Example. Im in Las Vegas, suppose. And I meet a mind reader, or, lets say, a man who claims not to be a mind reader, but more technically speaking to have the ability of telekinesis, which means that he can influence the way things behave by pure thought. This fellow comes to me, and he says, I will demonstrate this to you. We will stand at the roulette wheel and I will tell you ahead of time whether it is going to be black or red on every shot.
I believe, say, before I begin, it doesnt make any difference what number you choose for this. I happen to be prejudiced against mind readers from experience in nature, in physics. I dont see, if I believe that man is made out of atoms and if I know all of themost of the-ways atoms interact with each other, any direct way in which the machinations in the mind can affect the ball. So from other experience and general knowledge, I have a strong prejudice against mind readers. Million to one.
Now we begin. The mind reader says its going to be black. Its black. The mind reader says its going to be red. Its red. Do I believe in mind readers? No. It could happen. The mind reader says its going
life would have. People say life cant exist without air, but it does under water; in fact it started in the sea. You have to be able to move around and have nerves. Plants have no nerves. Just think a few minutes of the variety of life that there is. And then you see that the thing that comes out of the saucer isnt going to be anything like what anybody describes. Very unlikely. Its very unlikely that flying saucers would arrive here, in this particular era, without having caused something of a stir earlier. Why didnt they come earlier? Just when were getting scientific enough to appreciate the possibility of traveling from one place to another, here come the flying saucers.
There are various arguments of a not complete nature that indicate some doubt that the flying saucers are coming from Venusin fact, considerable doubt. So much doubt that it is going to take a lot of very accurate experiments, and the lack of consistency and permanency of the characteristics of the observed phenomenon means that it isnt there. Most likely. Its not worth paying much more attention to, unless it begins to sharpen up.
I have argued flying saucers with lots of people. (Incidentally, I must explain that because I am a scientist does not mean that I have not had contact with human beings. Ordinary human beings. I know what they are like. I like to go to Las Vegas and talk to the show girls and the gamblers and so on. I have banged around a lot in my life, so I know about ordinary people.) Anyway, I have to argue about flying saucers on the beach with people, you know. And I was interested in this: they keep arguing that it is possible. And thats true. It is possible. They do not appreciate that the problem is not to demonstrate whether its possible or not but whether its going on or not. Whether its probably occurring or not, not whether it could occur.
That brings me to the fourth kind of attitude toward ideas, and that is that the problem is not what is possible. Thats not the problem. The problem is what is probable, what is happening. It does no good to demonstrate again and again that you cant disprove that this could be a flying saucer. We have to guess ahead of time whether we have to worry about the Martian invasion. We have to make a judgment about whether it is a flying saucer, whether its reasonable, whether its likely. And we do that on the basis of a lot more experience than whether its just possible, because the number of things that are possible is not fully appreciated by the average individual. And it is also not clear, then, to them how many things that are possible must not be happening. That its impossible that everything that is possible is happening. And there is too much variety, so most likely anything that you think of that is possible isnt true. In fact thats a general principle in physics theories: no matter what a guy thinks of, its almost always false. So there have been five or ten theories that have been right in the history of physics, and those are the ones we want. But that doesnt mean that everythings false.Well find out.
To give an example of a case in which trying to find out what is possible is mistaken for what is probable, I could consider the beatification of Mother Seaton. There was a saintly woman who did very many good works for many people. There is no doubt about thatexcuse me, theres very little doubt about that. And it has already been announced that she has demonstrated heroicity of virtues. At that stage in the Catholic system for determining saints, the next question is to consider miracles. So the next problem we have is to decide whether she performed miracles.
There was a girl who had acute leukemia, and the doctors dont know how to cure her. In the duress and troubles of the family in the last minutes, many things are trieddifferent medicines, all kinds of things. Among other things is the possibility of pinning a ribbon which has touched a bone of Mother Seaton to the sheet of the girl and also arranging that several hundred people pray for her health. And the result is that sheno, not the resultthen she gets better from leukemia.