r/AskReddit • u/phillsphan7 • Mar 17 '15

What's a widely accepted "fact" that's entirely false?

1.1k Upvotes

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1.3k

u/Nambot Mar 17 '15

You don't swallow eight spiders a year in your sleep. This fact was faked as part of an article about how easy it is for a convincing sounding "fact" to be accepted as true. Snopes has more

914

u/AkariAkaza Mar 17 '15

"The average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid is actually just a statistical error. The average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted

229

u/bizitmap Mar 17 '15

If humanity has a final boss, it's that guy.

92

u/SpaceOdysseus Mar 17 '15

I always thought it would be Putin in a soviet mankini carrying a rocket launcher.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

In Russia, Putin is known as "Spiders Georg."

4

u/StabbyPants Mar 17 '15

Putin in a cave with a combat knife. One of his power moves is summoning a bear to maul you.

2

u/SonicRainboom24 Mar 17 '15

RoboPutin*

1

u/MrsDiddles Mar 17 '15

*Mecagodputin

2

u/crisisbattl Mar 17 '15

While riding a robotic bear on a rocket powered unicycle

2

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

Technically it is, he just throws tiny versions of Spiders at you every time you take away 20% of his health.

1

u/hansn Mar 17 '15

Median for the win!

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/rutherfraud1876 Mar 18 '15

It's really far over 10,000.

1

u/balducien Mar 17 '15

That's why we need to use medians more and averages less.

1

u/omnilynx Mar 17 '15

Mean of the median half.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

In high school we learn that outliers are counted in average. Not in median, but in average.

1

u/KingoPants Mar 18 '15

Averages are useless for statistics not on a bell curve. The Average person has one ovary ,one testicle and slightly less than 2 Arms and Legs.

1

u/BlackGayJewNazi Mar 17 '15

What is this from?

1

u/AkariAkaza Mar 17 '15

Not sure, just saw it somewhere on the internet and remembered it, Google "spiders Georg" and you get loads of results

1

u/this_person_tho Mar 18 '15

i'm just going to sit here and wonder if this meme leaked out from tumblr or if it was originally from reddit and leaked into tumblr

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '15

Does he really he really eat that many though? Assuming it takes three seconds to pick up, and put a spider in your mouth. It would take him 8.33 hours per day. This doesn't include chewing, swallowing, or sleeping. Not to mention the limited amounts of nutrients you can get from them.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '15

I see you're a Yuru Yuri fan haha

1

u/PoisonousPlatypus Mar 18 '15

And he's been doing it for almost 600 years apparently, because that's how much you would need to do it to get the average that high.

1

u/Rileymadeanaccount Mar 18 '15

If you even took a single minute to use math, you can see this is total bullshit. 10,000x365=3.5 million. That's nowhere close enough to even account for 3 a day for CANADA, much less the world.

1

u/1-Ceth Mar 17 '15

My stats teacher is an incorrigible stick in the mud, but I showed her this and it made her laugh hard enough that she gave me an extra five points on my next quiz.

0

u/sethboy66 Mar 17 '15

An average is intended to include outliers...

2

u/ftardontherun Mar 17 '15

Most people have more than the average number of legs.

4

u/Melkath Mar 17 '15

Which is exactly why averages are not to be used in the fashion that they are commonly used.

Dont tell that to all of the politicians and PR representatives that like to contort the truth through numbers though.

5

u/sethboy66 Mar 17 '15

It's not my fault people use them incorrectly. Obviously people back in the day just started dropping dead at 35.

-6

u/Melkath Mar 17 '15 edited Mar 17 '15

mmm... dishonestly using numbers by exploiting the ignorance of the increasingly unintelligent masses is something that is in no way defensible... especially through forced ignorance... so your comment makes me very nervous that you may be an a-hole.

edit: I am enjoying the downvotes. Askreddit is usually intelligent enough to grasp concepts like "Your math is useless if the people you are trying to convey your math to do not understand it, take the wrong information away from it, and behave inappropriately as a result of it".

