The shells of crabs found around a particular coastal location in Japan seem mostly to resemble the legendary face of Samurai . Given below are two explanations of this observed fact . Which of these strikes you as a scientific explanation ?
(a) A tragic sea accident several centuries ago drowned a young Samurai . As a tribute to his bravery, nature through its inscrutable ways immortalised his face by imprinting it on the crab shells in that area .
(b) After the sea tragedy, fisherman in that area, in a gesture of honour to their dead hero, let free any crab shell caught by them which accidentally had a shape resembling the face of a Samurai . Consequently, the particular shape of the crab shell survived longer and therefore in corrse of time the shape was genetically propagated . This is an shape was genetically progagated . This is an example of evolution by artificial selection .
[Note : This interesting illustration taken from Carl Sagan's 'The Cosmos' highlights the fact that often strange and inexplicable facts which on the first sight appear supernatural actually turn out to have simple scientific explanations. Try to think out other examples of this kind .]

Explanation

Explanation (b) is a scientific explanation of the observed fact.