For my first blog I decided to look up an article about an infamous claim that has been made. I used the site provided to us by Kathy and was really interested in the article, "Atom Balm".
http://www.snopes.com/science/atombomb.asp
The claim is that a blind girl "saw" the flash of the first atomic bomb test. This urban legend is perfect to pick apart using the the scientific thinking principles we learned in chapter one.
The first scientific principle that came to mind as I read the article was extraordinary claim, because clearly any blind person suggesting to see is quite extraordinary. Georgia Green, the blind girl, is the only person who can be asked to validate this claim. Since this claim is remarkable, it requires a lot of convincing evidence to become believable. With Georgia as the only evidence it becomes a stretch to side with her claim.
This leads into another scientific principle, ruling out rival hypotheses. While Georgia's claim is to have seen the explosion, maybe other factors such as noise and feeling contributed to her sense of "seeing" an atomic bomb. As other articles support, the strength of an atomic bomb is incredible, "these bombs were responsible for burning over 41.5 square miles of Tokyo by the United States in March 1945." Something of this strength could cause anyone to experience a sensation like never before.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/teacher/abomb.htm
The Snopes site that posted the story about the blind girl ended up crediting the article with multiple truth values. They did not give the story a true or false rating and I would have to agree with them. There is not enough evidence either way to support or disprove this claim. I have a feeling that this story can and will be debated for a long time.
Blog Post by Danielle Spizzirri
