And the winner is...

I always wanted to know who'd win out of a croc or a shark, and now I do:




And if you're worried about my claim of croc superiority, because it's a sample of one; it's not the 1st time this has happened.

I wonder how a lion would go?

The GIGO fallacy

Here, at humbugonline, from time to time, we find the need to either coin or promote a name for a new type of humbug. Not necessarily because we have made an original discovery of a hitherto unidentified error in reasoning; but because there seems to be a niche for a new term. I.e., people have previously recognised the flawed reasoning, but have not yet given the flaw a name or the name is in not yet in common use. This could happen because the “new” form of dodgy reasoning has only recently gained prevalence and has not been dealt with before, or simply because an old term doesn’t encapsulate the error as well (in our view) as a new term. For example, I think I am right in saying we can claim originality to LAME claim (Look At Me Everybody), WTF? Fallacy, Argument by Artifice, Burden of Solution, and False Attribution, and promoting Appeal to Celebrity. There is a varying level of merit with these new fallacies. Some are more for humour than critical analysis. However, they do seem to “work”.

With that in mind, I was recently reminded of a concept that, though not yet explicitly recognised as a fallacy, has been used as if it is a fallacy. Given a google search does not produce a substantial result for “GIGO fallacy” I think I can claim some “originality” (for whatever that’s worth when you simply re-contextualise someone else’s idea). The closest I've seen it being used explicitly as a fallacy is by Gary Curtis.

GIGO is actually a reasonably well known (if you mix in my circle anyway) principle: Garbage In, Garbage Out. See this Wikipedia page for the history of GIGO.

The way I like to put it is Garbage In = Garbage Out.

My working definition for GIGO is:

If the data, evidence or underlying theory used as the basis of a claim is flawed, then the claim and all conclusions based on it should be treated with great skepticism. (The claim and any conclusions may or may not be true; however there is simply no reasonable evidence either way.)

From this principle we can derive the "GIGO fallacy". In this case GIGO stands for:

Garbage In = Gospel Out.

(As with the original meaning of the second “G” in GIGO, I don’t claim originality to second “G” in this second version.)

The GIGO fallacy – Description

The advocate is certain his or her belief is true, even though the data, evidence or underlying theory used as the basis of the belief is demonstrably flawed or unsubstantiated. Another way of putting it is when the advocate treats conclusions leading from some poorly controlled or flawed data, unsubstantiated evidence or theory, as gospel.

Example

Rose Well is having an online discussion at AboveTopSecret.com, explaining to her friend Joan Mack why she believes there is “life out there”.

“The Drake equation proves it”, she says. “It states that: N = R* x Fp x ne x fℓ x fi x fc x L, where N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which we might hope to be able to communicate; and R* is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy, fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets, ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets, fℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point, fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life, fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space, L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.

When you substitute all the right values into it, you get an answer of 5000! That means there are at least 5000 civilisations in our galaxy that we can communicate with. Imagine how many more there are in the entire universe!”

Joan Mack is a well respected psychologist and as such has an understanding of fallacies. She types back:

“Look, you can get whatever answer you want with the Drake equation – so long as you pick the input values that give you the answer you want. GIGO! I am happy to accept the equation itself as valid. But this doesn’t mean we can get any useful information from it. For example, we can calculate the strength of the Earth’s gravitational field (g) at the surface, using the equation: g = GM/r2. Where G = the universal gravitational constant, M = the mass of the Earth, and r = the radius of the Earth.

If we didn’t know the actual values for G, M and r, we could just choose numbers that “feel” right (i.e., based on our best guess). If enough people have enough guesses, we might even chance upon the right answer (9.8 N/kg), because the equation works (though this would be extremely unlikely in itself). However, we’d never know, because we were just guessing at the values we assigned to the input variables. Even if the equation is right, it is useless without the correct input data.

The problem with the Drake equation, why it falls into the GIGO category, lies with the parameters. There is no way to tell if the values we assign to the input parameters are garbage or not. Given the impossibility of assigning justifiable values to them, we can treat them all as garbage (though we can argue about which values stink more). All probabilities found using the Drake equation are therefore, to some extent, invalid (even if you accidentally guessed the right values). Some are more reasonable than others, but all the answers the Drake equations spits out still suffer from GIGO.”

Rose replies: “So, are you saying you don’t believe?”

