No More Takers on 50K Challenge Accepted

[David Sklansky]

Anybody who has posted and anybody whose name has already been mentioned is still eligible. But not anybody new. Because at this point anybody else who accepted would be a big favorite to score an 800.

I believe that those who believe it is impossible to get into heaven without believing that Jesus was resurrected are far less likely to be brilliant, than atheists, Asians, Jews, and to a lesser extent the population in general. But if there are even as little as 10,000,000 such believers, and brilliant is defined as one in 5000, then there figures to be 20 such brilliant believers even if such brilliance is one HUNDRED less likely in that group. (2000 is the expected number if it was random).

Eventually one of those 20 would get wind of the challenge, have an even match with me, and more importantly seemingly disprove my contention. When the challenge first went up I hoped somebody would think 770 would make him the favorite. With that possibility gone I'm left with the exact opposite of what I hope to achieve. A match with an exquisitely rare fundamentalist that will end in a result that seems to contradict my premise. Even though it doesn't.

The 50,000 is irrelevant to me. And I will abide by the challenge if the other person has already been brought up and meets the criteria. Including the age criteria.

The $1000, freeroll for anybody who finds me a beleiver who has a Phd in physics from an Ivy League university (in the last twenty years) and fully understands the General Theory of Relativity stands until Dec 31, 2007. Since only about one in 50,000 makes that group, only about 200 believers should be expected to make it if it was random. In this case I'm guessing the actual number is zero. And it is much simpler to prove. So If I don't have to pay it means I'm probably right.

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
A match with an exquisitely rare fundamentalist that will end in a result that seems to contradict my premise. Even though it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, then it's a good thing that you proposed the match!

[felson]

David,

You say that if someone had accepted and tied you, it would prove nothing.

On the other hand, if someone had challenged you and lost, you surely would have taken it as proof that your premise is true. Even though, based on your latest post, it would be much more likely that he was simply not the best candidate.

That is dishonest.

[Sephus]

[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, if someone had challenged you and lost, you surely would have taken it as proof that your premise is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

i really doubt it.

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, if someone had challenged you and lost, you surely would have taken it as proof that your premise is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

i really doubt it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are saying that David intentionally offered a bet which would prove nothing, win or lose.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, if someone had challenged you and lost, you surely would have taken it as proof that your premise is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

i really doubt it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are saying that David intentionally offered a bet which would prove nothing, win or lose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Prove? Yes.

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, if someone had challenged you and lost, you surely would have taken it as proof that your premise is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

i really doubt it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are saying that David intentionally offered a bet which would prove nothing, win or lose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Prove? Yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or "give strong support to." The point remains the same.

[Sephus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, if someone had challenged you and lost, you surely would have taken it as proof that your premise is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

i really doubt it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are saying that David intentionally offered a bet which would prove nothing, win or lose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Prove? Yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or "give strong support to." The point remains the same.

[/ QUOTE ]

variance.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
On the other hand, if someone had challenged you and lost, you surely would have taken it as proof that your premise is true.

[/ QUOTE ]

i really doubt it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are saying that David intentionally offered a bet which would prove nothing, win or lose.

[/ QUOTE ]

Prove? Yes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or "give strong support to." The point remains the same.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, since there should be thousands of candidates, if only a handful come forward it would prove that these people are underrepresented, which was his point. One exception would not significantly weaken his case, except in the eyes of people who are incapable of being objective about it, who would grab a single exception and run with it. DS finally realized that this is EXACTLY what would happen if he left the contest open.

For what its worth, I think the contest was a poor but honest attempt and putting his money where his mouth is.

[felson]

I will rephrase:

1. David's latest post acknowledges that there are suitably religious people who are favored (or even) over him at the SAT.

2. He issued a challenge in the sole hopes that someone dumber would accept.

This is very different from David saying "I am smarter than all fundamentalist Christians." That is a natural interpretation of his original post.

Now that #2 has not occurred and he fears that someone smart will actually materialize, he is withdrawing.

Anyway, since one or both of you claim that David would not use a win to his rhetorical advantage, I would like to see David make that claim here.

[MelchyBeau]

For the freeroll, why just Ivy League? You've actually eliminated 2 of the best schools for physics Cal Tech and MIT

I don't think you'll find one, but still

[bills217]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think you'll find one, but still

[/ QUOTE ]

Already done.

