at first.

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Again, there were currents, and cycles of how prevalent this think was, from Egypt, to Greece, to Rome.  Most Greek philosophers were strict monotheists.  In fact, it is often presupposed, through linguistic evidence, that the original Proto Indo Europeans were monotheists. As "Zeus" (which was not originally pronounced with a "z" sound, but rather a sound that I can't even render in English script, but sounds like a combo of a d-j-z)... and thus "Jupiter," and "Deus" all trace back through IE languages to a common word which simply means "God".

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Depends.  This too was cyclical, the most .  Also, the Vomitorium was real, it was just a linguistic misunderstanding, and "Vomit" is Classical Latin means simple to "exit".

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Our entire understanding of human sexual norms is quite different from that of people prior to the emergence of Protestantism, and has gone through more morphing since then.

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Not sure what you mean here.

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Linguistically, they are.  In terms of genes, there are definitely genes from the Celtic peoples within Irish populations, however, the majority of the genetic contribution comes from people who have been there since neolithic times.  In fact, the same could be said of all the remaining Celtic speaking peoples.  The reason they are still speaking Celtic Languages being very similar to the reason they remained genetically isolated.

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Depends on what you mean here.  The concept of a nation, though not so articulated, extends back quite a ways.  Though how people define it in general, and in relation to certain peoples in particular has changed.

We know that nations existed before Roman times, and that they were, for the most part, only put on hold in the West as a result of the commonality brought about by the expansion of Rome, and the proliferation of its cultural contributions through the 14th century.

[12th Doctor]

This is not a "thing everyone knows" but rather an addendum to my last point:

Contrary to what everyone today thinks, it was the Protestants who had this strange obsession with codifying, regulating, and normalizing sexual behaviors.

[12th Doctor]

As for the lack of belief in miracles in Late Antiquity, that's simply lol (and point of why one should not try and find out about Christianity in any period by studying the ideas of certain popes). It was not by subtle Theological arguments that the populace of Europe were over to their priest - if they were.

I am somewhat confused as to what extent, if any, I made that argument.  I never said anything about miracles.

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Witch trails did spring up again during the Black Death, as I said, through a popular front, mostly along the Rhine.  Many people were persecuted for being either Jews or witches and blamed for the plague.  This is historically verifiable.  Witchcraft, and mass Jewish persecutions had been largely unheard of in Europe (with one very notable exception in England) for several centuries before that, and didn't become an issue again until after, as I said.

Makes sense, as the persecutions were typically the result of mass hysteria of some form or another.

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I'm pretty sure you know what I meant.

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That would be correct.  Hell, the English are more Celtic than the Irish, from a purely genetic standpoint.

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Ummm... yes.  A large part of the reason we don't know of many of these nations that existed before Roman times is because the Romans committed mass genocide against my of them... the Dacians come to mind here as just one of many examples.

It seems clear that every single group that the Romans conquered, from the Celts in France, to the the Britons, to the Israelites had some sense of a national community, and we know this, no less, because these traits are often ascribed to them by Roman historians like Tacitus.  The Speech of Calgacus smacks of nationalist sentiment, and while it was almost certainly manufactured by Tacitus, it very clearly demonstrates that these ideas were out there.

Maybe we should throw another one out here:

The nation is something that is an invention of people who only seek to use the idea to brainwash people into feeling a false sense of community, to whip the up into hatred against those not in that community. 

Utter rubbish, as you would say.  All sociological data shows that it is a natural phenomenon that extends from the bottom-up.  It is a natural instinct of people to find and define such identities.  In fact, it is usually the intelligentsia, the wealthy, etc. who will have the weakest sense of national feeling, as they are the ones with the weakest ties to the community.

You guys need to find a new line, psychology and history are proving you wrong.

The nation is a purely organic phenomenon that extends from the people, because it is the people.  Definitions change, from time-to-time and place-to-place, but they are just different states of matter, it doesn't change the existence of the concept.

If nationalism didn't arise until the industrial era, as Marxist, and other theorists contend, then you guys have alot of explaining to do about all the clearly nationalist stuff that existed for hundreds of years before that point.

[12th Doctor]

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Scholars aren't sure; according to Wikipedia, it was either [zd] (like in the middle of "Mazda") or [dz] (like at the end of "beds") or [z] (like... "z"...) or perhaps all three pronunciations coexisted.

