PferdeScheiße

PferdeScheiße is a German word that translates into English as Horse Dookie.

If one is a scientist, and one tentatively adopts a working hypothesis that happens to be bogus — one that happens to be PferdeScheiße — and then diligently computes the consequences of that stinky hypothesis, one will compute a prediction that disagrees with experience or experimental observation.

So, for example, if you hypothesize PferdeScheiße, you might anticipate that there is a pony in there somewhere. And you might spend the rest of your life sifting through that stinking mound of PferdeScheiße searching for the elusive pony.

In the immortal words of Jackie Mason, "I wanna wish you the best of luck."

Over on Google Plus, I keep running into children who believe there must be a pony in there somewhere.

Apparently, they don't understand why, if they blithely assume the existence of PferdeScheiße, the anticipated pony never shows up. They inexplicably call that scientifically predictable disappointment a Paradox.

"Bullshit" in American Sign Language