From the explanatory depth bias article:
For a quick demonstration of this, draw a picture of a bicycle, making sure to include all the major parts that hold it together and make it go. You know what a bicycle looks like, right? Easy. Now, when you’re done, go look up a photo of a bicycle. Chances are, you failed.
Fortunately, I did not fail, though I used to photograph bikes in detail for work. I may not know much about fixing them, but I know where most of the thing-a-ma-jigs are located and roughly how most frames are shaped.
OK, the mitochondria are the “powerhouses of the cell,” but why do they exist?
Does anyone know that definitively? They have DNA all to themselves which may indicate some historic symbiotic relationship that began aeons ago. A similar tale may apply to chloroplasts.
How big are they?
Around a micron.
Do all living things have them?
No. Bacteria don’t, at the very least.
If you wanted to find a mitochondrion, where in your body would you look?
An epithelial cell would probably be the easiest place to look, but there are plenty of other options. Some of our cells don’t have mitochondria, I believe (red blood cells?), but you’d have quite a few cellular options for finding mitochondria.
My takeaway from this article, after having passed this little test, is that I am immune from this bias. Or that I recall some trivial details that coincidentally ended up in the article and find it funny when an author’s examples work out that way.
I recall encountering this sort of bias in myself in my early twenties. Back then I was in that age where I’d spent so many miserable years being lectured that I was desperate to prove I, too, knew things. As a result, I was even quicker to quarrel and debate than I am now. But I’d often find I’d quickly dig holes for myself by making confident assertions and then, on having to back them up, realizing all I had was a factoid propped up on airy belief. Far too much of my time became consumed by filling in gaps in knowledge to cover the cheques my mouth was writing.
By my mid-twenties, I was beginning to learn that the world is far too complex for any one person to understand in depth. We navigate based on what seems probably true, from our perspective, rather than what we know in expert depth to be true. If you ditch the unfounded certitude, you lose some of the emotional investment that tends to deepen biases even further. (Some, not all).
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