Betteridge's Law

Biological Parallel

Cheap signals reveal their own weakness. Costly signals like the peacock's tail require genuine investment—months of growth, thousands of calories—making them hard to fake. True bluffs cost nearly nothing: a frilled lizard spreads its neck frill to quadruple apparent size in seconds without adding real toxicity. Batesian mimicry exploits this gap—harmless hoverflies mimic wasps, scarlet kingsnakes copy venomous coral snakes—yet predators eventually learn to test low-cost signals. Question headlines work like frilled lizard displays: dramatic visual requiring zero evidentiary investment. Betteridge's Law emerged because readers, like predators testing bluffs, learned that costless signals can be safely ignored. The answer is 'no' because asking costs nothing.