[David Sklansky]

[ QUOTE ]
I have been rude in my many posts regarding this challenge, but everything I have written has proved essentially correct. But DS, you have had to retract, clarify, and withdraw various points and even the challenge itself. All this on a topic that you started, and from someone who styles himself a teacher of logical thinking.

If that doesn't embarrass you, DS, then you are truly shameless.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not embarrassed about it at all. The fact is that Christians who believe in self contradictary concepts are incredibly unlikely to think well. Likewise those who believe in astrology etc.

But since there was no way to prove this easily I thought up a little publicity stunt. Since the number of fundamentalists in the country who would actually be about even with me was much smaller than the number of fundamentalists who would erroneously think they would be a favorite over me, it was plus EV. And it would give me a chance to bring my points about heaven and hell to the public.

Once you chimed in with questions about how likely it would be for me to miss an 800 in half the time the jig was up. I temporarily ressurected the challenge when it again looked like some people might accept even though they weren't that certain to score 800. But since you know some incredibly rare freak, you again immediately chimed in and made it obvious that the only taker I would find would be someone who would tie me. That would not only waste my time but also be a setback for my OBVIOUSLY CORRECT assertion.

The point is that the scheme was legitimate. I wasn't cheating because there is some very small chance I would miss an 800. Of course at first takers any or may not have been in my league. You ended that possibility.

Meanwhile it would be wrong to say that tying the challenge to fundamentalists was disengenuous. Because I could have offerred it to any group. Not true. Because for this offer to be good for me, I needed there to be an incredibly small number of possibilities to exist who I wouldn't be a nice favorite over. And a larger number of possibilities who would be too stupid to realize that their 780s had almost no chance. So I would have been wrong to offer the challenge to Chinese Americans, for instance.