I’m thinking of things like heliocentrism where there was some modern discovery or revelation by science that invalidated a common assumption prior.

My understanding is that flat earth is more a recent phenomena but I’d love to hear some ancient ideas people now miss. Did people think trees weren’t alive? Did people think evaporation was where things simply disappeared?

I’d would love to hear these ideas.

  • Lemmylefty@vlemmy.net
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    1 year ago

    “‘There was some wonderful stuff about [railway trains] too in the U.S., that women’s bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour. Our uteruses would fly out of our bodies as they were accelerated to that speed.’” From: https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-TEB-2814

    There were (and are) a ton of utterly ridiculous beliefs about what can cause harm to women, but I find this one particularly amusing in an age where millions of women fly on planes. Imagine the plane takes off, leaving all those wayward uteri spinning in the dust at the gate…

    • DreamerOfImprobableDreams@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Like… they did realize any acceleration strong enough to cause your uterus to go flying out would also be strong enough to make all your other internal organs fly out too? And that men, in fact, have internal organs?

    • Lala@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      In my mental image, the spinning uteri danced before feinting dramatically. Unexpected.

      • Lemmylefty@vlemmy.net
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        1 year ago

        “The Uterine Dance” was after the Spanish chocolate but before the Bon-Bons, right? Been a while since I’ve seen The Nutcracker.

    • fiat_lux@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Some beliefs along these lines have been used more recently in extremely religious places like Saudi Arabia.

      "If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards,” …

      “That is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees,”

      From 2013, a cleric’s arguments to deny Saudi women the right to drive

      Thankfully the ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia was lifted in June 2018, but it took a lot to get there.