THE STRANGE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING PENISES About 10 years ago a strange story was circulating in Ghana. The story was about a curse that resulted in men losing their penises. Apparently, this grievous loss was triggered by shaking another mans hand--an everyday practice in this sociable country. Shake a mans hand and, to your horror, when you next visited the toilet, your penis would be wholly absent. This caused near panic in the streets of Accra and handshaking just stopped over-night. In place of a handshake, men would meet and nod their heads with a wry smile. They both knew why handshaking had become a taboo but no-one would mention it. But here is the astonishing thing, this story was not just believed by poorly educated, superstitious village folk--it was believed also by smart, well-educated city people too. When I challenged these people, they all knew someone, who knew someone who had suffered this terrible loss. Or they knew of a doctor who had confirmed these events. But, of course, none of them has seen the evidence (or lack of evidence) with their own eyes... Maybe these people now look back on that time with some embarrassment. Of course the story was not true. But it illustrates a valuable principle. We should not believe any story that sounds improbable. The time to believe a story is when there is good evidence that it is true--hearsay evidence is very poor evidence as is illustrated by the case of the disappearing penises. A story is not believable because it COULD be true, nor is it believable because your cousin told you, nor is it believable because your dad believes it. Believing improbable stories on flimsy evidence is not just embarrassing, it could result in you making bad decisions or even being cheated out of your life savings... Being gullible makes you weaker and more vulnerable to exploitation but you can change that simply by being sceptical. Believe nothing without evidence.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 11:28:47 +0000
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