Freethought & Rationalism Archive

LeftCoast · 01-24-2002, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by beekay:
Quote from the Ripley's website:

The Two Lauras
Laura Buxton tied a message to the end of a balloon. It landed 140 miles away in the garden of another girl named Laura Buxton. And Believe it or Not, the similarities don't stop there!

Wish there were more details in that episode summary, but oh well...

The link provided by ReasonableDoubt was helpful, but mostly covered the chances of one particular coincidence happening, folks having the same birthday. The list of coincidences in the Ripley episode was pretty long.

And Ripley stuff has a reputation of being fairly reliable, no I can't vouch for the reliability, but it's difinitely not the Weekly World News if you know what I mean.

I am not taken in by the divine intervention "theory" of this story, but I just have nothing convincing to argue against it with. My wife and I have turned this into a friendly debate and I'm not doing too hot. I do like the "oh so God had nothing more important to do" arguement, but it carries very little weight with someone who truly believes that God actually does this kind of stuff.

Help ....

Did a little more searching and found the following are James Randi's web-site <a href="http://www.randi.org/jr/08-03-01.html" target="_blank">randi.org</a>

Quote:

From <a href="http://www.randi.org" target="_blank">www.randi.org</a>

Simon Clark writes, also from the UK, concerning the interesting Buxton co-incidences that were celebrated in the media there, and which we discussed on this page:

The claim is that on June 14th, a 10-year-old U.K. girl named Laura Buxton found a balloon in the garden of her home in Pewsey, Wiltshire. I saw this on TV here in the UK - with both Lauras and their parents present to explain the story. The balloon was not actually found by Laura but by a neighbor who saw the balloon with Laura's name on it. The neighbor then returned it to the Laura he knew, thinking it belonged to her. This greatly increases the chances of the balloon ending up in the hands of a Laura Buxton. All other similarities between the girls were then picked out by hand after the first apparent coincidence. I also seem to recall - but then again I may have mis-remembered this bit - that the girls names were not identical but similar. Maybe they were different spellings but pronounced the same - I can't remember as I haven't seen a written version of the story.
(emphasis mine)

Randi goes into a more detailed discussion of the story <a href="http://www.randi.org/jr/07-20-01.html" target="_blank">here</a> (scroll about 1/2-way down).

I've found several references to this story using "google" (search on "Laura Buxton" and "Balloon")and none mention anything about both sets of parents being married the same year. Sounds like Ripley's may have been exagerating just a bit. In any event, both girls were 10 and if they were both first children, that makes the coincidence of their parents marriage (presuming it's true) rather unremarkable.

[ January 24, 2002: Message edited by: LeftCoast ]

tronvillain · 01-24-2002, 04:41 PM

Granted this is going to be pretty inaccurate, but it might be of some help:

Buxton: 0.003%
Laura: 0.510%

Laura Buxton: 0.00123%

Now there should be somwhere around 1.25 million girls their age in the US so there could be upwards of 1500 Laura Buxtons. Given an area of around six million square miles, that's one Laura Buxton per four thosand square miles. If you diced that up into squares, then the furthest apart they could be would be around 180 miles.

tronvillain · 01-24-2002, 04:44 PM

Plus if you enlarge the target area to anyone who knows Laura Buxton, her getting the balloon becomes a lot more probable.

tronvillain · 01-24-2002, 04:45 PM

Of course, we'd have to redo the whole thing for the UK.

KeithHarwood · 01-24-2002, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by beekay:

I can brush off as coincidence one or two things, but so many things were the same that it really is just too hard to beleive ... Truly weird!

Chad Mulligan.

Coincidence: You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on.

(From Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner.)

Ms. Siv · 01-25-2002, 02:02 AM

How about all those times people launched baloons and it did not land in someone's backyard .. or landed in someone's backyard but nobody bothered .. or it landed in the backyard of a person who was not similar in name, age or body build to the person who launched the balloon ?

Has anyone televised all those cases ?!

- Sivakami.

liquid · 01-25-2002, 03:03 AM

If you investigate any two people long enough, especially in the same country, you can get any number of amazing conincidences. Strange the article didn't pick up on the strange non-coincidences that they go to different sorts of schools, they share different religious beliefs, support different sports teams, like different foods and so on.

beekay · 01-25-2002, 04:24 AM

Thank you all very much. All very imformative posts and very helpful. Especially thanks to Leftcoast for the internet search ... I didn't have time to do a similar search last night, thanks for doing that.

