WTF?

Prepare for today’s mystical magickry quiz. It’s a good one.

Yesterday Rachel and I were in Baltimore to attend the city’s annual East Coast Kinetic Sculpture Race, a competition among wackadoodles who build enormous amphibious, human-powered wheeled works of art to compete in this race. It takes place on the shore of Baltimore’s Harbor. Competitors pedal their vehicles over a 15-miles track of city streets, with steeplechase forays into the Chesapeake Bay, and through obstacles of mud and sand.

On-street parking was scarce, but we found a spot roughly the length of my car, creating another awesome opportunity to perform yet another parallel parking feat of derring-do. This one was more doo than derring. I wound up wedged snugly between two cars but roughly two and a half feet from the curb, with the side of the car edging into an active bike lane. Rectifying this required a stultifyingly boring ten-minute back and forth rocking maneuver to inch closer to the curb. This also compelled me to keep looking backwards through the rear window so as to avoid thudding against the car behind me, which was a startlingly bright-orange Jeep. On the front dashboard, facing out, through the windshield, was a cloying array of little multicolored rubber duckies, each perhaps two inches high.

So. We eventually parked and headed out into our adventure. When we came back I prepared for the same ordeal in reverse, to get out of the spot. Rachel, who is sharper than I am, commanded: “Wait. First look at car behind us.”

I did. Jeep. Looked back at Rachel.

She said, “What color was the Jeep that was behind us?”

“Orange.”

‘What color is the Jeep behind us now?’

I looked again.

“Puke colored.”

“Correct. But … ”

Rachel nodded back toward the car.

I looked again. Holy shit.

It had the same cloying array of little rubber duckies!

We just sat there for a minute.

“Can…” Rachel started, then stopped out of embarrassment. But then she fearlessly soldiered on.

“Can a car have a finish that … changes colors, like a mood ring?”

I laughed at her. Then I stopped laughing.

“I don’t know, can it?”

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Gene Pool Gene Poll:

I will tell you in a bit. But first, a brief philosophical interlude. It is profound, but you may ignore it if you wish and jump ahead to the awesome videos from the wackadoodle race.

I have always been torn between two conflicting theories in the the science of forensic analysis, the art of detection. The first is Occam’s Razor, which essentially says that when one encounters something difficult to explain, the simplest answer — the one requiring the fewest assumptions — is usually correct.

The other view is the Sherlockian precept that “When no answer seems possible, the only solution — however implausible — must be correct.

I believe in both of these things, but they quarrel. The first seeks simplicity but the second seeks complexity, the triumph of the improbable.

It’s a conundrum. I, for example, am an atheist. And I find that those seeking to proselytize religion often resort to simplistic, anecdotal thought-experiment arguments in support of the metaphysical, based on a denial of the possibility of coincidence, and an insistence upon intentional design. Thus, William Paley’s famous “Watchmaker Analogy,” which goes like this: If an alien, having never seen human technology, found a pocket watch on a beach, they would observe its magnificent intricacy of design. They would immediately conclude that such a complex object was designed and assembled by an intelligent being, rather than having been formed by random natural forces like the sand around it. Ergo, just as the watch requires a “watchmaker,” the incredibly complex universe implies an intelligent Creator.

That is, essentially, Sherlockian. I respect it but disagree. I believe in coincidence. But did sheer coincidence explain the rubber duckies? I didn’t think so. Did God impel me to have to maneuver my car back and forth interminably, imprinting in my mind all those damn duckies, so I would Think about it and become a disciple?

Anyway, Rachel and I just drove home, mystified, but listening to the radio to drown out the noise in our heads, worrisome, complicated things. People do that a lot in the Trump era.

Once home, I could not get this out of my mind. And so I consulted Claude, the erudite AI.

And lo and behold:

It is definitely not a coincidence! What you saw is a recent tradition, particularly in Maryland, known as “Jeep Ducking” or “DuckDuckJeep.” It was begun during the most depressing early days of the pandemic, to cheer people up.

This community custom involves Jeep owners placing small rubber ducks on other Jeeps they admire. When a Jeep owner is “ducked,” they often display the ducks along their dashboard—sometimes called a “duck pond”—as a badge of honor and a sign of community connection.

In short, holy shit. I don’t think this little custom is well known, because when I asked my friend David Simon, the baron of Baltimore, about it, he said he’d had no clue.

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So, who wins — Sherlock or Occam? God, or me? It’s a draw, I think. This, in fact, was a simple answer, not paranormal or metaphysical … but also not coincidental.

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So, this is the weekend Gene Pool, which means I get to ask you for your anecdotes and observations. It’s a variation on a question I previously asked: Tell us about something in your life that initially seemed eerie and mysterious, but turned out to have a logical explanation. Send it here:

Mailbag

Good. Videos from the race!

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We’re done.