Statistics You Hear All The Time That Sound Plausible But Just Aren’t Correct

People often think one dog year equals seven human years. A 2020 study from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine showed dogs age at a different rate over their lives.

The UCSD researchers studied epigenetic changes in the DNA of humans and dogs. These changes switch genes on and off; they do not alter the DNA sequence. They compared how methyl groups accumulated in specific human genome areas over time to how methyl groups accumulated in the dog genome.

The trial included 100 Labrador retrievers of all ages, from puppies to old dogs. Puppies build methyl groups in their genome much faster than humans, meaning they age quicker. However, the dogs' aging rate slows compared to humans as time passes.

Researchers determined that a 1-year-old puppy is equivalent to about 30 human years.This finding shatters the belief that one dog year equals seven human years. A 1-year-old puppy might equal 30 human years, but a 4-year-old dog equals 54 human years, not 120. A 14-year-old dog reaches its mid-70s in human years.This shatters the idea that one dog year equals seven human years. One dog year does not equal thirty human years. A one-year-old puppy might equal thirty human years. The study found a four-year-old dog equals fifty-four human years, not one hundred twenty. A fourteen-year-old dog equals its mid-seventies in human years.

Holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year's promote happiness. Many people focus on family and friends during these times. Some media suggests suicide rates rise during these holiday months compared to other times.

Suicide rates do not rise during this time. Suicide rates drop during this time. Dan Romer, research director for the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, told U.S. News & World Report. Dan Romer, research director for the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, told U.S. News & World Report.U.S. News & World Report.:

Researchers have found that the winter months of November, December, and January show the lowest, or near-lowest, suicide rates every year. There is no evidence of a suicide surge during the end-of-year holidays.

Romer and his team have tracked suicide rates and media coverage since the late 1990s. In 14 of the 23 years tracked, a higher percentage of articles linking holidays to suicide rates promoted the false belief. For instance, 25 articles from November 15, 2021, to January 31, 2022, mentioned a connection; 56% of those articles promoted the myth that suicide rates increase during the holiday season.

In reality,Fewer suicides happened in December than in any other month.During 2021, December saw fewer suicides than other months. January recorded the 10th lowest rate. August had the highest suicide rate.

If you are in crisis, call, text, or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Many people agree the wealth gap between the rich and poor has widened recently. A June 2021 report showed the wealthiest 1% of Americans had 16 times more wealth than the poorest 50%. In 1990, the top 1% held only 6 times the wealth of the bottom 50%.The richest 1% of people own 16 times more wealth.Compare that to 1990. Then, the top 1% held only 6 times the wealth of the bottom 50%.

Still, myths persist about financial inequality. People believe the richest 1% of the world control 99% of wealth. As of mid-January 2023, those 'richest of the rich' controlled slightly less than 50% of the world's total wealth.This group owns slightly less than 50% of the wealth.The poorest 50% of the world owned less than 1% of the total wealth. The richest 1% held 99%.

This gap remains huge. To reduce wealth inequality, many people, including some 'richest of the rich,' ask governments to introduce or raise taxes on the wealthy.Introduce or raise taxes on the wealthy..

In 2020, the National Center for Health Statistics released a report.A report was released.A 2017 and 2018 survey claimed adults classified as 'obese' made up 42.4% of the total US population. The survey used body mass index (BMI) to measure obesity. BMI calculates this by dividing weight in kilograms by the square of height in meters.

Using BMI has issues. When Belgian mathematician Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet introduced BMI in the early 19th century, he stated it could not and shouldn't be used to show fatness in any person.Do not use obesity to show a specific person's fatness level.Instead, BMI measures the obesity level for the whole population. BMI calculation ignores waist size, a key measure of individual obesity. It also fails to show the mix of bone, muscle, and fat. Since bone is denser than muscle or fat, someone with good muscle tone, little fat, and strong bones gets a high BMI. This wrongly labels them overweight or obese (anyone over 30 is automatically obese).

No science supports using BMI as the main way to measure obesity. Yet, experts at the Centers for Disease Control state it remains widely used.State.: “BMI screens for weight categories that may lead to health problems, but it does not diagnose the body fatness or health of an individual.”

For over 150 years, people thought normal body temperature was 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius). German physician Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich wrote a report using data from 25,000 patients to find 98.6 degrees was a normal body 'physiologic point.'

Wunderlich's findings became the standard over the years. Today, if someone goes on aMedical website98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is often cited as normal body temperature when discussing what counts as normal or a fever.

This holds true even after Wunderlich's findings.Those findings proved flawed.In 1992, infectious disease physician Philip Mackowiak published study results. He analyzed body temperatures for 148 healthy people. The average temperature was 98.2 degrees. Only 8% of tested people had a temperature of 98.6 degrees.

Mackowiak found one of Wunderlich's thermometers was in a Philadelphia, PA museum. Tests showed this thermometer ran 2.9 to 3.2 degrees higher than modern digital ones. It also measured higher than other mid-19th century thermometers in the museum. He also found Wunderlich took patients' temperatures under the arm, a less reliable method than oral readings that tends to give lower temperatures.

