Evidence for the Dark One: the taint on Saidin, historical records of the Age of Legends (a lot has been lost, but there must be something, otherwise how would they even know stuff like who Lews Therin was?) Darkspawn like Trollocs and Myrdraal, and the spreading Blight.
The taint on saidin is the only thing there that demands divine interference, as best I can tell. The weirder Darkspawn are clearly supernatural, but they're not supernatural in a way that demands a god when you've already got magic, and their own opinions could be explained as religious differences. The Blight's harder to explain, since receding suddenly by miles when a bunch of Darkspawn get killed is kind of a giveaway, but that could be coincidence or a nonsapient link between them and it; with Fisher King symbology all over the place the latter's not too far-fetched. And since the Dark One seems to have almost exclusively acted through mortal agents during the Age of Legends, those events don't bear any obvious fingerprints of the divine either. All told, I think I'd still assign some probability mass to the theory that most of this Shai'Tan business is just something that one side or the other of a semi-legendary conflict ginned up as a psychological warfare tactic.
Evidence for the Pattern seems to be stronger, though, especially since the magical Pattern-based protagonist powers that the leads get seem to be a well-known and quantifiable phenomenon in this setting. Not to mention the divination abilities that some people get.
Even the taint on saidin doesn't strictly demand divine interference. The fate of Shadar Logoth demonstrates that man-made supernatural corruption can also occur, and the events of the ninth book even indicate that gur zntavghqr bs gur gnvag ba Funqne Ybtbgu vf rdhny gb gur gnvag ba fnvqva, fvapr gurl obgu ryvzvangr rnpu bgure. So it's not vanishingly unlikely that humans could have tainted saidin themselves. The Blight and the Darkspawn are physical corroboration of the narrative that involves conflict with the Dark One though, as is the taint on saidin.
I...
EDIT: Minor updates happened.
I'd like to ask you all for thoughts on a certain idea I'm toying with. Especially any of you who are familiar with the Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan.
I play a MUD (multi-user dungeon, basically a text-based MMORPG), based on that series. One of my characters is a member of the White Tower, which is basically a mage organisation/school, and as part of our roleplay activities we sometimes hold classes (example, long, probably not worth your time) for lower rank members. These typically last an hour or two and sometimes get used to convey interesting real life knowledge. For instance there has been a class on mnemonic techniques.
I see an opportunity to spread rationality a little. One of the Ajah (subdivisions) of the Tower is specifically concerned with pursuing truth, logic etc. which means if I joined it, I would have no trouble teaching a class or two with some material from the Sequences. I wonder if any of us here have done things like that in the past?
What sort of essentials would you pack into a class or at most a few classes 1-2 hours each (not just me reading stuff out but including a discussion), for people without technical backgrounds? Conducted at typing speed, so basically imagine you're going to spend two hours talking to 3-6 people about rationality on IRC chat or some such setting.
Also, should I involve or steer away from the metaphysics of the Wheel of Time setting (the Creator/Dark One, the Pattern etc)?
My ideas so far:
Part 1: "Cognitive biases, or why you, yes you, are an idiot".
- which ones would be most interesting/simple/useful to teach about?
- Obviously i need to start with how knowing about biases can hurt you...
- Confirmation bias: I might try the 2-4-6 game, though it'll be a bit of a mess in a group setting.
- what other biases and examples would you use?
Part 2: Truth and evidence
- truth, map/territory
- what is evidence
- rational evidence vs other kinds of evidence
- what is not evidence (instead of UFO cults I'd speak of False Dragon followers)
A question I anticipate coming up: Is there rational evidence for the Creator/Dark One/the Pattern? Ideas for handling this needed.
Note: I am NOT aiming at atheism at all costs, like a Force Skeptic approach. It's neither very rational if we're in WoT, nor practical for my character. In fact I intend to not talk about religion if possible. Wrong setting, wrong audience for that.
Part 3: Bayes' theorem
- the wedding in the desert example looks easily adaptable (Aiel!)
- more examples of practical Bayes Theorem application needed!
Or is the very idea of teaching Bayes in such a setting an outrageous underestimation of the inferential distance?
So yeah. Any ideas or advice that might help me give this shape and make it interesting and successful would be appreciated.