Posted: Feb 05, 2011 2:43 pm
Weaver wrote:Back when I was in high school (25th anniversary this summer!) a student in my Agriculture Technology class asserted, during hunting season, that game wardens could tell whether you'd shot a doe or a buck by counting the number of ribs on a dressed out (therefore missing primary sexual organs) carcass.
Fortunately, the teacher (otherwise somewhat of a Bible thumper) corrected him before I had a chance to shout WTF?
I'm somewhat ashamed to admit this, but I held that belief up until my first college anatomy course. I had been fed this tripe non-stop through 12 years of Catholic school.
So I'm sitting in one of the first lectures in my anatomy class and the professor asks: "What are some distinctive features that can help us determine if a skeleton is male or female?" "KNOWING" the answer to this easy one, my hand shot up. "Yes, go ahead" said the prof. "A female skeleton has an extra rib that would differentiate it from a male skeleton" said I.
Some laughter ensued, after which the prof went on to explain how this was an incorrect, though often asserted 'fact'. I felt like an idiot and also felt betrayed by my previous 'teachers'. The upside was that it solidified my position and energized me to discover that there was much that I had been taught that wasn't so.