bblais on the webhttps://bblais.github.io/2024-01-22T00:00:00-05:00A poor introduction to Bayesian Reasoning2024-01-22T00:00:00-05:002024-01-22T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2024-01-22:/posts/2024/Jan/22/a-poor-introduction-to-bayesian-reasoning/<p>I've had my disagreements with Jonathan McLatchie a few times, some of it <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/24/ongoing-conversation-with-jonathan-mclatchie/">here</a>, and now there is another interview <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATvPk4Tx_pA&list=WL&index=3">Bayesian Probability and Intelligent Design: A Beginner's Guide</a> that someone …</p><p>I've had my disagreements with Jonathan McLatchie a few times, some of it <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/24/ongoing-conversation-with-jonathan-mclatchie/">here</a>, and now there is another interview <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATvPk4Tx_pA&list=WL&index=3">Bayesian Probability and Intelligent Design: A Beginner's Guide</a> that someone forwarded to me. In this interview he starts off by answering the fairly straightforward question "what is Bayes theorem and how does it relate to our understanding of evidence?"</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bayes theorem is a way of probabilistically modeling our assessment of evidence and how we update our confidence and conclusions in response to new data so the way that a Bayesian would conceptualize evidence is in terms of a likelihood ratio that is to say the probability of the evidence existing given the hypothesis is true on the numerator and then on the denominator we have the probability that that same evidence exists given that the hypothesis is false and to the extent that that likelihood ratio is top heavy that is the extent to which you have evidence for your hypothesis</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What I find astounding about this opening response is the massive hole that Jonathan leaves -- the prior. He addresses it later, but if you're specifically asked about Bayes Theorem and you only talk about likelihoods, that is a serious omission. If I were asked the question, I would have answered it as I did in my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3xAb3aVGVM0">TEDx talk on the issue</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Bayes theorem states that a belief in a particular explanation should scale with <em>how well that explanation fits the data</em> (called the likelihood), it should also scale with <em>how plausible that explanation was before you saw any data</em> (the prior), and it should be scaled down by all of the alternatives.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So why does this opener strike me as bad? There are two reasons. The first I mentioned already, the lack of mentioning a prior. We can see the result of ignoring the prior by examining the example McLatchie says here, one that <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/24/ongoing-conversation-with-jonathan-mclatchie/#enter-jean-luc">he has used before</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>imagine that you were hiking in a forest in somewhere and you're far away from roads and civilizations and you come across a cabin in the middle of this forest and you wonder whether it is inhabited and so you decide to inspect and you prize open the door and you find a cup of English breakfast tea that that is still steeping, it is not at room temperature, on the table inside this cabin. On the hypothesis that the cabin is inhabited would you have predicted strongly that you would find a cup of specifically English breakfast tea still seeping on this table? Well, no, it's actually quite a low probability on the hypothesis that it's inhabited that you would make that observation nonetheless it is far more probable on the hypothesis that the cabin is inhabited that you would make that observation than it would otherwise be if the cabin is not inhabited -- then it's astronomically improbable that you would make that observation. So again you have this, even though the numerator is not particularly high, you nonetheless in this case have a very strongly top-heavy likelihood ratio such that the evidence overwhelmingly confirms the hypothesis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In my earlier response to this (where McLatchie used Earl Grey tea in his examle), I introduced the hypothesis that Jean Luc Picard had visited and everyone knows that he likes his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2IJdfxWtPM">"tea, Earl Gray, hot"</a>. Because of this, the likelihood of the evidence on this hypothesis is much higher than either of the alternatives that McLatchie gives -- does this mean he strongly believes in Jean Luc Picard? What's the problem? McLatchie consistently ignores priors. I do wonder if he changed the type of tea because of my response. </p>
<p>The second problem with the opener has to do with alternatives. Through rest of the interview he deals only with ratios, and he naively mentions independence,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if the initial ratio were 2 to one then if you had 10 pieces of such evidence and they were all independent then the cumulative power of the evidence would be more than 1,000 to one and so you can see that if you have lots of different pieces of evidence each by themselves not being a particularly great weight they can amount to cumulatively a very powerful cumulative case for the hypothesis</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What he says is mathematically correct if 1) you have only one alternative and 2) if the data is indeed independent. The first comes from a naive application of Bayes theorem, and ignoring the fact that <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/#bayes-factors-and-confidence">some non-monotonic effects can occur when you have more than two hypothesis</a>. The second is often stated and, except for some obvious simple cases, is no often true. Even if there is a small uncertainty in whether you can establish data points as independent <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2023/Feb/23/probability-and-the-independence-of-testimony/">you can come to radically different answers</a>.</p>
<p>The net effect of ignoring, or downplaying, priors and only working in two-hypothesis problems is to sweep these sorts of complexities under the rug. Applying Bayes in these cases also distracts one from the fact that the hypotheses McLatchie is proposing <em>makes no unique predictions</em>. Go through everything McLatchie has said, and note how many times he has proposed an experiment to test directly the design hypothesis -- it's zero as far as I can tell, not just for McLatchie but for all of the ID proponents. They will try to point out that a particular evolutionary mechanism can't explain a phenomenon, but they never put forward the positive case. It is the classic God-of-the-Gaps move. </p>
<p>Since McLatchie himself says he's not doing God of the Gaps and is putting forward a positive case, I feel that this topic requires its own response which I will work on later. Until then, the deficiencies in the way that he describes Bayesian probability and applies Bayes theorem itself are cause to doubt his conclusions.</p>What would I expect to be in the Bible?2023-12-02T00:00:00-05:002023-12-02T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-12-02:/posts/2023/Dec/02/what-would-i-expect-to-be-in-the-bible/<p>I've read the entire Bible twice, the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2023/Aug/14/bible-in-a-year/">most recent time this past year</a>. Both times I was underwhelmed by the content in the book. It had so much barbarism, and …</p><p>I've read the entire Bible twice, the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2023/Aug/14/bible-in-a-year/">most recent time this past year</a>. Both times I was underwhelmed by the content in the book. It had so much barbarism, and was barely inspiring even at its best points. I wrote in my notes </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"There is nothing in the Bible that even suggests that the person writing this knew more than me or anyone else in history, let alone an omniscient being. If someone could point to anything in this book that indicates omniscient input, I'd love to hear it."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So what would I expect? I don't know specifically, but when I read a newsletter by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Porco">Carolyn Porco</a> an idea struck me. Here was a mere mortal, one of 8 billion, writing something more inspiring and prescient while being entirely accurate, communicating a message of thanks that far surpasses anything in the Bible. If this can be done by mere people, why do we think this couldn't have been accomplished in spades by an all-knowing being who supposedly created the universe?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tomorrow will be Thanksgiving Day in the US ... the day that we Americans pause to express thanks for all those things that make our lives and our time on this planet meaningful. </p>
<p>To take reckoning of your own life, and all the wonder-filled moments and events, both personal and not, and the opportunities and knowledge -- yes, knowledge! -- you have gained from them, and to dwell on and be grateful for all of it, is a salve for the heart and soul. One of the most effective practices of gratitude for me starts outdoors, on a clear, dark night, gazing up at a starlit sky and absorbing its message. </p>
<p>I repeat here what I wrote on Facebook on Dec 20, 2022, prior to the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn two days later:</p>
<p>"Be sure to spend some time reveling in the rarity of the moment, the beauty of the starlit skies of our planet, the antiquity of the Universe, and how fortunate we all are to have the celestial wonders that surround us ... our planetary neighbors, the very distant stars and nebulae in our own galaxy, all the billions upon billions of immensely distant galaxies ... laid out before our eyes in such glorious splendor. The night sky is the only scene we can savor that is 13.8 billion years old. No experience can better convey the profundity and significance of our own limited existence and the improbable blessing of being alive, than gazing, with knowledge and acceptance, upon its starry countenance."</p>
<p>There is enough gratitude to be had in that magnificent view and what it has taught us to last a lifetime.</p>
<p>Remember that tomorrow and be sure to have a Happy Thanksgiving! </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Porco">Carolyn Porco</a></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>"Why I became an atheist" Part 1 and Part 2- John Loftus & Peter May - 05 April 2008, 12 April 20082023-11-19T00:00:00-05:002023-11-19T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-11-19:/posts/2023/Nov/19/why-i-became-an-atheist-part-1-and-part-2-john-loftus-peter-may-05-april-2008-12-april-2008/<p>As part of the <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a …</p><p>As part of the <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">full RSS Feed of the podcasts</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 5 Apr 2008 "Why I became an atheist" Part 1 - John Loftus & Peter May - 05 April 2008 -- Why I became an atheist - John W Loftus in discussion with Peter May</em>
> <blockquote>
<p>Justin meets John W Loftus. Once a passionate Christian, he's now a militant atheist. Find out why he lost his faith and his conversation with Christian apologist Peter May.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/6d7dbd8d-db5f-42b1-a910-51157d7eb6c0.mp3">Download mp3 part 1</a>. <a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/f5c959c2-6dcf-40ed-88a0-2984e2924e88.mp3">Download mp3 part 2</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Peter May - Christian</li>
<li>John Loftus - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Peter - outlines the argument from first cause:{.theist}</p>
<ol>
<li>everything that begins to exist has a cause{.theist}</li>
<li>the universe has a beginning{.theist}</li>
<li>therefore the universe has a cause (i.e. creator){.theist}</li>
<li>the creator must be uncaused, and must be an agent to create, therefore must be a personal mind.{.theist}</li>
</ol>
<p>This argument is totally unconvincing to me, and I doubt many really have faith due to this argument. What are my biggest problems? Here is a short list:{.me}</p>
<ol>
<li>"everything that begins to exist has a cause" - this is stated, but never demonstrated. In fact, there are uncaused events in quantum mechanics.{.me}</li>
<li>"the universe has a beginning" - our universe, perhaps, had a singularity where time and space started. Is that a beginning? Perhaps. Perhaps it is part of a multi-verse that is eternal, and this is just one event in it. Given this possibility, even this claim doesn't do what he'd like it to do{.me}</li>
<li>"therefore the universe has a cause" - let's, for the sake of argument, go along with this statement. Does it really tell us about the nature of the cause? It could be a natural cause, but something out of time and space. There could be some other dimension, or nature, that we don't understand -- still natural -- that causes universes. It does not require a mind, and thus does not require any personality.{.me}</li>
<li>Has Peter demonstrated that minds can exist outside of a body? Is there even a <em>single</em> example of this?{.me}</li>
</ol>
<p>Peter - in the Genesis story of creation, the description is <em class="tq">"astonishingly close to what science says"</em>. Talking about the <em>"spirit moving across the water"</em>, he claims Genesis fits a picture of when a planet first forms, completely blackened out, where the light doesn't get through - as he claims we see planet formation today. So we can understand the "let there be light", but the Sun comes later through the clouds, and then you get vegetation, life in the sea, land animals, and then man. This is an <em class="tq">"extraordinary process of development for a primitive people to have stumbled on"</em> {.theist}</p>
<p>This is convincing to him, and is astonishing and extraordinary? Really? Here's a summary of the days of Creation from <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=RSV">Genesis 1</a>:{.me}</p>
<ul>
<li>Day 1 - the heavens and the earth, light, day and night{.me}</li>
<li>Day 2 - firmament (i.e. solid dome) for the sky {.me}</li>
<li>Day 3 - land and seas, vegetation {.me}</li>
<li>Day 4 - stars, sun, moon{.me}</li>
<li>Day 5 - fish and birds {.me}</li>
<li>Day 6 - land animals, man and woman{.me}</li>
<li>Day 7 - resting{.me}</li>
</ul>
<p>Now we are going to overlook the fact that <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+2&version=RSV">Genesis 2</a> has a different order, where animals are created <em>after</em> humans. Even the order in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=RSV">Genesis 1</a> leaves a lot to be desired. Peter claims that the day and night before the sun is due to the sun not being able to shine down through the clouds, which is not even <em>hinted</em> at in the text and is a desperate move of harmonization. Further, this list of creation has plants before the sun, so either way you have a problem - the plants could not have grown before the sun poked through the clouds even if we take Peter's strained reading of the text. The Earth is not separated to the heavens by a "firmament" (i.e. solid dome), and there are not holes in that firmament for the starlight. According to our best understanding, land animals came before birds and fish came before vegetation. This account doesn't even remotely sound like science to me. {.me}</p>
<p>Put another way, if this description of creation was so close to what modern science says about the universe, why did it take thousands of years for people to recognize that the Earth went around the Sun, and that the Sun was part of a Galaxy? If you read the <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=RSV">Genesis 1</a> account, and knew nothing else in the world, would it suggest to you that there are other planets? What about galaxies? Does it suggest the time scales between the formation of the universe and the formation of the Earth? Does it suggest that the Sun is a star or that the Moon is a rock whereas the Sun is a ball of plasma? Does it suggest, even remotely, any process of evolution? The answer is a clear <em>No</em>.{.me}</p>
<p>Peter is engaged in the worst sort of cherry-picking and rose-colored (or more appropriately, science-colored) glasses all the way down.{.me}</p>
<p>Peter - In the face of the spread and success of Christianity, doesn't this suggest that there is a truth there? {.theist}</p>
<p>Truth is not decided by success of transmission. Both Mormonism and Islam have had very recent success in spreading, and yet Christians don't take them seriously. Truth should cross borders, like science does, and things that are cultural don't (as much). This leads to the structure, pointed out by Dawkins, that you are much more likely to be the religion of your culture, so the geographic distribution of religious tendencies tends to be fragmented, as opposed to scientific ideas which do not follow that pattern at all.{.me}</p>
<p>John - The Christian <em>story</em> is really good, which may explain why it spreads successfully.{.atheist}</p>
<p>How would you distinguish an idea which true versus one that is a good cultural story and is thus successful but not necessarily true? Ideas can be popular they are imposed from above, or are tied to a dominant culture for other reasons. Perhaps there are tests of the process of spreading which would allow one to distinguish these cases. I am not sure. {.me}</p>
<p>Peter - He brings out three of the common arguments for God: "why is there something rather than nothing?", "the wonder of design in the universe", and our "moral perceptions". {.theist}</p>
<ul>
<li>"why is there something rather than nothing?" - I see two answers to this. I am not convinced that the philosophical idea of <em>nothing</em> is defined or can exist, without running into serious linguistic and conceptual problems. Laurence Krauss has a very nice lecture on a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjaGktVQdNg">Universe From Nothing</a>. Essentially it boils down to, as long as the total energy of the universe is zero, it could have come from nothing without violating any laws of physics. This is an empirical claim which is in fact <a href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html">confirmed by experiment</a>. {.me}</li>
<li>"the wonder of design in the universe" - if you go back 150 years, then you'd argue from the design in biology. However Darwin demonstrated that an unguided process can give rise to highly complex structure in biology. Now the only claims of design are in what is called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe">Fine Tuning of the Universe</a>, and is contentious amongst physicists. If the only design that you're going to hang God's hat on is the latest arguments on the fringe of physics, then you're really not stating that design is particularly obvious, except for those who don't understand science.{.me}</li>
<li>"moral perceptions" - the argument from our moral code, I believe, is undermined by the fact that moral behavior is observed in other animals. Further, if we take a biblical view, the genocidal actions of God in the Old Testament, the concept of the Atonement which forms the basis for Christianity, and the doctrine of Hell can all be seen as highly immoral and require a lot of bending over backwards to handle. I think these lead to insurmountable challenges to this argument. {.me}</li>
</ul>
<p>Peter - The Christian story confirms the moral message in the Bible, and people immediately connect to it. God is a moral God, good always outweighs evil, and this message is not simply tacked onto the story. {.theist}</p>
<p>John - You don't tell the whole story, much of which is ugly. Babies being deliberately smashed on the rocks, the atonement, hell, etc... do not match the story you're describing. {.atheist}</p>
<p>Peter - <em class="tq">"One of the remarkable things about Christianity is that you don't need a PhD to become a Christian. The essential truths can be grasped by a very simple person indeed."</em> <em class="tq">"Jesus somehow takes our moral responsibility on himself so that we can go free. It's liberating to people."</em> {.theist}</p>
<p>John - <em class="aq">"The God revealed in the Bible is stupid. There is no reason for him to die on the cross for anyones' sins, there's just none. It's part of an ancient superstitious culture of sacrificial systems."</em> It makes Satan out to be stupid too - why would be rebel against God, knowing he's omnipotent? How is Jesus could Jesus be God and man? These things are just not defined. {.atheist}</p>
<p>I would add, "how is <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/the-trinity-and-coherency/">the Trinity</a> a coherent concept?" Look at a previous post of mine on <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/11/19/the-trinity-and-coherency/">the Trinity</a> where I explore the incoherence. Peter never deals directly with this, except to merely assert that these things are coherent, but without any demonstration of that. {.me}</p>
<p>Peter - <em>"they find grounds to understand that their sins are forgiven, and before God not-guilty, whether you're Stalin or Hitler (not suggesting any of those threw themselves on Christ for mercy."</em> {.tq} {.theist}</p>
<p>This is one of those facets of Christianity that I have a real problem with. They claim that good outweighs evil, that justice is accomplished in the end, yet you can have someone do terrible things and essentially play the "I found Christ, Get Out of Jail Free" card right at the end and they are saved. The person who devotes their life to good works, helping people, reducing suffering yet isn't convinced by the paltry evidence for God around is not saved. This, to me, is not justice. Further, I would say that it is not ethical to punish or reward someone for an <em>infinite</em> time for actions done during a <em>finite</em> life.{.me}</p>
<p>John - Those that believe in divine grace for the people who have never heard the word of God should never want to spread the word of God to others, because the result of that preaching would then implies that the target person's conscience is no longer taken into account, and the simple act of not believing the message condemns them. {.atheist}</p>
<p>John - <em class="aq">"The <a href="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/03/outsider-test-for-faith.html">Outsider Test of Faith</a> is merely a test to judge all positive claims equally, and I do apply it to my atheism. I am first and foremost an agnostic who has decided that if there is a God I'm going to proclaim myself an atheist in protest of the lack of evidence and lack of care in this world."</em> {.atheist}</p>
<p>The <a href="http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2007/03/outsider-test-for-faith.html">Outsider Test of Faith</a>, named by John Loftus, is the following:{.me}</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Test your beliefs as if you were an outsider to the faith you are evaluating. If your faith stands up under muster, then you can have your faith. If not, abandon it, for any God who requires you to believe correctly when we have this extremely strong tendency to believe what we were born into, surely should make the correct faith pass the outsider test. If your faith cannot do this, then the God of your faith is not worthy of being worshipped.{.aq} {.atheist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The test relies on the fact that people tend to believe the things that they were raised with. In addition, we often have a selection bias, which is that we accept those facts that fit our current beliefs and ignore or discount those that run counter to our current beliefs. This is one of the reasons we have controlled studies in science, and peer review, and the demand for replicability in science. We have to make a process to artificially overcome these biases because the biases keep us from finding the truth. I tell my students to try to be <em>more</em> skeptical of claims that support what they already believe, to try to compensate a little bit for the selection bias.{.me}</p>
<p>Peter - <em class="tq">"I noticed in your website you say there is a lot of doubt for any supposed historical event. Now this seems to be an extraordinary degree of skepticism because everything we know is historic, even last week's program."</em>{.theist}</p>
<p>I don't think that this is hyper-skepticism because it depends on the prior probability for the claim. Did Socrates exist? Perhaps. Did Hitler exist? Almost certainly. Did Julius Caesar exist? Almost certainly, although somewhat less likely than Hitler. Now you might be thinking that this is hyper-skepticism. A non-zero probability for Hitler <em>not</em> existing? It is possible that I'm in a Truman Show type environment, in which case every historical thing I have learned is suspect. I don't think it is likely, but it is possible. In fact, I think it is so unlikely that I'm willing to consider Hitler and Julius Caesar as historical facts, but I am not willing to consider Socrates or Jesus as historical facts. But let me stress something at this point - each and every example I've used in this paragraph was for the existence of a person, something which has a decently high prior probability, and definitely does not violate any physical laws or anything like that. The second you introduce claims like, "Person A was raised from the dead", it doesn't matter much if it was 2000 years ago or <a href="http://www.saibaba.ws/miracles/raisingfromthedead.htm">40 years ago</a>. The more recent claim is more likely, but not so much that I would take it seriously. Everything comes down to probability.{.me}</p>Some More Comments on Undesigned Coincidences2023-11-16T00:00:00-05:002023-11-16T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-11-16:/posts/2023/Nov/16/some-more-comments-on-undesigned-coincidences/<p>An "undesigned coincidence" is used in an argument for the reliability of the Gospels, notable by Jonathan McLatchie, Tim McGrew and Lydia McGrew, and <a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/yes-richard-carrier-there-are-undesigned-coincidences-part-1/">is defined as</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you have …</p></blockquote><p>An "undesigned coincidence" is used in an argument for the reliability of the Gospels, notable by Jonathan McLatchie, Tim McGrew and Lydia McGrew, and <a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/yes-richard-carrier-there-are-undesigned-coincidences-part-1/">is defined as</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you have multiple (at least two) accounts that report an event where one account answers in passing a natural question raised incidentally by the other. Such features are <em>evidence</em> that a real event lies behind the reports found in the gospels — that is to say, the presence of an undesigned coincidence is more probable given the hypothesis of historicism than given the annulment of that hypothesis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I've written about one <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/11/why-undesigned-coincidences-are-not-compelling-to-me/">undesigned coincidence (UC) here</a> but it has come up in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fomPHLGCpiA&list=WL&index=3&t=832s">discussions on YouTube</a> so I felt I needed to talk about them a bit more. Some of these UC are:</p>
<ul>
<li>the grass being green is mentioned in Mark at the time, and it's Passover time mentioned in John, and each of these is mentioned only in one Gospel.</li>
<li>Jesus turned to Philip to ask what is to eat when they were near Bethsaida</li>
<li>How did they know the exact number of people there (i.e. 5000)</li>
<li>Why did Jesus warn the blind man not to say anything to anyone?</li>
</ul>
<p>The list might go on, but these are the sorts of pieces of evidence that the apologists are using. Each of these have reasonable plausible explanations in literary or oral tradition relationships. With the green grass example why couldn't the oral tradition have had the events around passover (with or without green grass) and Mark adds green grass as a literary flourish or John drops it? It'd be like a common story around Christmas, and one author mentions Christmas and the other snow. It doesn't seem to require, or even hint at, eyewitness testimony. It's so indirect -- like all of these undesigned coincidences -- when it would have been much more straightforward for Mark to have said "My name is Mark and I was there when...."</p>
<p>As for the Philip-Bethsaida "coincidences", couldn't there have been a tradition that Philip was from Bethsaida? He could easily have been known as "Philip from Bethsaida" in the oral tradition, to keep him straight from other Philips. If there was such a tradition, then any event that took place in Bethsaida, or was claimed to take place in or near Bethsaida, might have had Philip inserted as a primary character. This seems pretty natural, and wouldn't require any eyewitnesses, or the truth of any of those events.</p>
<p>Another example -- counting the 5000. What if the number has nothing to do with the count, and is a reference to the Old Testament, like 2 Chronicles or Joshua where they refer to "5000 from the flocks" or "5000 men"? or perhaps because it's a nice round number (like the 500 eyewitnesses in Paul) and could have been chosen for that reason. I see no strong reason to think this number was an actual count, so this "undesigned coincidence" doesn't seem to be a coincidence at all, but (like many of these, I suspect) may be due to overactive pattern seeking. </p>
<p>But, we're told, this is a cumulative case -- explaining one is ok, but having to have separate explanations for all of them, the apologists claim, strains credulity. However, we have the following problems. Now, this is like the third "undesigned coincidence" that I've looked at, and come up with a plausible reason for it in about 5 seconds of thinking. What does that do to the probability I'd assign to the next three I look at? Especially given 1) how trivial finding plausible alternatives is and 2) the entire mode of argument would be made moot if the Gospels followed the standards of ancient history and cited their sources, were clear about their authorship, and gave some specifics about the events. One can find some cases of ancient historians not doing this, but it seems to be incredibly uncommon and frowned upon even in ancient times. </p>
<p>I don't have time nor the expertise to go through each and every one of the so-called "coincidences", but they all strike me initially as being completely -- and trivially -- understood as being produced by a common process and are not strong evidence that the events actually happened. Even in theory, I don't see how one can use these UC to rule out literary or oral tradition sources for them when they exist at all. This entire approach seems to me to be a combination of cherry picking and seeing patterns in random data, both of which are common cognitive fallacies.</p>
<h3 id="what-if-im-wrong">What if I'm wrong?</h3>
<p>Ok, so what if I'm wrong, and 1) UC actually exist in the Gospels and 2) one can use UC to establish eyewitness reporting? This isn't an issue, because I could easily be convinced. What apologists are proposing is that,</p>
<ol>
<li>UC are well-defined</li>
<li>We can observe them in ancient texts</li>
<li>Their existence is strong evidence of eye-witness testimony</li>
</ol>
<p>What I am proposing is,</p>
<ol>
<li>UC are not well-defined as a category, but may be argued individually</li>
<li>We might be able to see some UC in the Gospels and other ancient texts</li>
<li>In addition to the apologists claim of possible eyewitness testimony, UC can also be explained with mostly mundane explanations, including (but not limited to):<ol>
<li>literary dependence</li>
<li>oral tradition dependence</li>
<li>actual coincidence</li>
<li>legendary development</li>
<li>overactive pattern finding</li>
<li>multiple ways the "coincidence" could occur</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<p>One should be able to easily make a test to distinguish between these two possibilities. One should be able to establish, perhaps with modern texts, perhaps with ancient texts, that </p>
<ol>
<li>one can define UC in such a way that they can be unambiguously identified in any text</li>
<li>use UC to unambiguously distinguish between fictional and non-fictional sources</li>
<li>use UC to unambiguously distinguish between eyewitness accounts and those accounts which rely only on 2nd, 3rd, 4th-hand accounts</li>
</ol>
<p>The fact that a search for the topic of undesigned coincidences only comes up with Christian apologetics sources points to the fact that this study has not been done, and I see no indication in the apologetics literature that Christians think this is a worthwhile endeavor. It's like the faith-healing literature -- they don't want to do the hard work of actually establishing that their method does the job they claim it does, and would rather just stick with their claims and think that the skeptics are being unreasonable. This is not how any scientist thinks, and I await the study I describe to be done. In the meantime, I feel completely comfortable not taking undesigned coincidences seriously, because Christian apologists are clearly not taking it seriously either. </p>Can Science Explain Everything?2023-11-15T00:00:00-05:002023-11-15T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-11-15:/posts/2023/Nov/15/can-science-explain-everything/<p>Can science explain everything? Christian guest John Lennox is emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Oxford University. Atheist guest Peter Atkins is emeritus Professor of Chemistry at …</p><p>Can science explain everything? Christian guest John Lennox is emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Oxford University. Atheist guest Peter Atkins is emeritus Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University. The episode can be found on the <a href="https://www.premier.plus/unbelievable/podcasts/episodes/john-lennox-vs-peter-atkins-can-science-explain-everything-live-debate">Unbelievable website</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li class="theist">Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator </li>
<li class="theist">John Lennox - Christian</li>
<li class="atheist">Peter Atkins - Atheist</li>
<li class="me">Comments by myself, bblais</li>
</ul>
<p class="me">My short answer is yes (sort of). Along the way we see John playing a little loosely with the language, using equivocation fallacies, making distinctions where none exist, and being credulous in the face of ancient history.</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="theist">John - We all have faith. Atheists have faith. We all have our beliefs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p class="me">Here John is seemingly equating the word "believe" with "faith" even though I’m sure he knows they are different in some important ways. It really doesn’t matter that different people have different beliefs in this discussion. What matters is how we <em>justify</em> those points and the process of science is the only way we know of to verify claims in the real world.</p>
<p class="me">As for whether science can explain everything I would say "I don’t know". There may be limits but we haven’t yet seen those limits. There have been people in the past who have said that certain things were impossible to measure:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On the subject of stars, all investigations which are not ultimately reducible to simple visual observations are ... necessarily denied to us. While we can conceive of the possibility of determining their shapes, their sizes, and their motions, we shall never be able by any means to study their chemical composition or their mineralogical structure ... Our knowledge concerning their gaseous envelopes is necessarily limited to their existence, size ... and refractive power, we shall not at all be able to determine their chemical composition or even their density... I regard any notion concerning the true mean temperature of the various stars as forever denied to us. - <a href="http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/rwoclass/astr1210/comte.html">August Compte, 1835, <em>Cours de la Philosophie Positive</em></a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="me">and</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In "LENS-LIKE ACTION OF A STAR BY THE DEVIATION OF LIGHT IN THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD", "There is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly" - <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/84/2188/506">Einstein, 1936, <em>Science</em></a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="me">As a result of many such examples, I would be reticent to say that it is <em>impossible</em> for science to explain everything. Once you say it is impossible or you give "magic" as an explanation then all explanation stops - you have a self-imposed limit. This happened to Isaac Newton when trying to describe the stability of the solar system -- <a href="http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Stability_of_the_solar_system#Introduction">Newton resorted to "God did it"</a>. The actual solution <a href="http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Stability_of_the_solar_system#Laplace-Lagrange_stability_of_the_Solar_System">took until Laplace</a> to be found - even though there was nothing in this solution beyond the abilities of Newton. </p>
<p class="me">I like Peter‘s response about the public nature of the discoveries of science:</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="aq">Knowledge that can be shared. Evidence that can be shared publicly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="aq">Peter says that scientific ideas sit in a network in relation to each other with hierarchical levels of complexity, e.g. biology, chemistry, and physics. Where they overlap they are mutually supportive which is good evidence that they are true.</p>
<p class="aq">Peter also distinguishes between two types of questions what he calls "stupid" questions and "real" questions. Stupid questions are questions for which there is no evidence and science can dismiss immediately. Examples include </p>
<ul>
<li class="aq">what is the purpose of the universe?</li>
<li class="aq">what is the nature of the afterlife?</li>
</ul>
<p class="aq">Real questions can include things like "why is there something rather than nothing" because there is evidence of something. "What is the nature of consciousness?" because there is evidence of consciousness. These are questions that science can answer.</p>
<p class="me">I'd probably phrase it that science deals with <em>well-defined problems</em>, without hidden agendas in the questions themselves. The question "what is the nature of the afterlife?" may have a hidden agenda - assuming there is an "after" to "life" - and so is either not well-defined or requires the answer to the question of the nature of life and consciousness first. The same goes for the "purpose" of the universe - one has to establish that there could even be such a thing, that the words actually mean what we think they mean when applied to objects like entire universes.</p>
<p class="me">John likes to make a distinction between the natural sciences and the historical sciences but I don’t see why that distinction should exist. The distinction is just a matter of the type of data and the level of uncertainty but the reasoning processes are the same. Both the natural sciences and the historical sciences use the methods of prediction, applied probability theory, and falsification. John further said that his Christianity is "evidence-based" yet he seems to believe that the Christian claims and explanations are not addressable by science. In a way he has to do this, even though it is equivocating on the notion of "evidence". He can't admit that his belief is not based on evidence, but it is clear that his claims are not supported by science. Rather than admit that his beliefs are unjustified, John needs to distance himself from science on these issues.<br></p>
<p class="me">Perhaps another way to think of this, and to demonstrate the problem with John's thinking, is to go back to Peter’s idea of a network of ideas. Claims about the resurrection are based on historical evidence but where that evidence overlaps with the physical sciences and biological sciences (not to mention anthropology and archaeology) you find that it leads to contradictions and not mutual support. In order to be justified, the different levels of explanation cannot be in conflict with each other and must support each other. Bringing in John's analogy (described below), there is nothing conflicting between saying that water boils due to heat and the water in the kettle is boiling because I wanted tea. However, there <em>is</em> something conflicting between saying that entropy increases in a closed system and a body is resurrected after 3 days.<br></p>
<blockquote>
<p class="theist">John thinks that science cannot answer questions such as "Where do I come from?", "Where am I going?", and "What is the meaning of life?" and he says that we have to go to religion and philosophy to answer them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="me">I’ve written before (<a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jan/21/philosophy-and-science-whats-the-difference/">here</a>, <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2017/Mar/03/philosophy-of-science-and-the-burden-of-proof/">here</a>, and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2016/Jan/11/philosophy-and-science/">here</a>) about the value (or lack thereof) of philosophical answers to things. Since science has a method for distinguishing true from false claims we can both trust it and know <em>how far</em> we can trust it. Religion doesn’t have that - it has no methodology for us to distinguish true or false claims.</p>
<p class="me">As for the question "where do we come from?" I think science has given a far better story than any religion. Sure, you can always push the time back to before our understanding of it but if you think about the religious answers to these questions they’re all really parochial. The Bible speaks of one world. It never speaks about multiple worlds or universes. It gives no indication about the time-scales that life developed or that the universe developed, or even that the planets developed. <em>Everything</em> that we are confident in we have learned from science and not from religion. What about the question "Where we going?" Again science points in the only directions that make sense. Knowing that processes like life, flames, and other dynamical systems will come to an end at some point eliminates most simplistic ideas of an afterlife. Carolyn Porco <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUpM30B1vJg&list=PL64B250DFF80E579D">does a great job describing the story that is science</a>, including musing on what happens when we die. In contrast the religious story I find to be fanciful and unsupported.</p>
<p class="me">Continuing on with John's confidence in his beliefs, if the best piece of evidence for Christianity is the resurrection then that is pretty weak. The only evidence we have for the resurrection comes from texts written <em>decades</em> afterward from <em>unknown</em> authors. Contrast that with anything else we have even a modest degree of confidence in. Every time I look for the best evidence for nearly <em>anything</em> else I always find evidence far better than that being claimed for the resurrection. <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2011/Nov/29/best-evidence-for/">Try it yourself some time!</a><br></p>
<p class="me">John spends some time on the notion of explanations: </p>
<blockquote>
<p class="theist">Even when we say science explains, often it doesn't explain comprehensively. How would you explain boiling water? You could explain it through heat conduction and agitation of molecules of water. You can also say that the water is boiling because I'd like a cup of tea. Now those two explanations are very different, they don't conflict - they complement. One is the natural scientific explanation and the other is an explanation in terms of the intention and purposes of an agent.</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="me">The problem I think here is with the question - English is a language poorly suited to clarity. For example, there is the question of "why does water <em>in general</em> boil?" and the question of "why <em>is this particular pot of water</em> boiling at this moment?" I think what John is trying to get at is the idea that you can explain things on many different levels of detail. But John is also talking about the role of agency in scientific explanations. Can scientific explanations include agency? Of course they can -- just look at fields like archaeology or anthropology or even in biology. If you’re looking at the development of tools or maybe even the building of dams by beavers, we can ask how they were made physically, what purpose they serve from an evolutionary point of view, how the structure of the tool or dam is related to the physical structure of the agent, etc... However, it is up to the person claiming that an agent exists to give the evidence for its in the first place. One also has to be clear about <em>which</em> question one is trying to address. "How would you explain boiling water?" is an underspecified question.</p>
<p class="me">John claims that God can interject arbitrary events into the universe and yet John doesn’t call this a violation of natural law. He seems to think that it goes <em>beyond</em> natural law. Of course you can make the claim that there is an agent that is somehow able to interject things that <em>appear</em> on the face of it to be contradictions in natural law but it is still an unconvincing claim unless you can demonstrate that the agent actually exists! We have many people in the past who have claimed violations of natural law (e.g. perpetual motion machines) but these claims have no actual evidential support - not a single one. It's gotten so bad that the US patent office - which doesn't require a patent idea to even work - refuses to even <em>look</em> at such claims.</p>
<p class="me">So, if you are going to say (for whatever process) that you have evidence for the violation of the second law of thermodynamics (e.g a perpetual motion machine or a resurrection) then you need to have evidence that would be strong enough to convince physicists. Historical evidence can <em>never</em> rise to this level. There have been many claims in the past that have suggested a violation of the known physical laws at the time - (e.g. cold fusion, faster than light travel, etc...) - yet even these had evidence far stronger than simply historical evidence. Scientists are open to such possibilities but the bar has to be set high because most claims are simply false.</p>
<p class="me">I would add further that I don't really care whether God did it or aliens or some other mechanism until I am presented with enough evidence to see if there is even anything of interest to look at. It is premature to talk about how aliens might have gotten to Earth or what they look like until there is at least some credible evidence that UFOs are alien spacecraft or that alien technology is verified. With the resurrection, there isn't enough evidence to even be confident there is an effect to be studied, let alone to pin down a mechanism.</p>
<p class="me">I often wonder why Christians are convinced by this sort of evidence. When I have brought up the common knowledge that the documents are written many years after the event, that it’s questionable whether we have <em>any understanding</em> of their authorship, and that we have no idea whether they were even eyewitnesses or at least have access to eye witnesses the common responses I've gotten are that this is common in all of ancient history or that you shouldn’t expect historical documents to be like scientific documents. I agree with that! But that should make one <em>less</em> confident in the conclusions not more confident. We should require the levels of evidence that would convince us <em>today</em>. I don’t really care if that's impossible with ancient documents - that's on God, as far as I can tell. </p>
<p class="me">Concerning natural law, I find it interesting that John says the resurrection is not a violation of natural law because the lawmaker is doing it. Here, I think we have a problem with wording. What we call "natural law" is the observed regularity of nature. Perhaps we find that certain regularities are never observed to be violated under every possible measurement that we have ever made. Even there we could be wrong. For example, when scientists were first talking about quantum mechanics or relativity they found that there were regularities which were never violated in <em>everyday</em> life but are violated under certain circumstances (e.g. very small or very fast). Of course, those circumstances were experimentally determined multiple times such that we could - like Hume - say that it would be more likely that the law we thought originally was correct needed adjusting rather than these new experiments were all (consistently) in error. For a resurrection, I would expect nothing less. The probability of a resurrection happening via natural causes is of course astronomical. Even if one grants unknown causes, the probability is still astronomical until you can demonstrate that the unknown cause is so likely as to overturn the astronomically small probabilities of the claimed event. Again, historical evidence or philosophical arguments just don't ever rise to this level.</p>
<p class="theist">John reads the book of Genesis where Adam is commanded to name the animals and states that this is the beginnings of the science of taxonomy. Further, he states that in the beginning there was the Word, and DNA is also a language, so the explanations are again complementary.</p>
<p class="me">This to me is reading into the text what you want to see. An easy way to see this is to ask the question the other way - were the early biblical writers able to take their text and use it as a guide to find explanations for things like DNA and evolution and cosmology? Since all of these concepts took hundreds to thousands of years to develop, with no clear advantage given by the content of the Bible, this seems to me good evidence for post-hoc rationalization.<br></p>
<p class="theist">John asks his atheist friends whether they would trust a computer if it was "the result of a mindless unguided process" and he always got the answer "No".</p>
<p class="me">I would give the answer "maybe" -- it would depend on how the process was set up. It could very easily be that you could set up an evolutionary framework that would result in a computational structure that would be able to solve problems in its environment. I see no reason why that couldn’t happen now, even if it’s a little hard to do with silicon just because of the physics. I think John feels that "unguided" must in some way be related to "random" and thus untrustworthy. As an analogy to see the difference, if I place a marble on the edge of a bowl - anywhere on the edge - it will eventually (unguided by agency) make it to the bottom of the bowl in the same spot. Following the laws of nature does not lead to randomness and chaos and could (given a complex enough system) lead to trustworthy computational structures.<br></p>
<p class="me">John talks several times about the "atheist worldview". This is clearly something he should have learned by now: atheism isn't a worldview. You could talk about a naturalistic worldview but you can’t talk about an atheist worldview.<br></p>
<p class="tq">According to John, he wants to have a worldview that is big enough to live for and to live in.</p>
<p class="me">This strikes me as an <em>emotional</em> response, perhaps the need to feel more important, to feel tied to something bigger than he is and something that is not mindless. I typically follow the advice that if you ascribe <em>psychological</em> reasons for someone else's beliefs while ascribing <em>logical</em> reasons for your own then you’ve lost the argument. Here John seems to be admitting it explicitly so I don't have a problem drawing it out.</p>
<p class="me">To sum up, across the entire debate it is clear that John is credulous about the ancient documents, misuses terminology, and shows sloppy thinking and speaking. He leans on anecdotal evidence, selectively chooses those parts of the data that support his religious views and doesn't seem to see the proper use of scientific and rational thinking to address claims. Some of these are so astonishing (like his seeming confidence in conversion stories) that it is hard to imagine how he could think this way and be taken seriously. Although a pleasant debater, I have never been swayed by any of John Lennox's arguments.</p>How NaNoWriMo Got Me Back to the Gym2023-11-14T00:00:00-05:002023-11-14T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-11-14:/posts/2023/Nov/14/how-nanowrimo-got-me-back-to-the-gym/<p>So National Novel Writing Month (<a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a>) is here, and it has its usual ups and downs as expected. For this event, you commit to writing 50,000 words of a …</p><p>So National Novel Writing Month (<a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a>) is here, and it has its usual ups and downs as expected. For this event, you commit to writing 50,000 words of a new novel during the month of November. I first did it in 2019 - "won" it, achieving the 50,000 words of an admittedly terrible novel. 2020 was, well, 2020 as we all know. 2021 I rewrote the original one, by hand, which improved it quite a bit, and then over the course of a year transcribed it. I found that handwriting it had some definite benefits. I felt that I could turn off my internal editor more effectively, I was less likely to get distracted because I was away from the technology, I could squeeze in writing during times that would be awkward or impossible to use a computer (e.g. watching a concert on TV with the family, waiting in the car to pick someone up, etc...), and I think there is some non-tangible benefit to the physical process of handwriting that I can't put my finger on. The next year, 2022, I decided I didn't have the time and then this year I roped a few others into doing it to help me stay motivated. </p>
<p>So far this month I have been doing well, keeping to 1700 words a day (9 handwritten pages of 190 words). Saturday I had a demotivation point where I was frustrated with the way the story was going, wondering if I was wasting my time doing this at all when I have other work I should be doing. Perhaps this was just a procrastination technique of mine to work on something other than the things that were pressing. Also, I felt that while I enjoy a good story, I find it very difficult to come up with good ones myself. I can't visualize things as clearly as I've heard others can, I find that my resolutions tent to be simplistic yet I don't know the best way to handle this. </p>
<p>Yet, I do like imagining other worlds, other characters. I like the exploration of these new places and people, but I know I can't do everything I'd like to do in life -- I have to choose, so what to choose? The good thing about <a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a> is the commitment to write, to look to produce volume rather than focus on quality. It is this permission to write something bad that is motivating -- and gives the raw material to improve afterward. It is the experimenting, and playing with words, that might get one to be better. It is the act of showing up each day to do something challenging, but not overwhelming, where the cumulative effect across a month is something substantial that has value. </p>
<p>So, when I was demotivated, I wrote about writing itself, about the frustrations. I wrote about how parts of the story weren't working and what might fix them or at least make them a little less bad. It was my internal editor, but I felt I needed to voice it because the problems in the story were building and making it worse. I then outlined the entire plot, so perhaps I could work on parts of it out of order. I gave myself permission to write about other things, to be what is called a <a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a> Rebel -- someone who writes 50,000 words in a month, but not all on the novel, or even at all on the novel, but progresses their writing farther. I gave myself the permission to write short stories -- perhaps poking at different ideas would help give me the confidence again. Perhaps exploring a small, focused story would help me work on specific things like description or dialog without getting bogged down in world building or long plot lines.</p>
<p>When I started <a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a>, I started getting the virtual badges from the site -- first post, first 5k words, 3 day streak, etc... I had won all these badges before, except one -- to post 1667 words every day, so i had my sights set on that. I wasn't focused on the total, I was focused on the <em>habit</em>. When I look at building a habit like this, I recall books on productivity that have been of help to me in the past. <a href="https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits"><em>Atomic Habits</em></a> by James Clear and <a href="https://bulletjournal.com/pages/book"><em>The Bullet Journal Method</em></a> by Ryder Carroll are two such books, so I reread both of those over the past couple of weeks. I'm a slow reader, but I accomplished this by listening to audiobooks while working in the yard, or driving here and there. These books get me thinking about <em>systems</em> as opposed to <em>goals</em>. <a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a> forces one to face both. The goal of 50,000 words is there, but because it is so daunting, requiring a sustained regular effort across the month one has to examine ones systems for accomplishing it.</p>
<p>Despite my previous <a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a> accomplishments, I feel that it hasn't been an entire success for me. Sure, I finished a draft of a novel that I am reasonably proud of (which took 3 years) but my writing habit didn't sustain past November each time. I could buckle down, get something that has value pretty much only to me (a novel that is pretty basic at best) but there isn't lasting value I think to others, and perhaps not even to me. Or at least not as much value as I'd like to see. In a way, I think it probably worth more to post 1700 words daily on this blog for a month, exploring various random topics. That would be something of value I think. Perhaps I should write a new paper to submit to a journal (or maybe get a couple papers out the door that have been languishing due to me not having a good system in place). I like fiction, but find it hard to get into a new fiction series or book. I read much more nonfiction, listen to many more podcasts and seminars, and re-read or listen to fiction I'm comfortable with (e.g. Lord of the Rings, Dune, Babylon 5, Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, etc...) rather than starting something new.</p>
<p>However, I do appreciate the fact that there is a common motivation this month to accomplish something big. When I was looking at my habits, I noticed that I had stopped exercising and have been gaining weight or at least gaining a more spherical shape for the same weight. In my exploration of habits, I was motivated by YouTuber <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@JamesDunne">James Dunne</a> to look into how to work some <a href="https://youtu.be/bLdrCTponaE?si=IxNf7-hM94ASMbvM">strength into my routines</a>, but keeping it simple. I was looking at various exercise routings, and came across the <a href="https://youtu.be/nnf1YyMB39g?si=3nRVrMhIkEff7XjD">The Only Five Exercises You Need</a> video, and there was a phrase in the comments to the video: "Stay fit, age is not the barrier. Attitude is. Overcome it" At about the same time, I was talking to my friend who exercises a lot (much more than I have time for) and I asked him about his routine. He said that he gets up early, around 4:45am, and goes for a run -- minimum 5 miles -- and then in the afternoon he goes to the gym for weights. The magnitude was more than I would want, or be able, to do given my other commitments but it was the other things that he said that really struck me. </p>
<p>He runs regardless of the weather. That way there is no question about whether he will run on a given day. He said the hardest thing is getting out of bed in the morning, and pulling on the running clothes. But he just does it. I asked what happens if he starts thinking "Oh, I just want to sleep in today." and he replied that he doesn't allow that. He also said that he runs not for the physical benefits but for the mental benefits -- to clear his head. Finally, he said, that once he has done the hardest thing in the day -- waking up, and running in 23 degree weather, that the rest of the day doesn't seem that hard. That was the final pin that got pulled for me. I was looking at habits due to <a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a>, looking to accomplish something great, and it had brought me to the realization of how to revamp my exercise. </p>
<p>For the past three days -- and I hope for the foreseeable future -- I have gotten up early, around 5am, 20 minutes of strength (from the <a href="https://youtu.be/nnf1YyMB39g?si=3nRVrMhIkEff7XjD">The Only Five Exercises You Need</a> video, mostly, but also some from James Dunne's video <a href="https://youtu.be/bLdrCTponaE?si=ts3nsQxOgwMsrr06">12 Minute Strength Workout for Runners (INJURY PREVENTION)</a>), then 20 minutes of running outside. No treadmill allowed, no excuses. I'm sore, but not injured -- which I hope the strength exercises will help me keep the injuries away. <a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a> teaches us that a concerted effort every day can accomplish large effects over time. </p>
<p>I also learned that I need to be honest with myself, and there is more value in some things than others. I wrote 0 words yesterday, so I won't be getting the "1667 words every day badge". But I am fine with that. I had a day where I ran 2 miles in 23 degree weather before anyone was awake, taught 4 classes, had 3 meetings, and gave a research talk. At the end of the day, I had a choice of either working on NaNo to get that badge or to go out with my friends to relax. I chose my friends. There are some things more important, and one can't do everything that one wants to do. There are too many interesting things in this life, and one has to choose between them. That is not a bad thing.</p>
<p><a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a> forces one to face priorities and systems, while it teaches us valuable lessons about the power of consistent work toward a goal. I've decided to be a <a href="http://nanowrimo.org">NaNoWriMo</a> Rebel this year, doing the 50,000 words for the month, but not necessarily on the novel itself. In fact, probably not mostly on the novel. This post is my 1700 words for today. Have a great day!</p>What Does Probability have to do with God?2023-10-18T00:00:00-04:002023-10-18T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-10-18:/posts/2023/Oct/18/what-does-probability-have-to-do-with-god/<blockquote>
<p>In this talk, I will present a framework for rational inquiry based on probability theory. Probability theory is a branch of mathematics that deals with uncertainty and how to reason …</p></blockquote><blockquote>
<p>In this talk, I will present a framework for rational inquiry based on probability theory. Probability theory is a branch of mathematics that deals with uncertainty and how to reason about it. I will explain the basic concepts and principles of probability, and how they can be applied to any domain of interest, including theology, the study of the nature of God and religious beliefs. I will explore some of the key theological concepts, such as belief, faith, miracles, and the existence of God, and how they can be analyzed using probability. I will also compare and contrast the scientific method with other ways of acquiring knowledge, such as revelation and intuition. My aim is to provide a clear and consistent way of thinking about these topics, and to reveal the hidden assumptions and implications of various theological arguments. Along the way, I will demonstrate some surprising and counterintuitive results that arise from probability theory, and how they can lead to errors in reasoning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Links:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://calendar.mit.edu/event/probability_and_god">https://calendar.mit.edu/event/probability_and_god</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/static/MIT Talk - Oct 2023.pdf">pdf of the talk</a></li>
<li><a href="https://youtu.be/RFq1134pIc4?si=Q9OnMzMN1BkcbDDy">video of the talk</a></li>
</ul>Richard Bauckham and the Distribution of Names2023-10-17T00:00:00-04:002023-10-17T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-10-17:/posts/2023/Oct/17/richard-bauckham-and-the-distribution-of-names/<p>My work with Kamil Gregor on the reexamination of the analysis of names from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802874312">Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses</a> has been published:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gregor, K., & Blais, B. (2023). <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/aop/article-10.1163-17455197-bja10023/article-10.1163-17455197-bja10023.xml">Is Name …</a></p></blockquote><p>My work with Kamil Gregor on the reexamination of the analysis of names from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Eyewitnesses-Gospels-Eyewitness-Testimony/dp/0802874312">Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses</a> has been published:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Gregor, K., & Blais, B. (2023). <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/aop/article-10.1163-17455197-bja10023/article-10.1163-17455197-bja10023.xml">Is Name Popularity a Good Test of Historicity?: A Statistical Evaluation of Richard Bauckham’s Onomastic Argument</a>. <em>Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus</em>, <em>1</em>(aop), 1-32.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is featured on the <a href="https://youtu.be/oIMl4zlNMIA?si=I0WP4HBpFflzZUCf">Paulogia YouTube channel</a> and on an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2yGxbmWXl0">extended MythVision episode</a> where the paper is explored in detail.</p>
<ul>
<li>The paper can be found here: <a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/aop/article-10.1163-17455197-bja10023/article-10.1163-17455197-bja10023.xml">https://brill.com/view/journals/jshj/aop/article-10.1163-17455197-bja10023/article-10.1163-17455197-bja10023.xml</a></li>
<li>The dataset and analysis can be found here: <a href="https://github.com/classicsrepositories/bauckham-onomastics">https://github.com/classicsrepositories/bauckham-onomastics</a></li>
</ul>Bible in a Year2023-08-14T00:00:00-04:002023-08-14T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-08-14:/posts/2023/Aug/14/bible-in-a-year/<p>So I listened to the <a href="https://media.ascensionpress.com/category/ascension-podcasts/bibleinayear/">Bible in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz</a> where Fr. Mike Schmitz reads the entire bible across 365 days. I had read the Bible …</p><p>So I listened to the <a href="https://media.ascensionpress.com/category/ascension-podcasts/bibleinayear/">Bible in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz</a> where Fr. Mike Schmitz reads the entire bible across 365 days. I had read the Bible before, many years ago, but having it in audio format had a few advantages.</p>
<ol>
<li>you can "read" the Bible while doing other things -- mowing the lawn, driving, etc...</li>
<li>you don't skip through the long lists of names and the repetition</li>
<li>you hear explanations of the readings, especially reminders of difficult person- or place-names or when the story repeats from a previous chapter</li>
</ol>
<p>Along the way I took random notes and cross-checked some things with other sources and I am collecting these notes here for anyone interested. I didn't write about every single day (frankly, some of my responses got repetitive) but I did write across the entire year. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://bnspcatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/the-official-365-day-reading-plan-for-the-bible-in-a-year.pdf">full schedule of the podcast can be downloaded here</a>.</p>
<p>Where I refer to "commentary" or to "Fr. Mike Schmitz" I'm referring to the analysis after each reading. The format of each day is a short intro (mostly the same), the reading, and then a commentary. Here's the TLDR.</p>
<ul>
<li>I really do appreciate Fr. Mike Schmitz's earnestness and his sense of humor. Even though I don’t agree with nearly anything he says, in terms of content, I do thank him for the amount of time and effort that he put into this and his honest communication.</li>
<li>There is nothing in the Bible that even suggests that the person writing this knew more than me or anyone else in history, let alone an omniscient being. If someone could point to anything in this book that indicates omniscient input, I'd love to hear it.</li>
<li>I don’t think I will ever do this again. It’s an incredible amount of time even with the advantage of the podcast. </li>
<li>I am unclear about the lessons in the Bible -- there is an incredible amount of barbarism which, in any other book, I would have stopped reading. Even the lessons of Jesus are suspect, and the repetition is incredibly inefficient. </li>
<li>As one reads the notes below, there is a lot of justification given for things that are clearly terrible. Again, if any other book said these things there is no way a moral person like Fr. Mike Schmitz would put forward such justifications and rationalizations.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-1-genesis-12-psalm-19">Day 1 - Genesis 1–2 Psalm 19</h2>
<ul>
<li>There is nothing in the creation narratives that even suggests that the person writing this knew more than me, let alone being omniscient. there is no hint of other planets, of heliocentrism, of galaxies -- even though that would have been trivial for a god to communicate.</li>
<li>The entire story sounds like Aesop's fables, or other ancient creation myths.</li>
<li>The commentary said that this creation account is unique in the ancient world because the world was not created out of fighting or sexual interaction. this is just not true, as the Genesis story is a slight change from some of the Babylonian creation accounts (the Ionians had stories just like this). what makes it Jewish is that it reinforced the 7-day week, so that Jews in exile would still keep the Sabbath.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-2-genesis-34-psalm-104">Day 2 - Genesis 3–4 Psalm 104</h2>
<ul>
<li>Who was the honest one and who was dishonest in the story of Adam and Eve? It's clear that the snake (which is nowhere stated to be either Satan or Lucifer) is honest whereas Yahweh is not.</li>
<li>Apparently the use of the word "snake" here is related to Tiamat or Levaiathan -- the great sea creature, also known as the agent of chaos. The ancient creation myths often have god (or gods) of order fighting chaos. Even in genesis, it is God who lays out the order over the waters (not ex nihilo).</li>
</ul>
<p>As I was reading this, I also listened to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy_2FMlTSHI&list=PL4P20nug29iy5BsrXBlpK3YMcbUKYQnV0">Robert M Price's 9-part Genesis Study</a>, where I got most of what I know about the ancient creation myths.</p>
<h2 id="day-3-genesis-56-psalm-136">Day 3 - Genesis 5–6 Psalm 136</h2>
<ul>
<li>Hearing the genealogies and the start of the Noah story, I wonder where all the people came from since it started with two (Adam and Eve) and both Cain and Seth came from Eve, so where did their wives come from?</li>
<li>Also, wouldn't god know that the flood wouldn't solve his problems?</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-4-genesis-79-psalm-1">Day 4 - Genesis 7–9 Psalm 1</h2>
<ul>
<li>Of course there's all the ridiculousness of the flood, making it clearly a myth, but I want to focus on another piece. There's a point where it says when one sheds man's blood that one's blood will be shed by man. </li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%209%3A6&version=ESV">Genesis 9:6</a></p>
<p>“Whoever sheds the <strong>blood</strong> of man, by man shall his <strong>blood</strong> be shed, for God made man in his own image.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The commentary says this is a prohibition against murder. But I think it's pretty clear that it's not a prohibition against murder, but rather an endorsement of blood revenge.</p>
<h2 id="day-5-genesis-1011-psalm-2">Day 5 - Genesis 10–11 Psalm 2</h2>
<ul>
<li>So the Tower of Babel story seems to be another one of these Aesop's fables, or just so stories. God comes down to confuse them deliberately, because they are being successful, and then the spin in the commentary is all about how their success was because of lust for power, and not just for excellence. It's amazing how these commentaries paint everything in a positive light rather than a straightforward reading of the text. </li>
<li>It's also interesting that Enoch, who lives 365 years has the same properties as the sun gods in the Assyrian and Babylonian mythologies, including being taken up to heaven, and conquering the flood. In this way, Robert M Price suggests that Enoch was probably the original hero of the flood story and the story was rewritten for Noah. </li>
<li>Another interesting point is the mention of the "sons of God", and the "daughters of men", which are parallel to the existence of Demi-gods and huge warriors, such as Gilgamesh, and serves as the origin of evil in the world. The story comes right before the flood, and serves as a justification for the flood. </li>
<li>Also interesting is that there are two flood stories interweaved. One version talks about 150 days and to buy two of every single animal. The other version includes clean and unclean animals, which, if the later parts of the Bible are believed, this distinction shouldn't have happened until Moses -- the kosher laws didn't exist until Moses.</li>
<li>Also, the flood story in the epic of Gilgamesh is remarkably similar.</li>
<li>In the really weird story about Noah, getting drunk and his son Ham seeing him I never noticed that Noah's response was to curse Canaan. Robert M price suspects that there is something that isn't actually said that has been omitted, and that Canaan, who is Ham's son may have done whatever terrible thing or the original story had Canaan as the fourth son. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-9-genesis-1819-job-78-proverbs-21-5">Day 9 - Genesis 18–19 Job 7–8 Proverbs 2:1-5</h2>
<ul>
<li>Got Covid so no responses for a while. </li>
<li>Lots of circumcisions. None of this sounds like an all-knowing being writing or inspiring this.</li>
<li>Why all this animal sacrifice?</li>
<li>The name, Isaac, means "one who laughs". Which is a literary nod to Abraham laughing. </li>
<li>Also the story with Abraham arguing with God just sounds ridiculous to me right now. Although, there is a treatment of this scenario which explores the idea of being good without God in the Beyond Belief 2006 Conference, with <a href="https://youtu.be/bq3L5Ezk_Es?t=272">Susan Neiman's presentation</a>. In this treatment, the moral reasoning of the story is explored thoughtfully, but I get the feeling that one could read this sort of thing into nearly any story.</li>
<li>Lot gave his daughters to protect the men who came?</li>
<li>Still this story sounds like just-so stories -- explaining why a city was destroyed.</li>
<li>What is up with the story of Lots daughters sleeping with him? Weird!</li>
<li>Those countries are enemies of Israel so maybe another just so story</li>
<li>From Robert M Price -- apparently it was a common practice for a priest or shaman to help infertile women conceive (presumably by sleeping with her either with or without husbands permission). This is related to the many pagan stories of gods impregnating women. My addition -- the connection to the Jesus story is pretty obvious here. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-11-genesis-2223-job-1112-proverbs-29-15">Day 11 - Genesis 22–23 Job 11–12 Proverbs 2:9-15</h2>
<ul>
<li>So I learned from Robert M Price that there is a parallel story for the Isaac and Abraham story, coming <a href="https://www.greeklegendsandmyths.com/phrixus.html">from Greece</a>. In this story, there was a king (Athamas of Boeotia), with a son named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrixus">Phrixus</a>. Apparently the son was from his first wife, but his second wife, after the first wife died, was discontent and wanted her own son with the king be the heir. So she arranged to have the priest make up a fake decree that the firstborn son had to be sacrificed. The king took the son out, and just before the blade struck he was stopped by Hercules, who said that Zeus does not want human sacrifice. He then provided a ram as a replacement, and then the king and the son came back home. This story either exists at the same time or earlier than the one in the Bible, it's pretty incredible that there's such a parallel story at the same time. This means that one copied from the other or they both were part of a soup of stories, where you had common themes across many cultures.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-13-genesis-2526-job-1516-proverbs-220-22">Day 13 - Genesis 25–26 Job 15–16 Proverbs 2:20-22</h2>
<ul>
<li>The Joseph story is a retelling of the Osiris-Horus story. </li>
<li>As a side comment, there are so many times where I believe in the translation on this podcast they just say "the Lord" in different sources, where the originals used different name, e.g. Yahweh, Elohim, etc... In the text sometimes a different font is used.</li>
<li>Esau and Isaac are both Sun gods, and Jacob is a moon God. </li>
<li>Many of the stories are retellings of other stories of these gods made into stories about people.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-32-exodus-9-leviticus-7-psalm-49">Day 32 - Exodus 9 Leviticus 7 Psalm 49</h2>
<ul>
<li>Talking about how God hardens pharaoh's heart, and how this is not about taking away his free will came up in the commentary, which is really pretty lame. </li>
<li>First, they say God is all good and perfect, even though the story doesn't sound like that at all like not even remotely. He's bragging about how he's showing off his power He's being petulant and even his power seems pretty weak. I'm pretty sure I could think of other ways to demonstrate power that would not involve frogs and locusts. </li>
<li>But anyway back to the hardening of the heart. The analogy Mike Schmitz uses is of wax and clay in the sun. You have something like wax which softens in the heat of the sun and you have something like clay, which hardens in the heat of the sun. So when God hardens pharaoh's heart it is just that pharaohs heart has a propensity to harden in the presence of God and God is not eliminating the free will of the pharaoh. I'm not convinced by this analogy, but it is at least an attempt.</li>
<li>God says "I have made sport of the Egyptians". I'm pretty sure <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion_of_Sinope">Marcion</a> had it correct when he said that the God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, was not the same God as the God Jesus is talking about. It's hard to imagine Jesus of the story endorsing such barbarious actions.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-34-exodus-12-leviticus-9-psalm-114">Day 34 - Exodus 12 Leviticus 9 Psalm 114</h2>
<ul>
<li>So the story here is of the Passover where God kills the firstborn of all the Egyptians. And then father Mike Schmitz says that this was 100% justice that God is 100% just. And the reason that this is "just" was because pharaoh didn't let the people go, and he was warned that this was going to happen. Doesn't matter what happened to the babies it seems! That doesn't seem like justice to me. That seems like petty retribution. Why didn't God just punish the pharaoh directly? Why does he have to punish other people? Why does he have to punish innocence? This is not justice. But those who take this document as the inspired word of God have to say that this is justice and turn off their moral compass. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-39-exodus-21-leviticus-14-psalm-75">Day 39 - Exodus 21 Leviticus 14 Psalm 75</h2>
<ul>
<li>The commentary has the typical apologetic that the slavery at that time was more like an indentured servitude. It is suggested that you would give your services because you're too poor. However, Fr Schmitz doesn't seem to recognize that the Bible clearly states many times that the slaves are your property and you can hand them down as such and that the girls are your sex slaves. It ignores the totally immoral laws like if you beat your slaves and they don't die immediately and they live for a few days you will not be punished because the slave is your property. This apologetic is what you get when you blindly believe that this book has to be perfect, or has to be entirely correct and you have to bend over backwards and ignore your own morality in order to make these ridiculous arguments. Frankly, it's disgusting. I mean ask yourself the question is it ever, in any context, justifiable to own someone as property?</li>
<li>Fr Schmitz goes further, giving excuses for God, that the people in the stories don't really know him, and that the gods around are unfair, and God's coming from a place of justice. This is very hard to tell from the rules God's giving. That somehow the fact that these were more barbaric peoples is an excuse for basically talking down to them. This is God, who can supposedly make entire universes. And you're saying he can't find a way to convince people who are used to slavery that, "hey, maybe owning people as property should be one of the more important of the 10 Commandments"? He seems to be able to convince them to do all sorts of crazy animal sacrifices, and not to have blended fabrics, and this is beyond him? The excuse making is just outrageous, and repugnant, given the nature of the material in these books.</li>
<li>Fr Schmitz does say that God has to come down to the level. The analogy is that you would not criticize a first grader for doing arithmetic while you're doing calculus. The problem is that there were other cultures at that time that actually had moral systems superior to this, so it clearly wasn't beyond these people. It's just as an excuse that is being given for this outrageous book. </li>
<li>
<p>Fr Schmitz literally says that the slaves are not your property in his explanation of indentured servitude. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Exodus 21:20-21: 20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, <strong>since the slave is their property.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>It's these kind of morally repugnant stances that make me want to stop listening to this podcast. What he's doing is reading <em>into</em> the text what he <em>wants it to be</em> and not actually reading what it says. I would think that would be blasphemy?</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-40-exodus-22-leviticus-15-psalm-76">Day 40 - Exodus 22 Leviticus 15 Psalm 76</h2>
<ul>
<li>Lots of male discharges. 😂🤮</li>
<li>This really is the best that God can do? </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-41-exodus-23-leviticus-16-psalm-77">Day 41 - Exodus 23 Leviticus 16 Psalm 77</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Exodus 34:26 You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Glad I got that one stated -- I was just about to do that! 😀</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-42-exodus-24-leviticus-1718-psalm-78">Day 42 - Exodus 24 Leviticus 17–18 Psalm 78</h2>
<ul>
<li>It's all rules about who can sleep with whom, mostly prohibition against incest. Mike Schmitz makes a point that there are some rules that are eternal (moral laws) and some rules that are specific to the Jewish people or to the temple (temple laws). So the example of mixed fabrics is something that passed away because Israel passed away. </li>
<li>Makes me wonder then what is the status of the 10 Commandments? Are such laws eternal given that most do not have to do with moral questions. It also makes me wonder about the rules about stoning your daughter who is not a virgin. The social rules have to be moral rules, right? I doubt that the Bible is very specific about these things. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-48-exodus-3334-leviticus-24-psalm-80">Day 48 - Exodus 33–34 Leviticus 24 Psalm 80</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Exodus 34:26 You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>A direct command by God, seemingly more important than "you should not own people as property."</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-49-exodus-3536-leviticus-25-psalm-81">Day 49 - Exodus 35–36 Leviticus 25 Psalm 81</h2>
<ul>
<li>Lots of putting people to death for various transgressions. It's really hard to imagine a God of peace and justice saying these things. Again I'm thinking the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion_of_Sinope">Marcionites</a> had correct.</li>
<li>There's a lot of Aoife (actually ephah, which is a measurement in Israel). I'm not sure what the word actually is but it's a measure of some kind of grain or liquid.</li>
<li>And we have more stuff about slavery in this one, including a case where someone said, if your brother is poor, you can take him as a servant, but not a slave and he can work and repay things and then go back to his family. This seems to go against the idea that "slavery" refers to indentured servitude in all contexts, because this is an example where it is contrasted, almost specifically, with indentured servitude</li>
<li>And the fact that the book specifies how to treat slaves from Israel versus slaves from other countries goes against the interpretation that slavery is indentured servitude</li>
<li>Fr Schmitz also says that the reason that things repeat is because you repeat the important things. I think we can pretty much dispense with that idea, because there are many things that repeat that are really not that important. It seems much more reasonable that things repeat because they came from different sources that were cobbled together and in some cases they merged the stories and in other cases they just put them back to back, not wanting to get rid of any particular source.</li>
<li>This entire discussion about slaves is really terrible and wrong. First Fr. Schmitz is saying that this is the only way God could have done this -- by essentially endorsing slavery temporarily, possibly so that these people can grow, even though there were people in other countries who did not have slaves even at that time. Seems like he's selling God short and have a lack of imagination. </li>
<li>The problem with all of this is that if you assume that this book is written by the creator of the universe, who is all-just and all-good, you will have to bend your own morality into knots. </li>
<li>Fr. Schmitz says that the Bible is good and true, but sometimes you have to read between the lines. What that means is that you read what you want to read. It's more like reading around the lines. He said that there are many churches that try to guess what God wants -- seems like this is what he's doing as well.</li>
<li>The idea that a God would <em>want to be worshiped</em> seems perverse to me. How can any thinking being want to be worshiped? Why would they want a creation of theirs to worship them? for me I can't imagine making something myself and then wanting to have it worship me.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-56-numbers-5-deuteronomy-5-psalm-90">Day 56 - Numbers 5 Deuteronomy 5 Psalm 90</h2>
<ul>
<li>It is really interesting to hear Fr. Schmitz bending over backwards to justify the use of idols in the Catholic Church and how it’s not a violation of one of the commandments. Now I don’t really care one way or another whether it’s true, but it does show that you can twist any text to mean pretty much the opposite of what it says. This particular case is just such a great example of that.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-61-numbers-11-deuteronomy-10-psalm-33">Day 61 - Numbers 11 Deuteronomy 10 Psalm 33</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Deuteronomy 10:16 - 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>What a great and odd phrase "foreskin of your heart"</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-70-numbers-22-deuteronomy-23-psalm-105">Day 70 - Numbers 22 Deuteronomy 23 Psalm 105</h2>
<ul>
<li>So we get a story of a talking donkey. Is this a book we need to take seriously?</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-71-numbers-23-deuteronomy-2425-psalm-106">Day 71 - Numbers 23 Deuteronomy 24–25 Psalm 106</h2>
<ul>
<li>There’s a quote about being put to death only for your own sin, which I think is indirect contradiction to the idea of original sin.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>Deuteronomy 24 - 6 Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="day-84-joshua-1011-psalm-128">Day 84 - Joshua 10–11 Psalm 128</h2>
<ul>
<li>Fr. Schmitz discussing the sun standing still as possibly against science, and then he sites Galileo incorrectly, and says that it was more about ego versus ego, rather than about faith versus science. But then he says that Copernicus, who was also a priest had already made that observation of a heliocentric solar system, and there was no backlash against him. What Fr. Schmitz fails to realize is that Copernicus did not publish his work until after he died <em>because he was afraid of the backlash.</em> He knew there would be a backlash.</li>
<li>Fr. Schmitz then refers to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_the_Sun">Fatima miracle</a> as being similar. Or he says it could be allegorical. Seems to me that if this is allegorical why not the entire story? Also the <a href="https://cdn.centerforinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2009/11/22164423/p14.pdf">story of Fatima has its own issues</a>. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-97-1-samuel-35-psalm-150">Day 97 - 1 Samuel 3–5 Psalm 150</h2>
<blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%203%3A1&version=ESV">1 Samuel 3:1</a> Now the boy Samuel <strong>was</strong> ministering to the <strong>Lord</strong> in the presence of Eli. And the word of the <strong>Lord</strong> <strong>was</strong> <strong>rare</strong> in those days; there <strong>was</strong> no frequent vision.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s a really interesting quote and reminds me of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind">Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.</a></p>
<h2 id="day-99-john-13-proverbs-51-6">Day 99 - John 1–3 Proverbs 5:1-6</h2>
<ul>
<li>The Gospel of John says “truly truly I say to you“ so many times.</li>
<li>It’s interesting that Jesus overturned the temple in John Chapter 2 and not at the end as in the other Gospels</li>
<li>In the Gospel of John, he is constantly saying that he is the Son of the Father and the Father works through him and the Father and I are one. I don’t think this happens in Mark.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-130-2-samuel-12-1-chronicles-16-psalm-51">Day 130 - 2 Samuel 12 1 Chronicles 16 Psalm 51</h2>
<ul>
<li>We have a lovely story about David committing adultery that was in the previous day and in this day he’s punished by God. How is he punished? The baby that he was having with his current-wife was killed. After the readings, Fr. Mike Schmitz talks about how God loves you and wants to set you back on the right path and all I could think of was "what about that baby?" Is that baby going to hell? Did God love that baby? Did that baby deserve what happened? Was David actually punished? The morality of this book is pretty atrocious. </li>
<li>I get about a week behind, and then I binge a number of episodes. The problem is one of motivation is because the Bible is such a painful book. There is no indication that anyone smarter than ancient goat herders wrote this thing. I can’t even tell most of the time what the message is supposed to be, or even if there is supposed to be a message. What’s the point? The interpretations seem strained at best. It’s just so hard to spend any time on this stuff.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-153-1-kings-11-ecclesiastes-1012-psalm-9">Day 153 - 1 Kings 11 Ecclesiastes 10–12 Psalm 9</h2>
<ul>
<li>it seems that Yahweh likes punishing some for the sins of others. Solomon started following other gods, so Yahweh decides to break up the kingdom -- but not while Solomon is alive, but to his son. This all seems like someone writing to explain why a sequel kingdom failed by attributing the failure to the sins of Solomon. I think this is a super common theme at this point in the Bible -- when things go well, they attribute it to God, when things go badly, they attribute it to the missteps of the leaders with respect to their service to god. </li>
<li>Still, there has been absolutely nothing that <em>even hints</em> at an omniscient writer or influencer.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-161-mark-1516-psalm-22">Day 161 - Mark 15–16 Psalm 22</h2>
<ul>
<li>Fr. Schmitz says that Psalm 22 is so close to what Jesus went through that it was prophecy. It seems so clear to me that Mark wrote the Psalm into the story. How could you tell the difference?</li>
<li>This version of the Bible had the long version of Mark that I hadn’t heard. It has the handling snakes and drinking poison parts. Interesting that the actual Gospel ends with sending the women out and "they said nothing to anyone". </li>
<li>Fr. Schmitz also says that it is an amazing sacrifice for God to have his son killed but I thing David Smalley puts it best as "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmlatsb8-VA">a bad weekend at human camp</a>". </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-165-1-kings-1516-2-chronicles-1617-song-of-solomon-4">Day 165 - 1 Kings 15–16 2 Chronicles 16–17 Song of Solomon 4</h2>
<ul>
<li>There’s a point where Fr. Schmitz says that God doesn’t need these animals that are sacrificed. But it is a symbol of their trust in him, because those are the most valuable things that they sacrifice. Perhaps that's a metaphor that Jordan Peterson could make something out of. You need to sacrifice yourself to others, or to the greater good. It doesn’t mean anything unless it’s an actual sacrifice of something that’s meaningful to you. But I think as a statement of reality, I just don’t see the wisdom of it. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-166-1-kings-1718-2-chronicles-1819-song-of-solomon-5">Day 166 - 1 Kings 17–18 2 Chronicles 18–19 Song of Solomon 5</h2>
<ul>
<li>So there’s a showdown between Elisha and the prophets of Baal. He proposes a test, which of course Yahweh succeeds. It makes me think that if Yahweh was totally fine with this sort of test in the past why can’t we do it now? Why did they say you should not test the Lord thy God? And yet such stories occur in the Old Testament. Did God change?</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-169-1-kings-22-2-chronicles-23-song-of-solomon-8">Day 169 - 1 Kings 22 2 Chronicles 23 Song of Solomon 8</h2>
<ul>
<li>Seems as if God sends a lying spirit to the prophets of the enemy to undermine them. How is that at all different than God lying himself? How would you ever know if the prophets you have are telling the truth if this is a live option?</li>
<li>The Song of Solomon seems to really like pomegranates</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-170-2-kings-1-2-chronicles-24-psalm-69">Day 170 - 2 Kings 1 2 Chronicles 24 Psalm 69</h2>
<ul>
<li>In the Psalms, it talked about giving vinegar to drink as a prophecy for the story of Jesus, and it makes me wonder if you were making the story of Jesus and you had only the Old Testament stories to go on, how much of the Jesus story would you be able to make? It almost seems as if the New Testament is fanfiction of the Old Testament. The miracles of Elisha seem very similar. The Psalms give almost every part of the crucifixion story. So if you were to say, write fanfiction in the style of the Old Testament, but set in the Roman time, you would pretty much get exactly the Gospel of Mark. Just add some legendary embellishments, and some appearances and things like that and you get the other gospels.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-171-2-kings-2-2-chronicles-25-psalm-70">Day 171 - 2 Kings 2 2 Chronicles 25 Psalm 70</h2>
<ul>
<li>We have the story of the Bears sent to kill 42 children because they called Elijah "baldy". And in the name of the Lord, this was done. What are we to make of a story like that?</li>
<li>Another one that reiterates the message that has occurred in a number of places, that the descendants of someone will not be killed for the transgressions of their ancestors. And yet we get the opposite message many times, because God seems to punish the children and the children’s children for the transgressions of the ancestor.</li>
<li>Fr. Schmitz has a pretty impressive dodge of the she-bear story. He essentially says that it may not be young boys, but could be young men -- basically ruffians -- and it wasn’t about an insult. It was about proper worship of God versus improper worship of God given where they were in the north as opposed to the south. I still think the moral argument against the story runs no matter what, but I find it really interesting that he has to do these contortions to try to get out of a fairly straightforward story and its consequences. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-173-2-kings-4-2-chronicles-28-psalm-127">Day 173 - 2 Kings 4 2 Chronicles 28 Psalm 127</h2>
<ul>
<li>There’s a story of one of the kings of Judah, where he set up molten offerings to the old gods and sacrifices his own sons. In the commentary, Fr. Schmitz relates to the stories and comes very close to saying that it was terrible that the king sacrifices his sons in this way. This would then clearly call into question the story of Jesus, so Fr. Schmitz says the problem is not that he sacrificed his sons but that he sacrificed his sons <em>to the wrong God</em>. It is very interesting hearing the contortions again trying to avoid saying anything bad about Jehovah.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-174-2-kings-5-hosea-13-psalm-101">Day 174 - 2 Kings 5 Hosea 1–3 Psalm 101</h2>
<ul>
<li>Fr. Schmitz says that one of the common messages for the prophets is warning North Israel to change the ways or else God will let them go. He then stresses that this is not in conflict with God's patience being infinite, but that the story comes to an end just like our life comes to an end, and that we get whatever we’ve chosen and we get that for eternity. And I’m wondering why does it have to be like that? Why over such a tiny amount of time are we judged for eternity? Why not do it in a more gradual way? The first hundred years and then you get some kind of signal and then the next hundred years and another one? Or maybe it should be like in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4955642/">The Good Place</a>? It just seems that Fr. Schmitz is insistent on making sure his view of God is reasonable </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-182-2-kings-16-micah-14-psalm-139">Day 182 - 2 Kings 16 Micah 1–4 Psalm 139</h2>
<ul>
<li>In what way is the king sacrificing his sons is any worse than God sacrificing Jesus?</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-183-2-kings-17-micah-57-psalm-140">Day 183 - 2 Kings 17 Micah 5–7 Psalm 140</h2>
<ul>
<li>Finally an interesting tidbit. The kingdom of Samaria of the north was broken up into five nations. Then in Jesus, his story about the woman who is the Samaritan, he says that she has had five husbands before and the one she is with now it’s not her husband. It just shows that so many stories are not just morality tales. They are literally drawn from aspects of the Old Testament stories.</li>
<li>And then we having Micah prophecy of the one who will come from Bethlehem. Of course Fr. Schmitz takes this as prophecy but it’s so much easier to understand it, as the New Testament writers simply reading the Old Testament in writing stories.</li>
<li>I have to say that I really haven’t learned a whole lot from reading the Bible. I feel as if I could’ve learned just as much in a much shorter way. This is the reason why I just want to get it done so I can say that I did it. This is not a meditation for me really.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-185-2-kings-19-2-chronicles-30-psalm-143">Day 185 - 2 Kings 19 2 Chronicles 30 Psalm 143</h2>
<ul>
<li>There’s a story or prayer about how the Syrians are attacking a particular city, and a prayer states that God will not allow them to take the city. There’s a story about how an angel of the Lord came down and wiped out much of the Syrians and the rest got sent home. It seems as if they are in every single case when the people have a victory it’s God's doing, and when they have a defeat it’s because the people failed to do something. This is classic religious thinking.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-195-isaiah-78-tobit-79-proverbs-105-8">Day 195 - Isaiah 7–8 Tobit 7–9 Proverbs 10:5-8</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>We have the Isaiah so-called prophecy, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Isaiah 7 - 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>I say "so-called" because the sign is for military victory for the king, and it actually happens <em>in the next verse</em>. There’s no hint at all that this was meant to be a prophecy for the future. It is much more reasonable to think that someone looking for details to put into the New Testament story would latch onto this and add it to the story.</p>
</li>
<li>Just for reference, there is a long list of failed prophecies online: <a href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_prophecies#Failed.2FUnfulfilled_prophecies">https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_prophecies#Wrong_prophecies</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-197-isaiah-1113-tobit-1314-proverbs-1013-16">Day 197 - Isaiah 11–13 Tobit 13–14 Proverbs 10:13-16</h2>
<ul>
<li>We have a number of statements about the rise and fall of various countries, many of which are true, some of which are demonstrably false. This really causes us to question the entire idea of prophecy in the Old Testament.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-202-isaiah-2324-habakkuk-12-proverbs-111-4">Day 202 - Isaiah 23–24 Habakkuk 1–2 Proverbs 11:1-4</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Isaiah 24 - Behold, the Lord will empty the earth[<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+24&version=ESV#fen-ESV-18097a" title="See footnote a">a</a>] and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants.</p>
<ul>
<li>They claim that the Earth will be scorched and bunch of things happen to "the Earth" but why is there not any mention of China or the Americas or any other lands other than the local lands of the author? Did God not know about these?</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="day-213-isaiah-4748-ezekiel-89-proverbs-1213-16">Day 213 - Isaiah 47–48 Ezekiel 8–9 Proverbs 12:13-16</h2>
<ul>
<li>Son of man term used in a vision. Not sure what this means</li>
<li>I have to say that these prophets are super tiring. It’s the same message again and again. Praise god for his greatness. Israel, you’ve stopped following him and follow false gods and you will be or are being punished. Rinse repeat repent. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-218-isaiah-5758-ezekiel-1718-proverbs-135-8">Day 218 - Isaiah 57–58 Ezekiel 17–18 Proverbs 13:5-8</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Ezekiel 18:20 - 20 The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Tell that to everyone who has original sin. Geesh. </li>
<li>Another common theme in the prophets is how God will bring his people back to Israel from the scattered places, and there everyone will live happily ever after.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-223-isaiah-66-ezekiel-2526-proverbs-141-4">Day 223 - Isaiah 66 Ezekiel 25–26 Proverbs 14:1-4</h2>
<ul>
<li>The prediction that Tyre will be forever destroyed. Let’s ask the people who live there today. 😀</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-241-jeremiah-2425-daniel-67-proverbs-165-8">Day 241 - Jeremiah 24–25 Daniel 6–7 Proverbs 16:5-8</h2>
<ul>
<li>God is going to show his wrath over the whole earth. All of the inhabitants of the earth. Of course, none of this is written in any other continent.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-243-jeremiah-2829-daniel-1011-proverbs-1613-16">Day 243 - Jeremiah 28–29 Daniel 10–11 Proverbs 16:13-16</h2>
<ul>
<li>About Daniel 11, Fr. Schmitz says that the prophecies are so great that skeptics say it had to be written after the fact. </li>
</ul>
<p>Just after writing that last comment I read <a href="https://infidels.org/library/modern/chris-sandoval-daniel/">another author talking about Daniel</a>. I wanted to see how it was dated. There is this gem: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many critical scholars attribute the obvious historical errors of the book of Daniel to naïveté. I find it more likely that the author generally knew what he was doing and wrote honest anachronistic inspirational fiction, the literary equivalent of the faith-promoting <em>Left Behind</em> series of our own time. His friends and contemporaries already expected God to set up the messianic kingdom very soon in their own lifetimes, and his cycle of short stories regarding Daniel merely gave literary expression to their preexisting beliefs.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="day-251-jeremiah-4142-judith-1214-proverbs-1713-16">Day 251 - Jeremiah 41–42 Judith 12–14 Proverbs 17:13-16</h2>
<ul>
