Statistical Validity
I must say that I loathe it when people use statistical reasoning to 'prove' that God created the universe. It is an old and silly argument. The fact that I exist makes it 100% certain that I exist and that conditions were such as to produce me. If I don't exist, then it is 100% certain that I don't exist and it doesn't matter one bit.
People who invoke 'unlikeliness' explanations such as dubious calculations of odds forget one thing. If it happens, it happens, no matter how statistically unlikely. Better, probabilities are always calculated before an event; if an event occurs and you calculate the probability and say, "How rare!" then you might be mistaken. It is only theoretically rare – in practice, it has happened. In fact, while we might be able to determine exact odds for a finite set of outcomes (e.g. the chance of drawing a blue ball from a bag containing seven red and three blue balls), we cannot determine any real odds for events in an infinite universe – or at least, any odds that make sense except in very tightly defined local situations (analogous to that bag).
The fact is that if nothing disproves God, you are free to believe or not. To some, that's silly, since it is not parsimonious (i.e. it is not the simplest necessary belief); to others that's very important since it is the very definition of parsimony. If you don't believe, it isn't human agency that will sway you, and if there are no supernatural agencies, then too bad. If you do believe, the issue of what kind of God becomes important – but reason isn't likely to give you a complete picture of God; that would be akin to the axioms of a system giving rise to a full description of the person who chose the axioms. Very unlikely.
People who invoke 'unlikeliness' explanations such as dubious calculations of odds forget one thing. If it happens, it happens, no matter how statistically unlikely. Better, probabilities are always calculated before an event; if an event occurs and you calculate the probability and say, "How rare!" then you might be mistaken. It is only theoretically rare – in practice, it has happened. In fact, while we might be able to determine exact odds for a finite set of outcomes (e.g. the chance of drawing a blue ball from a bag containing seven red and three blue balls), we cannot determine any real odds for events in an infinite universe – or at least, any odds that make sense except in very tightly defined local situations (analogous to that bag).
The fact is that if nothing disproves God, you are free to believe or not. To some, that's silly, since it is not parsimonious (i.e. it is not the simplest necessary belief); to others that's very important since it is the very definition of parsimony. If you don't believe, it isn't human agency that will sway you, and if there are no supernatural agencies, then too bad. If you do believe, the issue of what kind of God becomes important – but reason isn't likely to give you a complete picture of God; that would be akin to the axioms of a system giving rise to a full description of the person who chose the axioms. Very unlikely.
Labels: God, Statistics
etched with acid at 10:07:00 pm
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