A coincidence that bothers me

[stinkypete]

the opposite is true imo.

if i were a creator and were to do this, i'd probably throw in some randomness just for fun and make the difference of the ratios (ratio of distances and ratio of sizes) normally distributed about 0 with a standard deviation of about 1%. i would use the box-muller transform to generate the random number, which i'm sure we can all agree is an excellent way to generate normal random numbers. the chances of the difference being that far off zero would then be about 99.9%. i think its safe to assume an all powerful creator would generate the difference the same way since the numbers i picked are pretty sweet.

and lets also say that ignoring this coincidence, the chances of there being a creator are about 50/50, since that seems to reflect the thoughts of the world population pretty accurately.

i'm not going to do the busywork, but it's pretty easy to show - given these mathematically sound assumptions - that creation is actually LESS likely due to the difference in these ratios. the ratio would be significantly closer to zero if creation were more likely.

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” - Richard Feynman

[/ QUOTE ]

Richard Feynman is an idiot if he believes that is some amazing coincidence. He would be an idiot of somewhat lesser magnitude if he saw a white 2008 Corolla with the license plate ARW 357 and another white 2008 Corolla with the license plate ARW 358 in the parking lot and insisted that had to be an amazing coincidence as well. A smart person would conclude that its more likely they are just fleet cars.

Stu

[stinkypete]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
“You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won’t believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!” - Richard Feynman

[/ QUOTE ]

Richard Feynman is an idiot if he believes that is some amazing coincidence. He would be an idiot of somewhat lesser magnitude if he saw a white 2008 Corolla with the license plate ARW 357 and another white 2008 Corolla with the license plate ARW 358 in the parking lot and insisted that had to be an amazing coincidence as well. A smart person would conclude that its more likely they are just fleet cars.

Stu

[/ QUOTE ]

would he also be an idiot if he saw two cars that happen to be almost the same colour parked beside one another, and concluded that it's a coincidence that those two cars that happen to be almost the same colour ended up parked beside one another?

or should he conclude that the driver of one of the cars decided to mess around with everyone that observes the colours of cars in the parking lot by parking beside another car of nearly the same colour?