Misconceptions about Me, Baye's, Rigor, Exodus, Evolution

[David Sklansky]

1. With few exceptions I make no effort at rigor. I consider rigorous mathemeticians, like the ones who wasted their lives figuring out how to eliminate the use of infintesimals, either obsessive compulsive, or so devoid of cleverness that they know this is the only way for them to contribute anything.

2. Any eight year old can understand Baye's Theorem. I explain it in a few pages in Getting The Best Of It. Anyone who hasn't read that book has no right to have an opinion about anything. Anyway here is an even shorter explanation. If an event may or may not occur, and if it does occur, there could be two or more explanations, then when it does occur you use the following technique to figure out the probability of a particular explanation. You form the fraction where the numerator is the original probability of the event occurring in that specific way and the denominator is the total probability of the event occurring.
If the probability that New York is destroyed is 5% because there is a one percent chance terrorists will do it, a 2% chance that nuclear war will do it and a 2% chance that an earthquake will do it, it means that if you are returning from Mars and see NY in ruins, it is 2/5 that it was an earthquake.

Slightly tougher one. There are ten coins in a jar. One is heavily weighted towards heads. 90%. You pick a coin and flip three heads. The total chances that could happen is 1/10 x .729 plus 9/10 x .125. DUCY .0729 + .1125 = .1854. So the the chances we picked the bad coin is .729/.1854

Notice that this technique works for events that have already happened as long as everyione agrees on the original probabilities.

3. Considering how simple I consider this comparing probability technique is, and the fact it was explained in my book, it is absurd to think I throw out the words Baye's Theorem to try to make my pronouncements seem more authoritive. I throw out those words as a substitute for the longer sentence "as any non moron can see this is simply a case of making the ratio of two probabilities".

4. This ratio of probability technique (ROP from now on) is the underpinning of the expression "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". ROP is also the reason that the expression "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is WRONG.

Many atheists make the horrible mistake of arguing against statements in the bible or comments by theists that do not directly pertain to miracles. This is silly on their part because the theist's evidence for their position is usually strong. Stuff like "does it make any sense the NO ONE would have stepped forward if they saw Jesus's body, (or if they realized that God wasn't talking to them in the desert).
These arguments would win the day if they were using them to persuade you of incidents that sometimes, though rarely occur. They lose only because they are trying to persuade you of the truth of something extraordinary. Something unheard of. Even more than unheard of. Something that there is good reason to believe is impossible. (Thus Pair The Board's comment that I base my probability of a miracle on its non occurence so far, is wrong. I also base it on the strong suspision that it can't occur. A subtle but important difference.)

The reason why the expression is an ROP problem works like this. Suppose I claim that I can see coins as they are flipped and caught and thus can call them with near perfect accuracy. Would you believe me if I did it five times in a row? You shouldn't if you thought that it was a million to one against me having that ability (even after I claimed it). You would need well over twenty accurate consecutive calls. But even that shouldn't suffice. Unless the only two explanations were that I got lucky or I had the ability. I could also be cheating. And even if that was a 1000-1 shot originally, it would still be, due to ROP, much more likely. So I would have to go to extraordinary lenghths to prove I wasn't cheating.

If my claim instead was that I had some gizmo in my shoe that saw the coin, it would be a less extraordinary claim and perhaps ten flips should convince you. See how that works?

BUT WAIT. Guess what. There really is at least one person who had this physical ability. They called him the Flipper. Now deceased. This changes everything. It shows that there is one example AND it shows that it is not an impossibility.
Because I know about this guy I actually would only need to see about six or seven accurate flips from someone else who claimed this ability before I'd bet on him. Just like I'd totally change my thinking about religion if I ever heard of ANY sort of CLEARLY supernatural event.

I don't have time to get to Evolution and Exodus and Absence of Evidence right now but I will shortly.

[djames]

Please apply your ratio of probability technique to exodus (including the miracle part) and the resurrection. You may have undefined quantities in the numerator & denominator...

[calcbandit]

[ QUOTE ]
Please apply your ratio of probability technique to exodus (including the miracle part) and the resurrection. You may have undefined quantities in the numerator & denominator...

[/ QUOTE ]

My take is this:

David uses Baye's in 2 parts, first to show that the lack of evidence of Exodus is more damning to the Exodus claim than the lack of Ressurection evidence is to the ressurection claim.

