An interesting subject gets examined in today's Dinette Set, which is the growing tendency in American society to utterly ignore Occam's razor: entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity).
In more popular form, Occam's razor is usually understood to mean that the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation. Or, as Wikipedia says: "when multiple competing theories have equal predictive powers, [select those which] introduce the fewest assumptions and postulate the fewest hypothetical entities." And Wikipedia is never wrong.
When confronted with crop circles, there is a single rather obvious potential answer--that they are a hoax-- which requires only a belief in a single entity (hoaxers) and two assumptions (they can create crop circles
and keep it a secret). Of course that does not stop a large number of people from violating Occam's Razor and favoring the explanation that they are the work of aliens, which introduces a much more complicated set of entities and assumptions.
And then there is Burl--the American Everyman. When asked for his opinion, Burl goes even further and posits a massive global cover-up and hoax perpetrated by every media outlet in the world who has agreed to publish these faked photos (and videos) while ignoring the fact that the actual physical sites are devoid of crop circles. All without a definable benefit, unless you count residuals for repeat showings of Ripley's Believe it or Not.
At a time when almost 50% of Americans believe in ghosts and when only Turkey (among 34 surveyed nations) has fewer people which believe in evolution than the United States, it is clear that The Dinette Set is making a brave and principled comment on a controversial issue: the willingness of the American population to believe convoluted explanations for rather simple things.
Scientists doubt the existence of marginalia, but here is the proof:
- I have never seen it, but The Reluctant Astronaut is on-point, and a Don Knotts reference to boot. How much more could you ask for?
- I'm going to guess that Burl's cup is meant to be an ironic suggestion that his rampant imagination is caffeine-fueled and he ought to switch. Alternately, it is saying that 100% caffeine-free coffee is a myth. I can't be bothered to look up information on that last supposition. But I am sure more information on 100% caffeine-free coffee may be found on the internet.
- Could Joy's cup be a reference to Apollo landing hoax theories? The truly bold step would have been a Bart Sibrel reference.
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