Dr. Steven Novella

All right, quick name that logical fallacy, then we'll go on to science or fiction.

I can't read the whole thing, but a listener emailed me and said, I'm writing to bring to your attention a mathematical pattern on Mars that is simple enough to verify and unusual enough to be worth a skeptical look.

And then he says, the late Bart Jordan, a Manhattan Project mathematician who consulted for NASA's Viking mission, pointed out that the five-sided DNM pyramid in the Cydonia region—this is of Mars—

Sits at 40.87 degrees north latitude.

40.87 times 5 equals 204.35.

The distance of Mars' two moons from the planet's center were published in the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1966 to 1973, years before NASA confirmed them.

Phobos and Deimos, right, it gives the distance.

If you add them together and divide by 100, it's 204.35.

Right.

Oh, my God.

He gives some resources.

And he says, I would be grateful for any thoughts, even a single sense of skepticism, blah, blah, blah.

I am asking, what is the probability that these numbers line up by chance?

Which is funny, because when I responded to him, I said, you're asking the wrong question.

And he responded, I'm not asking a question.

And I said, you say right here, I am asking, right?

More generic?

More broadly.

So what is the fallacy here?

This is the blank fallacy.