It goes like this: GIVEN that the ressurection occured, what physical evidence would we ever hope to find of this? We can't expect photographic or video evidence. The best we could hope for is eyewitness accounts. Shaky, at best. So, just because we don't find evidence doesn't mean the ressurection didn't happen, because if it did, we wouldn't expect to find evidence.

When a whole tribe of people is enslaved and then leaves (we'll just make this the claim and leave out all of the fireworks like first-bornicide and sea-parting), would you expect evidence? Yes. Claims like "Ramses covered up the Hittite defeat, so he covered up the Hebrew's defeating him as well" are obviously terrible, since we still have evidence of the Hittites defeating the Egyptipans, despite the cover up. So, given the lack of evidence, does this mean that Exodus likely didn't happen. In this case, unlike the ressurection, the lack of evidence proves that the event likely didn't happen. Because if it did happen, we would expect evidence, like we have from nearly all other events in Egyptian history.

Example: some aliens come to earth and find everything to be totally deserted since 1 year ago, evidence suggests nobody had packed anything, just vanished instantly. One alien suggests that all of the humans simply vanished. A different alien suspects nuclear war incinerated all humans.

There is really no evidence that supports either theory over the other. Nobody knows what happened, and we don't have any evidence to prove one way or another. No video, no withnesses. No evidence.

Clearly, the alien with the vanishing theory is the favorite. Because if there were a nuclear war we'd expect nuclear craters, higher radiation, etc. There'd be evidence. With vanishing (and the ressurection) we wouldn't expect there to be evidence. But, with the nuclear war and an entire race of slaves existing for many years in a country known for thorough record keeping, if this happened at all there would be evidence. And there isn't.


As far as the second part, saying that Exodus is far more likely to have occured anyway, David is just saying that a man rising from the dead requires an exception to the known laws of physics. In our experience, nobody has ever risen from the dead and been photographed, videod, studied by modern day medical experts. That's not saying it's impossible, it's just saying that it's extremely unlikely.

To put it mathematically, let's fill in the terms of Baye's theorem.

Our claim is that "given all of the evidence that Jesus was ressurected (bible, eyewitness accounts that were recording much later?), what is the probability that Jesus ressurected?"

We need to know the probability that the stories in the bible about Jesus would have been written, even if he wasn't ressurected. Even if we trust those who first wrote down the ressurection story to be pretty discerning as to have no written anything down unless it really happened (let's say they would only write it down if it happened 90% of the time, they don't take no BS!-hell, make it 99), the probability of Jesus ressurecting even given our extremely discerning recorders who provide evidence for the event in terms of the bible. Why? Because the probability of anyone ressurecting is ridiculously near to 0.

So, P(Ressurection|Bible) = P(Bible|Ressurection) * P(Anybody ressurecting) / P(that the New Testament would have been written anyway, with or without the ressurection).

-assumptions: if Jesus actually did ressurect, there is no chance that it wouldn't have been recorded in the Bible. P(Bible|Ressurection) = 1.

-P(anybody ressurecting) = 0.0000000000000000000000001.

-P(NT gets recorded anyway, even without ressurection) = .01. I'm beibg generous and saying that the NT writers wouldn't have written it unless they were fairly certan that the ressurection happened. 99% of the time they write about an event, the event happened. P(NT ) = .01.

Plugging in, we still get a mathematically 0 value for the ressurection since people don't come back from the dead. Even if the NT writers rarely make errors.

There is no such huge penalty on Exodus, since it's entirely feasible for one group to enslave another.

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
P(anybody ressurecting) = 0.0000000000000000000000001.



[/ QUOTE ]

That really is the issue,isn't it? No need for a theorem to obfuscate a disbelief. complete waste of paper and ink.

I repeat, the probabilities betray the basic bias of the author or authors. No new information here.

Consider my post on the Flood(Exodus Post). You would consider a mathematical approach as superior to multicultural evidence of the Flood. Illogical to dismiss it out of hand.

The Resurrection can only be approached by seeing Man as more than physicality and takes study but underneath all the hubbub of the Resurrection the Man on the street in some form knows of its verity but the forces of abstract thinking and crass power of scientific materialism is at the present time much stronger than he. But this strength does not make the truth.

[djames]

[ QUOTE ]
So, P(Ressurection|Bible) = P(Bible|Ressurection) * P(Anybody ressurecting) / P(that the New Testament would have been written anyway, with or without the ressurection).

