Yes, I used to believe in the "choosy female human" paradigm. Serious people had repeated it to me as fact, I had seen it in serious books, and I didn't have any reason to doubt the experts.

Only a few years ago did I start seeing the cracks in the theory, including data about other primates and about human cultures that are not particularly patriarchal.

I was a little bit blown away that common knowledge was so wrong. I guess I should not have been blown away, because common knowledge is often not a particularly good way to figure out how the world works.

I already knew that by my amateur fascination with linguistics. Anyone wants illusions shattered about common human knowledge could look into folk etymology.

So much of what we've been brought up to believe about language and word origins is just wrong. Even though we firmly believe it to be true.

Of course, etymology is not a consequential or fraught subject like sociology or human sexuality, but people still cling emotionally to wrong beliefs.