In my earlier post, I explained what my PhD was about: why the same odd pattern can look like random noise to one person and evidence of a hidden cause to another, even though both may be similarly good at reading the available evidence. This time, I tried telling that story as a comic that even my 13-year-old son could enjoy.
The Coincidence Audit follows Inspector Odds, sent to Earth by the Galactic Council of Reason to investigate whether humans are rational enough to join the club. In Prague, he meets Max, who tends to dismiss unusual patterns as chance, and Tess, who sees signs everywhere. Together, they work through the questions, experiments, and findings of my dissertation.
The comic also keeps the uncertainties, including an experiment that could not give a clear answer. Apparently, even an alien inspector cannot fix a weak manipulation check 😉
So, if you prefer your Bayesian reasoning with speech bubbles and a flying saucer, this version is for you 🛸
Download the comic (PDF, 21 MB) or open the PDF in a new tab.
Note on how this was made: I used Claude Code (Opus 5.5) to turn my dissertation summary into a comic script and detailed image prompts, and Codex (GPT-6.1 Sol) to generate and refine the illustrations using OpenAI’s image generation, check the lettering, insert the original research charts, and assemble the final PDF. Neither tool was around to help with the actual PhD 😉
Related notes
- When does a coincidence become evidence?
- Conspiracy theories as a specific example of overfitting?
- Turning 152 Directionally Correct podcast episodes into an interactive topic explorer
- Refactoring the “Garden of Forking Paths”
- Can AI help us fight the bullshit asymmetry?
📄 Read the original post with full outputs on my blog.