Oak Island Truth Lies Buried In Misinformation

Next, I need you to get onboard with a simple concept – The Truth Lies Buried In Misinformation.

What do I mean by this?

If we’re methodical in our approach to solving a mystery we’ll begin with research, the extent of which is proportional to the complexity of the mystery. If you’re breakfast kippers suddenly disappear from your plate when you step away to refill your coffee cup, and the cat is in the corner licking its lips, then it probably wasn’t aliens who took your kippers. Easy, problem solved.

But a more complex mystery may require far more extensive research, and such is the case with the Oak Island mystery. The scientists and engineers in our midst will understand the steps needed, these are –

1 – Make an observation.
2 – Ask a question.
3 – Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation.
4 – Make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
5 – Test the prediction.
6 – Iterate: use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions.

In terms of what we (think we) know from our friends on ‘The Curse of Oak Island’ TV show, we’re probably at or around step 5 above, perhaps even step 6. But the way we’ve arrived at this point has been anything but scientific. Granted, we, as viewers, do not get to know all of what goes on behind the scenes in the sequencing and production of this show, but at times it seems like nothing more than an elaborate and expensive game of ‘Whack-A-Mole’.

But getting back to the theme of this section, The Truth Lies Buried In Misinformation… How does this affect our approach to mystery solving and what can we do to mitigate its negative affects.

Simply put, when there’s a mystery as complex as that surrounding Oak Island, any hypothesis is going to contain information which can, with more in-depth examination, be proven to be erroneous or non-factual. They key is to determine whether invalidating one small component of an entire hypothesis, invalidates the entire hypothesis and thus the testable prediction and outcome.

Think about the above.

Too many of us are guilty of taking exception with a specific ‘fact’ presented to us as one component of an elaborate theory or hypothesis, then discarding the entire hypothesis because we’ve been able to demonstrate that this one small piece of it is broken (or missing). This is BAD scientific procedure.

For example, atheists among us will be accustomed to being disarmed by people with religion whenever there’s a discussion of how the Universe came into being. If scientists cannot explain what happened at the moment of the ‘big bang’, or have tried to explain it, only to find their theory invalidated by future science, then those with a belief in Creation Theory will argue that since science cannot prove what happened at the start, all scientific theory relating to the subsequent expansion of the Universe is built upon a false premise. They throw out the baby with the bathwater.

So we need to be very careful not to fall into that trap. When unfolding a new hypothesis there will be evidence which is absolutely critical to the outcome of the hypothesis when we move on to test a prediction, and evidence which is merely supportive but non-critical. You need to be able to separate these or you’ll be forever locked up in your own personal game of Whack-A-Mole.

Take Nolan’s Cross as an example. There have been a number of theories involving the cross, its location, size, proportions etc. Yet there’s evidence that the rocks which mark the points of the cross were moved by Mr. Nolan. Of course they were moved. Wouldn’t your first inclination be to take a look at what lies beneath them? But then knowing where the rocks where, as clearly indicated by the hole you had dug, wouldn’t you at some point have moved them back? Now what if a perfectly viable theory emerged whose entire outcome rested upon the precise position of the marker stones in that cross, and one of the stones was ‘mispositioned’ by a few inches with respect to the desired position required to support the theory. Would that invalidate the theory, or would we use the fact that Mr. Nolan moved the marker stones to account for a small discrepancy? You might answer “well that would depend upon the theory and any supportive evidence”, and you’d be correct in thinking this way.

Try to keep this in mind as we move along.