Joel Gustafson / Posts / 2021-02-23

It was a brisk fall day and Alice and the Dormouse where wandering around town. The Dormouse saw a $20 bill on the ground and went over to pick it up.

“Ah, don’t bother” said Alice.

“Why not?” said the Dormouse.

“Well if it were a real, somebody else would have taken it already. So it must be fake.”

“Oh that’s not a problem for me. You see, I don’t believe in the efficient market hypothesis.”

“Why not?” asked Alice.

“Because it’s unfalsifiable!”

“How so?”

“Well.” the Dormouse smiled. “Have you ever heard of anyone falsifying it?”

“I suppose not…” said Alice.

“Exactly” said the Dormouse. “If it were falsifiable, somebody would certainly have falsified it by now. So it must not be.”

“I guess that makes sense,” said Alice, “but how is that different from things that are just true? They’re all unfalsifiable too!”

“That’s a good point!” said the Dormouse. “No true thing can be proven wrong. So if you ever encounter something that can be proven wrong, you can rule it out right away.”

“But isn’t falsifiability supposed to rule out theories that can’t be proven wrong? Which is it?”

“Good grief, you’re right” said the Dormouse. “I guess we have to rule those ones out too.”