Talk:Ley line/Archive 2

Archive 1Archive 2

An efficient (if kludgy) ley-searcher written in Python confirms the combinatorial explosion, and appears to show that the estimate in the formula given is, if anything, conservative, as it does not allow for any "wriggle room" for the two end-points. -- The Anome 13:33 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)


===Excuse me for being a little dismissive, but isn't all this based on the assumption that the earth is flat? In reality the world can be considered as a battered geoid, so any attempt to use Euclidean geometry is, what we call BTP!Harry Potter 23:55 8 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Maps are flat too, and I suspect most leyline hunters use maps rather than go tracking around the countryside with theodolites (or hazel twigs and "crystals", more likely). Therefore the projection used for the map must have some bearing on this, though most modern map projections yield true bearings anyway. GRAHAMUK 11:53 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

===P.S. I read this book once that used the example of Telephone boxes, as they had a suitable frequency on maps. The author then showed that lines could be drawn linking them up. But it was only when I went to Dulwich Picture Gallery that I realised what was going on. The Gallery is a shrine to Bourgeois art, and at the bcak where the bodies are buried there is alittle turret which was used as the shape of the traditional red British phone boxes. Like Alfred Watkins I had a spiritual experince when I realised that the coountry was covered with a web of these, mathematically proven to be organised in leylines all centred on the decaying corpse of old Mr Bourgeois!!!Harry Potter 00:03 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Incidentally, the newly added line "Others have argued that ley lines are artefacts of chance alignments, stating that these alignments are much more probable than suggested by intuition. " is just a rewording of what has already been stated. It adds next to nothing. GRAHAMUK 11:53 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Removed. Evercat 11:54 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

User:Harry Potter wants to move the stuff on how ley lines can be expected to occur by chance to a seperate page. I think it's by far the most important point to be made regarding ley lines and should be here. Thoughts? Evercat 18:45 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)


I think you mis represent my position. The piece does not deal with how ley lines can be expected by chance, but with the relationship between Ley lines and probability.Harry Potter 23:23 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

A distinction without a difference. Evercat 23:25 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There is a world of difference. Expectation is a subjective process which a sentient being engages in, whereas probability is a mathematical model which can be used to instrumentalise a scenario so as to produce a quantified result. Expectation will vary according an individuals circumstance, whereas probability is governed by precise mathematical rules.
It is clear that the siting of historical sites happens in a way which is very far from random. Likewise mathematical models have been used to examine such sites as Stonehenge revealing systems of alignment related to astronomical observations. In many ways questions of intervisibility are more intuitive rather than some vague abstraction such as the offending piece contains i.e. I would suggest that the difference between a map line and a "straight line" on the surface of the ground over a distance is greater than the level of inexactitude given by the width of the line. Thus that argument falls down. Likewise the article gives no criteria for expectation. i.e. if ten coins are tossed, someone might say that they would expect by chance that 5 would be heads and 5 tails. However the chances of getting such an exact result are 0.246. The chances of getting between 4 and 6 are 0.656, and the chances of getting between 3 and 7 are 0.89. Yet this section of the article muffles around all of this and perhaps should be deleted until something a bit better comes up that deals with probability properly. Harry Potter 00:20 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I think the article is fine. In particular, the diagrams make the point perfectly clearly. What's also clear is that your attempts to remove this stuff are because it so devastatingly refutes your current pet pseudoscience. Evercat 11:16 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

  • On the contrary it is crappy statistics which keep these ridiculous ideas about leylines going. It is not "devastating" but rubbish. The various items placed onleylines are the accumulated product of history, and simply because this gets a little bit complex, the idea that it can be replicated by a model based on chance is something which would only appeal to a rationalist with constrained mental capacities. Why not start a critique based in reality rather: e.g. the critique i posted lienking them to the growth of a mass market of maps for the leisured middle classes - or does that strike to close to home?Harry Potter 23:11 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The map availability theory is an interesting one, and worth considering. This whole thing dates to the early days of the ramblers, and the recreational interest in the landscape (as opposed to those too busy trying to live in it) On finding ley-lines, it took me a while to hunt it down, but this is a passage I remembered from John Crowley's excellent novel Ægypt:

Star temples and ley-lines, UFOs and landscape giants, couldn't they see what was really, permanently astonishing was the human ability to keep finding these things? Let anyone looking for them be given a map of Pennsylvania or New Jersey or the Faraways, and he will find "ley-lines"; let human beings look up long enough on starry nights and they will see faces staring down at them. That's the interesting thing, that's the subject: not why there are ley-lines, but why people find them...

Actually I think the point of the statistical argument was that proponents quote extremely low probabilities that the alignments that they find could have arisen by chance: but out of the set of all possible alignments selected from (semi-)random points, there will be a number (perhaps a majority) of low probability ones.. "Million to one chances turn up nine times out of ten". -- Malcolm Farmer 00:07 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)


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Seems to me that the major problem with the article is that the section under dispute (the probability section) overwhelmingly trumps the arguments in favor of "genuine" ley lines. The first half of the article is (to me) meandering and unclear, while the second half makes a strong case for ley lines being a mere curiosity of probabilistic principles. The statement about "Many Chaos magicians delight in this..." is odd, and has no backing arguments. Why do Chaos magicians think that this mathematical demonstration helps the case for the existence of ley lines? And why is it mentioned in the "skeptical critiques" section, of all places? Also, I know of no person with any mathematical knowledge who would say they "expect" 5 heads and 5 tails on a single toss of 10 coins. Probability expectations only apply in the long run - that over time the number approaches 50/50. -- Wapcaplet 17:08 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There's no fundamental problem with an article containing an excellent argument. :-) NPOV states that in cases where the majority opinion is that something is bogus, the reasons for this can be stated. Evercat 17:13 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Yes but the problem here is that this is not an excellent argument, it is waffle and it does not deal with the long debate around this issue which Watkins himself was involved in (See The Ley Hunters Manual}: "But this chance (by accidental coincidence) increases so rapidly in geometric progression with each point added, that if 10 mark points are distributed haphazard on a sheet of paper, there is an average probability that there will be one three point alignment, whiule if only two more points are added to make 12 points, there is a probability of two three point alignments. It is clear that a three-point alignment must not be accepted as proof of a ley by itself, as a fair number of other eligible mark points are usually present. A ley should not be taken as proven with less than four good mark points. Three good points with several others of less value like cross-roads and coinciding tracks may be sufficient." This has been developped by Peter Furness and Robert Forrest and Williamson and Bellamy have given a good review of the material in Ley Lines in Question. As to the question of "expectation", the example of Coin tossing was used to illustrate precisely how bad the question of expectation was used in this piece. Therefore the probabilty piece should be removed until something a bit more relevant is produced. As for the first section, yes this does need more work, not just on it, but also around it, which is why i have been working on ordnance Survey, O. G. S. Crawford and Alfred Watkins himself.Harry Potter 23:09 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Well, yeah, what I meant was that if anything needs improvement, it's the first section. -- Wapcaplet 17:16 11 Jul 2003 (UTC)