lybrary wrote:Bob Coyne wrote:Here's another article that discusses how people lie about their heights on drivers licenses. This stuff happens all the time. You really understand very little about human psychology if you can't see that.
https://www.menshealth.com/trending-new ... ut-height/
If Bill Mullins would be fair, which he isn't, he would have immediately pointed out a couple of things. First, we are talking about the norms and attitudes of a hundred years ago, not today. These most likely changed. Second, a passport application is a much more serious document than a driver license. The US passport around 1918 not only listed age and height, but also a description of forehead, eyes, and nose. It was a document that tried to accurately describe and identify a person. Falsifying data for it is a crime. ( From the passport application: Any false or misleading statement with respect to this application and any supporting document, ... may result in the refusal to issue a passport, ... and may be grounds for criminal prosecution.) Third, why would Sanders specify 8 1/2" on his application? Why not 9" if he wanted to make himself taller? It is obvious that he wanted to be precise and thus the 1/2". Fourth, a person with a clipboard is not a study. Fifth, the author of your article says he is 5-5 and he put 5-7 on his driver license. Obviously he wrote this article to find an excuse for his own lie so that he can feel better about it. That is not a credible person to write about this topic.
So many errors packed into your paragraph above.
1) If human nature leads men now to exaggerate their heights, then it's very likely they did so 100 years ago also. It's human nature. Do you not understand the reasons why people do that? Do you actually think (without evidence) that's different now?
2) I don't have to prove that's the case, just show that there's good reason to believe it's a factor that must be taken into account. This started when you
claimed with certitude that Sanders was 5'9.
3) Shifting goalposts: You said that people don't lie on government documents and I gave you a simple counterexample. Now it's only passports. Note that it's also a crime on drivers license applications. (e.g.
Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 90 Section 24 makes it a crime to make a false statement in your application for your learner's permit or driver's license. )
4) You ask why Sanders would exaggerate on his passport to 5'8 1/2 and not say 5'9. Perhaps the same reason he wouldn't say 5'10 or taller -- that it would be less plausible. You can only stretch the truth so far. Something you should learn!
5) You give an example that old passports ask about facial features. That's obviously because they didn't have photos back then. Note that drivers licenses today ask about eye and hair color (probably because those are less evident from a photo). Neither stops people from exaggerating their heights. Note also, that some states ask about weights on drivers license. People will tend to understate that for similar reasons.
6) The fact that the guy writing the article lied about his own height just shows how he and the editor and the readers all recognize how common the phenomenon is. Not to mention the previous study which established the same thing.
And even if you want to ignore and deny that as
possible factor and take the passport as literal truth, then the 5'8 1/2 on the passport is different than the 5'9 you claim was his exact height. At least be consistent with your own claims.