“Of course not”, replies Joan. “Just that the Drake equation is not a good argument. However, in my practice as a psychologist I have specialised in treating patients who have been abducted and fiddled by aliens. Now that’s conclusive proof. Unfortunately the rules of doctor-patient confidentially prohibit me from backing up this claim with any specific evidence – other than the cash money I’ll no doubt make when my book comes out. I’ve also been very successful in treating my patients with my anti-alien mind control helmet.”

“Cool.” Types Rose. “Where can I order mine?”

More examples of GIGO:

• WTF? Fallacy of the year

Skeptics' Circle #86

Is up and running.

An example of a non-fallacy

Sometimes the best way of coming to understand something is by seeing an example of what it isn't, or as in this case, someone else's misunderstanding. Peter S. Williams provides us with this opportunity. For someone who claims to be a philosopher, to make such "school boy errors" in logic is extraordinary. That's why I used the word "claims". Perhaps I'm being overly harsh. He writes a lot, and the more you write, the more opportunity for error. However, in this article, Darwin’s Rottweiler and the Public Understanding of Scientism, he claims Richard Dawkins is guilty of making many fallacies in his arguments. I think Williams is wrong in nearly everything he says. (Here's a guy who claims the non-answer: "God did it" is scientific - he even "trumpets" peer reviewed paper on Intelligent Design. The worth of peer review depends on your peers. It was published in Philosophia Christi and is available via Discovery.org. Was it that he was still waiting for some experimental data - so wasn't quite ready for Nature or Science?) As such, I have neither the time, inclination, or respect to deal with all his misidentifications of fallacies. (Besides the above, he wrote a book on angels - gimmie a break, and a fan guide on both Doctor Who and The Matrix... see the first link.) I will probably return to it in the future, as "there's gold in them there hills".

For the moment, I'll deal with this specific example, where Williams thinks he has spotted an example of Begging the Question. He is wrong. The following italicised text is his work:

2. Begging the Question - ‘this fallacy occurs when a disputant uses his conclusion as one of the premises employed to establish [his] conclusion.’ [5]

Dawkins asserts that: ‘As time goes by and our civilization grows up more, the model of the universe that we share will become progressively less superstitious, less small-minded, less parochial. It will lose its remaining ghosts, hobgoblins and spirits, it will be a realistic model, correctly regulated and updated by incoming information from the real world.’ [6] How can Dawkins know this assertion is true before all the evidence is in? Dawkins assumes that his conclusion is true and then promises that it will be justified on evidential grounds at some unspecified point in the future.

This is not an example of Begging the Question as Williams claims. There is no premise in Dawkins’ statement. There is also no conclusion. Ergo, it’s not Begging the Question. It is simply an assertion. You can choose to agree or disagree with it, but it’s certainly not Begging the Question. Begging the Question would be more like:

‘As time goes by and our civilization grows up more, the model of the universe that we share will become progressively less superstitious, less small-minded, less parochial. It will lose its remaining ghosts, hobgoblins and spirits, it will be a realistic model, correctly regulated and updated by incoming information from the real world.’ [My added bit that would turn this into Begging the Question follows] This will occur because as we build more realistic models that are based on good information, we rely less on finding supernatural, small-minded and parochial answers for hitherto unexplained phenomena.

Note the bolded word in my added section - because. This clearly shows this is the sentence I’m using to try and justify the claim in the initial section. But of course, it’s simply the initial claim reworded to sound like a justification. Now it is a Question Begging argument. The actual statement itself may or may not be true (I happen to think and hope that it is/will be true). But the point is it can only be Begging the Question if a claim is made, and then attempted to be justified using the same point as was made in the original claim.

As I said above, Dawkins could only be accused of making an unsupported assertion. Every sentence simply repeats this assertion in a different manner for more emphasis. Reading it again, with emphasis on the right words makes this quite clear:

‘As time goes by and our civilization grows up more, the model of the universe that we share will become progressively less superstitious, less small-minded, less parochial. It will lose its remaining ghosts, hobgoblins and spirits, it will be a realistic model, correctly regulated and updated by incoming information from the real world.’