In 2018, Jonathan Hausmann, a rheumatologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, led a study. The study tested nearly 11,500 people's temperatures using the Feverprints iPhone app. This research found an average body temperature of 97.7 degrees in healthy adults.

Hausmann thought normal body temperature and fever definition change based on gender, age, and the time of day the temperature is taken. He explained this to...Wired.A temperature of 99 at 6 o'clock in the morning is abnormal. That same temperature at 4 o'clock in the afternoon can be normal.

A woman's body temperature is slightly higher than a man's. A child's temperature is higher than an adult's. A person's temperature hits its lowest point in the morning.

Still, 98.6 degrees stays the benchmark. Mackowiak said, "People don’t want a complicated answer [about fever]. You want yes or no and give me a number."

People worry about marriage because of the high divorce rate in the United States. Media, academia, politicians, and even family members push the idea that one out of every two US marriages ends in divorce. That statistic is false.

This statistic compares the annual marriage rate per 1,000 people to the annual divorce rate per 1,000 people. Using this calculation fails because the total number of people marrying in a year does not equal the total number of people divorcing that year. This is a flawed calculation. A better way to calculate the divorce rate is to take the total number of people who have ever married and compare it to how many of those people ended up divorcing. Researchers using this method found the US divorce rate has...never been higherthan about 41%.

And the percentageThe rate of divorce is declining.In 2011, the divorce rate was 9.7 per 1,000 women. By 2021, that rate dropped to 6.9 per 1,000 women.

Divorce rates change based on age, race, and education. A 1996 survey showed that since 1980, the chance of a woman without a college degree getting divorced or separated in her first 10 years of marriage stayed about 35%. For women with college degrees, the rate fell from 27% for those married 1975-1979 to 16% for those married 1990-1994.

The Middle Ages also call the medieval period.This period spanned nearly 1,000 years.It ran from the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE to the start of the Renaissance in the 14th century. Many believe few people lived past 40 during the Middle Ages. Physical and historical evidence shows this is a myth. Human beings as a species experienced long life spans for the last 160,000-plus years.The last 160,000-plus years.The Polish duke pictured here, for example, was known as "Mieszko III the Old.Mieszko III the Old, who died in 1202, lived to be 75 years old.

People think most Middle Ages lives were short. They confuse actual lifespan with mere life.Expectancy.Life expectancy.Life expectancy is the average number of years a person of any age is expected to live. It considers factors like health and living conditions. Life span is just the actual number of years someone lives.

In England during the Middle Ages, the average life expectancy at birth for a boy born to landowners was 31.3 years. At age 25, the life expectancy for landowners was 25.7 years. This meant if that boy reached his 25th birthday, he could be expected to live until 50.7 years old, or past 40. Because that was an average, many people lived past that age.

The same idea applied in other countries during the medieval period, though average life expectancies might differ.

The idea that a person needs 10,000 steps daily for top health has existed for nearly 70 years. Where did this idea come from?

A marketing campaign created the answer. Just before the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, a campaign promoted an early pedometer. The 10,000 steps idea was random, chosen because the Japanese character for 10,000 resembles the image of a person walking.The Japanese character for 10,000 resemblesthe image of a person walking. The marketing campaign succeeded, helping promote the idea that walking 10,000 steps daily leads to optimum health.

Medical science offers mixed answers for the 10,000 steps idea. Research shows 9,800 daily steps cut dementia risk by 50%. Taking just 3,800 steps daily lowers the risk by 25%. Every 2,000 steps a person takes daily, up to 10,000, cuts premature death risk by 8% to 11%.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services set current physical guidelines in 2018. These guidelines focus on exercise time, not step count. They suggest 150-300 minutes per week of moderate activity, like brisk walking, or 75-150 minutes per week of vigorous activity.

Recent studies suggest the optimal step count is...Age determines the optimum step count.Younger than 60 should aim for 8,000 to 10,000 steps daily for best health. Older than 60 should aim for 6,000 to 8,000 steps daily. William Kraus, a physician and scientist at Duke University, told Scientific American in 2023...Scientific AmericanOlder individuals need fewer steps. This follows the difference in energy used during physical activity.

Older people are less efficient with their steps. Older individuals expend more energy per step.

A child wants to play in the snow but an adult stops them, telling them to wear a hat. This warning stems from the idea that humans lose 98% of body heat through their heads.

This idea is wrong. Body heat loss from any part of the body depends on the size of that part.The size of the body part mainly determines how much body heat is lost.A person loses more body heat through an uncovered arm or leg than through an uncovered head.

The head heat loss myth came from 1950s military tests. Subjects wore Arctic suits, covered from the neck down. Thus, most body heat left the head. Dr. Daniel I. Sesser, an anesthesiologist and hypothermia expert, told The New York Times...The New York TimesIn 2004, the New York Times reported that if the same experiment used swimsuits, only about 10% of a person's heat loss came from the head.

