Suggested edit to the description:
- In Real Life, this is a neat trick due to the attention to detail and logical deduction it requires, but not nearly as reliable as it is frequently portrayed in fiction. Any one clue could have thousands of different possible causes, and figuring out the correct answer is a matter of wild guessing.
Always wondered how Thrawn was able to deduce so much from a piece of art, and have it work, because surely if you gave him a Ancient Greek statue, a Renaissance painting, and an Aztec tablet he'd still be able to tell nothing about our modern culture?
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Not quite "nothing". He'd be able to tell, if nothing else, that we were the kind of culture to retain statues, paintings and tablets from our own distant ancestors of various civilizations, and to consider such items "art". That alone implies a lot of things about our general sentiments. He'd also be able to tell plenty of things about the outlook and worldview of the ancient civilizations in question, and perhaps extrapolate from there a few basic probable facts about their descendants (us). He'd also be able to tell our basic physiology and anatomy, since those don't tend to change very much from one century to the next, and given that a lot of modern human culture only exists because it makes things convenient for people of our physiology and anatomy...
Combine all of the above with a little educated guesswork, supplement it with a factoid or two that you secretly looked up earlier, apply a lifetime's understanding of general tactics and wrap the entire thing in a great deal of showmanship and charisma, et voila.
Edited by 31.220.206.135
Why is this troupe named for BBC's Sherlock when it's been done for ages before that?
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The Trope Namer is Sherlock Holmes, who has been around for ages before BBC's Sherlock. He's a famous example and his name is engrained in the public consciousness.
That was the amazing part. Things just keep going.
The entry says that a Sherlock Scan is an example of induction, not deduction. In fact, it is neither: it is actually abductive reasoning
, of Peircean fame.
Can we add a tropers' tales section to this? I'm not sure how to do that.
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"It's thought that the social deficit associated with autism spectrum conditions..." I would suggest rewording this in a less ableist way. The way autistic people socialize isn't a deficit. The way neurotypical people socialize isn't innately better or right. Especially since this is followed by an explanation of how this supposed "deficit" can be helpful. "It's thought that the way autistic people socialize..." would be better.