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This is a rather silly argument, however.

From my understanding, all these words trace back to a word for one male deity, signifying the existence of this concept to the PIE speakers.  On the other hand, none of the words for the other gods in any of the other languages trace back to a similar origin, even between the Greeks and the Romans.  As a linguist, you know that it would be highly unusual for common words to not have been retained when a common concept was shared by speakers.  Thus, this concept of this one male god must predate all the other gods.  It is not conclusive, by any means, by it provides some challenge to the basic assumptions.

Also, the way I typically have heard it pronounced in something kinda like "j-dz-uice".

[12th Doctor]

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Yes I know what you meant... but it happens to be wrong.

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Okay yes, but the persecution of Jews and the persecution of Witches should most certainly be seen as two different things.

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So then how are we Celtic then?

Don't be an ass.  400 years ago, the Irish spoke a Celtic language, and it is still their native language, even if it has been subsided by English.  It was used for 10 times as long as they have used English, and 20 times as long as English was an excepted norm.

The Irish have strong cultural ties to the Celtics, even if the ties of the Irish were the weakest of the Celtic continuum.  Granted much of that has been "revived" but it was there to begin with, and since it is basically all the Celtic world has left, I wouldn't turn up my nose at it.

The other groups that are more genetically linked to the Celtic peoples are now all more strongly influenced by the Romans and the Germans.  That includes Scotland, and Wales... especially Wales since Welsh culture was absolutely gutted.

As for the point about witches and Jews... they really aren't that different.  They certainly aren't in the eyes of Medieval peoples, but what I really mean is that trials and persecutions against witches and Jews generally have common cause during the early part of the second millennium (Hell, even afterwords), which is that some event that shakes society to its core causes some sort of mass hysteria in the population.

If it is not witches, or Jews who are to blame, well then its both, and it usually was both who were blamed.

I'll answer the rest of your points later.

[12th Doctor]

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My Parents only spoke English - one of my Parents was from Roscommon - the deep west of Ireland. My other parent was a protestant whose family originally came from Northern Ireland and eventually Scotland. I have never considered English as anything other than my native tongue. Why should a language, which died out where I live in the early 18th Century, be considered my native tongue?

And what connects to me to that tiny minority of Irish speakers other than the fact that we reside and were born on the same island which happens to be the same political entity? I have more in common with those in London or New York or even Bleedin' Belfast than I do with them (being honest - I have nothing wrong with Irish speakers for the record).

I'll just move on to another point... especially since the next point is more to the point...

You can call nationalism an artificial consciousness if you like.  If you think about it, all consciousness is artificial to some extent.  The point is that there seems to be something fundamental in the human consciousness that leads to what could be termed "nationalistic feelings."  People seek out identities, and that is one of the ways they seek them out.  Common history, common experiences, etc lend themselves to this phenomenon regardless of what people try to say about it.

In social sciences, perception is reality.  Our goal is to describe the human condition, and if alot of people seem to think this, then that lends its own air of reality to it, regardless of the protests that others might come up with.

In terms of the Roman historians, first, they are not the only source on this, but even if they were, the Romans were not kind to their enemies, and I think the fact that their historians felt the need to ascribe these particular motives to the people they largely whipped out is significant.

[12th Doctor]

Nationalist identities can exist absolutely independent of, and outside of established states, also, which is something that shouldn't really happen if more Marxist theories on nationalism are actually true, BTW.

[12th Doctor]

Understand that one can hold Marxist theories on nationalism without actually being a full-fledged Marxist.  But, in the view of such ideas, the elites always want to make good with the established order.  If nationalism is a false consciousness stirred up by elites, then how does the stateless nation not only emerge, but continue on in the face of suppression, or often times, in the absence of leadership?

[12th Doctor]

Well, this might not apply to those who live in the more temperate parts of the country, but:

The massive amounts of visible yellow pollen that accumulates on cars, buildings, etc. each spring does not cause allergies.  This is pine and spruce pollen and the particles are much too large to cause any problems for most people.

The trees that cause the most suffering are oaks... whose pollen is almost invisible.  It'll keep you sneezing.

Gully and I are engaging in a debate about the nature of man's relationship with the nation, and you chime in with that?

...and I think to myself
what a wonderful world.

I mean that with all friendliness.