By only saying “it will” Dawkins is only making a claim. "It will be this, it will be that..." We need a “because”, or an “as”, or a “since” or whatever synonym Shift F7 delivers, to have some kind of justification. In saying this, for all we know Dawkins has been taken out of context and did forward some reasons for this belief. Further to this, my version would not be Begging the Question if the “because” I added was demonstrably true. I’d suggest this is possible to do. The most obvious would be we can see this occurring as a simple historical fact. Over the centuries, with more and more science, or more and more education, humans become less and less superstitious. The data support this – once someone has a university degree their superstition dies of dramatically. If we accept this premise, and add to that as we move forwards in time we will have the required economic and social capital to continue with scientific research and (universal) education, the conclusion – less superstitious etc., follows.

Of course, off the top of my head I can’t remember where I read this. I think it was some really impressive journal, a paper by some super smart researcher, so you’ll just have to take my word for it… you trust me don’t you?

The argument from banana

I can't remember how I came across this, but it's a hilarious example of Stacking the Deck, a False Analogy, and just outright stupidity.


[If the video is working try this link.]

If you can't wait to watch the video, and for those still on dial-up, I'll give a quick run down (caricature) of Kiwi reborn Christian Ray Comfort's "Atheists' Nightmare Banana":

Bananas are just like cans of soda. They fit in your hand, are packaged for your convenience, have a "tab" at the top to release the contents and are shaped perfectly to fit in your mouth. But they're even better than soda cans because god, in his infinite wisdom, made the skin biodegradable...

Now, it might seem a little over the top to bother analysing such an inane "argument"; it might seem I'm picking on an easy target. Well, yes, that's why I'm doing it.

An obvious point here, which has been made by countless others, why choose just bananas as evidence of god's benevolence? Oh yeah, you need to Stack the Deck. Hard to see how the analogy would work with coconuts or pineapples? And that's just fruit. If god is nice enough to design bananas for us, why not make a hot dog tree? It seems to me that we have to go to a lot of effort to make hot dogs. That is, grow wheat, mill it to get flour, process and bake it to get the bun, slaughter a variety of animals, harvest their lips and ..... other bits, grind the lips and other bits and stuff inside intestines, cook it, then put it in a bun with various condiments (which again, aren't just squeezed straight out of a plant).

I might be inclined to believe the argument from hot dog tree, but not banana. You'd have to prove such a tree exists though.

[If the video isn't working try this link.]

Well, if that proves god exists, it also certainly proves he is far from benevolent. Fancy growing hot dogs without ketchup.

Of course, the analogy with the Coke isn't entirely false. Modern bananas were designed by an intelligence - they were selectively bred by humans. Also, given Ray's a Christian, why isn't he disturbed by the fact god gave bananas to Muslims before Christians? Following his reasoning, doesn't that mean Muslims are favoured by god, compared to Christians?

The Skeptics' Circle #85, "Looking Under Rocks"

is now up at Andrea's Buzzing About:

It’s amazing what you can find if you start looking under rocks. You can find isopods, fossils, a spare key to the front door, ant colonies, Hitler Zombies … and of course, the inevitable proof of physics (F = m*a) if you stumble and “OW!”

Spooked911 moon landings not faked after all! But there is a secret moon base!

Readers of this blog may remember a few posts I did in 2006 on 9-11 conspiracy nut "Spooked911". Well, I thought I'd check up on him. One other "proof" he offers, that 9-11 was faked and is a government conspiracy, is based around his "challenge" to prove it's possible to fly a Boeing 767 into a building with no prior flight training in one. From the anti-conspiracy blog Screw Loose Change:

1) Obtain the Microsoft Flight Simulator Software and install it.

2) Learn to fly a Cessna 172 prop plane (if you already are a pilot, you can skip this).

3) Download and install the Boeing 767 plug-in, and take-off from Boston Logan airport.

4) Navigate to Manhattan as fast and efficiently as possible, then accelerate to 540 mph-- and on your FIRST ATTEMPT, fly perfectly through the middle of lower Manhattan, where the WTC used to be.

5) Let me know if you succeed.

If you DO succeed, also try a run taking off from Washington Dulles with a Boeing 757, going west for an hour, then turn around, and navigate to the Pentagon and try the "Hani Hanjour maneuver" (a 270 degree turn at 500 mph, then level off and approach the Pentagon on a flat approach, only a few feet off the ground.

Yet more ingenious WTF? logic from Spooked911. As per usual, he is an inspiration. I decided it is fair game to apply his reasoning to the faked Apollo moon landings (again). I couldn't believe it. I managed to land on the moon!