Yet another divine intervention case derailed, y'all are the best ... <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

ecco · 01-25-2002, 06:11 AM

Mrs. Beekay to Mr. Beekay:

Did you ever consider how improbable it is that LeftCoast could have provided you with the information that you are using to deny God�s intervention? How is it that LeftCoast just happened to see your post? How is it that LeftCoast had the time and ability to do a web search? Surely just the fact that the two of you use the same website (Internet Infidels) is proof that God�s hand is at work.

Darwin's Finch · 01-25-2002, 06:48 AM

A few years back, when I tended bar in a local casino, I was unwinding with a beer after my shift. I couldn't help but notice two women at the other end of the bar who kept staring at me and whispering amongst themselves. I didn't think much of it until the younger of the two walked over to me with an amazed, incredulous look on her face. Turns out I am a dead ringer for her brother, right down to my earring and the brand of beer I favored. We even share the same first name. The other lady was the mother, and even she said that her son and I could have been twins. Their family lives in San Diego, and of course the odds of our being in the same place at the same time were vanishingly small.

Odd coincidence? Sure. Miraculous? Not at all.

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01-24-2002, 04:41 PM	#12
tronvillain Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 5,658	Granted this is going to be pretty inaccurate, but it might be of some help: Buxton: 0.003% Laura: 0.510% Laura Buxton: 0.00123% Now there should be somwhere around 1.25 million girls their age in the US so there could be upwards of 1500 Laura Buxtons. Given an area of around six million square miles, that's one Laura Buxton per four thosand square miles. If you diced that up into squares, then the furthest apart they could be would be around 180 miles.

01-24-2002, 04:44 PM	#13
tronvillain Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 5,658	Plus if you enlarge the target area to anyone who knows Laura Buxton, her getting the balloon becomes a lot more probable.

01-24-2002, 04:45 PM	#14
tronvillain Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Alberta, Canada Posts: 5,658	Of course, we'd have to redo the whole thing for the UK.

01-25-2002, 02:02 AM	#16
Ms. Siv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: India Posts: 2,340	How about all those times people launched baloons and it did not land in someone's backyard .. or landed in someone's backyard but nobody bothered .. or it landed in the backyard of a person who was not similar in name, age or body build to the person who launched the balloon ? Has anyone televised all those cases ?! - Sivakami.

01-25-2002, 03:03 AM	#17
liquid Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: UK Posts: 1,440	If you investigate any two people long enough, especially in the same country, you can get any number of amazing conincidences. Strange the article didn't pick up on the strange non-coincidences that they go to different sorts of schools, they share different religious beliefs, support different sports teams, like different foods and so on.

01-25-2002, 04:24 AM	#18
beekay Regular Member Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Western North Carolina Posts: 121	Thank you all very much. All very imformative posts and very helpful. Especially thanks to Leftcoast for the internet search ... I didn't have time to do a similar search last night, thanks for doing that. Yet another divine intervention case derailed, y'all are the best ... <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

01-25-2002, 06:11 AM	#19
ecco Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: SE Posts: 4,845	Mrs. Beekay to Mr. Beekay: Did you ever consider how improbable it is that LeftCoast could have provided you with the information that you are using to deny God�s intervention? How is it that LeftCoast just happened to see your post? How is it that LeftCoast had the time and ability to do a web search? Surely just the fact that the two of you use the same website (Internet Infidels) is proof that God�s hand is at work.

01-25-2002, 06:48 AM	#20
Darwin's Finch Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Gardnerville, NV Posts: 666	A few years back, when I tended bar in a local casino, I was unwinding with a beer after my shift. I couldn't help but notice two women at the other end of the bar who kept staring at me and whispering amongst themselves. I didn't think much of it until the younger of the two walked over to me with an amazed, incredulous look on her face. Turns out I am a dead ringer for her brother, right down to my earring and the brand of beer I favored. We even share the same first name. The other lady was the mother, and even she said that her son and I could have been twins. Their family lives in San Diego, and of course the odds of our being in the same place at the same time were vanishingly small. Odd coincidence? Sure. Miraculous? Not at all.

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