Talk:Ley line/archive 3

See Talk:Ley line/Ley lines and probability for original research "An estimate of the probability of ley lines existing by chance" (moved to that page because this page is 44 Kb and some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. --

I find ley lines very interesting (even though I believe them to be due to chance alignments). The quote above is spot-on: "That's the interesting thing, that's the subject: not why there are ley-lines, but why people find them..." Their social history fascinates me, and we need much more about it. More ley line history please! -- The Anome 08:29 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

To Harry Potter: just because you do not agree with or understand something, please do not delete it. The mathematical idea of expectation is well defined. See also central limit theorem and binomial theorem for more background. Note that I do not say that ley lines are not generated by magic; however, if I can show that they would be generated by chance in similar numbers to those observed in reality, there is no need of a magical explanation when chance will do fine. -- The Anome 23:25 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think the argument is weak. Saying "there is an average probability that there will be one three point alignment" is weak, and vague. The probability argument could use some improvement by way of clarification, but it certainly presents a good generalized mathematical perspective of how likely "ley lines" are to occur by chance. Simply removing it does not benefit the article; if you see a problem with it, please help us improve it! If we removed all "insufficient" material from Wikipedia, we'd have very little left :-) -- Wapcaplet 23:30 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Third time I got an edit conflict with this page! Oliver, what about meandering of paths was irrelevant or wrong? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 23:34 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Something else I have noticed is that the Historic Hereford website mentions the fact that there were excavations at Blackwardine in 1921 with stuff being written up by G.H. Jack (the County Surveyor) for the Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalist Field Club 24 in September 1921 - perhaps at the same meeting that Watkins strutted his stuff.Harry Potter 23:41 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Without objection I will re-insert my comments about the meandering of paths in a little while -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 23:46 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Why are the specious arguments from probability being reinserted? I think there are several issues here:
 * a) Watkins is talking about there only being ten or twelve points on a map. (see above) Is this because the number of feartures was much less then than now (probably thanks to the innovations of people like O. G. S. Crawford
 * b) The probablistic explanation is poorly put - e.g. in the comparison of w with d, it is moving a line length d across a square (or is it a circle, because the word diameter appears in the text) and does not take account that many lines connecting two points randomly selected within a square would be of shorter or longer length.
 * c) No account is taken of the fact that ancient monuments are not distributed randomly
 * d) In such books as The Ley Hunter's Companion ley lines with 6, 7, and 8 points are put forward, so the pictures of all the 4-point lines are beside the point In fact the probability argument ends up showing that such alignments are very unlikely in a random distributioin of points, as shown by the maths on the talk page.
 * e) Two other key questions are side stepped in this mathematical model: the size of the monuments and the earths curvature - "This can be ignored when dealing when keeping to one sheet of a inch map" says Watkins and he is unable to come up with answers to these questions "which are clear working instructions".

Clearly this needs reworking before being put up again!Harry Potter 00:25 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Argh. Please read the material above.
 * a) really? Give me a cite. Most of my OS maps have many ancient sites, mostly marked "tumulus". It's also easy to "forget" the points that don't lie along the lines you've just found as "not significant".
 * b) it's an order of magnitude argument, the term is used loosely, a common usage
 * c) random points are a worst case: things get better with non-random distribution
 * d) 6,7,8 point alignments are easy to generate.
 * e) this assumes the monuments are points, making them bigger makes alignments easier. The argument is also not sensitive to whether the lines are straight or great circles

Again, computer simulations confirm these order-of-magnitude results. To settle your objections, perhaps we should select some non-magic geographical features for which digital map data is readily available, and generate leys from them? -- Anon.

Note:

An externally collated list of 98 of London's pizza resturarants appears to generate quite remarkable sets of ley lines, using a randomly-chosen data set (Honest, it was the first one I tested).

Which do you prefer:
 * hypothesis 1: chance
 * hypothesis 2: subtle pizza energy fields?

I'll post some diagrams, if you like.

-- Anon.