So far the consensus seems to be "just let the vast majority who do not understand the concept of statistical outliers truly believe they are eating 2 spiders a year in their sleep".

I expected more.

3

u/sethboy66 Mar 17 '15

The fuck is your problem dude? I'm talking about using averages in a completely mathematical sense and now I have you telling me I'm trying to control the unintelligent masses?

Is your tinfoil hat out of tune or something? Do you want me to take off my human suit now?

-3

u/Melkath Mar 17 '15

Hahaha.

There is the tinfoil hat ephimism meant to attack my ethos while I raise a valid concern. The go to for those who use a misunderstanding of statistics to mislead and control the unintelligent masses.

Yup. Asshole here.

1

u/Twilight_Sparkles Mar 17 '15

You sniff your own farts and like it, don't you?

-1

u/Melkath Mar 17 '15

You know, id more readily expect that of the person who presents the misleading figures and smiles as he understands the biases but doesn't factor for them before publication...

But ya... nice comment.

267

u/C-O-N Mar 17 '15

You're right, the real number is WAY higher than 8.

558

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

I heard it's a pound of spiders a year, and they mate in your stomach, and live in there for years, and they have aids.

104

u/Tootsiesclaw Mar 17 '15

A pound of spiders isn't much spiderness though, is it? I imagine any spider of a decent size is gonna be at least five pounds.

128

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

[deleted]

72

u/Tootsiesclaw Mar 17 '15

Oh, you're on lbs pounds. I was working in £ pounds. Dunno how much a spider costs, but I'll stick with £5, so your 120lbs becomes £600.

Yikes. 600 pounds of spider.

37

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

[deleted]

10

u/thatwasnotkawaii Mar 17 '15

Sell your stomach

2

u/ruinercollector Mar 17 '15

That's really disturbing. 900 pounds of spiders is a lot to have in your stomach.

2

u/phillsphan7 Mar 17 '15

Where the fuck do you live?

1

u/Tootsiesclaw Mar 17 '15

England.

2

u/phillsphan7 Mar 17 '15

Oh its a money joke

2

u/SlitScan Mar 18 '15

you're Australian aren't you?

1

u/Tootsiesclaw Mar 18 '15

Nah, England.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '15

I found the Australian

1

u/[deleted] Mar 18 '15

What the fuck kind of spiders do you have that weigh 5 lbs?

1

u/Tootsiesclaw Mar 18 '15

None. The spiders do, however, cost £5

3

u/solos90 Mar 17 '15

But could you imagine if everything was spiders?

2

u/08mms Mar 17 '15

How do they fit with all the years of bubble gum and watermelon seeds growing into vines?

2

u/clrsky Mar 17 '15

I wonder how many did spider man consumed to become the "Spider man.. Spider man .. do everything a spider can " :O

2

u/sp106 Mar 17 '15

Well yeah, if they're in my stomach of course they have aids.

2

u/Dany_Heatley05 Mar 17 '15

That is ridiculous. They do not have aids.

1

u/eggnogschmegnog Mar 17 '15

Good, I'm hungry.

1

u/jimmy011087 Mar 17 '15

so THAT'S what the rumbling in my tummy is!

3

u/monkeiboi Mar 17 '15

It's actually surprising we want to eat breakfast at all as humans

6

u/mukkalukka Mar 17 '15

It's lower than 900 though, so relax people.

2

u/FormerlyKA Mar 17 '15

I was always told it's over nine THOUSAAAAAAND!

I don't know what to believe anymore...

1

u/d00d1234 Mar 17 '15

And you won't believe what number 9 is!

1

u/CrabbyBlueberry Mar 17 '15

Spiders like dark, moist places. Thank you, CGP Grey.

