# What is the worst single factual mistake ever made by one person? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 10, 2014, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221 "2014-11-10T07:29:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/41 "2014-11-10T20:08:59Z")
It can’t be the worst thing in history, but an anonymous technician in Arizona cut the wrong power line (or maybe flipped the wrong switch), leading by chain-reaction to [the worst power outage in San Diego’s history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Southwest_blackout), which also affected nearby counties, and areas in Arizona and Mexico. Also, Brian Alford made fun of my haircut when we were in 3rd grade. The repercussions haven’t really gotten of the ground yet, but I promise when they do, they will be earth shattering! ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/42 "2014-11-10T20:58:13Z")
“Don’t worry Gen. Custer, there’s not that many Indians at Little Bighorn.” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/43 "2014-11-10T21:25:47Z")
[“Climate change? What climate change?”](http://time.com/3558611/jim-inhofe-global-warming-climate-change-2014/) - Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla), set to become the new chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, giving him a firm grip on US environmental policy. ---
**Author:** ![susanlinda823](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@susanlinda823](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susanlinda823)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/44 "2014-11-10T21:38:48Z")
How about… When Rommel got caught with his pants down on D-Day? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/45 "2014-11-10T21:48:16Z")
> [@susanlinda823](#): > > How about… When Rommel got caught with his pants down on D-Day? Didn’t Rommel place a person to person call to Hitler with a request to release those reserve Panzer divisions? ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/46 "2014-11-10T23:18:02Z")
I think it’s very likely that we’ll never know the worst single-person mistake because #1 most disasters involve multiple mistakes by multiple people, or at least the one mistake should have been caught by someone else, and that failure to catch the mistake is itself another mistake, and possibly the disaster would have happened eventually anyway even if the mistake hadn’t been made. And #2 mistakes made by just one person could probably be covered up by that same person. If I forgot to mail my taxes and it caused my business to go bankrupt, I wouldn’t exactly go around telling everybody about it. I’m not saying we should give up, but this is a really hard question. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/47 "2014-11-11T00:03:19Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > How about Einstein’s Cosmological Constant? Einstein’s early work on his Theory of Relativity showed the the universe should be expanding. But at the time, everyone felt the universe didn’t change in size. So Einstein “fixed” his work by introducing the arbitrary Cosmological Constant which balanced the equations. > > A decade later, astronomical observations showed the universe was expanding and his original theory had been correct. The Cosmological Constant was removed and Einstein acknowledged it had been the biggest mistake of his career. Can I get a second opinion on this from someone more experienced than me? My understanding was that the Cosmological Constant was proved to be non-zero in 1990s. Also, you can hardly fault him for a name as awesome as the “Cosmological Constant”. It’s like straight out of a comic book. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/48 "2014-11-11T00:31:00Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Not sure if this counts as a “single failure,” but a failure of the O-rings in the Space Shuttle Challenger’s rocker booster assembly took the lives of seven astronauts. Not sure if it was ultimately due to incorrect specifications or faulty testing. > > [Rogers Commission Report - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Commission_Report) According to Richard Feynman it was a decision, so not within the rules of the OP. Engineers were worried that the rings would fail in freezing temperatures, but an administrator (or two or three) overruled them. Utter assholes. Every holocaust denier, every climate change denier, every creationist is making a horrible **factual** error. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/49 "2014-11-11T00:43:33Z")
> [@Little\_Pig](#): > > Didn’t Rommel place a person to person call to Hitler with a request to release those reserve Panzer divisions? Poor bastard tried asking Hitler himself, before invasion came and he was recalled. “The most urgent problem is to win the Fuhrer over by personal conversation,” he wrote in his diary. Von Rundstedt eventually persuaded Hitler to authorise the panzers, if memory serves, although he along with Guderian and von Schweppenburg disagreed with Rommel in the use of Panzers. Rommel feared Allied air power, quite rightly - he was later wounded by a strafing Spitfire. Speaking of you-know-who, he made a rather large factual error when he said of the Soviet Union _“We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.”_ ---
