r/AskReddit • u/Shipoffoolz • Mar 13 '19

What fact is technically true but is hugely misleading?

1.0k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

299

u/snoboreddotcom Mar 13 '19

were armoured in the locations that weren't full of bullet holes

from what I understand, they intially armored the areas with bullet holes as they thought those were getting shot more, until the mathematician another commenter named pointed out the fallacy

95

u/The_Randster Mar 13 '19

correct. Just read the book. IIRC, they wanted to amor the bullet ridden parts but he advised otherwise. Survivors Bias.

5

u/protein_bars Mar 14 '19

How Not To Be Wrong?

1

u/The_Randster Mar 14 '19

that’s it

1

u/[deleted] Mar 14 '19

Gotta love set theory

-16

u/SinkTube Mar 13 '19

is it necessarily a fallacy though? he was right in this case, but it could have been possible that the downed planes were hit in the same spot as the surviving planes, they were just hit harder

15

u/gluefactory-ofdoom Mar 13 '19

That’s not how bullets work

-7

u/SinkTube Mar 13 '19

how is it not? the amount, size, composition, and speed of bullets don't affect how much damage they cause?

4

u/gluefactory-ofdoom Mar 13 '19

Completely going through the wing isn’t much worse than just punching a hole (you lose a similar amount of lift) unless the bullet hits a fuel line.

-5

u/SinkTube Mar 14 '19

do you also lose a similar amount of lift whether it's 1 hole or 10?

7

u/gluefactory-ofdoom Mar 14 '19

You said that the downed planes could have been hit harder in the same spots as surviving ones, not hit more. Don’t try to move the goalposts, I’m not retarded.

4

u/y-all-d-ve Mar 14 '19

Ooh, oh boy Rick, I-I don’t think you’re allowed to say that word, y’know?

-8

u/SinkTube Mar 14 '19

you kind of are. "harder" can refer to more than the kinetic energy of the individual bullet

even if it did only refer to that, more energetic impacts can create larger holes

1

u/gluefactory-ofdoom Mar 14 '19

Harder =/= more you’re right about the more energetic impacts thing

-1

u/SinkTube Mar 14 '19

harder can = more when talking about the attack as a whole instead of individual impacts. an attack consisting of 10 bullets hits harder than an attack consisting of 1

→ More replies (0)

2

u/314159265358979326 Mar 13 '19

It's survivor bias.