<li>So we are finishing up the book of Judith. And essentially it’s a story about this Jewish woman who goes and infiltrates the Assyrians and devises a way to be alone with the leader, and then chops his head off delivers the head to the Jewish people so that they can win. They claim that God is with them and hasn’t left them. What am I supposed to learn from this? As far as I can tell this is yet another barbaric story from a barbaric people justifying their barbaric actions by saying that God is with them. Is this really the best that an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent agent can do? There’s just no hint that this is inspired by anything greater than the barbaric people that they’re talking about.</li>
<li>I’m reminded about some thing Matt Dillahunty had said about how religion distorts morality. The theist always claims that the source of morality is God and that you can’t be moral without God. Or they say that the atheist is either not moral or borrowing it from religion. But when I look at this, we pretty much have an act that is directly murder. It is a violation of one of the 10 Commandments. It is immoral. It is brutal. And then it is celebrated. And then Fr. Schmitz has the audacity to say things like Judith‘s virtuousness was never lost. Her purity was never lost. And that this murderous act was a theme with several other cases where someone chopped off their head or put a spike through their head, or Mary steps on the head of the snake. </li>
<li>Pretty much if you can argue an action and it’s direct opposite are both moral then you have lost your way. </li>
<li>Not sure if I mentioned this but way back when when they were list of names in the Vhronicles, Fr. Schmitz said something about he had a prayer where he was thanking God and he mentioned how these names were important, even though we only had a name and we didn’t know anything else about them. The problem with that is that if they were important, then we would have more than just names, and the fact that we only have the names really does speak to the level of ineptitude of the communication with ancient books. It also speaks to the fact that Fr. Schmitz is going to say everything is important in this book whether it seems so or not. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-259-matthew-57-proverbs-1821-24">Day 259 - Matthew 5–7 Proverbs 18:21-24</h2>
<ul>
<li>This is the one with the sermon on the mount. I’m reminded of <a href="https://youtu.be/i2V5ZWVUpn8">Matt Dillahunty’s covering of the Sermon on the Mount</a>. </li>
</ul>
<p>Notes from that video follow here:</p>
<ul>
<li>The early part of the sermon essentially says that while things are bad now, they will get better -- either in this life or the next</li>
<li>This makes it so that people are less likely to try to get out of bad situations -- it helped keep women and slaves in marginalized positions for centuries</li>
<li>Matt 5:7-9 - a naive reward system for good behavior. Be merciful so that you'll get mercy from god, etc...</li>
<li>10-12 -- Encourages divisiveness through the expectation of persecution. When they think they are being persecuted (either correctly or incorrectly) they believe they are doing the right thing by God</li>
<li>Matt 5:16 says let your light shine.... Matt 6:1 says the opposite, and is confusing at best</li>
<li>5:21-26: Thought crimes as equivalent to murder. </li>
<li>5:27-28: More thought crimes, lust is not adultery. Also it's sexist (whomsoever looks at a woman lustfully) -- why is God sexist here? Same with 31-32. Also bad advice -- suffer through marriages that don't include infidelity, no matter how bad they are. </li>
<li>5:37 - Good advice, keep your word. of course the "don't swear oaths dictate" is not followed by Christians -- they swear on bibles, etc...</li>
<li>38-39: Justice doesn't have to fall on the extremes of vengeance and pacifism. </li>
<li>Encourages victimization. </li>
<li>43-44: Love your enemies is not reasonable or practiced (even by Jesus who will torture enemies forever)</li>
<li>Matt 6:6 -- pray in private. good advice that is not taken.<blockquote>
<p>"proper adherence to this verse implies that prayer shouldn't be in school at all it means that we shouldn't be swearing people and on Bibles shouldn't open city council meetings with prayers we shouldn't have a Christian television network public prayer meetings the National Day of Prayer etc Christians who support these goals are hypocrites they're willfully disobeying a direct order that they believe is from Jesus it's not like they're disobeying Paul or John this is supposed to be the words of their Savior and they chuck it aside proving that they are their own God making their own rules</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>6:25-34: Live for today, God will take care of you. Bad advice. </li>
<li>7:1-6: Don't be a hypocrite -- good advice</li>
<li>Don't cast your pearls before swine</li>
<li>7:12: Golden rule is not original with jesus, or the Old Testament.<blockquote>
<p>"Jesus's version while fairly good is actually one of the poorer versions I've seen. Saying "do unto others what you would have them do to you" isn't nearly as wise as "do unto others as they would have you do unto them". I might like somebody to be brutally honest with me but they might prefer that I sugarcoat my words and it's better to treat them in the way that they want and encourage them to treat you in the way that you want"</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>there are other things other sayings that may be even better like "strive to do as much good as possible and as little harm as possible". Why didn't Jesus say something like that?</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Matt 7:15-23 the second part contradicts the first. Either you are judged by your works or you aren't. It also calls into question the belief necessity for salvation.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-261-matthew-1113-proverbs-195-8">Day 261 - Matthew 11–13 Proverbs 19:5-8</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Matthew 12 - 38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 <strong>For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>If you look at the resurrection narratives this doesn't add up (you can see <a href="http://localhost:8000/search.html?q=resurrection">my posts about the Resurrection here</a>) -- Friday night to Sunday morning is not "three days and three nights"</li>
<li>Jesus was asked why speak in parables, and he essentially gave the classic conspiracy theory answer, which is so that you would have secret knowledge, and the others would be ignorant. This is one way that groups that share conspiracy theories maintain their community by giving its members the illusion that they have secret knowledge that no one else has. This may have helped Christianity to spread. </li>
<li>Fr. Schmitz says that in the story there are those that saw miracles and didn’t believe. So if you think that you’ll believe if you see a miracle that may not be true. At least for me if I see a verified miracle I would at least pay attention. Otherwise, how can I possibly take any of this stuff seriously?</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-262-matthew-1417-proverbs-199-12">Day 262 - Matthew 14–17 Proverbs 19:9-12</h2>
<ul>
<li>Seems as if the Peter "on this rock" quote is omitted in the Gospel of Mark? seems like an odd omission.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-266-matthew-2728-proverbs-1925-29">Day 266 - Matthew 27–28 Proverbs 19:25-29</h2>
<ul>
<li>So the story with Barabbas, which means "son of the father" and a parallel with Passover it makes it so obvious this is a <em>literary construction</em> and not historical. Also, the resurrection description in Matthew has guards and an angel and the rolling away of the stone and all this other stuff which Mark does not mention. (you can see <a href="http://localhost:8000/search.html?q=resurrection">my posts about the Resurrection here</a>) </li>
<li>Are the Saints coming out of their graves and wandering around the town something that Mark wouldn’t have wanted to write about?</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-271-ezra-910-zechariah-911-proverbs-2016-19">Day 271 - Ezra 9–10 Zechariah 9–11 Proverbs 20:16-19</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Zechariah 9 - Behold, your king is coming to you;<br>
righteous and having salvation is he,<br>
humble and mounted on a donkey,<br>
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.</p>
<p>Zechariah 11:13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Here in the Old Testament, we have the riding in on a colt, the foal of a colt and even have 30 pieces of silver reference. I wonder how many of the New Testament stories are literally just re-reading older Old Testament stories. The loaves and fishes seems to come from Elijah, all of the crucifixion narratives seem to come from the Psalms. It’s actually impressive what little there is left if you take away all of the Old Testament stories.</li>
<li>Although most of my comments are negative, there are a number of good things about this particular podcast. First, I really like the commentary and the fact that Fr. Schmitz repeats a lot of who the names are and warns you about things that are confusing. It’s also very useful to be an audio format so that you can listen to it when you’re driving or you’re just doing yard work or something that is mindless so that way you can focus on the text. I find that I won’t tend to skip forward where, if I’m reading, I might skim or skip passages. It’s also interesting because I was brought up Catholic but my recent exposure has been with fundamentalist evangelicals and so hearing the Catholic interpretation of some of the passages is pretty interesting.</li>
<li>However, I find that much of this is a waste of time. The book is so repetitive and doesn’t have a lot of content. I could’ve probably gotten the content in less than a 10th of the time if it was presented in a different way.</li>
<li>One of the nice things about the Bible in a day is that it breaks up the books and reads from several in a day. Things like proverbs or the long list of names in chronicles is more valuable reading a small amount per day rather than going through in order. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-280-nehemiah-12-esther-911-proverbs-2121-24">Day 280 - Nehemiah 12 Esther 9–11 Proverbs 21:21-24</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>So we have a story about Esther, who is a Jew, and is also queen and some people arrange to have all the Jews killed, so what does she do? She goes to the king and has a guy who organized that executed and then the king organizes essentially a mass slaughter of everyone who was against the Jews. This is one barbaric story after another one, One side doesn’t like the other side so they’re going to kill them all and then then whoever has the power just kills the other people. I mean it’s just a ludicrous story if you’re trying to get any kind of moral message out of this. Is this really the best that the creator of the universe, the all-good God can arrange?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Son of god, Prince of peace, Ushered in the good news of the world. These terms were applied to Caesar Augustus, before Jesus came. And Fr. Schmitz spins this as setting the stage for Jesus. It seems more likely that these terms were simply lifted, and applied to Jesus so that people would make the connection.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-291-1-maccabees-10-sirach-2627-proverbs-235-8">Day 291 - 1 Maccabees 10 Sirach 26–27 Proverbs 23:5-8</h2>
<ul>
<li>Lots of stuff about the good wife. This is in the book of Sirach. So Fr. Schmitz spins this as talking about both wives and husbands, or at least applicable to husbands as well. It’s pretty amazing when the book says something and you don’t like it you just make up that it says something different.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-305-2-maccabees-8-wisdom-56-proverbs-2430-34">Day 305 - 2 Maccabees 8 Wisdom 5–6 Proverbs 24:30-34</h2>
<p>Fr. Schmitz says </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"it is difficult to see God's working in our lives, what is he really doing? Is this God's justice, is this just an accident of evil, is this part of his mercy? But to have the eyes that are looking to see, eyes looking to understand, but they always are the eyes of trust. Here's what I mean. Sometimes we can say 'Gosh I think I must have done something wrong to be experiencing this pain, or maybe I'm being corrected by the Lord himself.' But we dont have any idea why, we're just guessing at this. So it's kind of sometimes a risk to look at our lives and say 'This is what God is doing' but it is not a risk to say 'God is present and active'. Hopefully that make sense. I don't always know, God what are you doing in this moment but be able to say 'God I know that you're here and you're doing <em>something</em>'. That is something we can really rest on, that is where the trust comes being able to say this is not you abandoning me, Lord, this is not you giving up on me this is not being disqualified from your word or from your promises, but you're here and you're active. you're present and you're doing something. </p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Is there anything you couldn't believe using thinking like this? Is this a way to think that brings you closer to truth, or to confirmation bias, and exaggerated pattern recognition?</li>
<li>1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees are interesting -- I haven't read them before. I'm noting most of the New Testament names, which undermines Bauckham's thesis. 2 Maccabees has the same stories but interpreting all of them as God acting. There are some stirring stories of martyrdom in 2 Maccabees. Still a lot of repetition, and wishful thinking, and post-hoc rationalizations. </li>
<li>So they say that parables are a common way for rabbis to communicate. They draw people in. I think another reason is that they are vague enough to be interpreted in multiple ways so they’re more flexible. I think that Christianity's success has more to do with the fact that one can apply the messages to any situation. Fr. Schmitz also commented how the visitation to Mary of John the Baptist's mother parallels second Samuel 6 -- a number of the phrases are the same. Again much more Old Testament being used to construct the stories for the New Testament.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-314-luke-35-proverbs-2527-28">Day 314 - Luke 3–5 Proverbs 25:27-28</h2>
<ul>
<li>The census in the gospel of Luke makes no sense. There’s no way that you would be called back to the town <em>of your ancestors from 800 years ago</em>. That’s just ludicrous.</li>
<li>The lineage is also problematic. It disagrees with Matthews and it has different numbers of generations and it disagrees <em>even on the grandfather</em>.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-319-luke-1719-proverbs-2613-16">Day 319 - Luke 17–19 Proverbs 26:13-16</h2>
<ul>
<li>Parable of the rich man. One of Fr. Schmitz’s responses is that it’s not about just hearing the word of God it is about acting on the word of God . I think that’s a pretty good statement for pretty much any reading or life advice, or anything else. It’s not enough to just read advice -- you need to act on it. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-320-luke-202238-proverbs-2617-19">Day 320 - Luke 20–22:38 Proverbs 26:17-19</h2>
<ul>
<li>Listening to Jesus, his description of the destruction of the temple sounds a lot like the various prophets in the Old Testament. Especially when he says this generation will not pass before they see the kingdom of God coming again. Essentially the things that the author knew about and wrote down are correct and the things in the future that are predicted and are not correct. It’s actually amazing how it follows that same pattern. </li>
<li>It’s also interesting to see that the form of the predictions are all the same. Essentially decrying the bad behavior of the people and God coming in and enacting punishment This is followed by a prediction that God is going to come back and beat all the bad guys and everyone will live happily ever after. Except of course the bad guys.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-321-luke-22392450-proverbs-2620-23">Day 321 - Luke 22:39–24:50 Proverbs 26:20-23</h2>
<ul>
<li>The robber on the cross. "Today you will be with me."" But isn’t Jesus dead for three days?</li>
<li>The two travelers on the road to Amaus has a direct parallel with Roman story about Romulus</li>
<li>Lots of appearances where he wants to demonstrate that he has a body -- while at the same time disappearing and walking through walls. </li>
<li>There is a contrast between the directions Jesus gives on where to meet afterward -- Luke says Jerusalem and Matthew says Galilee</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-322-acts-1-romans-1-proverbs-2624-26">Day 322 - Acts 1 Romans 1 Proverbs 26:24-26</h2>
<ul>
<li>Robert M Price describes Acts as the Catholic response to Marcione. Essentially the goal is to take people who like Paul, and say that Peter is just like Paul. And to take people who like Peter and say, Paul is just like Peter. Essentially whitewashing the real disagreement between these two different groups of original Christians -- the ones that were all for the adherence to the Jewish laws (including circumcision) and those that were not. </li>
<li>Acts of the Apostles has a different reason for why the field of blood is called the field of blood. This has to do with Judas hangING himself, and his guts spilling all over the field as opposed to the field being purchased by the blood money.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-324-acts-3-romans-45-proverbs-271-3">Day 324 - Acts 3 Romans 4–5 Proverbs 27:1-3</h2>
<ul>
<li>So there’s a story about Peter healing someone who can walk. This happens all the way up to the temple. Fr. Schmitz asked why is he coming up to the temple? That is because they’re Jews and that the old law is still in effect. So part of the goal of that is to counter the Christian sect of the Marciones, who believed that the Old Testament God was not the same God that Jesus was talking about. So these reminders about Peter's Judaism is also part of the plan to make Peter palatable to those who are fans of Paul.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-326-acts-5-romans-8-proverbs-277-9">Day 326 - Acts 5 Romans 8 Proverbs 27:7-9</h2>
<ul>
<li>Acts of the Apostles just feels like propaganda for the Christian church. The stories of them being thrown in jail and then escaping with an angel. The back and forth with the elders and the Sadducees, and at no point do we have anyone looking for a dead body. Given an empty tomb, one of the major things that would’ve happened, would be a search for grave robbing, of which the disciples would be the number one suspects. We get no sense of that at all. We also get no sense of having Jesus's family appearing anywhere. Like where is Mary right now? Also, it wouldn’t matter whether the cell was locked -- the people no longer in it would also be reason for them to get thrown into a more secure location.</li>
<li>Listening to the letters of Paul I have this very strange feeling. I hear the words, but I get no contact at all. I feel like I’m learning nothing at all from what he saying, as if he’s saying nothing at all, a string of <a href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Deepity">deepities</a>. He goes around and around and I don’t even know what his point is. It’s pretty wild. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-328-acts-7-romans-1112-proverbs-2713-14">Day 328 - Acts 7 Romans 11–12 Proverbs 27:13-14</h2>
<ul>
<li>So I started watching <a href="https://youtu.be/B5MUUP4l6l4">Richard Carrier's video about Acts as Historical Fiction</a> and there are a number of very interesting things. He claims that Mark was written first and essentially was putting forward the idea that Christianity was not just for Jews. And this is seen with one of the themes about the least shall be most and it subverts expectations. Then Matthew comes along as a response to Mark and essentially says no no no no you have to be Jewish and he highlights all the Jewish things that Mark did not do. Then Luke comes along as a response to Mark. Carrier says that the Q document doesn’t actually exist and it’s not well supported -- that Luke is actually a response to Matthew. And in Luke’s Gospel he’s trying have the perspective that you don’t need to be Jewish to be Christian -- but really trying to make the two sides see eye to eye. And then Acts is propaganda to really try to merge those two perspectives.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-336-acts-15-1-corinthians-1112-proverbs-2810-12">Day 336 - Acts 15 1 Corinthians 11–12 Proverbs 28:10-12</h2>
<ul>
<li>Fr. Schmitz says that scripture clearly states that men and women are equal. I really don’t understand where that could possibly come from.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-345-acts-24-galatians-13-proverbs-2912-14">Day 345 - Acts 24 Galatians 1–3 Proverbs 29:12-14</h2>
<ul>
<li>In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes that he did not receive the gospel from any man, but only by Revelation. He then talks about his trip to Arabia right after, and he didn’t go to Jerusalem for quite a while, which is in conflict with story in Acts. It also highlights his disagreements with Peter.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-348-acts-27-ephesians-46-proverbs-2922-24">Day 348 - Acts 27 Ephesians 4–6 Proverbs 29:22-24</h2>
<ul>
<li>So Fr. Schmitz comments that when you go on a trip and you get some adversity, you’ll have to question whether you should be on that trip at all. And then he contrasts that with Paul who has all sorts of problems on his trips, but says that this is God’s will, and so was able to see those hardships in a new light. This is actually a good attitude to have and I think the stoics have the same attitude, but without all of the superstition. So the point is that the Christian faith is not always problematic. It has some good things and it has some advice that does actually help you through adversity. When you feel like you’ve messed up, Christianity offers you a way to feel forgiven and move on. These are all very good things but they come at the cost of believing a whole bunch of false things. The ideal would be to somehow obtain the benefits of those things without believing false things. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-362-revelation-1214-hebrews-14-proverbs-3119-22">Day 362 - Revelation 12–14 Hebrews 1–4 Proverbs 31:19-22</h2>
<ul>
<li>Fr. Schmitz tells the story of the miracle at Guadalupe. I doubt things happened the way he says but I’ll look into it. </li>
</ul>
<h2 id="day-365-revelation-2122-hebrews-1113-proverbs-3130-31">Day 365 - Revelation 21–22 Hebrews 11–13 Proverbs 31:30-31</h2>
<ul>
<li>So I’m done. Fr. Schmitz actually cried when he said goodbye on the last day. I really do appreciate his earnestness and his sense of humor. And even though I don’t agree with nearly anything that he says, in terms of content, I do thank him for the amount of time and effort that he put into this and his honest communication.</li>
<li>So this is the second time I’ve gone through the Bible. The first time I read it using a student Bible so I could understand what was going on but I felt that I skimmed a number of things and then paused to consider some of the stories. </li>
<li>I like the fact that I did it once as text and once being read to me. I think both have value. </li>
<li>I don’t think I will ever do this again. It’s an incredible amount of time. The advantage to the podcast is that you can be doing other things at the same time so it’s a bit more efficient time-wise but either way it is a big investment in time and I just don’t find the text itself to be very efficient in terms of the lessons that it’s trying to give . And I think that means that people just don’t read it. It’s probably good to read through once, but I am not going to do this again. However, I will read passages here and there and I will keep responding to religious claims where I see them.</li>
<li>It is my hope that I go through my notes here and compile them together so that I have a response to doing the Bible in a Year .</li>
</ul>Why the fine tuning argument is not convincing to me2023-07-14T00:00:00-04:002023-07-14T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-07-14:/posts/2023/Jul/14/why-the-fine-tuning-argument-is-not-convincing-to-me/<p>The fine-tuning argument is an argument in philosophy and cosmology that suggests the existence of a fine-tuned universe points towards the existence of a intelligent designer or a purpose behind …</p><p>The fine-tuning argument is an argument in philosophy and cosmology that suggests the existence of a fine-tuned universe points towards the existence of a intelligent designer or a purpose behind the universe. It starts with the observation that the fundamental constants and parameters in the universe, such as the strength of gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the mass of elementary particles, have specific values that, if altered even slightly, would render the universe inhospitable to life. The "even slightly" is a modest way of putting it, to say the least. </p>
<p>The following are the approximate estimates of the range within which they are thought to allow for life, and what each effect would be made impossible given values outside of the range:</p>
<ol>
<li>Gravitational constant (G): Around 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{60}\)</span> (formation of stars, galaxies, and planetary systems)</li>
<li>Electromagnetic force strength: Approximately 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{40}\)</span> (the stability of atoms and the ability to form complex structures)</li>
<li>Strong nuclear force coupling constant: Roughly 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{40}\)</span> (binding of atomic nuclei, leading to different chemical elements)</li>
<li>Weak nuclear force coupling constant: About 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{33}\)</span> (rates of nuclear reactions in stars and could prevent the formation of heavier elements)</li>
<li>Cosmological constant (Dark energy density): On the order of 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{120}\)</span> (the delicate balance required for the existence of stable galaxies and cosmic structures)</li>
<li>Ratio of electron to proton mass: Approximately 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{37}\)</span> (formation of atoms and chemical reactions)</li>
<li>Initial entropy of the universe: Extremely low, around 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{10^{123}}\)</span> (evolution of the universe into complex structures necessary for life)</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="the-argument">The argument</h2>
<p>As you can see, numbers like 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{120}\)</span> are staggeringly small ranges. For these precise values to appear randomly is astronomically improbable. Thus, it is claimed that this is most likely by design. Apologists typically list three possible (exhaustive) explanations of the fine tuning:</p>
<ol>
<li>random chance</li>
<li>physical necessity</li>
<li>design</li>
</ol>
<p>Since (1) is super unlikely, and we have no good reason to suspect (2), then (3) is said to be the best explanation. </p>
<h2 id="the-first-problem-is-with-the-data">The first problem is with the "data"</h2>
<p>The first problem is not that we have "a set of parameters that are set to specific values within supremely small tolerances". The problem is that we have "current models that have parameters that are only determined empirically (they aren't determined by the theory) that seem to have drastic effects on the theories when the parameters are modified". How is this different? </p>
<ol>
<li>It is possible that the fine-tuning of a parameter is an illusion. We might have a mistake, or an incomplete knowledge of the system, such that the fine tuning doesn't exist. The expansion rate of the universe is one such case (covered in part of Sean Carroll's debate with William Lane Craig, responding to the Fine Tuning argument. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R97IHcuyWI0&t=363s&pp=ygUYc2VhbiBjYXJyb2xsIGZpbmUgdHVuaW5n" title="Responding to the "Fine Tuning" Argument for God (Sean Carroll)">Responding to the "Fine Tuning" Argument for God (Sean Carroll)</a>), where the naive calculation finds that the probability of that value is 1 part in <span class="math">\(10^{60}\)</span> but the complete calculation with general relativity shows that the the probability of that value is equal to 1 -- it <em>has</em> to be that value. Not all parameters are going to be like this, but given our limited understanding, we may not be able to rule that out in many cases.</li>
<li>It is possible that the parameters can't be modified independently -- modifying one may necessarily modify another. In this way, the fine tuning done naively would greatly overestimate the narrowness of the tuning. </li>
</ol>
<h2 id="the-second-problem-is-with-life">The second problem is with "life"</h2>
<p>Without defining the conditions for the existence of life, one really can't argue that the constants are fine-tuned for life. Even with the current laws of nature, we can't predict the conditions for life -- we run the risk of bias of seeing all life similar to the carbon-based, material beings we are. For a short list of imaginative alternatives, we can see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/7UAHDygN8hk?feature=share&t=9528">James Fodor list off possible exotic forms of life</a>
- silicon based (maybe in another universe with slightly tweaked constants)
- bound weak-force states even without a periodic table
- bound strong-force states, making a totally different form of periodic table
- sulfur-based
- metal-based
- crystalline form
- life on neutron stars
- life formed from neutrons rather than protons
- maybe if gravity is stronger, one could have life based on gravity alone
- photonic form
- life from dark matter
- life possible at the quantum scale</p>
<p>As Sean Carroll says, these seem a bit like science fiction, but we are having to imagine changing the fundamental constants of the universe.</p>
<p>For a very detailed covering of this topic see the video from Digital Gnosis: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UAHDygN8hk&t=4s" title="Bad Apologetics Ep 9 - The Fine Tuning Argument">Bad Apologetics Ep 9 - The Fine Tuning Argument</a>.</p>
<h2 id="the-third-problem-is-with-god">The third problem is with "God"</h2>
<p>Since God could create anything, why would that make it likely that the physical parameters be fine tuned? God could...</p>
<ol>
<li>make a universe which is hostile for life in every way, and just "miracle-up" life</li>
<li>make a universe which is not fine tuned</li>
<li>make minds not dependent on physical matter</li>
</ol>
<p>Given these scenarios, seeing a fine-tuned universe could easily count as evidence <em>against</em> God because of all the other ways he could accomplish the same thing.</p>
<h2 id="what-to-do-when-you-arent-an-expert">What to do when you aren't an expert</h2>
<p>One of the issues I face is "what to do when you're not an expert". How do you figure out what is most likely true? I have read a lot, and have a background in physics and neuroscience but I'm not a cosmologist. How does one weigh arguments when seeming experts are at odds with each other? Personally, I have to ask this question many times when the field is history or political science where I am admittedly out of my depth. </p>
<p>There are a number of strategies that I use in these cases.</p>
<ol>
<li>Look at the types of counter arguments. Sean Carroll in his debate with William Lane Craig repeated many times that Craig was either misunderstanding models (for which Carroll is definitely more of an expert) or using the wrong vocabulary altogether. These kinds of counterarguments are far more devastating than just counter examples.</li>
<li>Look for special pleading or cherry picking. One can often see this where one side is giving general patterns and the other side is giving rare exceptions.</li>
<li>Look for cases where one side misrepresents the claims of the other side. This is a real red-flag.</li>
<li>Choose one particular narrow claim and try to verify that. I do this with political cases, where each side may quote some data on their side as a small part of a larger argument. I can look up that data and see which side is better representing it. If one side is distorting or misleading their conclusions from this data, it is more likely they are doing it in other cases.</li>
</ol>
<p>I plan on writing a follow-up to this post framing the fine-tuning argument probabilistically but this post serves as an introduction to my perspective on this problem.</p>
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</script>Claims are not (always) evidence2023-05-11T00:00:00-04:002023-05-11T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-05-11:/posts/2023/May/11/claims-are-not-always-evidence/<p>Here's my short rambling rant about the claims-evidence distinction. In a number of debates, but more famously <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/a-wIaCRIdOA?feature=share">this one with Jonathan McLatchie</a>, Matt Dillahunty states that "claims are not evidence …</p><p>Here's my short rambling rant about the claims-evidence distinction. In a number of debates, but more famously <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/a-wIaCRIdOA?feature=share">this one with Jonathan McLatchie</a>, Matt Dillahunty states that "claims are not evidence". It became so heated that it led to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/a-wIaCRIdOA?feature=share&t=4763">infamous rage-quit by Johnathan</a>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/a-wIaCRIdOA?feature=share&t=8755">Matt later clarifies</a> that <em>propositions</em> are never evidence, and he's separating the idea of a claim from its context (i.e. the person stating it). </p>
<p>Then there were a number of Twitter threads like:</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20230326194340.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20230326194340.png"></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20230327100009.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20230327100009.png"></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20230327100027.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20230327100027.png">
<img alt="Pasted image 20230327100056.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20230327100056.png"></p>
<p>And now <a href="https://youtu.be/OjtMYgCgLYo">Paulogia weighs in</a>.</p>
<p>Like most of these arguments, it comes down to the definitions and being very careful with the vocabulary. Let's start with the definition of evidence from the <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence/">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the following probabilistic explication of what it is for <em>E</em> to be evidence for <em>H</em>: </p>
<p><em>E</em> is evidence for <em>H</em> if and only if Prob(<em>H</em>/<em>E</em>) > Prob(<em>H</em>).[<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence/notes.html#23">23</a> ]</p>
<p>That is, <em>E</em> is evidence for <em>H</em> just in case the conditional probability of <em>H</em> on <em>E</em> is greater than the unconditional probability of <em>H</em>. Thus, the fact that <em>the suspect's blood is on the knife</em> is evidence for the hypothesis that <em>the suspect committed the murder</em> if and only if the probability that the suspect committed the murder is greater given that his blood is on the knife than it would be otherwise.</p>
<p>Similarly </p>
<p><em>E</em> is evidence against <em>H</em> if and only if Prob(<em>H</em>/<em>E</em>) < Prob(<em>H</em>).</p>
<p>That is, <em>E</em> is evidence against <em>H</em> just in case the conditional probability of <em>H</em> on <em>E</em> is less than the unconditional probability of <em>H</em>. Thus, the fact that <em>the suspect's fingerprints are not on the knife_is evidence against the hypothesis that _the suspect committed the murder</em> if and only if the probability that the suspect committed the murder is lower given the absence of his fingerprints on the knife than it would be otherwise. Within this probabilistic model, verification (in the sense of conclusive confirmation) would involve bestowing probability 1 on an hypothesis while falsification would involve bestowing probability 0 on it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The problem with the word "claim" is that it seems to combine both the proposition (which is not evidence) and the fact that a person is making the claim (which can add some degree of evidence). This is a matter of usage. If you can substitute in your sentence the word "proposition" for "claim" then it will not be evidence. But in a sentence like "Matt claims to have a dog" you can't do that, so the word is mixed and thus may be evidence.</p>
<p>The proposition “it’s five o’clock” is non evidential. Someone saying it - even if they are conveying a “fact” - does carry evidence. A fact is just that thing which has a high posterior probability. Someone making it a statement is just a recognition that for that person they have a high posterior for that statement and thus don’t feel compelled to defend it. In English if you said “So and so <em>claims</em> that it is 5 o’clock” there is an implied negative -- it implies that you don’t believe them. I think that’s because in most cases where someone says it is 5 o'clock, that it is such a mundane claim (priors are high) and it is unlikely that someone would lie or be seriously mistaken (alternatives are unlikely) that we need not question the high the posterior. When we stress the word <em>claim</em> in the sentence, it implies the negative. The reason why someone gets upset at having to defend it doesn’t have anything to do with the statement-claim distinctions and everything to do with the implied conclusion of this questioning: you think they are either lying or seriously mistaken on a trivial statement/claim. They would take offense at that — rightly so. </p>
<p>Now someone making the statement “Jesus rose from the dead” they may actually believe it as a fact. Is this a claim or statement? Does it provide evidence? I’d say this is a claim like the ones above but does not provide evidence for the claim because the prior is super low and the alternatives could be made more likely given this statement and no other evidence (because many people make similar statements and have always been shown wrong). This means that the statement/testimony may not increase the posterior (it may in fact lower it). Again, I don’t see the useful distinction between statement and claim except perhaps as a label where, perhaps, a statement is an indication of a high prior and a claim focuses more on the likelihood part of the probability?</p>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence2023-05-02T00:00:00-04:002023-05-02T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-05-02:/posts/2023/May/02/extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence/<blockquote>
<p>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think no pithy quote has caused so much angst with apologists than this one from Carl Sagan, directed in particular to religious …</p><blockquote>
<p>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - Carl Sagan</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think no pithy quote has caused so much angst with apologists than this one from Carl Sagan, directed in particular to religious miracle claims. Before looking into it a bit more specifically, I want to point out that the word "claim" here refers to "explanation" or "proposition" and not to testimony (which would include a form of evidence). I'll have more to say about this in another post. If we are talking about testimony as the evidence, then we need to break the "claim" into the "explanation" part and the "evidence" part (see <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2023/May/11/claims-are-not-always-evidence/">my ramble on claims and evidence here</a>). </p>
<p>To see an overly technical treatment of this by an apologist, we can look to Tim McGrew's treatment on Erik Manning's channel, as well as one of his own on the related topic of Hume.</p>
<ul>
<li>McGrew's Sagan video: https://youtu.be/LD2hQFTJsK0</li>
<li>McGrew's Hume video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Gv8Fw_fFE&list=WL&index=12</li>
</ul>
<p>I'll give more detailed responses to these videos later, but here I just want to map the Sagan quote to probabilities.</p>
<h2 id="the-analysis">The analysis</h2>
<p>For me, it seems straightforward to set up. We start with some notation.</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(D\)</span> = data, or the evidence</li>
<li><span class="math">\(M_i\)</span> = the various models, or explanations, or claims. We'll treat <span class="math">\(M_o\)</span> as the extraordinary explanation and <span class="math">\(M_1, M_2, \ldots\)</span> as the mundane explanations</li>
</ul>
<p>Bayes theorem then has</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(M_o|D) &= \frac{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)}{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)+P(D|M_1)P(M_1)+P(D|M_2)P(M_2)+\cdots} \\
&=\frac{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)}{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)+\sum_{i=1}^{N}P(D|M_i)P(M_i)}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
We can simplify this by merging all of the mundane explanations together into <span class="math">\(M_1\)</span>, which is also equivalent to <span class="math">\(\sim M_o\)</span>
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(M_o|D) &= \frac{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)}{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)+P(D|M_1)P(M_1)}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
which leads to
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(M_o|D) &= \frac{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)}{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)+P(D|M_1)P(M_1)} \\
&=\frac{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)}{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)}\left(\frac{1}{1+\frac{P(D|M_1)P(M_1)}{P(D|M_o)P(M_o)}}\right)\\
&\equiv \frac{1}{1+r}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
where <span class="math">\(r=P(D|M_1)P(M_1)/P(D|M_o)/P(M_o)\)</span> which was a long-winded way of getting to the odds form of Bayes theorem. </p>
<p>In order for the posterior for the extraordinary claim to rise above <span class="math">\(P(M_o|D) >0.5\)</span> then <span class="math">\(r<1\)</span>.
To map the phrase to values we have,</p>
<ul>
<li>extraordinary claim <span class="math">\(\equiv\)</span> low prior: <span class="math">\(P(M_o)\ll 1\)</span></li>
<li>mundane claim <span class="math">\(\equiv\)</span> high prior: <span class="math">\(P(M_1) \sim 1\)</span></li>
</ul>
<p>This means that <span class="math">\(P(M_1)/P(M_o)\gg 1\)</span> which immediately implies for <span class="math">\(r<1\)</span> that <span class="math">\(P(D|M_o) \gg P(D|M_1)\)</span>. </p>
<p>Now, let's assume that the extraordinary claim perfectly fits the observed data, so that we have <span class="math">\(P(D|M_o)\sim 1\)</span>. What the last statement implies is that to justify your extraordinary claim, you must have
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(D|M_1)\ll 1
$$</div>
<p>
or every other mundane claim must be nearly ruled out, not just unlikely. This is exactly what science does -- construct situations (i.e. controlled experiments) to make any mundane explanation nearly impossible. The level of "nearly impossible" depends of course on the extraordinariness of the primary claim. </p>
<p>I find this consequence so straightforward, that I find it baffling that it is at all contentious. </p>
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</script>Probability and the Independence of Testimony2023-02-23T00:00:00-05:002023-02-23T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-02-23:/posts/2023/Feb/23/probability-and-the-independence-of-testimony/<p>In a <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jun/14/sometimes-more-testimony-is-worse/">previous post</a> I examined a simple model of the interaction of testimony with scientific inquiry, and how it can affect the probabilities of the truth of miracle claims …</p><p>In a <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jun/14/sometimes-more-testimony-is-worse/">previous post</a> I examined a simple model of the interaction of testimony with scientific inquiry, and how it can affect the probabilities of the truth of miracle claims. In this post I examine a single result from <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrews' article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</a> entitled "Chapter 11 - The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth". This paper is covered both in this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a>, and summarized in text form on my blog <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Aug/29/bad-apologetics-ep-18-bayes-machine-goes-brrrrrrrrr/">starting here</a>.</p>
<p>The result I want to look at is here:</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713065658.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713065658.png"></p>
<p>The basic idea the McGrews have is that there are <span class="math">\(N=15\)</span> data points each with a Bayes factor of 1000, each completely independent from the others, leading to the product of probabilities yielding Bayes factor of around <span class="math">\(1000^{15}=10^{45}\)</span> (one of their Bayes factors is only 100 so they get <span class="math">\(10^{44}\)</span>, but the idea is the same). I'll use <span class="math">\(10^{45}\)</span> in this post for mathematical simplicity below. We discuss <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">in the video above</a> how ridiculous <span class="math">\(10^{44}\)</span> is as a Bayes factor -- that there may not even be modern physical theories with Bayes factors that high. However, in this post, I want to take a direction that I haven't seen before but I think is enlightening.</p>
<p>TLDR: One can be supremely confident that all 15 sources are statistically independent, at probability of <span class="math">\(p=0.9995\)</span> (which is far higher than many scientific claims in published journals), and still not be able to justify the miracle claim due to the small uncertainty. This fact alone should disqualify the result the McGrews present.</p>
<h2 id="imperfect-information">Imperfect Information</h2>
<p>One of the properties of all inference, particularly historical inference, is that there is some level of uncertainty. Do we know that, say, two claims in an ancient document are <em>statistically</em> independent? That's very hard to establish. The typical approach is to argue that the claims are <em>textually</em> independent and thus more likely to be <em>statistically</em> independent. This is a loose inference, because it is very easy for two texts to draw from the same oral tradition and thus not represent independent information. It's even hard in modern contexts to establish statistical independence between people making claims, even when you can interrogate the people and investigate the claims directly -- neither of which we can do for ancient texts. </p>
<p>So, that being said, it seems plausible that there is some degree of uncertainty in even establishing the independence of data sources. I'd like to explore how much uncertainty the McGrews calculation can tolerate and still maintain their argument. It is a sign of the strength of an argument if it can withstand some reasonable level of uncertainty. </p>
<h2 id="definitions">Definitions</h2>
<p>I use the same notation as I did in <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jun/14/sometimes-more-testimony-is-worse/">this post on testimony</a>. </p>
<ul>
<li>we have several data points, <span class="math">\(D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n\)</span> </li>
<li>we have the proposition, <span class="math">\(M\equiv \text{a miracle occurred}\)</span>, for which we have a prior, <div class="math">$$\begin{aligned}
P(M) &\equiv m\\
P(\bar{M}) &\equiv 1-m\\
\end{aligned}$$</div>Note, that for <em>miracle</em> here you can substitute any extraordinary claim.</li>
</ul>
<p>We're interested in <span class="math">\(P(M|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)\)</span>, but to establish a couple more definitions, let's look at the two-data case.</p>
<h2 id="the-two-data-independent-case">The two-data independent case</h2>
<p>In the two data case we have
</p>
<div class="math">$$\begin{aligned}
P(M|D_1, D_2) &= P(D_1|M)P(D_2|M,D_1)P(M)\\
P(\bar{M}|D_1, D_2) &= P(D_1|\bar{M})P(D_2|\bar{M},D_1)P(\bar{M})\\
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
We define the likelihood term for a single data point as,
</p>
<div class="math">$$\begin{aligned}
P(D_1|M) &\equiv d\\
P(D_1|\bar{M}) &\equiv b
\end{aligned}$$</div>
<p>
The McGrews do not specify these probabilities numerically, but only specify their ratio, which is the single-point Bayes Factor they (arbitrarily) assume,</p>
<div class="math">$$d/b=1000$$</div>
<p>
They also assume independence of all the sources, which would imply,
</p>
<div class="math">$$\begin{aligned}
P(D_2|M,D_1) &= P(D_2|M) \equiv d\\
P(D_2|\bar{M},D_1) &= P(D_2|\bar{M}) \equiv b
\end{aligned}$$</div>
<p>The odds ratio then becomes,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
O &\equiv \frac{P(M|D_1, D_2)}{P(\bar{M}|D_1, D_2)} \\
&=\underbrace{\frac{P(D_1|M)\cdot P(D_2|M) }{P(D_1|\bar{M})\cdot P(D_2|\bar{M})}}_{\text{cumulative testimony}}\times \underbrace{\frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}}_{\text{prior odds}} \\
&=\frac{d^2 \cdot m}{b^2\cdot (1-m)}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<h2 id="the-n-data-independent-case">The <span class="math">\(n\)</span>-data independent case</h2>
<p>Following the same procedure for <span class="math">\(n\)</span> points, we have,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
O &\equiv \frac{P(M|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)}{P(\bar{M}|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)} \\
&=\frac{P(D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n|M)P(M)}{P(D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n|\bar{M})P(\bar{M})} \\
&=\underbrace{\frac{P(D_1|M)\cdot P(D_2|M) \cdots P(D_n|M)}{P(D_1|\bar{M})\cdot P(D_2|\bar{M}) \cdots P(D_n|\bar{M})}}_{\text{cumulative testimony}}\times \underbrace{\frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}}_{\text{prior odds}} \\
&= \frac{d^N}{b^N}\cdot \frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>for the McGrews, <span class="math">\(N=15\)</span> and <span class="math">\(d/b=1000\)</span> and so they claim that the prior odds, <span class="math">\(\frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}\)</span> needs to be less than <span class="math">\(10^{-45}\)</span> to overcome and they can't imagine that happening except for an overly skeptical person. </p>
<h2 id="first-look-at-dependence">First look at dependence</h2>
<p>Now what happens if the data are not independent or, if you prefer to avoid the double-negative, if the data are <em>dependent</em>? Then the probability of the second data point will be different, but how? </p>
<p>Imagine someone observes a fair coin that has been flipped and is lying on the table. They write down the result and leave the room. They then come back in, observe the coin and write the result. If during their absence, </p>
<ol>
<li>someone flipped the coin again -- the second result will have the same probability as the first, and the result of the first flip will tell you nothing about the result of the second, <span class="math">\(P(H_1)=1/2, P(H_2|H_1)=P(H_2)=1/2\)</span> -- <strong>independent</strong></li>
<li>no one touched the coin -- the second result is entirely determined by the first, <span class="math">\(P(H_1)=1/2, P(H_2|H_1)=1\)</span> -- <strong>dependent</strong></li>
<li>someone turned the coin over on the table, changing heads to tails -- the second result is entirely determined by the first, <span class="math">\(P(H_1)=1/2, P(H_2|H_1)=0\)</span> -- <strong>dependent</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>Since we can have any possibility in between, we need to know the process of the dependence to determine at a minimum whether the value even goes up or down. In the case of testimony, it is far more likely for new testimony that is dependent on old testimony to give the same or similar information as the old. It would be odd indeed (even though the McGrews argue for this) for the new testimony to tend to be the opposite of the old. The consequences of this odd view is explored in the video and also <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/13/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-3/#independence">in the summary here</a> so I won't go into it in this post.</p>
<p>In the case of <span class="math">\(D_2\)</span> being completely dependent on <span class="math">\(D_1\)</span>, it is the case that <span class="math">\(D_2\)</span> adds no new information. Or in other words, knowing <span class="math">\(D_1\)</span> it follows that <span class="math">\(D_2\)</span> is true necessarily,</p>
<div class="math">$$\begin{aligned}
P(D_2|M,D_1) &= 1\\
P(D_2|\bar{M},D_1) &= 1
\end{aligned}$$</div>
<p>In the <span class="math">\(n\)</span>-data point case, this becomes,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
O &\equiv \frac{P(M|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)}{P(\bar{M}|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)} \\
&=\frac{P(D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n|M)P(M)}{P(D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n|\bar{M})P(\bar{M})} \\
&=\underbrace{\frac{P(D_1|M)\cdot P(D_2|M) \cdots P(D_n|M)}{P(D_1|\bar{M})\cdot P(D_2|\bar{M}) \cdots P(D_n|\bar{M})}}_{\text{cumulative testimony}}\times \underbrace{\frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}}_{\text{prior odds}} \\
&=\underbrace{\frac{P(D_1|M)\cdot 1\cdots 1}{P(D_1|\bar{M})\cdot 1\cdots 1}}_{\text{cumulative testimony}}\times \underbrace{\frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}}_{\text{prior odds}} \\
&= \frac{d}{b}\cdot \frac{m}{1-m}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>Using the McGrews numbers here, we get</p>
<div class="math">$$
O= 1000 \cdot \frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}
$$</div>
<p>
which means that the prior odds for a miracle need only be more then 1 in 1000 against to overcome this evidence -- not a very strong case for the miracle. Clearly dependent sources undermine the McGrews' case. But how much dependency is needed?</p>
<h2 id="the-first-model">The first model</h2>
<p>We'll start with the following simplified model of the uncertainty in the establishment of independence. For each data point after the first there is some probability that the data point is independent of the first. We'll call that value <span class="math">\(\beta\)</span>. For intuition, note that</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(\beta=1\)</span> means we're certain the data point, <span class="math">\(D_i\)</span>, is completely independent of the first, <span class="math">\(D_1\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(\beta=0\)</span> means we're certain the data point, <span class="math">\(D_i\)</span>, is completely dependent on the first, <span class="math">\(D_1\)</span></li>
</ul>
<p>Later we generalize this calculation to the case of partial dependency, but the conclusion is identical to this simpler model which is a little more intuitive.</p>
<p>For the 2-data point case we have,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(M|D_1,D_2)&=P(D_2|M,D_1)P(D_1|M)P(M) \\
&=(\beta\cdot d + (1-\beta)\cdot 1)\cdot d \cdot P(M)
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
where the likelihood term for the second data point, <span class="math">\(P(D_2|M,D_1)\)</span> is broken up into two pieces -- a value of <span class="math">\(d\)</span> for the independent case with probability <span class="math">\(\beta\)</span> and a value of 1 for the dependent case with probability <span class="math">\(1-\beta\)</span>. Generalizing this to the <span class="math">\(n\)</span>-data point case,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
O &\equiv \frac{P(M|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)}{P(\bar{M}|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)} \\
&=\frac{(\beta d + (1-\beta))^{N-1}\cdot d}{(\beta b + (1-\beta))^{N-1}\cdot b}\cdot \frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<h3 id="reproduce-the-mcgrews-result">Reproduce the McGrews' Result</h3>
<p>To reproduce the result of the McGrews, we have the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(\beta=1\)</span> : we're certain that the data are all independent</li>
<li><span class="math">\(d=10^{-3}\)</span> and <span class="math">\(b=10^{-6}\)</span> giving an odds ratio for one data point <span class="math">\(O=1000\)</span>. </li>
<li><span class="math">\(N=15\)</span> (again, technically they have one point which has an odds ratio of 100 so their answer is <span class="math">\(O=10^{44}\)</span> whereas our answer here is <span class="math">\(O=10^{45}\)</span>)</li>
</ul>
<p>From the equation above we get
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
O &\equiv \frac{P(M|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)}{P(\bar{M}|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)} \\
&=\frac{(1\cdot 10^{-3} + (1-1))^{15-1}\cdot 10^{-3}}{(1\cdot 10^{-6} + (1-1))^{N-1}\cdot 10^{-6} }\cdot \frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}\\
&=10^{45}\cdot \frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<h2 id="how-does-the-uncertainty-affect-the-mcgrews-result">How does the uncertainty affect the McGrews' Result?</h2>
<p>The question here is how much uncertainty can this argument tolerate? In other words, how far can <span class="math">\(\beta\)</span> deviate from a value of 1 before the odds ratio comes down to a reasonable level?</p>
<h3 id="an-aside-on-a-reasonable-prior-for-the-miracle">An aside on a reasonable prior for the miracle</h3>
<p>A very rough, maximum level for the prior for the Resurrection of Jesus can be obtained using the following logic. There are 8 billion people on the planet, perhaps twice that much in all of history, and (at least for the Christians) only one supported Resurrection. So that would mean, whether or not one believes in the Resurrection, the prior should be no larger than 1 in 10 billion. This I think is the maximum possible value of a prior I'd consider. It is comparable to the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Sep/22/will-the-sun-rise-tomorrow/">naive model the probability of the sun rising which I discuss elsewhere</a>, without taking into account anything we have come to understand from science so is clearly an extremely conservative upper bound.</p>
<h3 id="back-to-the-effect-of-beta">Back to the effect of <span class="math">\(\beta\)</span></h3>
<p>We want to know where the first part of the odds ratio,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
\frac{(\beta d + (1-\beta))^{N-1}\cdot d}{(\beta b + (1-\beta))^{N-1}\cdot b}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
drops below <span class="math">\(10^{10}\)</span> so that the prior odds <span class="math">\(\frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}\sim 10^{-10}\)</span> will overwhelm it and the argument fails. This point can be seen by observing a plot of the log base 10-odds ratio as a function of β and noting where the value dips below 10.</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20230226182719.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20230226182719.png">
This result surprised me. The tiniest deviation from the absolute certainty that all 15 sources are statistically independent brings the odds ratio down to the mundane. It drops below <span class="math">\(10^{10}\)</span> at around <span class="math">\(\beta=0.9995\)</span>! </p>
<p>What this means is that one can be supremely confident that all 15 sources are statistically independent, at probability of <span class="math">\(p=0.9995\)</span> (which is far higher than many scientific claims in published journals), and still not be able to justify the miracle claim due to the small uncertainty. This fact alone should disqualify the result. </p>
<h2 id="partial-dependency">Partial dependency</h2>
<p>One could criticize this result by saying that the choice isn't between perfectly independent and perfectly dependence, but that one can be partially dependent but mostly independent and that may be enough. TLDR on this section -- you get the same result as the previous solution.</p>
<p>To handle this, we reparameterize the 2-data point case. Instead of the independent case <span class="math">\(P(D_2|M,D_1)=d\)</span> or the dependent case <span class="math">\(P(D_2|M,D_1)=1\)</span> we have a tunable version <span class="math">\(P(D_2|M,D_1)=d+\alpha (1-d)\)</span> where <span class="math">\(\alpha\)</span> measures how dependent each point is, from totally independent (<span class="math">\(\alpha=0\)</span>) to totally dependent (<span class="math">\(\alpha=1\)</span>). So each data point can be partially, but not totally, dependent. The <span class="math">\(n\)</span>-data point generalization becomes</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
O &=\frac{(d+\alpha (1-d))^{N-1}\cdot d}{(b + \alpha(1-b))^{N-1}\cdot b}\cdot \frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>The question here is how far from the perfect independence can we have before things break. The result is the same as before,
<img alt="Pasted image 20230226184237.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20230226184237.png"></p>
<p>The tiniest deviation from independence results in the argument completely collapsing.</p>
<h2 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h2>
<p>As stated before, what this means is that one can be supremely confident that all 15 sources are statistically independent, at probability of <span class="math">\(p=0.9995\)</span> (which is far higher than many scientific claims in published journals), and still not be able to justify the miracle claim due to the small uncertainty. This fact alone should disqualify the result. </p>
<p>Also, it speaks to the total naivety of the apologists calculations. They wrap their argument in seemingly technical and advanced Bayesian analyses, yet they don't seem to recognize that their argument comes down to assuming that testimony, evidence, and the scientific methods are identical to simple coin-flip experiments. </p>
<ul>
<li>They ignore the effect of multiple models causing non-monotonic effects (see the high-low-nines deck example in <a href="https://github.com/bblais/Statistical-Inference-for-Everyone/raw/master/Statistical%20Inference%20For%20Everyone.pdf">Chapter 4 of Statistical Inference for Everyone</a> which I also reference in a <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/">response to Jonathan McLatchie</a>)</li>
<li>They ignore the impact that previous debunkings of claims affect the probability of the next claim given (see this post about <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jun/14/sometimes-more-testimony-is-worse/">testimony and the scientific process</a>)</li>
<li>They ignore the possible uncertainty in the assumptions and data they are using, projecting an unwarranted confidence in the conclusions (this post)</li>
</ul>
<p>So when I hear things like this from Jonathan McLatchie </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"To this question, I would point out that (contrary to popular notions) it is not necessary for a hypothesis to be able to make high probability predictions in order for it to be well evidentially supported. Rather, it is only necessary that the pertinent data be rendered <em>more probable</em> given the hypothesis than it would be on its falsehood." (<a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/bayesian-probability-and-the-resurrection-a-reply-to-brian-blais/">post here</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I remind myself that this is a totally simplistic way of approaching probability problems, especially in the case of things as messy as human testimony and ancient documents. </p>
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</script>Walking through 6 Ways to Use ChatGPT to Learn Code2023-02-04T00:00:00-05:002023-02-04T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2023-02-04:/posts/2023/Feb/04/walking-through-6-ways-to-use-chatgpt-to-learn-code/<p>So I was poking around on the web and decided to watch the video "THE Game Changer for Learning to Code" https://www.youtube.com/embed/H1fBdboJeBo and then attempt …</p><p>So I was poking around on the web and decided to watch the video "THE Game Changer for Learning to Code" https://www.youtube.com/embed/H1fBdboJeBo and then attempt to use it on code I use in class. </p>
<p>TLDR: Describing vocabulary, describing code, making suggestions for improving code, and finding resources all very useful. Generating code is super dangerous (ChatGPT makes incorrect code) and using it in many cases can be considered plagiarism, just as if you copied from another person.</p>
<h3 id="describing-vocabulary-useful">Describing vocabulary -- useful</h3>
<p>I started with,</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>ME</strong>: you're a professor trying to teach a student about euler's method. how would you phrase it?</p>
<p><strong>ChatGPT</strong>:
Euler's method is a numerical method used to approximate the solution to a first-order ordinary differential equation (ODE). It is a simple and straightforward way of approximating the solution by using the tangent line to the solution curve at a given point. The basic idea behind Euler's method is to divide the interval of interest into smaller sub-intervals and then estimate the value of the solution at the end of each sub-interval by using the tangent line. This process is then repeated, starting at the end of each sub-interval, until the desired level of accuracy is reached. Euler's method is a powerful tool for solving ODEs and is widely used in many scientific and engineering applications.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Not bad. Seems useful to describe vocabulary.</p>
<h3 id="describing-code-useful">Describing code -- useful</h3>
<p>Then I gave it some code I used in class,</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>ME:</strong> Can you explain what this code is doing: </p>
</blockquote>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">x_start</span><span class="o">=-</span><span class="mi">5</span>
<span class="n">x_end</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">15</span>
<span class="n">step</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">x</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">x_start</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="o"><=</span><span class="n">x_end</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="c1"># print(x," ",end="")</span>
<span class="n">y_left</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">fun</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">step</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">y_right</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">fun</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">step</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">y_right</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">y_left</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">step</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># rise over run</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">m</span> <span class="c1"># saving the result for later</span>
<span class="n">x</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">step</span>
<span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"done."</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arrays</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="c1"># give me the saved results as two arrays</span>
</code></pre></div>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>ChatGPT</strong>: This code is implementing a numerical method called the midpoint method to estimate the derivative of a function <code>fun</code> over a range <code>x_start</code> to <code>x_end</code> with a step size <code>step</code>.</p>
<p>The <code>Storage</code> class is used to store the results of the midpoint method at each iteration. The <code>x</code> variable is initialized to <code>x_start</code> and the loop continues until <code>x</code> is greater than <code>x_end</code>.</p>
<p>In each iteration, the values of the function <code>fun</code> at <code>x-step/2</code> and <code>x+step/2</code> are calculated and stored in <code>y_left</code> and <code>y_right</code> respectively. The derivative at the midpoint <code>x</code> is then estimated as the rise over run <code>m = (y_right - y_left) / step</code>. The result is stored in the <code>Storage</code> object <code>S</code> using the <code>+=</code> operator.</p>
<p>Finally, after the loop, the results stored in <code>S</code> are retrieved as two arrays <code>x</code> and <code>m</code> using the <code>arrays()</code> method.</p>
<p>The midpoint method is a simple numerical method to estimate the derivative of a function. It is based on the idea that the derivative of a function at a point can be estimated as the average rate of change over a small interval around that point.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That is really impressive, and I think quite useful for students.</p>
<h3 id="improving-code-somewhat-useful">Improving code -- somewhat useful</h3>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>ME:</strong> how would you improve that code?</p>
<p><strong>ChatGPT:</strong> Here are a few suggestions to improve the code:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Use functions: You can define the midpoint method as a function and reuse it for different functions and different intervals. This makes the code more modular and easier to maintain.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Document the code: Adding comments and documentation to the code can help someone who is unfamiliar with the code understand what it does. For example, you can add a comment explaining the purpose of the code and what each variable represents.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Input validation: You can add input validation to check if the step size <code>step</code> is positive and non-zero. You can also add input validation to check if the interval <code>x_start</code> to <code>x_end</code> is well-defined.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Use <code>numpy</code> arrays: The <code>numpy</code> library provides arrays that are optimized for numerical computations. Instead of using the <code>Storage</code> class, you can use <code>numpy</code> arrays to store the results of the midpoint method.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Plotting: You can use a plotting library such as <code>matplotlib</code> to visualize the results of the midpoint method. This can be helpful in understanding the results and detecting any issues with the code.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>By making these changes, you can make the code more readable, reusable, and understandable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of this is good. I laugh at (2) because I notoriously do not put documentation in. Perhaps I should use ChatGPT to document my class code? I don't use (4) for a couple of reasons.</p>
<ol>
<li>you need to know ahead of time how many values you need to save if you use arrays</li>
<li>there is extra boilerplate code for setting up the initial arrays, and saving the data in the right indices</li>
</ol>
<p>The <code>Storage()</code> class I made solves these problems, and is <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/Feb/24/common-python-pattern-building-up-lists-to-plot/">discussed in more detail here</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, ChatGPT wouldn't be expected to know that, but it does highlight some limitations. We do (5) in later cells, and will do (1) later, but this code was just an introduction. </p>
<h3 id="new-code-dangerous">New code -- dangerous!</h3>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>ME:</strong> how would you use this code to find the minimum and maximum of a function? please show the resulting code</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What I was looking for is to use the derivative code above, find where it equals (or is close to) zero and return those points. What I got was <strong>incorrect code</strong> described perfectly. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>ChatGPT:</strong> To find the minimum and maximum of a function using this code, you can modify the code to keep track of the minimum and maximum values of the derivative. If the derivative at a point is zero, it means that the function has a local extremum (minimum or maximum) at that point.</p>
<p>Here's an updated version of the code that finds the minimum and maximum of a function:</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">numpy</span> <span class="k">as</span> <span class="nn">np</span>
<span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">midpoint_method</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">fun</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">x_start</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">x_end</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">step</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">x</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">x_start</span>
<span class="n">min_x</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">max_x</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">None</span>
<span class="n">min_m</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">max_m</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kc">None</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="n">x</span> <span class="o"><=</span> <span class="n">x_end</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">y_left</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">fun</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">step</span> <span class="o">/</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">y_right</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">fun</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="n">step</span> <span class="o">/</span> <span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">m</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">y_right</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">y_left</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="o">/</span> <span class="n">step</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">min_m</span> <span class="ow">is</span> <span class="kc">None</span> <span class="ow">or</span> <span class="n">m</span> <span class="o"><</span> <span class="n">min_m</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">min_m</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">m</span>
<span class="n">min_x</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">x</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">max_m</span> <span class="ow">is</span> <span class="kc">None</span> <span class="ow">or</span> <span class="n">m</span> <span class="o">></span> <span class="n">max_m</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">max_m</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">m</span>
<span class="n">max_x</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">x</span>
<span class="n">x</span> <span class="o">+=</span> <span class="n">step</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">min_x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">min_m</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">max_x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">max_m</span>
<span class="n">x_start</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">5</span>
<span class="n">x_end</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">15</span>
<span class="n">step</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">min_x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">min_m</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">max_x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">max_m</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">midpoint_method</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">fun</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">x_start</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">x_end</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">step</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Minimum at x="</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">min_x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">" with derivative "</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">min_m</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"Maximum at x="</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">max_x</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s2">" with derivative "</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">max_m</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<blockquote>
<p>In this updated version of the code, a function <code>midpoint_method</code> is defined to encapsulate the midpoint method. The function takes four arguments: <code>fun</code>, <code>x_start</code>, <code>x_end</code>, and <code>step</code>. The function returns four values: the <code>x</code>-coordinates and the values of the minimum and maximum derivatives.</p>
<p>In the main part of the code, the <code>midpoint_method</code> function is called with the input parameters, and the results are stored in <code>min_x</code>, <code>min_m</code>, <code>max_x</code>, and <code>max_m</code>. Finally, the minimum and maximum are printed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This printed the <strong>minimum and maximum of the derivative not the function</strong>. Unless you knew what was going on, this would be seriously dangerous to use.</p>
<h3 id="finding-resources-useful">Finding resources -- useful</h3>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>ME:</strong> where can I learn more about numerical derivatives in python and include specific links</p>
<p><strong>ChatGPT:</strong> Here are several resources with specific links to help you learn about numerical derivatives in Python:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Online tutorials:</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The official Python documentation has a section on numerical differentiation: <a href="https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/floatingpoint.html">https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/floatingpoint.html</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>A comprehensive tutorial on numerical derivatives in Python can be found here: <a href="https://realpython.com/numerical-derivatives-python/">https://realpython.com/numerical-derivatives-python/</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Books:</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"Python for Data Analysis" by Wes McKinney covers the use of numerical methods in data analysis and provides examples using Python: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Python-Data-Analysis-Wrangling-IPython/dp/1491957662">https://www.amazon.com/Python-Data-Analysis-Wrangling-IPython/dp/1491957662</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"Numerical Python" by Robert Johansson covers numerical methods and scientific computing using the Python programming language: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Numerical-Python-Scientific-Computing-Array/dp/1491911662">https://www.amazon.com/Numerical-Python-Scientific-Computing-Array/dp/1491911662</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Online courses:</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Coursera offers several online courses on numerical methods and scientific computing in Python: <a href="https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=numerical%20python">https://www.coursera.org/courses?query=numerical%20python</a></p>
</li>
<li>Udemy also has several online courses that cover numerical methods in Python: <a href="https://www.udemy.com/topic/numerical-methods/">https://www.udemy.com/topic/numerical-methods/</a></li>
<li>
<p>edX offers a course on numerical methods for scientific computing with Python: <a href="https://www.edx.org/learn/numerical-methods-for-scientific-computing-with-python">https://www.edx.org/learn/numerical-methods-for-scientific-computing-with-python</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Scientific libraries:</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <code>numpy</code> library in Python has a comprehensive documentation on numerical derivatives: <a href="https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/routines.math.html#derivatives">https://numpy.org/doc/stable/reference/routines.math.html#derivatives</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <code>scipy</code> library also has a section on numerical derivatives: <a href="https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/signal.html#differentiation">https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/signal.html#differentiation</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Community resources:</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Stack Overflow is a great resource for asking questions and getting help with numerical derivatives in Python: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python">https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/python</a></p>
</li>
<li>The official Python mailing list is another good resource for asking questions and getting help: <a href="https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list">https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list</a></li>
<li>Reddit has several communities dedicated to Python programming, including r/learnpython and r/python, where you can ask questions and get help with numerical derivatives: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/">https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/</a> and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/python/">https://www.reddit.com/r/python/</a>
</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="heres-the-video-again">Here's the Video Again</h3>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H1fBdboJeBo" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe>One Rule to Rule Them All2022-11-08T00:00:00-05:002022-11-08T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-11-08:/posts/2022/Nov/08/one-rule-to-rule-them-all/<p>I'm giving a talk at the Fall Cross-Disciplinary Research, Teaching and Technology Symposium on Wednesday November 9th, 2:00PM – 5:00PM at Bryant University. The theme this semester is Bayesian …</p><p>I'm giving a talk at the Fall Cross-Disciplinary Research, Teaching and Technology Symposium on Wednesday November 9th, 2:00PM – 5:00PM at Bryant University. The theme this semester is Bayesian Methods, so I get to opine about all thing Bayes! </p>
<p><a href="https://bblais.github.io/images/One Rule to Rule Them All.pdf">Here are my slides.</a></p>Miracles with Brian Blais2022-11-01T00:00:00-04:002022-11-01T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-11-01:/posts/2022/Nov/01/miracles-with-brian-blais/<p>Matthew and Andrew welcome me back to talk about miracles. Andrew gives an update on the failed prayer to heal his eyesight, and towards the end of the show, there …</p><p>Matthew and Andrew welcome me back to talk about miracles. Andrew gives an update on the failed prayer to heal his eyesight, and towards the end of the show, there is a special appearance by David from Skeptics and Seekers. We reference the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/23/a-long-discussion-about-miracles/">long discussion about miracles</a> from my appearance on the Digital Gnosis YouTube channel.</p>
<p>This podcast episode can be obtained at</p>
<ul>
<li>On Anchor: https://anchor.fm/still-unbelievable/episodes/Episode-84---Miracles-with-Brian-Blais-e1nlui2</li>
<li>On iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-84-miracles-with-brian-blais/id1448210557?i=1000584382595</li>
</ul>The "God" of the Philosophers Is Empty2022-07-23T00:00:00-04:002022-07-23T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-07-23:/posts/2022/Jul/23/the-god-of-the-philosophers-is-empty/<p>So I recently had a bit of a discussion which ended somewhat abruptly with complaints of category errors on my part and implied scientism. The initial Tweet was:</p>
<p>https://twitter …</p><p>So I recently had a bit of a discussion which ended somewhat abruptly with complaints of category errors on my part and implied scientism. The initial Tweet was:</p>
<p>https://twitter.com/dryapologist/status/1548281913873313792
<img alt="Pasted image 20220723111528.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220723111528.png"></p>
<p>To which I replied:</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220723111600.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220723111600.png"></p>
<p>Then @MetaChristianity posted in seeming exasperation:</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220723111642.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220723111642.png"></p>
<p>@MetaChristianity then references <a href="https://lastedenblog.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/god-vs-the-gods/">this blog post</a> to point out my "category error". The post summarizes the difference between the "God" of the so-called "serious theists" and what I was apparently responding to. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In any serious discussion about theism, it is absolutely crucial to distinguish between God and the gods. <strong><em>If you don’t understand this distinction, you will literally never understand what serious theists are talking about</em></strong>.</p>
<p>God is, by definition, the Absolute. The one, absolute, unconditioned ground and source of all that is; the Alpha and the Omega, as Christian scripture puts it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The term "source of all that is" comes up a lot in these descriptions, and I am baffled about several things.</p>
<ol>
<li>How is this not just word salad? I can make any definition I want, but that doesn't guarantee I am saying anything meaningful.</li>
<li>When we say that something is a <em>source</em> of something, then we should be able to specify some of its properties. For example, if we say that the source of the large rotation speeds of galaxies is dark matter, we are saying that dark matter (whatever it is) has mass -- or at least a gravitational effect -- and we can quantify the effect, the cases where we see the source and where we don't, we can rule out some of the things that dark matter isn't, etc... What properties does this Alpha and Omega have?</li>
<li>Why call it "God"? That word has a lot of baggage, and is commonly (and historically) used to refer to an <em>agent</em> which answers prayers, produces miraculous events (both modern and historical), and fine-tunes universal constants. If "source of all that is" is a different thing than this, then use a different word or you run the risk of equivocation. </li>
<li>Why think the "Alpha and Omega" is a mind at all? Why not just some brute property of the universe, like the laws of logic or abstract numbers? How could you tell? </li>
<li>How can you possibly get from this nebulous "source of all that is" to the stories in a religious text? If the "serious theist" wants to say that some of those stories and claims in those texts are actually true, then they become testable (and have failed as far as I can tell). If the "serious theist" wants to say that these stories are just metaphors, then the texts hold the same content as Harry Potter books -- nice stories that might give some life lessons.</li>
</ol>
<p>So I come back to the idea that if this "source of all that is" has any discernible impact on our lives, then it is measurable and thus testable empirically. If not, then it has no use and is indistinguishable from nothing. The "serious theist" can state all they want that "the existence of God is not an empirical question" but all they are saying is that their claims are just empty words. </p>Bad Apologetics on Bayes - Part 32022-07-13T00:00:00-04:002022-07-13T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-07-13:/posts/2022/Jul/13/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-3/<p>In this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> I join <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a> to discuss <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrew's article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The …</a></p><p>In this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> I join <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a> to discuss <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrew's article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</a> entitled "Chapter 11 - The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth". </p>
<p>It's 9 hours long, but I am only on for the first 7 hours. This isn't a complete log of everything said, but I tried to include the main points. I also started with a transcript, and edited it for clarity (e.g. removing ums, and repetition) but there may still be some weird typos from the computer generated transcript that I didn't catch. I will try to quote Nathan, James, Kamil and myself if it comes from the episode. All other text is mine, commentary either at the time or sometime afterward. </p>
<p>The parts of this document are here:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Aug/29/bad-apologetics-ep-18-bayes-machine-goes-brrrrrrrrr/">Original Post</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/30/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-1/">Part 1: 1-3 hr</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/12/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-2/">Part 2: 3-6 hr</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/13/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-3/">Part 3: 6-9 hr</a></li>
</ol>
<div class="toc"><span class="toctitle">Table of Contents</span><ul>
<li><a href="#tldr">TLDR</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-breaking-with-the-community">On Breaking with the Community</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-the-non-recognition-motif">On the Non-recognition motif</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-hallucinations">On Hallucinations</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-zeus">On Zeus</a></li>
<li><a href="#single-disciple-bayes-factor">Single Disciple Bayes Factor</a></li>
<li><a href="#conversion-of-paul">Conversion of Paul</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-the-bayes-factors">On the Bayes Factors</a></li>
<li><a href="#independence">Independence</a></li>
<li><a href="#hume">Hume</a></li>
<li><a href="#plantingas-dwindling-probabilities">Plantinga's Dwindling Probabilities</a></li>
<li><a href="#some-final-thoughts">Some Final Thoughts</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>And the link for the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM</p>
<h2 id="tldr">TLDR</h2>
<p>The main issues are:</p>
<ol>
<li>ignoring priors because there's no prior probability in their calculation, so they really aren't doing Bayes</li>
<li>inconsistent use of priors -- when they address naturalistic alternatives they say, this is implausible -- so they do consider priors, but only when it suits them</li>
<li>they don't support the claim that their preferred model (e.g. Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead) actually produces the evidence with the high likelihood</li>
<li>they don't seriously consider alternatives, either natural or supernatural</li>
<li>they don't motivate their numbers with comparable rare events, or they would have seen that their calculation of an odds ratio of <span class="math">\(10^{44}\)</span> is ridiculous</li>
<li>they uncritically take the claims in the New Testament as the actual data we have, as opposed to the fact that what we have are ancient <em>texts</em> that contain those claims</li>
<li>an uncritical view of New Testament documents, and an unprofessional response to traditional scholarship</li>
<li>they don't even seem to think about why something would be explained by their preferred resurrection hypothesis. It's just assumed that everything is explained. And then they ask, how do you, skeptic, explain this?</li>
<li>they make up claims with no supporting citations (especially with respect to how new communities form and how hallucinations work)</li>
<li>they don't make the very easy step of looking at what's actually happening in the world with religious people and actually getting some data, getting some background knowledge about how people actually function </li>
</ol>
<h2 id="on-breaking-with-the-community">On Breaking with the Community</h2>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712143241.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712143241.png"></p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=23236">Time stamp 6:27:16</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: "So then so what would induce grown men to break with the religion, men to break with the religious community in which they had been raised and to confess with their blood that they had seen with their own eyes and handled with their own hands their dead rabbi raised again to life." Well, that second part of the sentence is contentious, isn't it? Because it's not clear that they're dying <em>for that</em>? It's they had a <em>belief</em>. Right? So the question should be what would cause grown men to form a <em>belief</em> that they had seen the resurrected Jesus physically? Right. And then break with that religious community and stuff. And then that's obvious: cognitive biases, distortions, grief from their death, cognitive dissonance theory, sunk-cost fallacy, etc....</p>
<p>James: Swinburne does this as well. They want to hermetically seal-in people in the belief systems that they grow up in or were raised in. And by this logic, you should never see religious innovation because like, well, people are trapped in their religious community. They can't take ideas, like, where does the resurrection idea come from? (Nathan: Except when the true) but then where does Islam come from? What is Mormonism come from? What does Buddhism come from? Where do all of the other messiah claim it's come from? The work of the devil? Clearly. </p>
<p>Kamil: Well, in this entire section, this question and the follow up is just lack of imagination. This idea that the disciples broke away from the religious tradition. I'm not sure they would frame it that way, because it's always the case that when you have theological innovation it's only a theological innovation to outsiders, but people in the group actually think that, no, they are rediscovering the true origins of the faith that was polluted by the outsiders.</p>
<p>Nathan: Well, I just thought of something that actually, I think even more would support the non-resurrection hypothesis. And that's in the cognitive dissonance theory there's also that how difficult it is to join a group actually makes you more likely to stay and not pay attention to disconfirming evidence. So like fraternities, you have a horrible induction process and stuff like that. Well, people are more likely to report that they have positive experiences when there's a difficult joining process than when there isn't because they're looking for ways to kind of justify why they did like a bunch of dumb stuff. Let's think about the case of Christianity here. Say you want to join our group. You're going to have to break with the Judaism of the group that you're in and be persecuted by all these people. And then you join. Well, what are you going to do? Are you going to go, "Yeah, actually, I was wrong" or are you going to look for rationalizations to not have to to justify your actions that you took in the first place? So I think, again, like a best kind of psychological theories about biases and things, there's even more reasons to confirm the non-resurrection theory.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712152930.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712152930.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: So they mentioned his disciples weren't anticipating any miracle, let alone a resurrection. I don't know how they know that. It's interesting that their own scriptures say that they should have been because Jesus said he was going to be resurrected. So I guess we're just completely ignoring that. The appearances to the disciples always is preceded by the women telling them -- there's always some expectation that precedes the appearance, even if we take the details at face value, which I don't think we should.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712153254.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712153254.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: Now, the next sentence is very interesting. "Messianic expectations in Judaism at the time did not include the resurrection of the Messiah, except in the general resurrection at the final judgment". Is this a reason for thinking that the probability of the resurrection given Judaism is actually low because it seems to be right, but somehow it's only in evidence against the ones that they don't like, but not against their own hypothesis.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-the-non-recognition-motif">On the Non-recognition motif</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=23824">Time stamp 6:37:04</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712153645.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712153645.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: "The disciples sometimes fail to recognize Jesus."" Now that is advanced as a reason to be skeptical that they were expecting to see Jesus, right? First of all I don't know why we should trust that as a detail. But also, the non-recognition motif is super weird. How is that expected under the resurrection hypothesis? Why would you expect Jesus to appear to some of his disciples and then not recognize him? So I don't understand how the resurrection explains this. To me, it's bizarre under any any view, certainly on the resurrection view. There's no explanation for it. They just pretend that there is. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-hallucinations">On Hallucinations</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=23885">Time stamp 6:38:05</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712161838.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712161838.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: So they're saying hallucination theory has to be invoked for multiple people. And the plausibility, as they say, inversely related to the amount of detail that involves. So what they're saying is that hallucinations become less plausible as an explanation for a report the more detail that a report has in it. I would like to see a citation where they show why they are claiming that because I don't know of any evidence that claims that the more detail you give the less likely it is to be a hallucination. They seem to be just making things up.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712161714.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712161714.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: In the footnotes here, they say in 27 here, they actually use a quote that I quote in my book talks about how comparatively dissimilar hallucinatory experiences of different people attain a spurious similarity by process of harmonization. And the quote goes on sort of explain some of the basic processes that operate to sort of harmonize accounts of individuals into a group account, which is what I think happened. Now what do they say in response to this? I'm glad they caught this, but what's their response? Their response consists of one sentence "But detailed experiences full of verbal and tactile interactions, both with the one seen and with other witnesses cannot be brushed aside like this." OK, so that's their rebuttal. They just basically say, "No."</p>
<p>Kamil: As far as I understand, under the hallucination hypothesis, the content of the experience is not actually what's described in the Gospels. When people say "maybe some Jesus's followers hallucinated". They are not saying, "I think there were groups of people that if we could interview, they would say, Oh yeah, I totally like poked through Jesus's holes" No, they are still saying that the accounts of Jesus's resurrection appearances in the Gospels and Acts are a literary creation, but they would say that the reason why they are there fundamentally goes back to some people having some kind of hallucinatory experience of Jesus and that grew over time. It got exaggerated, distorted and eventually this is what you end up with in the Gospels. So that's not even dealing with the actual hallucination hypothesis. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712162831.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712162831.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: Yes, exactly. And apologists consistently make this, what I regard as a clear mistake. They think that hallucination explanation, plus memory, contagion and whatever else, has to explain the accounts <em>as they appear in the Gospels</em>, which it absolutely <em>does not have to do</em>, because that is assuming that the skeptic just takes for granted at face value, everything that it says in the Gospels. Whereas no, that's not what the skeptic, that's not what those 75 percent or whatever percentage of scholars who think that, you know, the disciples believed that they saw Jesus. That's not what most of them are saying. They say there was some sort of experience that the disciples had, which they interpreted as Jesus appearing to them. Not necessarily the same as anything that we see in the Gospels other than in the very broadest outlines of, you know, they saw Jesus. They thought they saw Jesus. But repeatedly, the evangelical apologists keep saying, Oh no, they can't explain all the details. We see that on the next page, where they start saying, I know, but like they gave food to him and they cooked fish. Like, how could they have? How could they have hallucinated that?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712163025.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712163025.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: They say "then abruptly, they stopped". That is the resurrection appearance is stopped as Christ was no longer appeared on Earth and subsequent appearances were sort of different in character. Now my question is, first of all, why is it expected under the resurrection hypothesis that the appearances would stop? Jesus has been raised to life. He's back. He could be around for years, decades. I mean, forever if God wanted to be around forever, right? Like, why is it expected that they would stop after how many days it was? Actually, I think it's very expected that we would see this under a naturalistic hypothesis because and I can't remember if I actually talk about this in my book or just on my blog somewhere. But new religious movements that involve prophecy and revelation almost always fairly soon restrict the prophecy and revelation to particular people and particular time span. And the reason for that is because otherwise you can't keep control of the development of doctrine and who has power and prestige in the movement. There are case studies that have been done of this. There's almost always restrictions placed on what counts as a genuine revelation, either based on the person or at the time or something like that. So this is exactly, I think, what you would expect for a newly developing religious movement that entirely has nothing to do with God is that you would have some sort of cutoff point or criteria of what counts as a resurrection appearance. And this apparently Pentecost, was what developed in the early church, whereas it's not clear why you would expect anything like that if God actually rises from the dead. So again, they don't even seem to think about why something would be explained by their preferred resurrection hypothesis. It's just assumed that everything is explained. And then they ask, How do you explain this?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-zeus">On Zeus</h2>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712163809.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712163809.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: How do you know that Zeus would have no motive? Yeah, so poor old Zeus, he's just sort of left out in the cold there. I don't know why he's ignored so readily.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712182905.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712182905.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: So they seem to be saying here that God wouldn't have provided an objective vision because that would confuse the disciples in thinking that he had resurrected. Which would be like deceiving of God? I really don't even know that the early disciples would have had the ontological, would have drawn the ontological distinctions that we are making here between an objective vision and a bodily resurrection. Maybe they would have, I don't know.</p>
<p>Kamil: That goes back to what I'm saying. So if you look at the development of early Christian literature, then all the way up until the gospel of Luke, these appearances are actually like true visions, right? They are not appearances of a body that's walking around, talking to people. At least that hypothesis is consistent with the account. And this distinction between a supernatural veridical vision and an actual body being there that you can touch in the room is first introduced in the gospel of Luke. I want to emphasize again that in the gospel of Luke in that post resurrection account, it specifically says in Luke that Jesus ate a piece of fish so that the disciples wouldn't think that he's a ghost. Right? Yeah, I think that's protesting too much. I think that's a counter apologetic. That's why the author takes care to mention that.</p>
