An Australian computer scientistnamed Brendan McKay set out recently to demonstrate that the same thing can be done withany long book. He applied Drosnin’s observational selection technique to Moby Dick andproduced such eerie phrases as “M L King” next to “To be shot by them” and “Princess Di” nextto “mortal in the jaws of death.” So by throwing away all the strings that spell nothing, you canjust wait until eventually a coincidence comes along. That’s the error of observationalselection.

一个叫做Brendan McKay的澳大利亚计算机科学家最近证明从任何书都能组成神奇的字符串。他把Drosnin的观测选择技术应用到《Moby Dick》书中，产生了怪诞的短语“M L王”，紧挨着短语“被他们枪毙”。“公主迪”紧挨着短语“死亡魔爪下的道德”。所以抛弃所有没有意思的字符串，你耐心等待直到形成新的组合即可。这就是观测选择的缺点。