-assumptions: if Jesus actually did ressurect, there is no chance that it wouldn't have been recorded in the Bible. P(Bible|Ressurection) = 1.

-P(anybody ressurecting) = 0.0000000000000000000000001.

-P(NT gets recorded anyway, even without ressurection) = .01. I'm beibg generous and saying that the NT writers wouldn't have written it unless they were fairly certan that the ressurection happened. 99% of the time they write about an event, the event happened. P(NT ) = .01.

Plugging in, we still get a mathematically 0 value for the ressurection since people don't come back from the dead. Even if the NT writers rarely make errors.

There is no such huge penalty on Exodus, since it's entirely feasible for one group to enslave another.

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally, I think assigning numbers to any of these probabilities is completely arbitrary and only reflects our personally perceptions (i.e. subjectivity) and is not based on any probabilistic framework.

However, I'll join in your fun:
P(B|R) = 1, ok fine, my subjectivity matches yours.
P(R) ~= 0, ok fine, mine matches yours.
P(NT | no R) ... for me this is also ~= 0. I don't see how you're being "generous" by assigning 0.01. To me, if Jesus didn't resurrect, then he was nothing more than a great speaker/leader of the time, and is not the son of god, etc., etc. However, I completely subscribe to this probability being totally subjective based on my personal beliefs and not grounded on any model.

So my hand waving math yields 0 / 0 for a nice little undefined quantity, as it should be when applied with rigor anyway. But, since I like rigor, I guess I'm a loser who doesn't understand mathematics anyway (of course you didn't say this though).

[calcbandit]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So, P(Ressurection|Bible) = P(Bible|Ressurection) * P(Anybody ressurecting) / P(that the New Testament would have been written anyway, with or without the ressurection).

-assumptions: if Jesus actually did ressurect, there is no chance that it wouldn't have been recorded in the Bible. P(Bible|Ressurection) = 1.

-P(anybody ressurecting) = 0.0000000000000000000000001.

-P(NT gets recorded anyway, even without ressurection) = .01. I'm beibg generous and saying that the NT writers wouldn't have written it unless they were fairly certan that the ressurection happened. 99% of the time they write about an event, the event happened. P(NT ) = .01.

Plugging in, we still get a mathematically 0 value for the ressurection since people don't come back from the dead. Even if the NT writers rarely make errors.

There is no such huge penalty on Exodus, since it's entirely feasible for one group to enslave another.

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally, I think assigning numbers to any of these probabilities is completely arbitrary and only reflects our personally perceptions (i.e. subjectivity) and is not based on any probabilistic framework.

However, I'll join in your fun:
P(B|R) = 1, ok fine, my subjectivity matches yours.
P(R) ~= 0, ok fine, mine matches yours.
P(NT | no R) ... for me this is also ~= 0. I don't see how you're being "generous" by assigning 0.01. To me, if Jesus didn't resurrect, then he was nothing more than a great speaker/leader of the time, and is not the son of god, etc., etc. However, I completely subscribe to this probability being totally subjective based on my personal beliefs and not grounded on any model.

So my hand waving math yields 0 / 0 for a nice little undefined quantity, as it should be when applied with rigor anyway. But, since I like rigor, I guess I'm a loser who doesn't understand mathematics anyway (of course you didn't say this though).

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup, that is the issue. You are assigning a probability of 1 that the Bible is a 100% accurate description of what literally happened in Jesus' day. You aren't just saying it is unlikely that anybody made an error, or exagerated, or the story got passed down wrong, you're saying it's impossible. I think you know what impossible means.

That's fine. In my experience, though, errors happen. They happen all of the time. There is evidence that errors have been made. I know for a fact that it is not impossible for an error to be made. None of these things are true about a guy rising from the dead.

So, do you really think it's more likely that a guy rose from the dead, even knowing that such an event is held to be physically impossible in all other cases, than it is that somebody lied, invented, misquoted, exaggerated, made a mistake, etc when writing that the ressurection happened? Even though the people that wrote that this happened (who you are assigning a probability of being correct to 1) never actually saw the event. Sounds like a poor choice.

[djames]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So, P(Ressurection|Bible) = P(Bible|Ressurection) * P(Anybody ressurecting) / P(that the New Testament would have been written anyway, with or without the ressurection).

-assumptions: if Jesus actually did ressurect, there is no chance that it wouldn't have been recorded in the Bible. P(Bible|Ressurection) = 1.