<p>James: And my point was that under an assumption of a true resurrection and divine inspiration of the Gospels, would we expect to see these sort of developments comparing Mark and John being sort of the most obvious and the theological flourishes that you see in Matthew and in Luke about all sorts of different points -- guards at the tomb and the people walking around Jerusalem and the mention that they touch Jesus, that Jesus ate fish so that they would know he's not a ghost. These things seem much more plausible under the idea that these are particular debates and theological concerns that the authors had at their time that didn't exist in in the time of the previous gospel authors and that they wanted to put in otherwise. Like, why wouldn't you just start off with the higC christology that you have in John and all of the relevant details and heck put in the Nicene Creed in there, just just so that God can have his bases covered and make sure that no one misunderstands -- this goes a bit beyond, I guess, the point being made here, but I just don't think we would expect to see texts like this under the assumption that Jesus was raised from the dead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712183940.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712183940.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: I would like some citations about this and what sort of mental illnesses are necessary for these sort of delivery effects, because as this is, I think, incorrect hallucinations actually quite common. And I don't know that there's any evidence that they can't be integrated into other experiences. They're not necessarily associated with mental illness, either. They're quite common in the healthy population, so they're just making things up at this point. This is apologetics through making things up. There's no citations or explanation of that there at all. And they also don't know that the conditions, like the conditions that they are referring to, are absent. How do you know that those weren't present? Yet again, just making it up?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="single-disciple-bayes-factor">Single Disciple Bayes Factor</h2>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712184255.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712184255.png"></p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=24969">Time stamp 6:56:09</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: They say the probability of a single disciple reporting experiencing Jesus under the resurrection relative to not-resurrection is one in a thousand. So three orders of magnitude.</p>
<p>Nathan: Where does this number come from? What if I just go, Yeah, but it just seems to be different like -- what can we appeal to?</p>
<p>James: They can deplore your reasoning, but they can't say you're wrong. So the point is that they're taking a thousand is the Bayes factor for a single disciple. And they're saying that there are 13 of them who saw Jesus. So if you multiply 10 to the three by itself, 13 times you get 10 to the thirty nine, which is that that number there. So they're building up to the 44, that is. We get we get 10 to the two I think from the women, ten to the thirty nine from the disciples and I guess the rest comes from Paul. So there's a whole separate subsection the independence. So we'll discuss that when they discuss it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="conversion-of-paul">Conversion of Paul</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=25134">Time stamp 6:58:54</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: But the question we're trying to address here is what the Bayes factor is. How expected is Paul's conversion under the resurrection, given how expected is it or how likely is it under not-resurrection? Now, I don't know that anyone has a very good explanation for Paul's conversion. The question is though, how probable is it under the resurrection? Why would you expect Paul to be converted given the resurrection? What is the connection there at all? They don't even discuss this. They don't mention it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712185122.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712185122.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: "On the assumption of <span class="math">\(R\)</span>, there is no difficulty whatsoever accounting for <span class="math">\(P\)</span>", which is Paul's conversion. But what does the resurrection have to do <em>at all</em> with Paul's conversion? God could appear to Paul if he wanted to irrespective of whether he was resurrected. Nor do we have any reason to think that God would have any business appearing to Paul. Why would he want to do that instead of appearing to anyone else or groups of people or no one at all? There's no explanatory value here at all. They have nothing to say.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-the-bayes-factors">On the Bayes Factors</h2>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713065658.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713065658.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: You know, sometimes I'm thinking when we say they've literally pulled the numbers out their ass, that that sounds a bit harsh, but where has this number come from other than that? what belief do I hope with like 10 to the minus four?</p>
<p>Kamil: You know, like let's say that there is some mundane claim from ancient history that we have a very well evidenced even maybe even better than what we have for the New Testament, right? Let's just say that it's a mundane claim that Cicero makes it one of his letters where he literally wrote the letter like moments after it happened. And that same claim is also understood by a bunch of historians who covered at the same time period somewhat later. Like, would they also say that the likelihood ratio is this astronomical in favor of that event actually happening? It's way too high. Contemporary historians of antiquity are not this confident even about very mundane claims in the historical record, because they realize that even if it's super mundane, even if it's relatively well evidenced, they realize that all kinds of things going on that are separating us from the actual historical events 2000 years ago so that we don't have any information on things like distortions of information in transmission and stuff like that that it's just not appropriate to be super confident, especially especially not astronomically confident, like this is the level of confidence, which I think is not even warranted when it comes to the findings of in like experimental science, like experimental physics. Because even in experimental physics, there are all kinds of things that could still go wrong with the equipment that the machinery and stuff like that, right? And even if you have multiple people, it like different labs around the world confirming the same event, it could still be false positives, right? So that's I think that's a very powerful reductio, at least against what they are doing in the paper with these specific numbers.</p>
<p>James: Take something that's sort of overwhelmingly, I don't know like that two jet aircraft flew into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. That event, right? What Bayes factor would they give for that happening? I mean, it's hard to know what it could be, because the evidence we have for that is so much greater than the evidence of the resurrection. The number that would have to give is just completely obscene, right? And if you think about claims even from empirical sciences, Kamil says, I wouldn't I don't think I'd give 10 to the 44 of anything, right? That is just so ridiculously high. Remember, 10 to the 12 is a trillion. So like one in a trillion against you could think of it as. And that is a very, very high confidence. It's hard to emphasize how high 10 to the 44 is as an odds ratio. And the fact that they are giving that to an inference event that no one, there's not even testimony of anyone seeing this, it's an inference that would give to explain a bunch of facts which are tendentious. To think that you can get even close to 10 to the 44 is just ludicrous.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=25965">Time stamp 7:12:45</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: So they're saying that the probability of the evidence is that we mentioned, occurring under not resurrection is equivalent, relatively speaking, to someone winning $100 million ticket lottery more than five times separately, independently of each other. That's the level of unlikelihood they're claiming we as the not-resurrection people have to swallow. </p>
<p>Nathan: I don't even know that I would be that uncharitable to the resurrection side of it. </p>
<p>James: I mean, I would give a higher probability of young-earth creationism being true. 10 to the minus forty four, for goodness sake, that is so ridiculously low.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Because they don't make any attempt to compare to other models, other situations, they uncritically accept a Bayes factor of <span class="math">\(10^{44}\)</span>. It really is absurd -- nothing, even in the physical sciences, rises to this level of confidence and they don't seem to bat an eye. </p>
<p>Part of this I think is a defense mechanism, so they don't have to deal with the super-low priors for the resurrection -- if the likelihood ratio is off the charts, then it will overwhelm nearly all priors. Lydia McGrew <a href="https://youtu.be/rtwejTDjPA4">makes this case in a video response</a> about setting aside priors. </p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713070453.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713070453.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: here's why the methodology they've used is crap and shouldn't be used by people when they say how the compounding of independent pieces of positive evidence can rapidly create a powerful cumulative case, even for highly controversial claim. So think about the gremlins in my closet. So what's the case? There's noises coming from my attic. Given that there are gremlins in my closet. And now take what would be some other piece of evidence as well. There's also a leak coming from the attic. And these gremlins are like urinating and stuff up there, which is causing a leak, obviously. So that's also really expected. And so and then let's say there's four or five different leaks in the attic. So let's just multiply each of those together because they're each independent lines of evidence, right? And just keep. And this is how the Bayes Machine goes Brrrrr. And that I think just is demonstrative of this being a really bad way of trying to use Bayes Theorem to compare true beliefs about about something.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The method Nathan outlines here is structurally the same as the McGrews. You ignore priors, have lines of evidence which you claim to be independent and support your supernatural claim, multiply all of them together to get a really huge Bayes factor. It's completely naive.</p>
<p>In addition to all of the other failures, they also don't recognize that this naive accumulation of evidence doesn't actually work in multiple-model comparison, where <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/">you can get non-monotonic effects</a>. This occurs in some very simple cases and is easy to see, but they never seem to address them because they fail to have any serious model of how their data is produced. There are other subtle effects even beyond that that can <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jun/14/sometimes-more-testimony-is-worse/">make more testimony even worse</a>, when you include the process of taking seriously how we update our knowledge.</p>
<h2 id="independence">Independence</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=26996">Time stamp 7:29:56</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713071846.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713071846.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: They don't actually say that they're necessarily independent, as they say here. In the quote that I've highlighted here, the force of the case is actually underestimated as a result of the independence assumption, so they are dependent. But in a way that actually <em>increases</em> the odds ratio, so they're actually being conservative in assuming independence. Now that is an interesting one to get your head around. Let's think about what that means. What they are saying is that. Suppose you came to believe that one disciple, let's say, Peter, had an experience of Jesus and reported seeing him and so forth and being willing to die for him. They are actually claiming that it is <em>less likely</em> that another disciple say John would also have reported an experience of Jesus and be willing to die for him. They are telling us based on this statement here that I've highlighted that. Believing that one disciple came to experience Jesus makes it less likely than another one did. That is the content of this claim here now. Riddle me how plausible you think that is because that is such a ridiculous claim. It is so stupid. I can't believe that they would actually say this.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713072750.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713072750.png"></p>
<p>Here, I think that they are leaning on the willingness to die causing a reduction in the reporting of the second disciple. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: So they're saying that basically, once one disciple heard about, you know, say, Peter being martyred, that a second disciple would become less likely to stand firm in their testimony.</p>
<p>Kamil: that depends on what's the background knowledge on martyrdom and how it was perceived. Because it's clear from early Christian literature that Christians actually didn't perceive martyrdom as something negative or something that they should avoid. They actually, like looked forward to it. They didn't mind this. This is something that you find consistently in the early Christian literature, Christians were actually happy about being persecuted. [...] And I think that makes sense because they believe that if you are martyred that means that your salvation is secure. [...] They would basically commit suicide by cop by handing themselves in massive numbers in some cases. There are reports of entire crowds of Christians walking up to the Roman procurator and demanding to be martyred for the Christian faith.</p>
<p>James: This is such a silly argument, it feels like that they knew that they had to address the independents. The McGrews had to address the independents issue. And so they adopted the "just say anything" approach where their arguments are so ridiculous that I don't understand how any thoughtful person could even entertain them. So as as Kamil said, we have ample evidence that many other Christians sought martyrdom. And we have that from other religions as well. Like again, I mean, do Islamic terrorists sort of get cold feet when they see one of their compatriots die in a suicide bombing? I mean, maybe some do but a lot of them don't. So I don't I don't think there's any evidence for this claim that there's some sort of negative effect of one disciple becoming less likely to continue in the faith when another is killed. But there's even further problems with this. How do we even know that the disciples knew what happened to the other ones? Because we don't know, for the most part. I mean, maybe Peter and Paul where we have some documentation, but most of them, we don't know what happened to the disciples and if they were as tradition holds, scattered across the Roman world and even beyond, right, like someone to India or something, how would they know what happened to each other? Like, I don't I don't buy this assumption that they would have just known that maybe some, but that's another assumption that's in play here. Also this seems to be looking at the wrong end of the stick here. We're talking about maybe years, two decades later, when some of them might have been martyred, some of them were and others may have been martyred. But what we're trying to explain is the initial reports, the initial beliefs right in the days, weeks, maybe months after the resurrection, martyrdom hadn't happened then. And what we're trying to assess is what is the probability that the disciples would have come to the belief that Jesus had appeared to them and begin to teach that in spite of persecution in that initial condition? You can't say that those are independent because years in the future, some of them may have got cold feet when they heard about a different apostle being killed. That doesn't make any sense. The timing is off, right? We're trying to explain the initial reports and beliefs. If later some of them did get cold feet, it wouldn't change the fact that earlier on they had believed that, which is what we're actually trying to explain. For all we know, some of the disciples did get cold feet when they heard about others being martyred. How would we know that that's not the case?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713074148.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713074148.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: There's a second argument which honestly just doesn't even make any sense to me. Like the Cold Feet argument makes sense. I just think it's implausible and under motivated. The second argument that they gave, I just don't understand.</p>
<p>Kamil: These are exactly the points in the argumentation where they could very easily look at what's actually happening in the world with religious people and actually get some data, get some background knowledge about how people function under these circumstances. But there's no discussion about it here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=28267">Time stamp 7:51:07</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713075406.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713075406.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: I want to ask, did these disciples not think that God would protect them because it seems very plausible to me that they would. How many people do we see today who think that God will protect them from coronavirus and therefore they don't need to get vaccinated, even though there's no evidence for that at all in any of their texts, they just making these things up. But but these people die, right? They don't take precautions and they get it and some of them will die and have died on the basis of a belief that they've just plucked out of nowhere, right? That God will protect them of this sort of thing. So why wouldn't something like that not happen in the case of the disciples? We see that in other religious traditions as well that people believe God will protect them. People believe that they killed themselves, and then they're going to go up to the UFO that's coming to resurrect and save humanity from the asteroid or whatever it is in some of those cults. Why are we expecting that death is some sort of big disincentive?</p>
<p>James: The distinction they make between an empirical fact seems to be the sort of thing that philosophers debate about but ordinary people don't make a distinction between something that they know is true for whatever reason and something that they've seen to be true. It's just, look, they know that Jesus is Lord, right? They may have seen him, and that's part of how they know. But it's not the fact that they saw him <em>itself</em>. I think that part of it, it's that they knew that Jesus was Lord and that he'd risen and all that just as Christians today. That's what motivates them, irrespective of whether they think that they've had an experience. I mean, some Christians will say that they've seen something or heard something else. It's not clear that that itself is what's driving them, but they McGrews's want to tell us that that is absolutely critical and that no one would die for claiming a particular empirical fact to be the case unless they had really good grounds for it. But people will die for ideological beliefs that they don't have a good ground for. We have not been given any reason to think that that's the case or that that distinction meant anything to the disciples. So until I get some reasons for thinking that the distinction matters or was irrelevant to the disciples, I'm just going to say, what difference does that make?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="hume">Hume</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=28701">Time stamp 7:58:21</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713075907.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713075907.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: if you want to interpret in a Bayesian terms, I don't think you have to but can, it's to say that, as we said before, if the prior was very low, you need a very likelihood to overcome that low prior. I think that that is a very profound insight, even if intellectually, we all know it -- as the doctor's case that I mentioned and many other cases -- people neglect base rates and so we're actually not good at doing this in a lot of cases. </p>
<p>Nathan: But the interesting thing is that the base rates are completely taken out of this text. </p>
<p>James: Well, that's the irony.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713080450.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713080450.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: They say they say here that Hume was wrong to make in principle arguments against the resurrection because as they say here, that you need to "leave the high ground and descend into the trenches of engaging in specific historical events." Well, the thing is apologists actually, never do this or almost never do this for other religious claims, though. They only look at Christianity, and maybe there's one or two others that come up occasionally. The point is, though, that they love to focus on the details. They'll write thousands and thousands of pages on all the details of Christianity. But if you ask them about, say, Mormonism or all the other Messiah claimants or Hindu miracle performers and all sorts of other cases that I document, they have very little to say about them. They don't descend into the trenches. They don't go through the details of that again, most of them most of the time. </p>
<p>Nathan: no one should do as well. I hate it when people frame the sort of discourse in this way where it's like, well, for any crazy claim that certain groups of people have really committed to, expended all this intellectual effort on constructing like Martin Bailey defenses that you can spend your entire life trying to deconstruct and you were like, get through that. So if anyone makes any of these claims you've got to, then you know, like you've got to get a degree in like biblical scholarship, right? You've got to learn the original Greek. [...] I don't think anyone should reasonably have to do all this just to be able to conclude that they don't think someone rose from the dead when there's nothing in their experience that indicates it can happen [...] Sure, there's room for a more detailed analysis, but it's just so unfair to put this expectation on normal people.</p>
<p>James: Yes, I agree, and it's one that they won't bear for other belief systems as well. So it's entirely it's entirely self-serving.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713081530.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713081530.png"></p>
<p>Although they admit they don't accept this Bayes factor, James does provide a way to make the prior lower than that -- even accepting that God exists, wants to save humanity, and can do miracles.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: this is something I just sort of thought of on the on the fly. So the argument is something like this, let's suppose that I believe God exists, and let's suppose that I believe he's going to take some sort of intervention to help with saving mankind. Now, I don't know why you'd think those things, but let's just stipulate them for the sake of argument. Now, I have no additional beliefs about what that action might be. Now, God can do anything that's logically possible, right? So the set of things that he could do to save mankind, which would include resurrecting any particular human who has ever existed, resurrecting any animal who's ever existed, resurrecting multiple people, performing any arbitrary miracle, not doing any miracle, moving the planets around like anything you could imagine. I mean, God could work that into his plan to make that serve his purpose, right? I mean, he's God. So the set of things that he could do to serve his purpose and give a message to mankind is effectively infinite. The set of things that the Christian is postulating that God actually did is just one, he raises Jesus from the dead, right? So we've got a prior of one over "infinity". (You know, in quotes, because obviously that's not a number.) So basically, that's a zero prior for or close to zero, as makes no difference for the probability that Jesus would be resurrected. And that's given that I believe in God and that God would intervene, but not having any particular belief about what God would do. So that's my reason for thinking that it's lower than 10 to the minus 43 because I'm just indifferent between any of the possible things. Your mileage may vary with that argument. I'm not sure I entirely believe it myself, but the point is that is it that hard to come up with reasons as to why it would be extremely low? God has no constraints on him. If I'm a Muslim and I believe very strongly that Jesus was only a prophet and that God wouldn't resurrect him. Maybe that gets me to 10 to the minus forty three, right? Hmm. But you just need a bit of imagination.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="plantingas-dwindling-probabilities">Plantinga's Dwindling Probabilities</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=30114">Time stamp 8:21:54</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713083147.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713083147.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: But what Plantinga is saying is that in order to get to like a belief in Christianity, you have to proceed sort of step wise. You have to start with like God exists. And then there's like conditional on God exist. Oh, God, existing God would want to make some sort of revelation of himself to mankind and then conditional on God wanting to make a revelation himself. [...] His point is that because those are all probabilities they all have to be less than one. If you multiply a bunch of numbers less than one together the number diminishes. I think it's illustrative to point out that even if you start with fairly high numbers, if you take point nine, for example, they're going to raise it to the power five, like point nine to the power of five. If you have five independent things that are all 90 percent likely you get, point five nine four. So obviously if it's less than point nine, then it diminishes more quickly. So you can quickly go from highly confident to actually not that confident, even if each step is fairly confident by having a bunch of steps. That's the key point Plantinga is making there, and I think that's a very good argument to be is sort of suspicious of this stepwise inductive or, I guess, Bayesian type of arguments.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713084706.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713084706.png"></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713084742.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713084742.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: In fact, this is exactly what you do from scam emails. I look at it and say, what is the probability that this person exists and conditional on that, what is the probability that they've sent me this email? Because as like, for example, if I've got an email that said it's from Plantinga, I know that Plantinga exists, but I would assume that it's not actually from Plantinga because he's probably not emailing me, right? Whereas if I got an email that says it's from Elvis Presley, I would say, Well, it's probably not from Elvis Presley, right? The fact that I've got an email claiming to be from Elvis Presley isn't going to overcome my low prior that Elvis Presley is alive because he died a long time ago. So it seems to me that although we may not explicitly do this in many cases, that is actually the appropriate way to do it is to consider separately, at least like conceptually separately, the probability that the person sending you the email actually exists like the Nigerian prince. And then given that that person exists, what is the probability that they are sending you this email?</p>
<p>James: they're saying that we don't have priors over people that we meet, basically. And I just think that's wrong. I mean, whether we mentally have something like that is another question. But the question would be like, is there a way that you could appropriately assign priors to make sense of inference? And I think it absolutely does. And that is how I distinguish between people claiming to be someone that I think is plausible and people making claims that are not plausible, right? What if you've got no way to make the distinction? You can rightfully describe that as a prior because it's not based on any specific evidence that you have about that person. The prior would be with respect to the factors prior to your particular interaction with that person's background knowledge, that would be relevant like, for example, someone claiming to be Elvis Presley. The fact that I would disbelieve isn't based on how persuasive they are or like, how good their outfit is or something like that. It's based on beliefs I have about Elvis Presley, which is prior to that particular meeting. how else could you describe that right? The McGrews want to say that that just isn't the thing. But I don't understand how they then make these distinctions. How do the McGrews explain the fact that sometimes we don't believe people when they tell us who they are or when they email us or something like that?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220713134146.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220713134146.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: So they're complaining that Plantinga is pulled out this 0.9 from nowhere and is claiming that it's generous. Yeah. Now does that remind you of anything? Seriously? They have the absolute gall to complain about that after what they've done in this whole article. It's unbelievable.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="some-final-thoughts">Some Final Thoughts</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=32164">Time stamp 8:56:04</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: it's disappointing because in principle, Kamil and Brian were talking about this, but in principle, I think you could use Bayesian techniques to elucidate some of the key points in the argument here. If it was done well and carefully, but it's unfortunately not. And so maybe I'll just quickly highlight some of the key aspects of this without going through everything we've discussed it that I find most problematic.</p>
<p>One is the fact that they are very unclear about what the methodology is, that they're even trying to apply here. They talk about Bayesian techniques and they talk about the likelihood ratio. But then they, as we mentioned many times, keep flipping back to talking about the low plausibility or the prior probability of many of the things that they don't want to consider that, you know, they're <span class="math">\(\sim R\)</span> hypotheses rather than resurrection, whereas they don't address that at all with respect to God or the proposition that God would want to raise Jesus from the dead. But it's not clear why they should be persuasive to anyone else if they don't actually present objective considerations like models or base rates or other things. So that the whole methodology is, I think, very unclear.</p>
<p>A second key problem is that the arguments that they give in favor of the key facts that that's the women and the disciples and then the Pauline conversion just relies on basically taking the the New Testament at face value and accepting every claim that it makes. And if you're going to do that, just read the part where it says Jesus is God and was raised from the dead and be done with like it's so much more honest and quicker that going through all of this, no skeptic is going to acknowledge all of these things as being veridical and all of the original authors and based on eyewitness testimony and all this sort of stuff that that they are leaning towards or explicitly arguing for and then make really, I think, problematic appeals to very selective scholarship and pooh poohing the textual analysis, critical analysis stuff that they don't like, but then appealing to it when it suits them.</p>
<p>So the third point here is that they when considering the relative explanatory power of resurrection versus not resurrection, they often didn't consider many not-resurrection type arguments. So many of those sorts of things that say Kamil and I would advocate for weren't discussed somewhere were but a lot weren't. And even more significant than that, They didn't really say much of anything about the actual explanatory power, like the probability of the evidence given the explanation. They mostly just said the naturalistic explanations were improbable, like low prior, which doesn't say anything about their explanatory scope, while at the same time saying almost nothing about the explanatory power (the probability of the evidence given resurrection) about their own proffered explanation. This is most clear, I think in the case of Paul, where it's completely unclear how a resurrection is supposed to explain why Paul was converted because they just completely separate from each other. God could appear to Paul, whether or not Jesus was resurrected, and why would God want appeared to Paul anyway? Like, what does that have to do with anything? They just don't address this so that they're really bad at actually trying to explain how their explanation is a better explanation, how their model is a better explanation than competing explanations.</p>
<p>And I think the final point that I wanted to make is the issue of independence, which is absolutely critical to their argument because most of the, really all of it comes from multiplying low numbers together or high numbers, depending on which way you look at it, and they justify that by the independence assumption that the women's testimony is independent of the disciples testimony, which is independent of Paul. And then furthermore, that all of those 13 disciples testimonies are independent of each other, and the justification for this is just ridiculous. Basically, they say that it's actually independence overestimates the evidence against them, like it underestimates the strength of their case because first of all, the disciples would get cold feet or be likely to get cold feet upon seeing one of the disciples be killed or martyred for their cause that that would actually cause them to be more skeptical than they otherwise would. And of course, they cite no evidence for that. The other reason that they gave is just that the best explanation for why all of the disciples became convinced is because they actually had good evidence, which I don't even understand how that's an argument -- it's just reasserting what they believe. So the point is one of the absolutely key assumptions behind their entire approach, which is the independence of these key facts here is just defended in a, I would say, pathetic way, like the arguments are just really ridiculous, and that undermines the entire premise of what they're doing.</p>
<p>James: So overall, it was difficult to read. It was really frustrating. It was too long. The arguments were mostly quite bad. They don't fulfill their promise of actually comparing the explanatory scope and the conditional probabilities of the resurrection versus other hypotheses. And this is a consistent failure of these sort of apologetic studies that claim that they're going to make a comparative analysis but just do a really shoddy job of it and don't seriously consider what skeptics would actually believe and what arguments they actually make. And don't try to give actual reasons for why the explanations that skeptics offer are bad. They just sort of assert that they're improbable and not take it seriously and not try to argue why their explanation is better. So, yeah, I think it's really poor scholarship, and I hope that you found some of our remarks to this effect for the last nine hours of interest.</p>
</blockquote>
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</script>Bad Apologetics on Bayes - Part 22022-07-12T00:00:00-04:002022-07-12T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-07-12:/posts/2022/Jul/12/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-2/<p>In this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> I join <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a> to discuss <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrew's article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The …</a></p><p>In this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> I join <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a> to discuss <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrew's article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</a> entitled "Chapter 11 - The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth". </p>
<p>It's 9 hours long, but I am only on for the first 7 hours. This isn't a complete log of everything said, but I tried to include the main points. I also started with a transcript, and edited it for clarity (e.g. removing ums, and repetition) but there may still be some weird typos from the computer generated transcript that I didn't catch. I will try to quote Nathan, James, Kamil and myself if it comes from the episode. All other text is mine, commentary either at the time or sometime afterward. </p>
<p>The parts of this document are here:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Aug/29/bad-apologetics-ep-18-bayes-machine-goes-brrrrrrrrr/">Original Post</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/30/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-1/">Part 1: 1-3 hr</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/12/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-2/">Part 2: 3-6 hr</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/13/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-3/">Part 3: 6-9 hr</a></li>
</ol>
<div class="toc"><span class="toctitle">Table of Contents</span><ul>
<li><a href="#tldr">TLDR</a></li>
<li><a href="#eyewitnesses">Eyewitnesses</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-the-contradictions-as-evidence">On the contradictions as evidence</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-the-womens-testimony">On the Women's testimony</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-expected-evidence">On expected evidence</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-the-disciples">On the disciples</a></li>
<li><a href="#bad-epistomology">Bad epistomology</a></li>
<li><a href="#back-to-the-disciples">Back to the disciples</a></li>
<li><a href="#pauls-conversion">Paul's Conversion</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-to-the-probability">On to the Probability</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-arbitrary-numbers">On arbitrary numbers</a></li>
<li><a href="#back-to-the-disciples_1">Back to the Disciples</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-mistaken-beliefs">On mistaken beliefs</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>And the link for the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM</p>
<h2 id="tldr">TLDR</h2>
<p>The main issues are:</p>
<ol>
<li>ignoring priors because there's no prior probability in their calculation, so they really aren't doing Bayes</li>
<li>inconsistent use of priors -- when they address naturalistic alternatives they say, this is implausible -- so they do consider priors, but only when it suits them</li>
<li>they don't support the claim that their preferred model (e.g. Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead) actually produces the evidence with the high likelihood</li>
<li>they don't seriously consider alternatives, either natural or supernatural</li>
<li>they don't motivate their numbers with comparable rare events, or they would have seen that their calculation of an odds ratio of <span class="math">\(10^{44}\)</span> is ridiculous</li>
<li>they uncritically take the claims in the New Testament as the actual data we have, as opposed to the fact that what we have are ancient <em>texts</em> that contain those claims</li>
<li>an uncritical view of New Testament documents, and an unprofessional response to traditional scholarship</li>
<li>they don't even seem to think about why something would be explained by their preferred resurrection hypothesis. It's just assumed that everything is explained. And then they ask, how do you, skeptic, explain this?</li>
<li>they make up claims with no supporting citations (especially with respect to how new communities form and how hallucinations work)</li>
<li>they don't make the very easy step of looking at what's actually happening in the world with religious people and actually getting some data, getting some background knowledge about how people actually function </li>
</ol>
<h2 id="eyewitnesses">Eyewitnesses</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=10788">Time stamp 2:59:48</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: this is actually one of the strongest reasons for me to doubt the eyewitness testimony behind the Gospels especially if you think that the Gospels were written in the genre of Greco-Roman historical biography. [...] if you think that, then it's actually really, really unexpected that the authors of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of Matthew, for example, don't explicitly say they are based on eyewitness testimony. Because eyewitness testimony was very highly valued in ancient historigrapphy and I find it consistently over and over again. When it's the case that the historian in question actually had eyewitness testimony available, that they were the eyewitnesses themselves or they had access to eyewitness testimony, they say that explicitly in the text. It is actually very, very difficult to find instances where it's the case that they had access to eyewitnesses but they don't actually proactively disclose it. [...] I would absolutely expect Mark to say "this account is based on the memory of Apostle Peter". I would absolutely expect, for example, the Gospel of Matthew to say, I Matthew, The Apostle was called by Jesus or something like that because that's exactly what we observe over and over again in other historical accounts</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is an example of data which is expected on the hypothesis of eyewitness testimony, which is seemingly required for the McGrews to make any headway in their case to support the Resurrection. This data is also simply not dealt with, or written off as an argument from silence (which it isn't). </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: So this is like a one piece of evidence that massively goes against the hypothesis of eyewitness testimony that actually, for me, the strength of that evidence is so overwhelming that it actually overcomes all of the early Christian attestation to the authorship</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=11217">Time stamp 3:06:57</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: We're about to get to looking at the the data that we're then going to compare explanations against . And what we'll see is that when they reject or argue against non resurrection explanations, they are happy to pick literally any detail from the gospels that suits their purpose. Very specific, very particular, minute sometimes detail. And the question would be, "Well, why should we accept that that is the case?" And it seems to me that we're going to have to go beyond a general reliability to get to that. We're going to actually have to go to like, basically, this was written not just by an eyewitness, but someone with a really good memory and got all of the details down. So by feeling free to appeal to all of these details, they're actually setting up a very high standard for themselves in terms of how confident can we be in these details. So to put it another way, it's very much not a minimal facts approach. We'll see the sort of details that they're appealing to and like it really does, then heavily rely on how reliable we think all of these details are. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220417200453.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220417200453.png"></p>
<p>Here is the first of many examples where they argue against a claim by appealing to the fact that it is <em>intrinsically highly improbable</em> -- which is a prior, the part of the calculation that they are definitely not talking about with respect to theists claims. As Bart Ehrman pointed out, it might be improbable -- but it is more probable than a miracle!</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: Yeah, but but it's always the case with minimal effects, right? Like you start by saying, this is just a list of minimal facts. And yes, that's true. 30 minutes later. It's no really, there were people who thought they saw Jesus eating a piece of fish in front of them. So how do you explain that a naturalism, right? They could not have hallucinated it because it was tactile and hallucinations are not like interpersonal and tactile. </p>
<p>Brian: I always find it telling that the list of minimal facts never seems to be an agreement from one apologist to another. </p>
<p>Kamil: The swoon hypothesis is specifically aimed against Muslims, right? Because in the Koran, it says that Jesus didn't really die, but how they argue against it actually doesn't have any force against what the Muslims believe. Because in the Koran, it says that Jesus didn't die, but it looked like he did. So like Allah made it look like he died, which is obviously completely consistent with the historical account, right?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220430132503.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220430132503.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: so when they compare the evidence, they say, how do we expect the evidence to look given "not the resurrection", right? Well, that would be exactly the same in that case because the evidence would look exactly the same, so it shouldn't do anything to that numerator denominator distinction. The ratio should just remain, but they don't do that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And note again, that they criticize the swoon hypothesis because it is "intrinsically improbable", which is the prior they don't want to have to address on their own view </p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=11611">Time stamp 3:13:31</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: They say one of the problems here for the skeptic who goes with this and I don't think any of us do go with the swoon theory. But he says, for example, you've got to "dismiss John's account of the spear wound as inauthentic". Well, that theory actually coheres with other details like, for example, the mistranslation of prophetic fulfillment. It might be the case that they were reading the Septuagint to figure out what happened about Jesus life. I think like that coheres quite nicely. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220430133210.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220430133210.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: they go on to talk about this John Dominic Crossan, something that his theory and then they say, you know, that his "radical position", well everything that they're saying is radically out of line with New Testament scholarship. But it's again, just not the type of language that you really expect from an academic volume.</p>
<p>James: Look, when <em>they</em> say something, it's an "inference". It's an "argument". It's "based on evidence", "growing body of evidence" when <em>someone else</em> says it. Oh, it's just a "guess". It's a "mere extrapolation". It's a "radical position". It's just fluff. Like, there's no actual distinction here between what different people are doing. It's just whether they agree with that or they don't agree with that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=12143">Time stamp 3:22:23</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: I'd also also like that there is no shortage of people who believe that a person was raised from the dead, even though that person has a known burial location that supposedly contains the body. it demonstrates two things. First of all, that people who hold the belief that the person was raised are not interested in actually confirming that with physical evidence. They don't sneak up into the graveyard and dig up the grave to see if it has a body in it. Probably exactly for the reasons like if they were actually presented with the body they'd probably dismiss it. And second of all, the other people who don't share that belief are not interested in debunking it by exhuming the person and showing the body because it's more important for them not to disturb the burial customs of the person than to debunk that specific claim.</p>
<p>You know, there is the famous Jewish rabbi (Menachem Mendel Schneerson) who claims to be a messiah. And apparently, they are still people who believe that he was resurrected, even though there is a zero empirical evidence for it. He actually has a known burial location. And also what's very important to realize is that even the people in the position of leadership in that specific sect of Judaism denied that claim. There were actual leaders who said, "no, he wasn't raised." But despite all of that, yeah, there are still adherents. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This point, to me, shatters the entire apologetic edifice around the Resurrection. To have a parallel case like this, where all of the boxes are checked for belief, with the only difference between this rabbi and Jesus is that we have fewer pieces of evidence concerning Jesus. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: The point that I wanted to make with that example is though, that to say that" oh well, they must have had really good evidence, right? And their opponents mustn't, if anything, good to say, because if they did, then that would have dissuaded the people from from believing it." But we've just given a couple of examples. I cite a number more in my book about irrational belief persistence. There's so many cases of this that the claim that they would have stopped believing unless they had good evidence, there's just no reason for thinking that -- it's just assertion. There's so much evidence that that isn't the case. That's just not how people work in these contexts. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=13077">Time stamp 3:37:57</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220430172852.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220430172852.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: <span class="math">\(W\)</span> Is women's testimony, <span class="math">\(D\)</span> is for the disciples, which includes seeing and being willing to die and <span class="math">\(P\)</span> is for the conversion of Paul. So these are the three main facts that they wanting to put in their sort of Bayesian calculation, And they're going to say that these facts here are overwhelmingly more likely under the resurrection hypothesis than other than not-resurrection hypothesis. So that's what the next few sections are going to be is going through each of these in turn. </p>
<p>Brian: Make sure every time you see this, instead of saying, you know, the women who claim to have found the tomb empty or there were disciples who claim to have appearances of the resurrection, say instead that that we have <em>texts</em> that say that there are women who claim to have found the empty tomb, that we have <em>texts</em> that say that there were post resurrection appearances of Jesus. The data is not the claim itself, it's not the story, it's the fact that we have a <em>text</em> that has the story.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=13214">Time stamp 3:40:14</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220526062929.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220526062929.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: But here's one point to focus on. So they're going to appeal a lot to consensus in New Testament scholarship. They're going to say, In a survey of recent New Testament scholarship, Gary Habemus has documented the interesting fact that a notable majority, approximately 75 percent of scholars writing on the subject during the thirty years from 1975 to 2005 agree that Jesus tomb was in fact found empty.</p>
<p>James: they have just been telling us at some length how unreliable the methods that most scholars who analyze this, like the critical scholars, the people that they don't like, right? So apparently, we shouldn't believe anything that they say -- we should discount them, it's not really reliable. But now we're being told that the fact that most scholars, including this big group that we shouldn't listen to, think that something is true is a reason for believing it. They do this in other cases as well later on. Again, it's eating a cake and having it to. Look, if we disagree with them, they're unreliable. But when they agree with us, we'll say, Oh, you know, this consensus of scholarship, you know, most scholars agree with us here.</p>
<p>Kamil: Also, this statement is factually false. Habermas has published this number in the literature, but he doesn't say that 75 percent of scholar agree that Jesus's empty tomb is a fact. What he says specifically, is that approximately 75 percent of scholars think that at least one of the arguments for the empty tomb has force or something like that. My hypothesis is that he phrases it like this so that it's not that explicit claim. He's not reporting the number of scholars who are convinced of the empty tomb to fudge the numbers. Because he could count in those 75 percent even scholars who are, for example, agnostic about it as long as they think that at least one of the arguments for the empty tomb is an interesting argument to look at. </p>
<p>Kamil: I want to highlight this because here we see Lydia McGrew and Timothy McGrew reporting something other than what Gary Habermas reported. So here we have an example of how information is distorted, when is what is retold like. The meaning is different and it's <em>substantively</em> different. It's very important that the difference is not superficial. It's actually very, very important. There's a distortion of information that took place, even though we live in an environment where it's super easy and super convenient to get access to the text <em>exactly</em> as Gary Habermas wrote it. Gary Habermas is still alive and I'm sure he would be able to answer any questions if they sent him an email. Now, imagine how much worse these kinds of distortions were in a society where people were not literate, they couldn't easily get a handle of the people who made the various claims that they are reporting. They did not have instant access to texts as they were originally written.</p>
<p>Brian: It's clear the McGraw's are right here because I don't hear Gary Habermas contradicting this and he'd be in a position to contradict this if it were actually incorrect.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=13685">Time stamp 3:48:05</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: there is a massive confusion between textual independence and independence of the witnesses that allegedly underpin that text. So it could be the case that I mean, obviously the Synoptics are not textual independent, but suppose that John and the Synoptics are textually independent. And what I mean by that is that they sat down to write their text separately from each other that hadn't seen. Obviously, Mark hadn't seen John, but John hadn't seen the Synoptics before (hypothetically). That would make them textually independent. But even if even if all four were textually independent, somehow that wouldn't make them independent of the underlying eyewitness testimony, which was based on a set of people who mostly experienced Jesus together, who talked to each other, as it says, even in the Gospels, and who allegedly came up with a creed that stated in propositional form some of the key beliefs that they had and passed it on to Paul and then that was disseminated in the other church. That is not what independent testimony looks like.</p>
<p>Kamil: So you're saying something like the group appearances are actually evidence <em>against</em> the resurrection because like, it would be much more powerful if Jesus appears to people like individuals independent of each other?</p>
<p>James: Yes, absolutely. That would be far more convincing, especially if they're in different cultures, that would be very much more convincing. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220526063028.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220526063028.png">
<img alt="Pasted image 20220526063110.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220526063110.png"></p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=13955">Time stamp 3:52:35</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: On the other point, as well as to when they say the tensions in the narrative are evidence against copying, for example, because anyone who was copying could have gone. "I'm not going to introduce tension because that will make people further down the line think that, you know, like the stories don't cohere. But what if the later author, who had access to some earlier texts, actually disagreed theologically with something, is copying, but then decides, actually, I want to emphasize a different theological point. And so moves around the ordering of a story or maybe changes something. I mean, I think that stuff happens.And that introduces for us a tension story. And I don't think that that precludes copying. That would just be the motive that that would so they would have copied. The case that there's a tension doesn't rule out copying. </p>
<p>James: I wonder how it rules out <em>embellishment</em>. They say it rules out embellishment the fact that they include different details. But that's exactly what embellishment is, right? That's particularly bizarre. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-the-contradictions-as-evidence">On the contradictions as evidence</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>James: And so I don't see why you would expect this at all if I imagine that you were interviewing witnesses to a crime or some other event like and they tell you accounts that are somewhat similar. But the people that are involved are different and only partially overlap, and they're coming at different times. And there's all these other details as the McGrews acknowledge here, they give some examples that don't seem to obviously make sense and seem quite different. You would think that, well, look, maybe something happened here, but that these people are not terribly reliable, they don't quite remember things properly or they weren't really paying attention. Something's going on there, right? You wouldn't just think, Wow, this is really, obviously good testimony because, yeah, because they contradict. </p>
<p>James: And the short ending of Mark has basically nothing in common with the other accounts, except for the fact that the tomb is empty, like the women see it and then they're scared, and they and they run away and don't tell anyone. That has nothing in common with the others which say that they told the disciples and the disciples came, at least one of them did, and then that Jesus appeared to the disciples. How can you say that those are just circumstantial variety? There's massive differences in the account. </p>
<p>James: And it's not like people deliberately make these things up. It's like "it must have been". This is this is what Modern-Day evangelicals do when they write their their harmonizations - "it must have been" then it turns into a new fact. So I think that that's probably like Well, "it must have been" that the women found it, but because no one would have taken them seriously, they didn't tell anyone -- because it accounts for why no one's heard of it before.</p>
<p>Kamil: This is actually very consistent with our background knowledge about how, like ancient historiographers put together their accounts because it's often the case, some historiographical accounts are actually just very plausible reconstructions of what must have happened. </p>
<p>Kamil: for example, imagine that the author of The Gospel of Luke, a belief that Jesus was raised from the dead, [...] And based on those beliefs he created a speculative version, what he perceived as as a plausible way the resurrection appearances would play out. And this is why we actually have the text and it is not because there were actually people in history who experienced Jesus. Plus, I think he was doing a lot of theological work as well. Like it specifically says that Jesus ate a piece of fish to rule out believing that he's a ghost or phantasma, I think it says in Greek, which is a counter apologetic against people who believe that Jesus didn't have a physical body when he was around on Earth. And I think the text being a product of this kind of historiographical practice is massively more inherently probable than Jesus <em>actually</em> being raised from the dead, <em>actually</em> appearing to people and <em>actually</em> eating fish. </p>
<p>Brian: Is it reasonable as a possibility that Mark, for instance, the women finding the tomb only because someone would make the argument that he wouldn't have put it in there unless it were true. And so this is a way of kind of making his stories sound more true, almost like I think the preface in Luke is kind of like that, where you insert something that makes it sound like it's legit. I think Lovecraft used to do that, throwing things in a fictional place (like a statement from a real journalist) to make it sound more legitimate.</p>
<p>Brian: Now, another another possibility, then, is if this argument has some weight that essentially having women testimony, it would be embarrassing and wouldn't be in it unless it were somehow legitimate, then you could think of almost textual or oral tradition evolution, where those stories that included that detail would be the ones that would get passed down. It's an evolutionary argument for why we we end up with a text that has it, because that's the story that would have been told again and again, and it had this extra little element of, "Oh, and it's got to be true because..."</p>
<p>Kamil: That's a really interesting hypothesis, one possible hypothesis would be that this is a double bluff. Right? The author realized that, "Oh, if I put this detail, it's going to make it look more historically reliable precisely because it's counter intuitive". But this is another alternative that it's a process of natural selection, which selects for stories that look authentic, even though historically, they are not.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=14789">Time stamp 4:06:29</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220526081022.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220526081022.png"></p>
<h2 id="on-the-womens-testimony">On the Women's testimony</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>James: Well, look, the reason like this is why it says this is because people hadn't heard about this before. So they all thought the gospels need to explain why no one's heard about it before, at least why it's not more widely known, perhaps. So they're saying, Well, look, it was women and no one believed them or that the disciples didn't initially believe them. So maybe they didn't know about it, something like that?</p>
<p>Kamil: Well, on my hypothesis, it actually becomes super, super easy to understand. By the time the gospel of Matthew is written, the author has not encountered the objection that the story is unreliable. By the time the gospel of Luke is written, this counter-apologetic is already the case. So there needs to be a counter-counter apologetic baked into the narrative to explain away or to invent additional data points to overcome the apologetic against the story. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-expected-evidence">On expected evidence</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=14939">Time stamp 4:08:59</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: One thing that the McGrews never do is ask the question, let's suppose the resurrection really did happen[...] four people who were there, or at least people who based their accounts on four people who were there, wrote down an account of Jesus life, what would we expect those accounts to look like? How does that then compare to what we actually have? It's obviously going to be speculative, but I think it captures rather poorly. You just look at the resurrection accounts as an example of that, that they're so different. And the McGrews try to explain this to explain this away by just, well, you know, they could choose to talk about whatever they want, right? They don't have to say everything. Just because they don't say it, doesn't mean that they're saying it <em>didn't</em> happen. But that just seems to me a really lazy argument. The fact is that you would expect, I think, to have a stronger concordance of what they actually do say and of what the events that actually happen. That itself wouldn't prove that they're historical because you still have issues of copying. But I don't think what you would expect to see is these sharp divergences between what you see in Mark and what you see in Matthew, say, and what you see in John, where they're so different. There's different theological overtones, there's different ordering of events, there's different things happening in different places. Is that really what you would expect to see? And I don't think it is.</p>
<p>Kamil: how how plausible it is that if it's the case that both the appearance in Galilee and the appearances around Jerusalem happened in history, how plausible it is that we would get one gospel mentioning only Galilee and the other gospel mentioning only Jerusalem. This is super easy to explain or my hypothesis, right? [...] It's not the issue of how much they explain, how much they narrate. It's the issue of there not being any overlap.</p>
<p>Actually, Timothy McGrew, when he gave a talk, he used a really interesting analogy to neutralize this kind of objection and it utilizes the fact that Lydia McGrew happens to be an orphan who was adopted to foster family. And he says, "Look, you could give two completely different accounts about Lydia, which both are going to be factually accurate. It's just they're going to be different because in one of them, you will be only talking about her original family and you will omit all the details about her being adopted, and the other account you will only talk about her adopted family, and you will omit the detail that she was adopted". And in that talk, he says, "when I present people with this they can't believe that it's actually describing the same person, even though it is." And I'm thinking, Yeah, my point, exactly. Why is it the case that people are surprised that it's not describing the same person? Well, because that's not how people narrate stories! The surprise of people, is evidence for that being really, really implausible. It's really implausible that you would narrate the two different accounts. Basically, they would only have appearances at one place, and the other appearances in a different place if both sets of appearances actually took place. This is the same with the birth narrative of Jesus. Right? But there is almost no overlap.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710120154.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710120154.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: the accounts say that the women told them that Jesus had risen. Peter runs to the tomb and sees that it's empty and then Jesus appears to him. So I think you've got a case where the women tell the disciples, Hey, Jesus has risen, and then the disciples are now in a state of expectation and I presume excitement as well. I just think that this is not even consistent with the accounts, assuming all the details of the accounts are accurate, which I don't. But even if you just take it on face value, that isn't what the accounts say. There's no instance in where Jesus appears to all of the 11 prior to having appeared to at least one of the women or and or a single disciple beforehand. And that person, having told the rest of them, there's always an individual appearance, which is then reported to the group first, which is exactly consistent with my account, which says that there was a contamination effect, that an individual hallucination or some other experience which was reported to the group led to an expectation that prompted collective experiences.</p>
<p>Nathan: I think of that there's a Netflix documentary released recently on supernatural claims and there are a lot of people in that who had children who had died and they were grieving in those states. And then whenever a medium would tell them I've contacted and I'm talking to your child. Initially, the initial contact, someone would kind of be like, "Yeah, I'm skeptical. I'm skeptical. I have always thought of myself, you know, I'm an atheist, a freethinker, So I'm really skeptical of things like this." But then when they're told that, they sort of they dwell on it for like a week or so afterwards, and all of a sudden it becomes more plausible because of the hope that it kind of gives them that that child is somewhere that can be contacted and isn't isn't gone. And then they use that initial skepticism as evidence that they must be correct because, "I was such a skeptic, I would not have concluded that this is a case of truth."</p>
<p>James: So that point about the saying that they were skeptical. That's called avowal of prior skepticism. We've talked about this in my book before. I cite in my book how this is a known and is a discursive strategy that people use to try to highlight the paranormal activity taken seriously. Both in paranormal and religious experiences it's very common. It's interesting to me, having actually looked at some of this literature that so many of the things that are appealed to as sort of features are actually known in the broader literature as strategies or tendencies. So one is the avowal of prior skepticism. Another one is irrational belief persistence, concocting ever more elaborate explanations for why the belief should be held. Memory contagion would be another one that seems relevant here, trying to develop a just-so account as well. This is how it must have been kind of thing. So I think this article is similar to many others in that they just pretty much ignore most, if not all, of this sort of stuff.</p>
<p>Brian: I think earlier on in the text, we saw that they were just going to take all these statements as essentially given - everything in the text we can just take as true. Why would they consider these other things, when they're just going to take every single statement in the Gospels as true?</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710121603.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710121603.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: Imagine if Jesus said "blessed are those who proportioned their belief, according to the evidence?", of how different would things have been if he'd said something like that?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-the-disciples">On the disciples</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=16536">Time stamp 4:35:36</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710122142.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710122142.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: how do we know that they were dying <em>for that claim</em>?</p>
<p>James: How could you establish someone who's willing to die for something -- that it's literally, specifically for that claim?</p>
<p>Nathan: think about the persecution of Muslims by China. It's not specifically, the Chinese government is like, "Oh, what's your theology? What are the propositions in your theology?" It's just that they belong to that group. I suppose we're talking about Jewish persecution and Roman persecution. The Jewish kind of persecution is just going to be anyone who deviates from the prevailing theology that the relevant power groups have. And then the Roman kind of persecution is kind of going to be similar, but it's just a different set of beliefs. And it doesn't it doesn't mean that it's specifically for because of the truth of this claim that Jesus had risen again, that that might be one of the claims that they believe it could just be for being associated with this group preaching.</p>
<p>James: the Romans wouldn't care less whether the Christians believe that Jesus or the dead, what they cared about was that they wouldn't sacrifice to the emperors and that they were spreading a religion that was therefore politically destabilizing. So if they recanted that, I mean, the Romans couldn't have cared less about that. [...] did anyone actually persecute them specifically because of the particular theological belief of the bodily resurrection? I'm not convinced that that was the case. What's the evidence of that?</p>
<p>James: The point is that to say that we know that 13 of them were willing to die for a specific claim. First of all, we don't even know much of anything about what happened to most of them. Second of all, we don't know that they were willing to die, because how do you establish that even if someone actually dies, you can't establish that they were willing to die because it might have happened just to try to avoid it? I don't know how you establish that, but let alone establish that they were willing to die <em>specifically</em> for that proposition, as opposed to a whole bunch of other things that they may be willing to die for, just as like the general belief that Jesus was the Messiah, for example. So apologists just push this so hard when there's actually so little evidence for it.</p>
<p>Kamil: The Jews were persecuting Christians on the basis of the Mosaic Law and the Mosaic Law. The prescription for blasphemy is death, and it doesn't matter if you're sorry.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710123547.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710123547.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: So apologists use this line of this detail in the Gospel to essentially establish that the disciples would not believe in Jesus's resurrection unless Jesus really appeared to them physically, unless they had visual, auditory and tactile experiences of his body because they were aware of things like ghosts which don't have physical bodies. The point is that on the background knowledge, ghosts don't have physical bodies, so they had to experience something that would rule out that explanation. That's the apologetic line of reasoning. Because if it was the case that they didn't experience Jesus having a physical body, they would just conclude that that was a ghost that wasn't actually bodily resurrection. But if you look at the relevant background knowledge, you find no shortage of ancient accounts where ghosts, phantasma, spirits, these kinds of entities actually do appear to have physical bodies. For example, they fight people, they have sex, and they eat. There was an apparation of Helen in some of the retellings of the Trojan War while the actual Helen was in Egypt the whole time. And the apparition tricked everyone into believing that Helen is in Troy for 10 years. While she ate, supposedly had sex with Paris and then the second husband. So this apologetic actually doesn't work about Jesus. Having a physical body would not convince people in the first century that he's not a ghost, because in the first century, we have ghost stories about ghosts having physical bodies. For [Luke], it's important for Jesus to have a physical body for theological reasons.
Because then that means people are going to be given resurrection bodies after the general resurrection.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710124258.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710124258.png"></p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=17558">Time stamp 4:52:38</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710124343.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710124343.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: "inspiring, kindly and helpful" He's portrayed consistently by the same author. How could that have happened unless it was so?</p>
<p>Nathan: "a touch of amusement in his tone" I mean, again, it just seems exactly like narrative devices like when I was doing high school English.</p>
<p>James: We started talking about the appearances are reasons to think the source of the appearances date back to eyewitness testimony. That is, that they're genuine accounts of the disciples having related these experiences, not them having been developed later. So when that's your goal and the best thing you can come up with to say is, well, it's consistent with how Jesus is treated in the earlier part of the gospel that also narrates the appearances. It's the just-say-anything response. [...] I think what they're really saying is that it <em>feels</em> convincing to them, It <em>feels</em> genuine so therefore it is.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710125452.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710125452.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: why is it that if something was if "the experience was based on some sort of spiritual rush of enthusiasm that led to a group experience of risen Jesus", blah blah blah that that would somehow preclude them claiming to have "extensive and direct personal communication with the risen Jesus"?</p>
<p>Kamil: this makes sense on the assumption that the content of the gospel is just written down what the disciples really sincerely believe they experienced. But of course, on our hypothesis, what the content of the post-resurrection narratives in the Gospels has almost nothing or very little to do what actually, the followers of Jesus experience shortly after he was crucified and died - those are two completely different stories. And the reason why the text is that way has nothing to do, almost nothing to do with what was actually going on.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="bad-epistomology">Bad epistomology</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=17943">Time stamp 4:59:03</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: Sorry, I was just an irrelevant conversation about why would you wear a mask when you're vaccinated Having these kind of conversations about religion always brings out people with like crap epistemology about other beliefs as well. Oh, you're skeptical about the vaccine? And you also have a bad epistemology when it comes to assessing resurrection evidence -- I could have never have guessed.</p>
<p>James: Well, this is the dangers of propagating bad epistemology. I've said that it leaks over into other areas, and I've been talking about this for years, and I think that the coronavirus has given us a really good example of that. How crappy ways of thinking about some things can lead you down to really harmful results.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="back-to-the-disciples">Back to the disciples</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=18209">Time stamp 5:03:29</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710130825.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710130825.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: there is this counter-apologetic, which I think it was worth mentioning. If you assume that in the Book of Acts is literally what happened to history, then why is it the case that there wasn't any manhunt for? There wasn't any question about what actually happens to the body, right? Because is there was a body missing, which would mean for non-Christians at the time that either Jesus wasn't really crucified, which means he's an escaped convict or that he actually died and someone stole the body, which was a criminal offense under both the Jewish and the Roman law. So why is it the case that there wasn't any investigation done about what actually happened to him? I'd like, I think, if something like that happened in history, and if it's the case that Peter was, for example, arrested as a known associate with of Jesus, I think he would be investigated as a suspect in body death. Right? But that's not what's depicted in the book of Acts. It's actually interesting if you read the book of Acts, it almost proceeds as if the empty tomb didn't exist.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="pauls-conversion">Paul's Conversion</h2>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710132652.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710132652.png"></p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=19326">Time stamp 5:22:06</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: So we know that Paul converted, but we don't really know much more than that. And the account that's given in Acts doesn't really find much corroboration in Paul's actual letters, which itself is odd. Like, you would've thought he would talk about that more. I suppose you could say, Well, that's an argument from silence, but they use that when it suits them.</p>
<p>Nathan: "we shall place no weight on the experience of the companions" Wouldn't discrepancies be evident, like shouldn't we take that into account when we're trying to assess the evidence for it?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-to-the-probability">On to the Probability</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=19409">Time stamp 5:23:29</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710133418.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710133418.png"></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710133902.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710133902.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Brian: So we have the posterior ratio there on the left, the probability the resurrection given all the facts compared to probability of not resurrection, given all the facts. And then we have the prior ratio, which they ignore. They carry it around for a little while, then they get to drop it and then we have the likelihood ratio. So the likelihood is generally like assuming your model is true. What was the probability of the various facts? And that's that that term is what we call the likelihood. It's that first thing they're writing down is a likelihood ratio. And if you're ignoring or if you basically say that priors are equal. That's another way to do it. If the priors are equal then the posterior ratio is the same as a likelihood ratio, but they're just essentially ignoring the priors.</p>
<p>Brian: Most of those techniques, things like the AIC and the BIC, are approximations of the full analysis where you have a model that has some flexibility to it, so you have models that have a range of parameters, and what you do is sum over all of the different parameters weighted by the prior probabilities of those of those parameter values. And what you get kind of automatically is a penalty for more parameters that doesn't increase your fit and they're sometimes called the Occam factors. And it's also why they talk about simplicity in a model. And simplicity doesn't have to do with the number of parameters or the number of components, it has to do with how flexible your model is and what kind of range of values that it can have. So this is one of the things I comment on in my writings is that theists will often talk about the concept of God being simple because they only have very few components -- just one word. But complexity has to do with flexibility. Because God can do anything at all that it's infinitely flexible and would receive essentially an infinite penalty -- probability would be near zero.</p>
<p>James: All they're doing is multiplying a few numbers together, which they just sort of say, we're just going to assume they're independent because they don't really have any other way of dealing with it. So although they talk about Bayes as a methodology, they're not really using any of those tools that Brian was just talking about, which is one of the reasons why I've said before that they could just jettison these equations they wouldn't really lose anything. It's dressing things up in the trappings of a probabilistic theory that gives it the veneer of scholarship that it doesn't genuinely have.</p>
<p>Brian: I think there's that there's almost a psychological value in making things complex enough that no one's going to check your work and they'll just take your word for it because it's too detailed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=20045">Time stamp 5:34:05</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710135324.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710135324.png">
<img alt="Pasted image 20220710135303.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710135303.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: This summarizes the key terms here. So are there is a resurrection hypothesis. So those are actually our priors, which remember they're kind of not actually interested in. But then we've got <span class="math">\(W\)</span> given <span class="math">\(R\)</span> over <span class="math">\(W\)</span> given not <span class="math">\(R\)</span>. So that's the women's testimony, right in the empty tomb. As Brian said, they sort of stick around for a bit and then kind of disappear and. But I mean, they're writing the full posteriors here. It's unclear why, because they're not actually addressing that. Well, the second three terms are different parts of the likelihood. So they've been split up because they're assumed to be independent of each other, which as I'll comment on, this doesn't make that doesn't make any sense, but just to explain the terms. So again, it's the women, the disciples and then Paul. They are claiming here that they are all independent of each other, conditioning on the resurrection. So that amounts to the claim that given the women found the tomb empty and reported it, it is no more or less likely that the disciples would see Jesus, that they are independent of each other, right? Does that seem reasonable to anyone else because that seems completely ridiculous to me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710140514.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710140514.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: How does it follow from the resurrection that women would find the empty tomb? How does it follow that there would be an empty tomb, I'm not even sure that that follows from there being a resurrection. Could there be a resurrection and the tomb be lost or the tomb be taken up into heaven? Or even there could still be a body in the tomb, or just appears to be a body, I don't know, it's God, can't he do that if he wanted to? Already, I don't agree. Or they just find Jesus alive in the tomb. Yeah, that that's another possibility.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710140903.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710140903.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: I thought we were not looking at prior probabilities, but now we are. This is what I mean. They do this <em>repeatedly</em>. I could say we can set aside the possibility of a resurrection because that has prohibitively low prior probability, but I guess that's question begging, and they're just looking at the likelihoods. But then they say exactly the same thing against the skeptic. It's unbelievable.</p>
<p>James: So we just get a whole bunch of assertions that the probability is low, like this is what I mean, this is consistently what these sections are about. It's them saying that it's implausible without actually giving really good or in some cases, any reason for actually thinking that it's not a good explanation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220710142442.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220710142442.png">
<a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=21124">Time stamp 5:52:04</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: "is very difficult to see why Joseph of Arimathea would care enough about what happened to Jesus' body to provide his own new tomb for it immediately after Jesus' death, but then would want to move it out as quickly as possible after the Sabbath" Interestingly, then, at the end, here we get precisely an explanation for that. So the hypothesis that I was novel to me that I discuss is that Joseph was prevailed upon by perhaps the Jewish authorities, or perhaps even the Romans who knows exactly, to temporarily store the body in his tomb because it was close by and it needed to be taken down on the Sabbath evening. That was part of Jewish law, and also because the Romans really didn't want Jesus's body to be disposed of in a public place where that there could be continual disorder. They wanted it to be put somewhere that was quiet and out of the way and private until things died down and then after the Sabbath, they could be moved. And I don't really think we get much here about why that is so implausible here. We're <em>told</em> it is implausible multiple times.</p>
<p>Kamil: And Bart Ehrman says, OK, I don't know. I'm just going to make up something out of the blue. He didn't do any preparation. He just said, OK, let's assume that the relatives of Joseph of Arimathea who were not followers of Jesus actually found out that he was buried in the family tomb. They were really outraged. They didn't tell anyone that they have a problem with it. So they just decided to go to the tomb at night, take the body and bury it somewhere else. They were stopped by the Roman guards. They were all killed for body theft. And the three bodies were like, disposed of. They were just thrown in a ditch. Nobody ever finds out. So this explains why the information wasn't then disseminated because everyone involved was killed. And the Roman guards didn't have any reason to tell anyone about it. Or even if, like days later, they heard about someone making it a Resurrection claim, they would have no reason to tie that experience with that specific claim. And he says, Do I think this really happened? No. Is it very probable? No. But it's more probable than resurrection.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-arbitrary-numbers">On arbitrary numbers</h2>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712063349.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712063349.png"></p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=21850">Time stamp 6:04:10</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: Am I just meant to sort of consult my intuitions about them?</p>
<p>James: Well, no, because your intuitions could be quite different to theirs, they are just saying that that is their estimate? Right? There's no model here. You can't really interrogate anything. All you can say is given what they have said, do you agree with their assessment of 1 out of 100 roughly? And if you don't, well, then they say, well, there's nothing that they can say, or they can just say as they deplore your judgment.</p>
<p>Kamil: This is exactly one of the issues with, for example, Richard Carrier. He gives the reasons for why he thinks that the the expected us of the evidence goes in either direction, for example, that this piece of evidence is what expected on historicity versus mysticism. I cannot give this like a lower or higher estimate, than, let's say one in two in favor of historicity. And the and then repeatedly throughout the book, he says, Well, if you have a different estimate, then feel free to publish your own like a work showing why the estimate should be different. But the obvious issue is that the reasons why he gave gives at most point to in which direction the ratio should go, whether it should favor one hypothesis or the other. But there is no connection between the arguments and the evidence that he presents and the actual numerical value that he then gives. So one in three is just as arbitrary as one in five or one in 10.</p>
<p>Brian: You would think that in some cases, you might be able to have some kind of reasonable bounds. If you're talking about a rare event of some kind then you know an upper bound of like one third might not be outrageous -- it has to be less than half because we know that the event is somewhat rare, then conservatively you could do one third. And then there's going to be of a lower bound in terms of your ability to even estimate. And so you could follow through Bayes theorem with ranges to posterior ranges as well. They won't be very particularly narrow, but I could see one being able to do that.</p>
<p>James: So the fundamental problem here, as I mentioned before from my point of view, is that they are using the idea of Bayesianism in terms of subjective degrees of probabilities, multiplying probabilities together and so forth. But then that's all they've done. So in doing that, they can describe <em>their own</em> degrees of belief. And in that sense, it's completely fine for them to just pull numbers out of wherever because they just describing what they believe, right? And they can multiply those numbers together and get results as long as they're consistent with the probability axioms, that's fine. The question is whether they should have argumentative purchase on someone who doesn't already agree with them. What reasons should I have for accepting their analysis? And in my view, the only way that that's going to work is if they either provide base rates or they do some sort of actual modeling of some process, psychological or sociological, whatever and are able to use that to derive some estimate of some value, which they plug in to the model at some point.</p>
<p>Nathan: And this is why I think it's important not to ignore the base rates when it comes to doing something like this, because the base rate is tethered to reality in a particular kind of way where I can't imagine my way out of it. Whereas it seems that this is entirely predicated on like how plausible, like how a story sort of makes me feel, like how it sits with my intuitions and by how imaginative I am.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="back-to-the-disciples_1">Back to the Disciples</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=22393">Time stamp 6:13:13</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712113801.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712113801.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: this is just to set this up. So one possible explanation that's in the <span class="math">\(\sim R\)</span> space is that it was they lied about it. They made it up. So that's what they're responding to here.</p>
<p>Nathan: it's like it's always if they're in a position to know that they were wrong, right? But it's like if they're in a position to know where they could have known they were wrong, then they would have known if they were wrong. But I just don't think that's right. The Muslims who flew into the twin towers, they're in a position in the 1990s to have access to enough information to know that the Koran, you know, like Koranic studies and like the metaphysics and all the problems if they're in a position to know that it's that Islam is false. Yet they still flew planes into the buildings.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712114244.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712114244.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: So then they talk about the possibility of some of the disciples stole the body, which I actually think is a possibility. They're not maybe that the disciples, but just some of the followers of Jesus stole the body for something similar to what Kamil said, but maybe for slightly different reasons. I don't see what's so implausible about that, but again, they kind of don't like that, but I don't think we can belabor that point there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712114433.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712114433.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: Now again, they don't explain why this is so bizarre. Is it more bizarre that someone had a twin brother who pretended to be them deliberately or maybe even kind of accidentally, or a man came back from the dead? Which is more bizarre? So they're also talking about priors there. Again, they keep going back to priors whenever it's convenient for the McGrews. What they're supposed to be addressing is the Bayes factor, which is the ratio of likelihoods, which has nothing to do with how plausible an explanation is. That's the prior. They can't seem to keep that straight in this analysis here. And also, they don't even do a good job explaining why things like that are implausible. They just say it's bizarre, so barely worth mentioning. Why is it bizarre? I mean, maybe it's a little unusual, but then isn't a resurrection bizarre in that sense as well? Why is that more bizarre than a resurrection?</p>
<p>Brian: So it really is amazing that <em>every single one</em> of their critiques of ideas that they disagree with, they argue against the prior and they don't talk about how well that particular explanation, regardless of how likely it is or how likely prior to the data, but how well it explains the observation. They just say, Oh yeah, this is just implausible. Every single one. And why is it OK for them to do that and it's not okay for the skeptic to do that?</p>
<p>Kamil: It would be really interesting to ask them how to explain Jesus appearing in Christian literature, which they don't take as historically reliable. For example, the Gospel of Peter. How would you explain it, like how is it the case that there is a gospel which explains the appearances of Jesus, which didn't actually take place in history?</p>
<p>Brian: The probability of a singing cross is high on the resurrection hypothesis and lower than not resurrection hypothesis.</p>
<p>James: I will never understand how an apologist can, on the one hand, say if God can create the universe and fine tune the constants, then a resurrection is child's play, which I've heard them say. And on the other hand, laugh and scoff with the audience at the idea of a singing cross. Why is that implausible if God wanted to do that?</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="on-mistaken-beliefs">On mistaken beliefs</h2>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712115432.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712115432.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: All you need is a sincerely held but mistaken belief.</p>
<p>James: Apparently that's not enough because that's what they're arguing here. So they compare it to the idea of religious zealots. Now, I'm not sure why the disciples don't count as religious zealots. By most standards, I think that they would count as religious zealots. Obviously, they're not going to like that language, right? But again, this is just loaded language that they don't define what what the criteria are.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712115619.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712115619.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: But anyway, they talk about a gambler in a fit of frenzy may offer 100 to 1 odds that the roulette wheel will come up red, but the gambler is apt to sober up quickly and abandon his enthusiasm if his child's life is put on the line. What evidence is there for this? Like people never lose their house because of gambling? That just doesn't happen according to them. Nathan: Oh, don't fly planes into the twin towers. James: It's just unbelievable. Like, where did they get this stuff from? </p>
<p>James: let's take it seriously. Their claim is that people in a state of religious frenzy or similar to that, whose judgment is clouded, sober up and think more carefully and critically when the stakes are high on the line and therefore unlikely to make those sort of mistakes. What is the evidence for that claim?</p>
<p>Nathan: Well, I think the evidence is is exactly the opposite. When these stakes become so high, there's like a sunk cost fallacy involved in it.</p>
<p>Kamil: I think the underlying assumption here, which I think is false, is that if someone believes something very strongly, it must be because they have very good reasons for it. And if they didn't have very good reasons for it that they wouldn't believe it, that strongly. But I think if anything in our background knowledge, it's the knowledge that this is not how people work.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220712120337.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220712120337.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: Yes, and the McGrews kind of anticipate this objection because they say in the next paragraph, it is sometimes urged that kamikaze pilot suicide bombers and Nazis are willing to give up their lives for what they believe to be true. So that's a sort of a subset of what we were talking about. What is their response to that? The answer is that this description blurs the distinction between the willingness to die for an ideology and the willingness to die in attestation of for a fact.</p>
<p>Nathan: that's just begging the question!</p>
<p>James: But what they believed was a fact, I suppose. But what is an ideology other than facts that you believe, right?</p>
<p>Nathan: Yeah, they're assuming that the conclusion that they want falls under the realm of facts, which is the very thing that the Bayesian analysis is supposed to be establishing, right? We haven't actually established that it is a fact. You can't appeal to that.</p>
<p>James: What do you think that if you ask the disciples, are you willing to die or are you facing persecution because of your belief that Jesus died and died for your sins and all that, or because of the empirical fact that you believe you witnessed Jesus rise? Do you think that they would even understand the distinction you were trying to make with this?</p>
<p>James: The Nazi examples [...] so many people attested to the charisma of Hitler and his success empirically like, look at all what he did for Germany in recovering territories and building up the country -- those were empirical facts to them that they attested to, that supported their worldview of that Hitler, which they actually believed, was sort of ordained by Providence. The point there is, I think that there absolutely are empirical facts that they would have pointed to in defense of or in justification of their views. And likewise, the disciples, I think, would have had empirical facts that I would have wanted to, but also that fits in a big ideology. What the McGrews are going to do is just artificially distinguish, separate those things and say that it's if you're willing to die for an ideology that doesn't really count for anything. That doesn't mean you're likely to rationally critique it. But if you're willing to die for any empirical fact, then you're going to rationally critique it and you're going to end it. You must have good reasons. There is no justification for that distinction. It's not clear that the distinction makes any sense at all. And it's not clear that it separates the cases that they want to, because I think that it would be both of it would be ideology and empirical facts. In all of the cases, they're just making things up. They're just making things up that sound the slightest bit plausible.</p>
</blockquote>
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</script>Why undesigned coincidences are not compelling to me2022-07-11T00:00:00-04:002022-07-11T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-07-11:/posts/2022/Jul/11/why-undesigned-coincidences-are-not-compelling-to-me/<p>An "undesigned coincidence" is used in an argument for the reliability of the Gospels, notable by Jonathan McLatchie, Tim McGrew and Lydia McGrew, and <a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/yes-richard-carrier-there-are-undesigned-coincidences-part-1/">is defined as</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you have …</p></blockquote><p>An "undesigned coincidence" is used in an argument for the reliability of the Gospels, notable by Jonathan McLatchie, Tim McGrew and Lydia McGrew, and <a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/yes-richard-carrier-there-are-undesigned-coincidences-part-1/">is defined as</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you have multiple (at least two) accounts that report an event where one account answers in passing a natural question raised incidentally by the other. Such features are <em>evidence</em> that a real event lies behind the reports found in the gospels — that is to say, the presence of an undesigned coincidence is more probable given the hypothesis of historicism than given the annulment of that hypothesis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here I am exploring an "undesigned coincidence" <a href="https://youtu.be/8BQDcl7nOX8?t=2880">as described by Lydia McGrew</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>About the grass being green mentioned in Mark at the time, and it's Passover time mentioned in John, and each of these is mentioned only in one Gospel. This fits together because the grass would be green around that time in Galilee. So an ur-source theory would be that there would be one source, not reality, that mentioned both that the grass was green and that it was Passover time. And that John just put down part of that and Mark just put down part of that, but it all came from this sort-of thing which was some version of the story that had both details in it. What Jonathan means about simplicity is basically what you've done is taken a hypothetical source and given it the properties of reality, and put it up there instead of reality and you have space between that and the alleged hypothetical source and reality where it could be false -- the source might or might not be telling the truth. Whereas if we just attribute these characteristics -- the grass and the time of year -- to reality it is simpler than attributing them to this lost documentary source. And then as he was also pointing out we have apparent discrepancies between the different accounts of the feeding of the 5000 which doesn't fit at all well with the idea of a lost source that by-jove looks like reality and people just took different parts of it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Tracking this description <a href="https://christian-apologist.com/2022/07/02/undesigned-coincidences-in-the-feeding-of-the-5000/">a little bit more</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In Mark 6:30-43, we learn that the crowd sat down on “green” grass and in John, we learn there was “much grass.” In John 6:1-14, we learn the event took place when the Passover was at hand.
