人类的另一种进化解释?美国人的魔幻思维就是所谓的自欺欺人的好处。在像我们这样的群居物种中，个体有时会利用欺骗来获得优势。然而，人们也进化出了辨别别人说谎的方法。因此，那些真正相信谎言的人?重讲可能比单纯的撒谎更成功。(显然，这里有很多空间来推测这对当前的总统候选人有什么影响!)如果富人，以及那些由富人资助的人，比如一些政客和那些所谓的智库人士，真的相信对富人征收尽可能低的税收可以带来尽可能高的经济增长这一神奇的想法，他们就会更成功地哄骗公众跟着他们走，从而以牺牲其他人的利益为代价让自己变得富有。
As I?m sure Ken Taylor knows, these evolutionary explanations are inherently speculative ? they have been justly stigmatized as ?evolutionary just-so stories,? like the Rudyard Kipling fables. We can?t go back and see directly how any of this supposedly evolved. However, if there is an inherited tendency for people to behave in these ways, there must evolutionary explanations for it, so why not go ahead and speculate!
- Steve George

Sorry to pop anyone's balloon, but science is itself rife with 'magical' presumption and prejudice. The bias towards patterns inevitably leads to seeing them where they are not. Many abiding myths are sustained by this bias. Just try to explain to a gambling addict there is no such thing as a winning streak! But much of "science" is precisely seeing such patterns where there are none. But how then do we grasp the anomalous or random? Or even recognize them as such? Simply, by rigorously pursuing the "science" of the 'pattern' until there can be no doubt it does not exist. But what then? Have we learned anything? Absolutely! We have filled in the language of describing the otherwise indescribable. And language in this sense is more magical than science can ever explain or contribute to.

如果上面的评论具体说明了一些所谓的假设和偏见，就会更有说服力。如果科学上充斥着这些假设和偏见，这应该很容易做到。也许一个人?S的偏见是另一个人吗?S价值观:科学当然是建立在假设和价值观的基础上的，比如节俭和预测，这些都是公开承认的。至于模式，是吗?这是一个很好的观点，人们可以认为他们?我们发现了一种根本不存在的模式，认识到这一点是科学方法的核心。对于理科生的方法论或统计学课程，有时一开始会给学生一页数字数据，并要求他们找出其中的规律。学生是吗?T最初告诉我们? are actually a page of numbers from a random number table. They quickly find patterns: ?Look, here are four 6?s in a row ? the probably of that happening by chance is only 1 in 10,000, so it?s obviously a significant pattern.? When they?re told that these are random numbers, they understand the issue: in scanning the page of numbers we?re unconsciously, or barely consciously, testing for thousands of possible patterns, so it isn?t surprising to find one that happened by chance. In science it?s fine to do an exploratory study to identify possible patterns, but then one needs to collect completely new data and specify in advance what is being tested for, e.g. finding an unusual number of 6?s at that exact point in the data. If that follow-up ?hypothesis testing? study finds it, then it?s likely a real pattern.
Of course science is done by people, and sometimes enthusiasm or ambition get in the way of best practice. Science is pretty good at dealing with this, through peer review and the replication of studies by different labs.

"Empirical" follies: Multiple universes, string theory.
"Formal" follies: The "law" of the excluded middle, the presumption of the "law" of contradiction that is formally valid only in reference to the quantifier. The use of the concept of infinity in the rationale for the calculus.
Photons get up to all sorts of bizarre antics. The description makes sense, but the explanation makes no damn sense at all. The behavior of a photon between air and glass, very weirdly, implies agency on its part, as if it were trying to stay within the law and break it too.

我不确定这是否完全正确，但我还是要分享一下。On Saturday, September 17, 2016, I read the following in my local news rag, The Columbus Dispatch:

华盛顿——奥巴马政府已经同意向去年在巴基斯坦中央情报局无人机袭击中丧生的一名意大利援助人员的家人支付近300万美元，但还没有与一名在袭击中丧生的美国人达成和解官员说。”(emphasis mine)
那么，要多久才能与被杀的美国人达成和解呢?
(to give the Dispatch due respect, this story was authored by two reporters for The Washington Post.)
Magical thinking or simply wishful thinking?
Neuman.

A negotiation is not, strictly speaking, a judicial process. And justice in America is not so swift as promised, in keeping with its contrary promise of due process. Italian law may make it easier to dicker, or maybe the litigants were simply more agreeable. But if anyone can find any reliable pattern in negotiation the knowledge would be valuable, and probably kept proprietary. I suppose, if we get really magical in our thinking, we could refer to The Art of the Deal.
Another common fallacy: "Once we have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth." This is only valid where there is a comprehensive list of possibilities, each determinate in its characteristics and truth conditions. That is highly improbable!

回复那篇关于科学“愚蠢”的文章:是吗?对量子现象和解释(比如光子的作用)以及多重宇宙的想法持怀疑态度是合理的，如果它意味着“多重世界”?量子力学的解释。这些在科学上都没有定论。弦理论也是如此，即使在理论物理学家之间也存在争议。然而，是从什么地方发布的呢?不清楚到底是什么，假设和偏见?应该是在工作。一种不合理的假设或偏见是假设在质量和尺寸上比人类可以直接观察到的小20个数量级的现象一定会像我们这样宏观的物体?熟悉。量子力学课程开始时，教授会对学生说:“现在我?”我是这里唯一不知道的人吗?t understand quantum mechanics. By the end of the course, everyone here won?t understand it.? Hardly a situation where presumptions and prejudices are being imposed.
The rules of logic cited are in common use in everyday thinking and in other fields of human endeavor, although I realize more clarity is needed to specify under what conditions the rules should apply. (Thanks, philosophers, for working on this!). What ?the quantifier? means I?m not sure ? I know it can mean a part of speech in English grammar, but probably something different is intended here.
The complaint about ?the concept of infinity? in calculus seems very wide of the mark. In this context infinity is used in a situation where something has no definite upper limit. If we ask, ?is it bigger than X?? the answer is ?yes? no matter what definite number X is brought up. Math in general, not just calculus, would be very impoverished without this concept, and I can?t tell what the perceived problem with it could possibly be.

魔法和迷信是近亲。然而，当人们坚定地相信其中一种或两种信仰时，奇怪的事情就会发生——比如医学上的安慰剂效应，或者东方苦行僧看似神奇的成就。有太多的事情是理性无法解释的——也永远无法解释。
Neuman