5 Ways ‘Common Sense’ Lies To You Everyday

By Miss Cellania in Everything Else on Mar 16, 2009 at 10:07 am

The human brain is quite susceptible to logical fallacies that can mess up our lives and our societies. One of them is probability.

Our brains are stupid when it comes to calculating probability. As a result, we all have this fuzzy idea that if something can happen, it probably will. And we think this, while having no idea what “probably” even means.

This is why millions of high school kids think they’re going play pro sports when they grow up, even though there are only enough available jobs for a tiny fraction of them. When the news says an asteroid may hit the Earth in the next 10 million years, people will watch the skies suddenly sure that an asteroid will hit that day.

Read about all five fallacies at Cracked. Link

Tags: fallacies, logic

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LisaL
Mar 16th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
My husband definitely suffers from that Special Pleading one.
He gets SO stressed out at all the idiots on the road. And yes, while there are a lot of them, he often times does the same thing they’re doing at some point.
Such as, we’re not sure if soandso area is the right place, so we’ll slow down some to examine the area.
But lord help us if we come upon someone doing this. They’re idiots, they need to pull over, etc etc etc.
It’s very frustrating riding with him sometimes lol.
Gauldar
Mar 16th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Yeah, I dislike that mindset as well. It’s like those minivans zooming around with the ‘baby on board’ sign… just because they may or may not have a kid in their car doesn’t mean that everyone else around them has to be a professional in their driving style while driving carelessly to begin with. If you can’t see your own faults you’re going to end up smacking into somebody else who is ignoring their own. It takes two to cause an accident.
Xinavera
Mar 16th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Another one I see all the time is the Gambler’s Fallacy:
“I’ve flipped five heads in a row, the next one is bound to be tails”. “It’s been 100 years since the last big earthquake so we’re overdue for The Big One.” “I’ve had three daughters and I really want a son, one more child will definitely be a boy.”
Gauldar
Mar 16th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Regarding The Regression Fallacy:

http://www.snopes.com/sports/football/maddencurse.asp
c0ldfish
Mar 16th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
these fallacies are obvious.

i hate this moronic species.

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