xkcd #3210: Eliminating the Impossible

Title text:

'If you've eliminated a few possibilities and you can't think of any others, your weird theory is proven right' isn't quite as rhetorically compelling.

Transcript:

Transcript will show once it’s been added to explainxkcd.com

Source: https://xkcd.com/3210/

explainxkcd for #3210

283 points · 12 comments · view on lemmy.world

12 Comments

muzzle@lemmy.zip · 34 pts · 186d (3 replies)

Sherlock is always right only because he's the protagonist. That's what always annoyed me.

Lauchmelder@feddit.org · 22 pts · 186d

they just write down the cases he actually solves

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 186d (1 reply)

Also, Arthur Conan Doyle was a greedy cunt that believed that copyright should be permanent

BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 185d

And that selfish son of a bitch even died before I could pirate his work.

tetris11@feddit.uk · 11 pts · 186d (2 replies)

Doyle observed that Bell seemed to be able to diagnose patients from little information, noticing minute details: "Dr Bell would sit in his receiving room, with a face like a Red Indian, and diagnose people as they came in, before they even opened their mouths. [...] He would tell them their symptoms and even give them details of their past life, and hardly ever would he make a mistake." This ability led Doyle to model his fictional detective Sherlock Holmes on Bell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bell

flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 186d (1 reply)

Thanks! I had assumed it was all fantastic fictional fluff. Really interesting to learn there's a grain of truth behind it

tetris11@feddit.uk · 4 pts · 186d

Very tiny grain - I feel like Doyle was a bit of a dreamer who was easily misled by confident adults and even children

Dagnet@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 186d (2 replies)

I tried reading sherlock holmes and it annoyed me how sure he was of every observation. Like guessing someone's height to the millimeter from distances between steps.

Easiest way to commit a crime and never get caught by him would be wearing clown shoes while you do it.

Jolteon@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 186d

I wonder if they realize that not everybody has the exact same proportion of leg to torso...

ms_lane@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 183d

That's why Batman is the best he uses AI The Batcomputer which totally isn't cooled by an aquifer feeding Gotham.

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 186d

It not being in the car is the most improbable thing tho...

capuccino@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 183d

you people are bad at finding things