# Commonly believed trivia that is wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 21, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214 "2010-05-21T03:48:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![moejoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@moejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejoe)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/41 "2010-05-22T03:06:45Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Including a final comma in a series, the one just before the “and” is not incorrect. In fact, it’s standard usage for most editors; only newspapers work from a different style manual and tend to exclude it. THANK you. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/42 "2010-05-22T03:08:56Z")
The Internet was not designed to survive nuclear war, or any other kind of war, for that matter. Its resilience is due to a simple design, not Cold War paranoia. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/43 "2010-05-22T03:29:21Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I drive a 62 coupe. Never experienced any instability other than the wierdness you expect of disc brakes when wet. > > I’ve done a bit of reading on them and never heard about the recalls. In fact, I’m not sure but I think recalls were quite unusual for any car manufacturer at the time. And I’ve never heard of any widespread problem with steering wheels falling off. Wow…yours has brakes? ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/44 "2010-05-22T04:05:38Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Hmm, this thread could go on forever and ever if we only looked at sports record trivia. I have a trivia game from the 90’s where nearly half the sports questions are now false. > > But, here’s a favorite of mine: Who holds the record for career home runs? > > 1. > > [Sadaharu Oh, 868](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadaharu_Oh) > > 2. Barry Bonds, 762 > 3. Hank Aaron, 755 > 4. Babe Ruth, 715 > > There is one more player who supposedly hit over 800 hr’s in his career including time in the Negro leagues, but recordkeeping was notoriously bad. I believe you are referring to the immortal Josh Gibson.. ---
**Author:** ![Chicagojeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b19c9b/32.png) [@Chicagojeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicagojeff)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/45 "2010-05-22T04:12:04Z")
At Jonestown… they were given Flavor-aid… and not Kool Aid… therefore rendering that over-wrought cliche even more annoying! [Jim Jones - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones) ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/46 "2010-05-22T04:50:33Z")
Then there’s the bullshit about being able to see the Great Wall of China from outer space or even from Mars. Why the hell would something that has the width of an ordinary road be so much more visible than an ordinary road? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/47 "2010-05-22T05:08:28Z")
Planes crash and celebrities die in threes. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/48 "2010-05-22T05:41:56Z")
Cockroaches would not thrive after a nuclear war or some other collapse of human civilization. They’re tropical species and are dependent on humans to inadvertantly provide them with heated shelters in cold weather. So the majority of cockroaches would die off following the death of humans and the only survivors would be those in year-round warm climates. And as a bonus debunking, cockroaches are not particularly immune to radiation either. They’re more radiation resistant than humans but they’re only about average for insect species. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/49 "2010-05-22T05:48:51Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > Then there’s the bullshit about being able to see the Great Wall of China from outer space or even from Mars. Why the hell would something that has the width of an ordinary road be so much more visible than an ordinary road? Unlike the Wall, an ordinary road doesn’t cast a shadow. If the Great Wall had been just The Great Two Lane Asphalt Road, I wouldn’t expect it to be visible, either, not even if the double yellow stripe had been freshly repainted. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/50 "2010-05-22T06:23:41Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > The Internet was not designed to survive nuclear war, or any other kind of war, for that matter. Its resilience is due to a simple design, not Cold War paranoia. How do you figure? The way it was setup with redundant links and packet-switching with the ability to take whatever route is available was for the purpose of surviving some of the nodes in the system being destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/51 "2010-05-22T06:41:02Z")
> [@Ponch8](#): > > Then there’s the bullshit about being able to see the Great Wall of China from outer space or even from Mars. The myth is it can be seen from the moon, which it cannot. It can, however, be seen from “outer space” if you count the orbit of the [International Space Station](http://twitpic.com/photos/Astro_Soichi) as being in outer space, and many do. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/52 "2010-05-22T07:59:29Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Including a final comma in a series, the one just before the “and” is not incorrect. In fact, it’s standard usage for most editors; only newspapers work from a different style manual and tend to exclude it. Including a serial comma is NOT correct AND it’s standard usage for most editors…? Just making sure I’m understanding this right. (Though from the looks of the Wiki entry, usage books lean towards including it, at any rate. It also seems silent on the issue of what “came first.”) ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/53 "2010-05-22T13:24:19Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > The myth is it can be seen from the moon, which it cannot. It can, however, be seen from “outer space” if you count the orbit of the [International Space Station](http://twitpic.com/photos/Astro_Soichi) as being in outer space, and many do. No, the common myth I’ve always heard repeated is that it’s the ONLY manmade object that can be seen from space, which is clearly false. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/54 "2010-05-22T13:40:27Z")
