{"id":1446,"date":"2012-08-14T15:00:25","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T22:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoddsmustbecrazy.com\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2012-08-14T15:00:25","modified_gmt":"2012-08-14T22:00:25","slug":"coincidence-or-conspiracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/2012\/08\/14\/coincidence-or-conspiracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Coincidence or Conspiracy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Submitted<\/strong> by reader, Tamara Rousso<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

Spring<\/strong> 2001 found us as members of a very liberal, free thinking,\u00a0support-you-where-you\u2019re-at kind of spiritual fellowship in Southern\u00a0California. \u00a0We were new to the area and had made friends with a local\u00a0family that homeschooled just as we did and also attended the\u00a0fellowship.<\/p>\n

The<\/strong> dad, Patrick, was a stay-at-home dad, I was a\u00a0stay-at-home mom, our kids were close in age, and we found ourselves\u00a0getting together for play dates quite often. Barbara, the mom, along\u00a0with my husband, Mo, were in the trenches supporting our life style\u00a0choice of a stay-at-home parent, and when we got together for family\u00a0functions we all very much enjoyed each others company.<\/p>\n

One<\/strong> day at the fellowship Barbara wished me a happy birthday. \u00a0I\u00a0thanked her and she told me it was also Patrick\u2019s birthday. \u00a0I\u00a0didn\u2019t give that much thought as it is not so uncommon to share a\u00a0birthday with another person. A couple of weeks later found us at their home, along with Patrick\u2019s\u00a0father (his mother was deceased), having dinner. Patrick mentioned us\u00a0sharing the same birthday, and asked what year I was born. I had\u00a0always assumed Patrick was a few years older than I because he was\u00a0completely gray. But, no, it turned out that he had grayed\u00a0prematurely and was born the same year I was.<\/p>\n

Then<\/strong> Patrick asked\u00a0where I was born, to which I replied \u201cDenver, Colorado.” \u00a0Patrick said\u00a0\u201cI was born in Denver, Colorado!\u201d \u00a0Now it was getting a little weird. I\u00a0grew up in Wyoming, and Patrick grew up overseas with a traveling\u00a0engineer father. We had both ended up settling in Southern\u00a0California, and here we were at the same table finding out that not\u00a0only did we share the same birth date and birth year, but also the\u00a0same birth city far away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat<\/strong> hospital were you born in?\u201d was Patrick\u2019s next question.\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d I replied, \u201cbut I was adopted out of St.\u00a0Joseph\u2019s Orphanage\u201d. \u00a0Patrick\u2019s father piped up and said \u201cI do\u00a0remember an orphanage not far from the hospital\u201d. \u00a0Chances are that\u00a0we were born at the same hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat<\/strong> time were you born?\u201d\u00a0asked Patrick. \u00a0He continued, \u201cI know I was born at 1:12pm because a\u00a0friend did an astrology chart for me once and needed to know the\u00a0time.\u201d \u00a0I replied that I really didn\u2019t know, but I thought it was\u00a0in the evening.<\/p>\n

Not<\/strong> too long after that I had reason to get my birth certificate out,\u00a0and decided to check the time of birth. \u00a0(Insert the music from the\u00a0Twilight Zone here.)<\/em> Imagine my surprise to see that it stated\u00a01:12pm!<\/p>\n

That<\/strong> began the very long search to find some meaning to this bizarre\u00a0series of coincidences. \u00a0Maybe Patrick\u2019s mother had brought us\u00a0together from the grave because we were twins separated at birth? \u00a0We\u00a0were very similar in personality and, also shared certain physical\u00a0characteristics. \u00a0I decided to search for a birth mother, and if I\u00a0didn\u2019t find one we would do DNA testing.<\/p>\n

A<\/strong> few months later a birth mother was identified, but she was\u00a0deceased. \u00a0Maybe it wasn\u2019t true then. \u00a0Maybe she was just a shill\u00a0for the Catholic Church, a cover if you will, so they could carry out\u00a0a maniacal social engineering plot. \u00a0But a half-sister was found and\u00a0while I look nothing like the birth family I do share many personality\u00a0traits.<\/p>\n

Okay<\/strong>, so if not a Catholic Church conspiracy maybe there is\u00a0some truth to astrology the thinking went. Maybe that explains why we\u00a0were so similar – not related but destined to be similar by virtue of\u00a0our birth dates!<\/p>\n

In<\/strong> the end we accepted the inevitable. Random coincidences that made\u00a0for an interesting story. \u00a0But it does make one wonder – what are the\u00a0odds?!<\/p>\n

\n

Below<\/strong>\u00a0are the extended notes provided by Barbara Drescher for use in\u00a0Skepticality Episode 188<\/a>. Take a look and leave your comments below.<\/p>\n

The<\/strong> “cosmic twin” kind of coincidences in this story are reminiscent of the classic Kennedy\/Lincoln connection. When human beings notice two or more things occurring together which\u00a0appear<\/em>\u00a0to be related, we use a cognitive short cut and assume that they\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0related (illusory correlation). When we look for relationships, we tend to notice more, remember more, and assign more weight to the “hits” than the “misses” (the confirmation bias).<\/p>\n

Discovering<\/strong> common features is easy \u2013 just look for them. This is how “data mining” reveals meaningless anomalies which scientists mistake for real relationships.<\/p>\n

The<\/strong> best way to determine if an apparent relationship is meaningful is to develop a specific hypothesis and test it. In this situation, if the author suspected that the friend was a long-lost twin, DNA testing could be done. Otherwise, this is a set of interesting coincidences, some with crazy, but not unheard of odds, which were noticed only when the participants when looking for them. Imagine how many of these kinds of coincidences could be found if we took detailed inventories of all of our friends?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spring 2001 found us as members of a very liberal, free thinking, support-you-where-you\u2019re-at kind of spiritual fellowship in Southern California. We were new to the area and had made friends with a local family that homeschooled just as we did and also attended the fellowship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262,6],"tags":[1897,1898,1899,1900,1901,1902,1382,1903,1904],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-skepticality","category-stories","tag-adoption","tag-astrology","tag-catholic-church","tag-conspiracy","tag-denver-co","tag-same-birthday","tag-southern-california","tag-st-josephs-orphanage","tag-tamara-rousso"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tombc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}