tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post116286522070910157..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Cooking the booksRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1162947359362556532006-11-07T19:55:00.000-05:002006-11-07T19:55:00.000-05:00Bill Curry said:"I don’t think I changed my argume...Bill Curry said:<BR/><BR/>"I don’t think I changed my argument, and I don’t think you interacted with what I said."<BR/><BR/>Your original argument was that the religious leaders wouldn't have needed Judas to identify Jesus for them. After that argument was shown to be bad, you shifted your focus to the argument that Judas could have been setting up an ambush, so that it's unlikely that the religious leaders would have worked with him as the gospels describe. I explained why both arguments were unreasonable. You never responded to my last post on the subject. You also failed to interact with the evidence I cited on some other issues, such as whether the gospels were anonymous.<BR/><BR/>I'm not going to make calculations with Bayes' Theorem. It's unnecessary, and there are better ways to use my time.Jason Engwerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1162943336901285152006-11-07T18:48:00.000-05:002006-11-07T18:48:00.000-05:00Steve’s Quote: . Permit my to my own back-of-the-e...Steve’s Quote: <EM>. Permit my to my own back-of-the-envelop calculation. Assuming that there were about 6 billion people alive today, there’s only a one-in-six billion chance that Bill Curry even exists.</EM><BR/><BR/>Steve, I think this comment indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of Bayesian inference. But here is a chance for you to prove me wrong. Let’s use a more numerically extreme example. Let’s suppose we toss a coin 1000 times. The probability of any observed sequence is 2 raised to the -1000 (about 9.33e-302) if the coin is fair. Why would a Bayesian conclude the coin was fair given that the observed sequence is so improbable? Do you think this is paradoxical on the Bayesian view? I obviously don’t think this causes any problems for the Bayesian. Do you know why I think this?<BR/><BR/>Please answer these questions. In my opinion, you subject your opponents to a lot of ridicule, but the ridicule may be worth it if I am going to learn something from you. At this point, I am unconvinced that you are making a reasonable effort to understand my position or Bayesian inference in general. Your behavior is very surprising if one thinks that the Holy Spirit is working in your life. I certainly hope I and my own children can refrain from ridiculing those they disagree with as you regularly do here.<BR/><BR/>I comment on this quote when you first posted it. <EM>Indeed, any Bayesian analysis of the question of justified belief in miracles must be otiose until the difficult and essential questions concerning "evidence" in relation to an allegedly miraculous occurrence are resolved — at which point any Bayesian analysis will add little except the technical complexity of a formal apparatus that may or may not "clarify" the structure of Hume's argument.<BR/><BR/>The balancing of probabilities is of no use until it is decided what goes into the balance — that is, what constitutes the evidence that is to be subject to the balancing of probabilities. The point is this; apart from independent philosophical arguments — arguments that would in effect undermine the relevance of a Bayesian analysis to the question of the credibility of reports of the miraculous — no such analysis can, in principle, prove that no testimony can (or cannot) establish the credibility of a miracle.<BR/></EM><BR/><BR/>It seems to me that you are mischaracterizing what the author is saying here. The author is indicating that Bayesian analysis is not applicable for assessing the question of miracles in general (Hume’s argument in particular), with which I agree. In principle Bayes’ Theorem could be used to support particular miracle claims. But the author did not make the case that Bayesian inference cannot be used to assess a particular miracle claim. The author may or may not believe that, but this quote doesn’t strongly support the idea that Bayesian inference is not a useful tool for such assessments.<BR/><BR/><EM> But two can play this game.</EM><BR/>If you are interested in a valid assessment I hope that you would. I have attempted to make my argument as scrutable as possible. I would welcome you doing the same. If you would like, I could email you or Jason the MS Excel spreadsheet I used so you could use that as a template for your inferential argument for the resurrection. Of course, if you want to obfuscate the issues as much as possible, this would not help you achieve your goals.<BR/><BR/><EM>Curry doesn’t bother to interact with Stephen T. Davis’ criticisms of Bayesean theory in this context.</EM> <BR/>Because <A HREF="http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/itila/book.html" REL="nofollow">MacKay</A> and <A HREF="http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/prob.html" REL="nofollow">Jaynes</A> (both books published in 2003) have successfully defended Bayesian inference to my satisfaction. Some of the criticism that you have offered have been variants of the Hempel paradox which has been answered as early as 1967 by I. J. Good, according to Jaynes.