There are a lot of listed urban legends, and hardly any of them have any evidence whatsoever to support their veracity. What there's a lot more of, is the number of completely stupid beliefs that have existed(and still exist, in some cases). Things like "swimmers are killed when stumbling upon nest of snakes at bottom of lake". Now, this is just dumb. Firstly, snakes do not make nests. Even if snakes did make nests, they wouldn't do it at the bottom of a lake. Snakes need to breathe, after all.
Also, this brings another thing to mind. Can a snake even move twigs and debris to form a nest? Its body is clearly not adapted to building things. I mean, have a look at those limbs. Cough.
Then, there are other things, such as "potted plants suck the air out of terminal patients' rooms". This just reflects on our education system. If this were true, a lot of us would be dead by now after being in buildings that contain indoor gardens.
And then there's an entire list of myths surrounding menstruation. For some reason, the people of olden times believed that women were these embodiments of evil. Menstruating females were not allowed to pretty much do anything, for fear that they would somehow spoil wines, cause dental fillings to fall out, prevent milk from curdling into cheese, and various other things that sound like witchcraft. It's almost as if they got the inspiration from Aura of Corruption kind of magic spells in RPGs.
I suppose, it is our imagination that fuels these absurd stories. Without that same trait, books and games would be so much less interesting. Still, I feel that everyone ought to exercise their own judgment when coming across new information. It is difficult not to feel hypocritical when saying this, for I was probably guilty of believing without seeing many times in the past.
In any case, did you know that while Thomas Edison actually had this idea of using a DC power system, instead of the AC system that we use today? Edison, with all his genius with the lightbulb, not only thought that it would've been practical, but also fought fiercely to have his plans realised. Now, it probably didn't occur to him back then, but his system would have required power generators every two hundred metres or so, for domestic houses to receive enough electricity. So we should really be grateful that Edison wasn't the only electricity guy back then.
-Joe