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The Dragon in My Garage
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The Dragon in My Garage on Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:16 am

JOHNNYBEGOOD

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Posts: 354

The Dragon in My Garage
A story from "The Demon Haunted World", by Carl Sagan



"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage."

Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!

"Show me", you say, and I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle - but no dragon

"Where's the dragon", you ask.

"Oh, she's right here", I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon".

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints. "Good idea", I say, "but this dragon floats in the air". Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire. "Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless", I say. You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible. "Good idea, except she's an incorporeal (bodyless) dragon and the paint won't stick!"

And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Now what is the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? You're inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
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Posted on Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:11 am

Peebrain

Site Admin
Joined: 27 Nov 2005
Posts: 716

Is this what skeptics do? Some. Not a lot though.

A lot of skeptics follow this story (that I just wrote):

"Hey I have a paint can in my garage"

"Cool, let me see it"

"Sure, it's right here"

"I don't see anything"

"It's RIGHT HERE... I'm pointing right at it."

"You're just making this up! I don't see anything!"

"Oh, I see. You have your eyes closed. You need to open your eyes in order to see the paint can... well, I have an idea, I'll just let you hold it."

"I refuse to try and hold something that I can't see!"

"It's not hard... you are the one who asked for proof in the first place. Look, you can either open your eyes, or you can let me put it in your hands to hold it. Either way makes sense."

"If you really had a paint can, then I could see it! Why would I waste my time trying to hold your imaginary paint can!?"

Blah blah blah.

~Sean
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Posted on Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:39 am

JOHNNYBEGOOD

Joined: 17 Jul 2006
Posts: 354

Hahahahah. Yeah, I guess it could work the other way, can't it?
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