As I post skeptic history items every day on social media, a big goal in my research was to fill the calendar. I wanted to make sure I had at least one item for every day. I have found almost 1400 items so far, enough to insure well over three items for each date, in theory. In practice, however, there are several days that have only one, and some have as many as nine. One particularly well covered day is October 18th, which is Harvey Wiley’s birthday as well as that of Skepchick founder Rebecca Watson. But strangely, it is also the birthday of at least seven well known promoters of pseudoscience and the paranormal, including:
-
17th century Astrologer & herbalist Nicholas Culpeper
-
American alchemist & cult leader Cyrus Teed
-
French philosopher Henri Bergson
-
Max Gerson of the infamous Gerson cancer therapy
-
Psychic surgeon José Arigó
-
Naturopath Hulda Clark
-
Robert Gimlin of the famous Paterson-Gimlin bigfoot film.
It might be easy to look at this huge confluence of birthdays and wonder about the significance of October 18th. Perhaps it holds some unique power? Are people born on October 18th more likely to become famous?
No. It’s just pure stochasticity.
Dates, just like any other measurable quantity originating in the real world, are completely random. And despite what your “common sense” might tell you, random does not mean evenly distributed. In fact, random numbers are often notoriously clumpy.
There’s no need to seek out an explanation of October 18, supernatural or otherwise. It is just the randomness of nature.
You can get a daily dose of the history of skepticism with JREF’s free Today in Skeptic History app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad or by subscribing on Twitter or on Facebook.
(This essay originally appeared in a slightly different form on Skepticality episode #140)
Tim Farley is a JREF Research Fellow in electronic media.