31 Science Memes That Prove We Know Less Than We Think

John Summers • Contributor

Feb 10, 2025 10:00 PM EST

We all like to believe that if we were sent back in time, we'd be the smartest person on Earth—changing the course of history with our vast modern knowledge while all the primitive locals worship the ground we walk on because we brought them so much prosperity, But let's be real for a second… we know nothing.

Think about it—if you got thrown 500 years into the past, back when people were still riding horses and lighting their homes with candles, what could you actually contribute? Do you know how to produce electricity from scratch? Could you build a car or refine crude oil into gasoline? How about explaining the inner workings of a lightbulb without Google? And let's not even get started on computers, which somehow function because we taught sand how to think. Come to think of it, you don't even know how to make a candle or train a horse, which the locals do.

In reality, the only valuable knowledge most of us could offer would be "Wash your hands and boil your water." That's it. That's all we've got.

So, in honor of how much we don't know, here are 31 science memes that will make you appreciate the geniuses who actually figured this stuff out for us.