In Which Your Obedient Serpent Defends the "Students"
There's been a bit of a kerfluffle about a recent study about students who fell for a hoax website about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.
Frankly, the article linked above is a shoddy piece of science journalism. As eggshellhammer pointed out, it doesn't link to the original study. Even worse, in Your Obedient Serpent's eyes: it didn't specify the age level ( Read more... )
Frankly, the article linked above is a shoddy piece of science journalism. As eggshellhammer pointed out, it doesn't link to the original study. Even worse, in Your Obedient Serpent's eyes: it didn't specify the age level ( Read more... )
To prove the second part false, I would have to prove that the tree octopus is not in danger of becoming extinct. That is, I would have to prove the nonexistence of threats to the tree octopus's continued existence.
To prove the first part false, I would have to prove that the tree octopus does not exist.
The simple way to prove nonexistence, assuming I can correctly identify things, is to look at all things, and if none of them can be identified as the thing that I am looking for, then I have proven that the thing does not exist. This will take an impractically long time, even if I just look at all the things in the Pacific Northwest.
Brute force being out, I must resort to something more clever. For example, I could assume the existence of the tree octopus and then derive a contradiction. Unfortunately, I don't have a handy proof that reality is logically consistent, nor do I have an example of something that is observed to be true, yet could not be true in a reality that includes tree octopi.
If someone could prove that, for example, the existence of tree octopi would result in all cheesecakes failing to set, and I had observed a set cheesecake, then I would know there were no tree octopi (or that something was wrong in the calibration of my cheesecake durometer).
The tautological case of "In a reality with tree octopi, there would be tree octopi" falls apart because I can't check all the things to see if at least one of them is a tree octopus, as above. Cases like "In a reality where there are tree octopi, there are no tree salmon" have a similar problem, because I have to check everything to make sure it isn't a tree salmon. In fact, even the cheesecake example fails because I cannot be certain that no cheesecake anywhere ever will never set without checking all of them.
In other words, disproof by looking at everything fails because I'm lazy, and disproof by finding contradictory properties of the observed system fails because I'm ignorant (of the properties of the system) AND lazy (about checking said properties).
But then, this only applies to those of us limited by inconveniences like mortality and the laws of physics. If I didn't have these problems, I could simply Go and Look, and then Reveal to you all The Way and The Light, A Truth for the Ages.
Of course, whether you believed me is up to you.
Further attempts at proof or disproof can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument
Just remember to replace all instances of "God" with "tree octopus".
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One way of searching for "all the things" is to use available references, especially those which are exhaustive (meaning they say they list All The Things, as Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia do). If there is no tree octopus in those references, which may be more or less exhaustive, then one may safely assume that the tree octopus is either a newly-found species or is not an Earthly creature (one cannot say that a tree octopus does not exist elsewhere, but then, one cannot also yet say that life does or does not exist elsewhere using current scientific knowledge).
Adding to one's search for references by looking for scientific papers and websites outside of the single given site will also help to confirm or deny, as will looking over the other pages on the cited site itself.
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Axiom 1: If Wikipedia lists all the things, then it lists me.
Axiom 1.1: I am a member of the set of all the things.
Axiom 2: If something is listed in Wikipedia, Wikipedia's search function will reveal it.
Axiom 2.1: Wikipedia's search function is without flaws.
Wikipedia's search function does not reveal a listing for me, therefore I am not listed in Wikipedia. Since I am not listed in Wikipedia, either I am not a member of the set of all things (contradicting axiom 2.1), Wikipedia's search function does not cover all of Wikipedia's content (contradicting axiom 2 and 2.1), or Wikipedia does not list all things (contradicting axiom 1).
But yeah, I'm generally content to look it up in a few places, maybe go check in person if it's not the other side of the country, and call it a day.
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One thing that jumped out at me was the passage that listed reasons for the low populations of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus-and included among those reasons ... booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle.
That's an assertion about a species that is well-known to be itself endangered, not a booming population. If I were taken in by the rest of the site, missed the "Greenpeas" reference, and wasn't sure about the veracity of the sasquatch links, that would have gotten my attention. It is also an assertion that is quickly and easily testable with just a quick Google search.
Of course, that same "quick Google search" on "Pacific Tree Octopus" or "Octopus paxarbolis" will immediately yield several sites asserting that the original site is a hoax, but that's so simple it's cheating.
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