Studies
As is spelled out in an essay in the articles section of this page, a “factoid” is a presumed fact that is believed not because there is evidence to support it but simply because people have heard it repeated so often. Factoids come to be accepted as unquestionable truths. In a society that is committed to the free exchange of ideas there should be no such thing as an unquestionable truth. While there may be many different kinds of truth, most thinking people believe that the best tool we have at our disposal for the establishment of concrete facts is science. The scientific studies that are made available below bring into question many if not all of the factoids that one hears endlessly repeated, sometimes by “experts”, in the media.