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Comment by dvh | Hacker News Reader

The interesting part is that before that people thought birds are changing form in winter or hibernate.

The article doesn't actually say that, it's just phrased badly. A Pfeilstorch just provided pretty conclusive evidence for migration between Africa and Europe.

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...

Apparently only swallows were suspected to hibernate, and even in ancient Greece, people knew about bird migration. The swallow hibernation theory was described as disproved before the 18th century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_migration#Historical_view...

Yes, that's also what caught my attention. I landed on this article by way of reading about barnacles, and that the Barnacle Goose is named as such because it was thought it was born from barnacles.

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.

The false hypotheses of the past become the superstitions of the future. I can see how "birds hatch from barnacles" and "birds travel thousands of kilometers twice a year" mightve once sounded equally plausible, especially given that you can't exactly follow a migrating bird very far.

How many false hypotheses today will seem like equally ridiculous superstitions to people in the future? I'm sure we can all think of a few popular beliefs that already fail under modest scrutiny.

On the contrary, you'd be surprised to learn how filled the world with superstition still is today.

Used to be? People are always superstitious about things they don't understand. See the global economy and LLMs, for example.

Reminds me of the theory that insects like flies spontaneously emerge from decaying matter and dung. I wonder what magical thoughts we're taking for granted today.

“We are building thinking machines”

The draft/promaja. In Eastern Europe people genuinely think that if you leave two windows open you'll get various diseases like cold/flu/headache/ear pain/etc.

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...

Sounds like the same energy as fan death in South Korea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

I don't know about colds and stuff, but I have a knee that's very sensitive and starts hurting from drafts (fans and AC blowing also triggers it, and cold and humidity makes it worse also, so it fluctuates quite a bit through the year). Being outside on a windy day doesn't have this effect.

Being cold weakens your immune system. Draft air increases heat loss. There is nothing complex to understand. Outside you would wear a scarf or other appropriate clothing to not feel cold.

That‘s one of the biggest health myths around. Cold weather does NOT weaken your immune system AT ALL (except if you‘re actually hypothermic, which is very different from just feeling uncomfortable). It’s the CONDITIONS that RESULT from cold weather that actually cause those infections to ramp up in winter (think more people staying inside in enclosed spaces).

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/scientists-finally-fi...

Thank you. The real myth is the idea that it's a myth cold weather doesn't cause colds.

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.

Thank you! It always was astounding to me how people could argue with so much vigor and conviction that something as complicated as the immune system could not possibly be affected by something as basic as temperature changes.

People get colds in the winter time because they are all packed inside (without proper ventilation (ha!)).

Now we have AC in trains and buses, so the windows are closed too. I'd expect a more even flu season.

I'm not a biologist / epidemiologist but maybe the mutation of flu strains are synched up with this annual human behavior such that by the end of the winter most everyone has developed immunity for the current strains. By the next winter the mutations have happened again and the cycle repeats.

I'd love for this random thought to be confirmed / corrected.

for that to be true, the flu would be have to be more than than a unicellular organism in order to know what seasons are. do you have a proposal for how that would work? I'm sure there's a Nobel prize for you ($1 million dollars!) if you have something.

Unicellular organisms can be quite intelligent. Just because it has a single cell doesn't mean it doesn't have a mind!

Now the flu is virus, but it could still have a mind to perceive the seasons in it's infected running state.

Oh yeah, I remember The Draft, killer of Man, slayer of the innocent and bane of humanity since the dawn of time. I have been suffering from migraine attacks since childhood, and every time I complained about headaches it was attributed to draft. I knew that I had not been hit by draft, but that did not matter. It even made me afraid of The Draft for a time until I noticed that draft had no negative effects on me. And it wasn't regular headache either because regular headache medication like Aspirin had no effect on me. It took until early adulthood to finally get diagnosed as having migraines. (for those who wonder how the diagnostic process works, you get a questionnaire and if you answer three out of five questions correctly the doctor is like "congratulations, you have migraine, here are your triptans")

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.

Opening one window makes a house a closed end tube. Opening two makes it open ended and lowers static pressure that airflow must overcome significantly. Walking out tend to increase your metabolism so standing outside and inside are different. It doesn't sound so stupid to me especially considering it's a medieval rule of thumb.

In the Mediterranean, people think if you swim just after eating you’ll get a “digestion shock”, fall unconscious, and drown. You need to wait two hours after lunch.

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.

Hey my German mom told me that as well. Are you saying that's not true? Brb - I have some googling to do

Nope. The shock is a medical possibility if you accidentally fall in Arctic water or something like that, but it’s not something that will come up in a swimming pool scenario unless you’re doing one of those influencer ice baths or something of the sort.

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.

"Digestion shock"? I have heard similar advice but it was always just cramp.

Hard to translate. “Corte de digestion” (literally “digestion cut”) is how it’s called in Spanish.

That was also widely believed in the UK when I was a kid (60s/70s).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

"Aristotle declared that summer Redstarts annually transform themselves into Robins in winter."

https://engines.egr.uh.edu/episode/2228

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