The green grass corroborates the timing because the event likely took place during Israel’s rainy season, which runs from October through April. During the Passover in April, the grass would be abundant and green as it had been raining for months.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The argument seems to be that because Mark mentions green grass (which doesn't add to the plot of the story) and John mentions Passover and some grass, that the best explanation of this overlap is that the miraculous event of the feeding of the 5000 actually happened. Further that an "ur-source" which has both green grass and Passover is less likely, because we then have to posit the existence of a text or oral tradition that we don't have direct access to. </p>
<p>I am always supremely underwhelmed with these so-called coincidences, every time I've been presented with them -- they really do seem strained. For example, here are a few possibilities:</p>
<ol>
<li>Both the authors of Mark and John were there, noted the grass and Passover, and wrote their accounts from the shared experience (McGrew's theory)</li>
<li>There was a text or oral story which mentions both the green grass and the Passover</li>
<li>There was a story (oral or written) that just had Passover, and no grass, and through the process of oral tradition people added the grass (green or unstated) to make the story a bit more interesting. Note that this would be really easy, even if the event was an entire fiction, because those would know that Passover was typically green so adding that flourish would be natural. It's like adding snow to a Christmas story (in the US at least) even if the original story doesn't mention snow. </li>
<li>There was a story where there was grass (no color given) and that it was Passover, and Mark adds the color as a literary flourish and doesn't mention the time because it was not important for that story</li>
<li>There was a story about sitting on the green grass, and John (or his source) adds the particular festival for theological reasons, that Mark didn't seem to have. </li>
</ol>
<p>The McGrews seem to think that the "ur-source" is positing a specific text that exists, rather than a process which produces texts. It is not the simplest idea to say that the events happened as stated, when we have other reasons to doubt them (e.g. miracles are unlikely) when we also have many known processes which could produce them, both with and without a separate text or oral tradition. I could probably envision several other possibilities for this "coincidence", but the point seems to be,</p>
<ol>
<li>We don't know the authors of any of the Gospels</li>
<li>We don't know the details of the process by which they got their information</li>
<li>We <em>do know</em> that several of them had copies of at least some of the direct texts, in addition to who-knows how many other sources</li>
<li>We <em>do know</em> that there is strong indication that some of the Gospel writing was included for <em>theological</em> or <em>literary</em> reasons</li>
<li>The actual posited coincidences are pretty weak. </li>
</ol>
<p>This last point needs a bit of unpacking. The rainy season is stated to go from October through April, which is more than half the year. If you included a story that had green grass, you'd be correct about the "time of year" more than 50% of the time. John, in his story, doesn't seem to mention Passover directly. In John 2:13 he mentions "When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover" and then between that and the grass incident, we have phrases like (emphasis mine) John 3:22 "where he spent <strong>some time</strong> with them". Then John 5:1 "<strong>Some time later</strong>, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals." then John 6:1 we have "<strong>Some time after this</strong>," before the feeding. So, for the McGrews if the "undesigned coincidence" works in their favor, they can say there is an overlap. If it didn't, then it probably wouldn't be noticed. But even if noticed, it can be plausibly denied given the lack of specificity in the time on both sides of the story. </p>
<p>Someone who is convinced by these two passages as an "undesigned coincidence" I would be skeptical of many of their claims. I don't have time nor the expertise to go through each and every one of the so-called "coincidences", but they all strike me initially as being completely -- and trivially -- understood as being produced by a common process and are not strong evidence that the events actually happened. </p>
<p>A larger point also, is that even if there is agreement on the time of year, or even specifically a day of an event, that doesn't mean that the events actually occurred on that day -- it only implies that the <em>story</em> occurs on that day. It makes sense that Passover would appear importantly in many stories, both real and fictional, so "coincidences" which tie a story to that day do not say much about whether they are true or not. </p>Sometimes more testimony is worse.2022-06-14T00:00:00-04:002022-06-14T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-06-14:/posts/2022/Jun/14/sometimes-more-testimony-is-worse/<p>When asked the question raised by McLatchie, </p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220614074246.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220614074246.png"></p>
<p>I would have to say that new testimony does not raise my probability for a miracle, mostly because all prior attempts to do …</p><p>When asked the question raised by McLatchie, </p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220614074246.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220614074246.png"></p>
<p>I would have to say that new testimony does not raise my probability for a miracle, mostly because all prior attempts to do so have been debunked or at best shown to be profoundly unreliable. This lowers my credence in the sources, even if I don't have time to investigate in detail the next new claim. Am I being hyper-skeptical? I don't think so -- I'm simply adjusting my beliefs to the evidence, and that evidence is that miracle claims have not met their burden of proof. How could this problem be addressed for me? In modern settings, having randomized-controlled studies of miracles would be the best -- because those claims that use this process have shown themselves to be reliable, and thus <span class="math">\(a\rightarrow 0\)</span> in the model described below. Given modern miracle claims, and their issues, I don't think that any ancient source could convince me of miracles -- their reliability on matters of the physical, chemical, and biological world has been shown to be terrible, thus <span class="math">\(a\rightarrow 1\)</span> in the model below. </p>
<p>Although this model is a simplification, it is useful to see that the adjustment of probabilities needs to be taken with care and that unintuitive and non-monotonic effects can easily occur (you can see another non-monotonic effect with the high-low-nines deck example <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/">shown here</a>). Even if for a single data point, the probability of a model increases, the same can't be said of an accumulation of data points unless one is sure that all of the simplifying assumptions are correct -- and they never are.</p>
<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>In response to Paulogia's tweet:</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220614074210.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220614074210.png"></p>
<p>Jonathan McLatchie has a reply that got me thinking:</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220614074246.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220614074246.png"></p>
<p>It relates to an idea about testimonies I've heard around, but <a href="https://youtu.be/GH11Ur8cjwM?t=931">clearly stated by Timothy McGrew</a>:</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220614073547.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220614073547.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>What the Math Means - A sufficient number of <em>independent</em> testimonies, each of which has <em>at least a certain minimum amount of force</em>, will overcome any finite presumption against a miracle. Hume's "everlasting check" fails; a cumulative case can, in principle, make any miracle claim credible. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's a mathematical fact that if we have all of the following...</p>
<ol>
<li>several data points, <span class="math">\(D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n\)</span> </li>
<li>for each, the probability of the miracle, <span class="math">\(M\)</span>, is greater than it's negation, <span class="math">\(\bar{M}\)</span>: <span class="math">\(P(M|D_i)/P(\bar{M}|D_i)>1\)</span></li>
<li>the data are logically independent, <span class="math">\(P(D_i|M,D_j)=P(D_i|M)\)</span></li>
</ol>
<p>then we can look at the posterior odds for the miracle,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
O &\equiv \frac{P(M|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)}{P(\bar{M}|D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n)} \\
&=\frac{P(D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n|M)P(M)}{P(D_1, D_2, \ldots, D_n|\bar{M})P(\bar{M})} \\
&=\underbrace{\frac{P(D_1|M)\cdot P(D_2|M) \cdots P(D_n|M)}{P(D_1|\bar{M})\cdot P(D_2|\bar{M}) \cdots P(D_n|\bar{M})}}_{\text{cumulative testimony}}\times \underbrace{\frac{P(M)}{P(\bar{M})}}_{\text{prior odds}} \\
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
and the cumulative testimony can, in principle (for sufficiently large <span class="math">\(n\)</span>), overwhelm <em>any</em> small prior odds. The McGrews use this fact in their article <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444308334.ch11">The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth</a>, but definitely check out the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Aug/29/bad-apologetics-ep-18-bayes-machine-goes-brrrrrrrrr/">9-hour analysis of the problems with this article</a>. (<a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/30/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-1/">Part 1 of a summary can be found here</a>).</p>
<p>Typical (and perfectly reasonable) responses to this are:</p>
<ol>
<li>the independence of the data are not established</li>
<li>the data themselves are not what are often claimed -- the McGrews will often say that, for example, a data point is <span class="math">\(D_W = \text{the women found the tomb}\)</span> when in fact that data point should be <span class="math">\(D_{TW} = \text{there is a text that says that the women found the tomb}\)</span>. </li>
<li>the priors are overestimated, or ignored, and the likelihoods are overestimated</li>
<li>there is no way to corroborate the data</li>
</ol>
<p>In this post, I want to explore point 2 above, that we do not have a claim itself, but instead we have someone <em>making</em> a claim. This provides one extra level of indirectness to the evidence. I want to discuss this, because I think this fact alone accounts for most of my own reticence in accepting extraordinary claims, why the methods of science work so well, and seems to show a naïveté in the apologists use of evidence. I also think this point is rarely addressed.</p>
<h2 id="setting-up-the-problem">Setting up the problem</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/etj.html">E.T. Jaynes</a> book on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Probability-Theory-Science-T-Jaynes/dp/0521592712">Probability Theory</a> in Chapter 5 on peculiar uses of probability theory, he explores the idea of diverging probability assignments due to ones perspective on the source of the information. This idea motivated my particular approach here. </p>
<p>We have the proposition, <span class="math">\(M\equiv \text{a miracle occurred}\)</span>, for which we have a prior,
</p>
<div class="math">$$\begin{aligned}
P(M) &\equiv m\\
P(\bar{M}) &\equiv 1-m\\
\end{aligned}$$</div>
<p>
Note, that for <em>miracle</em> here you can substitute any extraordinary claim. Our data consists not of extraordinary observations of the world but of a series of <em>claims</em> about such observations. This can include sources such as</p>
<ul>
<li>statements from people who made the observations</li>
<li>texts, in this case ancient texts, which include the claims</li>
<li>second- and third-hand accounts of observations</li>
</ul>
<p>For the sake of concreteness, I'll say that the data is <span class="math">\(C \equiv \text{person X has made a claim of } M\)</span>.</p>
<p>For the sake of charity, we will assume that if a miracle has occurred, then the person would make that claim with certainty,
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(C|M)=1
$$</div>
<p>
Also for charity, we will ignore data that we'd expect under <span class="math">\(M\)</span> but do not observe. </p>
<p>If the miracle did not occur, we might expect someone to make the claim that there was a miracle anyway. This could be from a simple mistake, someone who interprets the world, in general, in terms of divine-action (e.g. rain is caused by the Gods, etc...). It could be from outright lying. It could be from lack of proper observational controls, or lack of information. Any of these could lead someone to make a claim of <span class="math">\(M\)</span> even if its negation, <span class="math">\(\bar{M}\)</span>, is actually true. I simplify this to some constant probability,
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(C|\bar{M})=a
$$</div>
<p>
We can now write down with this simple model, the probability of a miracle given this data,
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(M|C) &= \frac{P(C|M)P(M)}{P(C|M)P(M)+P(C|\bar{M})P(\bar{M})} \\
&=\frac{1\cdot m}{1\cdot m + a\cdot (1-m)} = \frac{m}{m+a\cdot(1-m)}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
It's good to pause to see if this form makes sense. If <span class="math">\(a=0\)</span>, which means that if there is no miracle, person <span class="math">\(X\)</span> will never make the claim that there is one. This leads to <span class="math">\(P(M|C)_{a=0} = 1\)</span> which is what is expected -- the claim of a miracle can't be mistaken. What if person <span class="math">\(X\)</span> always reports a miracle, even if there isn't one? In that case <span class="math">\(a=1\)</span> and we get <span class="math">\(P(M|C)_{a=1} = m\)</span> which is our prior probability for a miracle. Essentially, this person with <span class="math">\(a=1\)</span> gives no useful information -- they are the proverbial boy who cried miracle. No new information means that our probabilities do not change and we are left with our original prior probability.</p>
<p>We can think of <span class="math">\(a\)</span> as a measure of the reliability (or rather unreliability) of the source, with <span class="math">\(a=0\)</span> being completely reliable and <span class="math">\(a=1\)</span> being (nearly) unreliable. I say "nearly" because we are still assuming that person <span class="math">\(X\)</span> reliably communicates a miracle if it does occur. </p>
<p>One thing to note about our charitable choices in this model is that that the probability can never go lower than the initial prior. This is clearly wrong, because one can potentially have disconfirming evidence for a miracle, but we are not considering this here. Thus, at the outset, this model has a pro-miracle bias built in. Even with this bias it will become clear how we can counter miracle claims by exploring the scientific process in a bit more detail below. First, we reproduce the McGrew observation above using this model, by accumulating multiple independent claims, <span class="math">\(C_0, C_1, C_2, \ldots, C_n\)</span>. Following the process above (<a href="https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=w%3Dm%2F%28m%2Ba*%281-m%29%29%3B+x%3Dw%2F%28w%2Ba*%281-w%29%29%3B+y%3Dx%2F%28x%2Ba*%281-x%29%29%3B+z%3Dy%2F%28y%2Ba*%281-y%29%29%3B+">checking with WolframAlpha</a>) we get</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(M|C_0, C_1, C_2, \ldots, C_n) &= \frac{m}{m+a^n\cdot(1-m)}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
A couple of examples would look like</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220614091756.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220614091756.png"></p>
<p>One can show that, with a high enough <span class="math">\(n\)</span>, even a very low prior (<span class="math">\(m \ll 1\)</span>) and a really unreliable source (<span class="math">\(a \sim 1\)</span>) you can recover the probability of the miracle. In the example above, I show for a slightly low prior for miracle (<span class="math">\(m=0.1\)</span>) and a marginally unreliable source (<span class="math">\(a=0.8\)</span>) we recover the probability of a miracle (<span class="math">\(P(M|C_0, \ldots, C_n)>0.5\)</span>) in about 10 data points whereas with a lower prior by a factor of 100 and a more unreliable source, it takes <span class="math">\(n=66\)</span> points. One can question whether the claims-data used to support miracles rise to this number (I don't think it does), but that will not be my main point here. </p>
<h2 id="enter-the-methods-of-science">Enter the methods of science</h2>
<p>The process of data and model comparison doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's against a backdrop of science demonstrating that many (all?) of the claims for miracles and most extraordinary claims (e.g. UFOs, alien abductions, homeopathy, etc...) have been shown to be false or at best unsubstantiated. It is my personal experience that none of the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/search.html?q=miracles">miracle claims that have been presented to me</a> withstand even the slightest level of scrutiny. There's a <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/23/a-long-discussion-about-miracles/">very long discussion on the best cases here</a> with the same result -- one problem after another. How does this affect the model above? Imagine the following process:</p>
<ul>
<li>Claim 1 <span class="math">\(\rightarrow\)</span> debunking of Claim 1 <span class="math">\(\rightarrow\)</span> Claim 2 <span class="math">\(\rightarrow\)</span> debunking of Claim 2 <span class="math">\(\rightarrow\)</span> Claim 3 <span class="math">\(\rightarrow\)</span> debunking of Claim 3 <span class="math">\(\rightarrow \cdots\)</span> </li>
</ul>
<p>which pretty much describes my personal experience with the evidence for miracles (and most extraordinary claims). Each time a claim is put up, and I investigate it, I find it lacking -- usually in pretty mundane and straightforward ways. Either the claim is completely debunked or at a minimum shown to be not reliable. What this process does is change how <em>reliable</em> the sources are, so that next time, similar claims might be less likely. In the model, <span class="math">\(a\)</span> is pushed toward the value of <span class="math">\(1\)</span> each time a claim is dispensed with. Mathematically, a simple way to accomplish this is to add to <span class="math">\(a\)</span> some fraction, <span class="math">\(\gamma\)</span>, of the remaining distance between <span class="math">\(1\)</span> and the current value of <span class="math">\(a\)</span>. In this way, <span class="math">\(a\)</span> is pushed toward <span class="math">\(1\)</span> but will never reach or exceed it. </p>
<div class="math">$$
a \rightarrow a+\gamma\cdot (1-a)
$$</div>
<p>
thus the source-reliability, <span class="math">\(a\)</span>, is no longer a constant but depends on how many (<span class="math">\(n\)</span>) claims have been presented (and dispensed with). We can <a href="https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=a_n%3Da_n-1+%2B+gamma*%281-a_n-1%29">find <span class="math">\(a\)</span> as a function of <span class="math">\(n\)</span></a>, </p>
<div class="math">$$
a(n) = (a_0 + \gamma -1)\cdot (1-\gamma)^{n-1}+1
$$</div>
<p>
where <span class="math">\(a_0\)</span> is the initial assessment of the reliability of the source of the claims. A quick pause to see that this makes sense: if <span class="math">\(\gamma=0\)</span> there is no change to the reliability of the claims, and we have our original value <span class="math">\(a(n)=a_0\)</span>. If <span class="math">\(\gamma=1\)</span> then even after the first claim, the source becomes completely unreliable, <span class="math">\(a=1\)</span>. </p>
<p>This new process gives us a messier posterior for the miracle,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(M|C_0, C_1, C_2, \ldots, C_n) &= \frac{m}{m+\left((a_0 + \gamma -1)\cdot (1-\gamma)^{n-1}+1\right)^n\cdot(1-m)}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
But easy to look at numerically,</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220614100045.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220614100045.png"></p>
<p>We can see the effect of claims being shown to be unreliable can make further testimony <em>less reliable</em>, even in a model which has a definitively pro-miracle bias. One can see in the curves on the left that the initial claims increase the probability of a miracle, but as they get debunked that initial increase in confidence is erased, and further testimony reduces the probability of claims back to the prior. </p>
<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>
<p>When asked the question raised by McLatchie, </p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220614074246.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220614074246.png"></p>
<p>I would have to say that new testimony does not raise my probability for a miracle, mostly because all prior attempts to do so have been debunked or at best shown to be profoundly unreliable. This lowers my credence in the sources, even if I don't have time to investigate in detail the next new claim. Am I being hyper-skeptical? I don't think so -- I'm simply adjusting my beliefs to the evidence, and that evidence is that miracle claims have not met their burden of proof. How could this problem be addressed for me? In modern settings, having randomized-controlled studies of miracles would be the best -- because those claims that use this process have shown themselves to be reliable, and thus <span class="math">\(a\rightarrow 0\)</span> in the model above. Given modern miracle claims, and their issues, I don't think that any ancient source could convince me of miracles -- their reliability on matters of the physical, chemical, and biological world has been shown to be terrible, thus <span class="math">\(a\rightarrow 1\)</span>. </p>
<p>Although this model is a simplification, it is useful to see that the adjustment of probabilities needs to be taken with care and that unintuitive and non-monotonic effects can easily occur (you can see another non-monotonic effect with the high-low-nines deck example <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/">shown here</a>). Even if for a single data point, the probability of a model increases, the same can't be said of an accumulation of data points unless one is sure that the simplifying assumptions are correct -- and they never are.</p>
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</script>Why do we need double-blind studies?2022-05-31T00:00:00-04:002022-05-31T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-05-31:/posts/2022/May/31/why-do-we-need-double-blind-studies/<p>I was recently reading some articles about <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/">dubious medical procedures</a>, and the claims of miraculous healings. I was struck by a level of credulity with some of these claims, but …</p><p>I was recently reading some articles about <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/">dubious medical procedures</a>, and the claims of miraculous healings. I was struck by a level of credulity with some of these claims, but at the same time felt the emotional tug of a healing claim and some internal push-back on the insistence on double-blind studies. I can understand how the people making the claim might balk at skepticism. Why do we always need double-blind studies in medicine anyway? Can't you do a procedure, especially if there is an obvious positive outcome (e.g. someone can walk who couldn't before, see when they were blind before, etc...), and see the outcome and not have to go through all of the hassle of making a double-blind study?</p>
<p>Not being a medical doctor, I started to read about it. I've learned a few interesting examples that I read <a href="https://www.winchesterhospital.org/health-library/article?id=38405&utm_source=pocket_mylist">here</a>.</p>
<p>One about the effectiveness of a surgical procedure:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For a particularly dramatic example of this phenomenon, consider what happened when orthopedic surgeon Bruce Moseley, team physician for the Houston Rockets, decided he needed to properly evaluate the efficacy of an operation commonly used to treat the pain caused by arthritic knees. This surgery involves scraping away rough areas in the knee's cartilage. It is widely believed to be effective, and as many as 400,000 such surgeries are performed each year.</p>
<p>Mosely decided to see if the surgery really worked. He conducted a study in which five patients were given the real surgery and five were given fake surgery consisting of little incisions over the knee. He then followed his patients for two years.</p>
<p>The results were amazing. Interviews showed that pain and swelling were reduced just as much in the placebo group as in the group that received the real surgery. Four out of the five participants who experienced the fake surgery said it was so helpful they'd gladly recommend it to a friend. Glowing testimonials, in other words, mean nothing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>(the study is <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12110735/">here</a>)</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://bjui-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1464-410x.1998.00554.x">about prostate size</a> (placebo gave the same improvements even after 2 years).</p>
<p>So how does this happen? The article points out (with references) common examples which include:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_bias">Observer bias</a></strong> -- the person doing the measurement inadvertently noticing where the effect is, or not, because they expect it</li>
<li><strong><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect">Rosenthal Effect</a></strong> (aka the <strong><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer-expectancy_effect">observer-expectancy effect</a></strong>)-- the observer inadvertently influencing the participants actions, so they act in the way the observer expects. this indirect communication can be remarkably subtle and effective.</li>
<li><strong>Reinterpretation Effect</strong> - when observers reinterpret the result after the fact, given the expectations.</li>
<li><strong>Placebo Effect</strong> - when no-treatment gives a positive result.</li>
<li><strong>Memory Distortion</strong> - the observer's memory of results changes over time</li>
<li><strong>Natural Course of the Disease: Illusion of Agency</strong> - natural improvements can possible lead to misattributing the treatment effectiveness</li>
<li><strong>Study Drop Outs</strong> - participants with bad results may drop out of a study, leaving the good results remaining</li>
</ul>
<p>To this list I'd add</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Multiple treatments</strong> -- if a participant gets multiple treatments simultaneously, the observer could misattribute the effectiveness of one of the treatments. </li>
</ul>
<p>Each of these problems are clearly possible with any of the miraculous healing claims <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/23/a-long-discussion-about-miracles/">I've read about and reviewed earlier</a>. In the presence of a community supporting faith-healings, you get observer bias, Rothenthal effects, the illusion of agency, and placebo effects occuring. When the reports come some time after the events, the memory distortion, reinterpretation effects, and multiple treatment effects. Further, faith-healings have a massive drop-out problem -- many people are prayed for, and the people who don't get healed don't step forward.</p>
<p>How do you make sure that the treatment you are studying actually works? You have to rule out each of these effects:</p>
<ul>
<li>keep all of the participants (rules put drop-out effects)</li>
<li>keep accurate pre-post observations (rules out reinterpretation and memory distortion effects)</li>
<li>use placebo control groups (rules out natural course)</li>
<li>keep all parties blind to the treatment and placebo groups (rules out observer and Rosenthal effects)</li>
<li>keep all treatments narrow and quantitative (rules out multiple treatment and memory distortion) </li>
</ul>Bad Apologetics on Bayes - Part 12022-03-30T00:00:00-04:002022-03-30T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-03-30:/posts/2022/Mar/30/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-1/<p>In this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> I join <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a> to discuss <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrew's article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The …</a></p><p>In this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> I join <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a> to discuss <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrew's article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</a> entitled "Chapter 11 - The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth". </p>
<p>It's 9 hours long, but I am only on for the first 7 hours. This isn't a complete log of everything said, but I tried to include the main points. I also started with a transcript, and edited it for clarity (e.g. removing ums, and repetition) but there may still be some weird typos from the computer generated transcript that I didn't catch. I will try to quote Nathan, James, Kamil and myself if it comes from the episode. All other text is mine, commentary either at the time or sometime afterward. </p>
<p>The parts of this document are here:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Aug/29/bad-apologetics-ep-18-bayes-machine-goes-brrrrrrrrr/">Original Post</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/30/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-1/">Part 1: 1-3 hr</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/12/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-2/">Part 2: 3-6 hr</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/13/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-3/">Part 3: 6-9 hr</a></li>
</ol>
<div class="toc"><span class="toctitle">Table of Contents</span><ul>
<li><a href="#tldr">TLDR</a></li>
<li><a href="#initial-thoughts">Initial thoughts</a></li>
<li><a href="#probability">Probability</a></li>
<li><a href="#hume">Hume</a></li>
<li><a href="#alternative-supernatural-explanations">Alternative supernatural explanations</a></li>
<li><a href="#explanations">Explanations</a></li>
<li><a href="#a-little-about-priors">A little about priors</a></li>
<li><a href="#r-vs-not-r">\(R\) vs not \(R\)</a></li>
<li><a href="#on-the-expectedness-of-r">On the expectedness of \(R\)</a></li>
<li><a href="#the-reliability-of-the-texts">The reliability of the texts</a></li>
<li><a href="#arguments-from-silence">Arguments from Silence</a></li>
<li><a href="#prophecy">Prophecy</a></li>
<li><a href="#trustworthiness-of-the-early-church-tradition">Trustworthiness of the early church tradition</a></li>
<li><a href="#matthew-and-mark">Matthew and Mark</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>And the link for the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM</p>
<h2 id="tldr">TLDR</h2>
<p>The main issues are:</p>
<ol>
<li>ignoring priors because there's no prior probability in their calculation, so they really aren't doing Bayes</li>
<li>inconsistent use of priors -- when they address naturalistic alternatives they say, this is implausible -- so they do consider priors, but only when it suits them</li>
<li>they don't support the claim that their preferred model (e.g. Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead) actually produces the evidence with the high likelihood</li>
<li>they don't seriously consider alternatives, either natural or supernatural</li>
<li>they don't motivate their numbers with comparable rare events, or they would have seen that their calculation of an odds ratio of <span class="math">\(10^{44}\)</span> is ridiculous</li>
<li>they uncritically take the claims in the New Testament as the actual data we have, as opposed to the fact that what we have are ancient <em>texts</em> that contain those claims</li>
<li>an uncritical view of New Testament documents, and an unprofessional response to traditional scholarship</li>
<li>they don't even seem to think about why something would be explained by their preferred resurrection hypothesis. It's just assumed that everything is explained. And then they ask, how do you, skeptic, explain this?</li>
<li>they make up claims with no supporting citations (especially with respect to how new communities form and how hallucinations work)</li>
<li>they don't make the very easy step of looking at what's actually happening in the world with religious people and actually getting some data, getting some background knowledge about how people actually function </li>
</ol>
<h2 id="initial-thoughts">Initial thoughts</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=229">Time stamp 3:49</a></p>
<p>Nathan opens up comparing the methods in this paper to looking at problem about gremlins in ones closet. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: they basically compare the likelihood of the evidence given the hypothesis against the likelihood of the evidence given "not the hypothesis". And the reason I think that's a problem is because there's a bunch of risky claims like that. You know, the likelihood that there's noise coming from my attic, given that there are gremlins in my attic is like pretty high, right? But. That if you kind of flip that around and make it so what's the likelihood that gremlins are in my closet given that there's noise, it's not actually that high and they don't really seem to look at it that way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>By looking only at the likelihoods, one might contend that it is highly likely that there are gremlins in my closet given some noise in my closet because</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(\text{noise}|\text{gremlins}) \gg P(\text{noise}|\text{not gremlins})
$$</div>
<p>
or the likelihood ratio
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{P(\text{noise}|\text{gremlins})}{P(\text{noise}|\text{not gremlins})} \gg 1
$$</div>
<p>
Essentially, if you ignore priors you can argue the most ridiculous things. In McGrew's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Gv8Fw_fFE&list=WL&index=12">seminar here</a> he actually makes that point -- that you need both the priors and the likelihoods. Too bad he doesn't follow his own advice in this paper.</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=297">Time stamp 4:57</a></p>
<p>Kamil points out that they don't provide alternative explanations, the proposition <span class="math">\(\sim R\equiv\)</span> "Jesus was not resurrected" is not really fleshed out, so it's hard to say what any of the probabilities are. Also the proposition <span class="math">\(R\equiv\)</span>"Jesus was resurrected" is hard to deal with if you don't specify what that means. The expectedness of this proposition will depend on our background knowledge, which includes the laws of physics, so if <span class="math">\(R\)</span> entails violating those laws or not then you run into problems defining what it means.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: it's very difficult to explain what exactly you expect on hypothesis that Jesus's body didn't obey the laws of physics. If you start specifying it, then you run into the problem of baking the data -- the evidence that you are trying to explain -- into the explanation itself</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=496">Time stamp 8:16</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: And I made this point before that just because Jesus was resurrected, actually nothing follows whatsoever about who Jesus would appear to or let alone that Paul would be appeared to, but we'll come to that, but they don't really discuss this at all. It's just an assumption the resurrection explains all the facts without even addressing it. And then in opposition to that, they don't even pick a specific hypothesis or theory. They just talk about everything else, which makes it very hard to actually compare properly. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=562">Time stamp 9:22</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Brian: So my first thoughts on this is and we'll see a number of these points coming up, is that I find a lot of commonalities in different arguments that try to use Bayes in this way to support specifically religious arguments. </p>
<ol>
<li>Badly defined propositions, and I think that's what Kamil and James were getting at -- that they don't specify what these propositions actually mean or what they predict. </li>
<li>What I like to call <em>lack of imagination</em>, and that's basically just not really taking seriously all the various alternatives. There is the denominator where you're simply dividing by all the different alternatives. So if you're not doing all the alternatives, you're going to have inflated probabilities because they should be scaled down the number of plausible alternatives. </li>
<li>They never deal with priors. Well, I'm sure we'll get to that</li>
<li>The independence assumption, and I'm sure we'll get to that as well. </li>
<li>Arbitrary numerical values where we'll see that they just are making up values up off the top of their head without really much justification. </li>
</ol>
<p>And then you can combine all those into a soup that makes a lot of this analysis kind of a mess. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="probability">Probability</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=832">Time stamp 13:52</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: maybe just to clarify a point there, so in using Bayesian approaches that the McGrews are doing a couple of things here. One is that they are describing their credence -- their degree of belief -- using numbers that have to obey the probability axioms that you mentioned Nathan. So that's fine. That gives a constraint on your reasoning and argumentation. But by itself, it's not actually clear what argumentative value that's going to have. So for example, if I say I hold the credence of 99.99 the God raise Jesus from the dead. And I could even go off and then calculate all the things from that by combining with other probabilities. That in itself doesn't actually tell you anything about what you should believe. I've just described my own subjective beliefs. That's what Bayesian reasoning involves -- it is understanding probabilities as descriptions of credence, as degrees of belief. So I think that there's an issue in saying all they just making up the numbers, it's actually OK for them to just pull the numbers out of wherever if they're just describing their own degrees of belief, right? But the question becomes, should I take that seriously? Do those numbers mean anything to me, or should I update my answers on the basis of those numbers? And if they're going to make that argument, they need to give us a reason as to why I, who, you know, have a different set of beliefs and different evidences that I should take those numbers seriously. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=1041">Time stamp 17:21</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Brian: So, so my critique about that kind of arbitrary numbers is they don't make really much effort in constraining them. </p>
<p>I see probability coming from kind of the formalism that E T Jaynes sets out. He has a set of axioms that that he uses to derive the laws of probability.
</p>
</blockquote>
<ol>
<li><strong>Degrees of plausibility are represented by real numbers</strong>. This is a choice of practicality. Perhaps there is some value in probability represented with <em>complex numbers</em>, but so far no useful generalization has been found to my knowledge.</li>
<li><strong>Qualitative consistency with common sense</strong>. Specifically, the system must be consistent with standard Boolean logic - the logic of syllogisms and deductive logic. This is not a generic call to "<em>common sense</em>" to base the system on, but rather the short-hand informal speech that Jaynes likes to use.</li>
<li><strong>Internal consistency</strong>. If a conclusion can be reasoned out in more than one way then every possible way must yield the same result.</li>
<li><strong>Propriety</strong>. We must take into account all of the information provided that is relevant to the question.</li>
<li><strong>Equivalent states consistency</strong>. Equivalent states of knowledge must be represented by equivalent plausibility assignments.</li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<p>My feeling is that that aside from the kind of quantitative aspects, it gives a nice structure to an argument where you can see where your inference might be coming from and what it might be affected by. You have to list off all your assumptions all at once, and in that way, you put everything out on the table and and someone can say, "Oh, look, this term I disagree with" and it lets you weigh different possibilities. It provides a structure where you can see how any new evidence might affect particular values. And that's where I see the kind of value in this. It's not the specific numbers that you're going to come out with, it is the structure that you use. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=1194">Time stamp 19:54</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: I perceive it as a really useful tool for structuring thought and for avoiding a lot of the invalid inferences that people make in objective reasoning. And one thing that it does really well is that it solves one of the issues with the argumentation to the best explanation. In argumentation to the best explanation, usually the idea is that you have a number of criteria of what constitutes a good explanation and that you're going through various competing hypotheses and you are trying to essentially to score them in terms of how well they perform on that criteria. Things like explanatory power, plausibility, exploratory scope, explanatory value, simplicity and others like that. But then the issue is it's usually not the case that the hypotheses either fits the criteria or it doesn't. That's usually a degree. So there is a degree to which a hypothesis has plausibility. There's a degree to which a hypothesis has explanatory power.</p>
<p>I see value in Bayesian reasoning in that it gives you a good method to take these various explanatory virtues into account all at once. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=1746">Time stamp 29:06</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: I actually don't think the Bayesian approach as much at all to this article, you could get rid of it, and most of it would just be the same.
Kamil: If you watching this and you don't understand Bayesian reasoning, first of all, you apparently are not smart enough to get saved and go to heaven, but also that doesn't doesn't really matter. This is not the most technical piece of literature.
Brian: I think mostly because they never really deal with priors, and so once you're not doing half of the equation, then it really doesn't matter.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later in the discussion, James points out that they do use the priors, just inconsistently.</p>
<h2 id="hume">Hume</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=1930">Time stamp 32:10</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220325141826.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220325141826.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: [on Hume]. I don't think it's trivial now, even if you know, Bayes because people make this mistake all the time. Like with the the classic studies they do with doctors asking them about what's the probability that someone has the disease, given that they've tested positively when there's a high false positive rate? Doctors consistently ignore the base rate. And I think that you can interpret what [Hume] is saying as you've got to consider your prior <em>and</em> your likelihood. And if the prior is really, really low, like for a miracle, then you've got to have really, really strong evidence. You can't just be enamored with what evidence that looks strong if the prior is low. So I don't, even if that's all Hume is saying and that's disputed, I don't think it is a trivial result. I think it's a very important result. And in my opinion, he delivers that in an eloquent and memorable way. So yeah, I don't get the criticism either. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=2037">Time stamp 33:57</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: I think there is just some weird, like idiosyncratic thing about how apologists argue, and it's that when they are trying to argue against like a body of work in a specific field of science, they always go after the person who first proposed it. Like, there is a lot of people who argue against what Charles Darwin wrote, and they think that if they poke holes in that, they somehow like, dismantle 150 or 200 years of evolutionary biology. The same is every time I see someone critiquing the documentary hypothesis and old testament studies from like a Christian apologists point of view, they always go after Millhouse. Then they don't engage with people who write about it today. And the same goes with Hume, right? </p>
<p>Brian: I don't like psychologizing these sorts of things, but I think the way theists think in terms of authorities, they see authority giving truth, right? They find it very hard to imagine anyone who just doesn't care about authorities. It's like it doesn't matter what Einstein said, it's just what the equations say that matters. And so attacking Einstein is not going to move us much. But they see it as the truth, the idea tied to the person because that's the way they think. Because that's the way that religions are structured. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="alternative-supernatural-explanations">Alternative supernatural explanations</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=2196">Time stamp 36:36</a>
<img alt="Pasted image 20220325142609.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220325142609.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: So I think that this is what Brian was talking about in terms of lack of imagination because I can think of a ton of things that might occupy that probability space, right? Other than theism. So I mean, aliens, right? Maybe like juvenile aliens who are just messing around and wanted to like trick these random primates on some planet could they not do it? And then I do think it is important because within that probability space, the key thing is it might occupy a chunk. And it was interesting because I asked Vi about this, and we both had wildly different like beliefs about this because I thought that theism was maybe like quite a chunky part of that space for myself, but for Vi, it was like quite a bit lower. </p>
<p>Brian: Every time they say <span class="math">\(T\)</span>=Theism, I find I just try to imagine every kind of crazy God that I can imagine -- Stephen Fry's, evil God, Cthulhu -- what's the probability of Jesus getting resurrected under any of those? It's basically zero or Zeus, right? It's because they don't take these seriously, and they've already assigned them really low priors, but they're not going to directly address that. They're just sweeping those under the rug. And so this is exactly what I was talking about in terms of lack of imagination, but also badly defined propositions. Theism isn't well defined which makes it impossible to pin it down in any real way.</p>
<p>Kamil: They start bringing in implicitly assumptions from Christian theism specifically, or from a subset of it, let's say, classical theism. And I think it's much easier for them to get away with it, doing it implicitly because they use "capital G" God, which is normally how the Christian God is written. This is why I'm personally very careful to always use that name the term Yahweh, because it brings to the attention that we are talking about a specific deity which has specific mythological baggage. We're not just talking about any God. </p>
<p>James: And later on in the article, they actually specifically mention the example of Zeus resurrecting Jesus. And they basically just dismiss that as saying, "Well, there's no reason that Zeus would have to resurrect Jesus, right? So even if it existed, it wouldn't explain the evidence". My question would be what reason do we have thinking that Zeus has more reason to resurrect Jesus than Yahweh does? It actually seems to me that Yahweh has a lot of reasons to not resurrect Jesus because of the fact that the apologists usually mention that resurrection is supposed to happen at the end of the world, and the Messiah is not supposed to be resurrected, and the prophecies are not fulfilled in the Old Testament that the Jews talk about, whereas none of that seems pertinent to Zeus. I mean, Zeus does what he wants like, why would he not resurrect Jesus? I mean, he'd just do it for a laugh. You know, Zeus is always causing trouble and mischief, so I don't see why he wouldn't want to resurrect Jesus. Seems that the probability he would resurrect Jesus is higher than the probability that Yahweh would resurrect Jesus.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=2633">Time stamp 43:53</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: so there are actually so many options here, just to summarize, we've got</p>
<ul>
<li>Zeus and other god</li>
<li>ghosts</li>
<li>sorcerer </li>
<li>aliens</li>
<li>some unknown natural principle</li>
<li>reincarnation</li>
</ul>
<p>I could just make things up all day about what it could possibly be if we don't have any constraints. </p>
<p>And the question is, if we're going to actually do a Bayesian analysis to compare explanations, what non question begging reason do we have for saying that God is more likely to resurrect Jesus than any of the other ones that I just mentioned? I have not heard a clear answer to that question that doesn't already appeal to like a bunch of stuff in the Bible or whatever, which is what I mean by question begging. Why should we accept that? </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="explanations">Explanations</h2>
<p><a href="">Time stamp</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: That would circle back to the issue that I mentioned initially of just defining our explanation in terms of the evidence that you're trying to explain. If you have a set of data and all that you're saying in the explanation is that "there are ghosts and they want to produce this sort of data". Now, first of all, there isn't really any constraint about what is a ghost, what it can do. It's really vague it doesn't say much. So it's really difficult to to estimate what's expected on the ghost proposition, right? Which I think is directly analogous to the resurrection because you don't know what is a resurrected body, what kind of properties it has like, does it interact with light? Does light reflect from it back to your eyes so that you can actually see it visually? It does, except when it doesn't, and it has solid substance, except when it doesn't like when he passes through locked doors. So that's one problem. And the second problem is the ghost that wants to do exactly what the evidence is, right? Well, then you're not explaining you're just restating the data.
James: That's what theists explanations always are. They say "God just wanted to do this" that's all the explanation is. </p>
<p>James: But I think it's actually important to draw this out, that's what you get when you appeal to God's intentions or actions when you're explaining anything because there're no constraints on what God can do, and it's unclear where you get any constraints over what God even would do unless you have some sort of actual theology to appeal to, to say he would do this or would do that. So I think at the end of the day, you just get a list of "God did it" and he did these things right and that just all of the things that are necessary for your data like, Oh, God raised Jesus from the tomb, removing his body from the tomb. And then he appeared to the women so that they saw him and then the disciples, and then he appeared to Paul. That's just basically very close to a list of the data to be explained. </p>
<p>Kamile: But it's very, very important that when we explain evidence in terms of people having intentions, it's very important to to ask the question how plausible it is that the given people, in the explanation would have the intentions that they are hypothetically hypothesized to have. It's really, really trivial to imagine hypotheses that explain a set of historical data in terms of specific people having specific intentions, which are nevertheless really implausible given our historical background knowledge, or even just given simple things in our background knowledge, such as some general features of human psychology. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="a-little-about-priors">A little about priors</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=3420">Time stamp 57:00</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Brian: One of the points I was thinking of when Nathan put up the form:</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{P(E|R)}{P(E|\sim\!\! R)}
$$</div>
<blockquote>
<p>So one of the problems with this is that you can have an explanation that doesn't fit the data quite as well, but it's far more plausible and that will outweigh in a Bayesian sense something that explains it really well, but it's implausible. </p>
</blockquote>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{P(E|R)P(R)}{P(E|\sim\!\! R)P(\sim\!\! R)}
$$</div>
<p>
with <span class="math">\(P(E|R)>P(E|\sim\!\! R)\)</span> (an explanation that doesn't fit the data quite as well as <span class="math">\(R\)</span>) but <span class="math">\(P(R)\ll P(\sim\!\! R)\)</span> ( it's far more plausible than <span class="math">\(R\)</span>).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>And so by ignoring the priors (<span class="math">\(P(R)\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(\sim\!\! R)\)</span>), which the McGrews do, they pretty much throw out that entire part. For example, you may think that aliens doesn't explain the data all that well, but they're far more plausible than any kind of spiritual or supernatural explanation. But then what it does is you then have the argument about priors. I think this happened in the <a href="https://capturingchristianity.com/cc023-the-historical-case-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-part-1-of-5/">conversation with Max Baker-Hitch and Calum Miller</a> It got to the point where they admitted that the naturalistic explanations were reasonably plausible but then we have to back it up to the evidence for theism directly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220326165821.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220326165821.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: The point there is that there's no priors there, right? So they're actually just saying that the evidence is confirmatory for the resurrection over, not R. Now what Kamil was saying is that they're ignoring priors, and this is the sense in which they're ignoring priors because there's no prior probability. However, they are not consistent with this because, and we've already seen an example of this and we'll see it more, when they address naturalistic alternatives they say, this is implausible. Yet they don't say that it wouldn't actually explain the data. They just say it has a low prior, they say low antecedent probability. So they are completely inconsistent with what they actually do in their argument. So I actually think that they do consider priors, but only when it suits them. </p>
<p>Kamil: what I want to say is that this is an argumentative strategy that you see all the time in papers that use Bayesian reasoning. They will say we are not going to be looking at intrinsic probabilities. We are just going to compare expectedness of evidence. And the idea behind that is that, first of all, it's really, really difficult to establish probabilities in general. And second of all, the argumentative strategy is very often to show that the likelihood ratio is just so high in favor of one hypothesis that in order to overcome that, we would have to imagine a really, really high difference in the prior. I think this is perfectly fine if you stated in the paper that this is what you're doing explicitly. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lydia McGrew <a href="https://youtu.be/rtwejTDjPA4">in a separate video</a> admits to doing just that -- if you can demonstrate the likelihood ratio is high enough, it can overwhelm any reasonable prior. So, if they are doing this, then they should state it up front and also never talk about the plausibility of any competing hypothesis because that would be irrelevant to this approach.</p>
<h2 id="r-vs-not-r"><span class="math">\(R\)</span> vs not <span class="math">\(R\)</span></h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=3872">Time stamp 1:04:32</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: They've got conditional on <span class="math">\(R\)</span>, which is the resurrection hypothesis and then the same evidence, but conditional on not <span class="math">\(R\)</span> now. I think that that's a terrible way of trying to do this because I mentioned this before. The way that you would typically do Bayesian model comparison is by comparing one model to another. And when I say model here, I mean, like a theory. So like the resurrection would be a theory. An alternative theory would be something like Camille's explanation or my RHBS model or, you know, different a combination of both. They're not necessarily mutually exclusive, but you consider one model and then compare its explanatory value or, in other words, the probability of the evidence given that explanation and compare that to the resurrection. One trying to compare it to all of the others. I mean, in principle, like so "not <span class="math">\(R\)</span>" (<span class="math">\(\sim\!\! R\)</span>) would technically include every other explanatory option. But the problem with trying to do that is that it's so unconstrained because it's literally just everything that's not the resurrection. </p>
<p>As we'll see later, there's actually no constraints on what they can argue against. So they'll pick whatever counterexample that they like, like naturalistic theory for whichever part of that and argue against it when it's convenient. And then when a different one is convenient, they'll argue against that because it's just "not <span class="math">\(R\)</span>" like anything will do. And I think that this often leads to inconsistencies and it gives the impression that there's not really any competing explanation because they're not considering a competing explanation. They just sort of picking from the set of every possible thing that's "not resurrection".</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the strengths of Bayesian reasoning is it that it forces you to write down all of your assumptions up front, and all of the models that you're comparing it to. Unless you truly have only two models, you just don't set it up like
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{P(\text{my model})}{P(\text{not my model})}
$$</div>
<p>
especially when "my model" is not well constrained, because the terms contain too many parts that you can either sweep under the rug or accidentally overlook because they are lumped into too big blocks.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: That's like a general problem in things in a Christian apologetics. One of their objections against alternative hypotheses is that they don't explain all of the data, they only explain some of the data. But the thing is that very often the explanations are intended to explain exactly some of the data. They will say we can reject the swoon hypothesis because it doesn't explain the appearances and we can reject the hallucination hypothesis because it doesn't explain the empty tomb. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>That's why <a href="https://youtu.be/zNVQKUSn00Y">James's RHBS model</a> has four parts -- reburial, hallucination, memory biases, and socialization -- because it's likely to be multiple interacting phenomena to explain something as complex as the birth of a new religion. But if apologists look at it one-by-one, they'd say the hallucination doesn't explain the empty tomb while reburial doesn't explain the appearances, and they'd think they were arguing against the model when in fact they aren't. They could rightly complain that the conjunction of 4 different things is implausible -- the product of their probabilities would be lower than any individual one -- but each of these is so much more plausible a priori than a resurrection that this is not really an issue. Every one of those parts concerns phenomena that we know happen, and in some cases (e.g. biases and socialization) happen <em>frequently</em>. </p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=4099">Time stamp 1:08:19</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Brian: I find that this way of formulating it kind of piles a bunch of things into the "not <span class="math">\(R\)</span>" part -- and even the "<span class="math">\(R\)</span>" part -- that they're not really explicitly doing.
Kamile said that they're two important parts of Bayes theorem but I would actually state that there are three. I <a href="https://youtu.be/3xAb3aVGVM0">gave a TEDx talk</a> where I going to try to give an intuitive explanation of the structure of Bayes theorem: a belief in a particular explanation should scale with <em>how well that explanation fits the data</em> (called the likelihood), it should also scale with <em>how plausible that explanation was before you saw any data</em> (the prior), and then the third part is the belief is scaled down by essentially all of the alternatives. So the problem with the phrasing it in this "<span class="math">\(R\)</span> vs "not <span class="math">\(R\)</span>" comparison and not breaking it out into all the possibilities is that you end up not being specific about your alternatives of doing things like Kamile said, like ignoring things where an explanation is designed for only part of the data. It makes it a lot less constrained. And I think if they broke it out, they would see it would be less constrained. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220327154748.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220327154748.png"></p>
<h2 id="on-the-expectedness-of-r">On the expectedness of <span class="math">\(R\)</span></h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=4375">Time stamp 1:12:55</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: So if you are a Christian first and you want to maintain that, it's really, really plausible, given some general considerations like philosophical and theological considerations that a God would want to raise someone like Jesus from the dead. Then it becomes really, really plausible at the same time that someone like Jesus's disciples would conclude that Jesus was actually raised from the dead, even though he wasn't, <em>precisely because</em> they also had access to those philosophical and theological considerations, right? Like if Swinburne is really correct, that it's very, very plausible that, for example, someone like Yahweh would want to raise someone like Jesus from the dead, then no wonder that someone like Jesus's disciples were falsely convinced that Jesus was raised because in their mind, it was just so damn plausible, right? So they just formed a false belief based on that high possibility. This is again like a fatal flaw. </p>
<p>Well, and I think that the problem is exactly that. Christian theists want to have it both ways. They want to say at the same time that the plausibility of the resurrection is really, really high. So we don't really have to worry about that huge difference in plausibility ratios. But at the same time, the evidence that the disciples had access to must have been really good in order to overcome the unexpectedness of something like the resurrection on their existing religious milieu. But yeah, I think there is a massive tension between those two ideas, either it's plausible -- so it's likely that you would be falsely convinced of it -- or it's implausible -- in which case that is the problem with the prior probability.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kamil's point is worth pausing and understanding what it means for apologetics for the resurrection. </p>
<p>Nathan follows this with exactly the problem with looking at likelihood ratios instead of posterior probabilities. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: the fact that they're ignoring the base rate rate seems to mean that you kind of lose all of the benefit, in my view, of doing that Bayesian analysis. That example James gave before of doctors diagnosing people and the kind of heuristics that we use. So for example, if you say you've got a positive test for HIV in the UK or something, you might think, "Well, given that I'm a doctor, right? And this person is here presenting with these symptoms and they've got a positive test. And it's that evidence is really, really likely on the hypothesis that they've got HIV vs the hypothesis that they've not got HIV" and it would actually win out, I think, on this analysis. But when you take into account that base rate, which is the number of people with HIV in the UK, which is really, really low like naught point naught naught naught one percent something, then boom. All of a sudden the probability of having HIV given the positive test it's something naught point four or something. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is exactly right. If you ignore the priors (base-rates) then you can convince yourself of a false claim following our (flawed) intuitions. The calculation would go as follows. I use small numbers to make things more intuitive. The disease is 1 out of 200 in a population of 3000, and we have a test that is 99% accurate. You test positive, and want to know whether you should think you have the disease.</p>
<p>The Bayes' Recipe proceeds as follows:</p>
<ol>
<li>Specify the prior probabilities for the models being considered</li>
</ol>
<p>In our case we have
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(\text{disease}) &= \frac{1}{200}\\
P(\text{no disease}) &= \frac{199}{200}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
2. Write the top of Bayes' Rule for all models being considered</p>
<p>The "models" in this case really is binary: you either have the disease or you don't. Unlike in the case for the resurrection where there is more than one way to have the model "resurrection" happen and more than one way for "not resurrection" to happen. The top of Bayes theorem has the likelihood and prior for each model, so we'd have:
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(\text{disease}|\text{positive test}) &= P(\text{positive test}|\text{disease})\times P(\text{disease}) \\
P(\text{no disease}|\text{positive test}) &= P(\text{positive test}|\text{no disease})\times P(\text{no disease})
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>The likelihood terms come from the test
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(\text{positive test}|\text{disease})&=99\%\\
P(\text{positive test}|\text{no disease})&=1\%
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
So the top of Bayes for each model would be
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(\text{disease}|\text{positive test}) &= 0.99\times \frac{1}{200} = 0.005 \\
P(\text{no disease}|\text{positive test}) &= 0.01\times \frac{199}{200} = 0.0099
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<ol>
<li>Add these values for all models</li>
</ol>
<div class="math">$$
T=0.005 + 0.0099 = 0.0149
$$</div>
<ol>
<li>Divide each of the values by this sum, <span class="math">\(K\)</span>, to get the final probabilities</li>
</ol>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(\text{disease}|\text{positive test}) &= 0.005/0.0149 = 34\% \\
P(\text{no disease}|\text{positive test}) &= 0.0099/0.0149 = 66\%
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>Which means that if you have a rare disease, you are very unlikely to have it <em>even given a 99% accurate positive test for it</em>! This is a seriously unintuitive result, so it is helpful to visualize it in another way to build your intuition. One way to see this result is to visualize it.</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220327183151.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220327183151.png">
The disease is 1 out of 200 in a population of 3000, and the test is 99% accurate. This means about 15 sick people and about 2985 healthy people. If all of the sick people test positive, and 1% of the healthy people test positive due to the 99% accuracy, we would have 15 sick and 29 healthy people who all test positive. </p>
<p>This effect depends on the rarity of the disease (the more rare, the less likely) and the false positive rate (the number of healthy people who test positive anyway). This will vary depending on the disease and the test, but can lead to this unintuitive result, and thus can lead one to make poor medical decisions. It also means that by ignoring priors one opens oneself up to these kinds of errors.</p>
<p>I did not earlier that Lydia McGrew <a href="https://youtu.be/rtwejTDjPA4">in a separate video</a> justifies ignoring the prior because they supposedly demonstrate that the likelihood ratio is so high as to admit no reasonable prior, even if low. They don't, however, state that in this paper and they aren't consistent in their approach to priors as <a href="#a-little-about-priors">James points out earlier</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=4585">Time stamp 1:16:25</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: Well, I think the this is why we said at the beginning that framing this article in terms of Bayesian reasoning is superficial. For the reason that you can just take the equations and the Bayesian fluff out. This is essentially very similar to, for example, of what Mike Licona is doing. Mike Licona is not a Bayesian. He goes for good old argumentation to the best explanation. The conclusion that he gives is that the resurrection hypothesis has much better explanatory scope and explanatory power. But when it comes to plausibility, he says, "A historian cannot, in their professional capacity, evaluate whether miracle took place or not. So I'm just going to leave the plausibility cell in the table of hypothesis virtues empty. So I will be essentially agnostic or undecided about whether the resurrection hypothesis is plausible. And he says, "Look, we have all of these alternative hypotheses that don't have exploratory power, or they don't have explanatory scope or they don't have plausibility. And then that is mine that has explanatory power and explanatory scope but it has not been established that it has low plausibility because I just didn't do anything with plausibility. So that's the best explanation, right?"</p>
<p>And the obvious objection against that is, if you don't do anything about plausibility and if you're essentially agnostic about whether it's high or low, then you should not say that it's the best explanation. You should say it's unknown whether it's the best explanation or not, because if it's the case that the plausibility is low, then it's a worse explanation and if it's the case that it's high, it's a better explanation. He doesn't use Bayesian reasoning, but the structure of the argument, I think, is very, very similar. And that just shows how, superficial the Bayesian approach is here.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="the-reliability-of-the-texts">The reliability of the texts</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=5340">Time stamp 1:29:00</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220327203121.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220327203121.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamll: there's a really interesting interview that I actually did review on Doug's channel, and that's Lydia McGrew having a conversation with AJ Thompson. And in that interview, she says explicitly, "Look, when we started working on this chapter for the Blackwell's companion to natural theology, we realized very quickly that unless we can establish that the Gospels, were written either, by eyewitnesses themselves or they were sourced by eyewitnesses, then it's actually very, very difficult to establish that this ratio of expectations on the evidence is very high."" Because, obviously, if you believe that there were people in the first century who were sincerely convinced that they lived with the resurrected Jesus for 40 days and that he talked to them, they touched him, they saw him eat fish, etc... Then those kinds of experiences are going to be very, very difficult to explain on the naturalistic hypothesis. But the naturalist is obviously going to explain those data points, like the contents of Acts 1, as not being people who had those kinds of experiences in history in the first place but by positing that what Acts 1 depicts is a literary creation that does not correspond to anything that happens in history.</p>
<p>Brian: I think this one of the things that becomes clear here, and they could have dealt with this in the Bayesian framework if they wanted to, is what counts as data. So they have something like a claim that "Jesus ate dinner with the disciples after the three days" That's the data, or what they are taking as data. Whereas really, the data is we <em>have a written document written 50 or so years later</em> that has this story. And so it's a claim about that -- a text. And so you can put that into that formalism if you want to, but that's not what the McGrews are doing. This sentence in the paper is essentially saying, we're going to ignore the text and just count as data, literally, the claims that are there in the story. And if you're going to do that, you may as well just say, well, then the data is, "they said that Jesus was resurrected" and we're done with this argument. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=5696">Time stamp 1:34:56</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: it's definitely the case with Brian said that when apologists read the passage that says that Jesus ate with Jesus with his disciples for 40 days after the resurrection, then the date relevant data is that there were people who experienced Jesus living with them for 40 days, right? Well, actually what the data is that there is a text that says that. And in this case, that's actually only in acts, right? That's not found in any of the documents that would be independent from acts, I think. [...] it's like a two step approach to this specific apologetic where they start. Like the step one is to actually establish that the Gospels and acts are historically reliable so that then (step two) they could treat the passage, saying that Jesus lived with his disciples for forty days as meaning or as implying that there actually were people who experienced that. [...] But the problem with that two step process is that assessing the historic reliability of the documents, I think is itself going to be conditional on the content of the documents specifically on them containing these kinds of miraculous claims, right? Like if you are a historian and you are trying to assess whether a document is historically reliable. One thing that is, I think should be at least somewhat important is evaluating what the document actually says. You cannot be just limited to external considerations like what is the attestation to the authorship by the early church and stuff like that. You have to actually look at the content of the document. And no historian probably would conclude that an ancient document that contains so many, let's say, fantastical material or material with very low prior probability counts as historically accurate. [...] any historian that finds a text which says that someone walked on water is probably not going to think that the text was actually written by people who were there to see it. </p>
<p>James: it's bizarre to say that we can assess the reliability of a text putting aside all of the non-plausible stuff and say, well, there's real places and real people and other stuff mentioned here. So therefore, all of the stuff that seems miraculous or seems to seems implausible or that would count against its reliability just sort of gets a pass. That isn't, as Kamil says, how historians assess any other document</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="arguments-from-silence">Arguments from Silence</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=6352">Time stamp 1:45:42</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220327210319.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220327210319.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the fact that the arguments from silence are pretty tenuous. I'm highlighting that because we're going to later that when it suits them, they deploy arguments from silence a lot, arguing against hypotheses that they don't like. So that's another one just to bear in mind. </p>
<p>James: Whenever the naturalist or just the skeptic about the resurrection postulates something, you know, Joseph of Arithamathea reburied the body or there were tomb robbers, or that there was a hallucination or whatever it is. They'll say, "Oh, he's got no evidence that that's just ad hoc". And then this is similar to, "oh, you know, we can't speculate about the intentions of an author". But then they feel free to speculate about what God would want to do about resurrecting Jesus and about setting him to appear to Paul and other things like that. So I mean, what do we have more basis for speculating about -- what people would do or what God would do? It's just seems entirely inconsistent to me. Plus, no one observed the resurrection. That's an unobserved postulate, right? The point is that the resurrection best explains the data, according to them. So why can't we postulate unobservables that explain the data? </p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="prophecy">Prophecy</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=7312">Time stamp 2:01:52</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220327212241.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220327212241.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James:How do historians usually react when they find a text which seems to correctly prophesy about an event that occurs in the future? What's the usual inference that's made there?
Kamil: Well, they say that's amazing because we can actually date at the text really well. We can establish that it must have been written after the fact that it's prophesying took place, right?
Brian: Isn't that circular, though? I'm just trying to take their point here.
James: So they claim to date the Gospels to before AD 70 on the basis of fulfilled prophecy is just too assume philosophical naturalism. Now, whether that's true or not, I'm just making the point that they want the text to be treated like other historical text, right? That is how historians would treat any other historical text where there was something like this in it. So which is it? Do they want them to be treated special or do they want it to be treated like any other? </p>
<p>Kamil: Every single time when we see in ancient literature, these things that look like prophecies actually taking place, like coming true, and we can date the text using independent evidence we <em>always</em> find out that it's an accidental prophecy. [...] based on that background knowledge based on the knowledge that every single time we've seen something like that, it turns out to be an accidental prophecy from independent evidence. We can establish that this is probably going to be the case as well, right, and that's not a circular. That's not assuming naturalism, that's not having an anti-supernatural bias. That's taking into account background knowledge, when we assess evidence for a new claim, which is exactly what Bayesian reasoning is.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="trustworthiness-of-the-early-church-tradition">Trustworthiness of the early church tradition</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=7853">Time stamp 2:10:53</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: One thing that people don't appreciate about early gospel tradition is that everything that we can actually evaluate, everything that we can actually check about that early tradition turns out to be wrong. So, for example, we can establish it's not the case that the gospel of Matthew was written first, we can establish that the Gospel of Matthew was not originally written in Hebrew -- it was originally written in Greek, even though all of the early Christian authors who comment on that universally say that it was originally written in Hebrew and they believed that probably because it's a very Jewish Gospel in terms of what it says. That led them to believe that it must have been written in Hebrew and there may have been some other reasons -- that it gets complicated. So given that the early church tradition has a really bad track record when it comes to things that we can actually establish, I think that massively lowers our credence. If they get everything else wrong, why should we trust what they say>
James: What you're telling me, Kamile, is that the early Christian writers didn't know <em>when</em> the Gospel of Matthew was written, <em>who</em> wrote it, <em>what order</em> It was written relative to the other Gospels, or even what <em>language</em> it was written in? But they still knew enough about all of the other details to confirm that it was trustworthy, and that it had eyewitness testimony behind it and all of that. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=8506">Time stamp 2:21:46</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220328150405.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220328150405.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: "Our point is not that these discoveries demonstrate the accuracy of all other portions of the Gospels." OK, fair enough. It doesn't. Rather, "it is the common sense principle that the authors who have shown to be accurate in matters that we can check against existing independent evidence deserve within reasonable grounds the benefit of the doubt when they speak of matters of putative public fact that we cannot at present verify." I think that's a completely ridiculous principle because we don't just assume that because there are certain things that people say are accurate, that therefore, you know, probably everything that they say is accurate, like, imagine applying that principle to books of works of fiction. Well, you know, then they go to Paris and visit the Louve. And, you know, as they mentioned, Churchill and World War, you know, those things are accurate. So you know, they must be like, Harry Potter must be real, then. Just because real places and people are mentioned in Harry Potter doesn't mean that it's real. This seems to be a ridiculous principle. </p>
<p>Kamil: Maybe to disagree a little bit, this principle would definitely hold when it comes to evaluating other ancient texts, especially texts of a historigraphical nature by contemporary historians. So when historians are trying to assess the reliability of the text of some account, they look for whether the author gets historical details roughly correct in cases where we can actually establish that established independent of the text. And if it's the case that they do, it's reasonable to believe the other things that they say. [...] But it's important to realize to at least two considerations First is that this kind of reasoning is motivated by pragmatic factors more often than not, because it's just the case that we have so little surviving literature from the ancient world, especially solely to surviving historiographical literature of the ancient world that it's just that we have to go with pretty much with what we have because there isn't anything else. And every responsible scholar is going to keep that in mind, and is going to nuance that in the text, in the literature that they are producing. And the second consideration is that we still have to take into consideration the prior or intrinsic probabilities of the claims. Like if there is a chronicler that describes three battles and two of the battles, we can actually establish were the case from other sources maybe from archeology and stuff like that. But it's reasonable to believe that he also had accurate information about the third battle from a pragmatic point of view. given that we have no other sources from the ancient world about that particular event. [...] So you wrote about who was elected in what position in that given year, you wrote about important battles, you wrote about things like plagues, crop failure and stuff like that. But you would also dedicate sections to describing divine moments that were observed by people, by the priests, and they were actually reported to the priests like to the state in official capacity because that's very important because you believe that there are the gods. [...] Contemporary historians obviously don't think that those divine omens happened, because that is the difference in intrinsic probability. And it's not their behaving like an anti-supernatural bias or assuming naturalism or being biased against the Roman gods existing or something like that. That's just like doing basic history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=9025">Time stamp 2:30:25</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: If they then write elsewhere about a different event that has no particular connection to the first one, I may not necessarily assume that their account is accurate, especially if in a different place or a different time. The more different it is, basically, the less it seems to fit in the same reference class of things that they could know about, the less I'm going to appeal to that. And so in the case here, what we're talking about is that a certain temple had a certain number of pillars or that a certain pool existed, and some other types of geographic and political references. We're supposed to make some inference about that to details about the claims that the disciples made about their experiences. Those two things to me are completely separate from each other. And just because you're reliable about one doesn't really say anything about reliability on another. So that's the sense in which I just don't agree with that principle at all. It's not just an issue of whether it's the same author, it's about how they would have gotten that information and the plausibility of that information and the bias of the author and other factors like that. </p>
<p>Kamil: it's really apparent that when it comes to this specific type of apologetics, Christian apologists often aim at quantity, not necessarily quality, because I think they realize that they're engaging with an audience either Christian or non-Christian that is in no position to evaluate how significant it is for the author to get that particular historical detail. So they just go with having a lot of them because there is then this implicit cumulative case. But if you actually really go into detail one by one, as you are very well informed about ancient history, you have a robust background knowledge about that, then you will find more often than not that actually, there is nothing particularly striking about an author who wasn't an eyewitness to the events having access to that detail.
[...]
