# Post facts that opened your eye. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 11, 2008, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262 "2008-11-11T23:20:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/41 "2008-11-12T13:50:37Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > I’m going to throw in a controversial nit-pick and say that there are no living WWI veterans left, as the claimants invariably never saw active service. Doesn’t change the fact they did their duty etc, but I don’t think you can call yourself a war veteran if you never left your home country or deployed operationally. [Harry Patch](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/23/firstworldwar.military) was alive as of September 23rd 2008 and was wounded at Ypres. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/42 "2008-11-12T14:03:45Z")
> [@Priceguy](#): > > [Harry Patch](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/23/firstworldwar.military) was alive as of September 23rd 2008 and was wounded at Ypres. In that case I stand corrected, and wish Mr. Patch the best of health and continued longevity. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/43 "2008-11-12T14:04:02Z")
> [@](#): > > That some of the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and all from the Salem Witch Trials are almost exclusively the result of a mistranslation of a single line in the King James version of the Bible. I hadn’t heard that “witch” mighjt be a mistranslation of “poisoner”, but i have to take issue with your statement. I love a good quasi_reductio ad absurdum_ as much as the next guy, and maybe a little more. But the truth is that the folks in Salem were well and truly freaked by the events of 1692, and it didn’t require a Bible verse to make it happen. This was probably the case in Europe, as well, but I’ve not read as much about their witchcraft hysteria as I have about Salem/Danvers’ (which is just down the road from my house). I sincerely believe that events would’ve been pretty much the same in an alternate universe where that verse didn’t exist, or read “poisoner”. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/44 "2008-11-12T14:04:03Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > My eye was opened when I read in (I think) “The selfish Gene” that all humans start out female. Chemical processes during the very early stages of life turn female sex organs into male, and so on. > > Post an eye-opening fact. Out of curiosity, what did this open your eyes to? I’ve heard this a lot too and I’ve never understood why it was meaningful. ---
**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:** [November 12, 2008, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/45 "2008-11-12T14:11:38Z")
> [@Bacon\_Salt](#): > > If just about anything happened differently, it would be someone else walking around instead of me. But would this alternative baby still be “you”? Or would “you” be born to someone else’s family? ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/46 "2008-11-12T15:03:24Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I hadn’t heard that “witch” mighjt be a mistranslation of “poisoner”, but i have to take issue with your statement. I love a good quasi_reductio ad absurdum_ as much as the next guy, and maybe a little more. But the truth is that the folks in Salem were well and truly freaked by the events of 1692, and it didn’t require a Bible verse to make it happen. This was probably the case in Europe, as well, but I’ve not read as much about their witchcraft hysteria as I have about Salem/Danvers’ (which is just down the road from my house). I sincerely believe that events would’ve been pretty much the same in an alternate universe where that verse didn’t exist, or read “poisoner”. To play devil’s advocate (no pun intended): the previous hysteria over witchcraft thanks to the mistranslation of the Bible certainly played a major role in why the girls chose witchcraft to get attention / start a smear campaign / generally act out. Without any kind of scientific proof beyond ‘spectral evidence’, witchcraft was the perfect catchall for any kind of behaviour–and it got you locked up and/or hanged _very_ quickly. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/47 "2008-11-12T15:35:32Z")
I had always known that there used to be a hell of a lot of passenger pigeons, but until yesterday I didn’t know they flew around in flocks of up to a BILLION. They hung out in the second largest groups of any animals we know about, second only to the desert locust. And we ate them all essentially in a hundred years. Remember that thread last week or so about “does an animal alone get lonely?” and we talked about Albert the Lonely Albatross? Screw Albert - Martha, the last passenger pigeon, had to be the most lonely creature on Earth. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/48 "2008-11-12T15:40:14Z")
> [@](#): > > To play devil’s advocate (no pun intended): the previous hysteria over witchcraft thanks to the mistranslation of the Bible certainly played a major role in why the girls chose witchcraft to get attention / start a smear campaign / generally act out. Well, right back atcha, it’s not universally accepted that the girls _were_ acting out/starting a smear campaign/trying to get attention. Chadwick Hansen, for one, argues that most of the girls felt they were genuinrely aflicted. And, in any case, I’m not disputing that witchcraft wasn’t the issiue. My point is that the trouble doesn’t require that the verse “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” even exist. You can be freaked out by the suspicion of witchcraft and want to take desperate measures without a Bible verse explicitly teling you to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/49 "2008-11-12T15:42:53Z")
> [@Hrududu](#): > > I’ll never forget the day that I as a small child realised that everybody else had thoughts in their heads. I don’t know if I thought they were robots or what before. But the realisation that everyone else had their own worlds going on inside their heads just like me blew my tiny mind. Every once in a while I see a huge crowd of people somewhere and think “Every single person in that huge crowd has a life as rich and complex as my own” I then realize, there’s a lot of stuff happening out there that I never see. ---
