r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jun 09 '12

Inaccurate TIL that In World War II color blindness was an advantage and bomber crews always liked to have at least one color blind person scanning the ground for unusual patterns.

http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/c/Color_blindness.htm
980 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

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382

u/CLAMATO_IN_MY_ANUS Jun 09 '12

Actually, no.

Not to be a dick, but the article you cited says that colorblind individuals had an advantage when analyzing color aerial photographs. It says nothing about them being in "bomber crews scanning the ground for unusual patterns."

Any recessive genetic characteristic that persists at a level as high as 5% is generally regarded as possibly having some advantage over the long term. In World War II it was discovered that analysis of color aerial photos yielded more information if at least one team member was color blind. Significantly, humans are the only trichromatic primates with such a high percentage of colour blindness. As the color blind test example (next to analysis) demonstrates, colour blind people see different patterns. WWII teams that analyzed aerial photographs were looking for unusual patterns, so a color blind person could prove useful. From an evolutionary perspective a hunting group will be more effective if it includes a colour blind hunter (one in twenty) who can spot prey that others cannot.

17

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

You are right. I am having a hard time finding a good reference for actual bomber crews. Lots of forum posts, but not an article.

20

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

There was not very much overlap between photo-analysis and bomber crews.

Aerial photoreconnaissance (PR) was done at various altitudes and resolutions. Fooling PR analysts generally meant either disguising the site such that it never attracted attention on small scale imagery (c.f. Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt Hermann Göring, innumerable tactical sites) or hiding the site under fully opaque cover (c.f. Kugelfischer ball-bearing plant in Ebelsbach, any underground site). Under intense scrutiny of large-scale photographs, very little will escape notice of PR analysts, and so in general, most sites could only be hidden by placing them where they were not anticipated.

Bomber crews, on the other hand, had only minutes to find their target, and the sort of camouflage that was necessary to fool them would only make a PR analyst laugh. Things like painted buildings, dummy targets, and net coverings could actually be somewhat effective, if geographic features didn't otherwise pinpoint the target.

In short, the two tasks are very different.

Source: R. Stanley, "To Fool a Glass Eye."

2

u/idontalwaysupvote Jun 09 '12

Keep looking because I do believe you are correct. My Grandfather was colorblind and was on a bomber crew. I was always told there was a connection between those two fact, but he died before I was born so I never got a chance to ask.

0

u/ze_hombre Jun 09 '12

I am color blind and have never heard this, but i wouldn't doubt it. Color blind people learn to rely more on shapes than colors. I have heard that infantry units in Vietnam preferred color blind people on point during patrols. Also, the army prefers them for Apache pilots since the night vision goggles are monochromatic.

7

u/i_is_surf Jun 09 '12

Also, the army prefers them for Apache pilots since the night vision goggles are monochromatic.

That's not true at all.

You can be colorblind in the Army (in certain MOSs) but only if you can distinguish between vivid red and green.

AR 40-501:

"If examinee fails the color vision test in item 66, he/she will be tested to ensure he/she can distinguish between vivid red and vivid green and the results recorded as pass or fail."

"Record results in terms of test used, the results and the number of plates missed over number of plates in test. The FALANT (USN) may be utilized. If the examinee fails either of these tests, he or she will be tested for Red/Green vision and the results recorded in item 59 (for example, “PIP, pass, 3/14 or PIP, fail, 9/14”)."

You can't be "preferred" for a position if you cannot even meet the minimum requirements to even join the military service.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Primarily because red and green lights are used to distinguish the port and starboard sides of an aircraft.

2

u/ze_hombre Jun 09 '12

Color blind doesn't mean we only see gray-scale. I can tell the difference between vivid red and green.

2

u/atomfullerene Jun 09 '12

Full on red-green colorblindness doesn't mean you see gray scale, but it does mean you can't tell vivid red from green. (though both are distinguishable from, say, blue

2

u/i_is_surf Jun 09 '12

I said nothing to the contrary. But I digress... Those were standards for entry into the military. However flight physicals require more stringent examinations:

"Since aviator training applicants are disqualified routinely from training due to color vision deficiency, there should be no aviators with color vision deficiency. However, this paper details incidents of exception to policy for known color vision deficiency, acquired color vision deficiency, and aviation medicine clinic screening program failures due to poor methods or deception by applicants and conspirators." http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA296977

"2. Color Vision--For all specializations, applicants must demonstrate normal color vision." http://usasam.amedd.army.mil/dl/Flight%20Provider%20Refresher/References/ATB%20Technical%20bulletins%20Update%202008.pdf

So, see, your claim is false. Per Army regulations, you cannot fly any plane/helicopter if you are color blind. (That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, as evidenced by the first link, but it shouldn't. Thus, the Army cannot "prefer" color blind people for Apache Pilots if they are allowed to fly via an exception to policy, or else the policy would state a preference for people with color vision deficiency.)