-P(anybody ressurecting) = 0.0000000000000000000000001.

-P(NT gets recorded anyway, even without ressurection) = .01. I'm beibg generous and saying that the NT writers wouldn't have written it unless they were fairly certan that the ressurection happened. 99% of the time they write about an event, the event happened. P(NT ) = .01.

Plugging in, we still get a mathematically 0 value for the ressurection since people don't come back from the dead. Even if the NT writers rarely make errors.

There is no such huge penalty on Exodus, since it's entirely feasible for one group to enslave another.

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally, I think assigning numbers to any of these probabilities is completely arbitrary and only reflects our personally perceptions (i.e. subjectivity) and is not based on any probabilistic framework.

However, I'll join in your fun:
P(B|R) = 1, ok fine, my subjectivity matches yours.
P(R) ~= 0, ok fine, mine matches yours.
P(NT | no R) ... for me this is also ~= 0. I don't see how you're being "generous" by assigning 0.01. To me, if Jesus didn't resurrect, then he was nothing more than a great speaker/leader of the time, and is not the son of god, etc., etc. However, I completely subscribe to this probability being totally subjective based on my personal beliefs and not grounded on any model.

So my hand waving math yields 0 / 0 for a nice little undefined quantity, as it should be when applied with rigor anyway. But, since I like rigor, I guess I'm a loser who doesn't understand mathematics anyway (of course you didn't say this though).

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Yup, that is the issue. You are assigning a probability of 1 that the Bible is a 100% accurate description of what literally happened in Jesus' day. You aren't just saying it is unlikely that anybody made an error, or exagerated, or the story got passed down wrong, you're saying it's impossible. I think you know what impossible means.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uh, I'm not saying this at all. You're not computing 0 / 0 to be 1 are you? I'm saying, after I switched to the subjective world where we're able to spout out numbers for these probabilities, that this ROP method of Mr. DS is bogus when comparing the likelihood of miracles.

The rest of what you wrote doesn't make much sense to me. In your numerator, you have a quantity you listed as 1. I didn't argue, because I didn't need to argue for something lower. Notice it's multiplied in the numerator by an infinitessimal, the product of which is also an infinitessimal. If you feel there is information loss, fine, pick whatever number you want and result in the same undefined 0 / 0 fraction I do.

Clearly I'm missing your point. I'll wait for DS to chime in, however I'm guessing I'll be disappointed. Probably some caveat about excluding the miracle portion of the exodus or some other reason why he's been misunderstood.

Someone do a Bayesian analysis on the quality of DS's posts given the frequency by which he's "misunderstood." That might be quite interesting.

[Praxising]

[ QUOTE ]
David is just saying that a man rising from the dead requires an exception to the known laws of physics. In our experience, nobody has ever risen from the dead and been photographed, videod, studied by modern day medical experts.

[/ QUOTE ]

First, could you define precisely what resurrection is and say which laws of physics exactly would have to be broken for resurrection to occur?

Two - how dead is dead? There was a Russian guy frozen solid for a couple weeks - brought him back, studied him, all that. Define "dead." When is someone REALLY dead so that their living again is considered "resurrection?"

Three - you really can't prove the statement no one has risen from the dead and been studied. You can say you don't know of a case. Again, what would "risen from the dead" consist of?

-prax-

[carlo]

[ QUOTE ]
Notice that this technique works for events that have already happened as long as everyione agrees on the original probabilities.



[/ QUOTE ]

Note that in the case of Exodus, Flood, Resurrection, or more considerably any historical event which is beyond a secretary recording the event(even this has the problem of a flawed secretary) the probabilities are definitely not evident. If the probabilities are agreed upon then you have a self fulfilling prophesy, the inherent bias of of the probability makers.This offers no comfort to to anyone hoping to find some semblence of truth, for in this type of approach the methodology becomes more important than the truth.

Its one thing to speculate on the probability of an event which is neuter as the rolling of dice but to bring this method to the world of religion, morality, or any matters which are important to the hearts and souls of men is without truth, beauty, or the good which is important to these very men.

[jay_shark]

You want P(bad coin | you flip 3 heads )

Call bad coin event A and flipping 3 heads event B .

P(A|B) = P(AB)/P(B) = [1/10*(9/10)^3]/[9/10*0.125 +1/10*(9/10)^3] = 0.0729 / 0.1854 = 39.32% .