# Questions In Which Just a Little Knowledge Hurts Your Chances of Getting a Correct Answer **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 29, 2014, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868 "2014-03-29T23:55:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/21 "2014-03-30T13:31:39Z")
Author Anthony Burgess told the tale of a college student taking an aptitude test. One of the questions asked to put 20 words into two groups. He noticed that 10 had Latin origins and 10 had Greek origins. Got it very wrong. 10 were nouns and 10 were verbs. A lot of IQ and such tests are like this. They don’t deal well with people who know more than the test designers. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/22 "2014-03-30T15:21:35Z")
Well there’s always the “octopus” one. Someone with a little exposure to Latin might assume the plural is “octopi”, but the preferred plural in English is generally “octopuses”. I’m never quite sure if “penii” is supposed to be a joke or not, because it makes no sense. Suffice it to say that’s not the plural of “penis”. Water really is blue, it’s not just reflection from the sky. I expect I’ll come back with more later. > [@Princhester](#): > > The rate at which different objects fall in air: it’s surprising how often someone with some science education will insist that everything falls at the same speed under normal earth surface conditions. It’s invariably because they are so pleased with themselves for remembering the counter-intuitive physics principle that everything accelerates at the same rate under gravity, they forget the very important qualification regarding air resistance. I can’t imagine anyone thinking this is true after more than a few seconds of thought. Do you hear it a lot? I’d be tempted to just say “parachute” to them and leave it at that. ---
**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:** [March 30, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/23 "2014-03-30T15:39:30Z")
There’s the story of Ludwig Wittgenstein beginning an introductory lecture on some basic mathematical principle by saying _“Let X be the number of sheep in a flock…”_ And one of the students unexpectedly interrupted him and asked _“But Professor, what if X isn’t the number of sheep?”_ Wittgenstein would subsequently tell people this was either the most stupid question or the most profound question he had ever been asked but he couldn’t decide which. ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/24 "2014-03-30T22:22:25Z")
Some young-earth creationists and some credulous watchers of _The Flintstones_ or any number of bad movies will tell you that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. Someone with a little more knowledge will tell you that dinosaurs went extinct tens of millions of years before humans evolved. The best informed know that dinosaurs still exist, in a sense, because birds are directly descended from dinosaurs. Likewise the question “What did dinosaur meat taste like?” Idiot answer: like chicken because every exotic meat tastes like chicken. Normal answer: we can never know because dinosaurs don’t exist any more. Genius answer: like chicken because chickens are dinosaurs. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/25 "2014-03-30T23:09:11Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Don’t make me take my gloves off on this one. It wasn’t supposed to be the point of this thread. “Equal transit time” is the core point to all standard textbooks so if we can agree on that, we can still be friends. I already said that Bernoulli’s Principle does exist but it isn’t a critical component of lift. Otherwise, planes could not fly upside down. It is more about efficient wing design. Angle of Attack is the much more important factor and the one that is both easier to understand and the one that is glossed over for no apparent reason. > > Judging by your user name, you probably take this issue seriously as do I but I was just using it as an example. We can take the nuances off to another thread if you wish. Bernoulli’s is an absolutely critical component of lift. The big mistake here is that you are tying the wing shape into the Bernoulli equations. Wings accelerate air. By doing this they create a force we call “lift”. You can measure lift by measuring the acceleration of the air mass, you can also measure it using the pressure differential around the wing. Both ways of measuring lift account for 100% of it, they are just different ways of measuring the same thing. You can not say it is 90% one and 10% the other, they are both 100% of the lift. The problem with the “equal transit time” explanation of lift is that it incorrectly attributes the entirety of the pressure differential to the shape of the wing when in fact the shape of the wing just makes the wing more efficient. The problem with what you’re doing is you are bundling Bernoulli in with the equal transit time explanation and saying “the equal transit time explanation is wrong therefore Bernoulli doesn’t apply to wings”. This is false, the measurement of pressure around a wing accounts for 100% of the lift. A good page for a breakdown of what is right and what is wrong is, [http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/bernnew.html](http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/bernnew.html) > [@](#): > > Which camp is correct? How is lift generated? > > When a gas flows over an object, or when an object moves through a gas, the molecules of the gas are free to move about the object; they are not closely bound to one another as in a solid. Because the molecules move, there is a velocity associated with the gas. Within the gas, the velocity can have very different values at different places near the object. Bernoulli’s equation, which was named for Daniel Bernoulli, relates the pressure in a gas to the local velocity; so as the velocity changes around the object, the pressure changes as well. Adding up (integrating) the pressure variation times the area around the entire body determines the aerodynamic force on the body. The lift is the component of the aerodynamic force which is perpendicular to the original flow direction of the gas. The drag is the component of the aerodynamic force which is parallel to the original flow direction of the gas. Now adding up the velocity variation around the object instead of the pressure variation also determines the aerodynamic force. The integrated velocity variation around the object produces a net turning of the gas flow. From Newton’s third law of motion, a turning action of the flow will result in a re-action (aerodynamic force) on the object. So both “Bernoulli” and “Newton” are correct. Integrating the effects of either the pressure or the velocity determines the aerodynamic force on an object. We can use equations developed by each of them to determine the magnitude and direction of the aerodynamic force. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/26 "2014-03-30T23:56:41Z")