This was my first attempt too. Imagine how good I'd be if I trained for all the years the astronauts had. So contrary to my first experiment on landing on the moon, I've now realised it is possible to land on the moon. After all, a computer simulation is just like real life!

I then discovered there is a secret base on the moon! There is a cover-up after all! The beings that set it up must be alien; they were gibbering at me in some form of "alienease".

As far as the base goes - bloody goofy aliens. How the hell is anyone going to live in that? There's no furniture or anything!

I did manage to communicate in the end however, though it was still mostly pointless gibbering:

I also discovered that although the astronauts claim to have driven on the moon, I couldn't navigate my way over or around even the smallest crater in this tank.

Perhaps the aliens were controlling my mind and making me crash? After all, I wasn't wearing my ice cream container...

Mean, Median and Sex

I found the workings of an old post I never got around to posting. So here it is.

Time for a maths lesson for Gina Kolata of the New York Times, who reported on a survey that found:

…men had a median of seven female sex partners. Women had a median of four male sex partners. Another study, by British researchers, stated that men had 12.7 heterosexual partners in their lifetimes and women had 6.5.

Apparently "mathematicians" don't understand the difference between various measures of central tendency:

But there is just one problem, mathematicians say. It is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners on average than heterosexual women. Those survey results cannot be correct.

Um, yeah, they can. This falls under the category of Misuse of Information. The explanation is pretty much the same as the example in our book, but dirtier.

The mean number of partners for men and woman has to be the same. But the median, as was quoted above, does not. The majority of women tend to have less sexual partners than the majority of men. The median for women is lower. However, there could be enough dirty women who have many, many partners - enough to keep the means even, but skew the distribution.

To be fair to Kolata, she and her mathematician corrected this the next week:

He had looked at the actual data from the survey citing medians and found that it could not possibly be correct. Of course he knew the difference between a median and a mean.

It's still a good example nonetheless. (And a good example of why you should always say what you mean, with all the caveats, as clearly as possible.)

So good

The Great Tantra Challenge

I wish someone would knock up an English translation, but you still get the gist of it. Hilarious.

Here's the story:

On 3 March 2008, in a popular TV show, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged India's most "powerful" tantrik (black magician) to demonstrate his powers on him. That was the beginning of an unprecedented experiment. After all his chanting of mantra (magic words) and ceremonies of tantra failed, the tantrik decided to kill Sanal Edamaruku with the "ultimate destruction ceremony" on live TV. Sanal Edamaruku agreed and sat in the altar of the black magic ritual. India TV observed skyrocketing viewership rates.

Everything started, when Uma Bharati (former chief minister of the state of Madhya Pradesh) accused her political opponents in a public statement of using tantrik powers to inflict damage upon her. In fact, within a few days, the unlucky lady had lost her favorite uncle, hit the door of her car against her head and found her legs covered with wounds and blisters. India TV, one of India's major Hindi channels with national outreach, invited Sanal Edamaruku for a discussion on "Tantrik power versus Science". Pandit Surinder Sharma, who claims to be the tantrik of top politicians and is well known from his TV shows, represented the other side. During the discussion, the tantrik showed a small human shape of wheat flour dough, laid a thread around it like a noose and tightened it. He claimed that he was able to kill any person he wanted within three minutes by using black magic. Sanal challenged him to try and kill him.

The tantrik tried. He chanted his mantras (magic words): "Om lingalingalinalinga, kilikili…." But his efforts did not show any impact on Sanal – not after three minutes, and not after five. The time was extended and extended again. The original discussion program should have ended here, but the "breaking news" of the ongoing great tantra challenge was overrunning all program schedules.

Part 1 - Not much happens - find it on youtube if you want to watch it.

Part 2

Now the tantrik changed his technique. He started sprinkling water on Sanal and brandishing a knife in front of him. Sometimes he moved the blade all over his body. Sanal did not flinch. Then he touched Sanal's head with his hand, rubbing and rumpling up his hair, pressing his forehead, laying his hand over his eyes, pressing his fingers against his temples. When he pressed harder and harder, Sanal reminded him that he was supposed to use black magic only, not forceful attacks to bring him down. The tantrik took a new run: water, knife, fingers, mantras. But Sanal kept looking very healthy and even amused. After nearly two hours, the anchor declared the tantrik's failure.