<BR/><BR/>I disagree with some of the number’s Martin used as well, but I would agree with Davis that <EM> “I have said little thus far about the way Martin uses Bayes's Theorem, which by and large is beyond reproach, at least until he starts supplying actual values.”</EM><BR/><BR/>I think my <EM>a priori</EM> assessment for the initial plausibility is quite reasonable. Pagan miracle claims vastly outnumber miracle claims in the gospels and far exceed the number of miracles observed today. This fact in conjunction with the fact that there is a great deal of known fraud in religious writing gives me to think that my <EM>a priori</EM> expectation of miracles is quite reasonable. To quote MacKay <EM>“you can’t do inference – or data compression – without making assumptions.”</EM> I have tried to make my assumptions clear, will you?<BR/><BR/>Jason,<BR/><BR/>I don’t think I changed my argument, and I don’t think you interacted with what I said. I know you disagree. However, if you want to move the conversation forward, why don’t you present your own Bayesian argument for the resurrection? If you want, I can provide you the spreadsheets I used. I really get the impression that you are obfuscating here. But if you are trying to clarify the issues, show us how the Bayesian inference should be done. What is the evidence that should move truth seekers, and how much should that evidence move us? The spreadsheets help my though processes. They may not help everyone, but if you want to reach those mathematically inclined, I would encourage you to lay-out your assumptions and assign plausibility values.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07085090154615107259noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1162914471323766682006-11-07T10:47:00.000-05:002006-11-07T10:47:00.000-05:00"Dominical" is an adjective which has reference to..."Dominical" is an adjective which has reference to things said or done by the Lord (Dominus) Jesus Christ.stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1162913418484868942006-11-07T10:30:00.000-05:002006-11-07T10:30:00.000-05:00Not to be ignorant, but what are 'dominical' mirac...Not to be ignorant, but what are 'dominical' miracles?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1162892881631937382006-11-07T04:48:00.000-05:002006-11-07T04:48:00.000-05:00Readers might be interested in knowing that I inte...Readers might be interested in knowing that I interacted at length with Bill Curry's first article in his current series, and that he eventually changed his argument about Judas, then left the discussion. Here's the URL for my first response to him:<BR/><BR/>http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/09/error-in-error-out.html<BR/><BR/>Then he responded with another article:<BR/><BR/>http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/09/jason-engwer-responds-to-evaluating.html<BR/><BR/>And here's the final thread, in which he left the discussion after changing his argument about Judas:<BR/><BR/>http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/09/gospels-as-historical-accounts.html<BR/><BR/>Notice that he not only changed his argument about Judas, but also was shown to be wrong and relying on bad sources on other issues. People might be interested in reading what I wrote there about Saint Genevieve. And I linked to an article I've written that addresses the comparison between Jesus Christ and Benny Hinn:<BR/><BR/>http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/05/jesus-christ-benny-hinn-and-santa.htmlJason Engwerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-1162877156265315862006-11-07T00:25:00.000-05:002006-11-07T00:25:00.000-05:00Steve,On the general subject of probability, I wan...Steve,<BR/><BR/>On the general subject of probability, I wanted to point out what I think is an error in your ebook “This Joyful Eastertide”. <BR/><BR/>You say:<BR/><BR/>**********************<BR/>“The odds of a royal flush are about 1 in 650,000 whereas the odds of a straight flush are about 1 in 72,000. This means the odds of drawing 9 straight flushes in a row are about the same as drawing one royal flush. But while I could get away with a royal flush, were I to draw 9 straight flushes in a row, casino security would be fitting me with a pair of concrete galoshes.<BR/><BR/>Probability theory is unable to capture certain common sense intuitions, especially where personal agents are in view.”<BR/>**********************<BR/><BR/>I actually think that our intuitions are quite consistent with the mathematical facts in this case. The probability of 9 straight flushes in a row is NOT 1 in 72,000 x 6 = 648,000. It is, rather, 1 in a whopping 72,000 to the 9th power! <BR/><BR/>In the history of poker a royal flush has been drawn on many occasions, I'm sure, but I’d wager my “nest egg” that an honest 9 straight flushes in a row has never been drawn and never will be. <BR/><BR/>Turns out those thugs with the concrete galoshes know their math.<BR/><BR/>Just a side note.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com