# Questions people are convinced of the answer, but are wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 11, 2022, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721 "2022-11-11T00:29:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/21 "2022-11-11T12:45:24Z")
Yeah, Earth’s round. ‘Round’ is a word that describes a variety of things, including things that are not perfectly circular or spherical. Definitely straying into the sort of pedantry where chemists think they own the word ‘organic’. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/22 "2022-11-11T12:53:24Z")
Although _English words have precise and singular meanings_ seems to be a misconception a lot of people are convinced about 😜 ---
**Author:** ![Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiendish_astronaut/32/3295_2.png) [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/23 "2022-11-11T12:57:05Z")
Okay I officially step down from my stated position ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/24 "2022-11-11T13:00:23Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > we’re getting into pedantic territory here. I think this thread is perfect for pedants. 👀 ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/25 "2022-11-11T13:01:14Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Of course you need all of the essential amino acids - that’s what ‘essential’ means. You need them indeed, but what essential in the medical-biological context means is compounds that cannot be synthesized from scratch by the organism fast enough to supply its demand, and must therefore come from the diet. Of the 21 amino acids common to all life forms, the nine amino acids humans cannot synthesize are phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, leucine, isoleucine, lysine, and histidine (as per Wikipedia, copy&paste). But many vitamins are essential too, and they are not equally essential for all animals: vitamin C, for instance, can be synthesized by most animals, only not by humans (and neither by hamsters nor flying foxes, I think I remember). ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/26 "2022-11-11T13:01:18Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > They were showing off their brand-new MRI machine (which was very new technology at the time). I nudged my friend and classmate, and said “Huh, look at that, it uses Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.” The first scan I had done was back when they did call it NMR. My favorite popular misconception is that relative humidity is the percentage of water in the air relative to the most it could possibly hold. This isn’t true at all. You can absolutely have relative humidities over 100%. It is relative to the equilibrium isothermal humidity of air enclosed with pure water having a flat surface. Air isothermally equilibrated with water having steeply convex surfaces, such as happens in clouds, is over 100% RH. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/27 "2022-11-11T13:05:09Z")
I’d say that’s an explanation of _why_ they are essential, not _what essential means_. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/28 "2022-11-11T13:06:15Z")
Don’t stop on my account ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/29 "2022-11-11T13:12:19Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > vitamin C, for instance, can be synthesized by most animals, only not by humans (and neither by hamsters nor flying foxes, I think I remember). And this is another instance of something _everyone knows_, but is in fact wrong: > Some mammals have lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C, including simians and tarsiers, which together make up one of two major primate suborders, Haplorrhini. This group includes humans. The other more primitive primates (Strepsirrhini) have the ability to make vitamin C. Synthesis does not occur in most bats nor in species in the rodent family Caviidae, that includes guinea pigs and capybaras > The ability to synthesize vitamin C has also been lost in about 96% of fish > **[Vitamin C | Animal synthesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C#Animal_synthesis)** > > There is some information on serum vitamin C concentrations maintained in animal species that are able to synthesize vitamin C. One study of several breeds of dogs reported an average of 35.9 μmol/L. A report on goats, sheep and cattle reported ranges of 100–110, 265–270 and 160–350 μmol/L, respectively. > The biosynthesis of ascorbic acid in vertebrates starts with the formation of UDP-glucuronic acid. UDP-glucuronic acid is formed when UDP-glucose undergoes two oxidations catalyzed by the enzyme... ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/30 "2022-11-11T13:12:25Z")
How many more posts before someone posts a certain essay? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/31 "2022-11-11T13:15:54Z")
I think my favorite is that many religious people think the Immaculate Conception refers to Mary conceiving Jesus. No, that’s the Virgin Birth. The Immaculate Conception refers to Mary being born without sin. Someone here described it as, you have to sterilize the bottle before you brew your beer. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/32 "2022-11-11T13:42:38Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > **Does nuking something in a microwave irradiate it?** > No, it’s _microwave_ radiation, “nuking” is purely a figure of speech. Related: people who think microwaves heat food from the inside out. They do not; the microwaves excite water molecules in food from the outside in. The misconception comes from people heating microwave burritos or Hot Pockets, where the outside is merely warm and the inside is lava-hot. But that’s only because the insides are more liquid, so have more water molecules to get all hot and bothered. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/33 "2022-11-11T14:02:20Z")
Even people with Masters Degrees think that they have Master’s Degrees. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/34 "2022-11-11T14:02:57Z")
Certainly it’s wrong to imagine that microwaves cook from the very centre of the food, but they do penetrate and cook ‘from the inside’ as opposed to conventional ovens which apply heat from the outside ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/35 "2022-11-11T14:34:07Z")
Isn’t that more “outdated” rather than a misconception? I don’t know exactly what the current thinking is but I do know back in the late70s to early 80s it was commonly believed ( including by experts) that you did need to have all the essential amino acids in the same meal , although perhaps not every mouthful. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/36 "2022-11-11T14:51:50Z")
I suppose its outdated, but it’s also a misconception (it wasn’t ever true). As I understand it, the human body doesn’t have a massive capacity for storage of individual amino acids, but the circulatory and other systems provide sufficient buffering that intake can be a bit staggered, especially in a modern diet which typically is not deficient [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/psAlJtgeQsY/maxresdefault.jpg "Rice, beans, and the "myth" of protein combining") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psAlJtgeQsY) ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/37 "2022-11-11T14:56:01Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Eggs are often (well, maybe only “sometimes” these days, but I feel like it used to be “often”) grouped into “dairy,” When you do ordering from a commissary, eggs are under dairy. I suspect it’s because they don’t really go with anything else, and no one wants to make a category that just contains eggs, and dairy is the closest. They do have the similarity in that they are one of the few edible animal products that come from animals that are still alive. > [@Napier](#): > > My favorite popular misconception is that relative humidity is the percentage of water in the air relative to the most it could possibly hold. This isn’t true at all. You can absolutely have relative humidities over 100%. It is relative to the equilibrium isothermal humidity of air enclosed with pure water having a flat surface. I don’t know that that’s a misconception so much as a simplification to the more typical, stable, situation. You can have greater than 100% RH, but it’s not stable, and really wants to not be that way anymore. Hence _why_ we get clouds. Most people would say that the water turns to ice at the freezing point, and gas at the boiling point, even though there are exceptions to this, but I wouldn’t call it a misconception either. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/38 "2022-11-11T15:00:23Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > When you do ordering from a commissary, eggs are under dairy. I suspect it’s because they don’t really go with anything else, and no one wants to make a category that just contains eggs, and dairy is the closest. I recall from early childhood that the milkman delivered eggs. Maybe because dairy farms also had chickens. It could have started from that but I’m wildly speculating here. ---
**Author:** ![3AxisCtrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/ecd19e/32.png) [@3AxisCtrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3AxisCtrl)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/39 "2022-11-11T15:00:42Z")
Q: When you drop two objects of the same size & shape but different masses - say, from the Leaning Tower of Pisa - will they strike the ground at the same time? Standard A: Yes, as Galileo demonstrated. Correct A: No; unless this is done in a vacuum, the more massive one reaches the ground first. (And Galileo probably didn’t attempt this - it was a thought experiment.) ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2022, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721/40 "2022-11-11T15:01:22Z")
Only fools buy a new car. Always buy used. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-people-are-convinced-of-the-answer-but-are-wrong/974721.md?page=3)