The tantrik, unwilling to admit defeat, tried the excuse [see special pleading] that a very strong god whom Sanal might be worshipping obviously protected him. "No, I am an atheist," said Sanal Edamaruku. Finally, the disgraced tantrik tried to save his face by claiming that there was a never-failing special black magic for ultimate destruction, which could, however, only been done at night. Bad luck again, he did not get away with this, but was challenged to prove his claim this very night in another "breaking news" live program.

Part 3

During the next three hours, India TV ran announcements for The Great Tantra Challenge that called several hundred million people to their TV sets. The encounter took place under the open night sky. The tantrik and his two assistants were kindling a fire and staring into the flames. Sanal was in good humour. Once the ultimate magic was invoked, there wouldn't be any way back, the tantrik warned. Within two minutes, Sanal would get crazy, and one minute later he would scream in pain and die. Didn't he want to save his life before it was too late? Sanal laughed, and the countdown begun. The tantriks chanted their "Om lingalingalingalinga, kilikilikili…." followed by ever changing cascades of strange words and sounds. The speed increased hysterically. They threw all kinds of magic ingredients into the flames that produced changing colours, crackling and fizzling sounds and white smoke.

While chanting, the tantrik came close to Sanal, moved his hands in front of him and touched him, but was called back by the anchor. After the earlier covert attempts of the tantrik to use force against Sanal, he was warned to keep distance and avoid touching Sanal. But the tantrik "forgot" this rule again and again. Now the tantrik wrote Sanal's name on a sheet of paper, tore it into small pieces, dipped them into a pot with boiling butter oil and threw them dramatically into the flames. Nothing happened. Singing and singing, he sprinkled water on Sanal, mopped a bunch of peacock feathers over his head, threw mustard seed into the fire and other outlandish things more. Sanal smiled, nothing happened, and time was running out. Only seven more minutes before midnight, the tantrik decided to use his ultimate weapon: the clod of wheat flour dough. He kneaded it and powdered it with mysterious ingredients, then asked Sanal to touch it. Sanal did so, and the grand magic finale begun. The tantrik pierced blunt nails on the dough, then cut it wildly with a knife and threw them into the fire. That moment, Sanal should have broken down. But he did not. He laughed. Forty more seconds, counted the anchor, twenty, ten, five… it's over!

Millions of people must have uttered a sigh of relief in front their TVs. Sanal was very much alive. Tantra power had miserably failed. Tantriks are creating such a scaring atmosphere that even people, who know that black magic has no base, can just break down out of fear, commented a scientist during the program. It needs enormous courage and confidence to challenge them by actually putting one's life at risk, he said. By doing so, Sanal Edamaruku has broken the spell, and has taken away much of the fear of those who witnessed his triumph.

In this night, one of the most dangerous and wide spread superstitions in India suffered a severe blow.
_______________________
All I can say is WTF? - do people actually believe this...?

It’s begun

I always suspected the majority of my posts would be seen as "right wing", not because I am politically aligned this way (call me crazy, I think it makes more sense to treat each issue on its own merits, through a framework of dispassionate reason), but because the politics of opposition necessarily requires one to say stupid things in order to be heard. Since I've been blogging, it just so happened the "left wing" parties in Australia (and the US) were (are) in opposition. For the majority of the time, they were providing the humbug. Ergo, I tended to be bagging "lefties".

Since the November election Kevin Rudd has been the Aussie PM. This of course means a "lefty" is in power. (Arguably since the 1990s both main Australian political parties – the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal/National coalition have been "centrist" parties, but for the sake of my point I'll stick with the left-right false dichotomy.) I haven't been blogging much lately, but my first political post in the new era is on Kev's side… Perhaps my intuitions are correct? (I can't discount the hypothesis this could just be a self-fulfilling prophecy rather than an accurate observation on the politics of opposition.)

Kev was at a NATO conference when, across the room, he saw his new acquaintance George. W. Bush. Instead of signalling George with a limp wristed and foppish wave, Kev went for the (relatively) manly salute. I am quite partial to the manly salute myself. Other options include the single quick raised eyebrow/nod. However, this can be quite ambiguous. If you accidentally double this in quick succession, you might be accused of inappropriate sexual advances. Even a wink can be misinterpreted in this fashion. If you think about it, besides the girly wave, the salute was Kev's only option. Perhaps the salute is just a Queensland thing (Kev's a banana bender - usage 1 - as am I) and everyone else doesn't get it? In Kev's words:

"It was just a joke," a laughing Mr Rudd said later.