You will very often see headlines in apologetic websites saying things like 84 things that the Book of Acts got historically correct and the implicit inference that you're supposed to draw from that is, look, if it's the case that the author of Acts got 84 things correct then it's reasonable to believe that either he really was an eyewitness to Paul's life or his missionary journeys, or it's reasonable to believe that he also got the fantastical stuff right. But if you actually look at those 84 things, there are things like there was a temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Well, no surprise! It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. If this is actually something that I think almost is an argument against the book of Acts being historically reliable. Because if you imagine an author writing a fictional story taking place in a location that he doesn't really know anything about, the one thing that he's going to be talking about is the one thing that everyone knows.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=9392">Time stamp 2:36:32</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: There's another issue about base rates. So what is the base rate of correctly ascribing geographic or political or other details like this in fictional texts? We need to establish that if we're going to make claims about how likely it is that a text is accurate, given that it includes some of those details, you need to know what the base rate is, but that's neglected. And this is one of the points that I've continually made here, that they just pull these things out as if they are relevant. But they haven't actually established that they're relevant by looking at comparisons to texts, texts that we generally agree are not accurate. Well, how often do they include these sorts of details? </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=9431">Time stamp 2:37:11</a></p>
<p>(this is the same clip as above, but Nathan reads from it here too)
<img alt="Pasted image 20220328150405.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220328150405.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nathan: "Numerous other discoveries indicate a level of accuracy incompatible with a picture of the development of the gospel as an accretion of legend over the course of two or more generations." I think there's some ambiguity built into the alternative candidate explanations that they sort of set themselves up against here as well, because the gospels as an accretion of legend over the course of two or more generations could mean multiple things. I think that what they're levying and the kind of argument against is the idea that the thing is sort of almost purely fabricated, whereas I think there are quite a lot stronger versions of that where the scaffolding is actually completely historical but then the theological details are given the psychology of like a Second Temple Jew and type of practices to do with history and figuring out what might have happened and all the emotional details that might have been involved in the psychological makeup as well. </p>
<p>James: do they know how much accuracy is incompatible with legendary development? Why wouldn't legends draw upon real places and real things as a way, as a setting for the legends? I'm not saying there were legends but they just make these claims as if they've established some sort of basis, where they haven't.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="matthew-and-mark">Matthew and Mark</h2>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220329152639.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220329152639.png"></p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=10001">Time stamp 2:46:41</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: Because this is this is just a summary of what <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papias_of_Hierapolis">Papias</a>. So if you actually unpack that the things that we can actually independently check about, those accounts are false. Matthew wasn't the first written, Papias says it was written in Hebrew, which it wasn't. [...] I think they [the McGrews] have to basically be committed to those views, even though they are fringe in New Testament scholarship for good reasons. Because alternatively you would have to admit that someone like Papias is wrong about all the things that we can check. But he happens to be right about who wrote it. It's like, you know how in the book of Acts, they want you to say, "Look, the Book of Acts is reliable about all the things that we can check, so it's reasonable to assume that it's reliable." Well, here it's the other way around -- we can establish that Papias is wrong about all the things that we can check. So why believe him about the things that we can't check, which are exactly what's in question, the authorship?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I mention Joseph Francis Burton's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvRNWFZu_wX6pAYB_eOyFrFSdMDn5R9h2">excellent series going through Richard Bauchkam's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses</a>. <a href="https://youtu.be/oC6lXVp9sNo">His third video goes through Papias</a> and the evidence we have. </p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM?t=10320">Time stamp 2:52:00</a></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220330061129.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220330061129.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: Why do we trust these early Christian authors so much -- they don't really justify this. It's not clear what information that they had. Why did they write what they did? Well, I say why did they wrote the gospels, but also why the early Christian authors who were commenting on the gospels wrote their texts? Were they unbiased? Did they follow modern scholarly practices? These are the sort of things that I've been wanting to know in assessing how trustworthy they are. Not just did they write soon afterwards, and some of them is not even that soon afterwards. I just find a total lack of criticism of critical evaluation of the patristic claims and all gospel author claims to be really telling in this section here. </p>
<p>Kamil: This is massively ironic. They say "imaginary strata in an imaginary source document". Do you know what's also an "imaginary strata in an imaginary source document"? The pre-Pauline creeds. We know of the existence of the creeds pretty much from the Pauline Epistles. And it's not certain that those specific passages that are isolated out of the Pauline epistles actually existed and were in circulation about people, you know, before Paul wrote that because it's the best explanation of various features of the text. [...] There is no difference between saying that First Corinthians 15 is pre-Pauline creed and saying that the Q document existed and this is the material from Q. In both cases, we are drawing inferences from from the literary features of the text that we do have about existence of texts that are not actually directly evidenced in the manuscript record. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220330062711.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220330062711.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: "eyewitnesses who could have contradicted such accounts" How do you know they didn't? This is the question that I always ask when they say so and so would have told against it, would have pulled the body out, would have done whatever -- how do you know they didn't? We have no knowledge either way. </p>
</blockquote>
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</script>A long discussion about miracles2022-03-23T00:00:00-04:002022-03-23T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-03-23:/posts/2022/Mar/23/a-long-discussion-about-miracles/<p>Here I summarize the (9 hour!) conversation that I was a part of here: <a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg">Bad Apologetics Ep 20 - Miracles & even MORE even NEWER Resurrection evidence</a> where we respond to the …</p><p>Here I summarize the (9 hour!) conversation that I was a part of here: <a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg">Bad Apologetics Ep 20 - Miracles & even MORE even NEWER Resurrection evidence</a> where we respond to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5O3YZqFDxbs">Unbelievable? episode: Is there medical evidence for miracles? Craig Keener, Michael Shermer & Elijah Stephens</a> and a video with Sean McDowell interviewing Craig Keener called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFZJ5M53r4">Latest Evidence for Modern Miracles</a>. I want this post to be the place where I put as many of the specific miracle claims, the actual evidence presented, and some of the responses. I wrote about some of these cases <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/">in another post</a> and I've written about <a href="https://bblais.github.io/search.html?q=miracle">miracles many times</a>. </p>
<h2 id="specific-miracle-claims-covered">Specific Miracle Claims Covered:</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="#bruce-van-natta">Bruce Van Natta</a> who had a truck fall on him, destroying much of his intestine, but shortly after prayer his intestine miraculously regrew.</li>
<li><a href="#case-report-of-gastroparesis-healing">Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer</a></li>
<li><a href="#chris-gunderson">Chris Gunderson</a> who was born with an incurable disorder called Chronic Pseudo Obstruction Syndrome, which was cured by prayer</li>
<li><a href="#case-report-of-instantaneous-resolution-of-juvenile-macular-degeneration-blindness-after-proximal-intercessory-prayer">Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer</a> - probably Marolyn Ford, but it can be hard to tell without the names on the papers.</li>
<li><a href="#therapeutic-effects-of-proximal-intercessory-prayer-in-rural-mozambique">Study of the therapeutic effects of proximal intercessory prayer (STEPP) on auditory and visual impairments in rural Mozambique</a></li>
<li><a href="#paralyzed-woman-delia-knox-being-healed-on-video">Delia Knox healed from being paralyzed after 22 years</a></li>
<li><a href="#sean-george-has-a-heart-attack-and-comes-back">Sean George comes back after a heart attack</a></li>
<li><a href="#jp-moreland-gets-a-pool-table">JP Moreland gets a pool table</a></li>
<li>
<p><a href="#barbara-snyder-healed-from-multiple-sclerosis">Barbara Snyder (Barbara Cummiskey Snyder) – healed from multiple sclerosis</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The institution that is referenced for the work is <a href="https://www.globalmri.org/">Global Medical Research Institute (GMRI)</a> and the documentary about miracles referenced is <a href="https://www.sendproof.com">Send Proof</a>. </p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="some-initial-thoughts">Some initial thoughts</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=287">Time stamp 4:47</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>James is right that the evidence on a lot of these cases is really really bad. You can see why these stories are powerful and you can see why people really get motivated by them nd so i think it is important to respond to them because of that. The way people like the stories highlights their way of thinking and provides a teachable moment about like why don't we trust claims just from the claims, even if it has a peer-reviewed journal article. Why don't we just simply believe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Personally I like looking into the details of miracle claims because they spotlight the scientific process, when it is misused or when people try to use the authority of science but don't want to go through the admittedly hard work to earn it.</p>
<h2 id="case-studies-as-the-basis-of-evidence">Case studies as the basis of evidence</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=1158">Time stamp 19:05</a></p>
<p>The primary studies here are Case Studies, which are some of the <em>lowest</em> and <em>least informative</em> types of studies in medicine (see <a href="https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/evidence-based-medicine/levels_of_evidence">https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/evidence-based-medicine/levels_of_evidence</a>) with Meta-studies, Systematic reviews, and Randomized Controlled Studies being the most effective forms. </p>
<p>Case studies may be suggestive, but they are there so that you can propose hypotheses to test more rigorously. No one in medicine evaluates the effectiveness of a treatment from case studies alone, or even primarily due to case studies.</p>
<h2 id="fishing-for-positive-outcomes">Fishing for positive outcomes</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=2240">Time stamp 37:20</a></p>
<p>On GMRI's website there is the following request: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"We’re always looking for new testimonies. Do you have a testimony that is medically verified?”. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Could you imagine a similar claim written about, say, a homeopathic remedy for cancer? <em>If you took our remedy, and improved, we want to hear from you. Otherwise, not.</em> Regardless of the contents of the specific studies, this sort of fishing for positive results is thoroughly unscientific and casts significant doubt on any results from this institution. </p>
<h2 id="worldviews-and-evidence">Worldviews and Evidence</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=4013">Time stamp 1:06:53</a> </p>
<p>Even if miracles could be the case, regardless of your worldview, how would you be able to demonstrate that God did it? Once you admit there are other agents, you need a process for actually determining that God -- as opposed to some other agent or natural process -- actually was the cause.</p>
<p>I also think that there is a two-stage process for investigating these and similar processes (i.e. aliens, homeopathy). The James Randi foundation did this as well, with a preliminary test before the more in-depth test. The point is to first establish that there is some interesting effect there, regardless of the cause, and only after passing that threshold do we get to consider a more in-depth investigation.</p>
<p>Also, the theists show a profound lack of imagination in coming up with studies that can test the involvement of an agent, while ruling out other effects. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/JamesFodor">James Fodor</a> suggests, as an example, doing the prayer studies in different languages to help rule out some of the competing effects. The fact that someone can come up with a simple idea like that, and none of the studies include these sorts of considerations, show that the theists aren't even trying to test their ideas.</p>
<h2 id="base-rates">Base-rates</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=5451">Time stamp 1:30:51</a></p>
<p>The entire approach of those arguing for miracles focuses on the (presumed) successes but in any real study for a treatment, we need to know all of the cases -- the ones that worked and the ones that didn't -- to provide evidence of efficacy. Also we need to know what happens when there is no treatment as a control. None of these steps are taken in any of these cases.</p>
<h2 id="physicians">Physicians</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=6463">Time stamp 1:47:35</a> </p>
<p>Keener quotes a study that showed that half of the physicians studied said that they had seen what they consider to be miracles. However studies also show about 80% of ER nurses and 64% of ER doctors believe lunar cycles affect patients' mental health, even though the data do not support such an effect. There are any examples of this, so see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15166467/ and https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/full-moon-does-not-affect-mental-health-emergency-room-study-suggests as a couple.</p>
<h2 id="controls">Controls</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=6725">Time stamp 1:52:05</a> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/JamesFodor">James Fodor</a> compares healing claims to homeopathy -- we have millions claiming an effect, and if we just counted those then we might be convinced that homeopathy was a real treatment. What is missing are the controls -- how often does the "treatment" happen and there is no effect, and how often is there an effect but no treatment. A comparison of base-rates is needed and Keener doesn't seem to care about this when it comes to miracles. </p>
<h2 id="timeline-and-a-face-palm">Timeline and a Face Palm</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=7019">Time stamp 1:56:59</a> </p>
<p>James rightly points out that the most these people ever seem to provide is:</p>
<ol>
<li>evidence that someone was sick at one time</li>
<li>evidence that they were not sick at a later time</li>
<li>sometime between those two points they claimed that they were prayed for (and don't always demonstrate that they actually were prayed)</li>
</ol>
<p>The timeline definitely matters, especially if you're claiming a causal relationship. I would add that most of these people are praying most of the time, so it's kind of like looking for astrological causes behind earthquakes -- since earthquakes happen all the time, you can always find one preceding or succeeding any other event you want.</p>
<p>How do we know the initial diagnosis was accurate? </p>
<h2 id="bruce-van-natta">Bruce Van Natta</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=7165">Time stamp 1:59:25. </a></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pqj2i9gb8U&t=1s">Bruce Van Natta</a> who had a truck fall on him, destroying much of his intestine, but shortly after prayer his intestine miraculously regrew.</li>
</ul>
<p>From the Send Proof film they admit that they can't publish Bruce Van Natta case because the accurate measurement of the length of intestine needed to verify the result <em>we don't have the technology yet</em>. The current results are suggestive, but are not conclusive. This means that the original measurements were not accurate enough to establish the lengths, and the follow-up that said it grew back are also not enough.</p>
<ul>
<li>they used xrays to diagnose it originally, which is not the best for soft tissue</li>
<li>perhaps a thickening of the intestine would look like a regrowth?</li>
<li>the natural explanation -- some natural healing plus the imaging being unreliable</li>
<li>the secondary measurement said "approximately 6 feet" as opposed to 3ft, so the "approximately" is doing a lot of work</li>
<li>perhaps under extreme damage there is more healing, but we haven't seen this in other cases because of the rarity of the effect</li>
</ul>
<p>James:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The trick is you have to dig a lot to get the actual facts of the matter, they don't typically present these to you like "here's the facts, and this is why we think it is a miracle" it's "the guy's intestine regrew" but that's not an established fact at all that's their interpretation of a certain set of facts. It makes it very hard to investigate these claims because you have to spend so much time trying to work out what is actually established.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is like the difference between theists asking skeptics to explain how the disciples ate fish with Jesus, when in reality what we have to explain is that we have a <em>text that has a story where</em> the disciples ate fish with Jesus. Taking the story as the evidence is problematic. </p>
<h2 id="case-report-of-gastroparesis-healing">Case Report of gastroparesis healing</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=7698">Time stamp 2:08:18</a></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965229918313116">Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The story is that this person had a condition where they couldn't eat normally, were fed with a tube, and this persisted for 16 years. Then he was prayed for and was instantly healed, could eat, and have his tubes removed.</p>
<p>An immediate thought is how many times was he prayed over and nothing happened? This goes a long way of establishing (or not) a causal link. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319082134.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319082134.png"></p>
</blockquote>
<p>There's a long list of reasons for this poorly understood condition. Also, this condition is known to come and go in some patients. These are two red flags which will need some level of caution in establishing the cause of the condition improving.</p>
<p>The timeline of the events from the paper is</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319081913.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319081913.png"></p>
<blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319083326.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319083326.png"></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This explores some of the rarer causes, but more importantly, the study they reference for the viral cause for the condition had cases that resolved in as long as 2 years (N=11).</p>
<ul>
<li>perhaps this was the case here either with a longer resolving time (N=11 is not that large)? </li>
<li>or perhaps it resolved in 2 years, and they never checked for a long time, only checking right after the prayer 16 years later. </li>
</ul>
<p>This is the reason the specifics matter. We know that the healing was <em>observed</em> after the prayer, but we don't know if it caused it because we can't rule out an earlier recovery that went unnoticed. Even the <a href="https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0965229918313116-mmc1.docx">supplementary information</a> doesn't rule this out, where they have some reports in the 16 years but don't say they've been attempting oral feedings. We also can't rule out that he was prayed for many many times in 16 years, and only at this particular time for some other reason he recovered. It is for these sorts of problems that randomized controlled studies are developed and are necessary to distinguish effect from non-effect.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319083240.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319083240.png"></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This would certainly be testable. I think, however, there is a selection bias here -- those people who have theological reasons to expect healings are more likely to broadcast what they consider to be healing events, while others for the same sorts of events will prefer more modest interpretations. Thus we will more often hear from the healing crowd.</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=8440">Time stamp 2:20:40</a></p>
<p>Craig Keener at around 37:00 in the Unbelievable? episode says </p>
<blockquote>
<p>if i'm not mistaken the one that Herbert Benson conducted was that when they were trying to recruit people they were having trouble getting certain participants that all the protestant participants were from the unity school of christianity which actually doesn't believe in miracles and so you know they had a limit it's not the ideal way to conduct a prayer study</p>
</blockquote>
<p>later, Keener continues,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if there's a pattern like nine times out of ten where this happens it's in the context of prayer that that should say something again we we need a whole lot of a whole lot of cases to be able to to examine that</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are both testable, yet there seems to be little effort by theists to improve the studies, they seem to rather prefer falling back on case studies. This shows a profound lack of imagination on the part of the investigators, and I think shows their hand. They want the positive results and the authority that comes from the scientific enterprise, yet they aren't willing to put in the real work to earn that authority.</p>
<p>In Steven Novella's post at <a href="https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/proximal-intercessory-prayer/">Proximal Intercessory Prayer</a>, he comments (on a different case, but applicable here),</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But there is another reason to study “proximal” prayer, which in this study meant physical laying on of hands, not just being near the subject. Studies of distant intercessory prayer have been essentially negative – we see the typical random scatter of results expected of an ineffective treatment, with no consistent pattern of positive results, and with the best studies being negative. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>...and... </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In my opinion this study represents a larger trend that I have discussed before – clinical research going backwards in quality after higher quality studies yield negative results. We have seen this with acupuncture – after well-controlled trials were negative, some proponents decided that “pragmatic” (i.e. unblinded) studies were better. We see this with homeopathy, where well-controlled studies are negative and then dismissed because treatments were not individualized.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The one-on-one treatments, when they show an effect, are confounded by the more intense experience, the one-on-one attention, the group pressures, etc... You are adding a lot of psychological elements which make it harder to establish causation.</p>
<h2 id="chris-gunderson">Chris Gunderson</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0QtFCpFg9I">Chris Gunderson</a> who was born with an incurable disorder called Chronic Pseudo Obstruction Syndrome, which was cured by prayer</p>
<p>This one is much like the previous one, but there is no study -- just the stories. We don't know the timeline at all or the specifics, or any actual measurements. We only have the stories. It's here for completeness, even though there isn't much more we can say.</p>
<hr>
<p>I misspoke in the episode for the next one, thinking the name was Barbara Snyder, but Barbara's case is an MS case. I made a number of these errors in the episode, and I think it is because 1) the scientific papers (rightly) don't use names and 2) when the stories are told they don't cite their sources well and 3) I'm terrible with names. Sorry!</p>
<hr>
<h2 id="case-report-of-instantaneous-resolution-of-juvenile-macular-degeneration-blindness-after-proximal-intercessory-prayer">Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=9460">Time stamp 2:37:40</a></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830720300926">Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer</a> - probably Marolyn Ford, but it can be hard to tell without the names on the papers.</li>
</ul>
<p>The story is </p>
<blockquote>
<p>an 18-year-old female lost the majority of her central vision over the course of three months in 1959 and was later diagnosed with juvenile macular degeneration (JMD). In 1972, having been blind for over 12 years, the individual reportedly regained her vision instantaneously after receiving proximal-intercessory-prayer (PIP). Subsequent medical records document repeated substantial improvement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are many causes of this disorder. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319091409.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319091409.png"></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was assumed that Stargardt's disease was the best fit for her symptoms, but she has no family history for this genetic condition. Further, she also has a <em>twin</em> sister! Since these diseases are genetic, it makes it <em>a lot less likely</em> that she had this condition. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319091813.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319091813.png"></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319095731.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319095731.png"></p>
</blockquote>
<p>So her initial eyesight is 7/200, quite poor. </p>
<blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319092256.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319092256.png"></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The emotional language in the paper is a little unusual for a medical journal, and seems a bit sensationalist. It also points to placebo as a possible contributor to the perceived magnitude of the improvement -- the amount of improvement is likely to be perceived to be higher given the expectation. This doesn't affect the doctor reports, but the personal reports. </p>
<p>The first doctor report is <em>two years after the event</em> (the event in 1972, the doctor visit in 1074)? This seems really strange, if we are to believe the magnitude of the healing -- she claims to have gone from nearly blind to nearly perfect instantaneously, yet doesn't get this checked out immediately? </p>
<p>The 1974 measurement is 20/100 compared to legally blind at 20/200 (uncorrected) which is still quite poor and far from being "restored", but still a large improvement from her measured 7/200 mentioned earlier.</p>
<p>We make a mistake in the episode here about corrected vs uncorrected vision measurements. Honestly, this mistake is primarily due to sloppy reporting -- if you are reporting a set of numbers in a study, especially if you are establishing a timeline of events, you need to make it clear when some numbers are not comparable. You don't mix, say, corrected and uncorrected measurements in a timeline unless you provide both at every time point you have. To mix them makes it much harder to determine what's going on. We don't have a real timeline on this case, so we can't tell where the causation is, when significant improvements have occurred, etc...</p>
<ul>
<li>perhaps a misdiagnosis of Stargardt's disease, and a gradual improvement for other reasons. <ul>
<li>because her twin didn't have it, it makes the original diagnosis questionable</li>
<li>the technology at the time is cited to be suboptimal in the paper</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>we can't tie the prayer specifically to the timeline, because of expectation effects and placebo effects, so causation is in doubt </li>
<li>she had a genuine improvement, but we have to ask which is more plausible, that there was a misdiagnosis (with the extra point about the twin sister) or the miracle played out in that way</li>
</ul>
<p>If this is the Marolyn Ford case, which I think it is, then we have to consider that she worked in a church for that amount of time, and obviously got prayed for many times with no effect, and only got the healing after many years. I could just as well say that her brushing her teeth caused the healing, because she was healed in the evening shortly after she brushed her teeth. Of course this is ludicrous, because teeth-brushing would occur twice a day, every day, so every single event would follow a teeth-brushing. Prayer, in her house, probably occurs even more frequently.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220319101541.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220319101541.png"></p>
</blockquote>
<p>it's hard to trust someone who says things like this, when we know that the measurement afterward was 20/100 -- far from perfect. Of course, it's possible her sight was perfect and declined in the 2 years between the "healing" and the measurement which would call into question the miraculous nature. It also highlights the need for detailed timelines to establish what the effect really is, before trying to grasp at causes. </p>
<p>Kamil points out that there is a mismatch between the magnitude of the claim and the attention they pay to documenting it. If you thought you were miraculously cured, you'd have it tested every two weeks not waiting two years. There may be a difference between the way they look at things now vs the way they looked at it at the time of the event -- which is perfectly explainable under naturalism. This effect has been seen a lot, but a good example is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident">Rendelsham Forest UFO sighting</a> where there is a big difference between the original reports and the later reports or the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_and_Betty_Hill">Barney and Betty Hill case</a> of alien abduction where one can track the contamination of the story to popular media depictions of aliens.</p>
<p>I think it also is evident that the theists aren't serious about studying these things, and are content to believe things on bad evidence. It's the same reason large careful studies aren't done -- they simply don't care enough, and are already believing, so why bother?</p>
<p>These two cases are some of the best they have, and they are only modestly interesting, and have plausible mundane explanations. Even if we couldn't explain it, we'd say "this is interesting, maybe we should look into these effects more" -- this is what we do for any other proposed medical treatments when we have only two case studies to go on. We wouldn't conclude that these things actually happened as reported, especially given the gaps in the timelines. The fact that there are only two or three of these, that these are the best they have, given all of this time is damning evidence against their case that miracles actually occur at even the 1% level. At over 2 billion Christians, praying many times, if this was a real effect at the 1% level we'd expect millions of documented cases yearly -- certainly a large enough signal to experimentally verify. The fact that they can only produce two or three, with serious procedural and reporting issues, is strong evidence that this effect is non-existent.</p>
<h2 id="the-stories-change">The stories change</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=11255">Time stamp 3:07:35</a> </p>
<p>We can see the stories changing in the telling, being simplified, critical details dropped. This highlights many of the problems I've been talking about and we get to see it in real-time.</p>
<h2 id="keener-on-replicability">Keener on Replicability</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=11471">Time stamp 3:11:11</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>i think michael's right about obviously so many things are coincidence so we have to weigh a lot of factors to see um you know is there a theistic context to it that that tends to predominate in in the cases where we have these and so on you need a lot of cases to be able to to test that but uh the issue that he raises about replicability is is a real issue in the sense that you know when when we speak of of god creating everything and we speak of you know as christians speak of god's handiwork being all around us you know that's that's those are things that can be tested for replicability but we may disagree on the explanation you know levels of causation but miracles as one-offs so to speak they're not replicable and so they're not really testable by replicable means you can't um you know ensure that you're going to have one the next time around at the same time there's all sorts of things we have to deal with that aren't replicable certainly in historiography i have to deal with that so we want to know how somebody died we can't kill them again to to to ensure that and that's why i brought up how in different different disciplines we have to use the epistemic approach that's suitable for that discipline and so for miracles i think a case study approach is much better</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is pretty silly. They are claiming there is a causal effect, they are claiming that these things happen regularly enough to be observed, yet they want to hide behind the idea that it is somewhat random and not actually try to test it. We don't do this for any medical claims. If someone says a treatment works, even at the 1% level, it is tested carefully to see if it works -- especially if there are no obvious side effects. This is special pleading -- wanting to hold their claims to a lower standard than other claims. </p>
<p>They also make the claim that, for example, in Heidi Baker's ministry in Mozambique these healing happen "all the time" and are thus replicable. It is a notable pattern for something to become less observable to more carefully you're able to observe it. UFO sightings happened all the time in the 1970s and 1980s but suddenly drop when we put cameras in everyone's pocket? This is the pattern we see of something that is non-existent, and the healings follow this exact same pattern. If something is real, when we can more carefully observe it, it becomes easier to see not harder.</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=11745">Time stamp 3:15:45</a></p>
<p>Kamil makes the interesting point that the testimonies of different religions only reflect what that particular religion has as a theological component. Near death experiences are only reported within religions that support dualism. Stories of recalled past memories from past lives only occurs within religions that support reincarnation. And why aren't there miracle claims of people spontaneously generating electricity? This is totally expected on naturalism, but not expected under theism. It's not impossible under theism, but it is an odd omission and speaks to God's motivation. James points out that God seems to choose not to use all his abilities -- he could heal amputees, even while someone is in an MRI, but chooses note to. God could choose methods that are not so easily confused with memory biases, measurement errors, and other distortions and it is suspicious that he doesn't operate that way. </p>
<h2 id="on-standards-of-evidence">On Standards of Evidence</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=11983">Time stamp 3:19:43</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>From <em>Send Proof</em> Elijah StephensI didn't realize how difficult it would be [to find evidence for miracle healings]. If someone gets healed, you often can't get back in contact with that person -- "it almost feels like if a miracle happens you have about 48 hours and then their gone". You need to collect the records, have a medical professional who can actually make sense of that data, and have a medical specialist who is willing to look at the data. A doctor won't want to look at a regrown kidney because it will look like he did insurance fraud. Also there is this general trend of naturalism in which you are looked down upon if you believe that the supernatural can occur so there is this whole culture at play where the medical community is working against finding truth"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I hear the theist complaining about how hard it is to test miracles and I find the objection lame. Try comparing these claims to, say, the difficulty in confirming the Higgs boson, gravity waves, black holes, or the accelerating universe. Each of these is far harder than the rather trivial challenges to testing miracle claims. Also, while we have been generally optimistic that these miracle claims are not the result of deliberate fraud, one does have to consider that as a real possibility and find ways to rule it out. Finally, this gripe about a naturalistic bias is completely misguided. The first step -- which the theists have not achieved -- is to just demonstrate that there is a real effect to be investigated. These theists are in fact arguing for a lower level of evidence than we demand of the universities and pharmaceutical companies for their claims. </p>
<p>We are interested in the truth and are aware of many other factors (e.g. placebo, memory contamination, fraud, spontaneous remission, etc...) that will confound the effect so scientists have set up steps (e.g. randomized controlled studies, well considered controls, etc...) to avoid these confounders. These steps are in place to get at the truth, not to specifically put up barriers to rule out miracles. If miracles are real then these steps -- while possibly inconvenient -- would be easy to demonstrate. Pharmaceutical companies don't complain about these steps, they just do the work. The theists seem unwilling to do the work and want a pass anyway. Whining that it's hard is just lame. </p>
<p>As James says, "God really needs to up his game."</p>
<h2 id="why-are-these-miracles-as-opposed-to-just-rare-events">Why are these miracles as opposed to just rare events?</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=12761">Time stamp 3:32:41</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Justin: why do you feel sympathetic to the view that what they're finding is evidence for supernatural healing rather than just extraordinary somewhat unexplained events ?</p>
<p>Keener: what is specific about that data that suggests it isn't just a fluke you know one of those one in a million things that just happens sometimes yeah anomalies occur so it's important to look for an accumulation of anomalies so you don't just have what could be a coincidence. [...] these things actually do tend to happen in certain circles more than more than in others and that's why for me it would be hard for me to see it as a is a coincidence</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a direct claim, that these miracles occur much more frequently in some groups (e.g. Christians) than other groups. Easily testable, and I'd be surprised if this is a real effect once you get past the selection bias and sociological effects, and have good controls including separating number of miracle reports from actual anomalous medical events. For example it's obvious you'll get more miracle reports in Christian circles than, say, atheist circles even if miracles don't exist. I doubt Keener has tried to actually get this done beyond the anecdotal level. Keener doesn't explore alternative hypotheses and how he'd distinguish between them. He seems really swayed by anecdotal evidence in everything he's written or said, from my experience. </p>
<h2 id="the-murderer-and-prior-experience">The murderer and prior experience</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=13205">Time stamp 3:40:05</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Shermer: well the counterfactual what about the christian families who pray for their loved one who's dying from cancer and they just die nothing happens from the prayer that happens all the time. [...] why are they not healed if the context matters and we're defining a miracle as you know divine intervention not just a highly improbable event then how come there's no divine intervention there and if the answer is well god works in mysterious ways who knows well you know that's kind of a hand wave </p>
<p>Elijah: i think also calling a handwave kind of undermines something is imagine you caught a murderer and uh you saw him shoot a guy and he goes well i i haven't shot anyone before in my life um is that what we're trying to show is these are real examples i can't explain the soldier coming home that that makes perfect sense but what i can say is there was a blind lady and she got prayer and her eyes opened up and she had macular degeneration they can verify that before and afterwards and i'm not sure it's rational to call those uh uh just coincidences </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The analogy doesn't work, and honestly I think this is a miracle talking-point that Elijah is misusing here. When I've heard the murderer analogy it is to argue against Hume's uniform human experience against miracles, because someone could argue for the murderer by claiming it is against his uniform experience to murder someone -- he's never murdered anyone before. In this case, Shermer's argument is that there is a context (e.g. prayer, laying of hands, religious service, etc...) where miracles are claimed to be happening but they happen in only a small part of those same contexts and there's not a good reason give for that difference. The analogy breaks down here because of a difference of information (we have some context for prayer but none in the analogy) and it seems out of place.</p>
<p>A question also came out that if the scientific standard seems too high for these theists, in which discipline would the standard not be too high? Not legal, not medical, not historical, etc... Doesn't seem to be anything other than perhaps theology.</p>
<h2 id="inference-to-the-best-explanation">Inference to the best explanation</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=13549">Time stamp 3:45:49</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Elijah: they can verify that before and afterwards and i'm not sure it's rational to call those uh uh just coincidences like you're assuming some type of causality there um and i i think if you even allow for the possibility of something like the christian god to exist then um you've got to take seriously that it could be his action and then make an inference to the best explanation and where i think the voice of science comes in the best is in eliminating hypotheses not necessarily proving that's his voice and so you can go back and go well there's seven different hypotheses science can help us before eliminating some and then we've got two or three and we've got to critically think and go what do i think's most likely the case and i think that's the human situation and we make that call all the time we make it in court </p>
<p>Nathan: it's like he understands broadly what he should be doing but then that stands in place of him actually doing it it's like as if just finally having a bit of a grasp of how we should reason about the these things....suppose we agree with you now well why is that the best explanation?</p>
<p>James: yes so think about what Shermer has done. He's effectively asked "look, according to your explanation we would expect miracles to occur actually in many more cases because god apparently has the the reasons and the motivation and the context for him to perform miracles there but he doesn't, so there's a plausibility issue there with with your explanation" Shermer's identified one aspect that seems to be accounted for poorly on the miracle explanation. The response we get is to say "Well what you have to do is you have to compare explanations and see which one's the best" and it's like "Right! Yeah ,that's what Ii just asked you about!"...can you address the point and not just resort to this other issue that is actually not really in contention? These responses just seem so, I don't know, juvenile to me like it's like they haven't thought about these issues. </p>
<p>Nathan: I think what we're seeing here are the fruits of apologetics in some ways. I sort of think that these popular apologetics books will briefly touch on some of these tools that should be used but then that's a stand-in that makes people think that they're actually using them. It's like "no trust me, this is a legit methodology and it leads to the conclusion" and that's enough to legitimize your reasoning process. Just to have the words "inference to the best explanation" that legitimizes the inference that you're making rather than actually being able to use inference to the best explanation. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nathan's point here is interesting, especially in light of the idea that the murderer example is not being used in the right place, that Elijah has this set of standard "tools" that he pulls out but doesn't seem to understand their use or limitations and is prone to misapply them.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Kamil: so he basically said, look the way we do it is that we have, let's say seven different possible explanations, six of them are naturalistic which we can disconfirm using science and then the seventh is the explanation that God did it. And the way we proceed is that we use medical science to eliminate the six and we can't really confirm or disconfirm the last remaining one but because we eliminated all of the alternatives that must be the one right or at least it's reasonable to believe that this is the one -- it's the best explanation. I'm just wondering, is it possible to do it the other way around? Is it possible to start by eliminating the theistic hypothesis? I think no, because theism is vaguely defined. How would you eliminate the hypothesis that a miracle did in fact happen? </p>
<p>James: I'm not a fan of eliminating explanations because i think that that's almost impossible because you can always augment the hypothesis with further details, so the issue is going to be one of comparative plausibility and explanatory scope. So for example, if I just say oh well there was spontaneous remission you could say that's implausible given our medical knowledge but it's going to be very hard to establish that that's actually like impossible, to definitively rule it out and so the question of which is a more plausible explanation and not can you rule it out.</p>
<p>Brian: Well actually I think you can do a bit better than that by using essentially the case studies to say, okay, these are the sorts of situations where we would expect miracles to happen and what types of miracles we might see , sometimes we have things that go into remission so how do we rule that out, we have to come up with some kind of randomized control study in order to test miracles. And I think with a little imagination one can probably control for things like spontaneous remission and background effects and even some of the kind of unknown effects by a suitably designed experiment. But theists show no interest in doing this, they're satisfied with the first bad study that confirms what they already believe. </p>
<p>Brian: Essentially Shermer's complaint about prayer being done and nothing happening is part what you would have in any kind of controlled study because you would have the case looking at all prayer events and which ones had effects and which ones didn't, that's the basic thing they seem unable to even grasp that idea and it shows a certain unwillingness to actually try to find the truth and to rule out these actual alternatives. It's not enough to show an effect that's really rare, maybe that's your first motivation, like "oh wow, this is a weird case. maybe we can study this" That's how a lot of science is done, it starts with "oh wow, that's weird" and then we can go and start testing it but theists don't seem to even want to take that next step.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="skeptical-of-your-skepticism">Skeptical of your Skepticism</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=14120">Time stamp 3:55:20</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Elijah: you got to be skeptical of your skepticism so if you don't allow for a God to exist then you're not open-minded ... I could show you cases of arms growing back theoretically speaking and you would not believe it you would come up with natural explanations</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This phrase shows a profound lack of understanding what skepticism is. Skepticism is basically that we proportion our belief to the evidence, and we've found (through science) that to do it we need to disbelieve most claims, that we need to acknowledge our biases, and to recognize that even the scientific process is limited. This last part is the reason we set up replication, controls, and other processes to minimize the effects of the limitations. This kind of phrasing is trying to stop people from being skeptical of <em>their</em> claims (and only their claims). It's part of the lowering of the standards of evidence. As Nathan puts it, it's telling believers who doubt "stop those naughty thoughts." James says, to refuse to put in the controls to avoid the biases we know we have, is a form of dogmatism -- we're looking for the result we already believe and we refuse to put in the methods that would allow us to isolate the different variables. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: can we just make it a thing to always mention that like although it's not that popular these days that deism or non-interventionist form of theism are a thing like you can totally believe in god and still not be okay with miracles? It just really annoys me this is always conflated. It's just like a lack of imagination there's just like Christian fundamentalism and there's atheist naturalism and there's no other world views, apparently.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What really annoys me is when they say "I could show you cases of arms growing back theoretically speaking and you would not believe it" when the best evidence they have barely rises to the level of being interesting, let alone something amazing like this. Don't presume what I'll believe, show me evidence of an arm growing back first, then perhaps we'll see -- but I'd need the proper controls. Could it be an illusion? False reporting? Has it been confirmed? Etc.... Yes, I'll look for these mundane explanations first before jumping to agency, because those are the most common explanations of extraordinary claims. Any legitimate effect should be able to withstand this scrutiny (and more!), but with the best they ever give us (like the cases above), the second you dig a little bit you find that all the evidence kind of vaporizes or there are plausible alternative explanations that take only a minute to come up with. There is nothing even close to an arm growing back. The same thing occurs with UFO claims, homeopathy studies, and psychic abilities. </p>
<h2 id="keener-on-confirmation-bias">Keener on Confirmation Bias</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=15151">Time stamp 4:12:31</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Keener: There's confirmation bias I think that can happen either way. I think a lot of times people will see something as a miracle because we're inclined to believe in miracles, you can also have confirmation bias to say I'm inclined not to see this as a miracle because I just don't think those things happen. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The bias is on the person making the positive claim. What is being missed here is <em>it shouldn't matter what the skeptic says</em> -- the evidence should be strong enough to convince the skeptic. Quoting myself here (from <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2012/Sep/25/naturalistic-bias-presupposing-naturalism/">this post</a>), </p>
<p>Here are two examples from my life where I was skeptical of an extraordinary claim, one where it turned out my perspective was correct and the other not.</p>
<ol>
<li>In the 1990's, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_universe">first evidence for the accelerating universe</a> came out. I remember thinking, "No way this is true." At the time, I thought their calibration of the supernovae used as standard candles was somehow incorrect. Did the researchers approach this skepticism with "oh, you just are biased against theories that propose unknown external forces, or violations of known laws"? No. Other groups repeated it, they confirmed any calibration, and came up with a theoretical structure (using the Cosmological Constant) to describe it. Then I was convinced. Was I wrong in my skepticism? Absolutely not. The response to skeptics is to bring the evidence to bear on it. If the evidence is not enough to convince a reasonable skeptic, then we can't be particularly confident in it.</li>
<li>Recently, there was some data indicating possibly faster-than-light neutrinos. <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/faster-than-light-why-the-lawyer-is-wrong/">I had a response to this here</a>, where I was skeptical of the result. Again, it was a group of careful scientists who had done the measurements, and had taken into account everything they could think of. I still didn't believe it. Did the researchers approach this skepticism with "oh, you just are biased against theories that propose unknown external forces, or violations of known laws"? No. Others tried to analyze the same data and the set-up, and the scientists explored other explanations. <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/breaking-news-error-undoes-faster.html">Turned out to be a loose cable</a>. Here again, my skepticism was well placed.</li>
</ol>
<p>It's not biased to be skeptical. It isn't irrational to demand a higher-than-average standard for extraordinary claims, no matter what. If you make such a claim, and that higher-than-average standard is not met, then you cannot be confident in that claim. It doesn't matter whether the claim is religious or scientific, the same rules apply. If you complain that the standards are too high, then you don't belong on the playing field and you don't deserve to be taken seriously.</p>
<h2 id="keener-on-replication">Keener on replication</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=15435">Time stamp 4:17:15</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Keener: in terms of anomalies whether they're anomalies or whether they're explainable in some way it helps if there's a pattern. They're not replicable but if there's a pattern like nine times out of ten where this happens it's in the context of prayer, that should say something. We we need a whole lot of a whole lot of cases to be able to to examine that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nine out of ten with prayer is the <em>meaning</em> of replicable, so I don't know what he really is thinking when he says miracles are not replicable. Is he thinking (a strawman of) 100% of the time?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>James: Keener says simultaneously that there are hundreds of millions of cases but also that none of this can be replicated. I don't understand how it's possible for both those things to be true. If there's that many cases there should be enough regularity to detect these things statistically which is exactly the tools we've developed in science to do and to rule out other factors. It's all just ad hoc special pleading.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the one hand they use the excuse of "it's not replicable" when asked about how to test it, and on the other hand they want to also say that miracles are common -- more common than people realize. This is trying to have your cake and eat it too. Psychics do this all the time as well. </p>
<h2 id="on-charlatans">On charlatans</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=15723">Time stamp 4:22:03</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Elijah: I think this: the fact that there are fake miracles does not preclude the fact that there can be real miracles. Knowledge falls on a continuum. I don't think "I don't know" should be your default position unless that's really where you fall and so what I encourage people to do is read all sides, make an inference to the best explanation and go "this is what i think is most likely the case". Secondly we're talking about these things objectively, put yourself in situations where you can have experiential knowledge: pray for sick people that you know they would not be healed unless God showed up. If there's one thing I hope this film does for people that are inside of the Christian faith is that it makes them confident enough to go pray for sick people in impossible situations because that is a means to knowledge as well </p>
<p>James: Shermer's essential point is how do you distinguish charlatans from real miracles and the answer is well you weigh up the evidence and you look at the best explanation. Well, yeah but could we be a bit more specific? So the first part of the answer is sort of true but trivial and also not what they've been doing but then the second part contradicts that by saying "just assume that it's true anyway and start praying for people." What is that? Like that's just assuming what you wanted to establish. How is an epistemically responsible thing to do?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is interesting the Elijah seems to understand that we need evidence to believe a claim, that we need to weigh alternative hypotheses, but he seems to have no idea what a controlled study is or why it is necessary. </p>
<p>To be charitable to Elijah's point, perhaps he's meaning that if you pray for someone yourself in an impossible situation and there is improvement, you can tell the difference between the fake and real miracle personally. He doesn't seem to understand the ways that people can fool themselves. Further, Nathan points out the problem is that Elijah needs to actually tell us some some epistemic story about what it is that puts people who pray in a position to know that God is the cause of the miracle happening. This is why causal connections are so hard to establish, because not only do you have to demonstrate a real effect, you have to somehow distinguish possible causes. Even if you said it had to be supernatural, how could you rule out Loki doing it, just for fun?</p>
<p>I don't think they have established a real effect yet, so it's premature to speak about causes.</p>
<h2 id="therapeutic-effects-of-proximal-intercessory-prayer-in-rural-mozambique">Therapeutic effects of proximal intercessory prayer in rural Mozambique</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20686441/">Study of the therapeutic effects of proximal intercessory prayer (STEPP) on auditory and visual impairments in rural Mozambique</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=16428">Time stamp 4:33:48</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Elijah: I also think we in the west have a bias toward poor people as not having knowledge of when something's dead or an arm is broken or something of that nature and so I think when people put themselves in situations where they pray for the sick and a whole village knows this child was born blind from birth they're 15 years old and that person sees gets their sight back and this is a different religion and that village testifies he was blind now, he sees that is a different scenario than we're talking about here and the lens of science really can't speak to that. But if you're that kid you've got to go what's more probable: an event that just randomly happened or the God that prayed I was praying to gave me my sight back, and so that is a part of the conversation. I think people sitting back and watching kind of don't take into account that this is life-changing stuff that's happening to these people.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As James pointed out, individual testimony is irrelevant. For example, if you take the population of people who go to Rome on pilgrimage each year, you can calculate the fraction of those with diseases that will go into remission. Each of those people are in the same position as the boy Elijah speaks about and will certainly attribute a God-given miracle to their healing. One needs larger than <span class="math">\(N=1\)</span> to establish these effects -- which is why case studies are so ineffective at doing so. It will be life-changing for those individuals, for sure, even under the condition where there are no miracles. </p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=16908">Time stamp 4:41:48</a></p>
<p>A good response to this particular study is by Steven Novella at **<a href="https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/proximal-intercessory-prayer/">Proximal Intercessory Prayer</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let’s take the following hypothetical study: The study included 24 subjects who were all treated openly with the intervention in question. There was no blinding or control group – so everyone in the study, subjects and experimenters, knew that every subject was getting the treatment. The treatment involves active physical intervention with the subject. The protocol also calls for multiple interventions if initial treatments are not effective – essentially the subjects receive repeat treatments as long as possible until they report a response.</p>
<p>The outcome was either a change in vision or hearing. Subjects reported impaired vision or hearing at the beginning of the study and were tested with standard vision or audiology tests before and after treatment. All subjects demonstrated improvement from the intervention.</p>
<p>It should further be noted that the subjects in the study were not chosen from the random population but from a self-selected group that already believe in the efficacy of the treatment. Further, the authors admit, although they do not disclose the data, that previous attempts to document response to the treatment in other populations have failed.</p>
<p>At this point anyone with any reasonable familiarity with how to assess the quality of medical studies should see that this is a worthless study. This barely qualifies as a pilot study. It really doesn’t matter what the treatment is or how plausible it is – you simply cannot draw any meaningful conclusion from 24 self-selected subjects with no controls and no blinding.</p>
<p>Now, I know you can read headlines so you know this was a study of proximal intercessory prayer, but the point is – even if you assess the details of the study divorced from knowledge of what the intervention is, it should be obvious that this study tells us nothing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This pretty much summarizes the problems with this study. It's amazing that this kind of study convinces anyone -- it violates pretty much every rule of good medicine with its multiple selection biases, lack of blinding, and lack of controls. Since this is touted as one of the best, and one of only three papers ever seemingly cited when skeptics ask for evidence of miracles, is not impressive to say the least. That fact alone is strong evidence that miracles are not real.</p>
<h2 id="paralyzed-woman-delia-knox-being-healed-on-video">Paralyzed Woman, Delia Knox, being healed on video</h2>
<p>Now we move on to a video with Sean McDowell interviewing Craig Keener called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFZJ5M53r4">Latest Evidence for Modern Miracles</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=17223">Time stamp 4:47:03</a></p>
<p>The story is of a person who was paralyzed from the waist down due to a car accident and 22 years later they were prayed for and healed.</p>
<p>The first question is, are there real miracles that get recorded on video. Keener gives a lot of waffle, and then some video of the woman that is thoroughly unconvincing. The video of the miracle itself doesn't show much, and seems to show potentially abusive behavior of people lifting her out the chair, and supporting her as she attempts to walk in a far from medically controlled environment. There is a second video interview with the woman herself that reports completely different medical history, and differs substantially from the details Keener gives. She mentions a head injury from her accident not a spinal cord injury and never mentions that she was irreversibly paralyzed below the waist. She never quotes her doctors about her condition, and provides no documentation whatsoever -- there is simply nothing to work with. I've written about this before about UFO claims, that they fall into two categories:</p>
<ol>
<li>claims with no available data, so one can't investigate, so one shouldn't believe it</li>
<li>claims with available data, where one can investigate, and it's shown that the evidence doesn't support the claim, so one shouldn't believe it</li>
</ol>
<p>There could potentially be a category 3 where the evidence does support the claim, but I have never seen it in any that I have personally investigated, either for UFO claims or for miracle claims. This example is a category 1 miracle claim.</p>
<p>Given the number of miracle claims, and the bold claims of Christians throughout these videos, and the proliferation of cameras in people's pockets, there should be thousands of convincing videos of miracles. As I've said before, the fact that there are no videos of this sort is strong evidence against the veracity of miracles. </p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=18414">Time stamp 5:06:44</a> </p>
<p>Someone in the chat asked "do all of Keener's cases differ as much from what actually was reported to what was reported by him?" Given Keener's habits of simplifying and distorting the actual original claims, and the demonstration throughout all of this that his standards for evidence are terribly low, it calls into question is entire 1300 page book on miracles. </p>
<h2 id="sean-george-has-a-heart-attack-and-comes-back">Sean George has a heart attack and comes back</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=18452">Time stamp 5:07:32</a></p>
<p>The story is that the Dr Sean George had a heart attack, a thousand chest compressions, many electric shocks, went on for an hour and half -- Keener says 5 minutes without oxygen, flat line for an hour and a half. When his wife prayed, having been told that he was gone, the heart monitor "sprang back to life" and then the doctors were able to revive him.</p>
<p>At least there is documentation published at https://seangeorge.com.au/my-story/medical-details/</p>
<p>This is clearly a rare medical case -- but with 7 billion people you'd expect some of these often just by the law of large numbers. The statements about being brain dead are all unsubstantiated -- there was oxygen both from the chest compressions and when he was hooked up to machinery. The statements of flat-line are also unsubstantiated -- there isn't evidence they were measuring it all throughout the chess compressions, etc... It's been shown that there is a high survival rate for patients with their heart rhythm responds to shocks. And even after CPR is stopped, there is an observed <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_syndrome">phenomenon of spontaneous recovery of heart activity</a> after as much as 15 minutes, and his recovered after 10 minutes. Is this case unusual? Sure. Is it a miracle? Not at all, given that all of the facts of his case fall within the known bounds of what is possible and observed, even if rare. A document going through these particular medical statements with citations can be <a href="https://www.podbean.com/site/EpisodeDownload/PBAD05A9XRV79">found here</a>. It's walked though in a 5-part blog series:</p>
<ol>
<li>https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/04/06/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-1-summary/</li>
<li>https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/10/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-2-littlewoods-law/</li>
<li>https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/24/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-3-georges-argument/</li>
<li>https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/05/26/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-4-evaluation-premise-1c/</li>
<li>https://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2019/06/26/the-resurrection-of-dr-sean-george-part-5-evaluation-of-premise-a4/</li>
</ol>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=19318">Time stamp 5:21:58</a></p>
<p>We keep coming back to the question about how you would test for miracles. At a minimum, one has to </p>
<ul>
<li>establish base-rates for the natural recoveries</li>
<li>document the timeline clearly</li>
<li>evaluate alternative explanations -- and their prior probabilities</li>
<li>include both the positive and negative outcomes of the treatment</li>
<li>have good controls and experimental design to remove confounders</li>
</ul>
<p>Each of the cases we've looked at have failed several or all of these properties of good investigation, and should not be believed. We would not believe any medical claim that didn't have these properties, so we are not having too high of a standard -- we are just refusing to lower the standard in these cases. The fact that the best theists can come up with are so readily handled should be a caution to anyone trusting their claims.</p>
<h2 id="jp-moreland-gets-a-pool-table">JP Moreland gets a pool table</h2>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/FLCZFKNiEtg?t=20334">Time stamp 5:38:54</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Moreland: we asked god to give us a really good pool table just like the kind that you find in a pool hall, that isn't a cheap one that if you hit it up it shakes. And then I said "In Jesus's name, Amen" and so we moved on. About a week and a half later at my daughter Allison's soccer there were like 20 families and 20 moms and dads there and one of the fathers that I had said hi to but i didn't know him, walks up to me and he says "Hi, I'm so-and-so" and I said "I'm JP" and he said "how are you doing?" I said "I'm doing well" and he said "Well listen this may sound odd to you, but could you use a pool table?"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You should watch <a href="https://youtu.be/g59UeHb7y6Q?t=3932">Pinecreek's reaction here</a> -- it pretty much sums it up.</p>
<p>This one is obviously ludicrous, but I think undermines the theists claims quite a lot. Once you admit that getting a pool table after prayer is a miracle, then you've admitted that your standards of evidence are outrageously poor. It also calls into question the motives of God -- God is more concerned to give you a pool table than to cure leukemia in children or heart defects or nearly anything else. People casually talk about God helping to find their car keys or help their sportsing team win, which are not miraculous but imply the intervention of the agent and thus fall under the same umbrella. By counting these as "hits" and ignoring the deaths of starving children because they are "misses" and don't support their narrative is an indictment of the entire mode of thought. </p>
<h2 id="barbara-snyder-healed-from-multiple-sclerosis">Barbara Snyder healed from multiple sclerosis</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://1c15.co.uk/barbara-snyder-barbara-cummiskey-snyder-healed-from-multiple-sclerosis/">Barbara Snyder (Barbara Cummiskey Snyder) – healed from multiple sclerosis</a></li>
</ul>
<p>This miracle claim never came up in the episode. I commented on the story <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Feb/03/sometimes-there-really-isnt-enough-evidence-to-believe-a-claim/">here</a> but there is very little to go on. Here's my comment,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Thinking about the Snyder "miracle", I do wonder why in these cases there isn't much more extensive medical documentation? It would seem that these people are constantly dealing with skeptics, and the easiest way to address it would be to get the pre- and post- medical test data rather than a summary by one doctor, after the fact. Is it possible she was misdiagnosed -- it wasn't MS, so looking for an MS recovery may be misdirected? Is it possible that there was MS and something else, in which case looking for a full recovery from MS is misdirected? Without further data, it is impossible to rule out these things, but you'd think the data would be available with something this recent?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From my reading also, MS can also go into spontaneous remission -- usually temporary -- but we don't have any follow-ups, detailed timelines documented, etc... We have stories. There isn't anything that could tie the prayer as the causal element, given that she was most likely prayed for often an we're picking out the one case before a claimed recovery.</p>
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</script>Miracles are rare except when they aren't2022-02-07T00:00:00-05:002022-02-07T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-02-07:/posts/2022/Feb/07/miracles-are-rare-except-when-they-arent/<p>In this week's <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Send-Proof-Is-there-medical-evidence-for-miracles-Craig-Keener-Michael-Shermer-and-Elijah-Stephens">Unbelievable Podcast</a> the topic was miracles. I've <a href="https://bblais.github.io/search.html?q=miracles">written about miracles a number of times</a>, but there always seems to something new to say. In this episode, the …</p><p>In this week's <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Send-Proof-Is-there-medical-evidence-for-miracles-Craig-Keener-Michael-Shermer-and-Elijah-Stephens">Unbelievable Podcast</a> the topic was miracles. I've <a href="https://bblais.github.io/search.html?q=miracles">written about miracles a number of times</a>, but there always seems to something new to say. In this episode, the skeptic is Michael Shermer whose approach by and large I don't like. I find he isn't very direct, has long explanations and stories -- which is inefficient in this format -- and many of his responses are not actually relevant. </p>
<p>The theists presented two main specific miracle claims:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pqj2i9gb8U&t=1s">Bruce Van Natta</a> who had a truck fall on him, destroying much of his intestine, but shortly after prayer his intestine miraculously regrew. </li>
<li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0QtFCpFg9I">Chris Gunderson</a> who was born with an incurable disorder called Chronic Pseudo Obstruction Syndrome, which was cured by prayer</li>
</ol>
<p>and then they referred to the Heidi Baker ministries work in Mozambique healing many. You can read about it in the <a href="https://pcpj2.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/study_of_the_therapeutic_effects_of_proximal-5.pdf">journal article here</a>. </p>
<p>Despite my attempts, I can't find medical journal descriptions of the two cases for Van Natta and Gunderson. However, I did find the original study on the work of Heidi Baker, but I had already <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/">responded to that source and those claims elsewhere</a>. TLDR -- the study has serious problems and is unconvincing. </p>
<p>Here's another way to put it. What would we expect in a universe that is complex, that we understand reasonably well but with significant gaps in our understanding, but that we also tend to understand better over time? What would we expect if there really is an agent that answers some requests, and has the ability to do truly miraculous things? </p>
<p>It's the same sort of question one asks about alien abductions. What would we expect in a universe where the aliens aren't here, and our own understanding and tech increases in time, vs if the aliens are here from time to time?</p>
<p>In both of these cases, we'd expect the situation without external agencies to be a smattering of weird cases that remain unexplained currently, but with no obvious pattern to them. We'd also expect that we'd get <em>fewer</em> of these cases (normalizing to population number and rate of information spread) over time. We'd expect geographical areas that have less access to our best understanding and technology to have more of these cases. We'd expect that the more skeptical we look at the claims, the more closely we look at the evidence, that the evidence for the claims tends to evaporate. It is no coincidence that UFO claims have gone down as we've put a camera in everyone's pocket. This is the hallmark of a false claim. The same occurs with miracle claims -- they have every hallmark of a false claim. The smattering of currently unexplained miracle claims lack available evidence to inspect, show no real pattern, and are against a backdrop of claims that have been debunked. These miracle claims are also against a backdrop of nearly universal prayer across the population, with little to no effect. Finally, where I have been able to find the evidence, the actual strength of the evidence on the ground is profoundly weak. In all other cases, I have not been able to even find the evidence -- only the claims. </p>
<p>This backdrop of failed prayer and debunked miracle claims highlight the fact that miracle <em>claims</em> are likely to be false, lowering their prior probability. If prayer were a new claimed medical procedure, no one would take it seriously with such a false claim and negative result rate.</p>
<p>One of the guests, Craig Keener, stated that Heidi's Baker's miracles were happening regularly, yet none of the guests seemed willing to address why that might not be happening in a country with the technology able to discern false from true effects? The single study they quoted is riddled with problems, and you'd think they'd want to perform a more detailed study here. They claimed that miracles are hard to study, because miracles are rare events and can't be predicted ahead of time, but that seems a convenient excuse -- and not always the case, if Heidi Baker is to be believed.</p>
<p>Craig Keener also hinted that there <em>was</em> a pattern to the miracles, but didn't come out and say what he was strongly suggesting, that Christian miracles were the ones that were mostly happening. Any pattern that Keener might have been hinting at would be testable! It certainly would go a long way to supporting the veracity of miracle claims if you could specify a pattern.</p>
<p>I find myself still unconvinced by the few claims, with little pattern or evidence, but perhaps as our understanding grows we'll get more confirmed cases, as we would expect for a true effect. My bet is that these claims will continue to be in retreat just as the UFOs seem to have left us as our ability to detect them has increased.</p>Sometimes there really isn't enough evidence to believe a claim2022-02-03T00:00:00-05:002022-02-03T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-02-03:/posts/2022/Feb/03/sometimes-there-really-isnt-enough-evidence-to-believe-a-claim/<p>A particular response has now happened twice in an ongoing discussion about extraordinary claims, and I felt I needed to think about it more deeply. The response is, essentially, that …</p><p>A particular response has now happened twice in an ongoing discussion about extraordinary claims, and I felt I needed to think about it more deeply. The response is, essentially, that I am demanding too much evidence.</p>
<p>If you're following along, we have:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Unbelievable</em> podcast episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-Jonathan-Pearce">Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Jonathan McLatchie vs Jonathan Pearce</a> </li>
<li>My two-part response <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/">here</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/17/proton-decay-and-the-resurrection-of-jesus/">here</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/bayesian-probability-and-the-resurrection-a-reply-to-brian-blais/">McLatchie's response</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/24/ongoing-conversation-with-jonathan-mclatchie/">My Response</a>, along with a comment thread</li>
</ul>
<p>In <a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/bayesian-probability-and-the-resurrection-a-reply-to-brian-blais/">McLatchie's response</a>, he said of my criticism of the claimed Barbara Synder healing, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>However, it is a fallacy to say that, because we could in principle have better evidence, we therefore do not have <em>good</em> or <em>sufficient</em> evidence. One can have compelling evidence even when a case could be rendered stronger with even more evidence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Which I agree with, at least technically. In the comment thread of <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/24/ongoing-conversation-with-jonathan-mclatchie/">my response,</a> Caleb J writes,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It seems we disagree on how much evidence is enough. It's always possible to ask for more (Couldn't more doctors have seen it? Couldn't the medical records have been earlier?) but there comes a point when enough is enough. Exactly <em>when</em> this point is depends on considerations around prior probability.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is a reasonable question to ask -- how much evidence is enough? It is also correct to say that it depends on the prior probability of the claim, but it also depends on other <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2019/Jun/16/probability-its-not-just-about-the-math/">desiderata of Jaynes</a>, especially the ones dealing with consistency. </p>
<p>In some of these cases, I'm expecting evidence that <em>should be there</em> if the claim is true. It's not just saying that the evidence provided is lacking, but there is missing evidence that would be expected on the truth of the claim -- making it an argument against the claim.</p>
<p>Caleb was very nice in pointing out the <a href="https://1c15.co.uk/barbara-snyder-barbara-cummiskey-snyder-healed-from-multiple-sclerosis/">documentation for the Barbara Snyder case</a>, and correcting me in its reading. I commented about it like,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Thinking about the Snyder "miracle", I do wonder why in these cases there isn't much more extensive medical documentation? It would seem that these people are constantly dealing with skeptics, and the easiest way to address it would be to get the pre- and post- medical test data rather than a summary by one doctor, after the fact. Is it possible she was misdiagnosed -- it wasn't MS, so looking for an MS recovery may be misdirected? Is it possible that there was MS and something else, in which case looking for a full recovery from MS is misdirected? Without further data, it is impossible to rule out these things, but you'd think the data would be available with something this recent?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So how much evidence really is enough? Can we come to any agreement here? I think we can. </p>
<p>The problem is trying to determine whether a particular action or treatment actually <em>causes</em> the subsequent (positive) results. It's not enough to be given the treatment and see an improvement afterward. Why not? Partly, because we are human and have many biases. Further, the world is complex and any given effect can have many different possible causes, especially if we are talking about biological systems. We therefore have to design our investigation to reduce these biases and rule out other possible causes. <em>Sometimes there really isn't enough available evidence to substantiate a claim</em>. Even for much more modest claims than the ones made in the above discussions, randomized-controlled studies are the gold standard. Check out https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/?s=control&category_name=&submit=Search to see the value of doing controlled studies in the field of medicine -- and where it goes wrong when people don't do this.</p>
<p>What happens if you don't have randomized-controlled studies in medicine? What about single cases? It is pretty clear that not much can be said confidently. And certainly one shouldn't be willing to upend ones knowledge of how the universe works based on one report by one doctor on one patient. Here's where consistency comes in and the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2019/Jun/16/probability-its-not-just-about-the-math/">desiderata of Jaynes</a>. If you are willing to believe the Barbard Snynder case, then you should be willing to believe <a href="Parkinson's healed with "Energy Healing": https://crimsonpublishers.com/acam/fulltext/ACAM.000559.php">this woman was healed of Parkinson's with "Energy Healing"</a> or you should believe in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_plates#cite_note-5">Golden Plates of Joseph Smith</a> (making you a Mormon). The latter has more eyewitness testimony than we have for Barbara Snyder. It is quite clear that once you allow one miraculous healing in, using evidence of just one person, then one has to let in a whole host of others. We can also ask how the miracle believer handles the many cases where seemingly miraculous things happen and no reported prayer, with <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150306-the-mystery-of-vanishing-cancer">disapearing disease without treatment</a>?</p>
<p>It's not just about the priors, it's the fact that <em>to be consistent</em>, once you raise your prior for one sort of claim you're doing it for many others -- many claims that you probably don't want to accept. Medical science has come a long way recognizing the fact that humans are easily fooled, they see patterns and agency where there isn't any good evidence, and biology is messy enough that uncertainty is always something to consider. Even in seemingly obvious cases.</p>
<p>I don't believe Barbara Snyder was cured by the intervention of some agent outside the natural world. If that agent were doing these kinds of actions we would expect to see a bigger effect, or that agent is being capricious. It is <em>justified</em> to demand better evidence, because we do that for even more modest claims, and we have centuries of data on the failings of human reasoning in inferring causes from effects. We know better now, and we often know what the minimum amount of data is to justify a particular claim. Data sets with <span class="math">\(N=1\)</span> are not convincing in any field. </p>
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</script>Ongoing Conversation with Jonathan McLatchie2022-01-24T00:00:00-05:002022-01-24T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-01-24:/posts/2022/Jan/24/ongoing-conversation-with-jonathan-mclatchie/<p>I'd like to thank Jonathan McLatchie for the detailed response to my two-part response.</p>
<p>If you're following along, we have:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Unbelievable</em> podcast episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-Jonathan-Pearce">Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Jonathan …</a></li></ul><p>I'd like to thank Jonathan McLatchie for the detailed response to my two-part response.</p>
<p>If you're following along, we have:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Unbelievable</em> podcast episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-Jonathan-Pearce">Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Jonathan McLatchie vs Jonathan Pearce</a> </li>
<li>My two-part response <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/">here</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jan/17/proton-decay-and-the-resurrection-of-jesus/">here</a></li>
<li><a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/bayesian-probability-and-the-resurrection-a-reply-to-brian-blais/">McLatchie's response</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Here I try to go through somewhat systematically, but by the end there are lot of interesting directions. Hope some of this is fruitful! </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Given Blais’ apparent interest in the proper application of Bayesian probability theory, why does Blais not say a word about Dillahunty’s incredibly poor understanding of it, which was made plain at numerous points during his debate with me?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At this response, I went and rewatched the <a href="https://youtu.be/a-wIaCRIdOA">Dillahunty debate</a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EubkDIZ_AJI">debate review McLatchie had with Braxton Hunter</a>. I haven't gone back to do a detailed response to that debate, but in my OP I was simply referring to things I heard in that debate that I also heard in <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/May/29/jonathan-and-brian-in-conversation/">my own discussion with McLatchie</a> and in <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-Jonathan-Pearce">discussion with Pearce</a>. I was focussing on the common points being brought up, and not addressed, and not on the score of any particular debate. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>According to a frequentist metric, this would be judged to be an extraordinary claim. However, in the case of spontaneous proton decay, there may be theoretical considerations that inform our background knowledge and therefore increase the event’s prior probability.</p>
<p>The hypothesis of spontaneous proton decay, despite its having never been observed, is not a wild guess, but rather has a theoretical underpinning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I agree here. It is an extraordinary claim! So we need, as Sagan says, <em>extraordinary</em> evidence. We can be more confident when there is a theoretical expectation, built on many other experiments that have been confirmed. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Likewise with the resurrection, the idea that Jesus rose from the dead, even before consideration of the direct evidence, is not some wild guess without any relevant background considerations. Rather, it is made plausible by other background considerations, <a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/extraordinary-claims-and-evidence-a-review-of-jonathan-pearces-book-on-the-resurrection-part-1/">as enumerated in my previous essay</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is where the comparison fails -- it's the nature of the "background considerations" or "theoretical underpinning" that makes it strikingly different. Both are incredibly rare events, by anyone's standard, and any evidence that could potentially be interpreted as the result of more common events should be suspect. That's why science has controls for alternative effects, that's why science designs experiments to rule out alternatives by making <em>specific</em> predictions of which events will happen under which circumstances, etc...</p>
<blockquote>
<p>considerations other than frequency can and do bear on the prior probability of an event occurring</p>
</blockquote>
<p>McLatchie is correct, but perhaps it's a little better to recognize that one person's prior is a previous person's posterior? This is the nature of cumulative cases, I believe, which is what McLatchie typically espouses. If we start from scratch, then both proton decay and the Resurrection of Jesus are rare events -- one might even argue that the proton decay, a-priori is <em>less</em> likely. But now we start layering on our growing understanding of the world. The Standard Model is the result of a century of painstaking experiments to construct an admittedly unintuitive yet outrageously accurate model of the world, which has been confirmed by more observations than I can count. And it doesn't even predict proton decay! It is in extensions of the Standard Model, all of which must be consistent with the Standard Model and General Relativity -- our best understanding of the universe -- which predict proton decay. We are as confident in those claims as we are in the massive amount of supporting experiments and confirmed predictions. </p>
<p>If we start doing the same for the Resurrection, we get a very different story. We have a claim that directly violates our understanding of how the universe works, against a backdrop of many cultures making similar claims. The best (only?) evidence we have are texts from a pre-scientific world, from authors we can only attempt to infer, with very little information of their providence. McLatchie might be inclined to add evidence for intelligent design and fine tuning, but these concepts have not convinced the experts in those fields, so they are at best not well understood and do not count as significant evidence. We also have many other cases of claims written in this text -- handling snakes, healing in Jesus' name, demon possession, etc... which have since been demonstrated to be false and not anything comparable that would indicate anything other than human construction. This is similar to alien abduction cases never coming up with anything that would indicate <em>alien</em> tech or <em>alien</em> knowledge -- it's always completely consistent with the knowledge of the people at the time and place.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The laws of nature, we must say, describe the ways in which the world — including, of course, human beings — works when left to itself, when not interfered with." - John Mackie</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is a terrible way to view scientific explanations. It tries to have a "get out of jail free" card for whatever one feels like injecting into the system -- fairies, gods, magic, etc... But I can see the power of the analogy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but McLatchie is seeing the world (i.e. universe) like a clock with lots of gears working together. We can describe the workings of the clock perfectly, but then if some outside agent (e.g. a person) comes in to wind it, replace a gear, or make a something run backwards for a bit that isn't in the description of the working clock, so isn't a violation of that description? I prefer to think "natural law" as the list of things that we have to describe what goes on in the clock, from the perspective of someone in the clock. We can see some gears, we need to infer the existence of other gears that we don't see, in order to construct the workings of the clock. Anything that breaks this pattern is a violation of something on that list. The "natural laws" are <em>descriptive</em> not <em>prescriptive</em>. We can propose that the observed violation is due to our misunderstanding of the gears, and propose some other configurations. We can propose that there is some outside agent. We can propose other things. Here's where the analogy lands -- in every single case where someone has proposed an agent, and we've been able to conclusively show what the cause was, it was another gear and not an agent. Every. single. time. Trying to say that a miracle is not a violation of the laws of nature, I think, is trying to excuse oneself ahead of time for something that really should be dealt with upfront -- miracles are a violation of the patterns of causes and effects we have come to expect from the universe, and are thus extremely unlikely at this point given our understanding. It is no coincidence, I think, that the strongest cases for theism still lie <em>only</em> in those fields where there is a lot of uncertainty -- origin of life, origin of the universe, etc... </p>
<h2 id="enter-jean-luc">Enter Jean Luc</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Suppose you are walking in a forest and stumble upon a shack that, upon initial inspection, appears to be uninhabited. Nonetheless, you decide to investigate. As you open the door, you notice a table, upon which there is a tumbler containing Earl Grey tea, which is still steeping. Now, on the hypothesis that the shack is inhabited, does it predict with high probability the presence of the steeping Earl Grey tea on the table? Hardly! Nonetheless, this observation is <em>very strong evidence</em> that the shack is inhabited, since on that supposition the presence of the tea (even though improbable) is <em>far, far more probable</em> than it would be on the falsehood of that hypothesis. What is important, then, is the likelihood ratio of the probabilities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We do have to watch out about reference classes here, but I like this picture. It's not likelihood ratio that is always critical, as we see if I walk through the process. We come onto a shack -- so we already know there was <em>some</em> human activity there at some point in the past. We are considering two models -- inhabited (<span class="math">\(H\)</span>) or uninhabited (<span class="math">\(U\)</span>). Given that the shack is out in the forest, perhaps our prior is somewhat low for inhabited, so we'd have something like</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(H)&=1/10 \\
P(U)&=9/10
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
Upon entering, we have hot tea on the table. Suddenly we have something like,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(H|\text{hot tea})&\sim P(\text{hot tea}|H) \times 1/10 \\
P(U\text{hot tea})&\sim P(\text{hot tea}|U)\times 9/10
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
The likelihood of tea given inhabited might be low, <span class="math">\(P(\text{hot tea}|H) = 1/1000\)</span> as McLatchie says ("on the hypothesis that the shack is inhabited, does it predict with high probability the presence of the steeping Earl Grey tea on the table? Hardly!"), but is far higher than the likelihood of tea given uninhabited might be low, <span class="math">\(P(\text{hot tea}|U) = 1/1,000,000\)</span> and is plenty to overcome the modestly low prior,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(H|\text{hot tea})&\sim 1/1000 \times 1/10 = 1/10,000\\
P(U|\text{hot tea})&\sim 1,000,000\times 9/10 = 9/1,000,000\\
T&=109/1,000,000 \\
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
yielding
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(H|\text{hot tea})&= 1/10,000/T = 100/109 = 92\%\\
P(U|\text{hot tea})&=9/1,000,000/T = 9/109 = 8\%
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>If course the numbers are probably off, but the structure is correct. This seems to be McLatchie's point -- the likelihood ratio is the key factor! However, notice that it is both the <em>prior</em> and the <em>likelihood</em> that come in. </p>
<p>I think McLatchie and I are in agreement here, at least on this example. Now, if we had considered an additional model, that "it was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Luc_Picard">Jean Luc Picard</a> had visited, and had dropped off his 'Earl Grey, hot' before beaming back to the Enterprise", we could use the same approach. Under the Picard model (<span class="math">\(J\)</span>) we actually expect Earl Grey (hot) <em>specifically</em> so it's likelihood is very high
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
P(\text{hot tea}|J) &= 1/3
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
So are we going to admit that it is far more likely that Jean Luc had visited? Absolutely not -- because, prior to the data, we have a supremely low prior for him visiting. Focussing on the likelihoods makes one much more susceptible to outlandish claims, and "just-so" thinking. One can always come up with a model that predicts exactly the data one observes by just saying "it actually happened exactly this way", but this leads to fallacies because the priors are not handled well.</p>
<h2 id="my-four-questions-and-perhaps-some-more">My Four Questions (and perhaps some more)</h2>
<p>So then McLatchie responds to my four questions. Those questions were:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>Can you make a <strong>prediction</strong> of when miraculous healing, or any other miracles, will happen -- or is it always post-hoc?</li>
<li>Can you make any description of a measurement that could be done, no matter how impractical, for directly confirming any of the <strong>predictions</strong> from the God-theory?</li>
<li>You mentioned a case of a healing of Irene McDonald with multiple sclerosis, but I can't find the medical details (i.e. the actual doctor's reports, the detailed timeline, etc...). Same with the case of Barbara Schnyder. Can you provide those? (note -- some of your other medical miracle claims were <a href="http://localhost:8000/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/">suspect after I researched them</a>)</li>
<li>How did you determine that these people were healed <em>by prayer</em> and also <em>by God</em>? You can't answer "because they prayed and she was healed after" (post-hoc fallacy) and you can't answer "because they prayed to the Christian God", because some other God may have answered, or some other thing. You have to, in your explanation, be able to distinguish from the prayers that haven't worked, the cases where healing happened without prayer or with prayer to another God. Without this, you can't make a reasonable claim that God-did-it.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>His answers, in short, were:</p>
<ol>
<li>it is not necessary</li>
<li>it is not necessary</li>
<li>it is not necessary</li>
<li>correlation is good evidence of causation</li>
</ol>
<p>He offers responses like </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If parallel examples exist with such complete and enduring healing from MS without the involvement of prayer, that would significantly undermine these examples as evidence for special divine action.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>but there isn't good evidence that the miraculous healing occurred in the first place. How about this case: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Greta Brandt was cured of Leukemia by aliens. Her doctor, Dr. Frans Wenderoth, confirms that she had the lethal disease and "something miraculous must have happened" for her to not have it anymore. She herself claims that she was abducted by aliens and while on the ship they cured her. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Do I believe this? Nope. Do I even think that the doctor's testimony is to be trusted? Not without better documentation. All we have are the claims. I can find a bunch more like this, but it is a waste of time, really. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Indeed, if it is the case (as many atheists allege) that <em>unanswered</em> prayer is evidence <em>against</em> the existence of God, then it <em>necessarily</em> follows that <em>answered</em> prayer is evidence that <em>confirms</em> the existence of God.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That's true, but it's terrible evidence. We have so many claims of healings but we have way more people who pray and go unanswered. Even with the claims of actual healings, there aren't many that could even in principle rule out natural causes. Even in that subset of the ones that in principle seem to be unexplainable, none of them have the necessary documentation or skeptical inquiry that allow us to rule out natural causes or demonstrate directly something other than natural causes. McLatchie isn't moved by alien abduction stories, but the same exact pattern exists there. It's the pattern of typical human bias.</p>
