Subject:
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Re: Holy crap! (was Re: The partisian trap in California)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 28 Oct 2003 15:10:36 GMT
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Viewed:
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919 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Richard Marchetti wrote:
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Stephen Hawking in A Brief History Of Time starts with this anecdote.
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public
lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and
how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars
called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up
and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate
supported on the back of a giant tortoise.”
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise
standing on?”
“You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s
turtles all the way down.”
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Yeah, I love that story! I believe that it describes the
Seuss model of the universe.
Here’s related commentary from
the Skeptic’s Dictionary website:
What are we to make of the fact that our personal experience contradicts the
results of scientifically designed and controlled studies? One response is that
of the chiropractor who remarked to Ray Hyman after a chiropractic claim had
been falsified in a double-blind controlled study: “You see, that is why we
never do double-blind testing anymore. It never works!” Personal experience can
be overwhelmingly persuasive, especially if one is unaware of such things as
confirmation bias, subjective validation, wishful thinking, the nocebo effect,
and self-deception.
Dave!
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