Having looked up the myth, the “visibility from the moon” part is generally the [common belief](http://www.snopes.com/science/greatwall.asp), but it turns out you can’t see it from space after all, as it’s just too narrow and indistinguishable from its surroundings. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/55 "2010-05-22T13:41:22Z")
> [@Chicagojeff](#): > > At Jonestown.. they were given Flavor-aid.. and not Kool Aid.. therefore rendering that over-wrought cliche even more annoying! It might not be true, but the fact is that they used both Kool-Aid and Flavor Aid at the compound. Maybe not both in the suicide, but they did have both onsite. I don’t doubt that Flavor Aid was used, but I haven’t seen that proof that **no** Kool-Aid was used. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/56 "2010-05-22T14:21:29Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Including a final comma in a series, the one just before the “and” is not **in** correct. In fact, it’s standard usage for most editors; only newspapers work from a different style manual and tend to exclude it. > [@Leaper](#): > > Including a serial comma is NOT correct AND it’s standard usage for most editors…? > > Just making sure I’m understanding this right. No, he said it’s not INcorrect. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/57 "2010-05-22T17:30:40Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > That’s exactly why it’s my favorite, Americans go batshit insane when you bring up international baseball. 😃 > > It was even funnier before Bonds, when it was sacrilege to even hint that Aaron or Ruth weren’t the all-time leaders. Does anyone believe Oh would have broken any homerun records had he played in the major leagues? Oh, no. It’s like citing a minor league record. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/58 "2010-05-22T17:40:08Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > How do you figure? The way it was setup with redundant links and packet-switching with the ability to take whatever route is available was for the purpose of surviving some of the nodes in the system being destroyed. [Here is ‘how I figure’. See footnote five:](http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml#rand) > [@](#): > > It was from the RAND study that the false rumor started claiming that the ARPANET was somehow related to building a network resistant to nuclear war. This was never true of the ARPANET, only the unrelated RAND study on secure voice considered nuclear war. However, the later work on Internetting did emphasize robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks. ‘Nodes being destroyed’ happens just fine whenever a machine is turned off, or crashes, or every single time a fiber-seeking backhoe hits its mark. No nuclear war is required for hardware and software to be flaky. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/59 "2010-05-22T17:47:40Z")
[A post with more cites.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11414378&postcount=58) ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214/60 "2010-05-22T18:13:58Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > That’s exactly why it’s my favorite, Americans go batshit insane when you bring up international baseball. 😃 > > It was even funnier before Bonds, when it was sacrilege to even hint that Aaron or Ruth weren’t the all-time leaders. Look, I’m not going batshit insane or “holding on tight” as suggested by some other poster. I couldn’t care less who has more homeruns, nor could I even have told you ANY of the top 3 Homerun leaders in the Major League. What I do know, is that unless you _actually_ phrase the question to include international leagues, the whole “GOTCHA!!” is kinda silly. If you are in America, and you ask which player has the most career homeruns, the implication is that you are talking about Major League baseball. If you are talking about College, or Intramural Leagues, or International Leagues, you would have to say so. Otherwise, you’re just setting up those around you for the big punchline! It isn’t a “false statistic”. Just because a player can achieve a certain statistic in one league, doesn’t mean he could do the same in another league. Especially if the sport involves direct competition with other players. Bowling or Golf don’t count as much. But Football, Soccer, Baseball… one league’s stats does not directly correlate to another league’s. For instance, a good runner might rack up some ridiculous rushing stats in high school because the skill of the defensive is not a great as he would face in college. So, his stats will not be as great in college. So… are you actually phrasing your question to include international leagues? And if so, does anyone even care? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/commonly-believed-trivia-that-is-wrong/540214.md?page=4)