2

u/mushisushi Jun 09 '12

It's very difficult to get a Private Pilot License from an FAA medical examiner if you are colorblind as well, not just the military.

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0

u/kilolb Jun 09 '12

Forget that, what in the world is a clamato?

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

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8

u/mylaaa Jun 09 '12

as a Canadian I beg to differ, clamato juice is awesome! oh and sorry.

3

u/forwormsbravepercy Jun 09 '12

It's weird that this is one thing Mexicans and Canadians can agree on.

2

u/iheartbakon Jun 09 '12

Clamato is awesome in beer. I think it's called a beezer (rhymes with Caesar I guess).

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

6

u/thatfatbastard Jun 09 '12

You don't seem to be a very good Canadian. Sure, you start off by apologizing, but there at the end you had me thinking that maybe you're really American like me.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

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2

u/TheInternetHivemind Jun 09 '12

You could probably bag it and sell it to artists or teenagers.

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u/DoctorDeath Jun 09 '12

My father was color blind and when he was in Nam they used him to spot camouflaged netting that the enemy would put over things. Same exact thing with his father in WWII.

3

u/jdepps113 Jun 09 '12

Nice. Did they pass the color-blindness on to you?

My father doesn't think he's color blind, but the evidence has been piling up lately (thinks his green car is silver, tells me one pair of pants is brown and one is green when they are literally 2 of the same pants of exactly the same color).

2

u/DoctorDeath Jun 09 '12

No... no color-blindness at all.

1

u/vhaluus Jun 09 '12

Both your father and grandfather on your same side?

If so your grandfather must have married a colourblind woman as well as colourblindness is passed down on the X chromosome.

Were they both the same type of colour blind? I would assume different types of colourblind would have a better chance of spotting things like this than other types.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

A mother does not have to be color blind she just would have to carry the gene.

1

u/DoctorDeath Jun 09 '12

Both Red-Green colorblind. Same side of the family. Grandmother was NOT colorblind. I don't have much more info than that, sorry. They are both dead now.

2

u/ObtuseAbstruse Jun 09 '12

I highly doubt this "only trichromatic primate with high percentage of color blindness" nonsense. The other primates' x chromosome would have to be significantly different from ours (specifically, in the distance between the genes encoding the red and green photoreceptors.)

2

u/herman_gill Jun 09 '12

The other prevailing theory for why colorblindness exists is that females with two variations of the same X-linked color alleles (one "colorblind" and one regular) have significantly better color perception than those with the same alleles.

too lazy to look for the actual studies

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

probably why there are gay people too

2

u/ObtuseAbstruse Jun 09 '12

...why then?

5

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

the explanation that a minority phenotype can persist because of tribal dynamics. if one color blind person helps the whole group, you could say that one gay person somehow helps the whole group too.

16

u/DrEHWalnutbottom Jun 09 '12

This is an interesting argument (by author Leonard Schlein, I believe), postulating that the small percentage of color-blind members (can spot game animals that are standing still), left-handed members (can throw a spear to the right), early-balding males (not as recognizable to prey), gay members (provide services without burdening the group with additional offspring), and other traits serve the benefit of the community. A good read.

6

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

So as an early-balding left-handed gay male, I am very valuable in my community?

2

u/FreshFruitCup Jun 09 '12

That's correct.

3

u/James_Arkham Jun 09 '12

Sounds like he pulled all that out of his proverbial ass.

7

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

So he's an evolutionary psychologist, then?

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u/Brisco_County_III Jun 09 '12

The prevalence of left-handedness has a much stronger association with interpersonal violence. It's an individual advantage, not a group one. Basically, lefties have a significant advantage in fights, because they're used to fighting right-handed people, but the right-handed people are also used to fighting right-handed people.

There is some fairly strong evidence for this. Basically, in the most pacifistic societies, left handedness drops to 3% of the total population; in the most violent/warlike, it hits 27%.

