A lot of people don't even understand what color blind really is
Too true. Two otherwise sensible, college-educated friends of mine once insisted that they'd be able to tell how my eyesight is different if I sat down and drew what I see out of the window. Using pencil crayons that presumably pierced through my colourblindness. I literally could not find a way to explain to them why it made no sense.
"No, but we'll cover up the writing on the pencils so you can't read what colour they are"
EDIT: I realise I misrepresented the scenario. This wasn't talking about colour-blindness specifically, but in more of a "maybe the blue you see is my red" scenario.
Suppose you were red-green colorblind, and there was an apple tree with green "Granny Smith" apples outside your window.
You can't tell if the leaves on the tree are red or green, but using common sense, you guess that they are green, and color them with the green pencil.
You can't tell if the apples are red or green, but using common sense, you guess that they are red, and color them with the red pencil.
"Ah ha", says your friend, "you colored the apples with red when they are actually green. You must be red-green colorblind"
Some color blind people are more affected than others on their same color blind group.
In my experience doing an Ishihara test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_perception_test) whith someone else while telling them what are you seeing on each pod does wonders to make them understand specifically what shades of color cause you troubles, that's how my wife got to understand my color blindess.
There's also the fact that the ability to discern two colours depends on the two shades involved, and the shades that nature presents are probably different to the ones chosen by Faber-Castell. Also, when I was a kid I could tell the purple pencil from the blue if I held them together, but had trouble if I had just one on its own. (Still true today but I don't come across colour pencils so often...)
Which seems to suggest that I am green-blind, but not red. With 1/7 wickline, but I have no idea what that means (suspect it has been lost in translation somewhere)
This test seems to be flawed. I just did this test with four people and we all agreed that their correct solutions are sometimes wrong. Is an expert here?
Sorry, I edited my post to reflect the fact that I misrepresented the scenario. Though it started as a discussion about colour-blindness, it developed into a more general "what if my blue is your red" discussion. In that scenario, the red and greens on the tree would be matched exactly to the reds and greens on the pencils- there's no way to know if I'm seeing something different.
Too true. Two otherwise sensible, college-educated friends of mine once insisted that they'd be able to tell how my eyesight is different if I sat down and drew what I see out of the window. Using pencil crayons that presumably pierced through my colourblindness. I literally could not find a way to explain to them why it made no sense.
"No, but we'll cover up the writing on the pencils so you can't read what colour they are"
EDIT: I realise I misrepresented the scenario. This wasn't talking about colour-blindness specifically, but in more of a "maybe the blue you see is my red" scenario.