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
For the freeroll, why just Ivy League?

[/ QUOTE ]

He's not stupid. Notre Dame, Boston College, Loyola - with the Jesuit alumni and faculty?

[almostbusto]

in the first post DS said he would take on anyone. this post is the first of several in which he slowly backs away from his idiotic claim.

in regards to the freeroll. DS was wrong about the number of ivey league physics PHDs there are out there, nevertheless, posters have already found physics PHDs that meet all citeria. it will be interesting to see how he backs out of that one as well

[David Sklansky]

" this post is the first of several in which he slowly backs away from his idiotic claim."

My actual claim is that fundamentalists are much less than one tenth as likely to be scientifically brilliant than Asians, Jews and atheists. Do you dispute that?

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
David,

You say that if someone had accepted and tied you, it would prove nothing.

On the other hand, if someone had challenged you and lost, you surely would have taken it as proof that your premise is true. Even though, based on your latest post, it would be much more likely that he was simply not the best candidate.

That is dishonest.

[/ QUOTE ]

David,

Your response please? Feel free to substitute "evidence" for "proof" above.

[David Sklansky]

What would have been strong evidence for my point is if no one accepted. Given the 2K tie and the chance to disprove my claim. One person accepting and losing is the same thing. But it wouldn't be that particular loss that proved anything. It would be the lack of acceptors.

Actually Felson you screwed up the chance to prove things one way or another by scaring off everybody. Without your post, many who felt they were decent fravorites to score 800 would have accepted. Now we will never know how many such people there were.

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
What would have been strong evidence for my point is if no one accepted. Given the 2K tie and the chance to disprove my claim. One person accepting and losing is the same thing. But it wouldn't be that particular loss that proved anything. It would be the lack of acceptors.

Actually Felson you screwed up the chance to prove things one way or another by scaring off everybody. Without your post, many who felt they were decent fravorites to score 800 would have accepted. Now we will never know how many such people there were.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you really wanted to find out how many people were likely to score 800, you would have offered more than $2k for it.

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
What would have been strong evidence for my point is if no one accepted. Given the 2K tie and the chance to disprove my claim.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
A match with an exquisitely rare fundamentalist that will end in a result that seems to contradict my premise. Even though it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

David,

How can I prove you wrong when you take both sides?

[Sephus]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What would have been strong evidence for my point is if no one accepted. Given the 2K tie and the chance to disprove my claim.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
A match with an exquisitely rare fundamentalist that will end in a result that seems to contradict my premise. Even though it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

David,

How can I prove you wrong when you take both sides?

[/ QUOTE ]

find a whole bunch of really smart fundamentalists?

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What would have been strong evidence for my point is if no one accepted. Given the 2K tie and the chance to disprove my claim.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
A match with an exquisitely rare fundamentalist that will end in a result that seems to contradict my premise. Even though it doesn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

David,

How can I prove you wrong when you take both sides?

[/ QUOTE ]

find a whole bunch of really smart fundamentalists?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not worth the trouble. Not for $2k, and even that is no longer available.

But the point of my post is that David is taking contradictory positions. That's what I want him to explain.

[David Sklansky]

Not sure what you mean. But again my specific contention is that fundamentalists are at least ten times less likely than Asians, Jews or atheists to be scientifically brilliant. My publicity stunts don't do a great job of making that case. But that IS the real case I am making. Do you dispute that contention?

[darkveggie]

OK, I'll come back one more time...
David, one question to you, before I begin: Why do you want to prove all this?


[ QUOTE ]

I believe that those who believe it is impossible to get into heaven without believing that Jesus was resurrected are far less likely to be brilliant, than atheists, Asians, Jews, and to a lesser extent the population in general. But if there are even as little as 10,000,000 such believers, and brilliant is defined as one in 5000, then there figures to be 20 such brilliant believers even if such brilliance is one HUNDRED less likely in that group. (2000 is the expected number if it was random).


[/ QUOTE ]

OK, so let’s try and break this down. Let’s define S1:
(S1) There is strong negative correlation between a 'fundamentalist Christian faith' and 'brilliance', when compared to the general population.
Ignoring the narrowly crafted definitions of the terms in quotation marks, I believe that there is at least a negative correlation. That's great. Because everyone knows that correlation implies causality or even non-statistical significance.