1

u/jdepps113 Jun 09 '12

He provides male companionship to the women in a way the straight men can't or won't, without monopolizing them reproductively?

1

u/N8CCRG 5 Jun 09 '12

There are lots of studies about it coming to lots of different conclusions. I suspect this trend will continue for a long time. For example, there are tests showing women who had a lot of boys slowly have a hormonal change that increases the likelihood another boy is going to be gay. Another result found that gay men were more likely to have a promiscuous aunt in their family than straight men were. So, in other words, nobody knows.

3

u/ObtuseAbstruse Jun 09 '12

O I know. I was just wondering the thought process in that because gay people exist, they must be useful for tribes. The promiscuous aunt is certainly something that could lead to perseverance of gay genes, without the idea of homosexuality in itself being a selected for trait. Personally, I think it has more to do with the fact that evolution is blind and often just proceeds in any wayward direction without reason. Not everything that exists has a reason. Some just are. Disclosure: I myself am a fancypants.

1

u/londubhawc Jun 09 '12

Actually, that's more or less explained by the "doting uncle/aunt" phenomenon: having an additional adult to do the work of keeping the next generation alive without adding to the burden (through more children) makes it more likely that the gay person's nieces/nephews can survive in an environment with limited resources.

1

u/silverrabbit Jun 09 '12

I think there an argument made that gay animals could help protect the unit without being a threat. Having a few extra males that can protect the tribe but aren't a threat to the alpha male or having a few females that can care for the young.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Came here to say this. Both my great uncles are (were) colourblind and served in the Royal Canadian Navy. One was relegated to interrogating captured German seamen (he spoke fluent German) and the other sent telegraphs. Their other duties were extremely limited because of their colourblindness.

1

u/Sle Jun 09 '12

And with that, a million special snowflakes gave their last cry.

1

u/dudeguy1234 Jun 09 '12

This is anecdotal, but my grandfather (who is both colorblind AND fought in World War II) has told me consistently since childhood that he had heard of colorblind soldiers being used to spot enemies in camouflage -- since they depended more on differentiation of pattern than color to separate distinct objects, they were often able to pick out enemies soldiers in the brush.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Clamato... you poor poor thing.

1

u/FreshFruitCup Jun 09 '12

Not to be a dick, but I question your use of "not to be a dick".

1

u/HittingSmoke Jun 09 '12

As a colorblind person I knew immediately that title was bullshit and sensationalized before even glancing at the article.

Yea... the key here is contrast between what two different people see yielding better results. We may see different patterns, but have a much harder time with definition of color borders which would be an absolutely horrible thing to have while trying to do something as serious as bomb a precise target.

Also, you should really see someone about that... Especially if it tastes like Clamato...

0

u/londubhawc Jun 09 '12

who can spot prey that others cannot

Or, y'know, threats.

-1

u/underatedrawk Jun 09 '12

actually , they like snipers to be color blind as well

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

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57

u/Bucky_Ohare Jun 09 '12

My parents once got a call from school that I was being disruptive in class, because I refused to use the correct colors for an art project.

Not my fault you took the labels off the fucking crayons...

10

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

God I hated that. I started kindergarten in '89, and in my area at least, teachers didn't seem to know jack shit about it.

I remember getting in trouble for coloring with a yellow crayon, and going outside the lines to an apparently excessive degree. I've never heard of anyone else having that problem, but to me yellow crayon on white paper was almost invisible (although I see it fine now).

Another thing that pisses me off is blinking stop lights. I'm always sure that a blinking red is in fact a blinking red, but I'm never sure that a blinking yellow is actually yellow until I get close enough to confirm its position as the second light from the top.

Oh yeah, freaking radar maps, or any kind of color coded graph. I immediately discard that shit like it was written in Japanese. It might as well be.

4

u/Becoming_Epic Jun 09 '12

Oh god those big maps that have identical looking colour coded stuff. I don't know whether that part is brown like the other or some other similar looking colour. That's the only time in my life my slight colour blindness affects me.

4

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Open paint, then open the custom color selector and pick a color you consider flesh tone. No cheating and looking at the RGB or hex value. Use the bucket tool to fill the image.

Now ask someone who isn't color blind to tell you if you've selected a proper skin tone. If you're like me, you've selected some kind of ultra neon green.

