:-(
Dear ghost-believers, god-believers and alltheothernonsense-believers
Scientists have appeared to have discovered that some sub-atomic particles can travel faster than the speed of light. They have significant statistical evidence to show so. However, instead of announcing that they have genuine* evidence to show that the established laws of nature are incorrect, they have simply stated their perplexity and released their findings for public review.
The reason scientists are doing this, despite having the evidence to back up their claim, is because what they are claiming is extraordinary. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Significant statistical evidence is not enough to claim that a huge portion of what we know about physics is mistaken. Certainly, something is going on here which needs to be further investigated. I have no doubt that the scientific community will do this; they may find out there was an extraneous variable not taken into account (a faulty algorithm, perhaps) or they may have to modify our account of modern physics to account for this new find. Neither of these will happen, however, until the evidence fits the claim.
So, next time you see a ghost, hear God or drink some diluted onion juice think, ‘Is the evidence proportionate to the claim?’
*I say ‘genuine’ because their evidence is superior to the hearsay you may find constituting ‘evidence’ in other, less scientifically reputable, areas.
My dog just woke up in a panic and now he’s running around the house barking at something I can’t see.
I’m sleeping next to my sword tonight.
We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books. We treasure books we inherit from our parents, and we cherish the idea of passing those books on to our children. Indeed, how many of us started reading with a beloved book that belonged to one of our parents? We force worthy books on our friends, and we insist that they read them. We even feel a weird kinship for the people we see on buses or airplanes reading our books, the books that we claim. If anyone tries to take away our books—some oppressive government, some censor gone off the rails—we would defend them with everything that we have. We know our tribespeople when we visit their homes because every wall is lined with books. There are teetering piles of books beside the bed and on the floor; there are masses of swollen paperbacks in the bathroom. Our books are us. They are our outboard memory banks and they contain the moral, intellectual, and imaginative influences that make us the people we are today.
“
| — | Cory Doctorow (via obdormio) |
