August 1: World Wide Web Day

Have you ever heard of “Procrustes’ bed”? The expression stands for a faulty approach on science, when an experiment is adapted to match the results. (Prokrustes was a Greek robber, who made his victims “fit” a certain bed, by stretching them out or chopping parts off.)  Now, the ancient Greeks were masters in constructing causality where there was none. Call out on Aphrodite… and watch your favourite concubine enter the room. Sacrifice to Dionysos, and an invitation for a “symposium” follows. Or mention Zeus, and it starts to rain. In our modern world, some of us have experienced similar things: thinking of starting a family and suddenly feeling surrounded by pregnant women… Is it Hestia encouraging you? Learning a new concept (“Procrustes’ Bed” for example), and hearing it mentioned five times the same week… Is it Athena in her role as teacher? No, the internet tells us it’s a mix of bias, projection and coincidence. It even has a name: “the Frequency Illusion”. Still feels like magic to me.

Ancient Bed, Archaeological Museum of Corinth, Greece

Aison kylix, National Archaeological Museum of Madrid, Spain

Did you know?

• The word “Procustean” is used to describe situations where an arbitrary standard is used to measure success, with disregard for eventual harm. In statistics, a procrustean solution means that one selects the data that fit the desired outcome, disregarding data that does not.

• When the hero Theseus was on his way to Athens to claim the thrown, he killed six robbers he met on the way, by inflicting the same harm tot them as they had inflicted on their victims. (These are known as “the six labours” of Theseus.) Besides Prokrustes, he fought:

  -       Periphetes, who beat his opponents into the earth.

  -       Sinis, who tied people to two bent trees, and then let the trees go, tearing his victims apart.

  -       The Crommyonian Sow, an enormous pig.

  -       Skiron (Sciron), who kicked his opponents off a cliff.

  -       Kerkuon (Cercyon), who wrestled his victims to death.

• The “Frequency Illusion” is also known as the “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon”. It’s a cognitive bias when you come aware of something and suddeny notice it everywhere.

• About Aphrodite: cfr. “Thorny”.

• About Dionysos: cfr. “A Mixed Marriage”

• A symposium is an impromptu party, cfr. “Kottabos”.

• About Zeus: cfr. “The Devil in Disguise”.

• About Hestia: cfr. “Demure”.

• About Athena: cfr. “Extra Vergine”.