"I was just saying hi to the president of the United States - I was just with him the other day.

"I went over and had a chat, actually."

If you watch the footage below, this is obviously the case. But not to the pathetic and predictable media, who decided to make something out of nothing. Apparently this "screams" deputy sheriff:

Then they had to roll out the "usual suspects" who could be counted on to take it, and themselves, too seriously. The LAME opposition leader:

Asked about the gesture, Dr Nelson said it was best left for the Prime Minister to comment on its meaning and on whether or not he might regret his actions later but he was clearly unimpressed.

"I think it's conduct unbecoming of an Australian prime minister," Dr Nelson said.

"Mr Rudd appears to conduct himself in one manner when he thinks the television is on him and in another when it is not.

"Australia is a confident, outward-looking country after more than 10 years of strong foreign policy development and we need a strong prime minister to represent our very best interests throughout the world."

An we can't forget Australian politics' favourite no-hoper:

"There is a streak of John Howard's deputy sheriff in Kevin Rudd's slip-up," he said.

"It takes seasoned maturity to ensure Australia is never second-rated in the international arena and Mr Rudd is not there yet.

"We are not the 51st state of the USA and Mr Rudd's salute carried a subservient connotation many Australians won't like."

And without a hint of irony, the article ends with this:

The salute has distracted from Mr Rudd's achievements in Bucharest where Australia's demands for NATO troops to carry a bigger burden in Afghanistan were partially satisfied.

And whose choice was this?

Words worth espousing - Beclown

I only believe it is cromulent to accept a new word in the English language if there is no equivalent word that expresses the same meaning as well. New words such as beclown embiggen our language. From the Urban Dictionary, beclown means:

To make a complete idiot of oneself in public. To behave or speak in such a way, or to make a comment or express an opinion that is so profoundly witless, senseless and obtuse, that you have forever after defined yourself as a person of comical value only. Never to be taken seriously again. Of worth only as an object of ridicule and derision.

Just as to befoul yourself is to make yourself foul, to beclown yourself is to turn yourself into a clown. Beclown is therefore perfectly cromulent. One example given by the Urban Dictionary:

Former Reagan staffer Doug Bandow has also beclowned himself by claiming that the Bali terrorist bombing was in response to Australia's Iraq involvement. Even though the Bali bombing was before the Iraq war.

The only equivalent phrase I can think that arguably captures such stupidity is to hoist oneself by one's own petard. (The origin of this is from Shakespeare and means to blow oneself up - a petard was a medieval explosive, and the etymology of petard is from the Latin word pedere; which means to "break wind".) I think beclown captures incidences such as the example above better, has greater currency and a more obvious intuitive meaning.

In this day and age of "Web 2.0" there are numerous examples of people beclowning themselves. The more recent example that has come to my attention was the expulsion of the biologist and blogger P. Z. Myers from the movie Expelled, which he was in. The real irony and beclowning comes with the premise of the movie, which claims "scientists" who believe in intelligent design are being "expelled" from academia; their rights to free speech and free thinking shut down. You can read about the beclowning and subsequent hole digging, in more than enough detail, in the Wikipedia entry on Expelled the movie.

For other examples of beclowning, see this post on a mathematical moron and, of course, Miss (Teen) South Carolina.

(One other thing worth drawing a link to is that a serious beclowning event, more often than not, involves some kind of WTF? statement or claim.)

Being mildly skeptical is good for your health

I'm not even talking about, you know, doing experiments or taking a course in logic. Just erring on the side of caution, just asking someone who makes a claim, what his or her evidence is.

Doing so could stop you doing something as stupid as this:

At least 50 people in Kottayam district have reportedly lost their vision after gazing at the sun looking for an image of Virgin Mary.

Even with a sign there, they still came:

Though alarmed health authorities have installed a signboard to counter the rumour that a solar image of Virgin Mary appeared to the believers, curious onlookers, including foreign travellers, have been thronging the venue of the 'miracle'.

Despite the injuries:

St Joseph's ENT and Eye Hospital in Kanjirappally alone has recorded 48 cases of vision loss due to photochemical burns on the retina.

It would be funny except it's real life and real people.