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Post #9 Reason For Belief: Patternicity 

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Post #9 Reason For Belief: Patternicity 

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Definition
The reason of belief Patternicity is when one sees patterns in images or objects. This is natural to humans because the brain has been trained to look for patterns in life, and other images.
Example: Houses look like they have faces sometimes because of the windows and doors.
Connection
This image shows Patternicity because there are 2 different images in the picture. What do you see? The patterns on the image make it seem like there is an old man's and an old lady's faces. However when you look for other patterns you can see that there is two men sitting playing the guitar. We can see that the patterns make us see 2 images.

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The Unexplained is the easiest reason for belief to understand because you cannot explain it. The Unexplained are thing you know are there, however you do not know how they are there or how they got there.
Example: We all know that there are other things floating around in the universe, but we cannot explain what is out there because humans have not been further than the moon.
Connection
This video is a great example of the Unexplained because it is magic. In the video famous magician David Blaine performs crazy magic tricks. We know that it is not actually magic, we know that there is a way to do this, however we do not know have David is doing these tricks. Therefore it is Unexplained.

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The amazing illusionist did some insane card tricks with Ellen and her audience!

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Definition
One of the reasons of belief is Simplicity. This is hard to explain in a scientific way, however the reason for this is the law of large numbers. The law of large numbers is a very high probability of one knowing something that is going to happen before it actually happens. In other words, you are a psychic.
Example : This has happened to me. One time I had a dream that my neighbors were moving, and a few days later they told us they were moving.
Connection
In this website Simplicity is explained with the law of large numbers in casinos. Casinos would make a lot of money from a lot of people, however the people that would bet huge amounts of money were most likely to win lots of money, and this started becoming a problem to the casinos.

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"...Even the stupidest man knows by some instinct of nature...that the greater the number of confirming observations, the surer the conjecture."
- Jacob Bernoulli

In statistics, you can analyze a sample from a population, and reach general conclusions about the population based on the sample. Because the sample is only a part of the whole, however, and the sampling is affected by luck in various ways, there is always the chance that the sample does not accurately represent the whole. Bernoulli was able to quantify that chance. Bernoulli made his famous observations about this in the 18th century, in his work, "Ars Conjectandi" (the art of conjecturing).

In Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk the author, Peter Bernstein, provides a brief overview of Bernoulli's Law of Large Numbers:

"Suppose you toss a coin over and over. The Law of Large Numbers does not tell you that the average of your throws will approach 50% as you increase the number of throws; simple mathematics can tell you that, sparing you the tedious business of tossing the coin over and over. Rather, the law states that increasing the number of throws will correspondingly increase the probability that the ratio of heads thrown to total throws will vary from 50% by less than some stated amount, no matter how small. The word "vary" is what matters. The search is not for the true mean of 50% but for the probability that the error between the observed average and the true average will be less than, say, 2% - in other words, that increasing the number of throws will increase the probability that the observed average will fall within 2% of the true average.

That does not mean that there will be no error after an infinite number of throws; Jacob explicitly excludes that case. Nor does it mean that the errors will of necessity become small enough to ignore. All the law tells us is that the average of a large number of throws will be more likely than the average of a small number of throws to differ from the true average by less than some stated amount."

Below is a graphic depiction of the Law of Large Numbers in action, with 10 separate coins flipped 1,000 times each:

Coin flips are interesting theoretically, but the Law of Large numbers has a number of practical implications in the real world.

Casinos, for example, live and die by the law of large numbers. Each game has a house edge built into it, representing the average loss over the initial bet. Some sample edges:

As Bernoulli pointed out, over longer and longer time frames, it becomes increasingly likely that the house edge will represent the casino's profit margin. There can, however, be hiccups along the way to long-run profitability.

A few years ago, I had a friend (I'll call her "Susan") who worked at a large bank. She was very good with numbers, and the bank would send her out in a sort of utility role, for instance when they had a client with an unusual request. One day, Susan was sent out to a large casino client. The bank had loans out to the casino, which was a reliable money maker over the long run (due to the Law of Large Numbers) but the casino had a risk management problem they wanted help with.

