What are some examples of 'common sense' which are nonsense?
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that putting the thermostat up higher will heat the house up quicker
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that sugary sweets make kids act "hyper"
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that the moon's apparent size is due to how close it is to earth (same for seasons and the sun)
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the sky is blue
an unbiased perspectiveMore abstract concepts that generally trouble the intuition of many:
the irrelevance of laminar to turbulent flow
time and gravity are related
magnetism is not magic
entropy precludes perpetual motion -
Pretty much anything related to statistics and probability. People have gut feelings because our minds are really good at finding patterns, but we're also really good at making up patterns that don't exist.
The one people probably have most experience with is the gambler's fallacy. After losing more than expected, people think they'll now be more likely to win.
I also like the Monty Hall problem and the birthday problem.
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One of my favourite pages on wikipedia:
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The harder it is to pull a bow, the faster the arrows.
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A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?
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The sky isn't blue in many cultures. It's been shown that words for blue only occur in a language after that culture has discovered a blue dye. And that limitation in available words also contains how you see and think about the world.
This is covered in Guy Deutscher's book The Unfolding of Language, which is an excellent read.
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In the case of inverter air conditioning it might make a small difference at it won't throttle down as it approaches the intended, not commanded, target.
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"Bigger is better"
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I was going with Rayleigh scattering, but that works too
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Isn't that true, all other things being equal?
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The gambler’s fallacy is pretty easy to get, as is the Monty Hall problem if you restate the question as having 100 doors instead of 3. But for the life of me I don’t think I’ll ever have an intuitive understanding of the birthday problem. That one just boggles my mind constantly.
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Pressing the crosswalk button over and over will make the light change faster.
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For real.
Looking up how almost any potentially deadly disease attacks a human body just makes you "how tf do you beat that".
The answer is usually just "your immune systems kills it faster than it kills you" and that ain't some sure-fire defense. It's a straight up microbiological war happening inside you.
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Related to gambling: being "pot committed"
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Another variation of that is claiming how getting sick repeatedly is somehow beneficial for getting a strong immune system. That ignores research, as children who have a lot of common infections early in life have higher risk of moderate to severe infections and antibiotic use throughout childhood. That also ignores viruses for which a durable immunity isn't currently possible, such as COVID.
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that putting the thermostat up higher will heat the house up quicker
If you have a 2 stage furnace, this may actually be a thing.
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Depends.
Compound bows are designed such that you put in a LOT of energy where your mechanical advantage is high (at the start of the draw) then less as your mechanical advantage diminishes (at the end of the draw).
This makes the bow very "light" to pull and easy to hold drawn, but the energy with which the arrow will be fired is higher than almost any other design, save some cross-bows.
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Umm, it's your immune system that detects the vaccine and responds to it by developing antibodies specific to the vaccine (and by extension to the actual disease). Just as it would when challenged in real life by the pathogen.
Vaccination basically gives your immune system a several day head start on producing antibodies.
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That means you ahould take the immesiate payoff or be happy with what you have instead of spensing a bunch of time trying to get more.
