⟳ Репост от Coconino
the amount of times a number traces back to a guesstimate, and then has usually undergone distortion along the way. for instance, the sports industry, when arguing for legalization of gambling, used a figure that ended up getting quoted repeatedly in the Supreme Court hearings ...
Josh LandauSeriously. There are so many well-known "facts" out there that are actually just someone's guesstimate that got accepted and over time became truth. Not to mention the plague of misattributed quotes out there.