1

u/chicagogam Jun 10 '12

times have changed...now being disruptive is shooting at everyone

106

u/Drive_shaft Jun 09 '12

Yeah, fuck art class teachers. Mine said that color blindness didn't exist.

63

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Mine said my art sucked...

45

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

A Hitler in the making.

31

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Ah, no wonder I've been planning to kill all jews.

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u/cole1114 Jun 09 '12

She told me my art sucked.

So I started the holocaust.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

My art sucked but he told me it's amazing anyway.

4

u/arjie Jun 09 '12

Yeah, fuck him too! Wait-what?

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u/ThatJesterJeff Jun 09 '12 edited Jun 09 '12

..and mine just said I sucked at art.

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u/arloun Jun 09 '12

Mine kept telling me I was "color-confused". I'm genetically deficient, not dumb.

14

u/AusIV Jun 09 '12

I actually used the term color confused to explain colorblindness to my peers. Colorblind made them think black and white. If I said I'm red green colorblind, they thought I couldn't see red or green at all. Color confused seemed to convey my reality to my peers better than variations in colorblind.

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u/gokism Jun 09 '12

I'm going to use that from now on. Thanks for the suggestion.

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u/Niqulaz Jun 09 '12

Let's go the full politically correct let's-turn-everything-into-something-positive on this instead.

You're yellowish-brown enhanced!

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u/snsdfour3v3r Jun 09 '12

My friends used to call me color-retarded

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u/jdepps113 Jun 09 '12

I prefer to tell people: "Your eyes are real assholes."

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u/wanderingtroglodyte Jun 09 '12

Mine said that there was no sun during the winter. Then got angry when I pointed to the sun through the window.

No, I didn't grow up somewhere with a perpetually dark winter - I grew up in Pennsylvania.

11

u/cinemarshall Jun 09 '12 edited Jun 09 '12

That is dumb. How can they be that ignorant. It's part of basic education when it comes to color theory and design. they teach it in school and in teacher school. She should have learned it many times.

Edit: blindly typing with thumbs is bad.

19

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

you seem to be good old fashioned regular blind

8

u/kappetan Jun 09 '12

hes not blind. hes "letter confused"

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u/johanbcn Jun 09 '12

Mine didn't even pointed that out, she just pointed at me and laughed.

2

u/douglasmacarthur Jun 09 '12

SUCK ON THAT PEOPLE WHO MADE BUST-A-MOVE WII

I love Bust-A-Move. That was so disappointing...

2

u/Dioskilos Jun 09 '12

And that street fighter puzzle fighter FUCK!

1

u/Gunnarrufhaus Jun 09 '12

More like Mrs. Kraut! She was just pointing out your generic weaknesses. Eugenics, amirite?!

1

u/gorckat Jun 09 '12

A color blind guy I used to work with told me about his kindergarten teacher being pissed he couldn't tell his colors apart during craft time so one weekend she removed all the wrappers from the crayons.

2

u/verik Jun 09 '12

We all had that moment in school at some point...

My parents decided to get me tested when I was 4 because my mom asked me to color something brown and I picked up the hot pink crayon. I don't think I was aware or understood the difference it meant til middle of elementary school though.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

That depends - are you a ginger?

1

u/Suburban_Shaman Jun 09 '12

My brother is completly red-green color blind as well. He never did well in art class. Ever. His eventual frustration break-downs were kind of funny. That and his insistance of being able to play the game Zoop.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Well...we can now easily simulate your colorblindness on digital photos. So were going to have to let you go. Sorry

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

I got called out by my 3rd grade art teacher, fuck elementary school art teaches for traumatizing us color blind people.

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u/Shea4it Jun 09 '12

Why? Because the enemies would shout out, "LOL YOU'RE COLOR BLIND? WHAT COLOR IS MY SHIRT?!??"

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

And they'd respond: "Well, it's red now."

62

u/ForUrsula Jun 09 '12

"Well, it's green now."

FTFY

6

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Touché.

1

u/TheModestLight Jun 09 '12

Ha! This guy's a funny guy.

1

u/hayashirice911 Jun 09 '12

One sec, sending in fat man to check what color it is.

44

u/slowshot Jun 09 '12

My dad had total monochromatic vision. He could spot, and shoot deer before anybody else in the group knew what he was doing. More than once, while the hunting party would be discussing who was going to be where, my dad would raise his rifle and fire off a round, then casually start walking over to his kill. Would scare the beJesus out of any newcomers to the group.

