The second question in examining the Secret is ‘does the universe pay attention to our thoughts?’ This is rather difficult to answer and it leads to a much bigger question, ‘Can we test the Secret?’ For there to be science supporting the Secret (as the movie and book suggest there is) it has to be testable. A common criticism of the Secret is that it is untestable and therefore unscientific. How can we test whether the universe is paying attention to what we think?
People in the movie say that the Law of Attraction works most of the time, but if it is a Law, as proposed, it would have to happen all of the time to be true. What might be happening if it seems to work some or most of the time? Selection bias could explain this. People tend to remember the times it (seemed like it) worked and forget all the other times. This doesn’t make it true, it just gives us the impression it’s true because of the way we remember things.
There is also a common logical error that people make called (in latin) post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning “after this, therefore because of this.” In this logical error, events are explained by whatever just happened. The logic goes like this: lamp broke after the sun set, therefore it was the sun setting that caused the lamp to break. Or someone just gave me $10, that must be because I wished for it (rather than the fact that I have a job and earned that $10.)
Next question > Are you asking for it?
