June 2 – Yell “Fudge” at the Cobras in North America Day

nPostednJune 2, 2013

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Didnyou know that there are no species of cobras native to NorthnAmerica?…And did you know why there aren’t?

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nApparently,nwe North Americans owe our cobra-less-ness to the fact that everynJune 2 some few brave souls go outside precisely at 12nnoon (local time—so several times during the day) and yell “Fudge!”

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nAndnyou know how much cobras hate fudge!

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nItnmay seem silly to yell fudge at 12 noon, but, let’s face it, it’snbeen working, right? Still no wild cobras in North America!

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nOfncourse I am kidding. I mean, people claim that they really do shoutnfudge on June 2, and there really are no cobras running—excuse me,nslithering—about in North America. But this is not a situation ofncause and effect!

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nThisnsilly holiday is supposed to bring a smile to your face and perhapsneven a chuckle or two, but it does point out a really importantnlogical fallacy: n

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nSometimes people believenthat something affects or causes something else, but it doesn’t. n

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nThisnsort of magical thinking is evident in superstitions andnpseudoscience. It is why we shouldn’t jump to conclusions or read toonmuch into coincidences. Here are some examples of this logicalnfallacy, sometimes called “false cause,” cum hoc ergo prompternhoc, or “correlation (two things happening at the same time, say, ornto the same person) does not imply causation (one thing causing thenother)”:

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nIfn a football player hangs up his “lucky” rabbit’s foot in hisn locker the first three games of the season, and his team wins thosen three games—are the wins caused by the rabbit’s foot?

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nNote: Most people “get”nthat the rabbit’s foot had nothing to do with the victories, becausenthey don’t really believe in rabbit-foot-magic. However, they mightnbelieve that prayers to God influence football games. A betternexplanation may be that the winning football team is good or thatnthere are too few games to draw any conclusions.

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James Randi says that
every psychic healer he
has investigated is a fake.
Not only do they NOT heal,
they can cause harm!

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n If a cancer patient goesn to a psychic “healer” and several months later finds out fromn the doctor that her cancer has gone into remission—is then remission caused by the healer?

Before you say, “yes,n obviously!” – remember that many cancer patients go inton remission even though they haven’t gone to that particular psychicn healer—or any psychic healer!

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n Many different studiesn showed that women who were getting hormone replacement therapy had an lower-than-average rate of heart disease. Does hormone therapyn protect women, to some extent, from heart disease?

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Many doctors assumedncause-and-effect and started recommending hormone replacementntherapy partly for the heart-health benefits. However, a randomized,ncontrolled experiment showed that hormone therapy actually causes ansmall increase in the risk of heart disease!

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It turnednout that the original studies showed hormone therapy and lower heartndisease in the same women because women who had enough money fornhormone replacement therapy also had enough money to purchasenhealthier foods and exercise equipment and gym memberships.

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n Two women findn themselves sitting next to each other on a plane traveling from LAn to New York City. After a bit of polite chit-chat, the two find outn that they both came from the same town: Buffalo, New York. They aren surprised and pleased to find this connection and end up talking then entire 5-hour trip. At hour 4, they realize that they both have collies, AND both of theirn fathers are medical doctors.

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nThis can’t bencoincidence, they say. Some weird power made them sit together fornsome reason that they couldn’t fathom. However, coincidences happennall the time. Scientists and mathematicians have proven that it wouldnbe very strange if there were no coincidences; it is to be completelynexpected that there are! Also, in this case, the two women were thinking only ofnthe three similarities that they had discovered—not all thenhundreds of differences that had turned up during their talk.

Thisnexample of faulty logic is perhaps a bit different than false cause, butnthinking that there is a magical force called “fate” that causesnthings to happen feels to me similar to assuming that correlationnimplies causation.

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Oh,nno!

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nWow!nAfter writing ALL of this wonderful stuff about the serious side of ansilly holiday, I just found out that there IS a cobra that lives innNorth America!! The species Micrurus fluvius is sometimesncalled “American cobra.” It lives in the southeast United States,nand it is in the same snake family as the king cobra and other more familiar cobras,nmost of which live in southern Africa and Asia.

nI suppose that the people who created this holiday (and the websites promoting it) didn’t consider this snake to be a cobra. It is usually referred to as a coral snake, and it doesn’t have that cobra-looking hooded head.

nBynthe way…

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nIfnyou are always looking for an excuse to eat chocolate, I thought Inwould mention that some people celebrate “Yell Fudge at Cobras innNorth America Day,” not by yelling “fudge,” but by buying ornmaking—and then of course eating—delicious, rich, chocolateynfudge!

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nAlsonon this date:

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