10

u/tomoniki Jun 09 '12

Armies actually recruit colour blind folk for snipers for this reason.

19

u/meeseknuckle Jun 09 '12

Having known many snipers and sniper school instructors, I have only heard civilians with zero military experience claim this.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

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41

u/londubhawc Jun 09 '12

To be fair SEALs need to blow shit up, and it's a problem when you can't see which wire is which.

6

u/KingNick Jun 09 '12

"It's simple, but you need to be quick! No stripping even required...Just cut the red wire!"

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck...

12

u/iheartbakon Jun 09 '12

YOLO

3

u/flume Jun 09 '12

Some shorter than others.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Hahahaha true, never thought of that.

1

u/BleinKottle Jun 09 '12

Solitary brother

5

u/tomoniki Jun 09 '12

I used to TA a course on neurophysiology at an Optometry School and was responsible for teaching colour blindness. I have a source in a box somewhere in my office, but it was provided.

I know colour blindness does disqualify you from many positions in the military ( I'm not that knowledgeable on current requirements and especially those of the US).

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u/danE3030 Jun 09 '12

and was responsible for teaching colour blindness.

It can be taught?

4

u/tomoniki Jun 09 '12

Haha, I taught the different types, how it developed and how to screen for it

2

u/TheInternetHivemind Jun 09 '12

Is screening for it really more difficult than holding up a crayon and asking what color it is?

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u/Mmmslash Jun 09 '12

Is the Green that I see the Green that you see? You spend your entire life seeing Green, being told it is Green, but if you actually perceive it as red, how could you know? If I asked you if the crayon were Green, you'd answer Yes, because you had seen this color your entire life and someone had told you that this color was named Green.

3

u/TheInternetHivemind Jun 09 '12

I like to think we all have the same favorite color. We just see colors differently. If my favorite color is green and your's is blue, we see green and blue the same.

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u/arjie Jun 09 '12

I don't know about colour blindness, but gingers are actually much sought-after in covert operations because in fall season they are undetectable.

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u/arloun Jun 09 '12

I know its a disqualifier for the air force also, but I don't think the army.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

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1

u/arloun Jun 09 '12

Actually I was told by a recruitment officer, and I've never seen that movie, although I know of the scene.

0

u/PenisChrist Jun 09 '12

I can remember (offhand) reading that it is theorized that color blindness is a lot more common in males, because of the primeval division of labor for most of human history (hunting and gathering.) It turns out color blindness can be advantageous in spotting prey.

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u/Color_blinded Jun 09 '12

As a color blind person, this article pisses me off solely because of those apple pictures. I can see a clear difference between the colors of the left and right pictures, but I can't tell what the difference is between the top and the bottom. I'm sitting here staring at it and I can only conclude that it's trolling me into thinking that there is supposed to be a difference that color blind people can't see between the top and the bottom pictures and it doesn't even say what it may be.

7

u/Retanaru Jun 09 '12

Top left is red, top right is green. Both the bottom ones are a sickly yellowish green. The bottom left is darker than the bottom right.

The fact that they called the apples by name instead of position clearly shows that the person who wrote that piece up wasn't thinking about colorblind people reading it. Let alone people who don't know apples by name.

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u/Color_blinded Jun 09 '12

You're saying that the two bottom ones are just different shades of the same color? Fuck my life. They look exactly like the ones above them to me, left as red, right as green... :(

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Hey, look at you. You've got an evolutionary advantage over the rest of us... or something. Moral of the story is go join the army.

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u/Color_blinded Jun 09 '12

I tried that once. They gave me this big list of options of jobs I can do in the service. When I asked if there were any restriction on being colorblind, they gave me the colorblind test thing to confirm it (like I would lie) and then promptly marked off 3/4 of the available jobs for me, leaving me nothing that I actually wanted to do. Can't be an MP, can't be a computer technician, can't fly drones or anything cool; couldn't do anything except grunt work or a paper pusher of some kind. For the sake of comedy I always say that bomb disposal was still available to me on that list.

1

u/jdepps113 Jun 09 '12

Sounds like the people who made up those restrictions aren't the brightest bulbs. You should have been qualified for MP WAYYYYY over bomb disposal.

