Scott Alexander (author/host)

Or maybe they think that she just guessed the wind would change and got lucky when it did.

Basilica.

Complexity penalty.

Urundel.

Any theory that doesn't require a god who sees the fall of every sparrow will involve some coincidences somewhere.

They pass under an archway, and for a moment you can't hear them.

As they leave, the conversation resumes.

Basilica.

At her trial, she out-argued a room full of theological experts with no formal training or defense counsel.

Arendelle.

She came up with clever ways to avoid their questions.

When you look at the ability of police today to convince people to confess to crimes they haven't committed, I agree this is extraordinary and suggests she was very smart and had great social skills.

But if she was very smart and had great social skills, that means we need to explain fewer miracles, not more.

Basilica, did you ever read Montaillou, Cathars and Catholics in a French village?

Arendelle, I did not.

Basilica, as part of the Albigensian Crusade, the Inquisition interviewed every single person in an Occitan village about what they believed.

Arendelle, and they were heretics?

Basilica, yes, but the interesting thing is that they weren't, mostly, Albigensian heretics.

They'd independently invented six different kinds of atheism or Gnosticism or wilder beliefs.

The four great evils are Satan, the Pope, the King of France, and their Bishop.