mark_spottswood comments on Talking Snakes: A Cautionary Tale - Less Wrong

107 Post author: Yvain 13 March 2009 01:41AM

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Comment author: mark_spottswood 16 March 2009 05:16:31PM 1 point [-]

Imagining that someone "had a reason to seriously present" to Obama-Mammoth hypothesis is to make the hypothesis non-absurd. If there is real evidence in favor of the hypothesis, than it is obviously worth considering. But that is just to fight the example; it doesn't tell us much about the actual line between absurd claims and claims that are worth considering.

In the world we actually inhabit, an individual who believed that they had good reasons to think that the president was an extinct quadruped would obviously be suffering from a thought disorder. It might be interesting to listen to such a person talk (or to hear a joke that begins with the O-M Hypo), but that doesn't mean that the claim is worth considering seriously.