<p>Even the shack example above was introduced to demonstrate that one does not need "high probability predictions in order for it to be well evidentially supported", I would say that from my perspective it <em>is necessary</em> when one is comparing against models that do make high probability predictions. </p>
<h3 id="what-would-it-take-to-convince-me">What would it take to convince me?</h3>
<p>This question came up in the Dillahunty debate, and is reprised in the Braxton discussion. Dillahunty has his go-to response of "I don't know what would convince me, but God would". In a sense, I understand his point of view. What would convince me that String Theory is true? I really don't know, but I know it will involve <em>specific</em> and <em>unique</em> predictions that can be verified even if I can't tell you ahead of time what those predictions would be -- that's the job of the person putting forward the model. </p>
<p>Also for me, it is usually (at least) a two-step process. The first step is just to determine if there is a "there there" -- is there anything to even take seriously? In the case of a miraculous healing claim or an alien abduction story, my first step is just to establish the facts of the story -- is there anything worth investigating, or anything even possible to investigate? This has generally come up empty, which is why I ask for medical documentation -- stories aren't enough. I've never gotten to the second step, where one has to explain the actual event, except in scientific contexts. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>One can have compelling evidence even when a case could be rendered stronger with even more evidence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Actually not, I think. There is no way you could convince me of a miraculous healing without medical documentation at a minimum. There is no way to convince me of a violation of physical law from historical documents alone. There are just too many alternatives, and we are awash in claims of healings and miracle claims (as Keener points out) but mighty thin on the ground for actual corroboration. The process of overturning our fundamental understanding involves <em>specific</em> and <em>unique</em> predictions that can be verified, a back and forth of peer review and skepticism, an honest evaluation of the uncertainties, etc.... Historical data is just not sufficient.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like so many critics, Blais does not seem to appreciate the value of casualness in assessing historical reliability.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I agree here -- I don't appreciate the inference from casual agreements, because it all seems so post-hoc and unconstrained. At best, it is unclear. In history, it may be a useful technique because one has nothing better. To justify changing our fundamental understanding of the universe, it is thoroughly uncompelling.</p>
<h2 id="a-direct-message-to-jonathan-mclatchie">A direct message to Jonathan McLatchie</h2>
<p>Jonathan McLatchie, if you've gotten this far, please read this (maybe I'll make it a separate post as well to make it more accessible). You complained about some of Dillahunty's tactics in debate, and I agree for the most part. I also think there is one that you display that you should be aware of. It's not anything I think you do intentionally, but it has a particular effect you may not realize and I think it leads to frustration for you when others seemingly don't engage with your evidence. Perhaps by pointing it out, it will help you communicate your points better.</p>
<p>When you talk about the Bible most atheists hear this as if you are a rabid Star Trek fan or Harry Potter fan. You will have statements like:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>However, as Timothy McGrew <a href="https://youtu.be/GH11Ur8cjwM?t=3423">observes concerning the claimed resurrection of Jesus</a>, “The witnesses are not all confined to one vantage point, as they were in the case of the stage magician.</p>
<p>There are actually various lines of evidence that support the historicity of Jesus’ death on the day of Passover, though time did not permit me to discuss them in the debate with Pearce. First, this is a detail attested by all four gospels and implied by Paul in 1 Corinthians 5:7. The evidence bearing on the substantial trustworthiness and scrupulousness of the gospel authors is also relevant here. This is <strong>not a detail that the gospel authors (or their sources) plausibly misremembered,</strong> since so many details in the gospels are connected to Jesus’ death being at the time of Passover. [emphasis mine]</p>
<p>This still leaves a few loose ends that need addressing. First, what does John mean when he says, “for that Sabbath was a high day?” I would argue that he means that it was a particularly special feast day, not just any Sabbath day, but <em>Sabbath in Passover week</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since atheists are not convinced of the story, despite your confidence that it was written by truthful accurate (yet unknown) authors, many of your defenses sound like this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Of course there is a three-headed dog, because the books are accurate on those points where we can confirm them (e.g. there is a King's Cross Station), and Hermione is always truthful and accurate in her descriptions. The book describes multi-sensory experiences of the three-headed dog, by groups of people (Hagrid, Hermione, Ron, and Harry). The second book has casual coincidences which show that the authors of the two books were independent. There is no way that the experience they had of a three-headed dog could have plausibly been misremembered. How could you explain the cut in Snape's leg if the three-headed dog didn't do it? When Harry is at the zoo, and the snake winks to him, this may seem like a contradiction (snakes don't have eyelids), but when the author uses the word "wink" I'd argue that he means the definition of "To shine fitfully; twinkle.". </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am sure you won't see these as parallel yourself, but this is <em>exactly</em> how I hear your defenses for the most part. So, quoting long sections of the Bible to support your claim is as effective as reading chapters of Harry Potter to me. In a debate, when you read long passages in the Bible I take it as a huge waste of time and shows a lack of understanding of your opponents position. I don't think it is intentional, because I think you do it to be thorough, but it has that effect and it comes off as a kind of a dodge -- wasting time to avoid more direct addressing of the problems.</p>
<p>Perhaps this will help you understand where I'm coming from, which responses I can actually grapple with and which I just don't take seriously despite your confidence in them. </p>
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</script>Bad Apologetics2022-01-18T00:00:00-05:002022-01-18T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-01-18:/posts/2022/Jan/18/bad-apologetics/<p>In the <em>Unbelievable</em> podcast episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-Jonathan-Pearce">Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Jonathan McLatchie vs Jonathan Pearce</a> I was struck by several claims and points, especially made by Jonathan McLatchie. I …</p><p>In the <em>Unbelievable</em> podcast episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-Jonathan-Pearce">Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Jonathan McLatchie vs Jonathan Pearce</a> I was struck by several claims and points, especially made by Jonathan McLatchie. I went back and listened to two other debates with him, <a href="https://youtu.be/a-wIaCRIdOA">one with Matt Dillahunty</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/May/29/jonathan-and-brian-in-conversation/">one with myself</a> and found some of the points Pearce made against McLatchie were things that both I and Matt had brought up -- mostly about McLatchie's apparent over-fondness for stories over real evidence.</p>
<h2 id="bayes-factors-and-confidence">Bayes Factors and Confidence</h2>
<p>Jonathan McLatchie talks about cumulative cases, using the vocabulary of probability theory, such as,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you have two pieces of evidence each with a base factor of 10 and then combined they have a cumulative base factor of 100.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He thinks in terms of <em>independent</em> data pushing the likelihoods up and down so that once you've used one data point to update the likelihoods, you can start with that updated likelihood with the next data point -- ignoring any possible dependency between one data point and another. As we see below, it also ignores priors. This makes the process easy, but it leads to false positives which can be seen in a trivial example.</p>
<p>For example, in my book <em><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2019/Jan/14/stats-for-everyone/">Statistical Inference for Everyone</a></em>, I use an example of drawing cards from a deck of (unusual) cards and trying to infer which deck. At some point we have drawn a number of 9's (with replacement) in a row, and are trying to infer whether the deck is a so-called High deck (which has 10 10's, 9 9's, 8 8's, ... , 2 2's and 1 A ), a so-called Low deck (which has 1 10, 2 9's, ... , and 10 A's), and a so-called Nines deck (which has all 9's). The Nines deck is a-priori a lot less probable, because we were simply told that there were two decks -- High and Low. However, after many draws of 9 in a row that claim seems less likely. </p>
<p><img src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220118061447.png" width=80% align=center></p>
<p>Using Bayes factors alone, the data would only support the Nines deck and miss the actual (correct) inference. </p>
<p>Another problem with ignoring priors is that it commits you to believe many other crazy claims and would lead you to <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2010/Aug/28/the-non-psychic-octopus/">believe in psychic octopuses</a>. I made this point with McLatchie and so did Matt Dillahunty -- if you have a flawed epistemology then you will be forced to either believe in crazy things or be inconsistent and hypocritical.</p>
<h2 id="rarity-of-miracles-is-evidence-against-them">Rarity of Miracles is Evidence Against Them</h2>
<p>McLatchie states, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The hypothesis that God has used miracles as authenticating signs predicts that they will stand out against the normal course of nature. The fact that miracles do in fact stand out against nature cannot be taken as evidence against miracles because the hypothesis predicts very strongly that's what you'll find. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>What McLatchie doesn't seem to see is that <em>regardless of the source</em> any purported cause of an event which is rare <em>has a low prior</em>, which should be used against it when comparing to other causes with higher priors. Since God is supposedly using miracles as "authenticating signs", if you are going to interpret any particular event as a miracle you have to overcome the low prior -- "authenticating signs" would be rare -- support it with stronger evidence than would be needed for a more mundane explanation.</p>
<p>I would further ask McLatchie, why should authenticating signs be rare in the first place? Why couldn't God make a miracle like his name written in the clouds every time the sun comes up, to authenticate his existence and power? Also, would McLatchie have to be making arguments like this if God were a lot more obvious?</p>
<h2 id="the-prophecy-of-passover">The Prophecy of Passover</h2>
<p>The one that really perplexes me is Jonathan's perspective on the prophecy that Jesus would be executed on Passover (or around Passover, depending on which Gospel you read). </p>
<blockquote>
<p>another example would be that jesus death coincides with the feast of passover so jesus dies [on Passover or around Passover] according to all four gospels [...] so jesus in the new testament is presented and portrayed as the fulfillment of that passover lamb that he is the ultimate passover lamb that the passover feasts pointed to and so it's quite a coincidence it's quite fitting then that jesus death coincides with the feast of passover that's the strength [...]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are very good <em>story-reasons</em> for having this be the case, the authors of the Gospels <em>knew</em> the Old Testament stories, and could interpret the Jesus story in light of them and write the story accordingly. This is so straightforward an explanation, with very little to counter it -- even if you believe the writers to be eye-witnesses. All you'd need is for Jesus to be executed sometime in the vicinity of Passover, a short time of an oral tradition or retelling of the stories by the same people (which get naturally embellished) and you've got it. McLatchie's argument is so uncompelling for anyone who isn't already convinced that it is remarkable. </p>
<h2 id="undesigned-coincidences">Undesigned Coincidences</h2>
<p>Another argument made by McLatchie is the supposed use of "undesigned coincidences" in the text. </p>
<p>From <a href="https://jonathanmclatchie.com/yes-richard-carrier-there-are-undesigned-coincidences-part-1/">one of his responses to Richard Carrier</a>, McLatchie writes,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the most classic form (which Carrier is attempting to define) is when you have multiple (at least two) accounts that report an event where one account answers in passing a natural question raised incidentally by the other. Contrary to what Carrier asserts, the argument has never been that such features <em>prove</em> there was a real story. Rather, such features are <em>evidence</em> that a real event lies behind the reports found in the gospels — that is to say, the presence of an undesigned coincidence is more probable given the hypothesis of historicism than given the annulment of that hypothesis. Some undesigned coincidences contribute greater evidence than others. Carrier’s lack of nuance in his description of the basic argument does not get his article off to the best start.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think my biggest problem with this line of thinking is that there are <em>major</em> differences between the narratives in the Gospels. For example, the nativity narratives are contradictory -- just try to map out the path Jesus' parents take. The resurrection narratives too do not agree with each other, like the number of people coming and going, whether things were open or closed, or who actually saw Jesus. When apologists have to make arguments (i.e. the text is not clear) to justify seeming discrepancies in large events, why should we pay attention to <em>subtle</em> agreements? Why should we be surprised that there are some agreements, when we know that there are literary and other source dependencies between the anonymous writings of the Gospels? Again, McLatchie's argument is so uncompelling for anyone who isn't already convinced that it is remarkable. </p>
<h2 id="lack-of-priors">Lack of Priors</h2>
<p>It is striking how many recent apologists use Bayesian reasoning yet ignore the prior -- which means they really aren't using Bayesian reasoning but want to just <em>sound</em> like they are. This is a form of dishonesty, I feel, but at best it is a clumsy analysis -- and a problem that has been pointed out <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Aug/29/bad-apologetics-ep-18-bayes-machine-goes-brrrrrrrrr/">for the McGrews</a>, Calum Miller <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Jul/11/unbelievable-project-the-probability-of-the-resurrection/">here</a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/DRNIXn1xD_0">here</a>, <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Aug/10/deduction-induction-and-abduction-oh-my/">Blake Giunta</a>, and of course <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/May/29/jonathan-and-brian-in-conversation/">mentioned in my conversation with Jonathan McLatchie</a>. The use of Bayes Factors, which also ignores priors, is indicative of this approach. Why do apologists want to ignore priors? Because what they are arguing for is, a-priori, seriously unlikely.</p>Proton Decay and the Resurrection of Jesus2022-01-17T00:00:00-05:002022-01-17T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-01-17:/posts/2022/Jan/17/proton-decay-and-the-resurrection-of-jesus/<p>In the <em>Unbelievable</em> podcast episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-Jonathan-Pearce">Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Jonathan McLatchie vs Jonathan Pearce</a> I was struck by several claims and points, especially made by Jonathan McLatchie. I …</p><p>In the <em>Unbelievable</em> podcast episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-Jonathan-Pearce">Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence? Jonathan McLatchie vs Jonathan Pearce</a> I was struck by several claims and points, especially made by Jonathan McLatchie. I went back and listened to two other debates with him, <a href="https://youtu.be/a-wIaCRIdOA">one with Matt Dillahunty</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/May/29/jonathan-and-brian-in-conversation/">one with myself</a> and found some of the points Pearce made against McLatchie were things that both I and Matt had brought up -- mostly about McLatchie's apparent over-fondness for stories over real evidence.</p>
<h2 id="proton-decay-and-rare-events">Proton Decay and Rare Events</h2>
<p>McLatchie says that the frequency with which we experience something is not always a good guide to its probability. Although I'd suggest that it is <em>usually</em> a very good guide, let's look at his example.</p>
<p>McLatchie says <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay">proton decay</a> has not been observed, but is predicted by most (if not all) grand unified theories of particle physics so frequency is not a good guide for prior probability. He comments that the difference between a rare event that has a low prior vs one with a high prior, like that for proton decay, is that proton decay has a <em>theoretical underpinning</em>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>it's not that this is just a random guess even though there's no precedent</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the same way, he feels, the resurrection has no precedent but also has a theoretical underpinning. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[...] frequency isn't the most helpful metric for assessing the prior probability you also want to look for whether there's a theoretical underpinning for this hypothesis and likewise with the case for christianity the case for the resurrection in particular i think that you can make a similar case from a theoretical underpinning a background information that stands independently of the extent to which there is precedence in our experience of the miraculous [...]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The comparison is laughable to me, given the differences in the "theoretical underpinning" of each, but let's see how the comparison plays out. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model">Standard Model</a> predicts that proton decay will not happen -- that it violates a conservation law -- however many models that build off of the Standard Model do include proton decay. Given the state of affairs, I'm not sure if scientists put a large prior on proton decay anyway, but let's grant that -- say, we are reasonably confident that proton decay will occur. What theoretical underpinning would we have to give us this confidence? </p>
<p>There are many times that science has predicted rare and unprecedented events or effects.</p>
<ul>
<li>the motion of the Earth through the Ether (e.g. Michaelson-Morely experiment)</li>
<li>the bending of star light by a massive object (e.g. Einsteins GR prediction)</li>
<li>civilizations on Mars (e.g. Lowell's canals)</li>
<li>the existence of the Higgs Boson (1967 work by many scientists, including <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/510036a">one of my former instructors, Gerry Guralnik</a>)</li>
<li>proton decay (predicted by many Grand Unified theories)</li>
</ul>
<p>Note that several of these were not confirmed, yet at the time there were good reasons to think they were true. Whenever science has predicted a rare, unprecedented event there have been common patterns. </p>
<ol>
<li>the novel theory is consistent with <em>every other</em> confirmed prediction from the other theories. For example General Relativity describes gravity, predicts novel phenomena, but can be shown in certain limits to be consistent with Newton's Law of Gravity.</li>
<li>the novel theory predicts <em>specific limits</em> on the novel phenomena. For example, General Relativity predicts the exact angle that starlight will bend passing by the known mass of the Sun, and specifically how accurately the measurements need to be made.</li>
<li>ones confidence in a novel theory's prediction, before the prediction is confirmed, comes down to how <em>much the other predictions of the novel theory have been confirmed</em> -- especially if the theory has made several striking confirmed predictions. For example, scientists were confident in the existence of gravity waves for a long time before they were observed, because General Relativity had passed every test to an accuracy as good as we could measure, and many of those tests were profoundly unintuitive and unexpected. </li>
</ol>
<p>We can be confident in the prediction of proton decay in as much as those theories that predict it have been confirmed to a great degree on other terms. For example, <a href="https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.2223">"the standard model predicts the electron magnetic moment to an astonishing accuracy of one part in a trillion."</a> The Standard Model is also consistent with every other theory within its domain, and doesn't violate any outside of its domain (the role of gravity, for example, is outside the Standard Model). Grand unified theories all have to be as accurate as the Standard Model to be considered. It is these factors that make us confident in the prediction of novel phenomena.</p>
<p>How does the "theoretical underpinning" of the God-theory for the Resurrection stack up? The things that McLatchie brings up are</p>
<ul>
<li>Keener's book of Miracles</li>
<li>there is merit to Lewis trilemma (i.e. Liar, Lunatic, Lord)</li>
<li>multi-sensory experiences, with groups, around the Resurrection</li>
<li>prophecy such as Christianity becoming a global religion, predicted in the Old Testament</li>
<li>Jesus executed on/around passover, predicted in the Old Testament</li>
</ul>
<p>The episode dealt with these topics pretty well, and I've written a bit about some of them, including <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/May/21/a-little-about-miracles/">miracles</a>, <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Mar/18/unbelievable-project-miracles-and-healing-is-it-evidence-for-the-truth-of-christianity/">healings</a>, and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/May/29/jonathan-and-brian-in-conversation/">my conversation with Jonathan McLatchie</a>. But simply compare the theories around proton decay and those of the Resurrection. </p>
<ul>
<li>one is consistent with <em>every other</em> confirmed prediction from the other theories -- the other isn't.</li>
<li>one predicts <em>specific limits</em> on the novel phenomena, including time frames and what <em>specific</em> steps we'd need to confirm it -- the other doesn't.</li>
<li>one has a pile of other novel <em>specific</em>, <em>quantitative</em> <strong>predictions</strong> that have since been confirmed -- the other doesn't.</li>
</ul>
<p>So I want to ask Jonathan McLatchie a few questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Can you make a <strong>prediction</strong> of when miraculous healing, or any other miracles, will happen -- or is it always post-hoc?</li>
<li>Can you make any description of a measurement that could be done, no matter how impractical, for directly confirming any of the <strong>predictions</strong> from the God-theory?</li>
<li>You mentioned a case of a healing of Irene McDonald with multiple sclerosis, but I can't find the medical details (i.e. the actual doctor's reports, the detailed timeline, etc...). Same with the case of Barbara Schnyder. Can you provide those? (note -- some of your other medical miracle claims were <a href="http://localhost:8000/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/">suspect after I researched them</a>)</li>
<li>How did you determine that these people were healed <em>by prayer</em> and also <em>by God</em>? You can't answer "because they prayed and she was healed after" (post-hoc fallacy) and you can't answer "because they prayed to the Christian God", because some other God may have answered, or some other thing. You have to, in your explanation, be able to distinguish from the prayers that haven't worked, the cases where healing happened without prayer or with prayer to another God. Without this, you can't make a reasonable claim that God-did-it.</li>
</ol>Chemical Reaction Dynamics2022-01-14T00:00:00-05:002022-01-14T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-01-14:/posts/2022/Jan/14/chemical-reaction-dynamics/<p>As an exercise, I like to reproduce computational papers, but with my own tools. This let's me know that I understand completely what is being written and in many cases …</p><p>As an exercise, I like to reproduce computational papers, but with my own tools. This let's me know that I understand completely what is being written and in many cases allows me to extend and debug my own tools. I'm going to do a series of these as I work through some of my reading list. The first one I'm doing is available here:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cs.princeton.edu/picasso/mats/matlab/princeton_spring06.pdf">https://www.cs.princeton.edu/picasso/mats/matlab/princeton_spring06.pdf</a></p>
<p>In this case, not only was I able to reproduce the results of the text, but it uncovered two bugs in my <a href="https://bblais.github.io/pyndamics3/"><code>pyndamics3</code></a> package which I was able to fix. </p>
<p>The main system in the text being solved is</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220113102335.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220113102335.png"></p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="o">%</span><span class="n">pylab</span> <span class="n">inline</span>
<span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">pyndamics3</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">Simulation</span>
<span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">pyndamics3.chem</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">ChemSimulation</span>
<span class="n">b</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span>
<span class="n">k3</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.00577</span>
<span class="n">k4</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.0001925</span>
<span class="n">k1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">.01</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">ChemSimulation</span><span class="p">(</span>
<span class="sd">"""</span>
<span class="sd">D --k1--> D+M</span>
<span class="sd">M --k2--> M+P</span>
<span class="sd">M --k3--> ϕ</span>
<span class="sd">P --k4--> ϕ</span>
<span class="sd">"""</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">D</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">M</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ϕ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">k1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">k1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">k2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">b</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">k3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">k3</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">k3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">k4</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">k4</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">c</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">components</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">c</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">4e4</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>Output:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">['D'] k1 ['D', 'M']</span>
<span class="k">['M'] k2 ['M', 'P']</span>
<span class="k">['M'] k3 ['ϕ']</span>
<span class="k">['P'] k4 ['ϕ']</span>
<span class="na">Components ['D', 'M', 'P', 'ϕ']</span>
<span class="na">Parameters ['k1', 'k2', 'k3', 'k4']</span>
<span class="na">diffeqs ["D'</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">0", "M' = +k1*D -k3*M", "P' = +k2*M -k4*P"]</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>which yields figures like:</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220113102516.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220113102516.png"></p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220113102541.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220113102541.png">
<img alt="Pasted image 20220113102550.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220113102550.png"></p>
<p>The text points out,</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220113102608.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220113102608.png"></p>
<p>which we can find by looking at the end of the array for each of those variables.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">M</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>(1038.4743123361338, 1.7331022510164473)
</code></pre></div>
<p>The paper then adds the exercise</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220113102710.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220113102710.png"></p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">b</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span>
<span class="n">k3</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.00577</span>
<span class="n">k4</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.0001925</span>
<span class="n">k1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">.01</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">ChemSimulation</span><span class="p">(</span>
<span class="sd">"""</span>
<span class="sd">D --k1--> D+M</span>
<span class="sd">M --k2--> M+P</span>
<span class="sd">M --k3--> ϕ</span>
<span class="sd">P --k4--> ϕ</span>
<span class="sd">"""</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">D</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">M</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ϕ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">k1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">k1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">k2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">b</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">k3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">k3</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">k3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">k4</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">k4</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">c</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">components</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">c</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>I discovered that by originally doing</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">1e4</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">M</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>(88.21709421325941, 1.7331022259104094)
</code></pre></div>
<p>it didn't match the fixed point stated in the text! So Iooked at the plot</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220113103003.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220113103003.png"></p>
<p>and saw it hadn't converged. Increasing the run time</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">1e5</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">M</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>(103.8961031134814, 1.7331022530369293)
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220113103146.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220113103146.png"></p>
<p>It converged and we got the same answer as in the text.</p>
<p>Another time I will extend this to the stochastic version, which is in the second part of the text.</p>Simulating Stochastic Processes2022-01-07T00:00:00-05:002022-01-07T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2022-01-07:/posts/2022/Jan/07/simulating-stochastic-processes/<p>In this post we are going to explore the simulation of stochastic (i.e. random) processes, and work our way to understanding how the Gillespie algorithm works. We'll be using …</p><p>In this post we are going to explore the simulation of stochastic (i.e. random) processes, and work our way to understanding how the Gillespie algorithm works. We'll be using mostly straightforward Python, except for my <code>Storage</code> class from https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/Feb/24/common-python-pattern-building-up-lists-to-plot/ and some default plotting preferences specified in https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bblais/Python-for-Science/master/science/science.mplstyle.</p>
<h2 id="imports">Imports</h2>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="o">%</span><span class="n">pylab</span> <span class="n">inline</span>
<span class="n">style</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">use</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'science.mplstyle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">Memory</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">Storage</span>
</code></pre></div>
<h2 id="a-simple-problem">A simple problem</h2>
<p>In this first problem, we have a process that occurs with probability <span class="math">\(p=0.02\)</span> per second. When an event happens, the number <span class="math">\(n\)</span> is incremented by 1. The average linear rate of increase will be the same as <span class="math">\(p\)</span>.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">number_of_simulations</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span>
<span class="n">dt</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">1.0</span>
<span class="n">p</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.02</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">number_of_simulations</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="n">t</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="mi">1000</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">rand</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dt</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">dt</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arrays</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'b-o'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'r-'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$n$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$t$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="output_6_1.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/output_6_1.png"></p>
<p>To motivate the faster algorithm, let's run a bunch of simulations, and record the time to the first event only. Then count up how many events happen at the various times. </p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">50000</span>
<span class="n">p</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.03</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">rand</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">break</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arrays</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">tn</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">hist</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">200</span><span class="p">);</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'time to first event'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'number of events'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">slope</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">intercept</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">polyfit</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">tn</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="n">log</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">]),</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">tn</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="n">exp</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">slope</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">tn</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">intercept</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="s1">'r-'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">λ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">p</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">tn</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">exp</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">λ</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">tn</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="s1">'k--'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">lw</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220106220712.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220106220712.png"></p>
<p>which looks exponential, so we compare it to an exponentiial fit (linear fit to the log) and an exponential with a decay factor <span class="math">\(\lambda=p\)</span>. The fit is quite good!</p>
<p>To normalize analytically (and make it a proper probability function), we need to make sure that the integral over <span class="math">\(t\)</span> is 1,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
p(t)&= p_o e^{-\lambda t}\\
\int_0^{+\infty} p_o e^{-\lambda t} dt &=1 \\
\left.\left(\frac{1}{-\lambda}\right)p_o e^{-\lambda t}\right|^{+\infty}_{0} &=1 \\
0 - \left(\frac{1}{-\lambda}\right)p_o &=1 \\
p_o &=\lambda
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
therefore the distribution is </p>
<div class="math">$$
p(t) = \lambda e^{-\lambda t}
$$</div>
<p>
which can be seen here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_distribution</p>
<h2 id="towards-gillespie">Towards Gillespie</h2>
<p>Instead of flipping the coin every millisecond (i.e. constant time), we can randomly pick a <em>time</em> from an exponential distribution -- the time to the next event (i.e. dynamic time).</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">constant_time</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">t_max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1000</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.02</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">dt</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">S_mat</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">n0</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="n">t</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="n">t_max</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">rand</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dt</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">dt</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">S_mat</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">S_mat</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>and</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">dynamic_time</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">t_max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1000</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">p</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.02</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">dt</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">S_mat</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">n0</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="n">t</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="n">t_max</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">λ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">p</span>
<span class="n">t_next</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">exponential</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">λ</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">t_next</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">S_mat</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">S_mat</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>to get</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">figure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">12</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">S</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">constant_time</span><span class="p">():</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arrays</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'b-o'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$n$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">title</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Constant Time'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlim</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1000</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">gca</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">set_xticklabels</span><span class="p">([]);</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">S</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">dynamic_time</span><span class="p">():</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arrays</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'b-o'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$n$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$t$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">title</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Dynamic Time'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlim</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1000</span><span class="p">])</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220106221326.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220106221326.png"></p>
<p>Timing this, we get more than 10x faster with the dynamic time. This would be more if the rates were lower. </p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="o">%</span><span class="n">timeit</span> <span class="n">S_mat</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">constant_time</span><span class="p">();</span>
</code></pre></div>
<blockquote>
<p>18.8 ms ± 614 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 10 loops each)</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="o">%</span><span class="n">timeit</span> <span class="n">S_mat</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">dynamic_time</span><span class="p">();</span>
</code></pre></div>
<blockquote>
<p>1.39 ms ± 29.3 µs per loop (mean ± std. dev. of 7 runs, 1000 loops each)</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="gillespie">Gillespie</h2>
<p>We now can extend the problem to the next simplest case, where two types of events can happen, say a birth probability and a death probability. This extension will have two added complexities from the previous example:
1. more than one type of event
2. the probabilities for those events, which determine the rates, depend on the variables and thus depend on time</p>
<p>In the simple birth-death process we have,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
p_\text{birth}&=b\cdot n\\
p_\text{death}&=d\cdot n\\
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
where <span class="math">\(b\)</span> and <span class="math">\(d\)</span> are the per-capita probability for a birth or death, respectively, and where a birth results in <span class="math">\(n\rightarrow n+1\)</span> and a death results in <span class="math">\(n\rightarrow n-1\)</span>. The Gillespie algorithm proceeds in two steps
1. generate the next time (like above) for <em>some</em> event using the sum of the rates of all of the possible events
2. randomly choose one of the possible events, weighted by their prospective rates -- faster processes chosen more often</p>
<p>In code this could look like</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">no</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">5</span>
<span class="n">b</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.03</span>
<span class="n">d</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.02</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">20</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">no</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">t_max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">200</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="n">t</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="n">t_max</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">pb</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">b</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">pd</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">d</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">rates</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">pb</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">pd</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">total_rates</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">sum</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">rates</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="ow">not</span> <span class="n">total_rates</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">break</span>
<span class="n">time_next</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">exponential</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span> <span class="o">/</span> <span class="n">total_rates</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">r</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">np</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">rand</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">total_rates</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">time_next</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">r</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="n">pb</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">n</span><span class="o">-=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arrays</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'b.-'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">t_max</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">no</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">exp</span><span class="p">((</span><span class="n">b</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">d</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="s1">'r-'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'time'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$n$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlim</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">t_max</span><span class="p">])</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220107080030.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220107080030.png"></p>
<p>for large N, this should look like the solution</p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{dn}{dt}=b\cdot n - d\cdot n
$$</div>
<p>
which will be exponential (population growth),
</p>
<div class="math">$$
n=n_o e^{(b-d)\cdot t}
$$</div>
<p>
which you can see in the red. In the small-<span class="math">\(N\)</span> case (like the one above, starting with <span class="math">\(n=5\)</span>, there is a lot of variation, but the <em>average</em> is the exponential curve. Changing <span class="math">\(n_o=500\)</span> we can see the variation reduces considerably.</p>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220107080819.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220107080819.png"></p>
<h2 id="gillespie-with-sir-model">Gillespie with SIR Model</h2>
<p>As a final example we look at a probabilistic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidemiology#The_SIR_model">SIR model</a>. In this model we have three sub-populations or compartments, <span class="math">\(S\)</span>, <span class="math">\(I\)</span>, and <span class="math">\(R\)</span> for Susceptible, Infected, and Recovered. The Susceptible become infected at a rate of <span class="math">\(\beta S I\)</span> and the Infected recover at a rate of <span class="math">\(\gamma I\)</span>. Another way to write this is as two possible events.</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
S,I &\stackrel{\beta S I}{\longrightarrow} S-1, I+1\\
I,R &\stackrel{\gamma I}{\longrightarrow} I-1, R+1\\
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
So, Gillespie follows by</p>
<ol>
<li>generate the next time (like above) for <em>some</em> event (e.g. one of the two above) using the sum of the rates of all of the possible events</li>
<li>randomly choose one of the possible events, weighted by their prospective rates -- faster processes chosen more often</li>
</ol>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">number_of_sims</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">number_of_sims</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">Io</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span>
<span class="n">tmax</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span>
<span class="n">Io</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">β</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.5</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.0</span>
<span class="n">ni</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Io</span>
<span class="n">ns</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">ni</span>
<span class="n">nr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ns</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ni</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">nr</span>
<span class="n">tw</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.0</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span> <span class="o"><</span> <span class="n">tmax</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">w1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">β</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ns</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ni</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">N</span> <span class="c1"># infect</span>
<span class="n">w2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ni</span> <span class="c1"># recover</span>
<span class="n">w</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">w1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">w2</span>
<span class="n">tn</span><span class="o">=-</span><span class="n">log</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">rand</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">w</span> <span class="c1"># when's the next thing happening?</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">tn</span>
<span class="n">r</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">rand</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">w</span> <span class="c1"># which thing happened?</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="n">r</span> <span class="o"><</span> <span class="n">w1</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">ns</span><span class="o">-=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">ni</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">nr</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">ni</span><span class="o">-=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ns</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ni</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">nr</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">ni</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">break</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ns</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ni</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">nr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arrays</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ns</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'b'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ni</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'g'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">nr</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'r'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">alpha</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="c1"># these numbers taken from a pyndamics simulation, just for comparison</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span> <span class="mf">0.</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">1.57894737</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">3.15789474</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">4.73684211</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">6.31578947</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">7.89473684</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">9.47368421</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">11.05263158</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">12.63157895</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">14.21052632</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">15.78947368</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">17.36842105</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">18.94736842</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">20.52631579</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">22.10526316</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">23.68421053</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">25.26315789</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">26.84210526</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">28.42105263</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">30.</span> <span class="p">]),</span>
<span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mf">99.</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">96.68233609</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">92.04102645</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">83.73584541</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">71.42053096</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">57.24621795</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">44.66960674</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">35.51429297</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">29.55644131</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">25.85923582</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">23.59619256</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">22.21121513</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">21.36043856</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">20.83578683</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">20.51122022</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">20.31000289</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">20.18506816</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">20.10742367</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">20.05914037</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">20.02910249</span><span class="p">]),</span>
<span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span> <span class="mf">1.</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">2.13320482</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">4.31469633</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">7.89149267</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">12.25267231</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">15.36581863</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">15.53893182</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">13.22645672</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">10.00259897</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">7.01814482</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">4.70207514</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">3.0626549</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">1.96059584</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">1.2418213</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">0.78139042</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">0.48968045</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">0.30609591</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">0.19103806</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">0.11911362</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">0.07422209</span><span class="p">]),</span>
<span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span> <span class="mf">0.</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">1.18445909</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">3.64427722</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">8.37266192</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">16.32679674</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">27.38796342</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">39.79146144</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">51.25925031</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">60.44095972</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">67.12261936</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">71.7017323</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">74.72612997</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">76.6789656</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">77.92239186</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">78.70738935</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="mf">79.20031666</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">79.50883592</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">79.70153827</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">79.821746</span> <span class="p">,</span> <span class="mf">79.89667542</span><span class="p">]))</span>
<span class="c1"># these are here to get the legend with the right colors</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'b-'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'S'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'g-'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'I'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'r-'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'R'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'time'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'number'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="Pasted image 20220107082918.png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20220107082918.png"></p>
<p>The comparison is made with a <a href="https://bblais.github.io/pyndamics3/tutorial.zombies.html#SIR-Model">continuous version of the model using the pyndamics3 library</a>. We will see later that we can use <a href="https://bblais.github.io/pyndamics3/">pyndamics3</a> to do <a href="https://bblais.github.io/pyndamics3/stochastic.html#Stochastic-SIR-Model">stochastic algorithms as well</a>.</p>
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</script>Science as a metal detector2021-12-09T00:00:00-05:002021-12-09T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-12-09:/posts/2021/Dec/09/science-as-a-metal-detector/<p>In my post about <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Sep/30/naturalism-of-the-gaps/#comment-5620221669">"naturalism of the gaps"</a> I stated that in evaluating claims, </p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li><em>Methodological naturalism</em> is the only choice we have available, because no one has demonstrated any procedure …</li></ol></blockquote><p>In my post about <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Sep/30/naturalism-of-the-gaps/#comment-5620221669">"naturalism of the gaps"</a> I stated that in evaluating claims, </p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li><em>Methodological naturalism</em> is the only choice we have available, because no one has demonstrated any procedure to distinguish supernatural claims. </li>
<li>To assume a naturalistic explanation in the future is simply the recognition that in <em>every single case</em> where we have finally understood a topic, the best explanation has <em>never</em> turned out to be supernatural...<em>ever</em>. </li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://disqus.com/by/r_morales/">R Morales</a> replies that my response is a </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"bit like someone using a metal detector to [...] look for valuable natural resources such as gold, silver or gems, only finding valuable metals, and then concluding that therefore it is unlikely that there are nonmetal valuable resources in that mine, "</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I've heard this analogy before, and I think it is worth responding to because on the face it does seem reasonable. The second you restrict the target of a search, then it shouldn't be surprising that you don't find certain things, right? As with all analogies, one has to make sure that the relevant components are considered. Let me see if I can use the metal detector analogy to convey my original statement better.</p>
<p>We're on a beach, and other than sand, there are objects we might discover buried there. I note that there are some metal objects, and build a metal detector. At first my metal detector is not terrific -- it can only find large objects -- but I keep improving it over the years to find smaller and smaller objects. Now, my friend says that he sees plastic objects that I can't detect with my detector. "Yay!" I say, and ask him for his plastic detector. He doesn't have one. He has provided no way to detect plastic, but says that he can see it. "See that lump over there, it's hiding a plastic object". I go over with my metal detector, and find that the lump is caused by a metal object. He keeps doing this, pointing this way and that, and I keep detecting metal, and he continues to provide no method for detecting plastic despite his claims. Further, every claim of a plastic object turns out to be metal. Sometimes it takes a while -- the object is made of some unknown material, my friend insists it's plastic, and it turns out to be metal anyway. This goes on for years and years. </p>
<p>Now, if someone on the beach produces some unknown object, what are the chances that it is plastic? How would you know? If you were forced to bet, what bet would you do -- metal or plastic? </p>Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR2021-08-29T00:00:00-04:002021-08-29T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-08-29:/posts/2021/Aug/29/bad-apologetics-ep-18-bayes-machine-goes-brrrrrrrrr/<p>In this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> I join <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a> to discuss <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrew's article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The …</a></p><p>In this YouTube episode, <a href="https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM">Bad Apologetics Ep 18 - Bayes Machine goes BRRRRRRRRR</a> I join <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Nathan Ormond</a>, <a href="https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004699">Kamil Gregor</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcprhl4otMOQPL5PDbtbheQ">James Fodor</a> to discuss <a href="https://timothymcgrew.com">Timothy</a> and <a href="http://www.lydiamcgrew.com">Lydia</a> McGrew's article in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444308334">The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology</a> entitled "Chapter 11 - The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth". </p>
<p>It's 9 hours long, but I am only on for the first 7 hours. </p>
<p>I wrote a summary in 3 parts here:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Aug/29/bad-apologetics-ep-18-bayes-machine-goes-brrrrrrrrr/">Original Post</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Mar/30/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-1/">Part 1: 1-3 hr</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/12/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-2/">Part 2: 3-6 hr</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2022/Jul/13/bad-apologetics-on-bayes-part-3/">Part 3: 6-9 hr</a></li>
</ol>
<div class="toc"><span class="toctitle">Table of Contents</span><ul>
<li><a href="#tldr">TLDR</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>And the link for the full video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yeCBpO7pSRM</p>
<h2 id="tldr">TLDR</h2>
<p>The main issues are:</p>
<ol>
<li>ignoring priors because there's no prior probability in their calculation, so they really aren't doing Bayes</li>
<li>inconsistent use of priors -- when they address naturalistic alternatives they say, this is implausible -- so they do consider priors, but only when it suits them</li>
<li>they don't support the claim that their preferred model (e.g. Yahweh raised Jesus from the dead) actually produces the evidence with the high likelihood</li>
<li>they don't seriously consider alternatives, either natural or supernatural</li>
<li>they don't motivate their numbers with comparable rare events, or they would have seen that their calculation of an odds ratio of <span class="math">\(10^{44}\)</span> is ridiculous</li>
<li>they uncritically take the claims in the New Testament as the actual data we have, as opposed to the fact that what we have are ancient <em>texts</em> that contain those claims</li>
<li>an uncritical view of New Testament documents, and an unprofessional response to traditional scholarship</li>
<li>they don't even seem to think about why something would be explained by their preferred resurrection hypothesis. It's just assumed that everything is explained. And then they ask, how do you, skeptic, explain this?</li>
<li>they make up claims with no supporting citations (especially with respect to how new communities form and how hallucinations work)</li>
<li>they don't make the very easy step of looking at what's actually happening in the world with religious people and actually getting some data, getting some background knowledge about how people actually function </li>
</ol>
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</script>Stats 101 Examples with MCMC Part 42021-08-11T00:00:00-04:002021-08-11T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-08-11:/posts/2021/Aug/11/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-4/<p>This is another in the series of "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples solved with MCMC. Others in the series:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">Estimating mean with known 𝜎</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/28/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-2/">Estimating mean with unknown 𝜎</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/May/13/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-3/">Estimating a proportion …</a></li></ul><p>This is another in the series of "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples solved with MCMC. Others in the series:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">Estimating mean with known 𝜎</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/28/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-2/">Estimating mean with unknown 𝜎</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/May/13/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-3/">Estimating a proportion</a></li>
</ul>
<p>In all of these posts I'm going to use a python library I make for my science-programming class, <a href="https://github.com/bblais/sci378">stored on github</a>, and the <a href="https://emcee.readthedocs.io/en/stable/">emcee</a> library. Install like:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>pip install "git+git://github.com/bblais/sci378" --upgrade
pip install emcee
</code></pre></div>
<p>In this example, like <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">another one in the series</a>, there is some true value, we call <span class="math">\(x_o\)</span>. The <span class="math">\(N\)</span> data points we have, <span class="math">\(\{x_i\}\)</span>, consist of that true value drawn from a particular distribution, in this case the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchy_distribution">Cauchy distribution</a>:</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(x|\mu,\gamma)= \frac{1}{\pi\gamma}\left(\frac{\gamma^2}{(x-x_o)^2+\gamma^2}\right)
$$</div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20210731113326.png"></p>
<p>This distribution has <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchy_distribution#Occurrence_and_applications">a number of applications</a>, many of which occur in cases of circular geometry. I was introduced to it with the so-called <a href="https://bayes.wustl.edu/sfg/why.pdf">lighthouse problem</a> and E T Jaynes's excellent <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/confidence.pdf">Confidence Intervals vs Bayesian Intervals</a> paper.</p>
<p>Although this distribution has a single-peak with a central value, <span class="math">\(x_o\)</span>, and looks vaguely Gaussian, it has many mathematical properties which make it much different. For example, it has an <em>undefined mean and variance,</em> and thus doesn't satisfy the conditions for the central limit theorem. As such it is never covered in introductory statistics classes. However, with the computational approach described here, it is no harder to work with the Cauchy than the Normal.</p>
<h2 id="setting-up-the-problem">Setting up the problem</h2>
<p>In E T Jaynes's example, the data consist simply of two data points: <span class="math">\(\{x_i\} = \{3,5\}\)</span>. Remarkably, frequentist methods can't address this problem. The likelihood is set in the same way as <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/28/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-2/">previous posts</a>:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">lnlike</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">x_o</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">γ</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">x</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">data</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">logcauchypdf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">x_o</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">γ</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">data</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mf">3.</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">5</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">model</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">MCMCModel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">lnlike</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">x_o</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Uniform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Jeffreys</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<h2 id="running-mcmc-looking-at-the-results">Running MCMC, looking at the results</h2>
<p>Now we run MCMC, plot the chains (so we can see it has converged) and look at distributions,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run_mcmc</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1500</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">repeat</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_chains</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>Sampling Prior...
Done.
0.43 s
Running MCMC 1/3...
Done.
3.74 s
Running MCMC 2/3...
Done.
3.61 s
Running MCMC 3/3...
Done.
3.66 s
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20210731115421.png"></p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_distributions</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/Pasted image 20210731115437.png"></p>
<h2 id="comparing-to-intution-and-conclusions">Comparing to intution and conclusions</h2>
<p>Although the Cauchy has no defined mean value, one can show that the <em>median</em> of the data is a best estimate for the central value, <span class="math">\(x_o\)</span> -- although that doesn't give the uncertainties. Thus, the estimate we find above, <span class="math">\(x_o \sim 4\)</span>, matches what we intuit to be the correct answer.</p>
<p>The point here, however, is that the same Bayesian methods for finding the best estimates and the uncertainties works for this case like all the others -- with very little extra work -- whereas traditional methods fail. It is telling that statistics textbooks <em>uniformly ignore this entire distribution</em> as far as I can tell just to avoid the problems with it. The Bayesian approach, in contrast, provides a uniform procedure to address all such problems and that procedure consistently produces useful results. </p>
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</script>Convert mp3 files to audiobook for Apple Books2021-05-17T00:00:00-04:002021-05-17T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-05-17:/posts/2021/May/17/convert-mp3-files-to-audiobook-for-apple-books/<p>The Mac/iPhone Books app has some issues. Before switching the content out of iTunes into a separate app, audiobooks were housed in the same app as music. You could …</p><p>The Mac/iPhone Books app has some issues. Before switching the content out of iTunes into a separate app, audiobooks were housed in the same app as music. You could edit the metadata on individual tracks, you could easily import an audiobook cd and just change the type to "Audiobook" and things would work. If something was wrong with the title of a track, or the track number, you could go in and edit it. Once they switched to Books, this level of editing was no longer possible. Until recently I was doing the tedious task of editing in Music, copying to Books, seeing errors, copying back etc... The errors were often things like Books breaking the audiobook into separate "books" because the track numbers weren't read right, or the tracks would be out of order, or the artwork wouldn't come through. I was ok with this workaround tedium until recently, when I wanted to start following a youtube channel called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy63pdWnpupE8MfxpMNfRNg">Digital Gnosis</a>. One of my favorite playlists is called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLggkCqSR7N1eq3UGURGKs9hcJNV-uIn4n">Bad Apologetics</a>, with 15 episodes so far with an average length <strong>around 7 and a half hours a piece</strong>! So this state of affairs has forced me to retool my workflow, because I can't be at my computer to watch a 9 hour video, and I don't want to pay youtube to be able to listen while my phone is locked, and there are too many videos/playlists to deal with by hand. So here goes my solution.</p>
<h2 id="make-a-folder-of-mp3-files">Make a folder of mp3 files</h2>
<p>Using the tool youtube-dl, installed with</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>pip install youtube-dl --upgrade
</code></pre></div>
<p>we download all of the videos in a playlist, convert to mp3, and put them in the current folder. This playlist is called Open Conversations, so I put it in a folder named for that.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>youtube-dl -i --extract-audio --audio-format mp3 <span class="s2">"https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLggkCqSR7N1dBxUjy51NdVGPJ78JXEdl-"</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>One can also do this by importing audiobook CDs and place the tracks in a folder.</p>
<h2 id="get-the-book-info-correct">Get the book info correct</h2>
<p>We continue with a script to get the track titles correct. This part is a little manual, because the naming scheme for the tracks are individual to the playlist. A little bit of string magic does the trick.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">glob</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">glob</span>
<span class="n">folder</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'Open Conversations'</span>
<span class="n">fnames</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">sorted</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">glob</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">folder</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="s2">"/*.mp3"</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">display</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">fnames</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>Output:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>['Open Conversations/Open Conversation #001-vCEu612_tbc.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #002-DW6LTgzxI2c.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #003-yxF3OJpLW8w.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #004-kBSczog9hjY.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #005-Ba9JeLKLx4M.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #006 _ Defining Terms and Open Conversation with JIL-ypzf9gCPMW4.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #007-mrzHt60jaJ0.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #008- Socially Distanced New Year Open Hangout - PineCreek, Cam, Erin, Autumn, Rob, etc-8yGK_yh-CTY.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #009-T-V0VnGG_FI.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #010-IcN-O-cbP80.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #011-hfIJLjO7xss.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #012-XD-Al7-_ezM.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #013-WxwxA5I-pN4.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #014-STmBT9OSNVw.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #015-ClVDRgd29aY.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #016-RjiSEfq4NJY.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #017 - 500 Arguments Against Christianity Aftershow-TVEEgX6NqbE.mp3',
'Open Conversations/Open Conversation #018 - James Fodor, Causation, Craig and more...-Kj3L8L3vXZI.mp3']
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">album</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">folder</span>
<span class="n">artist</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'Digital Gnosis'</span>
<span class="n">artwork</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'Open Converstions Cover.png'</span>
<span class="n">mime</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'image/png'</span>
<span class="c1"># this part has to be done by hand because each </span>
<span class="c1"># person's playlist has a different naming format</span>
<span class="n">titles</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">_</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">replace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Open Conversations/Open Conversation '</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'Open Conversations - Ep '</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">fnames</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">display</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">titles</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>Output:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>['Open Conversations - Ep #001',
'Open Conversations - Ep #002',
'Open Conversations - Ep #003',
'Open Conversations - Ep #004',
'Open Conversations - Ep #005',
'Open Conversations - Ep #006 _ Defining Terms and Open Conversation with JIL',
'Open Conversations - Ep #007',
'Open Conversations - Ep #008- Socially Distanced New Year Open Hangout - PineCreek, Cam, Erin, Autumn, Rob, etc',
'Open Conversations - Ep #009',
'Open Conversations - Ep #010',
'Open Conversations - Ep #011',
'Open Conversations - Ep #012',
'Open Conversations - Ep #013',
'Open Conversations - Ep #014',
'Open Conversations - Ep #015',
'Open Conversations - Ep #016',
'Open Conversations - Ep #017 - 500 Arguments Against Christianity Aftershow',
'Open Conversations - Ep #018 - James Fodor, Causation, Craig and more...']
</code></pre></div>
<p><strong>NOTE:</strong> Having the album name in the track title, followed by " - " and the track name seems to be important for the Books app to get the title and tracks right for some reason.</p>
<h2 id="write-out-the-mp3-meta-data-with-the-mutagen-library">Write out the mp3 meta data with the <a href="https://mutagen.readthedocs.io/en/latest/"><code>mutagen</code></a> library.</h2>
<p>The docs are a bit sparse here, so between the docs and stackoverflow, I pieced together enough to set the titles, album, tracknumber, and album art for each mp3 file.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">mutagen.easyid3</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">EasyID3</span>
<span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">mutagen.id3</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">ID3</span>
<span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">mutagen</span>
<span class="n">write</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span> <span class="c1"># for debugging</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">i</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">name</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">enumerate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">fnames</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">write</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">try</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">meta</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">EasyID3</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">except</span> <span class="n">mutagen</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">id3</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">ID3NoHeaderError</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">meta</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">mutagen</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">File</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">easy</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">meta</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add_tags</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">meta</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">{}</span>
<span class="n">title</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">titles</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">meta</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'album'</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">album</span>
<span class="n">meta</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'title'</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">title</span>
<span class="n">meta</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'artist'</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">artist</span>
<span class="n">meta</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s1">'tracknumber'</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nb">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">meta</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">write</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">meta</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">save</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">file</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ID3</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Load the file</span>
<span class="n">file</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">delall</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"APIC"</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># Delete every APIC tag (Cover art)</span>
<span class="n">imagedata</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">open</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">artwork</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'rb'</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">read</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">file</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">mutagen</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">id3</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">APIC</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">mime</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="s1">'Front cover'</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="n">imagedata</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">file</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">save</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="c1"># Save the file </span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>Then <em>bingo!</em> you can copy the folder of mp3 to the Books app, and all will be well. Now I just have to find time to listen to it all.</p>Stats 101 Examples with MCMC Part 32021-05-13T00:00:00-04:002021-05-13T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-05-13:/posts/2021/May/13/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-3/<p>This is another in the series of "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples solved with MCMC. Others in the series:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">Estimating mean with known 𝜎</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/28/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-2/">Estimating mean with unknown 𝜎</a></li>
</ul>
<p>In all of …</p><p>This is another in the series of "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples solved with MCMC. Others in the series:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">Estimating mean with known 𝜎</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/28/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-2/">Estimating mean with unknown 𝜎</a></li>
</ul>
<p>In all of these posts I'm going to use a python library I make for my science-programming class, <a href="https://github.com/bblais/sci378">stored on github</a>, and the <a href="https://emcee.readthedocs.io/en/stable/">emcee</a> library. Install like:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>pip install "git+git://github.com/bblais/sci378" --upgrade
pip install emcee
</code></pre></div>
<p>In this example the data take the form of a number of "successes", <span class="math">\(h\)</span>, in a total number of "trials", <span class="math">\(N\)</span>, and we want to estimate the proportion, <span class="math">\(\theta\)</span>. This could be the number of heads observed in <span class="math">\(N\)</span> coin flips and we want to estimate the bias in the coin -- what is the probability that it flips heads. In fact, the data I will use below is from <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2683855?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Lindley, 1976. "Inference for a Bernoulli Process (A Bayesian View)"</a>, where he flips a thumbtack which might be able to produce two states pointing "up" or pointing "down", and gets the data UUUDUDUUUUUD (3 D, 9 U).</p>
<h2 id="setting-up-the-problem">Setting up the problem</h2>
<p>For a Bayesian solution, we need to specify the likelihood function -- how our model produces the data -- and the prior probability for the parameters. The likelihood function is determined from the Bernoulli function,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{eqnarray}
P(h|N,\theta) &\sim& \text{Bernoulli}(N,\theta) \\
\end{eqnarray}
$$</div>
<p>In the "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples, the results are typically equivalent to <em>uniform</em> priors on the location parameters. This would translate to
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{eqnarray}
P(\theta) &\sim& \text{Uniform}(0,1)
\end{eqnarray}
$$</div>
<p>However there are cases where we have more information. Even flipping a biased coin, we know that both outcomes (heads and tails) are at least <em>possible</em> to happen. Given this, the probabilities <span class="math">\(P(\theta=0)\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(\theta=1)\)</span> should be zero and a different prior is justified (sidenote -- the maximum entropy solution to this is a Beta(2,2) distribution or, in other words, assume one heads and one tails have been observed before the data). I'll continue with this example with uniform priors, because in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2683855?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Lindley, 1976. "Inference for a Bernoulli Process (A Bayesian View)"</a> he is flipping a particular thumbtack for which it might not be possible for it to, say, flip "down". His data turns out to be 3 down, 9 up, so we know after the data it was possible for both outcomes but not <em>before</em> the data.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">lnlike</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">h</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">data</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">logbernoullipdf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">data</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">12</span>
<span class="n">model</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">MCMCModel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">lnlike</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">θ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Uniform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<h2 id="running-mcmc-looking-at-the-results">Running MCMC, looking at the results</h2>
<p>Now we run MCMC, plot the chains (so we can see it has converged) and look at distributions,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run_mcmc</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">800</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">repeat</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_chains</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>Sampling Prior...
Done.
0.27 s
Running MCMC 1/3...
Done.
2.63 s
Running MCMC 2/3...
Done.
2.79 s
Running MCMC 3/3...
Done.
2.47 s
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/proportion chains.png"></p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_distributions</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/proportion distribution.png"></p>
<p>Is this evidence for a biased coin at, say, 95% level?</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"θ <0.5"</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="mf">0.95485</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>yes, just as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2683855?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Lindley, 1976 presents.</a> </p>
<h2 id="comparing-to-textbook-examples">Comparing to textbook examples</h2>
<p>The textbook only considers large sample proportions, with the definition <span class="math">\(f= h/N\)</span>. From the Beta distribution we get our estimate of the proportion </p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\hat{\theta} &\sim& f \\
\sigma^2 &\sim& \frac{f\cdot (1-f)}{N}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
which matches the equations in the standard textbooks. Comparing to our case, with <span class="math">\(N=120\)</span> we get good agreement,</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/compare proportion N=120.png"></p>
<p>However, we start seeing differences where the textbook treatment isn't as informative as the methods we're using here. For small samples, say <span class="math">\(N=12\)</span>, we see that the textbook approximation breaks down -- especially near the <span class="math">\(f=0\)</span> and <span class="math">\(f=1\)</span> boundaries, sometimes overestimating our certainty and sometimes underestimating it. </p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/compare proportion N=12.png"></p>
<p>Notice, however, that in the current approach we didn't need to change anything to get more robust answers. Also notice that the current process for this problem is identical to the process for all of the other cases we've considered. So what we are presenting, compared to the textbook treatments, is a more <em>unified</em> approach which <em>generalizes</em> to small samples giving a more <em>correct</em> analysis for our data.</p>
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</script>Stats 101 Examples with MCMC Part 22021-04-28T00:00:00-04:002021-04-28T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-04-28:/posts/2021/Apr/28/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc-part-2/<p>This is another in the series of "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples solved with MCMC. The previous in the series <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">can be found here</a>. In all of these posts I'm going to …</p><p>This is another in the series of "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples solved with MCMC. The previous in the series <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">can be found here</a>. In all of these posts I'm going to use a python library I make for my science-programming class, <a href="https://github.com/bblais/sci378">stored on github</a>, and the <a href="https://emcee.readthedocs.io/en/stable/">emcee</a> library. Install like:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>pip install "git+git://github.com/bblais/sci378" --upgrade
pip install emcee
</code></pre></div>
<p>In this example, like <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">the last one</a>, there is some true value, we call <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span>. The <span class="math">\(N\)</span> data points we have, <span class="math">\(\{x_i\}\)</span>, consist of that true value with added independent, normally-distributed noise of <em>unknown</em> scale, <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span>. </p>
<p>For a Bayesian solution, we need to specify the likelihood function -- how our model produces the data -- and the prior probability for the parameters. The likelihood function is determined exactly as before,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{eqnarray}
x_i &\sim& \mu + \epsilon_i \\
P(x_i|\mu,\sigma) &\sim& \text{Normal}(x_i-\mu,\sigma) \\
P(\{x_i\}|\mu,\sigma) &\sim& \prod_i \text{Normal}(x_i-\mu,\sigma)
\end{eqnarray}
$$</div>
<p>
but with <em>unknown</em> scale, <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span>.</p>
<p>In the "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples, the results are typically equivalent to <em>uniform</em> priors on the location parameters, but <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffreys_prior">Jeffreys</a> priors on <em>scale</em> parameters, so we'll assume uniform priors on <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span> and Jeffreys priors on <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span></p>
<h2 id="setting-up-the-problem">Setting up the problem</h2>
<p>In this example, like <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/">the last one</a>, there is some true value, we call <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span>, with normally-distributed noise but this time with unknown scale, <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span>. The likelihood function is determined identically as before, </p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{eqnarray}
x_i &\sim& \mu + \epsilon_i \\
P(x_i|\mu,\sigma) &\sim& \text{Normal}(\mu,\sigma)
\end{eqnarray}
$$</div>
<p>
known <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span></p>
<p>and we'll assume uniform priors on <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span>. The prior for <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span>, which we must now estimate, is taken to be a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffreys_prior">Jeffreys prior</a>. This prior is uniform in <span class="math">\(\log \sigma\)</span> or, in other words, uniform in <em>scale</em>. </p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">lnlike</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">μ</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="c1"># known σ</span>
<span class="n">x</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">data</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">lognormalpdf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">μ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">σ</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">data</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mf">12.0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">14</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">model</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">MCMCModel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">lnlike</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">μ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Uniform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">σ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Jeffreys</span><span class="p">(),</span>
<span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<h2 id="running-mcmc-looking-at-the-results">Running MCMC, looking at the results</h2>
<p>Now we run MCMC, plot the chains (so we can see it has converged) and look at distributions,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run_mcmc</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">800</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">repeat</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_chains</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>Sampling Prior...
Done.
0.27 s
Running MCMC 1/3...
Done.
2.63 s
Running MCMC 2/3...
Done.
2.79 s
Running MCMC 3/3...
Done.
2.47 s
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/μσ chains.png"></p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_distributions</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/μt distribution.png">
<img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/σ distribution.png"></p>
<h2 id="comparing-to-textbook-examples">Comparing to textbook examples</h2>
<p>We compare to textbook solution for <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span> (i.e. Student t-distribution),</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">get_distribution</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'μ'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'-'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">μ̂</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">mean</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">σμ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">std</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">ddof</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">exp</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">logtpdf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">_</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">μ̂</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">σμ</span><span class="p">))</span> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'r--'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/compare μ t.png"></p>
<p>and the textbook solution for <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span> (i.e. Chi-square),</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">get_distribution</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'σ'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">bins</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">800</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'-'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">V</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">((</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">mean</span><span class="p">())</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">sum</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">logp</span><span class="o">=-</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">log</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">V</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span>
<span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">exp</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">logp</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">dx</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">sum</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">dx</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'r--'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlim</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">20</span><span class="p">])</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/compare σ.png"></p>
<h2 id="tail-area-probabilities">Tail-area Probabilities</h2>
<p>We can easily find the tail-area probability, the Bayesian equivalent to Student-t test, for <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span>,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"μ>15"</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="mf">0.037066666666666664</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>and for <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span>, the Bayesian equivalent to Chi-squared test, </p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"σ<1"</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="mf">0.01985</span>
</code></pre></div>
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</script>Stats 101 Examples with MCMC2021-04-15T00:00:00-04:002021-04-15T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-04-15:/posts/2021/Apr/15/stats-101-examples-with-mcmc/<p>I'd like to walk through some of the "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples (e.g. estimating <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span> with known <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span>, estimating a proportion, etc...) for which we have simple analytical solutions, but …</p><script type='text/javascript'>if (!document.getElementById('mathjaxscript_pelican_#%@#$@#')) {
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</script><p>I'd like to walk through some of the "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples (e.g. estimating <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span> with known <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span>, estimating a proportion, etc...) for which we have simple analytical solutions, but explore them with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTUwEu53uzs">MCMC</a>. The reason I want to do this is to introduce MCMC on simple cases, which are not much different than more complicated cases, but are better understood. The second reason is to explore some cases which are nearly as easy, but are never covered in introductory textbooks. In all of these I'm going to use a python library I make for my science-programming class, <a href="https://github.com/bblais/sci378">stored on github</a>, and the <a href="https://emcee.readthedocs.io/en/stable/">emcee</a> library. Install like:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>pip install "git+git://github.com/bblais/sci378" --upgrade
pip install emcee
</code></pre></div>
<p>We'll start with the easiest example: there is some true value, we call <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span>. The <span class="math">\(N\)</span> data points we have, <span class="math">\(\{x_i\}\)</span>, consist of that true value with added independent, normally-distributed noise of <em>known</em> scale, <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span>. </p>
<p>For a Bayesian solution, we need to specify the likelihood function -- how our model produces the data -- and the prior probability for the parameters. The likelihood function is determined like</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{eqnarray}
x_i &\sim& \mu + \epsilon_i \\
P(x_i|\mu,\sigma) &\sim& \text{Normal}(x_i-\mu,\sigma) \\
P(\{x_i\}|\mu,\sigma) &\sim& \prod_i \text{Normal}(x_i-\mu,\sigma)
\end{eqnarray}
$$</div>
<p>
known <span class="math">\(\sigma\)</span></p>
<p>In the "<em>Statistics 101</em>" examples, the results are typically equivalent to <em>uniform</em> priors on the parameters, so we'll assume uniform priors on <span class="math">\(\mu\)</span>. </p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">lnlike</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">μ</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="c1"># known σ</span>
<span class="n">x</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">data</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">lognormalpdf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">μ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">σ</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">data</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mf">12.0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">14</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">σ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">model</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">MCMCModel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">lnlike</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">μ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Uniform</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>now we run MCMC, plot the chains (so we can see it has converged) and look at distributions,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run_mcmc</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">800</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">repeat</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_chains</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>Sampling Prior...
Done.
0.21 s
Running MCMC 1/3...
Done.
2.23 s
Running MCMC 2/3...
Done.
2.24 s
Running MCMC 3/3...
Done.
