Logic12 min

Which One Is Made Up

Three statements. Two are true. One somebody invented.

Ten rounds of three statements each. Two of them are true and genuinely strange; one is a thing a lot of people believe that simply is not so.

The trap is that the true ones sound madder than the fake one. Octopuses really do have three hearts and wombats really do produce cube-shaped droppings, while "we only use ten per cent of our brains" sounds perfectly sensible and has no source at all.

Every answer comes with why, and the why is the point. Most of the fakes here are myths worth losing.

How it works

Read all three, then pick the one that is not true.
The fake is not always in the same place. Guessing by position will not work.
The explanation says why the fake is a fake, and usually where it came from.
Ten rounds drawn from a larger pool, so a second run is a different set.

Common questions

Is the fake always in the same position?: No. Its position is fixed per round and spread across the three slots, so answering "always the last one" scores about a third. The order is stored with the round rather than shuffled at play time, which is what lets a shared link reproduce someone else’s exact run.
One of the true statements sounds made up. Are you sure?: That is the design. The true pair is chosen to be the stranger-sounding one, because a round where the fake is obviously the odd one out is not a round. Every explanation names what makes the fake false, so if a true statement surprised you, the round did its job.
What if a fact changes?: Some will. The estimate of how many bacteria live in a human body has already been revised once, and the count of Jupiter’s moons goes up most years. The fakes are different in kind: they are claims with no evidence behind them at all, not findings that might be superseded.
Do I get the same rounds again?: Not usually. Ten are drawn from the pool each time. A shared result link carries the exact ten it was made from, so sending someone your score sends them your run.

Every true statement here reflects the current mainstream understanding, and a few of them are the kind of thing that could be revised — the count of bacteria in a body has already been revised once. The fakes are claims with no supporting evidence rather than matters of live scientific debate. If you think a round is wrong, it is worth looking it up; that is a better outcome than agreeing with a game.

Okay, now pick another

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Common questions

Is the fake always in the same position?

No. Its position is fixed per round and spread across the three slots, so answering "always the last one" scores about a third. The order is stored with the round rather than shuffled at play time, which is what lets a shared link reproduce someone else’s exact run.

One of the true statements sounds made up. Are you sure?

That is the design. The true pair is chosen to be the stranger-sounding one, because a round where the fake is obviously the odd one out is not a round. Every explanation names what makes the fake false, so if a true statement surprised you, the round did its job.

What if a fact changes?

Some will. The estimate of how many bacteria live in a human body has already been revised once, and the count of Jupiter’s moons goes up most years. The fakes are different in kind: they are claims with no evidence behind them at all, not findings that might be superseded.

Do I get the same rounds again?

Not usually. Ten are drawn from the pool each time. A shared result link carries the exact ten it was made from, so sending someone your score sends them your run.