Already about to leave the house to meet with her rapist husband and once again forgive him, the woman answered the ringing phone. On the other end of the line, she was answered by a woman who had the wrong number. They got into a conversation, and it turned out that the woman also suffered from the violence of her partner.
“I heard fear in the stranger’s voice and suddenly realized that tolerating violence further is a mistake. I met my husband at the airport and announced to him that we were breaking up,”the woman told Dr. Bernard D. Bateman, professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia. Bateman is engaged in a new interdisciplinary field - the science of coincidence.
In a 2011 report, he analyzes the opinions of various scientists, as well as people outside of science, who tried to explain the coincidence that happened to this woman. Some said that in this case, the accidental phone call was statistically justified. Others suggested that the woman was probably one of the people who are always looking for advice or signs of fate, which is why she attached such great importance to the conversation. Still others thought it was the voice of providence. Another part decided that all the options expressed may be partly correct.
Bateman argues that to write off coincidences as an accident “is to recognize that coincidences are initially irrelevant or of great importance. Without appropriate evidence, such a claim can hardly be considered scientific. He admits the failure of science in such matters, because it is very difficult to scientifically prove that coincidences are more than mere chance.
Frederick Mosteller (1916–2006), founder of the statistics department at Harvard University, speaking of coincidences, stated in a 1980 interview: “Things that are known to everyone are very difficult to prove. It's pretty curious."
In terms of probability, individual coincidences seem quite trivial: for example, someone won the lottery twice, or you met a person who was born on the same day as you. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the coincidences are just coincidences.
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Matches and Probability Percentage
Mosteller and co-author Percy Diaconis calculated the likelihood that outsiders would have a birthday on the same day. Among 18 people, there is a 50 × 50 chance that three of them were born on the same day. Among 88 people, at least two will have the same date of birth. Of 187 people, there should be at least four of them.
It's not uncommon to win the lottery twice. “When a New Jersey woman won the lottery twice in four months, her odds of winning were better than 1 in 30,” Mosteller writes, citing research by Stephen Samuels and George McCabe of the statistics department at Purdue University.
But what if the coincidence is caused by multiple factors occurring simultaneously?
Mary Wallens of Toronto, Canada won the lottery twice in September 2006 by writing the numbers she dreamed of on her ticket. Diana and Kerry Carmichael of Arizona won the lottery in September 2013, when money from their last win in 1995 was running out.
Another similar example, when many factors led to incredible coincidences. The twins were separated during childhood and adopted into different families. Both families, not familiar with each other, decided to name the boys James. Both James went to work in law enforcement, one became a security guard and the other a deputy sheriff. Both married women named Linda.
Both divorced and later remarried with women named Betty. One of them named his son James Alan, his brother gave his son the same name. When they finally met, they found strange coincidences in their fates. This story was published in People magazine.
Randomness is not an explanation
"A large number of coincidences arise from hidden causes that are never discovered," writes Bateman. "Accident is not an explanation, but simply a statement of what happened."
In 1939, psychologist WF Skinner analyzed the sonnets of William Shakespeare and found that the rhymes and alliteration he used might have come about by accident. Skinner argued, "Shakespeare was free to choose his words when speaking of this aspect of poetry."
He concluded that while Shakespeare may have deliberately used alliteration, it could have happened by accident. Thus, while coincidences may be coincidental, the likelihood of intelligent design or other factors cannot be denied.
The psychology of coincidence
Coincidence has a close relationship with memory and recognition, Bateman said. Ruma Falk in 1982 showed in his research that the very manner in which a coincidence is narrated affects whether people perceive it to be surprising or not.
Bateman acknowledges the subjectivity in the study of coincidence, but from his point of view, this does not contradict scientific research.
“To see a coincidence, a person's thoughts, mental images and emotions are important when observing the events taking place. Some people tend to notice coincidences, this ability is expressed to varying degrees in different people,”he writes.
He continues: “One of the biggest challenges in developing a new discipline is that coincidences depend on the mind of the observer. The most important question is how to develop methods and technical language that would take into account the subjective factor. The answer to this question remains to be found."
He noted that Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum physics take an individual point of view into account. The theory of relativity says that the position and speed of the observer affects the measurement result. Quantum physics shows that the very process of observation can have a physical effect on the observed object.
When asked if any scientist was interested in his idea of studying coincidences, Bateman replied: “I have no data that any group is conducting research in this area, but there is a lot of theory and evidence on this topic. It will take years for this new field to enter university programs. Universities are very conservative about new ideas."