[ QUOTE ]

Eventually one of those 20 would get wind of the challenge, have an even match with me, and more importantly seemingly disprove my contention. When the challenge first went up I hoped somebody would think 770 would make him the favorite. With that possibility gone I'm left with the exact opposite of what I hope to achieve. A match with an exquisitely rare fundamentalist that will end in a result that seems to contradict my premise. Even though it doesn't.


[/ QUOTE ]

Quick lesson in evidence and logic. Let's see what it means to contradict a premise. Let's say T = the statement (S1) is true.

In the logical, pure mathematical, or epistemic sense, a piece of evidence E contradicts a truth claim T if
(1) E->(not T)
Common sense about evidence says that if
E-> likely (not T), then
likely (E->not T).
In this case, I think that's not quite right. But still, if you have one piece of evidence against a hypothesis (read: one intermediate species fossil, one amino acid group synthesized, etc.) and none for it, can you make a conclusion? In science, people do it all the time. But for the sake of wasting time, let's work through it logically.

T is a claim that asserts a statistical correlation, which is probabilistic in nature. Therefore, only pieces of evidence E that directly infer correlations or probabilities can satisfy (1). So it's true that, in the pure mathematical sense, there would be no contradiction even if you lost the bet.

In the statistical mathematical, or scientific, sense, which is the world that you deal with, we have to consider a fairly simple statistical test. Now I only have one college StatMath course, but I'll do what I can.

In statistics, your claim T would take the form of the following:

Let X = the degree to which a person holds "fundamentalist Christian beliefs" - the degree to which a person who believes Romans 10:9-10 holds such belief,
and Y = the relative "intellectual/mathematical brilliance" of a person - the 'brilliance' needed to get an 800 on the SAT 80% of the time.
If we assume a linear (not true, but I'll assume it anyway) relation between X and Y, we can say that Y = aX + b.

Then
T: a < 0.
We would test that against a null hypothesis
T_0: a = 0.
And then we see a person for whom (let’s assume) y = x = 0. Let’s also assume they beat you or tie you.
But, since we only have N = 1, the variances are ridiculously large, if not undefined. We can't reject the null hypothesis and prove your claim. So, it doesn't prove your claim, but it doesn't contradict it. What do we find? Your bid is almost meaningless to support your claim! Since we can't have that, we shouldn't look at this bid from a statistical point of view. (Note that this conclusion comes only because the sample size will always be small.)

Now for one of the last ways to look at this, let's look at legal standards of proof. I won't go through this in detail, but Wikipedia has a nice breakdown under "burden of proof".
First let's lay down the case. David and the prosecution accuses fundamentalist Christians of being less than brilliant.
On the prosecution's side, we have hordes of expert scientist witnesses who do not profess a "fundamentalist faith," and fervently agree with (S1).
On the defense side, the public defender (since Christians are so unpopular no one will want to defend them) brings up as evidence one exhibit: someone beat David at his wager. And, sure, why not, I'll be a witness.

Now remember, this is now in a court of common law, read 'involving people with common sense but not math background.'
Also, in US courts, innocent until proven guilty - this now means David has to make a case, or the defense has to indict itself. So there's not too much on the side of the prosecution, the defense should prevail, and contradiction is a priori pretty easy. All we need is a verdict of not guilty

* 2.1 Air of reality PASS/NOT GUILTY
Sure, if the evidence is 100% true, then the case for prosecution looks weak - it's all hearsay.
* 2.2 Reasonable suspicion PASS/NOT GUILTY
Obviously I've articulated the case.
* 2.3 Probable cause PASS/NOT GUILTY
Although this doesn't really apply, I think probable cause is good. If David loses and my exhibit is the real deal, then it's possible that his assertion falls flat.
* 2.4 Balance of probabilities HUNG JURY
This implies statistical likelihood favors the prosecution. Hmm.... I don't see much statistical evidence at all presented.
* 2.5 Clear and convincing evidence HUNG JURY
* 2.6 Beyond a reasonable doubt HUNG JURY
…for the same reason that the evidence is sparse.

So we can see that, while David's losing the bet doesn't CONTRADICT his assertion, it makes his case strictly weaker.

Now that we've spent 30 minutes on a little semantic turn of 'contradiction'...

[ QUOTE ]

The 50,000 is irrelevant to me. And I will abide by the challenge if the other person has already been brought up and meets the criteria. Including the age criteria.