The casino catered to "whales," which were rich, high-rollers who came and bet huge sums at the tables. The casino would comp them rooms and meals and so forth, and even fly them out, in order to entice them to place their big bets. This occasionally presented a problem for the casino. Though the whales were profitable in the long run, sometimes they would come to the casino and win, sometimes very big. The effect of these big wins was so great at times that it materially affected the GAAP earnings for the casino, which was a public company. The managers didn't like that volatility and wanted to do something about it.

Susan created a win/win, by selling the casino a swap insuring the casino against the volatility caused by whales. The bank became the counter-party for the volatile cash flows resulting from the whales' big wins and the losses, but would pay out a stable return based on whales' betting and the long-run profit expectations associated with the house edge, but at discount that reflected the cost of the swap.

This particular story has a happy ending for both the casino and the bank, but of course, it's still up to the casino not to do anything stupid when hosting whales, who may find ways to challenge the house edge at the margin. The following link describes how the U.S. poker pro Phil Ivey won $12 million from Crockfords, Britain's oldest private gambling clubs: http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/62856/the-curious-case-of-poker-pro-phil-iveys-punto-banco-rake

With guys like Phil Ivey working on your house edge, casinos are clearly difficult businesses to risk manage. We'll stick to quant investing!

If you'd like to further investigate how insurance and casinos harness their edge, I encourage you to explore the spreadsheet Wes presents in his lectures at Drexel:
diversification
The spreadsheet conducts a 1000 simulations. In each simulation run, a system can either take 1 bet, 10 bets, or 100 bets-all uncorrelated. As the chart above suggests, one can manage risk by pooling truly uncorrelated bets together. As the number of bets increases, the volatility goes to zero and the expected value becomes the observation.
Thoughts on gambling?

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The Law of Large Numbers and Casino Earnings

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"...Even the stupidest man knows by some instinct of nature...that the greater the number of confirming observations, the surer the conjecture." - Jacob Bernoulli In statistics, you can analyze a sample from a population, and reach general conclusions about the population based on the sample.

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Post #6 Red Flag: Suppression By Authorities 

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Post #6 Red Flag: Suppression By Authorities 

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Definition
The red flag, Suppression by Authorities is when people of power use other or false information to support their arguments. When authority does this, it creates conspiracy theories because people look for other pieces of evidence that can support the major argument.
Example: When JFK was assassinated the US Government stated that  Lee Harvey Oswald, however he was killed a day after. A conspiracy theory that exists is that the death of JFK was planned by US Government because, apparently JFK was going to tell the world classified information about the US Government.
Connection
This article shows Suppression by Authorities because it shows the conspiracy theories surrounding the 911 attacks. We all know about the 911 attacks and the government said it was a terrorist attack. However, people believe anything the government says because they are very powerful (authority). This article does not take into account anything the government says, the article states different conspiracy theories that support the argument that the 911 attack was planned by the government.

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Geoff Campbell, 31, was one of 67 Britons killed in the New York 9/11 attacks

His brother refuses to accept the official line and insists there was a cover-up

Matt Campbell will protest outside BBC Broadcasting House on the anniversary

Next Monday afternoon, Matt Campbell will stand outside BBC Broadcasting House in London's Portland Place, protesting about the killing of his brother, Geoff, and 66 other Britons, in the 9/11 terror attack at the New York World Trade Centre.

After the horror on September 11, 2001, there was no trace of Geoff. The 31-year-old risk analyst had been attending a conference on the 106th floor in the North Tower, a short stroll from the Manhattan apartment where he lived with his American fiancée, Caroline.

At first, his family clung to the hope he was alive, until one year later fragments of a shoulder blade bearing Geoff's DNA were found among Trade Centre rubble at a landfill site.

Matt began asking questions. He has not stopped since. He, and others who will be at the BBC protest, refuse to accept the official story about 9/11: that four U.S. airliners were hijacked by Islamist terror chief Osama Bin Laden's pilots. Two were flown into New York's famous Twin Towers, which collapsed.

