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Are your facts wrong?

Are your facts wrong?

Are your facts wrong?

(OP)
The discussion over "troops" reminds me of another irritant of mine. I've always considered "wrong facts" to be an oxymoron, and that facts by definition can never be wrong. Seems the dictionary disagrees with my assessment. We live in a world where "facts" may not necessarily be factual. Sigh.

Quote:

fact (f?kt)
n.

2c Something believed to be true or real: a document laced with mistaken facts

USAGE NOTE   Fact has a long history of usage in the sense “allegation of fact,” as in “This tract was distributed to thousands of American teachers, but the facts and the reasoning are wrong” (Albert Shanker). This practice has led to the introduction of the phrases true facts and real facts, as in The true facts of the case may never be known. These usages may occasion qualms among critics who insist that facts can only be true, but the usages are often useful for emphasis.

Any comments?
  

RE: Are your facts wrong?

I have qualms.  That said, I wouldn't be surprised if I actually do use the word in the way described.

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

RE: Are your facts wrong?

Can facts change?

To paraphrase a line from "Men In Black":

"A thousand years ago, everybody know that the Earth was the center of the solar system.  Five hundred years ago every body know that the Earth was flat."

Just to further confuse things, both of those sentences are wrong on two levels.  The Earth was never at the center of the solar system, nor was it ever flat.  There certainly were some people who did not know either of those things at the times referenced.

Do two wrongs make a right?

RE: Are your facts wrong?

Assume that "everybody" is used in an approximate or figurative sense.  That takes care of one of the levels.

The other bigger question question is whether someone can "know" something that is false.  That's one of the central questions of epistemology (what is knowledge?) and a favorite topic in semantics (what does the word "know" mean?).  There are books written about this.

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/EPISTEMI.html

And ultimately we could get to that old "what if I'm just a brain floating in a jar" question.

Hg

Eng-Tips guidelines:  FAQ731-376

RE: Are your facts wrong?

So at what point is hyperbole clearly hyperbole and when might it be a "wrong fact"?

"I've told you a million times not to exaggerate."

"I must have sent 100 e-mails on that topic."

RE: Are your facts wrong?

I have heard the term "true facts". It puzzles me, as it is nonsense.
jimbo

Buy a dictionary, keep it nearby and USE it. Webster's New World Dictionary of American English is recommended, and Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

RE: Are your facts wrong?

Ah, it is posible for a fact to be true but irrelevant.
If you try to put the wrong wheels on your car, they are still wheels, they just don't fit your car.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: Are your facts wrong?

perhaps 'wrong facts' is shorthand for 'whoever said these were facts was wrong'

RE: Are your facts wrong?

When caught in an error, just say:

"The fact is that I once was mistaken but have since been corrected and am now right."

<LOL>

~NiM

RE: Are your facts wrong?

2 wrongs don't make a right

but 3 lefts will

"If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut."
-- by Albert Einstein

RE: Are your facts wrong?

sprintcar: 2 wrongs don't make a right.
           but 2 Wrights made a Flier.

HgTX: I don't have any qualms...can I get one at the used qualm store or Walmart?

jmw: yes, they are wheels..but the fact is, those wheels aren't in the owners manual.

kchayfie: or wrongly assumed fact. (when self professed experts quote facts, the assumption is the fact is incorrect. However, it was originaly called a "fact" so it becomes a wrong fact...???)

rerig (Dallas)

RE: Are your facts wrong?


It is agreed that facts are unalterable or unchangeable, however, as long as "wrong" is a qualifier that doesn't deny the "facticity" of fact, there can be wrong facts, can't they ?

RE: Are your facts wrong?

Data can be skewed to support any "fact".

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Are your facts wrong?

Mintjulip,

That line from MIB always annoyed me because it perpetuates the myth that people used to think the world was flat.

People have known the world is round for thousands of years at least...

RE: Are your facts wrong?

"Wrong Fact" is simply shorthand for "the information that was asserted to be factual was actually incorrect".

David

RE: Are your facts wrong?

It's like saying "it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck but is sure no duck".

Ciao.

RE: Are your facts wrong?


What if the meaning of wrong is: aggrieving, harming, illegitimate, incorrect, iniquitous, malign, mistaken, shameful, unlawful, and so on ? Could then a fact be wrong ?

RE: Are your facts wrong?

Ah, so the earth is round?

The medievil peasant who never left his village had a hard time comprehending this novel and possibly heretical concept and, since within his limited horizons it meant nothing anyway, was probably quite content with the view that the earth was flat. As a working idea, it was sound.