The $1000, freeroll for anybody who finds me a beleiver who has a Phd in physics from an Ivy League university (in the last twenty years) and fully understands the General Theory of Relativity stands until Dec 31, 2007. Since only about one in 50,000 makes that group, only about 200 believers should be expected to make it if it was random. In this case I'm guessing the actual number is zero. And it is much simpler to prove. So If I don't have to pay it means I'm probably right.

[/ QUOTE ]

Money is cheap for a poker player. I don't care much for it either. But my time, as well as yours, is invaluable. Let's not waste it.

By proposing this disingenuous wager you have accomplished little other than riling up pithy and pedantic online discussion. Why don't you do something useful for a change? For example, why not read a good book on the fundamentals of evidence and epistemology? Or take your $50,000 and donate it to the Positive Atheists society over by Richard Dawkins and his crew?

I'll give you the attention you asked for, and also this, and it comes free.

From the limited experience (ever since high school, so for seven years) I have had with 'mathematically brilliant' students such as yourself, they are STRICTLY NO BETTER OFF for having their brilliance. As a matter of fact, recent events to several people in my life suggest to me that they are WORSE off for being brilliant. Why is that? I've alluded to hubris before, and I'll unpack it now. When you invest more trust or worth in your mathematical abilities than they can bear, you will never avoid disappointment in them, because as far as I can tell, math is good for a lot of things. But it isn't good for scoring chicks, it isn't good for making money like Trump or Gates does, and it isn't good for satisfaction at the end of the day. Chicks, money, fun. What else is there in life that brilliance can't win? Oh yeah, there’s happiness and peace of mind. Too bad for us, I guess. I think I’ll take my risen, doggedly ‘unfair and arbitrary’ Jesus and go home.

Sincerely,
John
Caltech '08

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
Not sure what you mean. But again my specific contention is that fundamentalists are at least ten times less likely than Asians, Jews or atheists to be scientifically brilliant. My publicity stunts don't do a great job of making that case. But that IS the real case I am making. Do you dispute that contention?

[/ QUOTE ]

One reason that I didn't try to locate a challenger is that a victory could be easily written off as an outlier. In your latest posts, you agree.

Up until this point, though, you insisted that fundamentalists would be motivated to sign up because they would have a "chance to disprove [your] claim." Even though, you now acknowledge, they never had any such chance, except in the aggregate.

That's another reason that your stunt was silly. At least you have acknowledged that now.

Regarding your question, I do think that fundamentalists are underrepresented among the scientifically brilliant. I don't know what the right factor is, but 10x is possible.

As you recall, I'm a Christian, but not a fundamentalist myself.

[David Sklansky]

By the word "chance" I meant "opportunity". If you acknowledge 10X the rest doesn't matter. Although my guess is closer to 100X.

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
By the word "chance" I meant "opportunity". If you acknowledge 10X the rest doesn't matter. Although my guess is closer to 100X.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see how replacing "chance" with "opportunity" changes anything. Either way, no one person would be able to disprove your claim.

[David Sklansky]

Right. Misunderstood.

[suppasonic]

I dont understand how this test proves anything. Let me count the ways...

1. While I know very little about you besides that you are a very good poker player and you write a pretty decent book, I can assume that you'd get a 780-800 with any regularity from this bet. What if said fundamentalist gets a 750? That still puts him in a very high percentile. He may not be able to beat you, but he'd beat a lot of other people. What if you got an 800 and he got a 790. The SAT has a +/- of 30 points, so really the error could make him better than you.

2. Sample size. What will one person tell you? Like the above, the error factors in. What if two people come forward, one gets a 650 and the other beats you by 10 points? Why not take people who dont affirm this as well? What if I challenged anyone who didn't believe those maxims to an SAT test and I beat them? While I am not a believer of the 2nd statement, would that prove that Christians are smarter then non-christians? Of course not. A single test is meaningless.

3. Bias. You have said yourself you want to prove someone wrong or prove your idea right, or at least hint in that direction. That will completely skew interpretation of the already false results.

4. The result. So lets say you beat a challenger, by a substantial enough margin where single test error will not have an effect. What does this mean? That you are more intelligent then that single person. You already seem pretty confident that you are correct, so do you really need a test to confirm it for you?

Hell, I believe in giving people the right to believe whatever they want to without giving them a hassle. That means you can think Fundamentalist Christians are stupid and they can think they are correct. But I see no reason to all out attack them.