2.51 s
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/μ chains.png"></p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_distributions</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/μ distribution.png"></p>
<p>compare to textbook solution (i.e. Normal with deviation <span class="math">\(\sigma/\sqrt{N}\)</span>),</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">get_distribution</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'μ'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'-'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">μ̂</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">mean</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">σμ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">σ</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">exp</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">lognormalpdf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">_</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">μ̂</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">σμ</span><span class="p">))</span> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">_</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">y_pred</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'r--'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/compare μ.png"></p>
<p>and finally find a tail-area probability, the Bayesian equivalent to Z-test,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'μ>15'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="mf">0.037066666666666664</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>This simple example can be a template for more complex problems, which I will explore in later posts of this series. What do you think?</p>
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</script>Gravitational Attraction2021-04-09T00:00:00-04:002021-04-09T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-04-09:/posts/2021/Apr/09/gravitational-attraction/<p>What would happen if two people out in space a few meters apart, abandoned by their spacecraft, decided to wait until gravity pulled them together? My initial thought was that …</p><p>What would happen if two people out in space a few meters apart, abandoned by their spacecraft, decided to wait until gravity pulled them together? My initial thought was that it would take a really long time, longer than they would practically be able to wait. The calculation (unless I've done something wrong) seems to indicate otherwise.</p>
<p><img src="https://bblais.github.io/images/two people.png" width=200 align=center></p>
<p>My first approach, which is approximate, is to determine the resulting kinetic energy when they come together and assume (badly) that it was a constant acceleration to determine the time. This will low-ball the time but be easy to calculate. My second approach is to numerically simulate the system in <a href="https://github.com/bblais/pyndamics3">pyndamics3</a>. If I feel like it, I might do the integral later, but after the first approximation I like to look at things numerically (mostly for fun).</p>
<p>Let's make the following assumptions:</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(m_1\)</span> = <span class="math">\(m_2\)</span> = 100 kg</li>
<li><span class="math">\(r_{\rm start}=3 {\rm m}\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(r_{\rm end}=0.5 {\rm m}\)</span></li>
</ul>
<p>then we set up the calculation</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
-G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r_{\rm start}} + 0 &= -G \frac{m_1 m_2}{r_{\rm end}} + \frac{1}{2} m_1 v^2 + \frac{1}{2} m_2 v^2 \\
\frac{1}{2} (100 {\rm kg}+100 {\rm kg}) v^2 &= -6.7\times 10^{-11} \left[\frac{{\rm J}{\rm m}}{{\rm kg}^2}\right]\frac{100 {\rm kg} \cdot 100 {\rm kg}}{3 {\rm m}} - \left( -6.7\times 10^{-11} \left[\frac{{\rm J}{\rm m}}{{\rm kg}^2}\right]\frac{100 {\rm kg} \cdot 100 {\rm kg}}{0.5 {\rm m}}\right)
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">In</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">7</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="n">G</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">6.7e-11</span>
<span class="n">In</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">8</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="n">m1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span>
<span class="n">In</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">9</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="n">m2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span>
<span class="n">In</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="n">r_start</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">3</span>
<span class="n">In</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">11</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="n">r_end</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.5</span>
<span class="n">In</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">12</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="o">-</span><span class="n">G</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m1</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">r_start</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">G</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m1</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">r_end</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">Out</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">12</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="mf">1.1166666666666668e-06</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
\frac{1}{2} (100 {\rm kg}+100 {\rm kg}) v^2 &=& 1.12 \times 10^{-6} {\rm J} \\
v&=&1.1\times 10^{-4} {\rm m}/{\rm s}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">In</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">13</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="n">v</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mf">1.12e-6</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">m1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">m2</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">In</span> <span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">14</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="n">v</span>
<span class="n">Out</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">14</span><span class="p">]:</span> <span class="mf">0.00010583005244258362</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>Assuming a constant acceleration, for each person to travel half of the 2.5 m distance separation, would be</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
\frac{v_{\rm final}}{2} &=& \frac{2.5 {\rm m}}{t} \\
t&=& 45000 {\rm s} = 12 {\rm hr}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>which is much shorter time than I was expecting! </p>
<p>Not being satisfied, I implemented it in [pyndamics3]</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">pyndamics3</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="o">*</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Simulation</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"x1' = v1"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mf">1.5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"x2' = v2"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">1.5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"v1' = G*m1*m2/(x2-x1)**2/m1"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"v2' = -G*m1*m2/(x2-x1)**2/m2"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">params</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">G</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">6.7e-11</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">m1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">m2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">second</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">minute</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">60</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">second</span>
<span class="n">hour</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">60</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">minute</span>
<span class="n">day</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">24</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">hour</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">13</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">hour</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">25</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">minute</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img src="https://bblais.github.io/images/x1x2.png" width=600 align=center></p>
<p>which clearly shows them coming together in around 1/2 of a day, from their own gravity. I guess I have to adjust my intuitions for such situations.</p>
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</script>Fitting parameters in dynamics systems2021-03-22T00:00:00-04:002021-03-22T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-03-22:/posts/2021/Mar/22/fitting-parameters-in-dynamics-systems/<p>A while ago I wrote this little package called <a href="https://github.com/bblais/pyndamics3">pyndamics</a> which was a thin wrapper around the <a href="https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.integrate.odeint.html">scipy odeint</a> function. Since then I migrated it using <a href="https://nbdev.fast.ai">nbdev</a> to experiment with …</p><p>A while ago I wrote this little package called <a href="https://github.com/bblais/pyndamics3">pyndamics</a> which was a thin wrapper around the <a href="https://docs.scipy.org/doc/scipy/reference/generated/scipy.integrate.odeint.html">scipy odeint</a> function. Since then I migrated it using <a href="https://nbdev.fast.ai">nbdev</a> to experiment with using jupyter notebooks as the basis for making packages, yielding <a href="https://github.com/bblais/pyndamics3">pyndamics3</a>. I added MCMC support for parameter fitting fairly early, using PyMC, but changed to <a href="https://emcee.readthedocs.io/en/stable/">emcee</a> to have an all-python implementation. (This past month, after upgrading to Big Sur on my Mac, I've been struggling to even install PyMC3 and pystan due to dependencies but that is another story). </p>
<p>Recently, it struck me that the <a href="https://lmfit.github.io/lmfit-py/">lmfit</a> package might be a straightforward way to add some curve fitting that would work with simpler systems, and take less time than running MCMC. So, now <a href="https://github.com/bblais/pyndamics3">pyndamics3</a> can use <a href="https://lmfit.github.io/lmfit-py/">lmfit</a> as a fitting backend. For example, </p>
<h3 id="fitting-linear-growth">fitting linear growth</h3>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="o">%</span><span class="n">pylab</span> <span class="n">inline</span>
<span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">pyndamics3</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">Simulation</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mi">7</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">14</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">21</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">28</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">35</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">42</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">49</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">56</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">63</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">70</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">77</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">84</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="nb">float</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="mf">17.93</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">36.36</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">67.76</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">98.10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">131</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">169.5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">205.5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">228.3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">247.1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">250.5</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">253.8</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mf">254.5</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Simulation</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"h'=a"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add_data</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">params</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">90</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/unfit_growth.png"></p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">pyndamics3.fit</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">fit</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">Parameter</span>
<span class="n">results</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">fit</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">sim</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">Parameter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'a'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">value</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">min</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">Parameter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'initial_h'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">value</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">min</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">results</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/fit1.jpg"></p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/fit2.png"></p>
<h3 id="or-with-logistic-growth">Or with logistic growth</h3>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Simulation</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"h'=a*h*(1-h/K)"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">add_data</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">plot</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">params</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">K</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">90</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>with </p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">results</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">fit</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">sim</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">Parameter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'a'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">value</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">min</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">Parameter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'K'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">value</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">min</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">400</span><span class="p">),</span>
<span class="n">Parameter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'initial_h'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">value</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">min</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">50</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="n">method</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'powell'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">report_fit</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">results</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">sim</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">run</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">90</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>(notice specifying the method).</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/fit3.png"></p>Bayes vs Apologetics2021-02-28T00:00:00-05:002021-02-28T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2021-02-28:/posts/2021/Feb/28/bayes-vs-apologetics/<p>In this episode, David (the <a href="https://gracefulatheist.com">Graceful Atheist</a> and I explore how Bayes theorem can structure our thinking. We bounce ideas off each other, talk about injecting information into arguments, and …</p><p>In this episode, David (the <a href="https://gracefulatheist.com">Graceful Atheist</a> and I explore how Bayes theorem can structure our thinking. We bounce ideas off each other, talk about injecting information into arguments, and how the lack of imagination in exploring alternatives undermines the case for many apologist arguments. We touch on decision theory and conspiracy theories, reiterating the fact that our beliefs have real-world consequences. </p>
<ul>
<li>On Anchor: https://anchor.fm/gracefulatheist/episodes/Brian-Blais-Bayes-vs-Apologetics-er67c4</li>
<li>On iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/graceful-atheist-podcast/id1456800368?itsct=podcast_box&itscg=30200</li>
</ul>A Simple Physics Problem Gets Messy2020-08-03T00:00:00-04:002020-08-03T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-08-03:/posts/2020/Aug/03/a-simple-physics-problem-gets-messy/<p>A physics problem from a practice AP test came to my attention, when my daughter was in AP physics this past spring. I went over her solutions when she did …</p><p>A physics problem from a practice AP test came to my attention, when my daughter was in AP physics this past spring. I went over her solutions when she did the practice questions so that she would have another resource to explain the concepts involved. Due the new format this year, adjusting to the COVID-19 restrictions, there were <em>only four such practice problems</em> available to work from. Although the four questions were generally pretty good, I thought, <a href="https://youtu.be/L1oIsHMB1RQ?t=1751">the official solution</a> to a quarter of one of the questions was simply incorrect. </p>
<p>It's a good example of how assumptions affect any problem, how a simple problem can get messy quickly, and how one can use computation to explore even a messy version of a physics problem. I was unable to solve the final part analytically because of an assumption <a href="https://youtu.be/L1oIsHMB1RQ?t=1751">the official solution</a> made that was not explicitly stated in the problem. It turned out that this assumption was not physically reasonable, but was necessary in order to actually solve the problem.</p>
<p>The introduction to the problem is given here:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A student is given a spring that does NOT obey Hooke's Law. The student is told that the relationship between the magnitude of the force exerted by the spring and the magnitude of the spring's stretch or compression is given by the function <span class="math">\(F = Bx^3\)</span> . <strong>The student wishes to determine whether this is the correct relationship between <span class="math">\(F\)</span> and <span class="math">\(x\)</span> and, if it is, to determine the value of <span class="math">\(B\)</span>.</strong></p>
<p><img src="https://bblais.github.io/images/AP20/car_table.png" width=400></p>
<p>The student fixes the spring to a vertical wall just above a flat table, as shown above. The student also has a cart of known mass <span class="math">\(M\)</span> that has light wheels and frictionless bearings. The student also has access to a meterstick and a scientific calculator that can perform four functions, exponents and roots, but cannot perform curve fitting or analyze lists of data.</p>
<p>(a) State the measurements that the student should make, and give each measurement a meaningful algebraic symbol.</p>
<p>(b) Describe the procedure that the student should follow in order to make the measurements necessary to accomplish the student's purpose.</p>
<p>(c) Explain how the student should use the measurements in order to accomplish the student's purpose. Explicitly explain how the relationship between <span class="math">\(F\)</span> and <span class="math">\(x\)</span> can be tested and the value of <span class="math">\(B\)</span> determined.</p>
<p>(d) Suppose that the table is not level, so that the cart, upon becoming a projectile, has a sight upward launch angle. How would the true value of <span class="math">\(B\)</span> compare to the value calculated by a student following your procedure and data analysis outlined above?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The official solution to the questions is posted is here: https://youtu.be/L1oIsHMB1RQ?t=1751</p>
<h2 id="determining-b">Determining <span class="math">\(B\)</span></h2>
<blockquote>
<p>(a) State the measurements that the student should make, and give each measurement a meaningful algebraic symbol.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>First I define the quantities, and derive expressions for the constants. I really answer this part</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(x_o\)</span> is the compression length</li>
<li><span class="math">\(M\)</span> is the mass</li>
<li><span class="math">\(v_o\)</span> is the horizontal launch speed off the flat table</li>
</ul>
<div class="math">$$U = \int F(x) dx = \frac{B x_o^4}{4}$$</div>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
\frac{B x_o^4}{4} &= \frac{1}{2} mv_o^2 \\
v_o^2 &= \frac{B x_o^4}{2 m} \\
v_o \cdot t &= R \\
h&= \frac{1}{2} g t^2 \\
t^2 &= \frac{2h}{g} = \frac{R^2}{v_o^2} \\
\frac{R^2 g}{h} &= \frac{B x_o^4}{4}\\
R^2 &= x_o^4\cdot \frac{B\cdot h}{4g}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<div class="math">$$
B = \frac{R^2 g m}{x_o^4 h}
$$</div>
<p>So, varying <span class="math">\(x_o\)</span> and measuring the range, <span class="math">\(R\)</span>, we can determine <span class="math">\(B\)</span>. </p>
<h2 id="from-data-to-b">From data to <span class="math">\(B\)</span></h2>
<blockquote>
<p>(b) Describe the procedure that the student should follow in order to make the measurements necessary to accomplish the student's purpose.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Plotting <span class="math">\(R^2\)</span> vs <span class="math">\(x_o^4\)</span> the slope will be <span class="math">\(B\cdot h/4g\)</span>. Or better yet, plot <span class="math">\(\log(R)\)</span> vs <span class="math">\(\log(x_o)\)</span>. </p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
\frac{R^2 g}{h} &= \frac{B x_o^4}{4} \\
R^2 &= x_o^4\cdot \frac{B\cdot h}{4g} \\
2\log(R) &= 4\log(x_o) + \log\left(\frac{B\cdot h}{4g}\right)
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>so the intercept will be <span class="math">\(\log\left(\frac{B\cdot h}{4g}\right)\)</span>.</p>
<h2 id="verifyingdetermining-the-form-of-the-force">Verifying/Determining the form of the Force</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>(c) Explain how the student should use the measurements in order to accomplish the student's purpose. Explicitly explain how the relationship between <span class="math">\(F\)</span> and <span class="math">\(x\)</span> can be tested and the value of <span class="math">\(B\)</span> determined.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The slope of the line from <span class="math">\(\log(R)\)</span> vs <span class="math">\(\log(x_o)\)</span> will determine the power of the spring energy function. Slope of <span class="math">\(4\)</span> will confirm the <span class="math">\(x^3\)</span> form of the force. </p>
<h2 id="the-ramp-and-the-official-incorrect-solution">The Ramp and the Official (Incorrect) Solution</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>(d) Suppose that the table is not level, so that the cart, upon becoming a projectile, has a sight upward launch angle. How would the true value of <span class="math">\(B\)</span> compare to the value calculated by a student following your procedure and data analysis outlined above?</p>
<p><img src="https://bblais.github.io/images/AP20/car_table_ramp.png" width=400></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is where the official solution goes off the rails. He states that,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If launch angle is a little bit up, the value of the range [<span class="math">\(R\)</span> in my notation, <span class="math">\(D\)</span> in theirs] will be a little bit farther than they ideally would have been, so if you get a farther distance <span class="math">\(R\)</span> than you should have gotten, then you would get a higher <span class="math">\(B\)</span>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hidden in this solution, but one not stated in the problem, is an assumption which we'll discuss later. We continue our solution of the ramp projectile. The range launched from a height <span class="math">\(h\)</span> at an angle <span class="math">\(\theta\)</span> is (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_of_a_projectile),</p>
<div class="math">$$
R_1=\frac{v^2}{2g} \left(1+\sqrt{1+\frac{2gh}{v^2\sin^2(\theta)}}\right)\sin(2\theta)
$$</div>
<p>
this form doesn't look much like the flat-table range, </p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
R_o^2 &= \frac{2 v_o^2 h}{g} \\
R_o &= v_o \cdot \sqrt{\frac{2h}{g}}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
but you can show that they are the same in the limit <span class="math">\(\theta\rightarrow 0\)</span>,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
R_1&=\frac{v^2}{2g} \left(1+\sqrt{1+\frac{2gh}{v^2\sin^2(\theta)}}\right)\sin(2\theta) \\
&\sim \frac{v^2}{2g} \left(1+\sqrt{1+\frac{2gh}{v^2 \theta^2}}\right)\cdot 2\theta \\
&\sim \frac{v^2}{2g} \left(\sqrt{\frac{2gh}{v^2 \theta^2}}\right)\cdot 2\theta \\
&=v \sqrt{\frac{2 h}{g}}
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>
which matches the form of <span class="math">\(R_o\)</span>.</p>
<p>It's not obvious that <span class="math">\(R_1\)</span> is an increasing function of <span class="math">\(\theta\)</span>, as stated in the solution (e.g. angle goes up, the range goes up) but numerically it is easy to demonstrate,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span> <span class="c1"># true value</span>
<span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">1.1</span>
<span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span>
<span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span>
<span class="n">g</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span>
<span class="n">θ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">0.001</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">60</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">U</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">4</span>
<span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">U</span>
<span class="n">v</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ones</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">arcsin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">θ_at_max2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">arcsin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">figure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">6</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max2</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'--'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">lw</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'r'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Range'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$B$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/AP20/output_9_1.png"></p>
<p>As you can see, for small angle, the range increases with angle before decreasing again for steep angles. So far, so good. You wouldn't expect a student on a test to do the next parts, but I wasn't convinced that the assumption made in the solution held in all cases, or that there wasn't some range of parameters for which the simplistic "angle goes up, range goes up" would hold experimentally. So, I continued the analysis in as much deatil as I could.</p>
<h3 id="maximum-angle">Maximum angle</h3>
<p>What is shown in the plot is that above some critical angle, the range starts going down. We expect that, because obviously if you had a ramp of <span class="math">\(\theta=90^\circ\)</span> you'd have no range. But what if that critical angle was somehow small, like <span class="math">\(2^\circ\)</span>? One might miss it experimentally if you were measuring, say, every <span class="math">\(5^\circ\)</span>. But could this ever happen in this simple system? Let's see.</p>
<p>The critical angle that gives the maximum range is determined analytically from,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">sympy</span> <span class="k">as</span> <span class="nn">sym</span>
<span class="n">v</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">x_o</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">symbols</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s2">"v g h θ x_o B m"</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">display</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><span class="math">\(\displaystyle \frac{v^{2} \left(\sqrt{\frac{2 g h}{v^{2} \sin^{2}{\left(θ \right)}} + 1} + 1\right) \sin{\left(2 θ \right)}}{2 g}\)</span></p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">df</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">diff</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">soln</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">solve</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">simplify</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">df</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">soln</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>[-asin(sqrt(2)*v*sqrt(1/(g*h + v**2))/2),
asin(sqrt(2)*v*sqrt(1/(g*h + v**2))/2)]
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">sin_θ_at_max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span>
<span class="n">display</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">sin_θ_at_max</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><span class="math">\(\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2} v \sqrt{\frac{1}{g h + v^{2}}}}{2}\)</span></p>
<p>The slope near <span class="math">\(\theta=0\)</span> is positive, as can be derived by </p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{dR_1}{d\theta}=- \frac{h \sin{\left(2 θ \right)} \cos{\left(θ \right)}}{\sqrt{\frac{2 g h}{v^{2} \sin^{2}{\left(θ \right)}} + 1} \sin^{3}{\left(θ \right)}} + \frac{v^{2} \left(\sqrt{\frac{2 g h}{v^{2} \sin^{2}{\left(θ \right)}} + 1} + 1\right) \cos{\left(2 θ \right)}}{g}
$$</div>
<p>Applying small angle approximation for the trigonometric functions (e.g. <span class="math">\(\sin\theta\sim \theta\)</span>, <span class="math">\(\cos\theta \sim 1\)</span>) we get</p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{dR_1}{d\theta}=\frac{v^{2}}{g}
$$</div>
<p>
which is positive. Checking that this works numerically as well,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span> <span class="c1"># true value</span>
<span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">1.1</span>
<span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span>
<span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span>
<span class="n">g</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span>
<span class="n">θ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">0.001</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">60</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">U</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">4</span>
<span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">U</span>
<span class="n">v</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ones</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">arcsin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">θ_at_max2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">arcsin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">figure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">6</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">x</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">30</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span>
<span class="n">b</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">y</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">b</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">30</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'c--'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'Small Angle Approx'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max2</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'--'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">lw</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'r'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Range'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$B$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/AP20/output_16_1.png"></p>
<p>Given the symmetry, the point where the range starts decreasing with angle is at twice this angle. Subsituting in the launch speed for the flat table, <span class="math">\(v_o^2 = \frac{B x_o^4}{2 m}\)</span>, we get something interesting.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">sin_θ_at_max</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">subs</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">sym</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x_o</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">simplify</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><span class="math">\(\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2} v \sqrt{\frac{1}{g h + v^{2}}}}{2}\)</span></p>
<p>yielding,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\sin \theta_{\rm max} = \frac{1}{\sqrt{2} \sqrt{1 + \frac{2 g h m}{B x_{o}^{4}}}}
$$</div>
<p>the point here is that, while technically true that the range is an increasing function of <span class="math">\(\theta\)</span> for small <span class="math">\(\theta\)</span>, the turning point can be made arbitrarily small in certain parameter regions (e.g. small <span class="math">\(B\)</span>, small <span class="math">\(x_o\)</span>, large <span class="math">\(m\)</span>, etc...). For instance,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span> <span class="c1"># true value</span>
<span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span>
<span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span>
<span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span>
<span class="n">g</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span>
<span class="n">θ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">0.001</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">U</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">4</span>
<span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">U</span>
<span class="n">v</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ones</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">arcsin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">θ_at_max2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">arcsin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">figure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">6</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">x</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">30</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span>
<span class="n">b</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">y</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">b</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">[:</span><span class="mi">30</span><span class="p">],</span><span class="n">y</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="s1">'c--'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'Small Angle Approx'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max2</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'--'</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">lw</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'r'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Range'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$B$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/AP20/output_22_1.png"></p>
<p>So the claim that "range increases with angle" could be missed experimentally if the turning point is smaller than the ramp angle. To the person making the measurement, the range would <em>decrease</em> with angle. Still, technically, that claim is true...assuming the same launch speed. </p>
<h2 id="the-primary-assumption">The primary assumption</h2>
<p>This brings us to the real problem with the given solution: <strong>the launch speed for the ramp case is not the same as the flat case</strong>. The spring gives the same amount to the kinetic energy, but it does so by <em>having the block move up the ramp</em> as the spring expands. Thus, the total kinetic energy of the block upon launch depends on the angle,</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
U&= \frac{B x_o^4}{4} \\
{\rm KE}_{\rm flat} &= U \\
{\rm KE}_{\rm ramp} &= U - mgx_o\sin(\theta)
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>This leads to a range equation like the one above for <span class="math">\(R_1\)</span>, but with an angle-dependent speed. We'll call this range <span class="math">\(R_2\)</span>.</p>
<p>(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_of_a_projectile),</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{aligned}
R_1&=\frac{v^2}{2g} \left(1+\sqrt{1+\frac{2gh}{v^2\sin^2(\theta)}}\right)\sin(2\theta)\\
R_2&=\frac{v_o^2-2 g x_o\sin \theta}{2g} \left(1+\sqrt{1+\frac{2gh}{\left(v_o^2-2 g x_o\sin \theta\right)\sin^2(\theta)}}\right)\sin(2\theta)
\end{aligned}
$$</div>
<p>which is a whole lot messier, and the slope is difficult to attain analytically. Numerically however, it is easy to see the effect. Depending on the parameters, <strong>the range could increase or decrease with angle</strong>. </p>
<p>Here's an example with increasing with angle.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span> <span class="c1"># true value</span>
<span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">1.1</span>
<span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span>
<span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span>
<span class="n">g</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span>
<span class="n">θ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">0.001</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">60</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">U</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">4</span>
<span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">U</span>
<span class="n">v</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">v_o</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span>
<span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ones</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">arcsin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">U</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">v</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">R2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">B_est2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R2</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">figure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">6</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp no speed reduction'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp with speed reduction'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Range'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp no speed reduction'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp with speed reduction'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">vlines</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">degrees</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ_at_max</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ylim</span><span class="p">(),</span><span class="n">ls</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">':'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$B$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/AP20/output_26_1.png"></p>
<p>Here's an example with decreasing with angle.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">2</span> <span class="c1"># true value</span>
<span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">.4</span>
<span class="n">m</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span>
<span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">20</span>
<span class="n">g</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span>
<span class="n">θ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">0.001</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">U</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">B</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">4</span>
<span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">U</span>
<span class="n">v</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">ones</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">U</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">v</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">KE</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">R2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">sqrt</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">v</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">sin</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">radians</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">B_est2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">R2</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">g</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">m</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">x0</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">4</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">figure</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">figsize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">16</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">6</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp no speed reduction'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp with speed reduction'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Range'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">subplot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'No Ramp'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp no speed reduction'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">θ</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">B_est2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">label</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s1">'With Ramp with speed reduction'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">ylabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'$B$'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">xlabel</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Angle'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">legend</span><span class="p">()</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p><img alt="png" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/AP20/output_29_1.png"></p>
<h2 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h2>
<p>This problem was a very nice problem for the AP test until the last section. A hidden assumption -- that the launch speed is unaffected by the ramp -- would have made it much better and avoided any possible complications. However it's not a great assumption given the way the table and block are set up -- there is definitely a gravitational component to energy picked up along the ramp. Without this simplifying assumption the effect is much more complicated. </p>
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</script>Skepticism and Dubious Medical Procedures2020-07-09T00:00:00-04:002020-07-09T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-07-09:/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/<p>In my discussion with Jonathan McLatchie on the Still Unbelievable podcast, I said that there hasn’t been a verified miracle claim even since Hume’s essay on miracles. Here I look into the papers he references in response.</p><p>In my <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/May/29/jonathan-and-brian-in-conversation/">discussion with Jonathan McLatchie on the Still Unbelievable podcast</a>, I said that there hasn’t been a verified miracle claim even since Hume’s essay on miracles. Jonathan then told me two: </p>
<ul>
<li>“Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer”, Clarissa Romez, Kenn Freedman, David Zaritzky, Joshua W. Brown. <em>Explore</em>. Available online 28 February 2020 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550830720300926</li>
<li>“Case Report of gastroparesis healing: 16 years of a chronic syndrome resolved after proximal intercessory prayer”,Clarissa Romeza, David Zaritzky, Joshua W. Brown. <em>Complementary Therapies in Medicine</em>. Volume 43, April 2019, Pages 289-294. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965229918313116 </li>
</ul>
<p>And when I looked at this, I kept finding those two and a third, </p>
<ul>
<li>“Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Proximal Intercessory Prayer (STEPP) on Auditory and Visual Impairments in Rural Mozambique”, Candy Gunther Brown, Stephen C Mory, Rebecca Williams, Michael J McClymond. <em>South Med J</em>. 2010 Sep;103(9):864-9 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20686441/</li>
</ul>
<p>These three kept popping up again and again. The journals have dubious standards, and the authors work for the same institution (https://www.globalmri.org/about). On their website there is the following request: “We’re always looking for new testimonies. Do you have a testimony that is medically verified?”. Could you imagine a similar claim written about, say, a homeopathic remedy for cancer? If you took our remedy, and improved, we want to hear from you. Otherwise, not. Regardless of the contents of the specific studies, this sort of fishing for positive results is thoroughly unscientific and casts significant doubt on any results from this institution.</p>
<p>My suspicions were confirmed going to http://sciencebasedmedicine.org (a great resource) where they have an article about the 3rd study in the list above: https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/proximal-intercessory-prayer/ Bottom line, this study has numerous, basic scientific problems with it and the results cannot be trusted. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I find that argument that a deity is better able to heal when the person asking them to do so is physically close to the person they are praying for absurd, lame, and convenient. It is a nice excuse to unblind the protocol, and nothing else – a way of generating false-positive results.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So the process for collecting subjects used by these authors and supported by their institution, in addition to their experimental design, is constructed with the sole purpose of bypassing the methods of science. I was particularly surprised when I dug into the first study, went into their supplemental information, and saw a nice timeline of events (<strong>emphasis mine</strong>):</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>[…]</li>
<li>June 14 1960 Complete Neurological Examination Completely normal except for macular degeneration “cause undetermined”</li>
<li>1971 Examination confirms “ legal blindness” Recording of Visual Acuities - are consistent with legal blindness. No glasses recommended. Degeneration and scaring (sic) of macula in both eyes </li>
<li>1971-1974 Record of a series of Visual Acuities Visual Acuities consistent with legal blindness until record of 1974 </li>
<li>1/29/71 Visual Acuity Right Eye- Finger Count Left Eye - Hand motion- All without glasses</li>
<li>1-18-72 Right Eye - Hand Motion, Left Eye - Hand Motion </li>
<li>6-14-74 Right Eye - 20/100-1 Left Eye - 20/100-2 All (above) without glasses</li>
<li>1972 Learned to use a cane and read braille. Blind Services: orientation and mobility skills and braille reading </li>
<li>02/18/1972-05/18/1972: Patient reports going through a Training Center to learn to walk with a cane and read braille. </li>
<li><strong>1972 August Vision restored through PIP </strong></li>
<li><strong>October 4, 2001 Complete Eye Examination</strong> VA 20/40 OD, 20/40-2 OS Corrected VA 20/40 OU None recorded Visual Acuity 20/40, 20/40-2. Glasses -0.25 OD, -0.50 OS Normal eye exam except for evidence of dry eye early cataract changes. Optic nerves and maculae recorded as normal but also states + RPE dropout in macula OU.</li>
<li>October 16, 2001 Return Visit. Treatment for Dry Eyes Provided</li>
<li>October 3, 2012. Cataract surgery of right eye</li>
<li>Etc…</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>So, the time between the prayer and the eye exam is…29 years! This is “instantaneous resolution”? Essentially, we’re taking this patient's word that their eyesight improved after prayer, but the authors (or anyone else) didn’t bother to test it for nearly 30 years. This level of incompetence, poor design, and digging for positive results is staggering. This is not the way one confirms medical claims.</p>
<p>The second study seems at least a bit better, but with no controls, and knowing that the authors have a history of ludicrously bad design leaves me unconvinced. </p>
<p>What I have tried to convey here is the process for investigating claims. You look at the originals, you examine methods and possible ways the authors could have (deliberately or not) biased the results. This is why we have blinding processes for medical experiments, and controls. Otherwise you can always fall victim to false positives and rare one-off events. We know that medical conditions can mysteriously improve (biology is complex and not entirely understood), so if you want to show your method of treatment actually works you do need to follow reasonable, skeptical procedures established by science. It's certainly hard to do this, takes more time and work, but there is good reason why we trust science. The lazy procedures of these authors -- including a self-proclaimed fishing for positive results -- is at best a cop-out and at worst a dishonest attempt to peddle bogus treatments.</p>Something Satisfying About Building Pelican Themes2020-07-03T00:00:00-04:002020-07-03T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-07-03:/posts/2020/Jul/03/something-satisfying-about-building-pelican-themes/<p><a href="https://docs.getpelican.com/en/stable/">Pelican is a Python package</a> for developing static websites. I started out my blog with Wordpress and then toyed with Wix and Weebly. But I found I didn't like the …</p><p><a href="https://docs.getpelican.com/en/stable/">Pelican is a Python package</a> for developing static websites. I started out my blog with Wordpress and then toyed with Wix and Weebly. But I found I didn't like the idea of a company holding my content -- if that company suddenly started to charge for the services, or disappeared altogether I didn't want my information caught in the middle. I also liked the control that a static site builder, like <a href="https://docs.getpelican.com/en/stable/">Pelican</a> gives you. Finally, I like working in <a href="https://www.markdownguide.org/basic-syntax">Markdown</a> for my blog content (and most of my other content as well).</p>
<p>There are a lot of <a href="http://pelicanthemes.com">themes for Pelican</a> to choose from, and although I have <a href="https://elegant.oncrashreboot.com">used some before</a> I find them looking a little dated. So for the past few designs of this website what I've done is head over to <a href="https://colorlib.com/wp/templates/">Colorlibs Free Web Templates</a> and find a template that looks good, like <a href="https://colorlib.com/wp/template/elen/">Elen</a>, <a href="https://colorlib.com/wp/template/miniblog/">Miniblog</a>, or <a href="https://colorlib.com/wp/template/philosophy/">Philosophy</a>. For good measure, get a pelican theme to help with comparisons, something like <a href="https://github.com/kdeldycke/plumage">Plummage</a>. Make sure to have the <a href="https://docs.getpelican.com/en/latest/themes.html">Creating Pelican Themes</a> site handy! After that, it's pretty straightforward to port the web template over to a pelican theme -- but I still do a lot of trial and error! </p>
<p>I think the satisfying parts of the developing a Pelican theme is to see years of articles instantly look like new. For example, in the <a href="https://colorlib.com/wp/template/philosophy/">Philosophy</a> template <code>index.html</code> there is this snippet which presents the summary of a blog article,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">article</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"masonry__brick entry format-standard"</span> <span class="na">data-aos</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"fade-up"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__thumb"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"single-standard.html"</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__thumb-link"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">img</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"images/thumbs/masonry/lamp-400.jpg"</span>
<span class="na">srcset</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"images/thumbs/masonry/lamp-400.jpg 1x, images/thumbs/masonry/lamp-800.jpg 2x"</span> <span class="na">alt</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">""</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__text"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__header"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__date"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"single-standard.html"</span><span class="p">></span>December 15, 2017<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">h1</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__title"</span><span class="p">><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"single-standard.html"</span><span class="p">></span>Just a Standard Format Post.<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">h1</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__excerpt"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">p</span><span class="p">></span>
Lorem ipsum Sed eiusmod esse aliqua sed incididunt aliqua incididunt mollit id et sit proident dolor nulla sed commodo est ad minim elit reprehenderit nisi officia aute incididunt velit sint in aliqua...
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">p</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__meta"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">span</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__meta-links"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"category.html"</span><span class="p">></span>Design<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"category.html"</span><span class="p">></span>Photography<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">span</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">article</span><span class="p">></span> <span class="cm"><!-- end article --></span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>This is repeated once for many different articles, making for a long <code>index.html</code> file. In the pelican theme, the <code>index.html</code> loops over all of the articles and generates this long list using <a href="https://jinja.palletsprojects.com/en/2.11.x/">Jinja</a> syntax,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>{% for article in articles_page.object_list %}
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">article</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"masonry__brick entry format-standard"</span> <span class="na">data-aos</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"fade-up"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__thumb"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/{{ article.url }}"</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__thumb-link"</span><span class="p">></span>
{% if article.image %}
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">img</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/images/{{ article.image }}"</span><span class="p">></span>
{% else %}
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">img</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/images/default.png"</span><span class="p">></span>
{% endif %}
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__text"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__header"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__date"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/{{ article.url }}"</span><span class="p">></span>{{ article.locale_date }}<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">h1</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__title"</span><span class="p">><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/{{ article.url }}"</span><span class="p">></span>{{ article.title }} {%if article.subtitle %} <span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">small</span><span class="p">></span> {{ article.subtitle }} <span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">small</span><span class="p">></span> {% endif %} <span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">h1</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__excerpt"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">p</span><span class="p">></span>
{{ article.summary}}
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">p</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__meta"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">span</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"entry__meta-links"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/{{ article.category.url }}"</span><span class="p">></span>{{ article.category }}<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">span</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">article</span><span class="p">></span> <span class="cm"><!-- end article --></span>
{% endfor %}
</code></pre></div>
<p>Notice the injection of Python here: </p>
<ul>
<li>a loop to generate the html</li>
<li>variables, like <code>article.date</code> and <code>article.category</code>, to put in article-specific information</li>
<li>if-statements to include option content, like subtitles</li>
<li>if-statements to include default behavior, in case no image is given for example</li>
</ul>
<p>This provides a level of control that is hard to match. </p>
<p>To make the theme, as shown in the docs, you need to just make the following files</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">static</span>
<span class="w"> </span>│<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">css</span>
<span class="w"> </span>│<span class="w"> </span>└──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">images</span>
<span class="w"> </span>└──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">templates</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">archives</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">to</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">display</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">archives</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">period_archives</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">to</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">display</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">time</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="nv">period</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">archives</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">article</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">processed</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">for</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">each</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">article</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">author</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">processed</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">for</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">each</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">author</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">authors</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">must</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">list</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">all</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">the</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">authors</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">categories</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">must</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">list</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">all</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">the</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">categories</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">category</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">processed</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">for</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">each</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">category</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">index</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">the</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">index</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="ss">(</span><span class="nv">list</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">all</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">the</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">articles</span><span class="ss">)</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">page</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">processed</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">for</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">each</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">page</span>
<span class="w"> </span>├──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">tag</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">processed</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">for</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">each</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">tag</span>
<span class="w"> </span>└──<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">tags</span>.<span class="nv">html</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">//</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">must</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">list</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">all</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">the</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">tags</span>.<span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">Can</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">be</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">a</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">tag</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nv">cloud</span>.
</code></pre></div>
<p>Starting from the free web template, I break off the parts that are included in all of the files and put it in <code>base.html</code>, copying the <a href="https://jinja.palletsprojects.com/en/2.11.x/">Jinja</a> parts from a pelican theme. Like,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="cp"><!DOCTYPE html></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">html</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"no-js"</span> <span class="na">lang</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"en"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">head</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="cm"><!--- basic page needs</span>
<span class="cm"> ================================================== --></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">meta</span> <span class="na">charset</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"utf-8"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">title</span><span class="p">></span>{% block title %}{{ SITENAME|striptags }}{% endblock title %}<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">title</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">meta</span> <span class="na">name</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"description"</span> <span class="na">content</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">""</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">meta</span> <span class="na">name</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"author"</span> <span class="na">content</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"Brian Blais"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="cm"><!-- mobile specific metas</span>
<span class="cm"> ================================================== --></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">meta</span> <span class="na">name</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"viewport"</span> <span class="na">content</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1"</span><span class="p">></span>
{% block head_links %}
<span class="cm"><!-- CSS</span>
<span class="cm"> ================================================== --></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">link</span> <span class="na">rel</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"stylesheet"</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/theme/css/base.css"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">link</span> <span class="na">rel</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"stylesheet"</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/theme/css/vendor.css"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">link</span> <span class="na">rel</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"stylesheet"</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/theme/css/main.css"</span><span class="p">></span>
{% block extra_css %}{% endblock %}
<span class="cm"><!-- favicons</span>
<span class="cm"> ================================================== --></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">link</span> <span class="na">rel</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"shortcut icon"</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/favicon.ico"</span> <span class="na">type</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"image/x-icon"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">link</span> <span class="na">rel</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"icon"</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/favicon.ico"</span> <span class="na">type</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"image/x-icon"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="cm"><!-- script</span>
<span class="cm"> ================================================== --></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">script</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/theme/js/modernizr.js"</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">script</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/theme/js/pace.min.js"</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">></span>
{% endblock head_links %}
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">head</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">body</span> <span class="na">id</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"top"</span><span class="p">></span>
{% include 'header.html' %}
{% block content %}
{% endblock content %}
{% include 'footer.html' %}
<span class="cm"><!-- preloader</span>
<span class="cm"> ================================================== --></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">id</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"preloader"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">id</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"loader"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"line-scale"</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">></span>
{% block script %}
<span class="cm"><!-- Java Script</span>
<span class="cm"> ================================================== --></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">script</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/theme/js/jquery-3.2.1.min.js"</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">script</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/theme/js/plugins.js"</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"><</span><span class="nt">script</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"{{ SITEURL }}/theme/js/main.js"</span><span class="p">></</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">></span>
{% block extra_js %}{% endblock %}
{% endblock script %}
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">body</span><span class="p">></span>
<span class="p"></</span><span class="nt">html</span><span class="p">></span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>which you can compare to the first and last parts of the <code>index.html</code> of the <a href="https://colorlib.com/wp/template/philosophy/">Philosophy</a> template. </p>
<p>It took me about a week to iron out most of the nits to get the final version, but the process was just fun. There is something really satisfying about constructing something like a website by scripting. Every time I learn something new. One thing was to include <code>{% block extra_css %}{% endblock %}</code> and <code>{% block extra_js %}{% endblock %}</code> allowing some of the pages to include specific css and js files, which was instrumental in getting the tipue search working. </p>
<p>Questions about my process? Or any other part of this project, please <a href="http://bblais.github.io/contact.html">contact me</a>!</p>Talking Bayes2020-06-28T00:00:00-04:002020-06-28T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-06-28:/posts/2020/Jun/28/talking-bayes/<p>In this episode, Andrew and Matthew invite me back to talk about Bayes, what it is and how to apply it. We explore the structure of Bayes, when it can …</p><p>In this episode, Andrew and Matthew invite me back to talk about Bayes, what it is and how to apply it. We explore the structure of Bayes, when it can be used in non-quantitative applications, and why it is so important. We cover the Monty Hall problem, the medical testing problem, the connection to Occam's Razor, and other topics.</p>
<ul>
<li>On Anchor: https://anchor.fm/reasonpress/episodes/Episode-9---Talking-Bayes-ef2h3g</li>
<li>On iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-9-talking-bayes/id1436336109?i=1000479987757</li>
</ul>Jonathan and Brian in conversation2020-05-29T00:00:00-04:002020-05-29T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-05-29:/posts/2020/May/29/jonathan-and-brian-in-conversation/<p>Matthew hosts a conversation between myself and Jonathan McLatchie to further the conversation on why Jonathan is confident that the resurrection of Jesus can be accepted as an historical event …</p><p>Matthew hosts a conversation between myself and Jonathan McLatchie to further the conversation on why Jonathan is confident that the resurrection of Jesus can be accepted as an historical event. The conversation goes beyond that and touches on the question of whether we should be accepting of personal testimony for strange single occurrence events as well as a bit of biology. One of my followups on <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2020/Jul/09/skepticism-and-dubious-medical-procedures/">suspect medical procedures mentioned by Jonathan McLatchie is here</a>.</p>
<p>This podcast episode can be obtained at</p>
<ul>
<li>On Anchor: https://anchor.fm/still-unbelievable/episodes/Episode-28---Jonathan-and-Brian-in-conversation-eedl4q</li>
<li>On iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-28-jonathan-and-brian-in-conversation/id1448210557?i=1000476191643</li>
<li>On John McLatchie's YouTube, where I engage with some of the commenters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBV5ybuo448</li>
</ul>Advocating for Bayesian Inference2020-05-18T00:00:00-04:002020-05-18T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-05-18:/posts/2020/May/18/advocating-for-bayesian-inference/<p>In this episode I discuss my approach to teaching statistical inference including taking the Bayesian approach first instead of delegating it to an advanced or elective topic. We talk about …</p><p>In this episode I discuss my approach to teaching statistical inference including taking the Bayesian approach first instead of delegating it to an advanced or elective topic. We talk about the Bayesian vs Frequentist debate, how to navigate the disconnect between them, and the role of imagination when discovering truth.</p>
<p>This podcast episode can be obtained at</p>
<ul>
<li>On the Local Maximum Website: https://www.localmaxradio.com/episode/119</li>
<li>On iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-119-advocating-for-bayesian-inference-with-brian-blais/id1344107244?i=1000475030345</li>
</ul>Common Python Pattern - Building Up Lists To Plot2020-02-24T00:00:00-05:002020-02-24T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-02-24:/posts/2020/Feb/24/common-python-pattern-building-up-lists-to-plot/<p>I find that a common pattern I implement again and again in Python is to build up a list (or multiple lists) in a loop and turn them into arrays …</p><p>I find that a common pattern I implement again and again in Python is to build up a list (or multiple lists) in a loop and turn them into arrays at the end for plotting or further calculating. An example that stores 4 lists of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidemiology#The_SIR_model">SIR compartmental model</a> would look like,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span>
<span class="n">I</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">R</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">β</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span>
<span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span>
<span class="n">dt</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span>
<span class="n">t_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">S_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">I_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">R_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">R</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">t</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">arange</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">dt</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">dS</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">β</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dt</span>
<span class="n">dI</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">β</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">I</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dt</span>
<span class="n">dR</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dt</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">dS</span>
<span class="n">I</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">dI</span>
<span class="n">R</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">dR</span>
<span class="n">t_arr</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">S_arr</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">I_arr</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">R_arr</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">R</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t_arr</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">S_arr</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">I_arr</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">R_arr</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>Notice the repetition. I get the same pattern running through the values of a parameter, calculating a result, but then wanting to make a plot of the result vs the parameter. For the loop I have to seemingly choose between,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">param</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">result</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">some_calculation</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>Or</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span>
<span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">param</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">result</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">some_calculation</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>Or</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">zeros</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">i</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">param</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">enumerate</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">result</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">some_calculation</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">result</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param_arr</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">result_arr</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>The first two solutions seem to have a lot of repetition, and two variables for every one I want to save. The last one seems a bit ugly, and forces me to remember to have an index variable (enumerate or counter), and won't work if I don't know the sizes ahead of time. I’d love to know if there is a standard solution to this common pattern. Here’s one that I came up with, which I don’t think it optimum but at least solves the immediate problem. Defining a Storage class,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="k">class</span> <span class="nc">Storage</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">object</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">def</span> <span class="fm">__init__</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span>
<span class="k">def</span> <span class="fm">__add__</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">other</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">s</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">s</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">other</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">s</span>
<span class="k">def</span> <span class="fm">__iadd__</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">other</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">other</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="bp">self</span>
<span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">args</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="ow">not</span> <span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">arg</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">args</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="n">arg</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">d</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">a</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">zip</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">args</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">d</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">a</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">arrays</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">i</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">range</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)):</span>
<span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">i</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">ret</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">tuple</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">ret</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">ret</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">ret</span>
<span class="k">def</span> <span class="nf">__array__</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">numpy</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">vstack</span>
<span class="k">return</span> <span class="n">vstack</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="bp">self</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">arrays</span><span class="p">())</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>I can rewrite the above SIR model with </p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">t</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">100</span>
<span class="n">I</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="n">R</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">β</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span>
<span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span>
<span class="n">dt</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.01</span>
<span class="n">data</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">data</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">t</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">arange</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">10</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">dt</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">dS</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">β</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dt</span>
<span class="n">dI</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">β</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">I</span> <span class="o">-</span> <span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dt</span>
<span class="n">dR</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">γ</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dt</span>
<span class="n">S</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">dS</span>
<span class="n">I</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">dI</span>
<span class="n">R</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="n">dR</span>
<span class="n">data</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">R</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">S</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">t</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">I</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>And the parameter exploration example with,</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">data</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">Storage</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">param</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">100</span><span class="p">):</span>
<span class="n">result</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">some_calculation</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">data</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">param</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">plot</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">param</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">result</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>What do you think?</p>What is Panpsychism?2020-02-16T00:00:00-05:002020-02-16T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-02-16:/posts/2020/Feb/16/what-is-panpsychism/<p>In this episode, Andrew and Matthew invite myself and Prof. Philip Goff to discuss Panpsychism. What is it, why should we take it seriously and can we test it? I …</p><p>In this episode, Andrew and Matthew invite myself and Prof. Philip Goff to discuss Panpsychism. What is it, why should we take it seriously and can we test it? I explore some of the ideas in consciousness, and the contrast between philosophy and science.</p>
<p>This podcast episode can be obtained at</p>
<ul>
<li>On Anchor: https://anchor.fm/reasonpress/episodes/Episode-3---What-is-Panpsychism-eas6bfEpisode-13-Why-Christian-Apologetics-is-Faulty-Science-and-Faulty-History-e42ldg</li>
<li>On iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-3-what-is-panpsychism/id1436336109?i=1000465737651</li>
</ul>
<p>Useful Links</p>
<ul>
<li>Philip Goff's book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Galileos-Error-Foundations-Science-Consciousness/dp/1846046017/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=77634469403&gclid=Cj0KCQiA7aPyBRChARIsAJfWCgLkkgADn_iSNknjEg_cvafIwV9kjwUeFoFojGJPAfLQMkoVTek9cCIaAsFDEALw_wcB&hvadid=381611807008&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9045659&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=b&hvrand=4363389538117231407&hvtargid=kwd-716842592764&hydadcr=5055_1827803&keywords=galileos+error&qid=1581853245&sr=8-1</li>
<li>Some notes from me responding to Philip's 'black and white Mary' thought experience: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2crwv2jcv0b33hr/Response%20to%20Goff%20on%20Black%20and%20White%20Mary.pdf?dl=0 </li>
</ul>Becoming Superman - a review2020-01-07T00:00:00-05:002020-01-07T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2020-01-07:/posts/2020/Jan/07/becoming-superman-a-review/<p>I find it hard to overestimate the positive effect <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Straczynski">J. Michael Straczynski</a> (or <a href="http://www.jmsnews.com/">jms</a>) has had on me. My first introduction to him was in the TV series <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5">Babylon 5 …</a></p><p>I find it hard to overestimate the positive effect <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Straczynski">J. Michael Straczynski</a> (or <a href="http://www.jmsnews.com/">jms</a>) has had on me. My first introduction to him was in the TV series <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5">Babylon 5</a> in the 1990's while I was in graduate school. The series connected with me on many levels including the attention to correct physics, story telling with actual consequences for the characters, a respect for multiple philosophies of life, and a planned story arc (decades before Game of Thrones). In his own words, "As much as B5 was about exploration , wars, and the rise and fall of empires, at its center were issues of personal choice, the consequences that result from those choices, and our willingness to accept responsibility for those consequences." Since then I have followed him through World War Z, Thor, and Sense 8 as well as his excellent Screenwriting book but Babylon 5 is something I keep returning to. It's like returning home.</p>
<p>Reading his autobiography, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Superman-Journey-Poverty-Hollywood/dp/0062857843">Becoming Superman</a>, I was again struck by the life lessons he communicates through his personal story. If there was a person set up to be a total failure it would be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Michael_Straczynski">J. Michael Straczynski</a>. His description of his childhood reads like a manual for how to <em>not</em> raise children. Each time the reader thinks it can't get any worse --- it does. It was was Straczynski's single-minded pursuit to be the <em>opposite</em> of his parents and be more like Superman that saved him from an almost inevitable disaster. Through his example, jms communicates clear positive messages. Be true to yourself, communicate only truth to others, stand up for the misfortunes of anyone, never compromise your principles even at personal expense and realize that you can choose differently than your past might set you up for. </p>
<p>I can't recommend this book more. It reads as a mystery novel, an inspirational self-help book, and a devotional reading to the process of writing and life all rolled into one. </p>Probability of the Resurrection2019-09-03T00:00:00-04:002019-09-03T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-09-03:/posts/2019/Sep/03/probability-of-the-resurrection/<p>In a recent discussion about the use of probability in a religious context I saw another poor job of a calculation of the Resurrection (I had read several others that …</p><p>In a recent discussion about the use of probability in a religious context I saw another poor job of a calculation of the Resurrection (I had read several others that had serious problems). I then felt that it would be good to sketch out how it <em>should</em> be done. The goal here is not to come up with a single number, but to have a structure which invites discussion. </p>
<h2 id="a-smaller-problem">A smaller problem</h2>
<p>We are restricting the problem to the smallest possible case to most easily see the form that the calculation takes when done properly. The problem is </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A friend of yours flipped a coin three times and got heads three times in a row. Would this be good evidence for your friend having a coin with two heads compared to, say, a typical coin with 1 heads and 1 tails? Here we have 2 models (<span class="math">\(M_1\)</span>, say, is for the 1-headed coin model and <span class="math">\(M_2\)</span> is for the 2-headed coin model), and some observed data (heads, heads, heads in 3 flips).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We want to know the probability of each of the models given the data. In math notation we use the vertical bar,<span class="math">\(|\)</span>, as the symbol for "given". The "data" is summarized as "H H H" for three observed heads flips. So we want to obtain,
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(M_1 | \text{H H H}) \text{ and } P(M_2 | \text{H H H})
$$</div>
<p>
following Bayes theorem, we write the top of Bayes equation as
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(M_1 | \text{H H H}) \sim P(\text{H H H}| M_1) \times P(M_1)
$$</div>
<p>
and
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(M_2 | \text{H H H}) \sim P(\text{H H H}| M_2) \times P(M_2)
$$</div>
<p>
Before continuing, let me point out a few things. First, I'm not using equals here, but the <span class="math">\(\sim\)</span> sign to denote that I'm writing just the top part of the equation first. I'll add these two things up to get the bottom of Bayes in the next step. I do it as a two-step process to make it easier to write down (i.e. it formats better in text) and to help when we generalize to more than 2 models, where Bayes can get a bit unwieldy. </p>
<p>The term <span class="math">\(P(\text{H H H}| M_1)\)</span> is the probability we'd see the data if we knew (i.e. we're given) that model 1 is true. Since <span class="math">\(M_1\)</span> is from a fair coin, we get 1/2 probability for each head independently and we don't have any extra counting term, so we'd get the <span class="math">\(P(\text{H H H}| M_1)=\frac{1}{2}\times\frac{1}{2}\times\frac{1}{2}\)</span>. The term <span class="math">\(P(\text{H H H}| M_2)\)</span> is the probability we'd see the data if we knew (i.e. we're given) that model 2 is true. Since <span class="math">\(M_2\)</span> is from a rigged two-headed coin, we get a probability of 1 for each head so we'd get the <span class="math">\(P(\text{H H H}| M_2)=1\times 1\times 1\)</span>. </p>
<p>The terms <span class="math">\(P(M_1)\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(M_2)\)</span> are the prior probabilities of the model - how much we should believe them before we saw the data. This is probably the most contentious point, and worth dwelling on. It's not 50%, just because there are two possibilities. Do we even know if a two-headed coin exists? Have you ever seen one? The two models are not symmetric. Turns out I have seen one! There's one in my desk, which I love to bring out to fool my students. :-) It was found by accident with my daughter going through all of our loose change. I have never seen one since, but if we just took my house as an example, it's no bigger than a 1/100 of all the quarters. This can inform the prior as <span class="math">\(P(M_1) = 0.99\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(M_2) = 0.01\)</span>. I would guess that this is a huge <em>over estimate</em> for the <span class="math">\(P(M_2)\)</span> but it's good to run with. </p>
<p>Getting back to our probabilities, we calculate the top terms of Bayes, add them up, and then go back to divide each by that total. Thus we get:
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{align}
P(M_1 | \text{H H H}) &\sim P(\text{H H H}| M_1) \times P(M_1) = \frac{1}{2}\times\frac{1}{2}\times\frac{1}{2}\times 0.99 = 0.124 \\
P(M_2 | \text{H H H}) &\sim P(\text{H H H}| M_2) \times P(M_2) = 1\times 1\times 1\times 0.01 = 0.01
\end{align}
$$</div>
<p>
(adding them up) <span class="math">\(T=0.124 + 0.01 = 0.134\)</span></p>
<p>finally getting (notice the equals now)
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{align}
P(M_1 | \text{H H H}) &=0.124/T = 0.124/0.134=0.925 \\
P(M_2 | \text{H H H}) &=0.01/T=0.01/0.134 = 0.075
\end{align}
$$</div>
<p>
So, finally, we can have good reason -- by a long shot -- to <em>not believe</em> that the person has a 2-headed coin. Although we have a nearly <span class="math">\(8\times\)</span> increase in the probability of that model, <span class="math">\(M_2\)</span>, given the observed data of 3 heads, this doesn't bring our confidence up to the level of belief - you'd need more data for that. </p>
<p>This problem has exactly the same structure as the problem under consideration, trying to find the probability of the resurrection given the data we have and the number of possible models.</p>
<h2 id="the-problem-at-hand-the-probability-of-the-resurrection">The problem at hand - the probability of the Resurrection</h2>
<p>The proper way to set the problem up, like the coin, is the following. First, we start with the different models:</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(R\)</span> = Resurrection happened</li>
<li><span class="math">\(M\)</span> = Resurrection story made up entirely</li>
<li><span class="math">\(V\)</span> = Resurrection story incited by visions from early apostles and embellished</li>
<li>etc...</li>
</ul>
<p>and then the math follows just like the example above,</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>data = texts of gospels and Paul (and their history)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><span class="math">\(P(R | \text{data}) \sim P(\text{data} | R) \times P(R)\)</span></p>
</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(M | \text{data}) \sim P(\text{data} | M) \times P(M)\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(V | \text{data}) \sim P(\text{data} | V) \times P(V)\)</span></li>
<li>.... [insert more models if you'd like]</li>
</ul>
<p>then add up to <span class="math">\(T = \ldots\)</span>, and divide all terms, just like the coin. </p>
<p>Arguments over priors can ensue, but I think it would be fair to say that <span class="math">\(P(M)>P(V) \gg P(R)\)</span>. Although one might question this order (e.g. arguing that visions are more common than story construction) it is certainly true that resurrections are far less common than stories or visions. How often do we see resurrections? How often do we see God raising someone from the dead? How often have we heard claims of people being raised from the dead, from God or otherwise? These very simple questions bring the prior for the Resurrection <em>way</em> down. The theist will typically counter with something like "I agree that resurrections through <em>natural</em> processes are extremely unlikely, but if there is a God he could easily make resurrections through <em>supernatural</em> causes likely." I'll deal specifically with this objection in detail below but at this point the term <span class="math">\(P(R)\)</span> doesn't presuppose any mechanisms - it is just the probability of a resurrection before seeing any data and it should be agreed that this is much lower than visions or stories.</p>
<p>Beyond the prior, we note that terms like <span class="math">\(P(\text{data} | R)\)</span> have to balance both the positive claims and negative claims. For example, we might say that this term is quite high from the positive claims -- if the Resurrection actually happened then it easily explains the stories of seeing Jesus afterward. However, there are things that we probably should have seen -- but don't -- if the Resurrection actually happened. Some includes the lack of an account of Roman stolen-body litigation (as would have been done to the disciples), the fact that Paul doesn't mention the empty tomb, and the guards at the tomb are only mentioned in Matthew are not mentioned in Mark, Luke, John, or even Paul. These negative claims are easily explained with the other two models but are not easily explained from the Resurrection model making <span class="math">\(P(\text{data} | R)\)</span> much lower than is generally communicated.</p>
<h3 id="supernatural-causation">Supernatural causation</h3>
<p>Now, what about the claim that the low priors are mitigated by the issue of God <em>supernaturally</em> raising Jesus? Here is where it gets interesting. If you want to add the possibility of God raising Jesus <em>supernaturally</em> from the dead we can do this with a process called <em>marginalization</em>, which is a fancy term for adding up all of the possibilities. Mathematically it looks like the following,</p>
<p>First define some symbols,</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(+G\)</span> = God</li>
<li><span class="math">\(+S\)</span> = Supernatural action</li>
<li><span class="math">\(-G\)</span> = no God</li>
<li><span class="math">\(-S\)</span> = natural action</li>
</ul>
<p>We can then draw out the probability terms (which don't mention any specific methods of resurrections) into several terms, each for a different method, and then apply Bayes' rule yielding
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{align}
P(R | \text{data}) =& P(R, +G,+S | \text{data}) + P(R, -G,+S| \text{data}) + P(R, +G,-S| \text{data}) + P(R, -G,-S| \text{data})\\
\sim & P(\text{data}|R,+G,+S)P(R|+G,+S)P(+S|+G)P(+G) + \\ \nonumber
&P(\text{data}|R,-G,+S)P(R|-G,+S)P(+S|-G)P(-G) + \\ \nonumber
&P(\text{data}|R,+G,-S)P(R|+G,-S)P(-S|+G)P(+G) + \\ \nonumber
&P(\text{data}|R,-G,-S)P(R|-G,-S)P(-S|-G)P(-G)
\end{align}
$$</div>
<p>
This messy result lets us look at individual terms to see where we might have to examine the data more closely. Theists state that terms like <span class="math">\(P(R|-G,-S)\)</span> are small (unlikely resurrection given no God and only natural action), and I'll grant you that. How about <span class="math">\(P( R | +G, -S)\)</span> or, in words, why couldn't God have done the resurrection naturally? How about $P( R | -G, +S) $ or, in words, couldn't Satan or Stephen Fry's evil God have done the resurrection supernaturally? How have theists ruled these out? </p>
<p>Suddenly, by opening up some specific alternatives, one needs to follow all of those alternatives -- and their inverses -- through the entire calculation. You then have to provide evidence for God's supposed actions (<span class="math">\(P(+S|+G)\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(-S|+G)\)</span>) reading his inscrutable plan. You also have to demonstrate that there are not other supernatural agents at play, and that it is likely that God is the one acting. Given that theists have yet to provide <em>any way</em> of testing supernatural claims <em>at all</em> it seems like a big feat. In short, by introducing supernatural causation into the mix, theists have made their life harder -- not easier.</p>
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</script>Unbelievable? Is faith about belief or trust? And why does it matter?2019-07-19T00:00:00-04:002019-07-19T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-07-19:/posts/2019/Jul/19/unbelievable-is-faith-about-belief-or-trust-and-why-does-it-matter/<p>In this discussion/debate, I talk with Travis Dickinson about the concept of faith. Travis is the author of "Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel" and says …</p><p>In this discussion/debate, I talk with Travis Dickinson about the concept of faith. Travis is the author of "Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel" and says that both Christians and atheists often adopt a faulty definition of faith. He makes the case that faith is less about beliefs, and more about ventured trust on the basis of evidence.</p>
<p>I make the case that the term <em>faith</em> is poorly defined, and if it means the same as <em>trust</em> then we should just use that word. I speak about probability theory as the structure of epistemology, and stress scientific thinking.</p>
<p>This podcast episode can be obtained at</p>
<ul>
<li>On Premiere Christian Radio: https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Is-faith-about-belief-or-trust-And-why-does-it-matter-Travis-Dickinson-vs-Brian-Blais-Ben-Jacobs-of-Genexis</li>
<li>On iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/is-faith-about-belief-or-trust-why-does-it-matter-travis/id267142101?i=1000445368828</li>
</ul>A Measure of Faith - Probability in Religious Thought2019-07-15T00:00:00-04:002019-07-15T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-07-15:/posts/2019/Jul/15/a-measure-of-faith-probability-in-religious-thought/<p>From the trivial to the monumental our decisions are governed by – or should be governed by – rational thought. This book explores the role of rational thought as described by the …</p><p>From the trivial to the monumental our decisions are governed by – or should be governed by – rational thought. This book explores the role of rational thought as described by the rules of probability applied to the ideas in traditional religious discourse. It provides a basic introduction to the rules of probability for those who want a refresher and then proceeds to apply those rules to standard arguments for the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus, the evidence for miracles, and the concept of faith. Through this exploration, a common thread of analysis is woven to describe notions of simplicity in explanations, independence of evidence, and the common cognitive biases we all share.</p>
<p>I envision this book to be a living document that I update as I expand topics, clarify the topics I have covered, and improve the examples. Please let me know if you find any omissions, typos, errors, etc... as well as any suggestions for further work!</p>
<h2 id="the-book-free-download">The Book -- Free Download</h2>
<ul>
<li>Download the full source from <a href="https://github.com/bblais/A-Measure-Of-Faith">the GitHub site</a> or <a href="https://github.com/bblais/A-Measure-Of-Faith/raw/master/A%20Measure%20of%20Faith%20-%20Brian%20Blais.pdf">just get the pdf</a></li>
<li>On Amazon you can get <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Measure-Faith-Probability-Religious-Thought/dp/1099939143">the print book</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Measure-Faith-Probability-Religious-Thought-ebook/dp/B07SMB7RB4">the Kindle book</a></li>
<li>Follow me <a href="https://twitter.com/bblais">on Twitter</a> and ask me any questions!</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="from-the-blog">From the Blog</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jul/24/faith-trust-and-evidence/">Faith, Trust, and Evidence</a><blockquote>
<p>... Tim McGrew and Peter Boghossian on the definition of faith and whether or not faith is a valid way of knowing. In this discussion, ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jul/28/is-faith-the-same-as-trust-or-baseless-belief/">Is Faith the Same as Trust or Baseless Belief?</a><blockquote>
<p>... Tim McGrew and Peter Boghossian on the definition of faith, and whether it is a valid way of knowing. I have my initial response ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Mar/13/how-to-dodge-the-consequences-of-belief/">How to Dodge the Consequences of Belief</a><blockquote>
<p>... couple days, and can see why I had my initial impression. Faith They start with a discussion about the term faith , and McGrath ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Oct/24/knowledge-faith-and-belief/">Knowledge, Faith, and Belief</a><blockquote>
<p>... abound. It seems very common that a word like "faith" is used by different people for different ends, and the definition shifts even within ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2010/Jan/31/faith-and-science/">Faith and Science</a><blockquote>
<p>... Ken Miller makes the point that science should inform faith and faith should inform science. He cites Paul Davies, a physicist who has an ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jun/03/do-healing-miracles-happen/">Do healing miracles happen?</a><blockquote>
<p>... don't. Here's the bottom line. Bottom line is it requires faith ...and faith is risk. And faith is a hard thing to risk." I ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Feb/12/scientific-knowledge/">Scientific Knowledge</a><blockquote>
<p>... ", the commenter says: I believe we all choose to have faith in one book or another. This is simply, and demonstrably, not true.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Mar/04/unbelievable-project-gods-existence-free-will-and-faith-the-big-questions/">Unbelievable Project: God's existence, free will and faith - The Big Questions</a><blockquote>
<p>6/22/07 - God's existence, free will and faith - The Big Questions As part of the Unbelievable Project , I am taking notes and "arm-chair" ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Mar/08/unbelievable-project-god-delusion-debate-deluded-by-dawkins/">Unbelievable Project: God Delusion debate - Deluded by Dawkins?</a><blockquote>
<p>... cause. A number of examples were discussed, mostly faith healings. Now, I believe that Andrew would agree that not all miracle claims are true, ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2010/Dec/01/are-science-and-religion-incompatible/">Are Science and Religion Incompatible?</a><blockquote>
<p>... that was rejected by science Most liberal religious faiths have tended to choose (2). The Catholic Church, for instance, has a pro-evolutiuon stance and ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2019/Feb/11/book-review-unbelievable-by-justin-brierley/">Book Review - "Unbelievable?" by Justin Brierley</a><blockquote>
<p>... pinpoint a 'moment of surrender' like mine, but their faith is nevertheless grounded in an experience of God's presence in their lives, perhaps in ...</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>Probability - It's Not Just about the Math2019-06-16T00:00:00-04:002019-06-16T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-06-16:/posts/2019/Jun/16/probability-its-not-just-about-the-math/<p>When I first learned probability, I thought it was all about math and counting. Then <a href="https://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/etj.html">E. T. Jaynes</a> showed me that probability forms the foundation of rationality itself. Remarkably very …</p><p>When I first learned probability, I thought it was all about math and counting. Then <a href="https://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/etj.html">E. T. Jaynes</a> showed me that probability forms the foundation of rationality itself. Remarkably very few axioms are needed to constrain the mathematical forms necessary for rational thought and the outcome turns out to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace#Analytic_theory_of_probabilities">Laplace's original formulation</a>. What follows are the axioms so that you can appreciate them as much as I. The paper <em><a href="https://bayes.wustl.edu/gregory/articles.pdf">From Laplace to Supernova SN1987A: Bayesian Inference In Astrophysics</a></em> by Tom Loredo is an excellent and complete guide to this, including quantitative examples. </p>
<p>Jaynes prefers the word <em>desiderata</em> for this list - a collection of things needed or wanted - but they function the same as <em>axioms</em> of the analysis - unproven foundational statements as a basis for a derived system - and I prefer to use that terminology. Whatever you'd like to name them, here they are:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Degrees of plausibility are represented by real numbers</strong>. This is a choice of practicality. Perhaps there is some value in probability represented with <em>complex numbers</em>, but so far no useful generalization has been found to my knowledge.</li>
<li><strong>Qualitative consistency with common sense</strong>. Specifically, the system must be consistent with standard Boolean logic - the logic of syllogisms and deductive logic. This is not a generic call to "<em>common sense</em>" to base the system on, but rather the short-hand informal speech that Jaynes likes to use.</li>
<li><strong>Internal consistency</strong>. If a conclusion can be reasoned out in more than one way then every possible way must yield the same result.</li>
<li><strong>Propriety</strong>. We must take into account all of the information provided that is relevant to the question.</li>
<li><strong>Equivalent states consistency</strong>. Equivalent states of knowledge must be represented by equivalent plausibility assignments.</li>
</ol>
<p>To quote Jaynes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>At this point, most students are surprised to learn that our search for desiderata is at an end. The above conditions, it turns out, uniquely determine the rules by which [we] must reason; i.e. there is only one set of mathematical operations for manipulating plausibilities which has all these properties.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From these axioms, we can derive,</p>
<ul>
<li>the sum and product rules of probability, which describe the process of combining bits of knowledge</li>
<li>Bayes Rule, which describes the structure of learning from evidence</li>
<li>the marginalization rule, where model simplicity is attributed to fewer adjustable parameters</li>
<li>deductive logic, the limit as the probabilities go to 0 and 1</li>
<li>the dangers of either/or thinking</li>
<li>and much more!</li>
</ul>
<p>An important consequence of the derivation is that <em>any</em> system which disagrees with it must violate one or more of the axioms listed. The entire approach shows that probability theory is far more fundamental than is typically appreciated.</p>Why Christian Apologetics is Faulty Science and Faulty History2019-05-17T00:00:00-04:002019-05-17T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-05-17:/posts/2019/May/17/why-christian-apologetics-is-faulty-science-and-faulty-history/<p>In this episode I join Andrew and Matthew to discuss The Fine Tuning Argument, The Second Law of Thermodynamics, contingency, evidence for the Christian claim of a historical resurrection of …</p><p>In this episode I join Andrew and Matthew to discuss The Fine Tuning Argument, The Second Law of Thermodynamics, contingency, evidence for the Christian claim of a historical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, and other topics found in Justin Brierley's book Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years of Talking With Atheists, I'm Still a Christian. As you listen, you can decide for yourself whether Christian Apologetics draws appropriate conclusions from the best science of today. And, you will also have a meaningful guide if you read Justin's book.</p>
<p>This podcast episode can be obtained at</p>
<ul>
<li>On Anchor: https://anchor.fm/still-unbelievable/episodes/Episode-13-Why-Christian-Apologetics-is-Faulty-Science-and-Faulty-History-e42ldg</li>
<li>On iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-13-why-christian-apologetics-is-faulty-science/id1448210557?i=1000438714893</li>
</ul>Useful Fictions2019-05-15T00:00:00-04:002019-05-15T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-05-15:/posts/2019/May/15/useful-fictions/<p>People who externalize the creative influence with a genie or muse easily explain why they can be amazingly creative at one moment and be stuck in the next — the muse simply is not there. Given that humans are inherently story-driven beings there is some value in the short-hand of describing this "other" as an external agent, an effect outside of our immediate control.</p><h2 id="on-genies-and-muses">On Genies and Muses</h2>
<p>If you haven't seen <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius?language=en#t-1065003">Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk</a> on "Your Elusive Creative Genius", go right now and <em><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius?language=en#t-1065003">watch it</a></em>! I haven't seen a talk lately which has transformed my thinking on a topic as much as this one. To summarize, Gilbert observes that even with noted creative "geniuses" the process of creation is uneven. The creative juices seem fickle even for the accomplished and the perception from others (and even themselves) is that these people have failed when they struggle to create again even after major successes.</p>
<p>Gilbert reminds us that this attitude toward creation is new to the enlightenment, and that prior to that the "genius" was an external being which visited a person and could leave or be uncooperative. That the word "genius" and the word "genie" have obvious linguistic parallels was something I never noticed until this observation. People who externalize the creative influence with a genie or muse easily explain why they can be amazingly creative at one moment and be stuck in the next — the muse simply is not there. In the Enlightenment, we rid ourselves of the superstition of these external agents and the "genius" was tied to the individual — and thus also the responsibility for being "stuck" was tied to the individual too. By eliminating the muse we place a burden on the individual which may be unjustified. Gilbert speaks about the value of conversing with this external agent, saying things like </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Listen you, thing, you and I both know that if this book isn't brilliant that is not entirely my fault, right? Because you can see that I am putting everything I have into this, I don't have any more than this. If you want it to be better, you've got to show up and do your part of the deal. But if you don't do that, you know what, the hell with it. I'm going to keep writing anyway because that's my job. And I would please like the record to reflect today that I showed up for my part of the job."</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="superstition-and-stories">Superstition and Stories</h2>
<p>So what is this "muse" or "genie" driving our creative energies? I am not a fan of superstitious thinking, but this presentation got me thinking about the value of the story itself. We are not in control of our creative output — it is the product of our genetic make-up and the entire history of our experiences. When we have one thought follow another, our brain is accessing memories and impressions that have been built up in a complex process over the years of our interactions with others and with the world. We can, as Gilbert says, control whether we show up for the work but we can't control what the next thought will be. Given that we lack control of the process where our best creative ideas come from it makes sense to not hold ourselves accountable for them. However, it is far too wordy to describe this situation to others (or even to ourselves) every time we experience a lack of creativity. Given that humans are inherently story-driven beings there is some value in the short-hand of describing this "other" as an external agent, an effect outside of our immediate control. One value of doing this is to refocus on the things for which we actually have control and to not burn needless psychological energy on the things we don't. </p>
<p>There is a danger of believing these agents actually exist as external beings, even if they "exist" as those factors of our mental processes which are outside of direct control. Thinking this way, it makes clearer some of <a href="https://quillette.com/2018/07/23/the-peculiar-opacity-of-jordan-petersons-religious-views/">Jordan Peterson's otherwise obtuse religious-speak</a>. Peterson latches onto religious metaphor and states that anyone asking if it is "literally true" is missing the point. Perhaps Peterson's "God" is a name given to his moral "muse", and to admit it doesn't exist is the same to him as accepting responsibility for thoughts and actions beyond his control.</p>
<p>I still have to think through some of these issues but I do find it interesting how people lean on stories and short-cuts to help deal with life's challenges. </p>An Interesting Twist on the Gambler's Fallacy2019-03-24T00:00:00-04:002019-03-24T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-03-24:/posts/2019/Mar/24/an-interesting-twist-on-the-gamblers-fallacy/<p>I was reminded of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy">Gambler's Fallacy</a> in a <a href="https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gamblers-fallacy/">recent post by Stephen Novella</a> and thought of a twist on the fallacy that makes it a bit more subtle. The …</p><p>I was reminded of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy">Gambler's Fallacy</a> in a <a href="https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-gamblers-fallacy/">recent post by Stephen Novella</a> and thought of a twist on the fallacy that makes it a bit more subtle. The fallacy is defined,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the mistaken belief that, if something happens more frequently than normal during a given period, it will happen less frequently in the future (or vice versa). In situations where the outcome being observed is truly random and consists of independent trials of a random process, this belief is false.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you observe 5 heads in a row, for example, then the probability of another heads is still <span class="math">\(p=0.5\)</span>. In other words it is not more (or less) likely to get a tails after a long string of heads in a row. There are however a couple of cases where this doesn't hold. </p>