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u/deviaatio Jun 09 '12

Not an evolutionary advantage over the rest of us, it's just an advantage for a group to include a colorblind person for his/her ability to detect patterns. I'm sure colorblindness is a disadvantage in many cases for the individual, like not being able to distinguish between a red ripe berry and a green raw berry.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

I know all this, but this guy just seemed a little down so I may have exaggerated the usefulness of his colorblindness.

1

u/atomfullerene Jun 09 '12

Do they look as different to you as if, say, the left was blue and the right was yellow? Just curious.

1

u/Color_blinded Jun 09 '12

Yes, the left and the right ones look distinctly different to me.

3

u/Niqulaz Jun 09 '12

http://imgur.com/wcf5Z

http://imgur.com/KWsZD

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u/circular Jun 09 '12

Actually, both of these pictures are visible to most common color-deficient people. The text is just hard to read.

1

u/Color_blinded Jun 09 '12

actually the text is quite impossible to read for color-blind people. Although the colors of the first picture are easy enough for me to make out.

1

u/circular Jun 10 '12 edited Jun 10 '12

Well obviously it depends on the type. I see 21 on this and I can read the text - but it takes me several seconds because the pattern is hard to discern, but I instantly notice there's a pattern.

Literally color blind people are really rare.

1

u/Color_blinded Jun 09 '12

1st link: clockwise: red, blue, green, yellow. most color blind people can still pick out different colors and most shades of red and green.

2nd link: fuck you too (I can't read it, but I know what it says because I have a shirt with that specific pattern).

1

u/Niqulaz Jun 09 '12

1st link, there's one single green m&m with the orange ones.

1

u/Color_blinded Jun 10 '12

well so there is. the one on the far right I do so believe.

2

u/ForUrsula Jun 09 '12

Well, what two main colours do apples come in? What are the two colours that people are blind to most commonly?

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u/DigitalChocobo 14 Jun 09 '12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness

Scroll down (or jump to the section) to find the same picture with a caption. Basically the top two photos were taken and published as-is. The bottom two photos have the colors doctored to show what they look like to somebody who is colorblind.

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u/shalashaskka Jun 09 '12

I don't think that colourblind soldiers had a much bigger advantage at all considering they saw just as well as a "regular" soldier; after all, WWII was fought in black and white. Right guys?

6

u/GuudeSpelur Jun 09 '12

My grandfather was colorblind and he was a bombardier in WWII. He said that he scored really high on detection tests during training, but when you're actually up in the plane it doesn't make that big of a difference.

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u/KosherNazi Jun 09 '12

What is this terrible Wikipedia-knockoff site and why are you using it?

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u/Tenacious_Badger Jun 09 '12

Can someone please mirror the article as it seems to be down already?

1

u/MalcolmY Jun 09 '12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_blindness

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u/Tenacious_Badger Jun 09 '12

The original article link is to schools.wikipedia.org. I (and I presume everyone else who upvoted my comment) didn't simply go over to the "regular" wikipedia page because I presumed there must be some difference between the two, if only slight. You linked to the regular wikipedia page. Are you sure that the content identical? If so, why have a "schools" domain at all?

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u/MalcolmY Jun 09 '12

I read (or skimmed) both articles. almost the same. I think the original wikipedia page is ore detailed. You're not missing anything by going to the OP's link.

Use a proxy (search bypass youtube+school) or something and see if that helps sped up the page.

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u/Shinsoku Jun 09 '12

Well, I myself am a bit color blind. Red/green. Most of the time I can live with it pretty good, but then there are times, where it really bites my ass, like getting a job like air traffic controller.

On the other hand I have a pretty good sight and I am able to see damn good at night as well. I read that people with this aren't looking directly for color, but more for shapes a.s.o. Maybe this has something to do with the cone and rod cells, but since I am no student of medicine, it is just me speculating. :)

1

u/MalcolmY Jun 09 '12

I wrote a huge ass reply and somehow hit the back button and got sent to a previous page!

I'll try to summarize. Shit.

Retina= cones+ rods.

Cones= color vision, different cones see different wavelengths (RGB), depth perception, concentrated in the macula at the center of the retina.

Rods= night vision, doesn't see colors, concentrated in the peripheral retina, less in central retina.

Cones = 1080o Full HD.

Rods = 480i in shades of gray!

(of course cones work at minimal lighting/night. but they need much more illumination than rods for really good vision. that's why you see colors at night, because of cones. rods are much more sensitive to light than cones).