During aspeech at the American Business Conference in October 1991US Vice President Dan Quayle promoted the idea that America is a litigious society. He said, “the legal system… now cost Americans an estimated $300 billion a year.”

The President's Council on Competitiveness pulled this statement from the “Agenda for Civil Justice Reform.” The document cited aForbesAn article estimates individuals, businesses, and governments spent over $80 billion yearly on direct lawsuit costs and higher insurance premiums, plus up to $300 billion annually on indirect costs.

But theForbesThe article used no original research. Instead, it cited publicist Peter Huber, who mentioned these figures while talking about the “total tort tax” on the economy in his 1988 book.Liability: The Legal Revolution and Its ConsequencesHuber did not conduct original research or analysis for these figures. He cited one sentence from a roundtable discussion inChief Executivemagazine as his source for the $80 billion yearly claim. For the $300 million yearly claim, he took the $80 billion figure, multiplied it by 3.5, and rounded up. He got the idea to multiply by 3.5 from an editorial in theJournal of American Medical Association, which cited a 1984 study of physicians about practice changes caused by malpractice claims.

In summary, the $300 billion, which no original research backed, went from Huber using it as an estimate for direct tort litigation costs, to the writers of theForbesarticle using it as an estimate for all torts, to Quayle citing it as the cost of all civil litigation in the US to the economy. The Republican Party then adopted that number as the cost to “our legal system.”

The next year, President George H.W. Bush cited a new survey from the National Association of Manufacturers, claiming “American consumers and companies would spend up to $200 billion on legal services” in 1992. He said this figure shows what this litigation explosion costs our economy. However, the NAM report listed the $200 billion figure as the estimated cost for all legal services, not just litigation costs.

In 2018, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reformreleased a reportthat claimed lawsuits cost Americans $429 billion in 2016. The authors used data on commercial and personal liability insurance premiums and estimates of business and self-insured people liability exposure.

Because these reports use data that might be wrong or incomplete, the numbers are estimates, not firm facts. These figures can change a lot from year to year. Americans do spend billions on litigation costs, that is certain.

One creepy “fact” that entered popular culture is that humans swallow about eight spiders yearly while sleeping.

Ew, right?

Luckily, science offers no proof for this claim. Spiders do not care much for humans because they are not the type of prey spiders hunt. According to Bill Shear, a former president of the American Arachnological Society:

Spiders view [humans] like a big rock. We are so big, we are just part of the scenery.

Spiders might fear us, even while we sleep. A person's heartbeat and breathing create vibrations. These vibrations signal danger to spiders. Rod Crawford, the arachnid curator at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, WA, told Scientific American in 2014:toldScientific Americanin 2014:

Vibrations make up a large part of spiders’ senses. A sleeping person is not something a spider will willingly approach.

A person might feel a spider on their face and wake up before swallowing it.

Rest assured that it is highly unlikely anyone has swallowed a spider in their sleep, let alone eight in a year.

People don't know who started the common idea that people only use 10% of their brain. Some blame American psychologist/author William James, who inThe Energies of Menargued that “we are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources.” Albert Einstein reportedly used this idea to explain his sharp intellect.

However, the origin of the idea matters little; it is a false belief. Neurologist Barry Gordon states that while 10% of the brain might be used during rest, "it turns out… that weThe brain uses virtually every part of it., and most of the brain stays active constantly. The brain weighs 3% of the body and uses 20% of the body's energy.

Many people try to disprove the idea that people use only a small percentage of their brain over the years. Still, the myth keeps spreading; a 2012 study found thatabout 50%primary and secondary educators in different cultures still believed in and pushed this myth.

Advertisers sometimes claim most professionals in a field recommend their brand over others. For example, in 2007 anan advertising campaign in the UKThe campaign claimed that “more than 80% of dentists recommend Colgate.” This suggests more than eight out of ten dentists surveyed chose Colgate over all other toothpaste brands. However, the survey asked dentists to recommend several toothpaste brands, not just one. Colgate was just one brand mentioned by about 80% of the dentists surveyed. Other brands might have been mentioned just as often, or more often.

So the claim was misleading, even if not a lie. The ad campaign eventually wasbanned bythe Advertising Standards Authority.

People know they should spit out and discard chewing gum after chewing, not swallow it. What happens if you swallow it? Does it stay in your stomach for seven years before you digest it?

No, that is justa mythElizabeth Rajan, a Mayo Clinic doctor, says your body cannot digest gum. The gum does not stay in the stomach. It moves fast through the digestive system then exits in the stool. Most people empty their stomachs.Chewing gum takes thirty minutes to two hours.This timing follows eating, which includes swallowing gum.

According to...Duke University gastroenterologist Dr. Nancy McGreal.Even people with severe health issues causing stomach food buildup can swallow gum without issue.

In all upper endoscopies I performed on children and adults, I have not seen gum stuck in the stomach.