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A story:

"There's two scientists on lab coats observing a spider. They shout JUMP! and the spider jumps.

They proceed to remove one of it's legs and repeat the procedure. They shout JUMP! and the spider jumps...

After some time of repeating the procedure the poor spider has no legs. They shout JUMP! and it doesn't do a thing.

The scientists then come to verify their useful hypothesis: ..spiders use their legs to listen..."



Cute story, but don't mistake it for a second for any sort of casual indictment of the scientific process. ...the story does not even feature the scientific process in the first place (which goes a long way to explain why we find it silly).


Spiders do in fact hear with their legs...

Also the more complex a prediction is, the harder it is to get right by mistake. Example: GPS Satellite timekeeping.




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