Martin Gardner, 20th century mathematician, wrote a nice little essay, for The Scientific American, about coincidence. He claims, among other things, that the wonder is that there is not more coincidence than we notice... or rather, that there is a good deal more than we notice.

He makes a pretty effective argument by demonstration that co-incidences are just that: coincidence; and that deeper ('occult') meaning should not be read into them. I'm afraid that he is mostly right. <homonculus kicks open ear-drum door and pushes old belief system out where it falls and crashes to the floor/> I do still reserve the right, though, to suppose that some seeming coincidence is engineered by outside agency, and so is not coincidence at all. </slams ear-drum door shut>.

As it would be, having just written here on coincidence and omen here in these boards, I came across his book with his essay in a used bookstore looking for something else, entirely, or course, by coincidence.

Here are a couple of Garner links, I couldn't find his essay online. Lot to learn from the man. Remember, Skepticism is as important as open-mindedness.

http://www.skepticblog.org/2010/05/25/l ... n-gardner/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... nks-lesson

The problem is that skeptics will call anything a coincidence to avoid awkward questions. You bring up the possibility of paranormal phenomena and they will cry: coincidence! coincidence! coincidence! They aren't interested in real investigation or questions a healthy person would find interesting, like in the vein of the possibility of paranormal or anomalous phenomena existing.

How does Martin Gardener know how often to expect coincidence?

Martin Gardener in my opinion was not a good skeptic or a great intellectual and engaged in much mental masturbation in his lifetime. He was a man who might have been happy to bully someone like Tom in his writings.

How Martin Gardener bamboozled his readers:

http://michaelprescott.typepad.com/mich ... -gard.html

Thanks Av,

It's always to good to remember that there are at least two sides to every story.

Montana