A third rammed into the U.S. Defence Headquarters at the Pentagon in Washington DC. The last went down in rural Pennsylvania, 150 miles north of the capital, after a tussle between the hijackers and passengers, later portrayed in the Hollywood film United 93.

Seven hours later, a third tower at the World Trade Centre, WTC7, fell to the ground over seven seconds, even though no plane had hit it.

The red building, 100 yards from the 110-storey Twin Towers, was less than half their height at just 47 floors, and few people even know of its existence. It had already been evacuated after the planes had hit the main towers.

In total, 2,977 people died, provoking President Bush to mount the 'War On Terror' that led to the invasion of Iraq, with the UK in tow.

Yet as Monday's anniversary approaches, Matt, a former City worker who is married with three children and lives in Sussex, insists that 9/11 did not happen in the way we have been told and that there has been a huge official cover-up to disguise the truth.

'There are so many questions that the Americans and the British Establishment refuse to answer,' he says. 'I believe that my brother and thousands of others were murdered on 9/11 and there has been a cover-up. We, as a family, are still overcoming this tragedy, but we will never stop seeking the truth.'

He is not alone in his quest. A survey in U.S. magazine Live Science last year revealed that most Americans (53 per cent) believe the U.S. Government has concealed - and continues to conceal - vital information about the 9/11 attacks. Crucially, a team of engineers at the University of Alaska concluded this week, after two years of forensic research, that fire could not have caused the collapse of WTC7.

Indeed, though the official story is that WTC7 was weakened by fires caused by debris from the attack, it's the only steel skyscraper in the world ever to collapse purely as a result of a blaze.

And a new book by an academic who has become an authority on 9/11, Professor David Ray Griffin, says that to believe that this building fell to the ground without explosives being involved is asking the public to believe in 'miracles'.

Griffin, a retired philosopher at Claremont School of Theology in California, adds in his bestseller Bush And Cheney: How They Ruined America And The World, about the ex-president and his vice-president Dick Cheney: 'There is a growing consensus that 9/11 allowed the U.S. to adopt extreme, unwarranted policies. They include the War On Terror and the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq as first steps in taking control of the Middle East.'

He, and other 9/11 sceptics such as Matt, have asked if the attack was, in fact, a copy of Operation Northwoods, an aborted plan during John F. Kennedy's presidency to stage terror attacks in America and blame them on Communist Cuba as a pretext for a U.S. invasion to overthrow dictator Fidel Castro.

In other words, on that September morning in 2001, did the White House fail to stop - or even fabricate - an outrage against its own civilians so as to provide a pretext for war on Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden?

Although there have been countless conspiracy theories about 9/11, the idea that the U.S. Government connived in it still appears utterly implausible and has, of course, been denied by U.S. intelligence services and the White House.

Initially - like most people in America and Britain, including Matt Campbell - Professor Griffin dismissed any notion that the attacks were an inside job aimed at triggering the war on terror.

It was a year later that he changed his mind, when he was writing about American imperialism and 9/11 for his latest academic work.

As part of his research he had come across a 'timeline' of the day's events based on newspaper and television accounts. It raised several anomalies that caused him to doubt the official version of events. And, however outlandish it seems, his argument bears consideration.

One of the most puzzling anomalies was that none of the hijacked planes was intercepted by fighter jets, even though there would have been plenty of time to do so and it is mandatory procedure in the U.S. if there is any suspicion of an air hijack.

In the nine months before 9/11, the procedure had been implemented 67 times in America. Then there were the irregular stock market dealings before the tragedy.

An extremely high volume of 'put options' - bets on the price of shares falling - were purchased for the stock of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, the international financier that occupied 22 storeys of the World Trade Centre.

Even more remarkable was the volume of 'put options' traded on American and United Airlines, which operated the four aircraft hijacked by the terrorists.

On these two airlines, and only these, the level of share trade went up by 1,200 per cent in the three days before the catastrophe. As the shares dropped in response to 9/11 the value of these options multiplied a hundredfold. Someone, somewhere, made $10 million in profit.

But, of all the conundrums, the most perplexing is how the three World Trade Centre towers fell to the ground.

The official version is that the Twin Towers collapsed because their steel columns were melted by the heat from the fuel fires of the two crashed planes.

