Source: Astral Codex Ten
by Scott Alexander
“There’s a joke about three mathematicians who spot a black cow on a train ride through Scotland. One of them says ‘I see the cows in Scotland are black.’ The second objects ‘Technically, we only know that there is one black cow in Scotland.’ The third objects ‘Technically, we only know that there is one cow in Scotland, at least one side of which is black.’ This is the level of paranoia we should deploy against claims of ‘over a hundred and fifty eyewitnesses.’ Technically, we only know that there’s a book containing the sentence ‘there were over a hundred and fifty eyewitnesses!’ (technically, you just know that Astral Codex Ten says there’s a book containing the sentence ‘there were over a hundred fifty eyewitnesses.’)” (10/01/25)
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-fatima-sun-miracle-much-more