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“WHAT I TELL YOU THREE TIMES IS TRUE.”
The Bellman’s theorem (not to be confused with the Bell Curve of late.) -
This comes from Lewis Carroll’s, The Hunting of the Snark, and not from a cabal of news(?) reporters.
“IF YOU SAY IT OFTEN ENOUGH OR HEAR IT OFTEN ENOUGH YOU WILL ACCEPT IT AS TRUTH”.
Said much earlier by Nicole Oresme (1350) - On the Marvels of Nature.
(Oresme invented the graph.) as cited on pp141 The Science of Conjecture, James Franklin, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2001
“IT’S A FACT THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS.”
Aunt Jobisca’s Theorem -
From The Pobble Who Had No Toes, by Edward Lear, and not from teachers who use textbooks that have been rewritten to be politically correct.
“ALL IS FOR THE BEST IN THIS BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS”
Pangloss’s Theorem -
Candide by Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire). Named for the character, Dr. Pangloss, who with rose-colored glasses refused to acknowledge the calamities that befell him, and the two lovers in the story when all was not well, and not from stock market analyst that insist that your investments are in good hands, and you need only add more to secure an even better outcome.
To which I add:
“THE SKY’S FALLING’ -
Chicken Little’s fright -
Upon her being struck by an acorn from the mighty oak. A once popular story in children’s readers. It is now accepted as fact that the sky is falling (or the earth is warming/cooling.). Which reminds (1) one of sundry issues raised by environmentalist and (2) the larding of inconsequential information atop a molehill.
I READ IT IN THE NEW YORK TIMES (or WALL STREET JOURNAL, etc.,)
All the news that’s fit to print -
Look no farther than these or other authoritative sources of misinformation. And, of course these hallowed publications would not deny it. Scientific discoveries appear first here, before they are published in peer-reviewed journals. Indeed!
“HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE” -
The Doctrine of Probabilism -
In hard times, there are always demands that academic research should be “relevant.” Political theorist are funded to justify the tyrannies of their patrons, mathematicians to perfect weaponry and devise tax minimization schemes. Fifteenth-century paintings are full of donors, painted smaller indeed than the sacred figures occupying the center of the paintings but often more realistic, and never awed by their industrious company. The Science of Conjecture, James Franklin, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,2001
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John Burdon Sanderson Haldane. an English biologist turned politician who became a Marxist during the world depression of the 1930's.
I am grateful to Daniel Dennett for bringing Haldane’s theorems to my attention as Dennett presented a dissenting voice against Gould’s rewriting of history. See Darwin’s Dangerous Idea Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995, pp 239.
James Franklin offers a fascinating view of the world of statistics in The Science of Conjecture, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2001
Addition to Haldane’s theorems seems necessary as we have become a more advanced (?) society. ******
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J. B. S. Haldane’s Theorems:/August 20, 2002