This explanation has been repeated in White House briefings, official inquiries into 9/11, leaks by the U.S. intelligence services and almost every TV documentary on the attack in the U.S. and the UK.

However, sceptics say the science does not stand up. They argue that steel does not begin to melt until it reaches around 2,800f, and open fires of jet fuel - such as those in the Twin Towers inferno - cannot burn hotter than 1,700f.

Official reports state the steel in the third tower reached a maximum of 1,100f.

Professor Griffin and other sceptics believe the Twin Towers were deliberately blown up. They claim their controversial theory is corroborated by first-hand testimony from firefighters at the scene.

In oral histories of 9/11 by New York Fire Department staff which have been made public, almost a quarter suggest they heard explosions going off before the World Trade Centre towers collapsed. Of the South Tower, firefighter Richard Banaciski said: 'There was just an explosion. It seemed like on television when they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way round like a belt . . . all those explosions.'

Colleague Kenneth Rogers heard them, too. He said: 'There was an explosion in the South Tower. Floor after floor after floor. One floor under another after another . . . I figured it was a bomb because it looked like a synchronised kind of thing.

And Fire Captain Dennis Tardio recalled: 'I hear an explosion and I look up. It is as if the building is being imploded from the top floor down, boom, boom, boom. I stand in amazement. I can't believe what I am seeing. The building is coming down.'

But a more extraordinary challenge to scientific reason would happen on the day of the attacks in respect of the third tower, WTC7, which contained the offices of the secret service, and then mayor Rudy Giuliani's emergency command centre, fitted with bullet- and bomb-resistant windows as well as secure air and water supplies.

In 2008, a U.S. Government-ordered report by the prestigious National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded a six-year probe into the WTC7 attack.

Bystanders interviewed by U.S. television that day said there were 'bang, bang, bang' sounds before it fell down. Yet NIST insisted there was 'no evidence' of a controlled explosion.

The fall was provoked by fires on multiple levels. The heating of floor beams and girders had caused a critical support column to fall, initiating the fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.

This week, eminent Alaska University engineers dismissed this explanation. Dr J. Leroy Hulsey, Chair of the university's Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, said: 'Fire did not and could not have caused the failure of this building.'

Griffin adds: 'We are led to believe that for the first time in the known universe, a steel-framed, high-rise building was brought down by fire without the aid of explosives or incendiaries.

'More clearly miraculous was the precise way in which WTC7 collapsed [straight down, with an almost perfectly horizontal roofline] into its own footprint. This is the kind of free-fall implosion that can only be caused by a world-class demolition company.'

But there is another perplexing matter regarding this third building. It concerns the bizarre TV reports in the U.S., and the rest of the world, that it had collapsed when it was clearly still upright - announcements made 23 minutes before it had actually fallen down.

One piece of BBC World footage shows a studio anchor talking to news correspondent Jane Standley, who is standing in front of the clearly visible WTC7 tower.

The anchor says: 'The 47-storey building, situated very close to the World Trade Centre, has also just collapsed. It seems that this was not the result of a new attack. It was because the building had been weakened during the morning attacks.'

Then, oddly, the link to Standley breaks up and is lost.

Of course, this may just be a mistake made on one of the most hectic news days ever. Certainly, the BBC seems to think so.

In a statement made in 2007, a spokesman said: 'In the chaos and confusion, I am sure we said things which turned out to be untrue or inaccurate, but at the time were based on the best information we had. We no longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage, for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy.'

This response - and the question of why the BBC announced the fall of WTC7 before it actually happened - has enraged those fighting for the 'truth', such as Matt Campbell. They say a series of 9/11 documentaries put out by the BBC have not been impartial or scientifically accurate.

It is why he, and other Britons who disagree with the official version of 9/11, have chosen to make their protest outside BBC headquarters on Monday.

This unlikely rebel, a trained theoretical physicist, former IT expert in the City, and now a reflexologist, has refused to pay his BBC licence fee for the past four years.

He claims: 'The BBC has presented information to the public that breaks its own editorial guidelines. In at least one documentary, it removed the sounds of huge explosions going off in WTC7 moments before its collapse.

