It doesn't tie in directly to evolution, but the misconceptions are related.
I received my fair share of nonsense 'facts' growing up, and I had a hell of a time autodidacting myself as an adult - mostly because some of the consequences of our scientific knowledge base are never explicitly said. Here's a brief list of high-probability truths I've had to infer:
-'Observer effect' is a quantum-level mechanism, not a conscious entity.
-Schrodinger's cat would not be a superimposed waveform, the waveform would have collapsed immediately (likely leading to a many worlds split, but in our universe the cat is definitely something). As far as its a thought experiment, its been solved.
-Macro- and Micro-evolution are not actually science; all evolution is micro-evolution, and it's a false distinction invented by creationists.
-c is a fundamental calibrant of the universe; it's not a 'speed' per se, but rather it's an aspect of space/time
-Gravity propagates at c
I'm about 98% certain that those points are correct; they mesh nicely with everything else I know (what I'd call common knowledge, though it probably ain't that common). If any of them are incorrect, then all the other puzzle pieces get thrown into dissaray - and yet once you know these things, you can start predicting where the puzzle pieces will go with good accuracy.
But I've never seen any of them stated explicityly (until I started following LW and OB, anyway). It's my contention that if these things were pounded into kids' heads, then science education would be a lot easier. Instead they're taught that entropy is "like when your room gets messy over time." Barf.
It doesn't tie in directly to evolution, but the misconceptions are related
What I mean is, if there's some special feature of humans that collapses wave functions, do all living things have this feature, or was there an animal that had it whose mother didn't have it?
We're all familiar with false popular memes that spread faster than they can be stomped out: You only use 10% of your brain. Al Gore said he invented the internet. Perhaps it doesn't surprise you that some memes in popular culture can't be killed. But does the same thing happen in science?
Most of you have probably heard of Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia. Every textbook and every college course on language and the brain describes the connection between damage to these areas, and the speech deficits named after them.
Also, both are probably wrong. Both areas were mistakenly associated with their aphasias because they are near or surrounded by other areas which, when damaged, cause the aphasias. Yet our schools continue teaching the traditional, erroneous story; including a lecture in 9.14 at MIT given in 2005. Both the Wikipedia entry on Wernicke's aphasia and the Wikipedia entry on Broca's aphasia are still in error; the Wikipedia entry on Wernicke's area has got it straight.
Is it because this information is considered unimportant? Hardly; it's probably the only functional association you will find in every course and every book on the brain.
Is it because the information is too new to have penetrated the field? No; see the dates on the references below.
In spite of this failure in education, are the experts thoroughly familiar with this information? Possibly not; this 2006 paper on Broca's area by a renowned expert does not mention it. (In its defense, it references many other studies in which damage to Broca's area is associated with language deficits.)
So:
References
Bogen JE, Bogen GM (1976). Wernicke's region—Where is it? Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 280: 834–43.
Dronkers, N. F., Shapiro, J. K., Redfern, B., & Knight, R. T. (1992). The role of Broca’s area in Broca’s aphasia.
Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 14, 52–53.
Dronkers NF., Redfern B B., Knight R T. (2000). The neural architecture of language disorders. in Bizzi, Emilio; Gazzaniga, Michael S.. The New cognitive neurosciences (2nd ed.). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. pp. 949–58.
Dronkers et al. (2004). Lesion analysis of the brain areas involved in language comprehension. Cognition 92: 145-177.
Mohr, J. P. (1976). Broca’s area and Broca’s aphasia. In H. Whitaker, Studies in neurolinguistics, New York: Academic Press.