There’s quite a few in programming. One off the top of my head is Java/C# references vs C/C++ style pointers. A naive answer is that Java-style references are different from pointers. A more educated answer says that they’re pretty much the same – after all, they’re both reassignable (a feature not available in actual “pass-by-reference” semantics as available in Fortran or C++), and refer to a bunch of data somewhere else in memory. When it comes down to it, they’re different. Java references aren’t direct pointers, they’re more like intermediate pointers and the garbage collector can move the actual data around without updating the pointer – in contrast to actual pointers which point to the real data there may be one or more levels of abstraction in Java references. Of course, this may not be a fair one because I’d still probably say the educated answer is **more** correct than just saying they’re different, because the difference is really subtle, but when it comes down to it the naive answer is right – they’re different. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/27 "2014-03-31T00:05:52Z")
> [@Richard\_Pearse](#): > > Bernoulli’s is an absolutely critical component of lift. > > The big mistake here is that you are tying the wing shape into the Bernoulli equations. > > Wings accelerate air. By doing this they create a force we call “lift”. You can measure lift by measuring the acceleration of the air mass, you can also measure it using the pressure differential around the wing. Both ways of measuring lift account for 100% of it, they are just different ways of measuring the same thing. You can not say it is 90% one and 10% the other, they are both 100% of the lift. > > The problem with the “equal transit time” explanation of lift is that it incorrectly attributes the entirety of the pressure differential to the shape of the wing when in fact the shape of the wing just makes the wing more efficient. > > The problem with what you’re doing is you are bundling Bernoulli in with the equal transit time explanation and saying “the equal transit time explanation is wrong therefore Bernoulli doesn’t apply to wings”. This is false, the measurement of pressure around a wing accounts for 100% of the lift. > > A good page for a breakdown of what is right and what is wrong is, [http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/bernnew.html](http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/bernnew.html) You aren’t going to get any argument from me on your well articulated points. However, keep in mind the purpose of this thread. Almost all science textbooks (in the U.S. at least) explain Bernoulli’s Principle using the equal transit idea which is an incorrect translation of the principle in the first place. That is the part that most people with intermediate knowledge remember and the one that is false. It is also the one that causes the smarter students in the class to ask why planes can fly upside down if that is true and irritate their teachers who may not understand the subject enough to clarify it. That is why I think it is a great example. People with advanced aerodynamics knowledge know how lift truly works and children even have a semi-intuitive grasp of the basic concepts but people at the intermediate levels of knowledge describe it in terms of something that is impossible. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/28 "2014-03-31T00:16:07Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Yeah, they thought it was related to the Red Panda, so called it the Giant Panda. But they were wrong, it’s a bear, so it shouldn’t even be called a Panda at all. It should be the Pied Bear or something. The derivation of the word “pied” is a good one. Few people, other than children, might look at it, along with the definition “vari-colored,” or “splotched,” and guess the derivation is that something looks as though a pie was thrown on it. People with degrees in English, or who do research or something for a living know this, but since word origins are rarely that simple, most adults who don’t actually know would never make that guess. The “Pied Piper” wore the sort of colorful clothes buskers wore to attract attention, like “court jester” types at Ren fairs. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/29 "2014-03-31T08:43:09Z")
me/myself/I: Someone who doesn’t care might say “She invited me and Dave to the wedding” Someone who thinks they know a little bit would say it must be “She invited Dave and I to the wedding” or “She invited myself and Dave to the wedding” However, the first one is right. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/30 "2014-03-31T10:11:36Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > The derivation of the word “pied” is a good one. Few people, other than children, might look at it, along with the definition “vari-colored,” or “splotched,” and guess the derivation is that something looks as though a pie was thrown on it. That is _not_ the origin of the word “pied”. IT comes from “looking like a (mag)pie [the black&white bird]” ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/31 "2014-03-31T11:35:48Z")
Another one is, what comes next in the sequence: 1, 3, 5, 7… (a) 9, because the sequence is odd numbers (b) 11, because the sequence is odd primes © 8, because the sequence is numbers that have the letter “e” in their English spelling. ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/32 "2014-03-31T11:37:57Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Another one is, what comes next in the sequence: > 1, 3, 5, 7… > > (a) 9, because the sequence is odd numbers > (b) 11, because the sequence is odd primes > (c) 8, because the sequence is numbers that have the letter “e” in their English spelling. [In fact, There are 85 pages of sequences that contain 1,3,5,7!](https://oeis.org/search?q=1%2C+3%2C+5%2C+7&language=english&go=Search) 😛 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/33 "2014-03-31T12:14:37Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Well there’s always the “octopus” one. Someone with a little exposure to Latin might assume the plural is “octopi”, but the preferred plural in English is generally “octopuses”. I’m never quite sure if “penii” is supposed to be a joke or not, because it makes no sense. Suffice it to say that’s not the plural of “penis”. With “octupus,” the problem arises when someone knows enough to recognize that “-us” often indicates a Latin noun, but not enough to realize that this time, it’s _Greek_. Even if you wanted to use the original-language plural, it would be _octopodes_. And, with “penis,” the person gets the language right, but fails to understand that it’s in a different declension – the Latin plural would be _penes_. ---