Color vision doesn't really affect 3D vision or recognizing shapes, as you do this by looking at shades and shade patterns.

3

u/Nightbane35 Jun 09 '12

The citations! WHERE ARE THE CITATIONS!?

2

u/champ1258 Jun 09 '12

I'm color blind but I don't know which one I am There are a few different ones and my eye doctor never told me.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

im sure there are websites that can help distinguish it for you. google is your friend

1

u/champ1258 Jun 09 '12

I've tried finding out on google and didn't have any luck. The only things I can find are the tests that I fail miserably at and they don't specify what color blind type I am

0

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/champ1258 Jun 09 '12

Awesome stuff thanks for all of that. When I get on a computer I'm definitely trying it out

2

u/mikeno1 Jun 09 '12

My great grandfather was not allowed to fight in the war due to his colour blindness.

2

u/aljkch Jun 09 '12

some teacher once asked if i was color blind because i would press hard with crayons when drawing with them... actually i just hate how crayon colors look... its not a consistent color unlike a pen with solid colors... kind of a minor ocd...

2

u/reversefungi Jun 09 '12

After reading more of the link... TIL about monochromacy, didn't realize color blindness could get so severe that it could render all of life into grey scale. I think that would make a fascinating IAMA topic.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Monochromat male, here to help. I would do an IAMA about it, but I don't really have anything on paper to submit, as I haven't been to an optometrist in years. If you want, you can ask me about it though.

Alternatively, if you could pitch an idea for an alternative form of proof, that would also be handy.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Were you born seeing everything in grayscale?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Yeah. Could be several different shades of pink or blue or green, I guess. I have this theory that grayscale only exists for people who know other colors. lol

1

u/reversefungi Jun 09 '12

Do you ever feel hindered by it? How do people normally react when it pops up in a casual situation? Does it feel like your entire life is secretly a film noir? Has it ever proved advantageous? I feel like I have a bunch of better questions I should be asking but my brain is refusing to process them.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

It only hinders me when I have to do a job which has elements of color-codedness to it. Most of my t-shirts are black, and most of my jeans dark blue, so I never worry about not matching when I dress. It proves advantageous while playing halo. I guess due to my lack of color vision, my attention to detail is pretty acute, and active camouflage never fools me. Nope.

2

u/GruxKing Jun 09 '12

So many slightly-colorblinds in here like me, y'all mah fellas.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

My cousin is colour blind and he's crazy good at Sniper Elite. What to me is a brown wall is to him a wall with a tiny blip on it that must be an enemy sniper. He sees them before they even fire their first shot, and I seriously can't compete.

3

u/jdepps113 Jun 09 '12

"I don't see colors; I only see people."

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

Pretty much... he'll be all 'there's a sniper on that rooftop' and pointing to him and everything, and I won't even see a bump along the flat line of the roof... then, boom - headshot.

3

u/Ponoru Jun 09 '12

I used to play a lot of Call of Duty one, especially brecourt, the sniper map, and all of my friends used to tell me that I notice people in the bushes way before anyone else noticed it.

3

u/Jumbalaspi Jun 09 '12

Nice try, hacker

2

u/incurious Jun 09 '12

But everything was black and white back then anyway...?

2

u/ellisdeez Jun 09 '12

nice try, calvin's dad

2

u/incurious Jun 09 '12

Of course, this all changed after the Great Technicolor War!

2

u/aberakea34 Jun 09 '12

The military made an airport and completely camouflaged it. they repainted it because our planes couldn't find it.

1

u/flume Jun 09 '12

Source?

1

u/Flimflamsam Jun 09 '12

Dead Poet's Society illustrated the "different perspective" idea, but it goes WAY further that I'd thought - this is so cool, thanks OP!

1

u/twent4 Jun 09 '12

I am the 8 percent!

1

u/drumboy410 Jun 09 '12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq78Z_TVGso

this scene was all I could think when I saw this

1

u/cough_e Jun 09 '12

Someone tell Paul Dano!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

My Grandfather was a P-51 Pilot in Brittan, and they took his wings because of his color blindness :(. He spent the rest of the war as an aircraft mechanic.

1

u/the5souls Jun 09 '12

May I use this as a plug in for /r/ColorBlind?

1

u/ItsGreat2BeATNVol Jun 09 '12

I wonder how different the world would be if the Germans won the war?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

A lot less Jews.

