The opposite of Occam's Razor, it applies to situations where the most convoluted, elaborate explanation is the most likely to be true.
It's named in honor of Peter Coffin, who got famous for creating an incredibly complex labyrinth of lies in order to pretend he had lost his virginity. When some inconsistencies in his story became apparent, some people suggested bizarre explanations as a joke, but later the most ludicrous ones turned out to be true.
It's named in honor of Peter Coffin, who got famous for creating an incredibly complex labyrinth of lies in order to pretend he had lost his virginity. When some inconsistencies in his story became apparent, some people suggested bizarre explanations as a joke, but later the most ludicrous ones turned out to be true.
"Okay, so either Peter finally got a girlfriend, or he has dedicated the last few years of his life to the elaboration of a complex network of deception that involves a real size sex doll, thousands of dollars worth of girl's clothes, including custom made cosplay, dozens of sockpuppet accounts interacting with each other, several blogs and twitter accounts that he writes himself regularly, photo manipulation, stop motion animation, hiring a Scottish woman to record voice samples, dressing in drag, finding girls that looked like the doll and secretly taking pictures of them, stealing a baby, acquiring hospital equipment to use as props, and forging official documents, and he did all this despite he was caught years ago doing something similar and got publicly humiliated for it. Now seriously, what do you think is more likely?"
"By application of Peter's Coffin, the second hypothesis is the most likely."
A few days later...
"Oh my god! I can't believe it was all true! Peter's Coffin was right again!"
"By application of Peter's Coffin, the second hypothesis is the most likely."
A few days later...
"Oh my god! I can't believe it was all true! Peter's Coffin was right again!"
by MastermindX January 29, 2015
Peter Coffin is a youtube comedian or whatever. He kept insulting Xiaxue (Wendy Cheng the blogger) so she did some research.
She kicked his ass.
He retaliated.
She kicked his ass AGAIN. So hard.
And thus, to pull a Peter Coffin is to be a HORRIFIC failure. For more description of how badly he failed, visit Xiaxue's blog.
She kicked his ass.
He retaliated.
She kicked his ass AGAIN. So hard.
And thus, to pull a Peter Coffin is to be a HORRIFIC failure. For more description of how badly he failed, visit Xiaxue's blog.
Yo I didn't study for that test... definitely pulled a Peter Coffin, Langtree is gonna slap me so hard...
by jang.mi March 24, 2011