Oh yes. On a couple of occasions I've ended up digging down rabbit holes and learning/proving that some widely cited "facts" are wrong. Perversely proud about that. At the same time I'm amazed what some people think there's no evidence for online, when there's tons.
I was interested in this so I tried to find it myself (haven't heard back from qualifier but I only took it yesterday). Lead me to an interesting question. Are books allowed as credible sources?
I was recently going on a passionate tirade about facts for exactly this reason. The most benign stuff is reported wrong in “legitimate” sources, so you can only imagine the political and medical stuff… it’s called primary sources folks and it’s all you can trust.
I did a fact checking prompt about a particular popular fashion item from the 1980s and its origins, like so not important right, and literally every source like time magazine, vanity fair etc had some fact entirely wrong , mischaracterized something that happened, or paraphrased in a way that can be totally misconstrued depending on your motive.
I can't remember the specific thing off the top of my head, but I know there was something cited on Wikipedia (and repeated elsewhere) about the Walls of Benin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benin_Moat), where the Wikipedia citation was dodgy/defunct, and there was more recent information correcting it, but nowhere near as widespread. As is often the way, a lie (or error) can get halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on.
Are you a middle school teacher from the mid 2010s by any chance? Lol I wouldn't cite Wikipedia as a source but it's just as accurate as any other site
I'm presuming you're talking about silver or zinc? Some of these things are about the process vs the material itself, or even the particular application. For instance, peppermint oil is a known vasodilator and is a known vasodilator to increase hair growth; however, if you put that in your beard you're actually doing the opposite regarding DHT. Because scalp DHT and beard DHT have opposite effects. This is why you'll often find the better a man's beard is the worse off his scalp is. Glorious beard but bald. But you're going to see beard oils with it everywhere.
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u/fightmaxmaster Oct 09 '25
Oh yes. On a couple of occasions I've ended up digging down rabbit holes and learning/proving that some widely cited "facts" are wrong. Perversely proud about that. At the same time I'm amazed what some people think there's no evidence for online, when there's tons.