**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:** [March 31, 2014, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/34 "2014-03-31T12:47:18Z")
[Deja vu all over again](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=411722). I actually found that thread by looking for my earlier response on pandas: > [@Me from 2007](#): > > Originally, the panda was called the “particolor bear.” Then an smaller critter called the “panda” locally (known today as the lesser or red panda) was found to have some physiological similarities (skull, and “thumb”) to the particolor bear, leading scientists to believe that they were closely related to each other. This led to the renaming of the panda to the “red” or “lesser panda,” and the particolor bear to the “giant panda.” > > By extension, the red panda was thought to be most closely related to your basic [rac]coon. Hence, the giant panda would be more closely related to [rac]coons than to bears. > > Now it’s known that giant pandas are actually members of the bear family, albeit different enough that they form a separate branch from the other bears. And the similarites with the red panda are just examples of convergence. > > I think it has been posted before that there is still a little question about the red panda’s closest relatives, with some thinking it might be mustelids (the weasel family), and others thinking it might be procyonids ([rac]coons and such). ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/35 "2014-03-31T13:55:27Z")
A favourite amongst pub bores is the quiz question “How many lakes are there in the (English) [Lake District](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_District#Lakes)?” The “educated” answer is only one, though as the name of the region suggests there is actually rather a lot of them. It is true that only one has the word “Lake” in its name but many include “Water” or “mere” which are vernacular terms for, you guessed it, lakes. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/36 "2014-03-31T14:06:12Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > This is a hard question to ask so stick with me. Sometimes science and facts are not intuitive at all (see quantum mechanics). However, there are a few questions in which both a child and an expert could give a correct answer but not someone with an intermediate level of knowledge. There undoubtedly other cases where the child or uninformed person gets it more correct than the intermediate level of knowledge to this day because science and expertise are constantly being revised and sometimes reverse themselves. > > Let me give you an example. If you asked any child in 1980 what type of animal a Panda Bear is, he or she would have responded with ‘a bear’. A zookeeper would reply that it is a cute answer but it isn’t true. Pandas aren’t bears, they are more like cuddly overgrown raccoons. Flash forward a few years later and suddenly Pandas are back to being bears again even though that traumatized child was correct in the first place and will never receive an official apology letter. > > Do you know of any other examples? I have a few other ones but they will spark controversy so I am more interested in what you have to say. I don’t think there was ever a consensus among scientists that giant pandas were closer to raccoons. There may have been some uncertainty, but there have always been scientists who classified them as bears. Am I wrong about that? ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/37 "2014-03-31T14:16:15Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > Another one is, what comes next in the sequence: > 1, 3, 5, 7… > > (a) 9, because the sequence is odd numbers > (b) 11, because the sequence is odd primes > (c) 8, because the sequence is numbers that have the letter “e” in their English spelling. (b) would be shaky because mathematicians don’t generally consider 1 to be prime. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/38 "2014-03-31T14:28:16Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That is _not_ the origin of the word “pied”. IT comes from “looking like a (mag)pie [the black&white bird]” And the origin of magpie… Seriously, the word is applied to not just black & white, but tri-colored items. Also, the “Me and So-&-So,” should really be “So-&-So and me.” You put yourself second. But when to use me at all is something a child is more likely to get right than an adult, in my experience. Almost no one can use the reflexive pronoun correctly. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/39 "2014-03-31T14:48:21Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > And the origin of magpie… What, you think it means “bird what had a pie chucked at it”? Seriously, etymology research isn’t [that hard](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=magpie). The “pie” in _magpie_ means…magpie/woodpecker. The etymology of “pie”, the foodstuff, might _possibly_ in fact come from the bird. > [@](#): > > Seriously, the word is applied to not just black & white, but tri-colored items. …and because it’s applied like that today, that must have been how it was [always](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pied&allowed_in_frame=0) applied…:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868/40 "2014-03-31T15:12:49Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > With “octupus,” the problem arises when someone knows enough to recognize that “-us” often indicates a Latin noun, but not enough to realize that this time, it’s _Greek_. Even if you wanted to use the original-language plural, it would be _octopodes_. > > And, with “penis,” the person gets the language right, but fails to understand that it’s in a different declension – the Latin plural would be _penes_. With “penis” and “penii” I suspect people are thinking of things like radius/radii, but fail to notice that the first “i” in “radii” is already in “radius”, and that it’s “-us” in “radius” that has been replaced, not “-is”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-in-which-just-a-little-knowledge-hurts-your-chances-of-getting-a-correct-answer/684868.md?page=3)