"Robert A. Heinlein - Lost Legacy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

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“Don’t you find that most of that stuff can be explained in an
ordinary fashion?”

“Quite a lot of it, sure. Then you can strain orthodox theory all out
of shape and ignore the statistical laws of probability to account for
most of the rest. Then by attributing anything that is left over to
charlatanism, credulity, and self-hypnosis, and refuse to
investigate it, you can go peacefully back to sleep.”

“Occam’s razor,” murmured Joan.

“Huh?”

“William of Occam’s Razor. It’s a name for a principle in logic;
whenever two hypotheses both cover the facts, use the simpler of
the two. When a conventional scientist has to strain his orthodox
theories all out of shape, ‘til they resemble something thought up
by Rube Goldberg, to account for unorthodox phenomena, he’s
ignoring the principle of Occam’s Razor. It’s simpler to draw up a
new hypothesis to cover all the facts than to strain an old one that
was never intended to cover the non-conforming data. But
scientists are more attached to their theories than they are to their
wives and families.”

“My,” said Phil admiringly, “to think that that came out from under a
permanent wave.”

“If you’ll hold him, Ben, I’ll beat him with this here thermos jug.”

“I apologize. You’re absolutely right, darling. I decided to forget
about theories, to treat these outcast phenomena like any ordinary
data, and to see where it landed me.”

“What sort of stuff,” put in Ben, “have you dug up, Phil?”

“Quite a variety, some verified, some mere rumor, a little of it
carefully checked under laboratory conditions, like Valdez. Of
course, you’ve heard of all the stunts attributed to Yoga. Very little
of it has been duplicated in the Western Hemisphere, which counts
against it, nevertheless a lot of odd stuff in India has been reported
by competent, cool-minded observers— telepathy, accurate
soothsaying, clairvoyance, fire walking, and so forth.”

“Why do you include fire walking in metapsychics?”


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“On the chance that the mind can control the body and other