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Finagle's law of dynamic negatives is usually rendered as "Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment."
The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that, if an event has occurred more frequently than expected, it is less likely to happen again in the future. The fallacy is commonly associated with gambling, where it may be believed, for example, that the next dice roll is more than usually likely to be six because there have recently been fewer than the expected number of sixes.
Hanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that states:
The Selfish Gene is a 1976 book on evolution by ethologist Richard Dawkins, in which the author builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's Adaptation and Natural Selection (1966). Dawkins uses the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution, popularising ideas developed during the 1960s by W. D. Hamilton and others. From the gene-centred view, it follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense it makes for them to behave cooperatively with each other.
Murphy's law is an adage or epigram that is typically stated as: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." In some formulations, it is extended to "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time."
Teleology or finality is a branch of causality giving the reason or an explanation for something as a function of its end, its purpose, or its goal, as opposed to as a function of its cause.
In rhetoric, litotes, also known classically as antenantiosis or moderatour, is a figure of speech and form of irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further affirm a positive, often incorporating double negatives for effect. Litotes is a form of understatement, which can be in the form of meiosis, and is always deliberate with the intention of emphasis. However, the interpretation of negation may depend on context, including cultural context. In speech, litotes may also depend on intonation and emphasis; for example, the phrase "not bad" can be intonated differently so as to mean either "mediocre" or "excellent". Along the same lines, litotes can be used, to euphemistically provide emphasis by diminishing the harshness of an observation; "He isn't the cleanest person I know" could be used as a means of indicating that someone is a messy person.
In statistics, regression toward the mean is the phenomenon where if one sample of a random variable is extreme, the next sampling of the same random variable is likely to be closer to its mean. Furthermore, when many random variables are sampled and the most extreme results are intentionally picked out, it refers to the fact that a second sampling of these picked-out variables will result in "less extreme" results, closer to the initial mean of all of the variables.
Luck is the phenomenon and belief that defines the experience of improbable events, especially improbably positive or negative ones. The naturalistic interpretation is that positive and negative events may happen at any time, both due to random and non-random natural and artificial processes, and that even improbable events can happen by random chance. In this view, the epithet "lucky" or "unlucky" is a descriptive label that refers to an event's positivity, negativity, or improbability.
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's belief or expectation that the prediction would come true. In the phenomena, people tend to act the way they have been expected to make the expectations come true. Self-fulfilling prophecies are an example of the more general phenomenon of positive feedback loops. A self-fulfilling prophecy can have either negative or positive outcomes. Merely applying a label to someone or something can affect the perception of the person/thing and create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Interpersonal communication plays a significant role in establishing these phenomena as well as impacting the labeling process.
The regressionfallacy is an informal fallacy. It assumes that something has returned to normal because of corrective actions taken while it was abnormal. This fails to account for natural fluctuations. It is frequently a special kind of the post hoc fallacy.
"God of the gaps" is a theological concept that emerged in the 19th century and revolves around the idea that gaps in scientific understanding are regarded as indications of the existence of God. This perspective has its origins in the observation that some individuals, often with religious inclinations, point to areas where science falls short in explaining natural phenomena as opportunities to insert the presence of a divine creator. The term itself was coined in response to this tendency. This theological view suggests that God fills in the gaps left by scientific knowledge, and that these gaps represent moments of divine intervention or influence.
Shit happens is a slang sentence that is used as a simple existential observation that life is full of unfortunate unpredictable events, similar to "c'est la vie". The sentence is an acknowledgment that bad things happen to people seemingly for no particular reason.
The Quinque viæ are five logical arguments for the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. They are:
- the argument from "first mover";
- the argument from universal causation;
- the argument from contingency;
- the argument from degree;
- the argument from final cause or ends.
Fīat iūstitia ruat cælum is a Latin legal phrase, meaning "Let justice be done though the heavens fall." The maxim signifies the belief that justice must be realized regardless of consequences. According to the 19th-century abolitionist politician Charles Sumner, it does not come from any classical source, though others have ascribed it to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. The concept is cited in Somerset v Stewart.
Russell's teapot is an analogy, formulated by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making empirically unfalsifiable claims, as opposed to shifting the burden of disproof to others.
The Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit is a counter-argument to modern versions of the argument from design for the existence of God. It was introduced by Richard Dawkins in chapter 4 of his 2006 book The God Delusion, "Why there almost certainly is no God".
Growing Up in the Universe was a series of lectures given by Richard Dawkins as part of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, in which he discussed the evolution of life in the universe.
The buttered toast phenomenon is an observation that buttered toast tends to land butter-side down after it falls. It is used as an idiom representing pessimistic outlooks. Various people have attempted to determine whether there is an actual tendency for bread to fall in this fashion, with varying results.
References
- ↑ "Murphy's laws origin". The Desert Wings. Murphy's laws site. March 3, 1978.
- ↑ Compare what has become the even more common phrase: "lucky sod" - comparative graph of usage frequency.
- ↑ Dickson, Paul (1978). The Official Rules. Delacorte Press. ISBN 9780385287432 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Partridge, Eric (1992). Dictionary of Catch Phrases . Scarborough House. pp. 278. ISBN 9781461660408.
- 1 2 3 Hand, David J. (11 February 2014). The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 197–198. ISBN 978-0-374-17534-4.
- 1 2 Shephard, Stevie (18 July 2015). "5 Sod's Law Annoyances That Have Scientific Explanations". whatculture.com.
- ↑ Dawkins, Richard (2012). The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True. Simon and Schuster. p. 222. ISBN 978-1-4516-9013-2.
