Childish Explanations for Natural Phenomena

[Darth Raptor]

Perusing the geocentricism thread jogged my memory about an idiotic hypothesis I had when I was little. I believed that wind was caused by Earth's rotation. The planet itself would spin on its axis, but the atmosphere remained relatively stationary. Thus, wind was not caused by moving air, but by us moving through air. Some time later, one of my younger cousins espoused the belief that all gravity was centrifugal in nature. If Earth suddenly stopped spinning, we'd all fly into space.

Does anyone else know any good kiddie hypotheses? If not from yourself than from children you've known? The similarities between these and fringe pseudoscience/ creationist superstition goes without saying.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I used to believe that if you had a sufficiantly tall observation platform, you could see over the horizon.....

[Fire Fly]

Perusing the geocentricism thread jogged my memory about an idiotic hypothesis I had when I was little. I believed that wind was caused by Earth's rotation.

May I add that that particular notion is partially correct. While there are numerous other factors to consider, the earth's rotation does have a significant affect on weather patterns, hurricanes/typhoons in particular.

[Walsh]

I have a friend who thought that dogs and cats were the different genders of the same species.

I remember, in primary school, worrying about the world's supply of fresh drinking water, thinking that it would one day run out, but then we learned about the water cycle.

I had some other stupid theories, I'll post them if I remember them.

[Pcm979]

When I was really young, I thought a half or crescent moon meant something/one had chipped a huge chunk off of it.

[Spoonist]

After looking in a dirty magazine I thought that when I grew up my penis would always have an erection... I remember being disappointed when I realised that wasn't the case.

Being really small I was afraid of the 'tornado' in the drain because someone told me they worked the same way.

I also faintly remember wondering why birds where not blown away by the wind.

[Morilore]

I used to think that all cats were female and all dogs were male, which was really odd, because my mom had a male cat since before I was born.

[Talanth]

When I was really young, I thought a half or crescent moon meant something/one had chipped a huge chunk off of it.

I used to think that untill my mum told me that the moon never changed shape, the only thing that changed was the angle we saw it at. Then I thought it was a bowl on its side, with the inside black and the outside white.

[Hillary]

Perusing the geocentricism thread jogged my memory about an idiotic hypothesis I had when I was little. I believed that wind was caused by Earth's rotation.

I used to think that as well.

Not so much an explanation, but along the same lines - I used to wonder where the water went to when the sea was at low tide.

[Glimmervoid]

I remember digging a hole to find some gravity and asking (holding a spade full of soil) if I had found any yet.

[General Zod]

I used to believe that islands were big chunks of rock floating on the ocean, til I was like 4 or 5. Course, I also used to think that the trees moving is what caused the wind to blow.

[Darth Wong]

You can find plenty of childish explanations for natural phenomena by simply talking to fundies.

[Patrick Degan]

You can find plenty of childish explanations for natural phenomena by simply talking to fundies.

I'd think there's a difference between "childish" and "pig-ignorant". A child tries to apprehend the world to the best of his or her knowledge and what makes sense from what that child sees. As a first-grader, for example, I'd seen pictures in books how Earth's tilt toward the sun changed with the seasons and so I said on a stage in front of an audience during a school programme about the seasons, with the typical preccociousness of a six year old, that Australia had spring when we had winter. I recall the principal wasn't quite amused for some reason.

Robert Anton Wilson, in one of his books, wrote a scene where a mother is amused to herself at her young daughter's idea that Mommy will eventually "grow down" again after she's finished "growing up", yet understanding the child's symmetrical logic underlying the idea.

A Fundie, on the other hand, doesn't even try to apply basic reasoning beyond "Goddidit". That's pig-ignorance, which is considerably more pathetic than mere childishness.

[OmegaGuy]

I used to think that halfway through their lifespans, all men would turn into women and all women would turn into men.

[Pick]

I didn't understand how atmospheric variables would affect the visibility of stars. I thought that stars were just off and on sometimes.

I also remember when I was very little, I couldn't understand why I couldn't pull myself up by my own pants. About this time, I also thought that an animal being nocturnal meant it only existed at night (!?).

[Azrael]

At six, I thought everyone but me was a robotic android. I was seriously suspicious of everyone elses humanity and had repeated dreams about my neighboors going under the knife for "upgrades".

[Anguirus]

I watched too much ST:TNG and thought that at any moment I could slip into an alternate universe where no one would know me. I was actually genuinely afraid of this, for awhile.

[Edi]

When my niece's pet rabbit died and they buried it at our summer place, she asked what is going to happen to it. My parents told her that it would become earth and that flowers would grow from it.

Her immediate conclusion was that if flowers grew from rabbits and other small dead animals, then giraffes would become trees after they died and were buried.

Edi

[Pcm979]

Oooh, here's another one. For a long time I assumed that people didn't stop growing, and so the tallest person in a room would also be the oldest.

[Darth Wong]

I watched too much ST:TNG and thought that at any moment I could slip into an alternate universe where no one would know me. I was actually genuinely afraid of this, for awhile.

Who are you?

[Molyneux]

At six, I thought everyone but me was a robotic android. I was seriously suspicious of everyone elses humanity and had repeated dreams about my neighboors going under the knife for "upgrades".

I think I was a bit older, but I had a similar misapprehen[ERROR 405 OUT OF CHEESE ERROR]sion when I was a kid. I was actually jealous, though, thinking of all the cool things that cyborgs could do that I couldn't.

[TrailerParkJawa]

When I was a young child I believed that somewhere there was a car on the highway that was in front of everyone else and all traffic followed him.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I had two big ones; I believed that fog was the result of everyone breathing and their breaths coming together in the cold, and I believed that a shadow cast across a shadow should cancel each-other out and make sun. I couldn't understand why that shadow-thing wasn't true.

[Darth Wong]

When I was a child I reasoned that Santa Claus could not be real because he couldn't fit through our chimney. That is, of course, the least of the problems with the Santa Claus myth, but that was the only problem I could see with it at the time. It's amazing what bullshit you'll believe when you're a child. Or an adult fundie.

[SoX]

A friend of mine used to think salt was there to cool your food down.

And being a bit mean me and my cousin managed to convince his sister that Kidney beans were mice kindeys. She believed this for quite a few years.