<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/7e047c0a-91ba-4f7b-ae1d-2970251aa0d7/70FA6462-156D-4BF6-BE0E-FB7BF3690AAA/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mediocrity_principle&oldid=310413575" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mediocrity_principle&oldid=310413575" style="font-size: 11px;">en.wikipedia.org</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mediocrity_principle&oldid=310413575"><P>The <B>mediocrity principle</B> is the notion in <A title="Philosophy of science" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science" linkindex="18">philosophy of science</A> that there is nothing special about humans or the Earth. It is a <A title="Copernican principle" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernican_principle" linkindex="19">Copernican principle</A>, used either as an <A title="Heuristic" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic" linkindex="20">heuristic</A> about Earth's position or a <A title="Mediocrity principle" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediocrity_principle#As_a_philosophical_statement" linkindex="21">philosophical statement about the place of humanity</A>. In a broader context, the mediocrity principle states that whenever one observes a phenomenon, it is likely that the observed occurrence is only one out of many occurrences; if one witnesses an extraordinary event, it should be assumed that the event occurs more than once, given the proper circumstances.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mediocrity_principle&oldid=310413575"><P>The mediocrity principle as applied to humanity's and Earth's existence is further boosted by:</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mediocrity_principle&oldid=310413575"><li style="margin-left:16px;padding-left: 0px;"><A rel="nofollow" title="http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9704289v1" class="external text" href="http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9704289v1" linkindex="100">Goodwin, Gribbin, and Hendry's 1997 Hubble Parameter measurement relying on the mediocrity principle</A> The authors call this the 'Principle of Terrestrial Mediocrity' even though the assumption they make is that the Milky Way <I>Galaxy</I> is typical (rather than Earth). This term was coined by <A title="Alexander Vilenkin" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Vilenkin" linkindex="101">Alexander Vilenkin</A> (1995).</LI></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/70FA6462-156D-4BF6-BE0E-FB7BF3690AAA/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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