[bkholdem]

[ QUOTE ]
I dont understand how this test proves anything. Let me count the ways...

1. While I know very little about you besides that you are a very good poker player and you write a pretty decent book, I can assume that you'd get a 780-800 with any regularity from this bet. What if said fundamentalist gets a 750? That still puts him in a very high percentile. He may not be able to beat you, but he'd beat a lot of other people. What if you got an 800 and he got a 790.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has nothing to do with who can and can not beat David at anything or who is or is not smart. David is engaged in a propaganda campaign against fundamental religious people. That is all.

[darkveggie]

Just an edit to extract the crux of my post - the rest is intellectual exercise and incredibly dull.

************************BEGIN*****************

David, one question to you, before I begin: Why do you want to prove all this about fundamentalist Christians? Why are they so interesting? Why do you care? I'm not very interesting myself. Are you?

Money is cheap for a poker player. I don't care much for it either. But my time, as well as yours, is invaluable. Let's not waste it.

By proposing this disingenuous wager you have accomplished little other than riling up pithy and pedantic online discussion. Why don't you do something useful for a change? For example, why not read a good book on the fundamentals of evidence and epistemology? Or take your $50,000 and donate it to the Positive Atheists society over by Richard Dawkins and his crew?

I'll give you the attention you asked for, and also this, and it comes free.

From the limited experience (ever since high school, so for seven years) I have had with 'mathematically brilliant' students such as yourself, they are STRICTLY NO BETTER OFF for having their brilliance. As a matter of fact, recent events to several people in my life suggest to me that they are WORSE off for being brilliant.

Why is that? I've alluded to hubris before, and I'll unpack it now. When you invest more trust or worth in your mathematical abilities than they can bear, you will never avoid disappointment in them, because as far as I can tell, math is good for a lot of things.
But it isn't good for scoring chicks, it isn't good for making money like Trump or Gates does, and it isn't good for satisfaction at the end of the day. Chicks, money, fun.

What else is there in life that brilliance can't win? Oh yeah, there’s happiness and peace of mind. Too bad for us, I guess. I think I’ll take my risen, doggedly ‘unfair and arbitrary’ Jesus and go home.

Sincerely,
John
Caltech '08

P.S. I am asking these questions out of frustration, but they are not rhetorical and I would appreciate that they be answered.

*******************FIN********************

[El Diablo]

David,

FWIW, I think your points might have been made more clearly by starting here: "My actual claim is that fundamentalists are much less than one tenth as likely to be scientifically brilliant than Asians, Jews and atheists. Do you dispute that?" and then building some challenges from that rather than tossing out the wagers.

[KUJustin]

David, what's the ratio of "fundamentalist Christians" to atheists on this board?

Surely the fact that one of the less-than-a-dozen (my guess) fundamentalists on here could probably handle your challenge is a good step towards refuting your claim that we're underrepresented (thought it's an obviously small sample).

[John21]

[ QUOTE ]
David, what's the ratio of "fundamentalist Christians" to atheists on this board?

Surely the fact that one of the less-than-a-dozen (my guess) fundamentalists on here could probably handle your challenge is a good step towards refuting your claim that we're underrepresented (thought it's an obviously small sample).

[/ QUOTE ]

It's just poker. The only way you can win is by playing with the fish.

If he really wanted the answer to the questions he posed you'd think he'd ask them of someone who was qualified to answer, like a priest or rabbi who has had 10+ years of formal education and 10+ years of fielding the questions i.e. the big game. Or at least that's what an intelligent person would do.

But the easy money is picking on the fish - as long as integrity doesn't come into play. That's the drawback with intelligence - because you happen to know a lot about one thing you think you know a lot about everything. The majority of the "dilemmas" he mentioned are so sophomoric that I couldn't imagine a theologian even responding to them and a first year theology student could easily knock them out of the park.

However, he'd have to frame his arguments in a format that is debatable - which he doesn't; and he'd have to structure his arguments in a way that are refutable - which he doesn't: so a person without any integrity can feel they've validated their position (by posing an invalid argument) and refuted all arguments (by simply not responding) - when in fact they've done neither. But that unfortunately is the nature of internet forums.

Personally, I'm always open to debate - as long as someone is willing to follow the rules of debate. My feeling is that unless you start a thread and post a statement or ask a question, you have no claim to philosophy or philosophic integrity.