From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@jupiter.colossus.net)
Date: Mon Sep 22 1997 - 17:50:21 MDT
> << But to show I can, I shall now prove four related propositions:
> 1) The sky is green.
> 2) The sky is purple.
> 3) The sky has red polka-dots.
> 4) (Generalized:) The sky is any color.
>
> 1) Sun is yellow. Sky is blue. Yellow + blue = green.
> 2) The sky is purple, at night.
> 3) The stars are polka-dots. Some of them are red giants.
> 4) There are many planets in the Universe. Some of them will have skies of
> any given color.
[Danny's rebutals]
> 1) the sky is only blue and yellow, not green, but then again there are
> sometimes tints of greens in storms and at sunsets
> 2)if the sky is purple it isnt fully night, but then again in cities that
> have pollution the sky may look purple
> 3)stars are not polkadots, they're stars, but then again stars are just words
> to define those bright round things in the sky, and they llok like points
> rather than dots, or maybe just very small dots
> 4)you dont know for a fact about those planets, they could or couldnt, but
> there's a high probability they could
Very good work. Now, if you can learn to apply those critical-thinking
bullshit-detection skills to things you /want/ to believe, as well as those
you don't, you'll be on your way to shedding your credulity for a more
rational and productive mind. One must judge a truth not by how true it
sounds or feels, but by how well it holds up to criticism. If you don't
even /try/ to criticize every idea, then you'll fall for anything.
> The proof about astrology is that is that many if not all the
> predictions are correct in some way...
Yes, in two ways in particular: predictions that are vague enough to
not be measurable, and in the beliefs of its adherents.
Here's a simple experiment you can do at home: find as many friends or
family as you can that /do not/ regularly read newspaper horoscopes
and note their birthdays. Over a period of several weeks, record the
predictions made by the horoscope section of your local paper, then
call each friend, flip a coin, and either read em the prediction for
for eir sign, or a randomly chosen one. Ask em if the prediction is
accurate for that week, and record all the results. Don't tell them
where you're getting the horoscopes. Be honest about the test: flip
the coin fairly, take the first prediction in the text, and demand
a yes or no response /for that week only/. It's even better if /you/
don't know which is the "correct" horoscope when you ask. You can
arrange that by having someone else flip the coin and choose for you,
and only record the result /after/ you get the answer.
After a few weeks, plot the accuracy of the predictions. You will
find that the randomly selected ones do just as well as the "correct"
ones, and that your friends will tell you that you're a miraculously
accurate mindreader, even if they get random ones, because people
interpret horoscopes to mean what they want them to mean.
This experiment and similar ones are done regularly by science classes
(though not as regularly as they should be), and thousands upon
thousands of trials produce the same result: for any measurable criterion,
astrology performs no better than chance, every time. But the subjects
always /think/ it does.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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