Credit: The most misunderstood subject.

I was thinking about this the other day. Is there any other subject matter out there that is more misunderstood than credit?

By "misunderstood" I generally mean that people think they understand the subject well (or reasonably well) but in reality their overall knowledge is in fact subpar. Most of what they've learned and believe to be true in fact isn't. This is precisely what motivated the creation of the two mega threads pinned at the top of this sub.

Since credit isn't taught in school and there are no real classes to take on it, most of what people learn is just from listening to others. Unfortunately, much of that information isn't correct.

So what do you all think? Is there a more misunderstood subject? I was just rattling off subjects in my head recently... refrigeration, baseball, internal combustion engines, home theater, diabetes, whatever. I think with almost any subject people have access to accurate information. As people learn about it, they are more or less aware of where they stand knowledge wise relative to others. They may consider themself an intermediate on a given subject matter, well aware that there are plenty of others out there with superior knowledge. I don't believe that to be the case with credit. People think they know far more about credit than they actually do (most of the time) in my opinion.

What are your thoughts?