Conclusions...

I know I'm starting to sound like Dr House, in the latest episode where this billionaire thought his money was the curse behind his child's disease and his belief that giving up all his wealth will save his child's life

Many people believe in Karma and I don't want to dispute that, but what was interesting in the show is that at some point things got better after the guy lost his money. It was a weird coincidence, it was not scientific, and it had nothing to do with logic. Yet it undeniably happened (at least in the rich imagination of the authors). But perhaps similar things happened in real life as well.

Now I'm not saying no conclusions can be drawn from a single observation at all! For example, if you see a guy swallowing poison dying. You don't necessarily have to repeat the experiment a million times to prove it. However, someone might want to try it again to identify the cause of death, the dosage and possibly find antidote or a cure.

With that said, such conclusions can't be more obvious than in urban legends and old wife tales. Especially when most of the information is completely baseless, sometimes even defies common sense, or scientific evidence. Yet people have a passion to believing them.

Take for example "Watwitting" (No, not the online twitter clone); it's the act of using bat's blood on young girls to reduce hair growth on their skin. Just imagine the amount of pathogens that could be present in the animal's blood, let alone the fact that it is considered (and it truly is) unclean religiously. These actions border voodoo and black magic. But you'll find many people completely believing them. With some people even swearing they achieved great results!

Just think, if a baby had a single cut on her skin, this animal blood will immediately cause infection and might cause very serious health issues. Something many parents completely disregard. Not only that, but they don't even consider the scientific evidence on the genetic nature of attribute like hair growth. There's nothing, short of a genetic alteration, that could make any difference in these attributes. Smearing dead animal blood will do absolutely nothing to reduce hair growth. But will certainly cause health risks.

Same goes for so many things. Completely unsubstantiated, yet people believe in them, and draw the most absurd conclusions. Based on nothing more than very limited observations with very little data and absolutely no scientific proof, or detailed analysis.

So next time you proclaim something as the undeniable, unequivocal truth. Be prepared to prove it.