Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 February 3

= February 3 =

What uniform is Lord Edward Russell wearing?
What uniform is Lord Edward Russell wearing in this picture? DuncanHill (talk) 16:25, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The bearskin and buttons grouped in threes suggests the Scots Fusilier Guards (after 1877, the Scots Guards). This 1856 photograph shows a very similar coatee. No idea why an admiral gets to dress as a guards officer; perhaps an honorary post? Alansplodge (talk) 17:46, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Aha! It seems more likely that this is Edward Russel's great nephew (?), Francis Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford, who was "commissioned into the Scots Fusilier Guards in 1838, retiring in 1844". He would have been 21 or 22 at the time of this portrait, whereas Lord Edward would have been 36 or 37 (he's extremely well-preserved if it is him). Alansplodge (talk) 17:55, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Should we correct the caption attached to the file? Or would that be OR? Blueboar (talk) 19:48, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Can you decode Josef Kriehuber: Katalog der von ihm lithografirten Portraits p. 199? Neither Aurthur nor Odo would not have been in uniform.&mdash;eric 20:11, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * That catalog makes a number of errors, Francis from the British Museum catalog.&mdash;eric 21:08, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks all, Francis does seem more likely, given the age. I did also consider the Honourable Edward as a candidate, but can't find out any suggestion that he was in the army. I've started a thread on the Commons file description page, will request renaming of the file based on the British Museum information in a day or two if nothing contradictory comes up in the next day or two. DuncanHill (talk) 01:29, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * UPDATE: The file is now called File:Portrait of Francis Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford, 1842 lithograph.jpg. Well done all, another little victory for the RefDesk. Alansplodge (talk) 21:35, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

cognitive error
There is a cognitive error (not exactly a logical fallacy) that I keep encountering. Somebody has a question/problem related to business, home repair, or whatever. Obvious possible answers include A1, A2, A3, etc. but there is no way to know which is the right answer without further investigation. It is also possible that the real answer is non-obvious. The error is when someone immediately fixates on one of the possibilities (say A2), decides that it is definitely the right answer, and acts on the decision, frequently resulting in doing something stupid. I'm in that situation right now: there is a GFCI circuit breaker repeatedly tripping in the house, and rather than investigating possible ground leakage or whatever, person X insists without further evidence that the circuit breaker itself must be defective (which is of course possible, but far from certain). However, this is just an example: it happens all the time in other contexts as well. Maybe I do it too, but I try to avoid it. It occurs to me that I spend a lot of time debugging computer code so I might be conditioned by that into expecting my guesses to be wrong., and I might be the one who is over-skeptical. Otherwise, is there a name for this error? Thanks. 73.93.155.110 (talk) 20:36, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * We have Jumping to conclusions... -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:55, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * “I did not jump! I took a tiny step, and there conclusions were.” —Buffy Summers —Tamfang (talk) 02:17, 10 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Note that in some cases the most efficient approach to fixing a problem is to successively try different fixes that each will work if a different thing has failed. From that point of view it might make sense to change the breaker first, simply because it's an easy job.  That's not a fallacy or error, it's a strategy.  (Satirized in an old joke as: "How can you tell that the car stopped by the highway belongs to a [certain company] computer technician?  Answer: He's the one who's changing all four tires to find the flat.")  It can be a dangerous strategy if there isn't sufficient testing to see whether something else is what really needs fixing&mdash;I've heard of a number of air or train crashes were something failed due to this sort of inadequate repair&mdash;but it is a valid strategy.
 * X wants to yank the circuit breaker panel out of the wall and swap out the breaker as a first step. I'm no shrinking violet but yanking the panel sounds like something that really does warrant calling an electrician.  I guess I can go on youtube to look.  If it's possible to pull the breaker panel without disconnecting the wires, that means I could use a clamp meter to measure the load directly, which would eliminate one variable, and that would be helpful.  Immediately replacing the breaker seems dumb either way, since unlike non-GFCI breakers, those things aren't cheap.  73.93.155.110 (talk) 00:14, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I've changed a breaker in my house. No ripping things out of walls.  You turn off the main breaker, unscrew the cover from the panel with the other breakers, unscrew the old breaker, unscrew the wires from it, and reverse the sequence to install the new one.  It may be harder with other styles of panel, and of course if you want to have or think you must have an electrician that's fine, but it's not a difficult job.  Anyway, I was trying to make a point about strategies, not start a discussion of changing breakers. --142.112.159.101 (talk) 07:29, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah changing the breaker doesn't look difficult. The interest in pulling the panel was to get to the wires that I imagined came out the back of the panel, but online pictures show they actually come out the sides, which is much easier to get a meter around.  So I might try that at some point. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:E118 (talk) 09:00, 4 February 2020 (UTC) (73.93.155.110)


