Truth or Tales?

Have you ever shared information and then found out you were wrong? How embarrassing!

Sometimes people come up with wrong ideas. And sometimes those ideas spread. Before we had computers, curious people had to go to a library or find an encyclopedia to research facts. Today, we often use the internet to research. Unfortunately, since anyone can add information to the web, the internet is filled with opinions and theories instead of evidence and proof. We must evaluate what we read, listen to, and watch and make sure the information is true.

Whether you hear a false idea like molecules-to-man evolution or read a fun fact online, it’s always a good idea to fact-check information to avoid spreading anything that isn’t true.

Did you know there are many animal “facts” that just aren’t true? Here are a few animal myths to get your fact-checking started!

Do Mice Love Cheese?

Mice have a reputation for loving cheese, but cheese is actually not their favorite food. In fact, if you’re trying to catch a mouse, experts recommend putting peanut butter in mousetraps rather than cheese. Mice are rodents, so they will eat almost anything, including trash and insects. But they prefer grains, seeds, nuts, or sweet foods. When placed side-by-side with cheese, they will often choose the crunchy or sweet snack over the cheese.

Do Toads Give You Warts?

Have you ever been told not to hold toads because they’ll give you warts? That’s just a myth. Hundreds of years ago, people thought a toad’s bumpy skin was covered in warts. They worried that the warts were contagious. But those bumps aren’t warts at all! They are glands on the toad’s back that secrete substances like mucus to moisten and protect their skin. Many toads secrete poison to make them taste bad to predators.

Do Ostriches Bury Their Heads?

Frightened ostriches will bury their heads in the sand—or so the legend goes. That myth might have started because ostriches lie flat in tall savannah grass, leaving only the humps of their bodies visible.

Ostriches don’t need to hide by burying their heads. At 350 pounds, they have the ability to run up to 43 miles per hour. Their powerful legs can send a lion flying with one powerful kick!

Do Wolf Packs Always Have an Alpha?

This myth came from studying wolves in human care, where several unrelated wolves were placed together in one habitat. One of the wolves tends to take charge to help everyone get along.

In the wild, however, most wolf packs are made of a father, mother, and their pups. The group may also include some adult offspring and other relatives that have not yet headed out on their own. Much like human families, the father and mother are in charge because they are the parents of the rest of the pack. Some aunts and uncles may also join, making several leading wolf pairs.

Do Elephants Have Graveyards?

Explorers love a good story, and tales about elephant graveyards were once popular tales.

People would often find the remains of dead elephants close together in a small area. This finding led to the idea that the creatures would go to special plots of land to die so their family could visit the graveyard and see their dead loved one.

It’s now known that elephants don’t purposely go to a special place to die. Studies showed that “graveyards” often resulted from a family of elephants drinking from water holes that were too salty or poisoned by natural causes. When other elephants accidentally passed by the location, they would explore the bones out of curiosity. The Creator made elephants very intelligent. They do grieve or seem sad or lonely when a fellow elephant dies, but they do not have graveyards.

If You Touch a Baby Bird, Will the Mother Abandon Her Chick?

It’s a myth that a mother bird will abandon her nest if she smells a human. Some birds have a poor sense of smell, so they probably won’t even know that you’ve been around their nests. Rather than scent, mother birds use visual (sight) and aural (sound) clues to identify their nests and chicks and to spot danger.

Do Animals Change Into Other Kinds?

Like these animal myths, molecules-to-man evolutionary ideas are built on partial truth or what people think might be true.

Evolutionists teach that a single-celled organism evolved into humans over billions of years. But Genesis 1 tells us God created animals and people on days five and six during creation week.

It’s true that changes within kinds can happen. For example, when God created the dog kind, he didn’t create Dalmatians and Chihuahuas. Those dogs descended from the original dog kind created on day six of creation week.

The changes we see in animals are only within the same created kinds. In other words, a catfish may adapt to slither across the grass to reach another pond, but it will never become a land-dwelling lizard—it will always be a catfish.

Doing something different or looking like another species isn’t proof of molecules-to-man evolution. After all, some creatures just behave in similar ways because they have the same Designer.

It’s important to remember that science consists mostly of theories and hypotheses (hi-PAH-thuh-sees) rather than facts. A scientific hypothesis is an educated guess. A scientific theory is a collection of hypotheses and observations that have been tested and repeated enough to give a good explanation of how things work. The idea of molecules-to-man evolution has never been tested or repeated. More importantly, it goes against the truth of God’s Word.

Be a Truth Teller!

So how can we know what’s true and what’s myth? We go back to God’s Word and God’s world. The Bible sets us straight about things like creation, our sin, and the salvation that we can receive through Jesus. We are imperfect sinners, but God is perfect, and everything he says is truth.

If we become truth seekers, we can be truth speakers. When we start with God's Word, we can look at God's world with the right perspective. Don’t stop asking questions and checking ideas against God’s Word!