Fighting Assumptions Podcast

We’ve all used the excuse. You walk into the kitchen, stare blankly at the open refrigerator, and realise you have absolutely no idea what you came for. “Ugh, I have the memory of a goldfish,” you mutter to yourself. It’s a universally understood piece of cultural shorthand. We are told, and thus we assume, that the humble goldfish ( Carassius auratus ) lives in a perpetual loop of instant reset:...

Imagine you flick a switch and, in a fraction of a second, a lamp across the room hums to life. We’ve all been taught the same “common sense” explanation: the battery or wall outlet pushes electrons through the copper wire like water through a garden hose, and those electrons carry the energy to the bulb. It is a beautiful, logical, and intuitive model. It’s also almost entirely wrong. Read more…...

Today, we are tackling a phrase you’ve probably used to comfort a friend: “Lightning never strikes twice in the same place.” We use it to reassure people. Survived a freak round of corporate layoffs? Don’t worry, lightning never strikes twice. Dealt with a bizarre plumbing disaster? Relax, lightning never strikes twice. It is a linguistic pat on the back, implying that the universe operates on a s...

We have been conditioned to believe that the “ballot box” is the ultimate symbol of freedom. We are taught that the right to vote is the finish line of democratic progress. But if you could transport an ancient Athenian, the very people who invented demokratia, to a modern polling station, they wouldn’t congratulate us on our “freedom.” To the Greeks, the root of democracy wasn’t the vote. It was...

We’ve all seen the cartoon: a sleek, bug-eyed chameleon strolls across a checkerboard and poof it’s covered in black and white squares. It’s the ultimate metaphor for adaptability. We use the word “chameleon” to describe politicians who shift their views to fit the room or socialites who blend into any crowd. There is just one problem: The premise is almost entirely false. Read more… Get full acce...

You’ve seen the chart: a friendly graph showing a “Fat Burning Zone” at a low, conversational heart rate, and a “Cardio/Performance Zone” at higher intensities. The assumption we’ve been fed is simple: if you want to lose fat, stay in the slow lane. If you want to get fit, speed up. Let’s fight some assumptions… Get full access to Fighting Assumptions at fightingassumptions.substack.com/subscribe

It’s the undisputed champion of circular reasoning, the ultimate rhetorical question used to describe a situation where it’s impossible to tell what caused what: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Science actually has a definitive, undisputed answer to this question. The assumption that this is an unresolvable paradox is false. From a biological and evolutionary standpoint, the egg came fir...

We picture bats as creatures of the pitch-black night, relying entirely on biological sonar to frantically navigate the skies while their useless, unseeing eyes go along for the ride. But there’s a massive problem with this assumption: Every single bat species in the world has eyes, and none of them are blind. Read more… Get full access to Fighting Assumptions at fightingassumptions.substack.com/s...

We all know the story of the giant wooden horse. But the archaeological and historical realities of the Trojan War point to a very different kind of destruction. Read more… Get full access to Fighting Assumptions at fightingassumptions.substack.com/subscribe

“The Great Wall of China is the only human-made object visible from space”. It is etched into our collective consciousness. It appears in travel brochures, old textbooks, and pop culture. It is a testament to human engineering and the sheer scale of ancient empires. There is just one tiny problem: It is completely not true. Read more… Get full access to Fighting Assumptions at fightingassumptions....

We’ve all heard the story. It’s 1492. Christopher Columbus stands before a panel of grim-faced Spanish inquisitors and skeptical “experts.” They point at his maps and scoff, warning him that if he sails too far west, his ships will tumble off the edge of the world into a void of sea monsters. Columbus, the brave visionary of the Enlightenment, insists the world is round. It’s a great story. It’s a...

We’ve all been sold a story. It’s a story reinforced by every museum diorama, every plastic toy in a sandbox, and every Jurassic Park sequel. The story goes like this: 66 million years ago, a massive asteroid the size of a city slammed into the Earth. A tragic, abrupt end to the Age of Reptiles, making way for the Age of Mammals. It’s a great story. It’s dramatic. It’s tidy. It’s also fundamentall...

We think of Vincent van Gogh as a ‘unappreciated genius’ who only got recognition after his death. During his life he only sold a few paintings. The truth? He spent years dominating art sales. Read more…. Get full access to Fighting Assumptions at fightingassumptions.substack.com/subscribe

We all know the story of Blockbuster laughing Netflix out of the room. It’s business folklore. It’s also an incomplete narrative that hides a much darker, more complex tragedy about corporate sabotage and the high cost of short-term thinking. Read more… Get full access to Fighting Assumptions at fightingassumptions.substack.com/subscribe

We use “lemming” as a metaphor for mindless conformity, based on the belief that these rodents commit mass suicide off cliffs. The only problem? The entire phenomenon was staged by cinematographers in the 1950s. Read the full story… Get full access to Fighting Assumptions at fightingassumptions.substack.com/subscribe