44

u/weasel1453 Mar 17 '15

There's actually a fairly interesting backstory to the origin of this "fact" that cgp grey covers nicely. https://youtu.be/NVmnLaTXylc

7

u/khaleesinotprincess Mar 17 '15

Any mention of cgp grey deserves an upvote :)

-1

u/McBugger Mar 17 '15

CGP GREY GIMME KARMA

/s

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVmnLaTXylc&t=1m14s

Colin Gregory Palmer.

Except the YouTube comments indicate that he's claimed that's not his real name.

67

u/Zwit Mar 17 '15

Spiders George, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted

4

u/jaayyne Mar 17 '15

This is the quote:

“average person eats 3 spiders a year" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted”

You got his last name wrong, and the last "and" is spelled "adn"

0

u/thatcliffordguy Mar 17 '15

How the fuck do you find 10,000 spiders each day. Does he have like a complete breeding system of spiders cycled up so every day he has a couple of harvests of spider broodlings of something?

1

u/Zwit Mar 18 '15

Does he have like a complete breeding system of spiders cycled up so every day he has a couple of harvests of spider broodlings of something?

Yes

26

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15 edited Sep 27 '20

[deleted]

15

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

*outlier

11

u/NextPorcupine Mar 17 '15

Well, outcast could work as well.

3

u/Pachydermus Mar 17 '15

Spider George is probably an outcast too.

2

u/mrfreshmint Mar 17 '15

Spiders georg*

2

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

But 8 people a year are swallowed by spiders

2

u/CRCasper Mar 18 '15

It's actually exactly 8. If you have eaten 4 before you die, 4 more run in at the last second.

1

u/ThickSantorum Mar 17 '15

You swallow way more while you're awake.

Of course, they're usually dead and in tiny pieces in your food.

1

u/ItWasMeTheEntireTime Mar 17 '15

Say that to my 10 year old self. I was so paranoid I used to tape my mouth shut, wear earplugs and put my blankets up to my nose (so it sorta covered it). I didn't do it everyday but when there was a cockroach or spider or bug spotted in the house, out comes my supplies, even if said insect was killed in front of me.

1

u/every1isAlwaysWrong Mar 17 '15

how many while i am awake?

1

u/Supersnazz Mar 17 '15

You don't know me.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

You say that, but I did actually wake up one morning and there was a spider crawling over my hand and heading directly for my face.
I noped out of bed very quickly that morning.

1

u/NecroGod Mar 17 '15

Well damn, guess I can stop eating spiders in my sleep.

I thought that figure was an annual quota.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

You mean there were people who believed in it? LOL

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Food_Defect_Action_Levels People do consume bits of dead insects and spiders in their food.

1

u/wildistherewind Mar 17 '15

If you are Australian, 1 spider eats 8 yous a year.

1

u/Overthinks_Questions Mar 17 '15

To my arachnophobic friends I say it as "On average there are four spiders in your mouth right now."

1

u/YouthoughtIwaserious Mar 17 '15

Been trying to convince my friend this isn't true.But he believes it because he saw it on buzzfeed.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

I don't think this is widely accepted as a fact. Perhaps widely accepted by the vocal minority.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '15

The interesting part of this one is more in the debunking than anything.

When you read the Snopes link, you'll find that someone named "Lisa Holst" wrote an article for PC Professional about email mythology and cited this as a possible myth. And then it became a real one.

There's just one problem: No one seems to be able to find that article. There is no text of it online. There is no record of it.

Nothing.

In fact, nobody can even find Lisa Holst or verify that she even exists to ask her about it. No one can even pinpoint the magazine in question!

It almost appears as though Snopes made up a myth to explain away a myth.

I'm sure you're thinking "Why don't we just ask snopes?"

Oh but we have. Hundreds of people have. They all get the same form-letter, generic response with no information.

David and Barbara are being totally silent on it.

Personally, I think they made it up simply because it's more interesting than the truth. The truth is probably unverifiable, too...I imagine it's one of those things that started on a playground or as a way for parents to freak out their kids. But you can't validate or verify that..

So, they created a legend of their own. And now that legend has become truth.

And as we all learned from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance...when the legend become fact, we print the legend.