House's Law.

[Blind groper]

Some of the participants here might be familiar with the television medical drama, called 'House'. This involves an irascible diagnostician called Dr. Gregory House, played by that superb British actor, Hugh Lawrie.

Anyway, House has this principle he uses when diagnosing patients. "Everybody lies!" I have decided to call that 'House's Law'. In the medical drama, the not so good doctor assumes that patients describing what is wrong with them are prone to telling untruths.

When I was younger, I was a bit more naive than I am today, and often believed what people told me. As an older person, I have learned House's Law, and now treat anything and everything I am told as possible lies.

As a good scientific skeptic, I find this a very valuable tool in pondering the weirder aspects of human society. If we assume for anything that anyone says, there is a strong chance they are lying, then a lot of mysteries simply evaporate.

For example : reports of Bigfoot, Little Grey Men from outer space, and a lot of religious stories become pretty easy to understand if you remember House's Law.

Anyone else have stories of how an understanding of this law casts light on that which is otherwise hard to understand?

[JimC]

All people from Melbourne are liars...

[Rum]

I take the opposite tack (barring obvious fraudsters, woo merchants and the like). I am sometimes disappointed but I always live in hope!

[cronus]

On a case by case basis. Liars. Most are trivial, some serious. Once I've discovered where they hid the bodies they have a choice of paying my fees or finding another practitioner. Don't ever work alone in my line of doctoring.

[Animavore]

I thought House's law stated that it is never lupus.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I thought House's law stated that it is never lupus.

Yes. But he was lying.

[mistermack]

People do lie all the time
The first explanation for anything unusual should be that people are lying.
The gullible believers always say, ''what reason could he possibly have for making it up?''

It's the wrong question. Liars don't need a reason. They can't help telling lies. And that's what makes them believable. I still fall for it myself, every once in a while.

I have a friend who can't help lying. If you need some tool, or component, etc, he will say, every time, that he threw one out just last week. Why the fuck? But he does it every time.
I fell for it, until another friend, who had known him for years, told me that he was lying.
After that I tested him, and he bit every time.

But why do they do it? They've got a fucking screw loose. That's why. And if that's outside of your normal experience, you don't look for it. That's why we still fall for it.

[JimC]

A certain judicial amount of lying, done with care, is an potentially successful evolutionary strategy...

[laklak]

Liars, damn liars, and statisticians.

[Blind groper]

A certain judicial amount of lying, done with care, is an potentially successful evolutionary strategy...

Yes. And the realisation of the fact that others are lying is an even better evolutionary strategy.

[JimC]

A certain judicial amount of lying, done with care, is an potentially successful evolutionary strategy...

Yes. And the realisation of the fact that others are lying is an even better evolutionary strategy.

Best of all, be able to detect, with reasonable accuracy, when it's a lie, and when it's the truth...

[mistermack]

I worked for a while in a door-to-door sales team.

It was a standing joke, about our supervisor, that when he started a sentence with '' I'll be honest with you '', he was going to come out with an enormous big fat lie.

He never failed to oblige.

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Well, in my line of work it is not that "everybody lies", but rather that no everybody understands how modern computers function, so as a hands-on IT-supporter I start by treating everybody as an "idiot" who hasn't checked if the power cable is connected.

[Blind groper]

Yes, but if you ask them if they connected the power cable, they will lie.

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Yes, but if you ask them if they connected the power cable, they will lie.

Yes, you got a point.