My List of Science Facts all People Should Know

Inspired by the Science Cheerleader, here's a non-exhaustive list of science facts all people should know, loosely grouped in categories. I chose these because I've spoken to people who had seriously misguided understandings of one or more of them. Though I provide citation, these facts are those I've learned in school or college, or just by reading.

1. Science works by comparing theory to observation; anything that makes a physically observable change can be described by science.
2. There is no center of the universe.
3. The moon's phases come from our viewing angle of the 1/2 of the moon which is illuminated by the Sun, not the Earth's shadow on its surface (that's a lunar eclipse).
4. 99% of the solar system's mass  is in the Sun.
5. The Sun/Earth/Planets are about 4.5 billion years old, and the universe is about 13.75 billion years old.
6. Light from the Sun takes about 8 minutes to get to the Earth.
7. The Earth is 93,000,000 miles from the Sun.
8. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, and matter cannot be accelerated faster than that (or probably a significant portion of that speed).
9. Disease is caused by germs, not by magic, energy imbalance, or sin.
10. Medicine works by eliminating infection (or removing or controlling the germs), and repairing physical damage to the body.
11. Humans have been around for about 200,000 years, and our family of species have been around for about 2,000,000 years.
12. Humans evolved from lower order creatures, and, genetically speaking, all life on Earth shares a common ancestor.

I consider this stuff basic knowledge, akin to how to tie your shoe or feed yourself. Don't be duped into the student's conundrum: why do I need to know it if I'm not going to use it every day. You need to know it in order to build on it, in order to inform your day to day interactions. I've commented on that in previous posts.

[To come: examples of why each is important.]