why did people ever think that the tongue having different “taste areas” made sense?

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It’s something I vividly remember being taught in primary school – the tongue has areas which can only taste sweet, savoury, etc. and they showed us a diagram of where each area was on the tongue. It was the most easily disprovable idea and we all knew it made no sense…and lo and behold it turned out to be total nonsense. How did this idea ever make its way into curriculums and textbooks and did it ever have the backing of the science community? (Also, feel free to share the dumbest thing you were ever taught in school for comparison!)

In: Biology

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I remember doing this test in elementary school. The teacher introduced the idea of different taste zones, then gave us different food to test out the idea. When asked who was able to taste the difference, the majority of class raised their hand. I was one of the few who said there was no difference. Made me feel like an outsider.

Placebo is strong.

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