"It rains as soon as the car is washed."

For example, a friend sent such a sentence in a circle of friends:

Washing the car is the most effective way to pray for rain.

I know that when he said this, it must have rained just after washing the car, and the reason why he said this is definitely not because it rained after washing the car this time, but because he may have experienced such a thing twice, three times and five times. "It rains as soon as the car is washed" is a typical pseudoscientific proposition.

But why do you still believe in this conclusion? Because there are loopholes in logic and evidence. We can ask him, "How many times have you washed your car this year?" He can't say, because his evidence itself is flawed. When you ask him again, "How many times did it not rain after you washed the car?" He can't even answer.

This happens because it doesn't rain after washing the car, and you think it's nothing; When it rains after washing the car, you will be very painful and leave an indelible impression in your memory. When this happens again for the second time, you will strengthen this judgment. When it appears for the third and fourth time, you will firmly believe it. But similarly, it's entirely possible that 10 car washes didn't rain for 20 times. Such memories are automatically ignored by us-these are untenable in logic and evidence.

"Pseudoscience" is not necessarily to write a book or an article in the form of science, but a way of thinking. You go against logic and evidence without knowing it, and draw conclusions with insufficient evidence.

We talked about Occam's razor, but there is actually another concept-ockham's broom. It is when you come to a conclusion, present the evidence that is beneficial to you and sweep the evidence that is unfavorable to you quietly into the corner with a broom. Sometimes we consciously use this broom, but more often, we unconsciously use this broom to sweep all the unfavorable evidence into the corner.

You may have experienced a phenomenon. For example, you suddenly think of someone you haven't contacted for a long time, and you don't know why you think of this person. Then you thought about it in the morning, and he called you in the afternoon. You think it's amazing, and come to the conclusion immediately: telepathy!

If you have the desire and ability to reflect, I will ask you first, "How many thoughts do you have a day? How many new and old friends have you thought of? "

Everyone should have heard that we have 60,000 ideas a day, and the number of irrelevant names we think of every day may exceed 100. So, if the person you suddenly think of doesn't call, you don't know that you think of him at all. When he calls, you will suddenly think of him in the morning and come to the conclusion that "there is telepathy between people".

This is also a kind of "pseudoscience" thinking. Therefore, there is no other way but to keep open and avoid the invasion of all kinds of pseudoscience viruses. At the same time, you should know that there are still papers and pens in the world. While using logic, mathematics, including statistics to verify the proposition, you should consider whether the arguments supporting your argument are sufficient.

Extracting and identifying pseudoscience is also treating life with an open mind.