Skeptical Inquirer: 'The Devil's footprints': solving a classic mystery
Sceptical view of the affair mentioned in the previous blog, attributing it to multiple sources but especially "contagion" - a milder form of "mass hysteria", leading to people seeing the same unnatural phenomenon in a wide range of different events (cats' paw-prints, partly melted; hoaxers at work; many other causes). Certainly people are inclined to search out common patterns. But can this explain the speed of diffusion of the view that exceptional forces were at work?
No comments:
Post a Comment