Look, here's one, for order 5.



and here are some 8-point alignments:



No, the stuff of mine that Oliver excised was not the probabilistic stuff by some other user. Sorry If I confused you all, should have quoted what was excised. Just a moment, I will change browsers and paste it. Here it is:


 * In actual fact the straightness of the lines is much less surprising than it appears on its face. The real question is why do some paths meander? Think about it. (By the way; the answer is because they follow the paths readymade by cattle, rather than human feet)

I honestly don't see what is objectionable about that argument.-- Cimon Avaro on a pogo-stick 01:28 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

With reference to the diagrammes above, aren't many city streets (in London and elsewhere) designed in straight lines? How, then, can one poo-poo the idea of ley lines based on what is obviously no accident? Maybe the pizza parlour owners did not intend the straight line connections, but the streets were already there and many of them in straight lines already. This hardly seems merely coincidental! It's the result of cities being built along a Roman model of straight lines and squares and rectangles. Thus, such data cannot be used to discredit the idea of ley lines. I'm not asserting that there are ley lines (nor am I denying that there are; frankly, I am undecided), but if one wants to criticise the theory, one should endeavour to consider all variables which could account for the apparent alignment of "random" sites used as counter-examples.-- User:Croman_mac_Nessa 09:00 12 Apr 2006 (UTC)

Some rephrasing (by me) has occurred. Some bits do not have a home, currently, and are out of place in their current context:

"Some geomatic researchers have investigated this phenomenon by studying telluric currents, geomagnetism, and the Schumann resonance, but current data is inconclusive."

I've rephrased this from what it was before, but I still have no idea what it means. Who is doing this research? What results have they found? Also, the following:

"Some claim that the patterns of shrines and monuments in the Aymara territory of Bolivia, as shown in the photographs of Tony Morrison in his 1978 book Pathways of the Gods offer convincing evidence of the existence of ley lines. Many Chaos magicians find the pseudo-random nature of ley line points to be scientific 'proof' not only of the existence of ley lines, but also of the generative power of chance."

This is two bits from different places, which are now out of context. First, who claims that the pattern of shrines and monuments offers convincing evidence? Second, why do Chaos magicians find the randomness factor to be convincing evidence in favor of true ley lines? (I've asked the same question earlier, but I don't recall seeing an answer). Next:

"Some skeptics have suggested that ley lines are a product of human fancy. Watkins' discovery happened at a time when Ordnance Survey maps were being marketed for the leisure market, making them reasonably easy and cheap to obtain; this may have been a contributing factor to the popularity of ley line theories."

The second bit of this was rephrasing on my part, based on guesswork, but it's obviously quite vague. How does the availability of Ordnance Survey maps damage the legitimacy of Watkins' discoveries? And finally:

"Others have pointed out the disparity between the two-dimensional representation of the map with the fact that the most accurate representation of the surface of the world is the geoid, which has very different qualities, particularly in relation to the question: what is a straight line running along the ground?"

I've read this paragraph at least ten times, and still cannot glean its meaning. What does this paragraph mean? Are we talking about the problem with representing 3D objects using 2D maps? Because that problem, to my mind, is pretty clearly solved by the various projection models we have for generating 2D maps of the Earth. Obviously, the Earth has "very different qualities" from a 2D "representation of the map". So what? How does this have any bearing on the legitimacy of ley lines?

Can anyone offer some insight into these statements, and help me put them into context?

-- Wapcaplet 02:34 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I removed the part on meandering paths because saying "in actual fact" (rather than citing an authority) appears to be an assertion of your point of view as if it were undisputed: effectively saying, "But in fact the whole idea is silly". Which I believe, incidentally, but to say so in the article wouldn't be NPOV. :) Telling people to "think about it" is just silly, and where did you get the bit about paths being made by cattle rather than humans? That sounds odd to me - aren't you talking about cattle being herded by people? And in any case it all sounds like editorial musings. We're supposed to be summarising human knowledge here. If the argument about cattle has been published by someone arguing against ley lines, this fact should be mentioned, with a reference. If it's just something you thought up, it shouldn't be mentioned. Incidentally, I also support the removal of the mathematical section, as it appears to be original research (see What Wikipedia is not), as far as I can make out. If the mathematical derivation is published somewhere else, a description (not a regurgitation) of that research should be included, with a reference; if it isn't, it shouldn't be mentioned at all. -- Oliver P. 06:29 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)