Amazing displays of ignoranceSandettie Light Vessel Automatic tells us: "My dad's friend told us there's no such thing as gravity - it's just the weight of air holding us down". Tell us of times you've been floored by abject stupidity. "Whenever I read the Daily Express" is not a valid answer.
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Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 18 Mar 2010, 16:48)
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Daytime TV lulzBack in my stoodent days we were watching Trisha, appearing on which was a woman who was married to (or living with) one man but had had a brief fling with another man, and was now pregnant. Trisha said that she should have a paternity test because "there's a 50/50 chance it could belong to the man you had a fling with".
Really Trisha? 50/50? So if I roll a dice there's a 50/50 chance I'll get a 6 because it'll either be a 6 or it'll be another number?
Mind you, I have to grit my teeth when people try to sound clever by using "disinterested" instead of "uninterested". Little hint - if you don't know the difference then you're unlikely to be saying a sentence in which using the former would be correct. Maybe I expect too much of people.
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yes yes yes man oi mate, someone's writtten 'bum' on your neck, Mon 22 Mar 2010, 22:04,
4 replies)
That's not really ignoranceIt's just lack of a crucial detail. Specifically, how many men she had sex with around the likely time of conception. If it was just those two (as implied), 50/50 would be right.
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Dave McF wrote some words on, Tue 23 Mar 2010, 0:42,
closed)
No, it's about the frequency of sex with each partnerIf she had unprotected sex with the live-in guy five times a week and the other guy once a week, then there's a 1-in-6 chance that he's the father. We don't know how many times she had sex with either man, nor the more crucial details of her fertility cycle, but calculating the odds involves a little bit more than dividing 100 by the number of partners.
Gah, I feel autistic just typing all that.
Good call by the OP on "disinterested", though. That always bugs me.
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emvee cruor deo cruoris, Tue 23 Mar 2010, 9:22,
closed)
disinterestedOED's first entry for disinterested actually lists disinterested and uninterested as synonyms. It does note that many people consider this usage incorrect, but that does imply that its sort of 50/50, doesn't it?
(, Tue 23 Mar 2010, 9:58, closed)
Ah, yeah.This would be a good example of why I regret choosing a degree that requires a fair bit of maths and statistics.
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Dave McF wrote some words on, Tue 23 Mar 2010, 21:47,
closed)
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