It's just another example of received wisdom methinks.
It's amazing how much people take on face value and it eventually becomes "fact".
3 Great examples are that the coriolis effect makes the water go down the toilet in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere, that the rain forests produce most of out oxygen and that gullible is a real word. A lot of people take these things to be true, when in fact they are fallacious.
Numbers are quoted and re-quoted until they become facts. To such an extent that people are totally convinced of their accuracy.
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