Of course, they had problems with the concept of an infinite unbounded environment and, believing that the surface had to be finite, then had problems with "where is the edge and what happens when you find it?" and "what is below us and above us?"

The "round" earth theory is a great 3D solution where you can have a finite and unbounded surface. It also largely accounts for the "what's under us?" question, but not the "what's above us?" and "where are we?" problems.

The problem for us today is that in the new string theory we have 11 dimensions, not 3, so what shape is the earth really? Is our 3d view of a round earth as simplistic as early mans 2D view and our answers to the questions that brings just as imaginative?

In the peasants 2D world earth is flat, in the days of the early navigators and map makers this proved a problem temporarily solved by a 3D round earth and then set by by theologists declaring this was not so, just as they later declared the earth to be the centre of the universe and the solar system.

We (I) am, of course, rather more 3D than our (my) 2D medievil forebears, but to people working with 11D I suspect I am even more primitive to them that the peasant is to me; I have enough trouble with conceptualising a finite boundless universe except some kind of rotation through a 4th dimension, by analogy to our 2D world turned through a 3rd dimension. Of course, apart from some kind of Klines flask or something this is a difficult concept and I have no idea of what this shape "really" is.

If anyone knows the answer, please let this peasant know.

So a "Fact" is only a fact withinin a certain set of conditions. We can compare the "facts" of a Newtonian and a relativistic world and the "truth" becomes the version that best fits the circumstances in a practical world.


JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

RE: Are your facts wrong?

ask anyone: you have a swimming pool 100m long and 100m wide, indoors ( no wind).
the surface of the water flat, or does it have a high point at the center of the pool?
surprisingly, unless the person had some training in physics the answer would be: flat.

fyi... the rail in the test basins for ship models is corrected for the earth curvature.

the middle ages mindset is alive and kicking...

 

saludos.
a.

RE: Are your facts wrong?

IMO,
Anyonw that believes that astronauts never landed on the moon, has too much space between the ears.
Also, the Earth is a bit oval and "wobbles" as it spins around it's axis.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: Are your facts wrong?

Quote from Will Rogers:
"It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so"

www.SlideRuleEra.net

RE: Are your facts wrong?

abeltio

As an engineer, while I understand the physics, I would say the surface of the pool is flat, or at least close enough for my purposes.

Would you like to define flat? How close to flat does the surface of the pool have to be to actually meet the definition of flat?

RE: Are your facts wrong?

(OP)
I thought it was lower in the center do to the meniscus effect. Or is this fact in fact un-factual?

RE: Are your facts wrong?

what great thought to ponder ... let me put down my bathroom reader and ponder ...

whilst the surface of the oceans is somewhat (perhaps ideally) spherical, it is obviously affected by gravity, rotation, weather, the moon, etc ...

clearly, as sms says, to an engineering approximation the surface of the pool is flat,

but perfectly, mathematically, i'd guess it'd be concave (slightly, oh so very slightly), but it is probably more more significantly ... is the floor of the pool flat ? (and how flat is flat?)

and now, to finish the paperwork ...

RE: Are your facts wrong?

Way back when...
In metrology class, while studying laser interferometry, we were told there would be a discrepancy between 'master level' and the laser. This was due to the curvature of the Earth.

Measurements triangulated by the laser were to be taken as true-flat. Master levels were discrepant by 0.0002" per 10ft. This could be significant if you were lapping (calibrating) a surface plate larger than 10ft.

regards,

Hydroformer

RE: Are your facts wrong?

If you are bored, you can check to see if the pool is flat. Stretch a line (very tight) from edge of water to the other side (when the water is still). If the water is above the line, it isn't flat. It won't work in a glass or bowl, because of surface tension on the sides.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

RE: Are your facts wrong?

"Stretch a line (very tight)"... you mean "infinitely" tight (zero sag) ?

If the water contacts the line it will form a meniscus at the line.
Whether the vessel is a bowl, glass, a pool or an ocean there will be a surface tension induced deviation at the boundaries.

Spotting the surface with a laser eliminates most Earthly interference (gravity / inertia / curvature) from the observation. (assuming air pressure, humidity, composition are constant in the measurement field)

regards,

Hydroformer

RE: Are your facts wrong?

I understand. I meant, as stated ... if you're bored enough to try.

Chris
Sr. Mechanical Designer, CAD
SolidWorks 05 SP2.0 / PDMWorks 05
ctopher's home site

FAQ559-1100
FAQ559-716

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