Evidence, Occam's Razor and Burden of Proof. Oh, and Santa Claus.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

We've seen posters recently who seem to have trouble with notions such as evidence, OR and BoP.

To help them out, I invite comments on the weighty question of presents under the Xmas tree on Xmas Day, with particular reference to the Santa Claus Explanation ( SCE).

1. Does the appearance of presents under the Xmas tree amount to evidence for the SCE?

2. What part, if any, might Occam's Razor play in an answer to question 1?

3. Where, if anywhere, does the burden of proof lie in the question of the SCE?

Give reasons for your answer.

[Pebble]

For something as complex as this one should use Hill’s Criteria:


1. Strength of Association.
a. Every Christmas in every household SC delivers, sometimes big, sometimes meagre – but he delivers.

2. Consistency of Association.
a. The relationship is just as strong in Scandanavia, Germany, America as in the UK.

3. Specificity of Association.
a. 25th December + Christmas tree + presents = SC, one can get presents at other times like birthdays but the three ingredients identified only occur together.

4. Temporality.
a. For three months before Christmas, the shops, CBBC and other major media sources are predicting that SC will arrive on the 25th Dec – sure enough every year he delivers.

5. Biological Gradient.
a. What we know of SC is that he ‘sees’ if you are good or bad – children are good so he always comes to them – many ‘bad’ adults lose out.
b. The more you ask for in the letter you send to the North Pole the more you get on Christmas day (Not clear what happens to the big ticket items!)

6. Plausibility.
a. St. Nichlas is a well known historical character, Nicholas of Myra. He was well known for secretly giving gifts to children. He was a saint. All this is historical fact. God rewarded him by letting him do this once a year for all the children of the world. All perfectly reasonable.

7. Coherence
a. Everything we know about SC makes perfect sense. He could not manage without the Elves there is too much to do, and without flying reindeers he could not get all over the world so quickly. The ability to make pretend chimney’s shows he moves with the times.

8. Experimental evidence
a. Experiments are for adults – they mess with SC and the presents dry up.

9. Analogy.
a. Everyone knows god exists and that he watches everything we do and rewards good behaviour. SC does just the same one day a year (god has a birthday party to attend that day). So since even adults know that god can do all these things, it is clear that SC can easily manage Christmas.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

8. Experimental evidence
a. Experiments are for adults – they mess with SC and the presents dry up.

Ain't it da truth?!

I want children everywhere to know that testing the SCE by — ummm, oh, just for the sake of discussion, you understand — supergluing their parents' bedroom door shut on Xmas Eve and then spying on the Xmas tree is not a good idea.

In such matters, there is something to be said for the Pragmatist notion that truth is what it pays us to believe.

[Pebble]

Ain't it da truth?!

I want children everywhere to know that testing the SCE by — ummm, oh, just for the sake of discussion, you understand — supergluing their parents' bedroom door shut on Xmas Eve and then spying on the Xmas tree is not a good idea.

In such matters, there is something to be said for the Pragmatist notion that truth is what it pays us to believe.

And lets face it, it is excellent training for your future as an unquestioning god fearing member of the locally dominant belief structure. As a child you learn the consequences of questioning the established order and lose presents. As an adult try the same thing and stoning/burning/ostracisation etc result. Best to learn these things while the consequences are manageble.

[lost thought]

No need for superglue.
No need for spying.
All you need is an old mobile phone with a camera and program downloaded from the net for time lapse pictures or even a cheap web cam hidden by the carrot and sherry.

Ain't technology great.

[panama]

We've seen posters recently who seem to have trouble with notions such as evidence, OR and BoP.

To help them out, I invite comments on the weighty question of presents under the Xmas tree on Xmas Day, with particular reference to the Santa Claus Explanation ( SCE).

1. Does the appearance of presents under the Xmas tree amount to evidence for the SCE?

It is one of a number of possible explanations. As it is the one offered by Mummy and Daddy it is clearly a theory worth considering.

2. What part, if any, might Occam's Razor play in an answer to question 1?

Using Occam's Razor one might come to the conclusion that the simplest explanation of presents under the tree was that they were placed there by Mummy and Daddy.

3. Where, if anywhere, does the burden of proof lie in the question of the SCE?

From Wikipedia:

The burden of proof tends to lie with anyone who is arguing against received wisdom, but does not always, as sometimes the consequences of accepting a statement or the ease of gathering evidence in its defence might alter the burden of proof its proponents shoulder.

Apparently the BOP lies with the recipients unless they are able to garner data that disproves the assumption that Mummy and Daddy always tell the truth.

[Graham Lappin]

Witness evidence from my kids will prove that I am Santa.

I love the Mark's Brothers film where Chico is looking over a contract and says "Watta's this part"
"That" comes the reply "Is just a clause that says the contract is void if you go insane"
"Hey" says Chico "You canna fool me, there ain't no thing as a sanity clause"

[Lord Muck oGentry]

I've hired a platoon of elves to mount guard over the Xmas tree and make sure that Santa Claus can't sneak in.

Now, if that ain't a rigorously controlled experiment, what is?

[Dr B]

As a slight side-point, at the moment we (UKS) are writing a document on the Razor, where it came from, applications, misapplications, how it has been developed, constraints on the razor and so forth. I hope it will make useful and interesting reading. There is still debate about it - but we should be able to navigate towards a useful application

I do even see some skeptics misquote it from time to time - which could lead to misapplications of it (its aims have nothing to do with simiplicity for example, this is more a consequence of applying a reasoning tool that only seeks to include the necessary assumptions) - so even though we can all see where (in those conversations referred to earlier) it is clearly absent, I for one have learned a lot by researching the razor on a more philosophical level