**Author:** ![No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_umlaut_for_U)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/50 "2014-11-11T01:25:43Z")
May I posit the 1985 Chicago-area salmonella outbreak from Hillfarm/Bluebrook Milk? Somewhere the raw milk contacted the pasteurized milk: there were a lot of debates about how it happened, but faulty piping design and cleaning practice/design caused over [150,000](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1987-12-11/news/8704020074_1_hillfarm-dairy-salmonella-antibiotics) cases of salmonellosis. Normally there’s only one person involved in the cleaning cycle, but engineering wasn’t failsafe, either. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/51 "2014-11-11T03:15:41Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > Adolph Hitler, on the invasion of Russia: \*“You only have to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.” To be fair, he didn’t say _which_ rotten structure. ---
**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:** [November 11, 2014, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/52 "2014-11-11T03:36:31Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Every holocaust denier, every climate change denier, every creationist is making a horrible **factual** error. Let’s not let the anti-vaxxers off either. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/53 "2014-11-11T04:00:54Z")
Lt. Kermit A. Tyler, the officer in charge of the Opana Point radar station on Dec. 7, 1941. When informed by the operators on duty that there was a whole mess of airplanes approaching the island, Tyler assumed it was a scheduled convoy of six B-17s. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/54 "2014-11-11T05:41:58Z")
In my lifetime? “Saddam got nukes” ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/55 "2014-11-11T16:40:47Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > (And please don’t tell me about your marriage. 🙂 ) I’m interested in cases where one person made one mistake; A simple, factual mistake which could easily have been prevented with a little care, and which had huge consequences because the person was not careful. On November 9th 1979, somebody at NORAD [put a simulation tape](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Aerospace_Defense_Command#False_alarms) into a computer, not realizing it was hooked up to the main computer. It looked like a real Soviet attack and nearly caused us to retaliate, basically starting WW3. Not sure if this counts because the WW3 didn’t actually happen that day. But in math, we have something called the “expected value” where you multiply the probability of an event times the outcome of that event, so if there’s a 2% chance of killing 800 million people, that’s the same as a 50% chance of killing 32 million people or a 100% chance of killing 16 million people. ---
**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:** [November 11, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/56 "2014-11-11T16:58:33Z")
What about the Cutter Incident? A director at Cutter laboratories, whose name eludes me, decided, in spite of contractual obligations, not to follow Jonas Salk’s very specific directions for building a filter for manufacturing their polio vaccine, and produced more than 100,000 doses of vaccine that actually gave people polio (you know the anti-vaxxers don’t do much real research, and mostly just make up stuff, because they never mention this), and not just polio, but _contagious_ polio that started several epidemics in the US. Not many people died, but a heck of a lot were paralyzed. A note on vax vs. anti-vax: the speed at which the incident was identified and addressed, and the bad vaccines pulled, and the fact that Cutter labs never made another, shows what happens when a vaccine really is bad, as opposed to some anti-vax fantasy. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/57 "2014-11-11T17:46:39Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Lt. Kermit A. Tyler, the officer in charge of the Opana Point radar station on Dec. 7, 1941. When informed by the operators on duty that there was a whole mess of airplanes approaching the island, Tyler assumed it was a scheduled convoy of six B-17s. I dont think it would have made much difference. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/58 "2014-11-11T17:48:17Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > In my lifetime? > > “Saddam got nukes” I dont think anyone ever said that. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/59 "2014-11-11T18:09:35Z")
> [@Blaster\_Master](#): > > I’m going to go with [Thomas Midgley, Jr.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.) and his invention of leaded gasoline. His factual mistake being vastly underestimating the toxicity to the environment. Even if only a small number of the potentially attributable effects are true, it seems like an awful lot of harm resulting from one man’s mistake. Not just the environment in general, to HUMAN BEINGS in particular. [There is very overwhelming correlative evidence that lead in the air from gasoline cause America’s violent crime epidemic.](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2014, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221/60 "2014-11-11T18:11:25Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Not just the environment in general, to HUMAN BEINGS in particular. [There is very overwhelming correlative evidence that lead in the air from gasoline cause America’s violent crime epidemic.](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline) Again, not a _mistake_, a bad\*\* decision\*\*. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-worst-single-factual-mistake-ever-made-by-one-person/704221.md?page=4)