Add Homonym Attacks! (30)

Add Homonym Attacks! #30

Ad Hominem: Appealing to personal considerations rather than to logic or reason.
Ad Hominem Attack: An argument that focuses on a personal attack as opposed to the subject in question.
Add Homonym Attacks!: The process by which one inserts a homophone and it bites you.
(It also serves as the title to Inside Pulse’s representative column in the world of Critical Thinking, Science and Skepticism.)

Introduction

I’m part of Beyond the Threshold now, but don’t expect the column to go in a vastly different direction. Of course, the column will now be about the band Pantera and how awesome Satan is…

I’m just f*cking with you.

Anyways, we here at AHA! often cover the so-called “dark-side” of the human condition, so I guess this place is a logical spot to go. We’ll be like the Dana Scully of this new site, and unlike The X-Files, in the real world the skeptic is always right in matters supernatural.

Note I said always. There is no qualifier. The skeptic is always right in matters supernatural.

I may have just given away the bias of this column.

Shit.

Back to The Little Book of Fortune Telling:

Last issue we talked about “time-tested methods for predicting the future.” I figure, if I have several people predicting the same person’s future, then those different people should come up with similar results. Our homework was the following:

EQUIPMENT:

2 six-sided dice.
flat surface
writing implements

PROCEDURE:
Here is what you need to do on Thursday the 14th.

STEP 1: Draw a circle with a diameter of 14 inches give or take 7 inches. (That is what the book says.)

STEP 2: Write the name of the mark, I mean, the person whose fortune is going to be told inside the circle. For the purposes of this experiment, our subject will be one Thalia Kennedy.

STEP 3: Roll one die, record the result. (You don’t have to throw it in the circle.)

STEP 4: Roll both dice inside the circle. Here is where the “magic” gets complicated:
If they both stay in, record the result.
If one rolls out, roll again.
If both roll out, roll again.
If both touch the circumference of the circle, record the result.
If only one die touches the circumference, re-roll the other die.

That is it. Write down the number from Step 3, and the number from step 4, and e-mail them to me.

I have compiled the data from 36 trials. A higher number would be better statistically speaking, but this amount of trials should serve our purposes.

According to my crappy supermarket book, the first roll is THE INDICATOR. The only thing that is important here is whether the role is odd or even. This basically determines which section of the book contains one’s fortune.

The total of the second role determines which prediction one gets for the day in question.

In total, there are only two possibilities for the first roll, and 11 for the second roll. So, there are only 22 different outcomes which ostensibly “predict” the course of one’s day. Now, the person in question is Thalia Kennedy, and the day in question was Thursday September 14.

The Raw DATA

First Roll/ Second Roll
3/7
6/5
1/9
4/4
1/8
1/12
4/7
6/9
6/9
3/9
3/5
5/9
6/9
1/12
1/9
5/6
4/7
1/4
5/6
6/7
6/7
4/11
3/7
5/8
4/11
4/2
1/8
2/10
2/11
3/8
2/6
1/5
6/6
1/5
4/2
2/6

Observations

Of the 36 rolls we came up with an odd indicator 18 times, and an even indicator 18 times. This makes it tremendously difficult to determine which indicator to use to predict THE FUTURE, which at the time of this writing is actually 1 week into the PAST.

Taking into account only whether the first number was even or odd, leaves us with FIFTEEN different predictions for Thalia Kennedy’s September 14th.

Taking an average wouldn’t seem like the logical way to make a psychic prediction. Instead of the mean, let us try the mode. Three separate outcomes appear 4 times in our raw data. We have four occurrences of EVEN SEVEN, four occurrences of ODD EIGHT, and four occurrences of ODD NINE. So let us look up our fortune telling values for these three outcomes.

EVEN SEVEN
The book says:

Passion awaits you. Prepare to be swept away in a wonderful romance, but don’t expect it to fall in your lap. Love is there right now and it’s stronger than ever, but you must do a little work to achieve it. Be adventurous and talkative, and you’ll soon experience the powerful grip of passion and love.

How it compared to Thalia Kennedy’s September 14th.
Thalia is three years old. She has no romantic life of which to speak. She was adventurous enough to go to the park that day, and fairly talkative, but felt no powerful grip of passion.

ODD EIGHT
The book says:

This is the number of true love. Rolling an eight can mean finding a new love – or rediscovering an old love. Married people who roll this number frequently experience a strengthening of their relationship. If a relationship has just ended for you, don’t despair, because love is on the horizon.

How it compared to Thalia Kennedy’s September 14th.
Thalia is three years old. She has no romantic life of which to speak. She is unmarried. She likes spaghetti.

ODD NINE
The book says:

Misfortune, bad luck or bad news is near. A negative force is acting somewhat against you or someone close to you. Be careful. You may suffer a stroke of bad luck, or a close friend may experience misfortune of some kind. Keep alert and stay on top of things, and perhaps it will pass. Rolling the dice tomorrow is recommended.

How it compared to Thalia Kennedy’s September 14th.
Thalia is three years old. She is rarely careful, hardly ever alert, and never on top of things. She suffered no misfortune for her constant recklessness. She walked carelessly on the top of my furniture and ran up playground slides with reckless abandon. All this occurred without consequence.

Conclusion

This method of predicting events is bullshit aimed towards desperately lonely spinsters. Fuck it.
.