'I think my brother Geoff and many others were murdered in an event that conflicts with what we have been officially told.

'I believe there has been BBC complicity in a deliberate cover-up about how thousands died on that day nearly 16 years ago,' he said yesterday as he braced himself for the sad anniversary.

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9/11 conspiracy theories persist 16 years after atrocity

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Geoff Campbell, 31, was one of 67 Britons killed in the New York 9/11 attacks His brother refuses to accept the official line and insists there was a cover-up Matt Campbell will protest outside BBC Broadcasting House on the anniversary Next Monday afternoon, Matt Campbell will stand outside BBC Broadcasting House in London's Portland Place, protesting about the killing of his brother, Geoff, and 66 other Britons, in the 9/11 terror attack at the New York World Trade Centre.

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Definition
The red flag, Proof by Verbosity is when an individual confuses others by using big words or adding pointless information to sound smarter and making others believe the individual's argument is correct. The argument is too pack with information it makes it hard to understand and it is too much to deal with.
Example: The reason why there is earthquakes sometimes is because sometimes many people jump at the same time, and when this happens the vibrations go to the core of the earth and, then the vibrations come back up which occurs that vibration of land and this causes earthquakes, also causes tsunamis.
Connection
This video shows Proof by Verbosity because it shows the way Donald Trump answers simple questions with the use of other irrelevant points. In this video, Donald Trump is shown answering a simple question, however he uses lots of other irrelevant information the does not have anything to do with the question. In addition he uses strong words to make use further agree with his argument. Finally, Trump packs too much information to answer a question and, it is too much information that it is too much to deal with and hard to debunk.

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The red flag, Confirmation Bias is when a conclusion is made based on one sided information. Confirmation Bias occurs when an individual is looking for information that supports his or her beliefs and ignores other information that opposes their believes.
Example: A man that believes in Big Foot wants evidence that Big Foot is real. He is searching through the internet and he finds 100 websites that state it is fake , and he also finds 1 website that states it is real. The man confirms Big Foot is real because of that one website.
Connection
This image is a a great example of Confirmation Bias because this is how people's minds work. The image shows a lot of people lined up to get a reassuring lie and no one lined up to get an inconvenient truth. However, the truth is said to be inconvenient because of people's beliefs, no one wants to hear a truth that will oppose their beliefs. Everyone wants to hear something that goes along with their beliefs even if it is a lie.

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The red flag, Appeal to Authority is when credibility is given to an argument by using someone that has power or hierarchy in society, such as a doctor or a celebrity. Appeal to Authority can be a false argument and people may believe this false argument because authority is used in the discussion.
Example: "Scientists say the world is flat"
People may believe the world is flat because in the statement "scientists say" is used and scientists are authority.
Connection
This video shows Appeal to Authority because the brand Proactiv uses Justin Bieber in their argument. Proactiv states that every teenager should use this product to avoid pimples and to have clear skin. Additionally, Proactiv used the most popular teen celebrity to support their claims. In the video Justin Bieber talks about how he has clear skin because of Proactiv, and this makes other believe they will have clear skin because it worked for Justin Bieber.

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I was watching TV and saw this commercial. The world is really going down the toilet.

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Definition
The red flag, Red Herring is when an irrelevant, made up or false comment is brought up during an argument or discussion. This comment is brought up to distract the listener or reader from the original problem. An example of Red Herring can be a kid avoiding being sent to bed by asking an irrelevant question.
Mom: "It's bed time, get to bed."
Kid: "Okay, but how are babies made?"
Connection
This image shows Red Herring because the mom is avoiding her daughter's comment by responding with an irrelevant comment. The daughter tells her mom she wants a toy, however the mom avoids buying the toy by saying they have to go home, and the mom tells her there is a treat for her at home. This distracted the daughter because instead of the toy, she is now thinking of the treat awaiting for her at home. The mom was avoided the issue of the toy with an irrelevant comment.

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Post #1 Title: Wold Mysteries Assignment #1

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Post #1 Title: Wold Mysteries Assignment #1

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By: Leo Hernandez