 * However, if a person decides it must be the breaker that's faulty, they might be overgeneralizing from past experience where that was always the cause. --142.112.159.101 (talk) 23:10, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Is person X a professional electrician? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:06, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, Occam's razor says we should go with the most likely hypothesis. So if it was known that GFCI circuit breakers regularly become defective, the your "person X" would be on the right course. Alansplodge (talk) 21:33, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * There is also the cognitive bias of anchoring or focalism. ---Sluzzelin talk  21:41, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, the jumping to conclusions and anchoring articles are both helpful, and I'd say related to each other. X is not an electrician and neither am I, but I've been researching GFCI issues and it looks like the outlets/breakers don't frequently themselves go bad. It is more likely to be ground leakage in something plugged into that circuit. I may open a separate RDM or RDS question about how to find it. One obvious suspect is a nest of power strips with TV stuff plugged into it here, but unfortunately I can't unplug that because the residents go berserk if the TV is shut off for any length of time. 73.93.155.110 (talk) 21:51, 3 February 2020 (UTC) get into:You "nest of power strips" could be overloading the circuit. You should get a professional out there and see what they advise. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The nest of power strips has relatively low powered stuff (TV, cable box, internet modem, some phone chargers, and a low end computer) plugged into it. It doesn't trip the breaker by itself.  The breaker mostly trips when someone is running a space heater, but the space heater itself doesn't draw enough current to overload the breaker, so that suggests the GFCI tripping.  I'll call an electrician if it looks like we really have to mess with stuff, but this isn't rocket science and it will save some hassle if I can find the problem myself.  This says a frequent cause is decaying insulation allowing current to leak in the wiring, but it also has an Ohm's Law calculation that is off by a factor of 1000 :(.  73.93.155.110 (talk) 22:52, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you sure it's not an AFCI?&mdash;eric 22:57, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It says GFCI right on the breaker, and that doesn't seem likely to be wrong. 73.93.155.110 (talk) 23:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I am absolutely, definitely convinced someone must have replaced the label, it is the only logical conclusion.&mdash;eric 03:22, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * How close is the space heater to the limit? The stuff you mention may be relatively low power but not that low power depending especially on the TV and computer. I could easily imagine 200W or more from the sum of that equipment. If the space heater is close to the limit you could easily be exceeding it by plugging everything in, especially in the US where you use 120V and can easily be limited to 1800W per outlet. Also if you really can't unplug stuff from the multipin adapter, are you at least able to move the space heater to another outlet with a different GFCI? If it trips by itself on a different GFCI this strongly suggests there's something wrong with it. Nil Einne (talk) 12:57, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The heater is used on a 600 watt setting and it's a 20 amp breaker, but OTOH the amount of other stuff connected to the breaker is not known for sure. That's why I'm interested in measuring the load at the breaker panel.  My best guess is that the load is much less than 20 amps, but measuring is always better than guessing.  I will try moving the heater to other outlets though it's hard to tell which outlets in that room are on which breakers.  They may even all be on the same breaker.  Thanks.2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:E118 (talk) 01:08, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 73.93, you might find something more fitting (plus other interesting stuff) on our list of cognitive biases. ---Sluzzelin talk  22:56, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that is a good article. I think one part of what I'm recognizing is discomfort with having an unanswered question in one's mind.  The person would rather choose an answer and stick with it than keep the question open, even if the chosen answer is wrong.  Fear of the unknown and ambiguity intolerance aren't exactly what I mean, but maybe they are related.  I don't immediately see anything matching on the cognitive biases list but I haven't yet examined it closely.  73.93.155.110 (talk) 23:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC)


 * A similar issue arises in a rather different context: investigators in a crime may latch on to an initial theory and then disregard information that argues against their favoured theory and overemphasize information that tends to confirm it. This is a major cause of wrongful convictions. This error is known as "confirmation bias". --Lambiam 10:04, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a nice line about that in Tom Phillips's book Humans: "Before I began researching this book, I thought that confirmation bias was a major problem, and everything I've read since then convinces me that I was right." --142.112.159.101 (talk) 00:51, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Heh, I'll have to remember that one. 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:E118 (talk) 01:10, 5 February 2020 (UTC)