Crop Circles

With time on my hands over the recent holidays, I did a little unscientific "research" into crop circles. This amounted to performing a couple of Google searches on the subject, and reading the tripe the proponents of this phenomenon pass off as "fact".

Sometimes I can't believe the stupidity and lack of critical thinking that some people are (obviously) capable of. For what it's worth (i.e.: not much) here are some of my own thoughts on the subject:

1. "Crop circles are too intricate to be made by humans." Did anyone ever own a Spirograph as a child? Do you know how it works? Have you ever heard of trigonometry? Algebra beyond "3 + n = 5"? Let's discuss this point. Crop circle makers (human ones) have as much time as they want to spend designing the crop circle, using geometry, trigonometry, and our well-established knowledge of fractals, angles, astronomy, aerial perspective, etc. Many of us technically-inclined folk are quite clever. Dare you think that we can't conceive and design such diagrams? As I said, did anyone ever own a Spirograph? See any similarity between some crop circles and Spirograph designs?
   
2. "Crop circles are too large and complex to be done in a short period of time." Humans built the pyramids. Admittedly, it took large numbers a very long time, but it was done. Doesn't it seem reasonable that a group of 10 (or so) organized individuals, armed with a design and a plan, could produce such designs in a few hours? Here, the key point is the reasonableness of the explanation. More on this point, later.
3. "Plants are bent over, not broken/cut." Hmmm, sorta like what would happen if you flattened out them with a board? 'Nuff said about that. This also includes the "strangely consistent patterns" observers find in the bent-over stalks.
   
4. "Humans couldn't have made the patterns we find in the plant stalks." Hmmm. Saying it doesn't make it true. It's obvious to me that humans did make the patterns. I mean, there they are. Humans have tried (and succeeded) in making crop circles. They have even documented the making, including the techniques used. Unless we come across a crop circle, and we try to duplicate it, and we are patently unable to do so ... I'm going with the obvious.
   
5. "Weird energies emanate from crop circles." Does anyone go around measuring "weird energies" in pristine farmer's fields? If you were to, I'd bet you'd find "anomalies" in many places other than just where crop circles are located. My guess? Coincidence at best. What if the makers (human makers) used the same detection equipment and placed their circle where the anomaly is located? Or, would that be too devious? Hell, I thought of it, too, and I don't consider it a unique thought.
   
6. "Actual eyewitnesses have seen 'real' crop circles being made." Hmmm, and of course they are all trained observers with no stake at all in furthering an extraordinary explanation for the event. Methinks not. Just because someone says they saw something does not mean they actually did. Ask any cop about the veracity and reliability of your typical "eyewitness". People self-delude, continuously.
   

The principle of Occam's Razor is very important in software development (among other disciplines). Basically this principle says "when confronted with two explanations for something, the simpler explanation is probably the more correct one". In other words, when you see hoof prints, think horses, not zebras. Unless you are on the Serengeti Plain, that is. Any time there can be more than one explanation for some phenomenon, usually it's the simpler one that's true. Not always, of course, but consider the probabilities.

It's this reasoning that says that when your program is malfunctioning, the problem is probably not the operating system. What are the chances that the particular thing that's wrong is a yet untested part of Windows/UNIX/OS 390? What are the chances that they forgot to optimize the system for the thing that you're trying to do? Of course it's possible, but highly unlikely. But we're not specifically talking about what's possible, here.

Many things are, of course, possible. And these possibilities do include the fantastic. Sure, it's possible that alien intelligences are making crop circles. It's also possible that all this (what we call "reality") is merely a dream and we're all going to wake up, soon. The universe does contain some propositions that are unprovable within the system. It's a complex system, and we don't know everything about it. Seems unlikely to me that we ever will. But given the choice between two alternatives, for my money, the one that doesn't rely on aliens is almost certainly the more correct one.