**Author:** ![UncleBill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/d26b3c/32.png) [@UncleBill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBill)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/50 "2008-11-12T16:30:31Z")
Approximately one half of the US population has an IQ of 100 or lower. Explains a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Natty\_Bumppo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e480ec/32.png) [@Natty\_Bumppo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Natty_Bumppo)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/51 "2008-11-12T16:36:40Z")
The fact that the last Civil War widow [is still alive](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E3DB1E30F935A25755C0A9629C8B63) open my eyes to how young our country is. One way to look at the age of the United States is younger than three lifetimes. ---
**Author:** ![Capcha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/82dd89/32.png) [@Capcha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capcha)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/52 "2008-11-12T16:48:37Z")
-Everyone’s responsible for their own actions. We make a choice in everything we do. -As good and as just you might want/wish our society to be; someone, somewhere is getting away with it. Does it make me sound bitter? 😄 To **Hrududu** and **Cheesesteak** : at a young age as i used to stand on an overpass, looking at each window (in the numerous apartment buildings) with their different decorations and marvel about all the lives that i would never know, learn, understand or how many resemble mine. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/53 "2008-11-12T17:09:01Z")
> [@kk\_fusion](#): > > [Here](http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/~gmackie/billions.html)’s some calculations by an astrophysicist. Looks like if you include deserts, it’s not true. Thanks man, I thought I was going to have to get up. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/54 "2008-11-12T17:11:09Z")
> [@Fish](#): > > There does seem to be only one verified **American** World War I combat veteran. That’s probably what my husband meant. > [@Capcha](#): > > To **Hrududu** and **Cheesesteak** : at a young age as i used to stand on an overpass, looking at each window (in the numerous apartment buildings) with their different decorations and marvel about all the lives that i would never know, learn, understand or how many resemble mine. I grew up in an apartment nearly level with a subway platform nearby. I used to be awed by the thought that right outside my window there were always dozens of people leading lives I did not know who did not know about me not so far away. I’ve moved to the suburbs as an adult and sometimes I still marvel at the things I do not know about my neighbors or what they do not know about me. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/55 "2008-11-12T17:14:32Z")
> [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](#): > > I was astounded to find out that the radical Islamic government in Iran started only 30 years ago when Khomeini came to power. I had no idea it was that recent. My eyes are now opened to the fact that I’m getting old. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/56 "2008-11-12T17:35:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Funny, mine would be almost the opposite: that nearly every deuterium atom in existence was created in the Big Bang (i.e. on the order of magnitude of %.02 of all hydrogen atoms in the universe,) since no known natural process can create them in that quantity. In all these billions of years they have managed to survive without getting sucked into a star’s core or hit by the stray highly-energetic particle. Also most of the helium in the Universe and a smattering of lithium were created in the Bang. Anything heavier than that (“metals”, as astronomers refer to them) was from stars, though. On the “light from dead stars” question, not only did none of the stars we see die before the Earth was born, but the vast majority are probably still alive. Betelgeuse has about a 50-50 shot of still being around, and Eta Carinae has probably already gone supernova, but so far as I know, those are the only stars discretely visible to the naked eye which might have died. ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/57 "2008-11-12T17:57:42Z")
That .999999… does not approach 1. It _is_ 1. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/58 "2008-11-12T18:02:25Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > Not a single one of the naked-eye-visible stars in the sky meet this criteria. The most distant discrete stars we can see are about 15,000 LY away; all of these are within our own galaxy. None of the stars in the Milky Way are more than about 100,000 LY from us. The only other galaxy one can see with the naked eye is the Great Galaxy in Andromeda, M31. It’s about 2 million LY or so from Earth. Since the Earth is over 4.5 billion years old, none of the stars you see in the sky could have died before it was formed. Eye-closer! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/59 "2008-11-12T18:02:34Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > We etch something into rock and control it with words. Golems are real and they give us our daily pornography. Awesome post and awesome summation. 😃 This one may need verifying: there is far less than a google _things_. Anywhere. Not a google bits of sand on Earth, not a google stars in the universe. Not a google bits of sand on all planets _plus_ all stars … there isn’t even a google helium atoms. Not sure how it opened my eyes per se, but it did change my perspective. Truly understanding why (or maybe just accepting) we – or any fantasmical being anywhere in the galaxy – will never travel faster than light. Coupled with the vastness of space (see above post), my hope of humanity _ever_ shaking hands with E.T. essentially vanished. Again with the math, learning enough linear algebra and other math fun to make it through a course in quantum mechanics paid off when I suddenly got what all the fuss was about. Mind you, word pictures and observations were weird enough, and cause for knocking reality about for a bit… but what is _really_ going on down there, what can only be understood through mathematics, is the Medusa’s stare. People don’t really live inside my television. Bugs Bunny is not a real person. Naps are fun. The cake is a lie. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262/60 "2008-11-12T18:07:03Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > There’s only one living WWI veteran. Wow. What? There were at least three of them at the senotaf (sp?) just two days ago. And I am fairly sure they were alive. The TV said they were WW1 vets. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-facts-that-opened-your-eye/472262.md?page=4)