Comment on Open Thread, May 1-14, 2013

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:42:26 GMT

Well, it's certainly not a very parsimonious explanation. This conversation has branched in a lot of places, so I'm not sure where that comment is right now, but as someone else has already pointed out, what about the explanation that most lightning bolts are merely electromagnetic events, but some are thrown by Thor?

Proposing a second mechanism which accounts for some cases of a phenomenon, when the first mechanism accounts for others, is more complex (and thus in the absence of evidence less likely to be correct) than the supposition that the first mechanism accounts for all cases of the phenomenon. If there's no way to tell them apart, then observations of miracles and visions don't count as evidence favoring the explanation of visions-plus-brain-glitches over the explanation of brain glitches alone.

It's possible, but that doesn't mean we have any reason to suppose it's true. And when we have no reason to suppose something is true, it generally isn't.

Discuss