Hindsight bias – filtering memory of past events through present knowledge, so that those events look more predictable than they actually were; also known as the "I-knew-it-all-along effect."
Egocentric bias – recalling the past in a self-serving manner, e.g. remembering one's exam grades as being better than they were, or remembering a caught fish as being bigger than it was.
Fallacious yet widespread and documented beliefs courtesy of Wikipedia.
Contrary to a widespread perception, the real number 0.999...—where the decimal point is followed by an infinite sequence of nines—is exactly equal to 1 by definition. They are two different ways of writing the same real number. A 2009 study by Weller et al. states that "Tall and Schwarzenberger (1978) asked first year university mathematics students whether 0.999... is equal to 1. The majority of the students thought that 0.999... is less than 1." Weller et al. go on to describe their own controlled experiment, performed "during the 2005 fall semester at a major research university in the southern United States. Pre-service elementary and middle school teachers from all five sections of a sophomore-level mathematics content course on number and operation participated in the study." The results are striking: "On the question of whether .999...=1, 72% of the control group and 83% of the experimental group expressed their view that .999... is not equal to 1."
Books by Jay
Conflict and Conciliation: Faith and Politics in an Age of Global Dissonance
Despite the peaceful foundations of global monotheistic religions, the broad diversity of interpretations can lead to a sharp paradox regarding the use of force. Inevitably, we must ask ourselves: How can those who ascribe to peaceful beliefs suspend their own moral foundation to beat the drums of war? ... read more
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A self-indulgent blog for people just like me - PhD, author, photographer, entrepreneur, husband, father, music-lover, and uber-geek. More about Jay