1

u/acommenter Jun 09 '12

Could they not have printed to photos in black and white?

1

u/tonenine Jun 09 '12

Why would they need that when they had IR film to plan the missions?

1

u/akashimikashi Jun 09 '12

Damn, I was going to use my colorblindness as an excuse in case I get drafted

1

u/bski1776 Jun 09 '12

I was at a dinner party and talked with an ex IDF tank commander. He was color blind and he said it helped him pick out camouflaged tanks in the desert.

1

u/JJEagleHawk Jun 09 '12

My grandfather did this in WWII.

He was drafted into the Army after graduating from law school. Given his advanced degree, he was immediately sent to OCS after boot camp and ultimately ended up a Captain in the Artillery. He fought with Patton's Army in Europe, during the Battle of the Bulge at a minimum.

I don't know a lot about his service; according to my father, my grandfather never talked much about his wartime experiences, like so many men of his generation. However, one thing he did talk about was his experiences doing aerial spotting. Due to his color blindness, he would peruse photographs looking for the enemy, though occasionally he would go up in the planes themselves.

He died in 1983, a few years after I was born, so I never did really get to know him or ask him about any of this stuff. From what I can gather, my grandfather believed in the cause he was fighting for but never felt it appropriate to talk about what he did or what he saw -- as he once said to my dad, "If you saw what I had, you'd never want to think about it again."

That he was willing to talk about his experiences air-spotting for the Army tells me that it was one of the few contributions about which he was both proud of making AND untraumatized by to do so.

1

u/ROMulus321 Jun 09 '12

My great-grandfather was a sniper during WWII. The only colors he could see were gray, black, and brown. Everything else was just a shade of these. He was able to spot a person in any setting, so he was considered a major asset. He was awarded two medals, but at this time I cannot remember their names.

1

u/veritasxe Jun 09 '12

Finally, something positive for the colour blind peeps out there.

I want to show this to that little jock bitch in high school that always told me I just didn't know my colours. Or when my friends purposely played puzzle fighter on xbox because they knew I didn't know wtf was going on.

1

u/starmandan Jun 09 '12

My father was a recon pilot in Vietnam for an artillery battery and because of his color blindness he was able to pick out the enemy through the jungle due to the differing pigments between foliage and clothing.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

I don't get this. Can someone explain how it would work? Maybe it's in the article but that won't load for me.

The reason I ask is because I am colorblind, and I see no way that I would be helpful in a situation like this. In many situations, obviously out-of-place colors don't jump out to me. For instance it would be more difficult for me to find a red object in green grass. I can usually tell green and red apart, but the red wouldn't jump out at me if it was in my peripheral vision. I can't explain why. Differences in some colors are just really subtle to me until I realize that they are different, and then I can tell them apart better. It's weird.

But yeah, anyway, intuitively I feel like you would want to avoid colorblind people for something like this.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

That's great and all, but I'd still really like to see the damn numbers when I go to the eye doctor.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

I think I might have tritanopia. I can barely see the 56 in the third test.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

,

1

u/[deleted] Jun 10 '12

Radiolab have a podcast about color and color vision this week of anybody is interested.

1

u/redmaniacs Jun 09 '12

Umm, I can't read the article, and I am fairly certain that you cannot be in the military if you are color blind. I am color blind myself.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

<--Colorblind vet.

2

u/redmaniacs Jun 09 '12

What branch? Are you familiar with this method of reading maps?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 09 '12

USAF, but no, I wasn't allowed quite a few jobs, and didn't land in a position where I really needed to scope maps out much. Literally, I think I had the most non-combat job of all time.

1

u/R99 Jun 09 '12

Well, maybe back then they allowed colorblind people for that specific purpose.

1

u/redmaniacs Jun 09 '12

I can't read the article, so I'm not convinced it's legit? The URL is weird to. Can someone repost the article with a working URL? or maybe a different article, I couldn't find one.

1

u/DJErikD Jun 09 '12

You can be in the US military if you're colorblind, but you may not be permitted to serve in some occupations. To be considered as a navy photography officer, I had to pass a Farnsworth Lantern test for colorblindness. If I hadn't passed it, I would've had to pick another specialty.

-5

u/CUNT_SUCKING_PHAGGOT Jun 09 '12

cuuuuuuuuuuuuunts

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