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Mass experiment into luck to be conducted at Edinburgh Fringe
For many years people have rubbed the toe of David Hume’s statue in order to obtain good luck. Now, 300 years since his birth, a group of skeptical scientists are going to put this notion to the test.
Staring on 6th August, the Edinburgh Skeptics will be stopping passers-by on Edinburgh’s historical High Street and asking to them to take part in an unusual experiment.
Half of the passers by will be asked to touch Hume’s toe for good luck whilst the others will be assigned to a ‘no toe touching ‘control condition. Everyone will then be asked to say how lucky they feel, and guess the outcome of a coin toss.
Will the toe touching make people feel luckier?
Will it make them able to guess the outcome of the random coin flip?
After carefully recording the responses gathered the skeptics plan to announce their results mid-fringe.
“David Hume is one of the world’s most influential philosophers, and was extremely critical of superstition’ noted Keir Liddle from Edinburgh Skeptics, ‘I think that the idea of testing the notion that rubbing his statue makes you lucky would have appealed to his rational mind, and it will be interesting to see whether the data busts the myth once and for all.”
Prof Richard Wiseman, author of The Luck Factor added ‘My work suggests that it is possible to change your luck by the way you think and behave, however, the theory only holds for luck in everyday life. When you are up against a random coin toss the touch of the toe should make no difference, but it will be interesting to see what happens”.
“We need as many people as possible to take part” added Stuart Ritchie, who helped devise the experiment, “Young or old, skeptic or believer, come down to the High Street and participant in this fun but historic event!”
In addition to testing whether rubbing Humes toe makes passers-by lucky the skeptics would also like to invite performers to take part and report back whether they think rubbing Humes toe helped them during their Fringe run.
DETAILS OF OUR AUGUST EVENTS CAN BE FOUND HERE