Hi I’m Elliott. This is Mental Floss on YouTube. Today I’m going to talk about some
misconceptions that television, my favorite thing, taught you.
Misconception #1: It takes a few seconds to scan for fingerprints.
On show likes CSI and Law and Order, the characters seem to have these unlimited resources. Instant
fingerprint scanning and recognition is one of those. In reality, they would probably
use the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It takes around 27
minutes to search through its 70 million criminal fingerprints. Processing for a civilian’s
print takes an average of an hour and twelve minutes to search through 34 million prints.
Misconception #2: Forensic labs are 100% accurate. This misconception is so common that it has
even been given a name: “The CSI effect.” It has been studied because jurors who watch
the show are less likely to be convinced by evidence unless it involves forensic science.
In reality, according to the Washington Post, between 2002 and 2012, quote, “failures
[were] reported at about 30 federal, state and local crime labs serving the FBI, the
Army and eight of the nation’s 20 largest cities.”
A study was conducted at Arizona State University about the CSI effect in 2007. One forensic
scientist that they interviewed estimated that 40% of the “science” portrayed on
CSI does not exist in real life. Shocker! Yet, viewers of CSI tend to rate themselves
higher than other people when asked about their knowledge of forensic science.
Misconception #3: Police officers always need warrants to search.
In many crime shows, an officer is thwarted when they’re forced to wait for a search
warrant. But, in reality, that’s not always necessary. Like, when a person consents to
a search, when there’s probable cause, when something illegal is in plain view, or when
a suspect is being arrested.
Misconception #4: Air ducts are easy to crawl through.
Characters have used air ducts to get around in shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 24,
and even Community, if you count monkeys. This isn’t a good idea in real life, for
a few reasons. First of all, many shows have characters escaping from being locked up through
a duct, which wouldn’t work well because it actually makes a lot of noise. You’d
get caught pretty much right away. Plus, ducts are used to transport air from place to place,
so it could easily bend in a ninety degree angle that you wouldn’t be able to crawl
up or down. Finally, many people have gotten stuck in air ducts. They’re generally built
a little too small to transport people. I wonder if that's on purpose - probably.
Misconception #5: When a person’s heart starts flatlining, a shock to the heart can
save them. You’ve seen this in basically like, every
medical show ever -- a patient’s heart monitor indicates that it’s flatlining and a good-looking
doctor saves the day with a shock to the heart. But, a flatline, also known as asystole, can
be fixed with CPR or with a vasopressor and adrenaline. This is for very complicated,
scientific reasons that I don’t really have time to get into, so I’ll just quickly talk
about when the shocks do and don’t work.
Basically when someone is in cardiac arrest, a shock to the heart can cause electrolytes
out of cells within the heart. Due to the different electrical charges of those electrolytes,
the heart might start pumping again. A person who has flatlined, on the other hand, doesn’t
have those different electrical charges that those electrolytes need for this to work.
A shock to a flatlined heart will just burn it.
Misconception #6: Affairs, lies, and murder are rampant in The White House.
Some shows portray a career in politics as the most dangerous thing you could possibly
pursue. It’s actually not that way in real life. At least according to Barack Obama,
that is. While talking about Scandal, he has said, “It’s not that exciting,” noting
that staffers “don’t have enough time to engage in too much scandalous behavior.”
Misconception #7: Minimum wage workers can afford beautiful, spacious apartments.
BankRate.com recently consulted a few real estate brokers to see just how much television
apartments would cost in real life. In 2 Broke Girls, Max and Caroline live in a fairly small
apartment in Williamsburg. In reality, it would probably cost around $2,000 a month
in rent. The apartments in The Big Bang Theory would be around the same cost, which might
be feasible for a group of scientists, but maybe not a Cheesecake Factory employee like
Penny.
Misconception #8: Crimes are solved most of the time...by the tons of people who work
in that field. Let’s be honest, shows like CSI and Law
and Order can be real downers. Well, it turns out that these shows have a kind of optimism
as well. Because Detective Olivia Benson and her various television peers are very, very
good at their jobs. They solve pretty much 100% of the cases that they see. In reality,
the NYPD solves around 57% of homicides.
Interestingly, people who watch these shows often also overestimate the percentage of
the population who are lawyers and police officers. A 2009 study from Purdue University
found that these people believed lawyers made up around 16% of the work force, and police
officers were around 18%. In reality, it’s less than 1% each.
Misconception #9: Eyewitnesses are always accurate.
Courtroom dramas rarely tackle the subject of inaccurate eyewitnesses. Generally, what
they say is what the viewer also saw happen. But, often times, eyewitnesses misremember
events and misidentify suspects. In fact, according to the American Psychological Association,
quote, "Controlled experiments as well as studies of actual identifications have consistently
found that the rate of incorrect identifications is approximately 33 percent."
Guys, that's 1 in 3.
Misconception #10: Emergency Room workers are constantly saving people from heart attacks
and strokes. I’m not going to tell you when to go to
the Emergency Room and when not to go. But shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy really
confuse their viewers about what the ER is all about. Chest pain and abdominal pain are
the two most common symptoms for people visiting emergency rooms. But, unlike on TV, these
visits generally don’t end in a doctor saving a life. People visiting the ER who are actually
experiencing heart attacks, strokes, or appendicitis are in the minority.
Thank you for watching Misconceptions on Mental Floss on YouTube, which is made with the help
of all these nice people. If you have a topic for an upcoming Misconceptions episode that
you’d like to see, leave it in comments and we'll check it out.
I'll see you next week. Bye!