<h2 id="100-heads">100 heads</h2>
<p>What happens if you observe someone flipping a coin and they achieve 100 heads in a row. Would you really think that the probability of another heads is still <span class="math">\(p=0.5\)</span>? Is it even <em>rational</em> to believe that? At some point, you would question the <em>independence of trials</em> assumption. You might think that the coin is rigged (two heads?) or that the flipping process is rigged (spinning the coin like a frisbee instead of end-over-end motion) or something else. The mathematics for it is pretty straightforward. Assume you have two models:</p>
<ol>
<li><span class="math">\(M_1\)</span>: the coin-flipping process is random, trials are independent, and the probability of each flip is <span class="math">\(p=0.5\)</span> for heads</li>
<li><span class="math">\(M_2\)</span>: the coin has two heads, so no matter what the flipping process is the probability of getting heads is <span class="math">\(p=1\)</span>.</li>
</ol>
<p>and our data is <span class="math">\(m\)</span> heads flips in a row</p>
<div class="math">$$
D \equiv \left\{\underbrace{H_1,H_2,H_3,\cdots,H_m}_{\mbox{$m$ flips}}\right\}
$$</div>
<p>We are then interested in whether the <span class="math">\(m+1\)</span> flip is a heads, or <span class="math">\(P(H_{m+1}|D)\)</span>. Since we have two possible models which could give this outcome, we break this probability into a sum for each,</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(H_{m+1}|D) = P(H_{m+1}|D,M_1)P(M_1|D) + P(H_{m+1}|D,M_2)P(M_2|D)
$$</div>
<p>Since in both models the history of flips makes no difference to the next flip we get</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(H_{m+1}|D,M_1) &=& P(H_{m+1}|M_1) = 0.5\\
P(H_{m+1}|D,M_2) &=& P(H_{m+1}|M_2) = 1
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>So, the bulk of the probability comes from the probability of each model given the data. Applying Bayes' Rule, we get </p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(M_1|D) &\sim& P(D|M_1)P(M_1)=\frac{0.5^m \cdot P(M_1)}{T} \\
P(M_2|D) &\sim& P(D|M_2)P(M_2)=\frac{1^m \cdot P(M_2)}{T}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>where <span class="math">\(T\)</span> is the total probability of the data and the probabilities <span class="math">\(P(M_1)\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(M_2)\)</span> are the priors for Model 1 and Model 2, respectively. </p>
<p>We can start figuring out the prior probability by thinking in the following way. Since we usually don't think a system is rigged unless we start seeing a strong pattern consistent with that, we expect that the prior for <span class="math">\(M_2\)</span> should be <em>much less</em> than for <span class="math">\(M_1\)</span>. Without loss of generality, we assign <span class="math">\(P(M_1) = 1\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(M_2) = 10^{-a}\)</span>. If <span class="math">\(a=3\)</span> then Model 2 is 1000x less likely (before the data) than Model 1, if <span class="math">\(a=6\)</span> then Model 2 is 1 million times less likely, etc... We consider that the coin might not be independent when the probabilities for the two models -- after the data -- become comparable. Each heads observation makes Model 1 a bit less likely and Model 2 a bit more so. In a picture (for the case of <span class="math">\(a=6\)</span>) we have</p>
<p><img alt="coin_flips_rigged.png" class="img-fluid" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/coin_flips_rigged.png"></p>
<p>Mathematically we have</p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{P(M_2|D)}{P(M_1|D)} = \frac{10^{-a}}{0.5^m} \gt 1
$$</div>
<p>which yields the number of flips, <span class="math">\(m\)</span>, to overcome a prior against the two-headed coin, <span class="math">\(a\)</span>,</p>
<div class="math">$$
m> \frac{a}{\log_{10} 2}
$$</div>
<p>For <span class="math">\(a=6\)</span> (or initially a million times less likely) then <span class="math">\(m>19.9\)</span> flips is needed to overcome that level of initial skepticism. </p>
<h2 id="alternating-results-or-quasi-random-processes">Alternating Results or Quasi-random processes</h2>
<p>The same sort of analysis can occur if instead of a string of heads we observe a perfectly oscillating sequence (H,T,H,T,H,T,...). This, of course, could be the result of a random process but if it continued long enough then even a low prior of a rigged system could be overcome. </p>
<p>The same could occur if you happen to be observing a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobol_sequence">Sobol Sequence</a> or some other <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-discrepancy_sequence">quasi-random processes</a>. These sequences are <em>designed</em> to be non-independent in order to be more likely to fill the space of numbers evenly. Thus, if there is a sequence of 5 heads in a row, then under a quasi-random process a tails is in fact <em>more likely</em> in these sequences as the "fallacy" warns us against. These processes have some use in sampling for simulations where you want to make sure to cover all the the values of the parameter space evenly and efficiently.</p>
<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>
<p>I am not arguing that the Gambler's Fallacy is wrong, nor am I arguing that we should think every case is rigged. I am further not suggesting that people are actually good at these problems - they aren't. We see patterns in random sequences and events all of the time, and perhaps we should be a bit more reticent to ascribe non-randomness to processes for which we have no evidence of a non-random influence. In other words, our priors for a rigged system should generally be quite low. However, there can be cases where the system <em>is rigged</em> and we should be open to that possibility as well.</p>
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</script>Book Review - "Unbelievable?" by Justin Brierley2019-02-11T00:00:00-05:002019-02-11T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-02-11:/posts/2019/Feb/11/book-review-unbelievable-by-justin-brierley/<h2 id="structure-of-the-review">Structure of the Review</h2>
<p>As I finished this review it became apparent that there are two main audiences for what I wrote - those that have yet to read the book …</p><h2 id="structure-of-the-review">Structure of the Review</h2>
<p>As I finished this review it became apparent that there are two main audiences for what I wrote - those that have yet to read the book and those that have already read the book. Therefore I decided to break the review up into two parts, one for each audience. </p>
<h1 id="for-those-that-have-not-yet-read-unbelievable">For those that have <strong>not</strong> yet read <em>Unbelievable?</em></h1>
<h2 id="context">Context</h2>
<p>I've been listening to <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable">this podcast</a> for years and even had a <a href="http://bblais.github.io/search.html?q=unbelievable">project several years ago</a> with the lofty goal of responding to each and every episode. I did not achieve the goal, unfortunately. The problem was two-fold:
1. There are too many episodes
2. Nearly every episode is so packed with interesting content that my responses were taking longer than a week to prepare, so I was always behind.</p>
<p>The podcast is a model of how discussions can go, even when the topic is contentious. Justin Brierley is the epitome of civil. Like a good moderator, it isn't always clear where he stands on the issue - it's even easy to ignore the fact that he's a believer himself! He does an amazing job in the podcast of rephrasing what even his opponents state - skillfully <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man#Steelmanning">steelmanning</a> the entire time.</p>
<p>The book, <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Unbelievable-the-Book"><em>Unbelievable? Why After Ten Years of Talking with Atheists I'm Still a Christian</em></a> has all the best of the podcast in book form. It's a plea for a return to civil discourse on hard topics.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Having conversations as one of the most important things we do in life“</p>
<p>“Many conversation descend into the equivalent of verbal hand grenades being lobbed over the barricades of our carefully erected worldviews.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Brierley demonstrates how you can respect a position that you disagree with and how you can -- without fear -- present someone else's argument even better than they can. I can't help but think that this book was aptly timed for this age of quick sound-bites and tweets. We live in a culture where it seems to be acceptable to malign your opponent without addressing their concerns or characterize their positions in such uncharitable ways that everyone speaks past each other. It is a ray of light that this book - despite the fact that I disagree strongly with its conclusions - reaches across the aisle gently and respectfully with an invitation to engage in the discussion openly.</p>
<p>It is for this reason, out of respect, that I take a thoughtful, thorough approach to this review. </p>
<h2 id="structure-of-the-book">Structure of the Book</h2>
<p>After the first chapter on <em>"Creating Better Conversations,"</em> the book's chapters walk the reader through all of the standard arguments for God and Christianity, sprinkled with anecdotes from Brierley's interviews. The book reads very nicely and has a conversational tone, introducing the reader to some of Brierley's original reasons for believing - from personal experience and revelation - and many other reasons to support which belief that he admits came later along. The book is remarkably complete and as far as I can tell, hits all the major apologetics' points - including some arguments that have been circulating in the Christian community literally for thousands of years. </p>
<p>Brierley explains the Cosmological Arguments and the Fine Tuning Arguments in the chapter <em>"God Makes Sense of Human Existence."</em> The Moral Arguments, likewise, are addressed in the chapter <em>"God Makes Sense of Human Value."</em> He continues with arguments from purpose, the existence of Jesus, the evidence for the Resurrection, and suffering. Brierley finishes the book with a pragmatic explanation of living in the "Christian Story" and the benefits of choosing to live in that way. For anyone not familiar with the standard arguments for Christianity, <em>Unbelievable?</em> is a great introduction and summary of the primary arguments. For anyone who cares about civil and intelligent dialog, this book is for you.</p>
<h1 id="for-those-that-have-read-unbelievable">For those that have read <em>Unbelievable?</em></h1>
<p>If I am not convinced by these arguments and Brierley is where is the divide? I will hopefully address this question in the rest of this review. I break each of my responses into the appropriate topics, essentially following the order of the book, discussing where I disagree with Brierley's conclusions at many places. </p>
<p>I must admit that most of the chapters present so much of <em>all</em> sides of the arguments that the book is unusually balanced for its genre. It also means that this review is quite a bit longer than I would do for other books.</p>
<h2 id="personal-experience">Personal Experience</h2>
<p>For Brierley, by his own admission, personal experience is the primary reason for his <em>original</em> conversion. He refers to a personal experience in a youth retreat in 1995, calling it a “moment of surrender“ where God "showed up," noting that most if not all Christians would probably relate to this.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I suspect that something similar is true for most people who call themselves Christians. It's not that they can necessarily pinpoint a 'moment of surrender' like mine, but their faith is nevertheless grounded in an experience of God's presence in their lives, perhaps in some emotionally tangible way, or simply as a deep-down 'knowing' that has been there as long as they can remember." </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I've never had such an experience, at least not tangibly, so I can't address Brierley's experience directly. However, we have learned from science that personal experience that isn't accessible to others doesn't typically track reality - it tracks subjectivity. People have profound experiences quite often and then interpret these experiences in all sorts of ways. This does not mean that those interpretations are correct, even if the experiences themselves are real. It is only through an honest exploration of the possible explanations, through prediction and skepticism, that we can achieve something close to the truth.</p>
<p>I don't think Brierley would disagree with this - which is why he goes to great pains to explore the evidence.</p>
<h2 id="second-law-of-thermodynamics">Second Law of Thermodynamics</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>“My dad also said something else. As a scientist he found it intriguing that the emergence of life on our planet seems to disobey one of the fundamental laws of nature. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, when left to their own devices, all closed systems (such as our universe), will move towards increasing 'entropy' -- the scientific word for disorder.“ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Every physicist will tell you why this is an incorrect statement - because the earth is not a closed system. Under the logic of this quote, even something like frozen ice would not be produced on the earth because it is a lower entropy state.</p>
<p>I've had a bad experience with this particular argument in University. The correction to the argument is both easy to find. Further, unlike other such arguments, you won't find any disagreement with any physicist you ask. It is the fact that the answer is so easy to find and consistent with the experts that there really is no excuse left to keep using this argument. Even so, I have seen Christians use it <em>even after being corrected</em>. The claim is so outlandish, from a physical point of view, that if a scientist actually believed it, they would have to admit that a frozen pond (also a decrease in entropy) would be impossible.</p>
<p>The claim presented in this quote represents a pervasive lack of imagination on the part of the theist where they seemingly can't wrap their brains around the idea that complexity can arise from natural processes. This lack of imagination infects not just this argument, but the fine tuning argument, other arguments from design, and even the moral argument. </p>
<h2 id="fine-tuning">Fine Tuning</h2>
<p>Sean Carroll, an outspoken cosmologist from CalTech, says that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0qKZqPy9T8&feature=youtu.be&t=2305">the Fine Tuning Argument is the "theist's best argument"</a> and it is well communicated in "<em>Unbelievable?</em>." The problem is that, despite the confident claims of many theists, the physicists are not at all clear how much fine tuning there is or if there is any at all. The way fine tuning is demonstrated starts with noticing that there are some <em>seemingly arbitrary</em> constants in our physical laws (e.g. speed of light, expansion rate of the universe, etc...). These constants if <em>varied independently</em> lead to conditions where life <em>as we know it</em> couldn't form. The emphasis here is to point out the problems with making confident claims about these observations.</p>
<ol>
<li>the constants may be determined by other laws we don't know right now. This has happened already for the expansion rate of the universe, which can be specifically derived from Einstein's equations - and shown to not be fine-tuned.</li>
<li>the constants may not be independent, so changing one may necessitate changing another by a specific amount negating the effect</li>
<li>we don't understand the conditions <em>necessary</em> for life</li>
</ol>
<p>With these objections, it seems premature to make any strong statements about fine tuning even if you are convinced it is there.</p>
<h2 id="something-out-of-nothing">Something out of nothing</h2>
<p>It is telling, I think, that the primary scientific arguments for God rely on the fringes of the known science into the unknown. William Lane Craig makes a great deal out of the absurd notion of something "popping into existence" from nothing - and to allow even one instance of it would allow things like bicycles to appear out of nothing. However, he doesn't address Sean Carroll directly who shows that models of the origin of the universe have some things able to appear out of nothing and other things not. These models actually make <em>predictions</em> for things we may observe, e.g. correlations in the microwave background, values of the early universe entropy, etc... What <em>predictions</em> do the theistic models actually make about the properties of the observable universe? None to my knowledge. It is clear that science and religion are playing by different rules here.</p>
<h2 id="contingent-vs-necessary">Contingent vs Necessary</h2>
<p>Brierley comments about the argument from contingency, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I've been struck by the obvious yet remarkable fact that there is <em>anything</em> at all. [...] Like Leibniz, I can see that it's perfectly logically possible that there could have been nothing at all.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am not a philosopher and am unconvinced by words like <em>contingent</em> and <em>necessary</em>. For example, I do not see any support for the claim that there are <em>necessary</em> objects, or that a <em>being</em> or <em>mind</em> could satify the requirements to be <em>necessary</em>. Maybe the only things that can be <em>necessary</em> are things like laws of logic, and that objects don't fit that criterion. I don't know! But until these are actually <em>demonstrated</em> and not just <em>asserted</em>, all of the arguments based on them have no content. In the same way, perhaps the concept of "<em>nothing</em>" isn't well defined and can't manifest in reality, so the question "why is there something rather than nothing" is answered simply with "because 'nothing' isn't realizable". </p>
<p>Further, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There’s nothing about our universe to suggest that it had to exist rather its existence is contingent. It needs an explanation of his existence.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would add as an analogy that there’s nothing about our experience on the Earth to suggest that the Earth is round or that it orbits the sun. It may be <em>logically</em> possible to have a flat planet, but not <em>physically</em> realizable in our universe (note: the spherical nature of planets is due to the spherical form of the law of gravitation). Our intuitions do not always track the truth, and truth should be our goal. As a scientist, I am accustomed to cases of seemingly obvious things being false, and of seemingly impossible things being true irrespective of our intuitions. Thus, strictly <em>philosophical arguments</em> are not enough to demonstrate the existence of something.</p>
<h2 id="language-of-the-universe">Language of the Universe</h2>
<p>Why is the universe written in the language of mathematics? Brierley says,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For those who want to ask `Why?', atheism's only answer seems to be that it is a massive coincidence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don’t see it as a coincidence I see it as a requirement. In <em>any</em> universe that has any patterns at all such that life could possibly exist - no matter what form of life - then those living beings would discover those patterns as the "mathematics" of that universe. It doesn't surprise me that there are patterns in the universe, but I still agree with Brierley that it is an amazing thing that the universe exists at all. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"So does science provide iron-clad proof for God's existence? No. Could the scientific consensus change in the future? Of course it could. Is this all there is to say on the subject? Certainly not. The case for God is a cumulative one that reaches well beyond science..."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although I can quibble about the use of "proof" here (science doesn't deal in proof, only evidence) I'd rather take the time to extend the notion of "science" to include things like history as well as the study of morality, which moves into the next chapters. Really, what I am thinking is that rational discourse combined with skeptical attitudes are the components that include science and these other topics. In the case of the universe existing, perhaps an "I don't know" is the best answer we have right now, until someone is imaginative enough to find a way to determine it. To posit the answer "I know, and it is God" requires a level of explanation and prediction far above what any theist seems able to give.</p>
<h2 id="moral-argument">Moral argument</h2>
<p>In discussing human value, Brierley writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"It was grim stuff, admittedly, but it was a moment which exposed the problem for atheists who affirm the subjective nature of morality but then find themselves in a bind when it comes to truly horrendous acts. They don't just feel wrong. They <em>are</em> wrong. Period.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He concludes the chapter with,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"I have tried to persuade you of two things in this chapter. First, that humans have a real inherent worth and dignity that transcends a purely evolutionary story of how morality came to be. Second, if humans have such a value then it only makes sense if there is someone beyond nature who can assign them such value, the God who created them in his own image. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am not generally swayed by the moral argument for a few reasons. First, I think that much is made out the subjective/objective dichotomy that someone like Sam Harris already handles consistently. In <em>The Moral Landscape</em>, he is able to define morality as the concern for the suffering and well-being of conscious creatures which, even if done imperfectly, coincides well with all of the sorts of problems we associate with moral choices. In this way, he describes an <em>objective</em> basis for morality without resorting to outside agency. </p>
<p>My second issue is that the supposed solution - "God did it" - fails the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma">"Euthyphro dilemma"</a> - the question whether something is good because God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good. In the former, we get the repugnant conclusion that if God commands murder it is necessarily good (the good of a dictator). In the latter, the good transcends God so we don't need God for the existence of the good. The only way out of this dilemma that I have ever heard is the claim that "the standard of the Good is God’s very nature" (William Lane Craig) or something similar. This seems to me to be word games to define your way out of the problem.</p>
<p>My final issue with the moral argument is that it seems to me that, like the argument from personal revelation, the argument itself relies on the <em>intuitive</em> notion that there are some things that are <em>objectively</em> wrong: things like murder and rape are objectively wrong, to deny this seems abhorrent, and everyone has this intuition. Since, in other contexts (e.g. flat unmoving Earth), we have already seen that our intuitions fail in many situations, is it possible that it is failing here and we just don't see it? </p>
<p>To explore this line of thinking, one should notice that in the moral argument the usual extremes are always trotted out - murder and rape - and not something a bit more ambiguous. Since this argument holds a lot of emotional weight, perhaps we can explore this in a different way, and leave ourselves at least agnostic on this issue. We have here some models of the source of morality - and I am neither promoting or denying any of these:</p>
<ul>
<li>Model 1: an external agent has imprinted some specific objective standards on everyone (perhaps imperfectly, like the sense of sight is imperfect). </li>
<li>Model 2: a naturalistic process is responsible for the <em>perceived</em> standard through evolution. </li>
<li>Model 3: a naturalistic process is responsible for the standard (perceived or real) based on suffering/well being. </li>
</ul>
<p>There may be others, but let's stick to these for a second.</p>
<p>To me, all three models explain the <em>perception</em> that murder and rape are objectively wrong. It would seem obvious from an evolutionary perspective that for social creatures, murder and rape would <em>feel</em> objectively wrong. These three models all predict that we would have some divergence on more subtle issues, although I think not to the same degree. Model 1 would further imply that even on these more subtle aspects of morality there should eventually be convergence - the moral status of same-sex couples, for example. Models 2 and 3 would imply that there would be huge cultural differences between groups on the more subtle questions. Given our observations, this would seem to be evidence against Model 1 and the moral argument for God.</p>
<p>In either case, if you have Models 1-3, a scientist would require further predictions that would help us actually distinguish between an agent-imparted standard and one without, even when both are consistent with our intuition about the extreme moral questions. To say more would be presuming what the data would be without actually testing it. We land, then, at least on the side of unconvinced but perhaps hopeful for the moral argument. </p>
<h2 id="human-purpose">Human purpose</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>"You and your beliefs are the product of a long chain of inevitable physical events. [...] It's all just a series of physical events - billiard balls bouncing off one another. They aren't the least bit interested in the truth or falsity of the thoughts they are producing.</p>
<p>Understanding the self-defeating nature of the naturalist worldview was a penny-dropping moment for me. It meant that seeking meaning of any sort was a self-defeating enterprise for a thoroughgoing atheist. Just as the collisions of the balls on the billiard-table only mean anything if there is a player who intended them to find a pocket, so we must be more than the matter that makes up our brain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here again, I think Brierley is failing from a lack of imagination. Meaning is a structure we attribute to actions and events in our lives. It seems to follow naturally from our pattern-seeking tendencies combined with our goals to increase well-being. I find nothing too problematic with this view, even if we don't currently understand the detailed nature of consciousness. </p>
<p>There is a downside to notice for the "meaning from God" perspective, and that is the fact that the notion of eternal life in heaven makes <em>this</em> life not have any meaning, due to its finiteness. Even if this life is supposedly a test for admission, the fact that the current life is <em>finite</em> compared to the <em>infinite</em> afterlife is enough to rob it of any significant meaning. Clearly there are arguments on each side for this, but I just wanted to point out that it isn't completely clear even on the theistic perspective.</p>
<h2 id="historical-arguments">Historical arguments</h2>
<p>Brierley nicely summarizes the historical arguments, both in the establishment of the existence of Jesus and the arguments of the Resurrection. My largest concern with these arguments is the amount of trust that is placed in historical methods. When confronted with the idea that we can't know the details of historical events to the level of repeatable, physical experiments, most people don't seem to take issue. However, the claim that someone rose from the dead is something that - in a modern context - we'd want medical records, corroborating physical evidence, and we'd still be pretty skeptical that someone was putting us on. Placing these events two thousand years ago, written decades after the events, by largely anonymous sources should make us <em>less</em> confident in the claim, not more.</p>
<p>The <em>minimal facts</em> approach to the historicity of the Resurrection seems to be a major selling point for Christian apologists. Although not a historian myself, I have read enough to see that this approach seems to never be used for any other historical event - why the special case? I have personally found that <a href="https://celsus.blog/2013/06/29/knocking-out-the-pillars-of-the-minimal-facts-apologetic/">the response by Matthew Ferguson</a> - who is a historian - is as complete a response that one will ever find, and haven't seen anything even remotely convincing as a reply. </p>
<h2 id="the-atheists-greatest-objection-suffering">The Atheist's Greatest Objection - Suffering</h2>
<p>I'll start my response here to point out that the argument from suffering is not the atheist's greatest objection. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRB0TDq8tWE">Like Matt Dillahunty</a>, in my opinion the greatest objection to the theistic claim of the existence of God is from <em>hiddenness</em>. True to Brierley's form, he grapples well with all sides of the issue of suffering, bringing in all of the typical theistic counter arguments - but they are all indirect. He implores us to appreciate how the preponderance of the other arguments for God "tips the scale towards belief in God." He puts forward the idea that the objection is baseless because of the lack of objective morality under the atheist worldview.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"it's difficult to see how the reality of a world of moral right and wrong can exist in the absence of God. But the question being asked by the atheist is a fundamentally moral one."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He appeals to mystery,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"it is a mystery we believe will be answered in a day of final justice and joy when Jesus Christ sets the world to right."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and free will, hidden purpose of suffering, and an allegory. Books have been written on this problem, and this chapter summarizes the topic nicely. I am not moved by it because it feels to me - like all treatments of this topic - one excuse after another with nothing to pin it down. As Sam Harris says, one can always answer the question "is suffering and evil consistent with God?" with a "yes" - the better question to ask is, "does the suffering we observe in the world <em>suggest</em> there is an all-knowing, benevolent God?" To that, the answer is clearly "no". Sure! You can always come up with reasons for the former, but the later is much clearer. </p>
<h2 id="hiddenness">Hiddenness</h2>
<p>The really big objection, in my view, is hiddenness - the lack of obvious indicators of a divine presence. If God actually wants a <em>relationship</em> with people then God's lack of obvious existence is completely inconsistent with that, in a way that appealing to free will, the purpose of relationship, allegory and mystery just don't work. If you look at nearly every one of my responses, it really comes down to not being convinced due to the lack of unambiguous evidence. </p>
<h2 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h2>
<p>I could go on with this review, but it is long enough as it is. I applaud Brierley's efforts in summarizing 10 years of conversations on this topic. I totally endorse his goal of improving conversation on difficult topics; and his tone in this book and the podcast should be a model for everyone. Perhaps Brierley's book is just one more data point of confirmation bias, and perhaps my review is also. How do we get past that? The best way is to have the conversations, honestly and completely, and to constantly question your own perspective. I want to thank Brierley for his fine work and hope he continues these efforts far into the future.</p>If at first you don't succeed (for 50 times) you might reconsider2019-01-29T00:00:00-05:002019-01-29T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-01-29:/posts/2019/Jan/29/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed-for-50-times-you-might-reconsider/<p>Here's a <a href="https://www.quora.com/If-there-is-a-25-chance-of-something-what-is-the-probability-that-you-fail-to-succeed-50-times-in-a-row-before-you-finally-do-succeed/answer/Brian-Blais">straightforward problem</a> from Quora - probably found in a textbook - but I try to find a new direction to make it more interesting.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If there is a 25% chance …</p></blockquote><p>Here's a <a href="https://www.quora.com/If-there-is-a-25-chance-of-something-what-is-the-probability-that-you-fail-to-succeed-50-times-in-a-row-before-you-finally-do-succeed/answer/Brian-Blais">straightforward problem</a> from Quora - probably found in a textbook - but I try to find a new direction to make it more interesting.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If there is a 25% chance of something, what is the probability that you fail to succeed 50 times in a row before you finally do succeed?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The problem, as stated, gives you a very small probability of 50 failures followed by a success. As stated, this probability is simply</p>
<p><span class="math">\(P(S_{51}, F_{1,2,\cdots,50}) = 0.75^{50} \times 0.25 \sim 10^{-7}\)</span></p>
<p>However, we rarely know that an event has <em>exactly</em> a probability of 25% - this is usually just a hunch. Or possibly we <em>believe</em> the probability to be 25% but in fact it’s actually 0% or in other words (unknowingly) impossible - the claim itself can be wrong. Further, the way the question is worded almost implies that you're trying to decide to abandon...or not...an action after 50 failures. This is a different question than the original, I admit, but much closer to what one might expect in a more realistic scenario.</p>
<p>Pursuing this adjusted question, say we have the following two possibilities: the original claim that <span class="math">\(p_{\rm event}=0.25\)</span> or the claim is false and (for example) <span class="math">\(p_{\rm event}=0\)</span>. Let’s further assume that we are quite sure of the original claim, at level of 99.99%. With the new question, we are interested in the probability of a success on try 51 after 50 previous failures, which is now a combination of the result of the claim possibly being true and the claim possibly being false. I will outline the process for <span class="math">\(m\)</span> failures instead of 50, so that we can discuss it in a more interesting way.</p>
<p><span class="math">\(P(S_{51}| F_{1,2,\cdots,50}) = P(S_{51}| F_{1,2,\cdots,m}, {\rm True\ Claim})P({\rm True\ Claim}|F_{1,2,\cdots,m}) + P(S_{51}| F_{1,2,\cdots,m}, {\rm False\ Claim})P({\rm False\ Claim}|F_{1,2,\cdots,m})\)</span></p>
<p>The key part of this calculation is the comparison of the two possibilities (i.e. the claim is true or the claim is false) after observing 50 failures. We can apply Bayes Rule, </p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(P({\rm True\ Claim}|F_{1,2,\cdots,m}) \sim P(F_{1,2,\cdots,m}| {\rm True\ Claim})\cdot P({\rm True\ Claim}) \sim 0.75^m \cdot 0.9999\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(P({\rm False\ Claim}|F_{1,2,\cdots,m}) \sim P(F_{1,2,\cdots,m}| {\rm False\ Claim})\cdot P({\rm False\ Claim})\sim 1 \cdot 0.0001\)</span></li>
</ul>
<p>After only 32 failures these two probabilities are equal, or in other words, it's even money that the action is even <em>possible</em>. After 50 failures, the odds for the original claim are around 180:1 against. Clearly we are facing the definition of insanity<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1">1</a></sup> at this point.</p>
<p>Essentially, because 50 failures is so unlikely for a 25% chance event or action, other possibilities intrude - such as "success <em>at all</em> is impossible". There can, of course, be other possibilities that come to mind after many failures beyond the one I explore here. However, the point that I want to stress is that one should think a little more deeply when faced even with such "simple" problems.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
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</script>Dynamical systems with pyndamics2019-01-14T00:00:00-05:002019-01-14T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-01-14:/posts/2019/Jan/14/dynamical-systems-with-pyndamics/<p>Describe dynamical systems in terms of the differential equations without having to write the coding loops or functions. Easily plot the changes in the variables, show phase plots, and vector …</p><p>Describe dynamical systems in terms of the differential equations without having to write the coding loops or functions. Easily plot the changes in the variables, show phase plots, and vector fields. Explore examples from modeling the zombie apocalypse, the infectiousness of ideas on Twitter, or the exchange of energy in the Earth climate system. Useful for teaching dynamical systems for students with little programming experience.</p>
<p>Included is an interface to Bayesian MCMC with the emcee package for doing Bayesian parameter estimation and model comparison!</p>
<p><img alt="pyndamics" class="img-fluid" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/pyndamics.png"></p>
<ul>
<li>pyndamics: Python Numerical Dynamics Simulator, https://github.com/bblais/pyndamics</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="presentations">Presentations</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S., <em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Twitter Zombies and the Fate of the World.pdf">Twitter, Zombies, and the Fate of the World</a></em>. Mar 2017. Analytics without Borders Conference. <a href="https://gist.github.com/bblais/181abd99f878282666b98a29588dda41">Supplemental Notebook is here</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S. and Skaza, J., <em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/presentation Modeling the Infectiousness of Twitter Hashtags.pdf">Modeling the Infectiousness of Twitter Hashtags</a></em>. Sep 2016. Bryant University Science Seminar.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Skaza, J. and Blais, B.S., <em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/twitter-modeling-presentation.pdf">Mathematical Modeling of Trending Topics on Twitter</a></em>. Apr 14, 2015. Honors Capstone Presentation.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Witkowski, C. and Blais, B.S. Apr 2013.<em> <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/zombies_presentation_apr2013.pdf">Zombie Apocalypse: An Epidemic Model</a></em> . Research and Engagment Day (REDay), Bryant University.<em> <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/zombies_handout_apr2013.pdf">Supplemental Handout here</a></em> .</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Brian Blais, Colin Gannon, Qin Leng, Robert Patalano, Hong Yang. October 2013.<em> <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/GSA%202013%20Poster.pdf">Bayesian Parameter Estimation in a 1D Model of Precipitation and Evaporation: Comparison of Middle Miocene and Modern Climates Using Plant Lipid Deuterium dD Measurements</a></em> Geological Society of America Conference. <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/GSA%202013%20Poster%20Extra%20Slides.pdf">Some extra slides that didn't fit on the poster.</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Space%20Grant%20Presentation%20Nov%202009.pdf">Modeling Ecosystems and Climates: A Teaching Simulator for Systems Dynamics</a>* (Rhode Island Space Grant Consortium Annual Symposium, November 2009)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="publications">Publications</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Skaza, J. and Blais, B.S. 2015. <a href="http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1Tej31M2-1uo2K">Modeling the Infectiousness of Twitter Hashtags</a>. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications. Volume 465, 1 January 2017, Pages 289–296.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Witkowski, C. and Blais, B.S. 2013. <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/2013-Witkowski.C;Blais.B-Bayesian%20Analysis%20of%20Epidemics%20-%20Zombies,%20Influenza,%20and%20other%20Diseases-..pdf">Bayesian analysis of epidemics - zombies, influenza, and other diseases</a> . Available from the arXiv at http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.6376 as well as on <a href="https://www.scienceopen.com/document/vid/f27e3030-6d86-4af2-83a6-6ec0a2798582">ScienceOpen</a>. An <a href="https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/urls/dl.dropbox.com/s/rm8xtwhacsxpa8g/Bayesian%20Analysis%20of%20Epidemics%20-%20Using%20Zombies%20to%20Teach.ipynb">iPython notebook</a> with the simulations is available <a href="https://nbviewer.jupyter.org/urls/dl.dropbox.com/s/rm8xtwhacsxpa8g/Bayesian%20Analysis%20of%20Epidemics%20-%20Using%20Zombies%20to%20Teach.ipynb">here</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Mathematical models of epidemic dynamics offer significant insight into predicting and controlling infectious diseases. The dynamics of a disease model generally follow a susceptible, infected, and recovered (SIR) model, with some standard modifications. In this paper, we extend the work of Munz et.al (2009) on the application of disease dynamics to the so-called ``zombie apocalypse'', and then apply the identical methods to influenza dynamics. Unlike Munz et.al (2009), we include data taken from specific depictions of zombies in popular culture films and apply Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods on improved dynamical representations of the system. To demonstrate the usefulness of this approach, beyond the entertaining example, we apply the identical methodology to Google Trend data on influenza to establish infection and recovery rates. Finally, we discuss the use of the methods to explore hypothetical intervention policies regarding disease outbreaks.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>Stats for Everyone2019-01-14T00:00:00-05:002019-01-14T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-01-14:/posts/2019/Jan/14/stats-for-everyone/<p>Have a statistics question or project? I'd love to hear from you! One of my goals is to bring statistical reasoning to everyone, both as a general framework for rational …</p><p>Have a statistics question or project? I'd love to hear from you! One of my goals is to bring statistical reasoning to everyone, both as a general framework for rational thinking but also for specific uses in the arts and sciences. I wrote a book, which I <a href="https://github.com/bblais/Statistical-Inference-for-Everyone">post for free</a> but is also <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Inference-Everyone-Brian-Blais/dp/1499715072">available on Amazon</a>, which presents a unique path through an introductory statistics class. I also write tools to help researchers apply statistical techniques to their data and their problems.</p>
<h2 id="the-book-for-free">The Book - for free!</h2>
<ul>
<li>Download the <a href="https://github.com/bblais/Statistical-Inference-for-Everyone">latest version of the book</a></li>
<li>The print book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Inference-Everyone-Brian-Blais/dp/1499715072">available on Amazon</a>, or directly [on Createspace]</li>
<li>Download the <a href="https://github.com/bblais/Statistical-Inference-for-Everyone/tree/master/python">latest version of the software</a>. It requires the installation of a scientific distribution of Python, such as the <a href="https://store.continuum.io/cshop/anaconda/">Anaconda distribution</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="tools">Tools</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="files/Quantity.py">Quantity.py</a><blockquote>
<p>A simple class for doing Monte Carlo error analysis</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="presentations">Presentations</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S., <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xAb3aVGVM0&t=2s">Your Lack of Imagination Can Kill You — But You Can Be Saved by Math</a></em>. Feb 2018. TEDxBryantU. Full <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/TEDxTalks/search?query=TEDxBryantU">list of videos for the event</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S., <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chwyqhgCz9s">Beginning with Bayes or Statistical Inference for Everyone</a></em>. May 2016. Electronic Conference On Teaching Statistics (eCOTS) 2016.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-heresies-the-movie.html">seminar I give outlining the motivation and philosophy of the book</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S., <em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/rationality.pdf">Statistical Inference for Everyone: One Scientist's Attempt to Set the Record Straight on Rational Thought</a></em>. Mar 2015. The Department of Science and Technology Seminar Series at Bryant University. You can download the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie.html">current textbook here</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S., <em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Science_Probability_and_Models_of_the_World.pdf">Science, Probability, and Models of the World</a></em>. Aug 2015. Presentation to China University of Geosciences Summer Exchange Trip.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Jonathan Skaza and Brian Blais. Mar 2014. <em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/IPE%20Conference%20March%202014.pdf">The Relationship between Economic Growth
and Environmental Degradation: Exploring Models and Questioning the Existence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve</a></em>. 21st Annual Conference Issues in Political Economy, Undergraduate Student Research in Economics. See supporting paper at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2346173 </p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S. Mar 2013.<em> <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Analytics_2013.pdf">Science and Analytics</a></em> . Analytics Symposium, Bryant University.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/pres_011407.pdf">Teaching Bayesian Model Comparison with the Three-sided Coin.</a> with Scott Kuindersma (UMass Amherst). (Bryant University Faculty Research Day, January 2007).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/pres_101205.pdf"><em>Determining the Geometry of a Three-sided Fair Coin: Exploring the Probability of a Coin Landing on its Edge</em></a> (Brown University IBNS Lab Presentation, October 2005)</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="publications">Publications</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Witkowski, C. R., Weijers, J. W. H. , Blais, B.S., Schouten, S., and Damsté, J. S. S. <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/11/eaat4556">Molecular fossils from phytoplankton reveal secular pCO<span class="math">\(_2\)</span> trend over the Phanerozoic</a>. Science Advances. Vol. 4, no. 11, eaat4556. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aat4556.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Skaza, J. and Blais, B.S. 2013. <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/SSRN-id2346173.pdf">The Relationship between Economic Growth and Environmental Degradation: Exploring Models and Questioning the Existence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve</a> . Available from: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2346173 and http://intranet.bryant.edu/portal/economic-studies/publications/working-papers.htm.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In this paper, we explore a variety of models attempting to explain the pollution-income relationship (PIR). There has been much literature addressing the notion of an environmental Kuznets curve (EKC). Many researchers find an EKC relationship for certain pollutants, while others do not find evidence of an EKC relationship. There is also literature formally critiquing the EKC. We employ cross-sectional, panel, and time-series analysis to add insight into the relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation, a research area that is far from consensual and that has practical implications. We ultimately find that the clearest case of an EKC effect in our study arises in the analysis of organic water pollution, while there is modest evidence suggesting an EKC effect with regard to CO2, NO, and methane. We also present ample evidence suggesting an anti-EKC effect for PM10. Our analysis causes us to question the existence of an EKC effect throughout the environment in general.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>Yang, H., Blais, B.S., Leng, Q. 2011. <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/2011_yang.pdf">Stable isotope variations from cultivated Metasequoia trees in the United States: A statistical approach to assess isotope signatures as climate signals.</a> <em>Jpn. J. His tor. Bot.</em> 19 (1-2) pp 75-88.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We measured I'C and I'15N values and carbon and nitrogen elemental concentrations of leaves collected from Metasequoia glyptostroboides Hu et Cheng trees cultivated at 39 sites across the United States under different latitudes and climatic regions. I'D values from south facing leaf n-alkanes of 27 trees were also determined. Climate data over the past 50 years (1950a2009) were compiled from stations near each site. Isotope data were cross plotted against each geographic and climatic parameter, including latitude, annual mean temperature (AMT), spring (FebruaryaMay) mean temperature (SMT), annual mean precipitation (AMP), and spring mean precipitation (SMP). Statistical analyses revealed the following signicant correlations: 1) a strong negative correlation between n-alkane D and latitude; 2) statistically signicant correlations between D and both AMT and SMT; 3) a weaker but still signicant correlation between I'D and SMP; 4) statistically signicant relationships between carbon concentration and both temperature and precipitation parameters, especially AMP; 5) an unexpected correlation between nitrogen concentration and SMP. These results bear strong implications for using I'13C and I'D values obtained from fossil Metasequoia as paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental proxies.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>Kuindersma, S.R. and Blais, B.S. 2007. <a href="http://pubs.amstat.org/doi/abs/10.1198/000313007X222497">Teaching Bayesian Model Comparison With the Three-sided Coin</a> . <em>American Statistician</em>. Vol. 61, No. 3, August 2007 pp.239-244</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the present work we introduce the problem of determining the probability that a rotating and bouncing cylinder (i.e. flipped coin) will land and come to rest on its edge. We present this problem and analysis as a practical, nontrivial example to introduce the reader to Bayesian model comparison. Several models are presented, each of which take into consideration different physical aspects of the problem and the relative effects on the edge landing probability. The Bayesian formulation of model comparison is then used to compare the models and their predictive agreement with data from hand-flipped cylinders of several sizes.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
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</script>Models of Learning and Memory2019-01-13T00:00:00-05:002019-01-13T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2019-01-13:/posts/2019/Jan/13/models-of-learning-and-memory/<p>Simulate biologically derived neural networks of medium complexity - both rate- and spike-based models. Explore the dynamics of synaptic plasticity under different input environments, including low-dimensional vector environments and natural image …</p><p>Simulate biologically derived neural networks of medium complexity - both rate- and spike-based models. Explore the dynamics of synaptic plasticity under different input environments, including low-dimensional vector environments and natural image inputs. </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://github.com/bblais/Plasticnet">plasticnet + splikes: synaptic modification in rate and spike-based neurons</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>This project aims at providing a simple-to-use neural simulator at a medium-level of complexity. This package combines both rate and spike-based models.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Cortical-Plasticity-Shouval-Hardcover/dp/B011DC35P0/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=brian+blais&qid=1589558432&sr=8-6">Theory of Cortical Plasticity by Leon N. Cooper, Brian S. Blais, Harel Z. Shouval, Nathan Intrator</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is theory possible in neuroscience? Not only possible, in our opinion, necessary. For a system as complex as the brain it is obvious that we cannot just make observations. (The number of possible observations is substantially larger than the available number of scientist-hours, even projecting several centuries into the future.) Without a theoretical structure to connect diverse observations with one another, the result would be a listing of facts of little use in understanding what the brain is about.In the work that follows, we present the Bienenstock, Cooper and Munro (BCM) theory of synaptic plasticity. The theory is sufficiently concrete so that it can be and, as is discussed below, has been compared with experiment. </p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1e-azd0c-k13mqQHv5dP2lluzF-_HQoR_&authuser=bblais%40bryant.edu&usp=drive_fs">Natural Images</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is a collection of natural images used in my research. It contains the original images, scripts for processing the images, as well as scripts to download some of the standard databases, such as the Olshausen and VanHateren image databases.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="presentations">Presentations</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S. Feb 2013.<em> <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Physics%20Neuroscience%20Talk%20Feb%202013.pdf">From Theory to Experiment and Back Again: A Physicists Journey Through Neuroscience</a></em> . University of Rhode Island Neuroscience Colloquium. (a keynote version, which includes the animations, is <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Physics%20Neuroscience%20Talk%20Feb%202013.zip">here</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/ICCNS%202008%20final.pdf">A Hierarchical Spatiotemporal Model of Neocortex With Probabilistic Feedback.</a> (Twelfth International Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems (ICCNS), May 2008)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Inhibition.pdf">Notes on Inhibition and BCM</a> . (IBNS Research Meeting, April 2008)</p>
</li>
<li><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/bearlab_080207.pdf">TTX and BCM</a> . (MIT Lab Presentation, August 2007)</li>
<li><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/brown_talk1105.pdf">Plasticity in the Brain: A Physicist's Perspective on Learning and Memory</a> (Brown University, Frontiers in the Interaction Between Physics and Biology, November 2005)</li>
<li><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/neuro05_poster.pdf">Synaptic Modification in Spiking-Rate Models: A Comparison between Learning in Spiking Neurons and Rate-Based Neuron Models</a>* (Society for Neuroscience, Poster Presentation, November 2005) with Scott Kuindersma.</li>
<li><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/iccns05_html/img0.html">The Role of Structure and Noise in the Mouse Visual System</a></em> (ICCNS, May 2005) with Mikhail Frenkel (MIT), Scott Kuindersma (Bryant University), and Mark Bear (MIT)</li>
<li><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/pres_082704b.pdf">Simulations of Monocular Deprivation in Mouse</a></em> (MIT Lab Presentation, August 2004) with Scott Kuindersma.</li>
<li><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/071304.pdf">Simulations of Monocular Deprivation in Mouse</a></em> (Brown IBNS Presentation, July 2004) with Scott Kuindersma.</li>
<li><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/brinposter2003.pdf">Visual System Development and Organization: Using Direction and Orientation Maps to Compare Theory and Experiment</a></em> (Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network, Poster Presentation (BRIN), 2003) with Christian Latino.</li>
<li><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/NIPS2002.pdf">Selectivity and Metaplasticity in a Unified Calcium-Dependent Model</a></em> (NIPS 2002)</li>
<li><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/brinposter_2002.pdf">Neural Architecture and the Mechanisms for Learning and Memory Storage</a></em> (Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN), Poster Presentation, 2002) with Maria Cuartas.</li>
<li><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/iccns/iccns.htm">The Formation of Orientation and Direction Selectivity Maps: Comparing Rules of Synaptic Modification</a></em> (ICCNS, May 2001)</li>
<li><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/job_talk/index.htm">The Physics of the Brain: Towards and Understanding of Learning and Memory</a></em> (Job Talk, Jan 2000)</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="publications">Publications</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Blais, B. S. 2014. <a href="http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_360-2">Receptive Field modeling</a> in <a href="http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6">Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience</a>, edited by D. Jaeger and R. Jung (Springer New York, 2014) pp. 1-6.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S, Cooper, L.N , and Shouval H.Z. 2008. <a href="http://pre.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v80/i6/e061915">Effect of correlated lateral geniculate nucleus firing rates on predictions for monocular eye closure versus monocular retinal inactivation</a> <em>Physical Review E</em> 80 (6): 061915.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Monocular deprivation experiments can be used to distinguish between different ideas concerning properties of cortical synaptic plasticity. Monocular deprivation by lid suture causes a rapid disconnection of the deprived eye connected to cortical neurons whereas total inactivation of the deprived eye produces much less of an ocular dominance shift. In order to understand these results one needs to know how lid suture and retinal inactivation affect neurons in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) that provide the cortical input. Recent experimental results by Linden et al. showed that monocular lid suture and monocular inactivation do not change the mean firing rates of LGN neurons but that lid suture reduces correlations between adjacent neurons whereas monocular inactivation leads to correlated firing. These, somewhat surprising, results contradict assumptions that have been made to explain the outcomes of different monocular deprivation protocols. Based on these experimental results we modify our assumptions about inputs to cortex during different deprivation protocols and show their implications when combined with different cortical plasticity rules. Using theoretical analysis, random matrix theory and simulations we show that high levels of correlations reduce the ocular dominance shift in learning rules that depend on homosynaptic depression (i.e., Bienenstock-Cooper-Munro type rules), consistent with experimental results, but have the opposite effect in rules that depend on heterosynaptic depression (i.e., Hebbian/principal component analysis type rules).</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>Blais, B.S, Frenkel M. , Kuindersma S., Muhammad R., Shouval H.Z, Cooper, L.N , and Bear M. F. 2008 <a href="https://www.physiology.org/doi/10.1152/jn.90411.2008">Recovery from monocular deprivation using binocular deprivation: Experimental observations and theoretical analysis</a> . <em>Journal of Neurophysiology</em> 100:2217-2224.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ocular dominance (OD) plasticity is a robust paradigm for examining the functional consequences of synaptic plasticity. Previous experimental and theoretical results have shown that OD plasticity can be accounted for by known synaptic plasticity mechanisms, using the assumption that deprivation by lid suture eliminates spatial structure in the deprived channel. Here we show that in the mouse, recovery from monocular lid suture can be obtained by subsequent binocular lid suture but not by dark rearing. This poses a significant challenge to previous theoretical results. We therefore performed simulations with a natural input environment appropriate for mouse visual cortex. In contrast to previous work we assume that lid suture causes degradation but not elimination of spatial structure, whereas dark rearing produces elimination of spatial structure. We present experimental evidence that supports this assumption, measuring responses through sutured lids in the mouse. The change in assumptions about the input environment is sufficient to account for new experimental observations, while still accounting for previous experimental results.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>Blais, B.S. and Cooper, L.N 2008. <a href="http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/BCM_theory">BCM Theory</a> . <em>Scholarpedia</em> 3(3):1570.<blockquote>
<p>BCM (Bienenstock et al., 1982) refers to the theory of synaptic modification first proposed by Elie Bienenstock, Leon Cooper, and Paul Munro in 1982 to account for experiments measuring the selectivity of neurons in primary sensory [8]cortex and its dependency on neuronal input. It is characterized by a rule expressing synaptic change as a Hebb-like product of the presynaptic activity and a nonlinear function, \phi(y;\theta_M) , of postsynatic activity, y. For low values of the postsynaptic activity ( y<\theta_M ), \phi is negative; for y>\theta_M , \phi is positive. The rule is stabilized by allowing the modification threshold, \theta_M , to vary as a super-linear function of the previous activity of the cell. Unlike traditional methods of stabilizing Hebbian learning, this "sliding threshold" provides a mechanism for incoming patterns, as opposed to converging afferents, to compete. A detailed exploration can be found in the book Theory of Cortical Plasticity (Cooper et al., 2004). For an open-source implementation of the BCM, amongst other synaptic modification rules, see the Plasticity package1(http://plasticity.googlecode.com/) .</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Shouval, H.Z, Gavornik, J. P., Shuler, M., Bear, M. F., and Blais, B.S. 2007. <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/CRCNS07.pdf">Learning Reward Timing using Reinforced Expression of Synaptic Plasticity</a> In <em>Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) Conference</em>.</p><blockquote>
<p>Our collaborative research proposes to study the synaptic and cellular basis of receptive field plasticity in visual cortex. Recently some of our efforts have concentrated on accounting for novel aspects of cellular responses and plasticity observed in the visual cortex of the rat. In recently published findings we provided evidence that pairing visual cues with subsequent rewards in awake behaving animals results in the emergence, in the primary visual cortex (V1), of reward-timing activity (Shuler and Bear, 2006). Further, the properties of reward-timing activity suggest that it is generated locally within V1, implying that V1 is privy to a signal relating the acquisition of reward. We provide here a model demonstrating how such interval timing of reward could emerge in V1. A fundamental assumption of this work is that the timing characteristics of the V1 network are encoded in the lateral connectivity within the network, consequently the plasticity assumed in this model is of these recurrent connections. Using this assumption, no prior stimulus-locked temporal representation is necessary. The plasticity of recurrent connections is implemented through an interaction between an activity dependent Hebbian like plasticity, and a neuromodulatory signal signifying reward. It is demonstrated that such a global reinforcement signal is sufficient for interval time learning by stabilizing changes in nascent synaptic efficacy resultant from prior visually-evoked activity. By modifying synaptic weight change within the recurrent network of V1, our model transforms temporally restricted visual events into neurally persistent activity relating to their associated reward timing expectancy.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Shouval, H.Z, Bear, M.F., and Blais, B.S. 2006. <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/CRCNS_2006.pdf">The cellular basis of receptive field plasticity in visual cortex, an integrative experimental and theoretical approach</a> . In <em>Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience (CRCNS) Conference</em>.</p><blockquote>
<p>Synaptic plasticity is a likely basis for information storage by the neocortex. Understanding cortical plasticity requires coordinated investigation of both underlying cellular mechanisms and their systems-level consequences in the same model system. However, establishing connections between the cellular and system levels of description is non-trivial. A major contribution of theoretical neuroscience is that it can link different levels of description, and in doing so can direct experiments to the questions of greatest relevance. The objective of the current project is to generate a theoretical description of experience-dependent plasticity in the rodent visual system. The advantages of rodents are, first, that knowledge of the molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity is relatively mature and continues to be advanced with genetic and pharmacological experiments, and second, rodents show robust receptive field plasticity in visual cortex (VC) that can be easily and inexpensively monitored with chronic recording methods. The project aims are threefold. First, the activity of inputs to rat visual cortex will be recorded in different viewing conditions that induce receptive field (RF) plasticity, and these data will be integrated into formal models of synaptic plasticity. Second, the dynamics of RF plasticity will be simulated using existing spike rate-based algorithms and compared will experimental observations. Third, the consequences of new biophysically plausible plasticity algorithms, based on spike timing and metaplasticity, will be analyzed and compared with experiments.6</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Blais, B.S. and Kuindersma, S. 2005. <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/neuro05_poster.pdf">Synaptic Modification in Spiking-Rate Models: A Comparison between Learning in Spiking Neurons and Rate-Based Neuron Models</a> In <em>Society For Neuroscience Conference Abstracts</em></p><blockquote>
<p>Rate-based neuron models have been successful in understanding many aspects of development such as the development of orientation selectivity(Bienenstock et al., 1982; Oja, 1982; Linsker, 1986; Miller, 1992; Bell and Sejnowski, 1997), the particular dynamics of visual deprivation(Blais et al., 1999) and the development of direction selectivity(Wimbauer et al., 1997; Blais et al., 2000). These models do not address phenomena such as temporal coding, spike-timing dependant synaptic plasticity, or any short-time behavior of neurons. More detailed spiking models (Song et.al, 2000; Shouval et.al. 2002; Yeung et.al. 2004) address these issues, and have had some success, but have failed to develop receptive fields in natural environments. These more detailed models are diffiult to explore, given their large number of parameters and the run-time computational limitations. In addition, their results are often diffiult to compare directly with the rate-based models. <p>We propose a model, which we call a spiking-rate model, which can serve as a middle-ground between the over simplistic rate-based models, and the more detailed spiking models. The spiking-rate model is a spiking model where all of the underlying processes are continuous Poisson, the summation of inputs is entirely linear (although non-linearities can be added), and the generation of outputs is done by calculating a rate output and then generating an appropriate Poisson spike train. In this way, the limiting behavior is identical to a rate-based model, but the proper ties of spiking models can be incorporated more easily. We present the development of receptive i!elds with this model in various visual environments. We then present the necessary conditions for the receptive field development in the spiking-rate models, and make comparisons to detailed spiking models, in order to more clearly understand the necessary conditions for receptive field development</p></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Yeung, L.C., Shouval, H.Z, Blais, B.S., Cooper, L. N. 2004. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/41/14943">Synaptic Homeostasis and Input Selectivity Follow From a Calcium-Dependent Plasticity Model</a> . <i>Proceedings of the National Academy of Science</i>. Vol 101, Issue 41. 14943-14948.</p><blockquote>
<p>Modifications in the strengths of synapses are thought to underlie memory, learning, and development of cortical circuits. Many cellular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity have been investigated in which differential elevations of postsynaptic calcium concentrations play a key role in determining the direction and magnitude of synaptic changes. We have previously described a model of plasticity that uses calcium currents mediated by N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors as the associative signal for Hebbian learning. However, this model is not completely stable. Here, we propose a mechanism of stabilization through homeostatic regulation of intracellular calcium levels. With this model, synapses are stable and exhibit properties such as those observed in metaplasticity and synaptic scaling. In addition, the model displays synaptic competition, allowing structures to emerge in the synaptic space that reflect the statistical properties of the inputs. Therefore, the combination of a fast calcium-dependent learning and a slow stabilization mechanism can account for both the formation of selective receptive fields and the maintenance of neural circuits in a state of equilibrium.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li><p>Cooper, L. N, Intrator, N., Blais, B.S., Shouval, H. Z. 2004. <a href="plasticity/book.html">Theory of Cortical Plasticity</a> . World Scientific Publishing.</p><blockquote>
<p>This invaluable book presents a theory of cortical plasticity and shows how this theory leads to experiments that test both its assumptions and consequences. It ellucidates, in a manner that is accessible to students as well as researchers, the role which the BCM theory has played in guiding research and suggesting experiments that have led to our present understanding of the mechanisms underlying cortical plasticity. Most of the connections betwen theory and experiment that are discussed require complex simulations. A unique feature of the book is the accompanying software package, <em><a href="plasticity/index.html">Plasticity</a> </em>. This is provided complete with source code, and enables the reader to repeat any of the simulations quoted in the book as well as to vary either parameters or assumptions. <em><a href="plasticity/index.html">Plasticity</a> </em> is thus a research and an educational tool. Readers can use it to obtain hands-on knowledge of the structure of BCM and various other learning algorithms. They can check and replicate our results as well as test algorithms and refinements of their own.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>Bryant Faculty Spotlight2018-09-11T00:00:00-04:002018-09-11T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-09-11:/posts/2018/Sep/11/bryant-faculty-spotlight/<p>This video is part of the Bryant Faculty Spotlight series. In this episode I speaks about his book Statistical Inference for Everyone, an open textbook that approaches introductory statistical inference …</p><p>This video is part of the Bryant Faculty Spotlight series. In this episode I speaks about his book Statistical Inference for Everyone, an open textbook that approaches introductory statistical inference in a novel way.</p>
<p>This episode can be obtained:</p>
<ul>
<li>On the Bryant University Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.bryant.edu/faculty-spotlight-videos/3/</li>
</ul>10 dogmas of science dismantled2018-06-18T00:00:00-04:002018-06-18T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-06-18:/posts/2018/Jun/18/10-dogmas-of-science-dismantled/<p>In his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TerTgDEgUE&t=583s">talk about the limitations of science</a>, Rupert Sheldrake lists the "10 dogmas of modern science" (also listed here in text <a href="http://wariscrime.com/new/the-ten-dogmas-of-modern-science/">http://wariscrime.com/new/the-ten-dogmas-of-modern-science/</a>). They are:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>Everything …</li></ol></blockquote><p>In his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TerTgDEgUE&t=583s">talk about the limitations of science</a>, Rupert Sheldrake lists the "10 dogmas of modern science" (also listed here in text <a href="http://wariscrime.com/new/the-ten-dogmas-of-modern-science/">http://wariscrime.com/new/the-ten-dogmas-of-modern-science/</a>). They are:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>Everything is essentially mechanical. Dogs, for example, are complex mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own. Even people are machines, ‘lumbering robots’, in Richard Dawkins’s vivid phrase, with brains that are like genetically programmed computers.</li>
<li>All matter is unconscious. It has no inner life or subjectivity or point of view. Even human consciousness is an illusion produced by the material activities of brains.</li>
<li>The total amount of matter and energy is always the same (with the exception of the Big Bang, when all the matter and energy of the universe suddenly appeared).</li>
<li>The laws of nature are fixed. They are the same today as they were at the beginning, and they will stay the same for ever.</li>
<li>Nature is purposeless, and evolution has no goal or direction.</li>
<li>All biological inheritance is material, carried in the genetic material, DNA, and in other material structures.</li>
<li>Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains. When you look at a tree, the image of the tree you are seeing is not ‘out there’, where it seems to be, but inside your brain.</li>
<li>Memories are stored as material traces in brains and are wiped out at death.</li>
<li>Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory.</li>
<li>Mechanistic medicine is the only kind that really works.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>These are presented as dogmas, unquestioned by scientists and taken for granted. Many of these are demonstrably false or misleading. When he states (1) that animals and people "are complex mechanisms, rather than living organisms with goals of their own", this is an either-or fallacy. They could be <em>both</em> mechanisms and agents. It could be that we use different vocabulary on different scales - I don't describe baseball in terms of quantum mechanics, even though I am confident that all the components of baseball is governed by quantum mechanics. </p>
<p>Sheldrake lists a number of things which are poorly understood, for which there is a growing list of research, the conclusions of which are not taken dogmatically. Similarly, there are a number of things in the list where research has been done, and the current perspective (not dogma!) has been arrived at because there has been no evidence to support the alternatives that Sheldrake is implying. Examples of these include (2) "All matter is unconscious", (8) "Memories are stored as material traces", (5) "evolution has no goal", (7) "Minds are inside heads".</p>
<p>With (3), although energy is conserved (in a closed system) and matter is a subset of energy, it is not believed that the Big Bang <em>produced</em> energy. Rather, if the universe came from nothing then the total energy of the universe must be zero - which it empirically seems to be. If the universe did not come from nothing, but came out of a universe-producing process then the energy didn’t “suddenly appear” as Sheldrake suggests.</p>
<p>As to (4), the so-called fixed laws of Nature are a theory - which explains and is consistent with a huge variety of observations. Thus, we are <em>confident</em> in this particular theory. It is possible, though, that the laws to change - and that would be measurable. It is not taken as a dogma.</p>
<p>Point (9) "Unexplained phenomena like telepathy are illusory" is misleading, given its incompleteness. It seems that, given <em>years</em> of observation, telepathy is in fact illusory. However, there are many unexplained phenomena that are not illusory, e.g. dark matter, the placebo effect, etc...</p>
<p>In every one of these cases, scientists don't hold these as <em>dogmas</em>. If you have evidence, then present it! If it turns out that you can demonstrate telepathy, that would be fantastic - but everyone who has tried so far has not been able to demonstrate it. It may be that the universe has purpose, and perhaps it is possible to differentiate a process with a purpose from one without in certain circumstances, but the person making the claim of the extra “purpose” must be the one to bear the burden of proof. </p>
<p>I think it is easier for Sheldrake to accuse someone of a dogmatic view rather than do the hard work of actually convincing them with evidence. Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean that I am dogmatically holding to my view - you just haven't done your homework. </p>There is more than enough time2018-05-24T00:00:00-04:002018-05-24T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-05-24:/posts/2018/May/24/there-is-more-than-enough-time/<p>Here are some notes about time management that I found useful from <a href="https://www.inc.com/benjamin-p-hardy/theres-more-than-enough-time-when-you-use-the-time.html">this article</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>If you’re with your friends, be with your friends. If you’re doing the dishes …</li></ul><p>Here are some notes about time management that I found useful from <a href="https://www.inc.com/benjamin-p-hardy/theres-more-than-enough-time-when-you-use-the-time.html">this article</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>If you’re with your friends, be with your friends. If you’re doing the dishes, do the dishes.</li>
<li><strong>Good Things Are A Dime-A-Dozen</strong>. For me, passively watching a movie with my kids is good. However, actively engaging with them—whether playing games, laughing, playing out in the yard—is better.</li>
<li>The problem with doing good things is that they are easy to justify, because they are inherently good. But, as Jim Collins, author of Good To Great, has said, “Good is the enemy of great. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.”</li>
<li><strong>Always Take The Higher Road</strong></li>
<li>When the alarm clock goes off , do you push snooze or get up? When you’re with your spouse, do you compliment or criticize? Do you listen, or must you always speak?</li>
<li><strong>Be Who You Ideally Want To Become, Today</strong></li>
<li>As Bill Walsh has said, “Winners act like winners before they become winners.” That’s how they become “winners.”</li>
<li>Take time to write down your core values and goals.</li>
</ul>A Cookbook Response to Jordan Peterson2018-05-22T00:00:00-04:002018-05-22T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-05-22:/posts/2018/May/22/a-cookbook-response-to-jordan-peterson/<p>I've reproduced below Sam Harris' incredible example of interpreting texts. Harris brought this up at the end of <a href="https://samharris.org/podcasts/meaning-and-chaos/">a long podcast with Peterson</a>, but didn't press Peterson on it.</p>
<p>Make …</p><p>I've reproduced below Sam Harris' incredible example of interpreting texts. Harris brought this up at the end of <a href="https://samharris.org/podcasts/meaning-and-chaos/">a long podcast with Peterson</a>, but didn't press Peterson on it.</p>
<p>Make sure to compare it to <a href="https://memoirsofanamnesic.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/interpreting-cain-and-abel-pt-i/">a transcript of Jordan Peterson's interpretation of Cain and Abel</a>, which is representative of many of the things Peterson speaks about:</p>
<p><a href="https://memoirsofanamnesic.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/interpreting-cain-and-abel-pt-i/">https://memoirsofanamnesic.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/interpreting-cain-and-abel-pt-i/</a></p>
<p>Once you read Harris' Cookbook exposition, you never see Peterson the same again. Peterson claims that he only believes those interpretations that can be tied to four difference levels of understanding simultaneously, but I think that ends up being a smokescreen and that the same linguistic gymnastics can be done even in this case.</p>
<h3 id="from-sam-harris-the-end-of-faith">From <a href="https://samharris.org/books/the-end-of-faith/">Sam Harris, <em>The End of Faith</em></a>:</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem with such hermeneutical efforts [...] is that they are perfectly unconstrained by the contents of the texts themselves. One can interpret every text in such a way as to yield almost any mystical or occult instruction.</p>
<p>A case in point: I have selected another book at random, this time from the cookbook aisle of a bookstore. The book is <em>A Taste of Hawaii: New Cooking from the Crossroads of the Pacific</em>. Therein I have discovered an as yet uncelebrated mystical treatise. While it appears to be a recipe for wok-seared fish and shrimp cakes with ogo-tomato relish, we need only study its list of ingredients to know that we are in the presence of an unrivaled spiritual intelligence:</p>
<ul>
<li>snapper filet, cubed</li>
<li>3 teaspoons chopped scallions</li>
<li>salt and freshly ground black pepper</li>
<li>a dash of cayenne pepper</li>
<li>2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger</li>
<li>1 teaspoon minced garlic</li>
<li>8 shrimp, peeled, deveined, and cubed</li>
<li>1⁄2 cup heavy cream; 2 eggs, lightly beaten</li>
<li>3 teaspoons rice wine; 2 cups bread crumbs</li>
<li>3 tablespoons vegetable oil; 2 1⁄2 cups ogo-tomato relish</li>
</ul>
<p>The <em>snapper filet</em>, of course, is the individual himself —you and I— awash in the sea of existence. But here we find it cubed, which is to say that our situation must be remedied in all three dimensions of body, mind, and spirit.</p>
<p><em>Three teaspoons of chopped scallions</em> further partakes of the cubic symmetry, suggesting that that which we need add to each level of our being by way of antidote comes likewise in equal proportions. The import of the passage is clear: the body, mind, and spirit need to be tended to with the same care.</p>
<p><em>Salt and freshly ground black pepper</em>: here we have the perennial invocation of opposites—the white and the black aspects of our nature. Both good and evil must be understood if we would fulfill the recipe for spiritual life. Nothing, after all, can be excluded from the human experience (this seems to be a Tantric text). What is more, salt and pepper come to us in the form of grains, which is to say that our good and bad qualities are born of the tiniest actions. Thus, we are not good or evil in general, but only by virtue of innumerable moments, which color the stream of our being by force of repetition.</p>
<p><em>A dash of cayenne pepper</em>: clearly, being of such robust color and flavor, this signifies the spiritual influence of an enlightened adept. What shall we make of the ambiguity of its measurement? How large is a dash? Here we must rely upon the wisdom of the universe at large. The teacher himself will know precisely what we need by way of instruction. And it is at just this point in the text that the ingredients that bespeak the heat of spiritual endeavor are added to the list—for after a dash of cayenne pepper, we find two teaspoons of chopped fresh ginger and one teaspoon of minced garlic. These form an isosceles trinity of sorts, signifying the two sides of our spiritual nature (male and female) united with the object meditation.</p>
<p>Next comes <em>eight shrimp—peeled, deveined, and cubed</em>. The eight shrimp, of course, represent the eight worldly concerns that every spiritual aspirant must decry: fame and shame; loss and gain; pleasure and pain; praise and blame. Each needs to be deveined, peeled, and cubed— that is, purged of its power to entrance us and incorporated on the path of practice.</p>
<p>That such metaphorical acrobatics can be performed on almost any text—and that they are therefore meaningless—should be obvious.</p>
</blockquote>Exploring the Idea of Scrum2018-05-18T00:00:00-04:002018-05-18T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-05-18:/posts/2018/May/18/exploring-the-idea-of-scrum/<p>Although I am not in software development, and I don't work in a lot of teams, I have recently read the book <em>Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work …</em></p><p>Although I am not in software development, and I don't work in a lot of teams, I have recently read the book <em>Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time</em> (https://www.scruminc.com/new-scrum-the-book/) which I find very interesting and possibly quite useful<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:1">1</a></sup>. As far as I can tell, the Scrum process derives its value from a few key concepts, which can equally well apply to individuals as well as teams, to academia as well as software development. These key concepts, as I see them is, </p>
<ol>
<li>Work is done in a short, cyclical pattern: 1-2 week "sprints"</li>
<li>The work - the goals, on deck (aka backlog), work in progress, and done - is <em>displayed publicly</em> (or at least prominently to the team) <em>at all times</em>. This is typically done with a physical <a href="https://manifesto.co.uk/agile-concepts-scrum-task-board/">scrum board</a>, but can also be done in software.</li>
<li>A <em>demonstration</em> occurs at the end a work "sprint". The result of the sprint is something <em>deliverable</em> and <em>complete</em>, even if small, and this is demonstrate to the people to whom the work has value.</li>
<li>A <em>review of the process and results</em> occurs regularly at the end of each sprint</li>
</ol>
<p>If working on a team, we add the further concept</p>
<ol>
<li>A team needs to have <em>absolutely everyone</em> who is needed to complete the work. This will often involve people at many levels of a hierarchy.</li>
</ol>
<p>As an addition, there are a few other things I learned from the book.</p>
<ul>
<li>The role of management is to <em>remove the impediments</em> to getting projects done. So, part of the review process is to list the impediments to the work so that management can work on that.</li>
<li>Short (15-minute) "scrum" meetings answering "what have I done since the last, what are my impediments, what am I going to get done"</li>
<li>Focussing on <em>value</em> rather than work is more productive.</li>
<li>The "deliver quickly" and adapt is a better strategy than trying to deliver a large, complete, and possibly incorrect product.</li>
</ul>
<p>Meanwhile I am also working my way through the book <em>Agile Faculty: Practical Strategies for Managing Research, Service and Teaching.</em> (http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo26106581.html) I'm interested if any of these ideas will help in my own practices, and whether I can gain some benefit for the department and university processes with these ideas. </p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:1">
<p>One summary is <a href="http://mightyrasing.com/notes-on-scrum-the-art-of-doing-twice-the-work-in-half-the-time/">here</a> <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:1" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Your Lack of Imagination Can Kill You2018-03-07T00:00:00-05:002018-03-07T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-03-07:/posts/2018/Mar/07/your-lack-of-imagination-can-kill-you/<p>Here is my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xAb3aVGVM0&t=2s">TEDxBryantU talk on Skepticism, Probability, and the Guide to Proper Thinking</a>! Even useful for analyzing broken clocks.</p>Life from non-life and other conundrums2018-03-06T00:00:00-05:002018-03-06T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-03-06:/posts/2018/Mar/06/life-from-non-life-and-other-conundrums/<p>In the <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/">Unbelievable podcast</a> episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-27-Oct-2007-Top-reasons-for-belief">27 Oct 2007 - Top reasons for belief</a> there is a discussion about good arguments for God. Two questions were raised as evidence for God that …</p><p>In the <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/">Unbelievable podcast</a> episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-27-Oct-2007-Top-reasons-for-belief">27 Oct 2007 - Top reasons for belief</a> there is a discussion about good arguments for God. Two questions were raised as evidence for God that I think are telling:</p>
<ol>
<li>how do you get life from non-life?</li>
<li>how do you get the personal from the impersonal?</li>
</ol>
<p>The answers to these questions points to the properties of God, as traditionally understood. </p>
<p>My first reaction is, even if we didn’t know the answers to these questions we would still not be in a position to make a positive claim for the explanation (e.g. God) without making the further step of obtaining evidence for the positive claim. This is a God-of-the-Gaps move. </p>
<p>Secondly, although neither question is understood in sufficient detail, we have made substantial progress in understanding the <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/">origin of life</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness#Scientific_study">origin of consciousness</a>. Far more progress than is made by assuming an agent simply created it. We should avoid jumping to a positive claim without the evidence for that claim, and note our tendency to do just that in the face of mystery.</p>Top Reasons for Belief2018-03-05T00:00:00-05:002018-03-05T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-03-05:/posts/2018/Mar/05/top-reasons-for-belief/<p>In the <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/">Unbelievable podcast</a> episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-27-Oct-2007-Top-reasons-for-belief">27 Oct 2007 - Top reasons for belief</a> there is a discussion around the results of a small survey of reasons for belief in God and …</p><p>In the <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/">Unbelievable podcast</a> episode <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-27-Oct-2007-Top-reasons-for-belief">27 Oct 2007 - Top reasons for belief</a> there is a discussion around the results of a small survey of reasons for belief in God and belief in Christianity specifically. They discussed the tension between analytical justifications and those based on revelation or personal experience. It was interesting that they never addressed the fact that personal experience is an unreliable way of determining the <em>truth</em> of a proposition. </p>
<p>When they did discuss reasons, the usual suspects came up - arguments from first cause, morality, and design. I was however struck by the conviction that these arguments were basically unassailable. For example, one Reverend summarized the first cause argument. “Everything that begins to exist has a cause” - which he added “was a matter of logic and can be proved and thus is uncontroversial.” He followed with “the universe began to exist.” to which he added “of course that’s true because the universe is here.” He then expressed his admiration that this argument was written hundreds of years ago. What I find interesting is not that someone would believe this argument, but that they would so uncritically accept it - the universe existing does not necessarily imply that it <em>began</em> to exist. Just because your common sense suggests that everything that begins to exist has a cause doesn’t mean that your common sense should hold for things outside of your own personal scale - things may be quite different and unintuitive on the scale of the very big or very small.</p>
<p>The discussion did mention the <em>practical</em> benefit of Christian belief, in the specific case of forgiveness taking away bitterness. This may in fact be true, but can’t one achieve this without believing all of the other parts? I think so, but sometimes I wonder whether people need a form of narrative to structure their most fundamental beliefs - a human limitation perhaps - and that this narrative could be a requirement to get the levels of positive behaviors we’d like out of humanity.</p>Physics Lab Ideas - Structure or No?2018-02-26T00:00:00-05:002018-02-26T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-02-26:/posts/2018/Feb/26/physics-lab-ideas-structure-or-no/<p>Over the years I have taught introductory physics labs and I have seen that most “canned” labs offer very little to the student in the form of learning. I summarize …</p><p>Over the years I have taught introductory physics labs and I have seen that most “canned” labs offer very little to the student in the form of learning. I summarize them as “here is something known quite well, and you are going to measure it badly”. Labs measuring the acceleration due to gravity, <span class="math">\(g\)</span>, falls into that category. How do you improve these sorts of labs? I have a few ideas.</p>
<ol>
<li>choose problems where the answer isn’t known or known well</li>
<li>push the limit of a particular simple case into the area where the simple case breaks down</li>
<li>have the students design the lab themselves to answer a question</li>
</ol>
<p>So, for the case of the acceleration due to gravity, put it as a model comparison problem:</p>
<ul>
<li>Model 1 = objects fall with a constant <em>speed</em></li>
<li>Model 2 = objects fall with a constant <em>acceleration</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Then you give objects to the students such as pennies, packing peanuts, coffee filters, marbles, etc… Some objects might be best explained with Model 2 while others with Model 1. Neither model may describe some perfectly. How can you tell? Having the students design the resulting tests makes the laboratory experience a lot more interesting. I’ll add a selfish note that it makes the labs more interesting <em>for the instructor</em> as well.</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>“Almost every atheist I meet wears the spectacles of 'naturalism'. It's the view that there is no supernatural dimension to existence. All that really exists is physical matter in motion.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sounds suspiciously like “philosophical naturalism”, to which I know of <em>no one</em> who ascribes. There is <em>“methodological naturalism”</em> which simply states that we may assume, for the moment as a practical matter, that there isn’t a supernatural realm. We’ll continue to assume that until someone can demonstrate the supernatural. This isn’t as much wearing “spectacles of ‘naturalism’” but the only pragmatic choice an honest inquiry can support. </p>
<p>Another way to look at it is to notice that science evaluates <em>well-defined claims</em>. We know of no method which can handle non-well-defined claims and we have yet to see a <em>definition</em> of supernatural that is well defined. Is there one? Until someone puts forward something useful, we can proceed without including it in our descriptions.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Consequently, there is no realm of right or wrong to be discovered in life, no overarching purpose to things, no ultimate meaning to reach for in the universe.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Which is also possibly wrong, and I dealt with it in the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/3-reasons-why-belief-in-god-makes-sense.html">previous post</a>. Even if you’re not convinced of this argument, you have to admit there is - for some people - a reasonable argument for morality under naturalism.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When BBC broadcaster and atheist scientist Jim Al-Khalili came on my Unbelievable? show he acknowledged: 'It's a huge philosophical question: why does nature speak the language of mathematics?'. Nobel Prize winning physicist Eugene Wigner termed it 'the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics', describing it as a 'wonderful gift we neither understand nor deserve’.”</p>
<p>“Are we to simply say 'pass' on this question?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps this is a necessary fact? Perhaps there is an explanation, but we don’t have access to it? God, however, is no explanation. As Robert Price notes, you’re trying to explain unknown X with unknown double-X!</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Our belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of human beings is best explained by Christianity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights tapped into a foundational view of humanity established by our Judeo-Christian heritage, one which we jettison at our peril. Our belief in the intrinsic value of humanity can't be explained by atheism. But if we are made in the image of God, as Christianity claims, then that gives every human being inestimable value.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Except, the Bible itself clearly delineates superior and inferior people! It specifies, in great detail, how one should treat slavery depending on whether they are the chosen people or not. Furthermore, Jesus - despite some of his better messages - never speaks against that and tacitly endorses it with the <a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/5-18.htm">“not one jot of the law will be abolished”</a> statement.</p>
<p>All-in-all I find Justin’s claims here, despite his good intentions, to be a testament to confirmation bias - which perhaps I am suffering from as well? How can I tell? </p>The Truth of a Story2018-02-12T00:00:00-05:002018-02-12T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-02-12:/posts/2018/Feb/12/the-truth-of-a-story/<p><a href="https://bblais.github.io/the-power-of-a-story.html">In Part 1 of this post</a> I walk through a <strong>powerful, but false, story</strong> of a vindicated math prodigy. When the article stated…</p>
<blockquote>
<p>”No. I gave you that option already …</p></blockquote><p><a href="https://bblais.github.io/the-power-of-a-story.html">In Part 1 of this post</a> I walk through a <strong>powerful, but false, story</strong> of a vindicated math prodigy. When the article stated…</p>
<blockquote>
<p>”No. I gave you that option already and it was declined. I want every exam in the country marked incorrect that has 999 as the correct answer."</p>
<p>It took an attorney and another 3 months, but I got the result. My daughter scored the only 100 on the exam that year for her grade, not just in her class, but in the country.</p>
<p>I didn't care what it cost. I didn't care how much effort it took. I didn't care that an entire federal department was given tens of thousands of hours of work in addition to the demands placed on it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>…I was skeptical. I then went to see when this would have happened - the article said that the events happened in 2008. Was there any national standardized test in that year (plus or minus 1 year) which had their scores reduced by 1 question? Not that I could confirm - and that would have made very big headlines.</p>
<p>Without that, I looked into who the author is…his name is Ed Trice. A quick google search brings us to <a href="https://www.snopes.com/common-core-ed-trice-999/">Snopes</a> which labels this story as “Unproven”. Further searches has Ed Trice involved in a number of hoaxes and suspicious stories. </p>
<p>When I read the story I really <em>wanted</em> it to be true - perhaps that is the power of the story. After learning that in all likelihood the story didn’t happen, I felt used and manipulated. </p>Your Lack of Imagination Can Kill You — But You Can Be Saved by Math2018-02-10T00:00:00-05:002018-02-10T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-02-10:/posts/2018/Feb/10/your-lack-of-imagination-can-kill-you-but-you-can-be-saved-by-math/<p>Here I present how our cognitive biases -- confirmation bias, innumeracy, either-or bias -- can lead to significant problems, but also can be solved with the proper use of probability theory. Essentially …</p><p>Here I present how our cognitive biases -- confirmation bias, innumeracy, either-or bias -- can lead to significant problems, but also can be solved with the proper use of probability theory. Essentially, understanding probability -- even without numbers -- can save us from making mistakes in our reasoning.</p>The Power of a Story2018-02-09T00:00:00-05:002018-02-09T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-02-09:/posts/2018/Feb/09/the-power-of-a-story/<p>Stories are a powerful influence on thinking. It is pretty clear that humans communicate best in narratives, and the more that you can use stories to explain a concept the …</p><p>Stories are a powerful influence on thinking. It is pretty clear that humans communicate best in narratives, and the more that you can use stories to explain a concept the better. A particularly good example of this statement I found starting with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whats-largest-number-you-can-represent-3-digits-nope-its-ed-trice">this article</a>. It introduces a math problem:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What's the largest number you can represent with 3 digits? Nope. It's not 999.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>but the article doesn’t continue with the answer, but with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This post is about my fight against "Standardized Testing" in math….</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It follows with a story about how his incredibly bright daughter was in trouble for correcting her math teacher. Her math teacher had said the largest number was 999, and the daughter had (correctly) said it was:</p>
<div class="math">$$
9^{9^9}
$$</div>
<p>Which is </p>
<div class="math">$$9^{387,420,489} \sim 10^{370,000,000}$$</div>
<p>The article continues with the heroic parent arguing with the principal in the defense of his daughter who always gets 100% in math, and is a prodigy. The argument escalates to the superintendent and culminates in the father demanding that they “go to the national board of education and have everyone who took this test have their answers marked incorrect”. There’s the moral lesson at the end,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The truly sad thing is, look how a unique mind was mistreated for being brilliant. How many times does something parallel to this happen in our once great country? How many teachers squelch out the faint cry of genius from some shy personality sitting in the back of a classroom?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I remind her all of the time about a great quote from Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. "I never let schooling interfere with my education." Don't let common core stand in the way of your own children's education.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a great story, strikes all the right notes. By the end, you’re rooting for the daughter against the establishment, you can feel the satisfaction as the establishment squirms, and the cheer at the justice of the final solution.</p>
<p>Of course, the story would be much better <strong>if it were true</strong>. In Part 2, I will examine the idea of the truth of the story and why we should prefer truth over the emotional power of a story.</p>
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<h3 id="god-makes-sense-of-human-existence">God Makes Sense Of Human Existence</h3>
<p>Here, Justin cites the Fine Tuning Argument, which has its best take-down in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R97IHcuyWI0">Sean-Carroll/William Lane Craig debate</a>. It’s really an argument from physics, and the physics isn’t at all clear on whether the effect is there, or whether the interpretation of the effect is even reasonable. </p>
<h3 id="god-makes-sense-of-human-value">God Makes Sense Of Human Value</h3>
<p>Here, Justin states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But why exactly do we believe that human life should be valued? Why did Jaime do the right thing – the human thing?</p>
<p>I find it very hard to come up with an answer on an atheistic world view. Why should humans have any more claim for special regard on the biological tree of life than a louse? There’s nothing intrinsically special about us in a universe that is blindly obeying the laws of nature. Any beliefs in objective human rights, values and morality are ultimately an illusion, a side-effect of our evolutionary history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here I think <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right">Sam Harris has the best word</a> for this but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq2C7fyVTA4">Matt Dillahunty also does quite well</a> with it.</p>
<h3 id="god-makes-sense-of-human-purpose">God Makes Sense Of Human Purpose</h3>
<p>Finally, Justin states, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Atheism and Christianity tell two very different stories – one is of ultimate purposelessness and the other is of ultimate hope. Hope that there is a reason for our existence, hope that our lives mean something, the hope that death is not the end. Is it a delusion?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The word “purpose” I think is a little less defined than I’d like, but it seems that if heaven exists then there really is no purpose for this life. I am also not convinced that purpose requires an infinite time - that if you exist for a finite time then you can have purpose. It may also be the case that there is no purpose - but how we feel about that should have no effect on the truth.</p>Facts are Not Enough2018-02-05T00:00:00-05:002018-02-05T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-02-05:/posts/2018/Feb/05/facts-are-not-enough/<p>In the October issue of Significance magazine, an article called <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2017.01066.x/full">“Why facts are not enough in the fight against fake news”</a> by Brian Tarran resonated with some of the things …</p><p>In the October issue of Significance magazine, an article called <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2017.01066.x/full">“Why facts are not enough in the fight against fake news”</a> by Brian Tarran resonated with some of the things I have been thinking. A few quotes are useful here,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“But fake news also satisfies another need: serving up stories that people either <em>want</em> or <em>feel</em> to be true, even if the facts say otherwise. This appeal to emotion is a central component of the post-truth phenomenon.”</p>
<p>“Post-truth is a very specific and very twenty-first century problem, which is where emotion trumps factual assessment and evidence.”</p>
<p>“…bombarding people with facts is not enough, and that the answer to fake news is to wrap our response to it in an emotionalism that does not compromise factual accuracy, but acknowledges that the way in which people respond to information has changed.”</p>
<p>“”…we have to always have a mixture of telling people’s human stories while at the same time giving context to those stories and giving the real facts.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Reading this, I am immediately reminded of a few things. </p>
<ul>
<li>The book <em>Don't Be Such a Scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style</em> by Randy Olson, which outlines the importance of using <em>stories</em> to communicate science, and that we lose the public when we don’t.</li>
<li>The TV series Cosmos, with Carl Sagan, where he did just that - used stories and visualization to convey the emotional impact of science.</li>
<li>Interviews with Scott Adams, a professed Trump supporter, who refers to Trump as the “Master Persuader”. Don’t believe me? Listen to his <a href="https://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/scott-adams-master-persuader-episode-605/">interview on the Art of Charm podcast</a>. His point as I read it is that Trump is very good at providing visually and emotionally engaging points, despite the facts, to build solidarity in the base and to disarm his opponents. This is the epitome of the post-truth culture.</li>
</ul>More than Enough Time2018-02-02T00:00:00-05:002018-02-02T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-02-02:/posts/2018/Feb/02/more-than-enough-time/<p>Here are some notes about time management that I found useful from <a href="https://journal.thriveglobal.com/theres-more-than-enough-time-when-you-use-the-time-you-have-3ffa7adaa5d3">this article</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>If you're with your friends, be with your friends. If you're doing the dishes, do the …</li></ul><p>Here are some notes about time management that I found useful from <a href="https://journal.thriveglobal.com/theres-more-than-enough-time-when-you-use-the-time-you-have-3ffa7adaa5d3">this article</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>If you're with your friends, be with your friends. If you're doing the dishes, do the dishes.</li>
<li><strong>Good Things Are A Dime-A-Dozen</strong>. For me, passively watching a movie with my kids is good. However, actively engaging with them---whether playing games, laughing, playing out in the yard---is better.
*The problem with doing good things is that they are easy to justify, because they are inherently good. But, as Jim Collins, author of Good To Great, has said, "Good is the enemy of great. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life."</li>
<li><strong>Always Take The Higher Road</strong></li>
<li>When the alarm clock goes off , do you push snooze or get up? When you're with your spouse, do you compliment or criticize? Do you listen, or must you always speak?</li>
<li><strong>Be Who You Ideally Want To Become, Today</strong></li>
<li>As Bill Walsh has said, "Winners act like winners before they become winners." That's how they become "winners."</li>
<li>Take time to write down your core values and goals.</li>
</ul>Happy Groundhog Day!2018-02-01T00:00:00-05:002018-02-01T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-02-01:/posts/2018/Feb/01/happy-groundhog-day/<p>Happy Groundhog Day, tomorrow! Hope <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punxsutawney_Phil">Phil's predictions</a> are as good as ever! The data are summarized as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Sees his shadow - 103 (79.23%)</li>
<li>Does not see his shadow - 18 (13 …</li></ul><p>Happy Groundhog Day, tomorrow! Hope <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punxsutawney_Phil">Phil's predictions</a> are as good as ever! The data are summarized as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Sees his shadow - 103 (79.23%)</li>
<li>Does not see his shadow - 18 (13.85%)</li>
<li>No record - 9 (6.92%)</li>
</ul>
<p>So I'm betting that he sees his shadow!</p>Matter, Energy, and the Spirit2018-01-31T00:00:00-05:002018-01-31T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-31:/posts/2018/Jan/31/matter-energy-and-the-spirit/<p>Theists seem to critique naturalism with the claim that there is more to the universe than just "matter and energy". However, even physicists have in their models certain entities which …</p><p>Theists seem to critique naturalism with the claim that there is more to the universe than just "matter and energy". However, even physicists have in their models certain entities which cannot be categorized as either matter or energy. The quantum wavefunction is one clear example. There is also a history of introducing entities into models which later turn out to be unnecessary - "Vis viva" (i.e. life force), "phlogiston" (i.e. heat fluid), and "celestial matter" (vs terrestial matter). It is not that scientists are dogmatically against such entities, it's just that they should be dropped when they don't explain and predict anything or alternative explanations are simpler and more direct. We don't use agency to explain the motion of the planets anymore, for example, but we once did.</p>
<p>There are other entities in models which serve as placeholders for the unknown, for example "dark matter". No one seriously thinks labeling the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve">gravitational effect observed from galactic rotation curves</a> is better understood once we label it "dark matter". It is just a placeholder, until we figure out what dark matter actually is - neutrinos, black holes, altered gravitation on large scale, etc...</p>
<p>Given this backdrop, what explanative and predictive power do the terms "spirit" and "supernatural agency" have anymore? Can we name anything that we understand better with their inclusion than we do without? What direct observations make these entities useful in any model of the universe, beyond as a placeholder for the unknown? </p>Cool theorem - angle bisector2018-01-29T00:00:00-05:002018-01-29T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-29:/posts/2018/Jan/29/cool-theorem-angle-bisector/<p>I was helping my daughter with geometry the other day and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_bisector_theorem">this cute theorem popped up in the examples</a>. For some reason I don't recall ever seeing it before, and …</p><p>I was helping my daughter with geometry the other day and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_bisector_theorem">this cute theorem popped up in the examples</a>. For some reason I don't recall ever seeing it before, and it struck me as somehow particularly elegant. I have used (many times) the specific - <a href="http://ceemrr.com/Geometry1/RightTriangles/RightTriangles4.html">more limited version with isosceles triangles</a> - but to see the generalization was just neat.</p>
<p>It makes me wonder also why I find enjoyment in something this simple and technical. </p>Naturalism Defined2018-01-22T00:00:00-05:002018-01-22T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-22:/posts/2018/Jan/22/naturalism-defined/<p>The question of supernatural vs. natural has come up a lot in discussions with Christians. Such quotes as "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)">Naturalism</a> is ambiguous. What is nature and what isn't nature?", "Naturalism is …</p><p>The question of supernatural vs. natural has come up a lot in discussions with Christians. Such quotes as "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)">Naturalism</a> is ambiguous. What is nature and what isn't nature?", "Naturalism is vacuous. It's only tenet is an entirely reactionary one - no theology", and "Naturalism is unable to ground its own intelligibility which means it collapses into nihilism" abound. Philosopher Alvin Plantinga has an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism">Evolutionary argument against naturalism</a>.</p>
<p>The way I see it is the following. There used to be a distinction between "terrestrial" and "celestial" matter. Then it was determined that the planets obeyed the same rules as the apples falling from trees and the need for the distinction disappeared. "Celestial" matter disappeared as did "terrestrial" matter leaving just "matter". Since then, we have determined, that pretty much everything we can observe follows the same rules - although some get blurred at different scales (microscopic vs macroscopic, for example). Naturalism then is simply the recognition that the stuff we see day-to-day operates on the same principles as the stars in the early universe, and the galaxies far far away. So if you can show us something that is observable yet doesn't follow these rules - something which follows a separate set of rules - then perhaps it might be time to introduce the distinction between natural and supernatural. Otherwise, there is no need for the added concept of the supernatural. Is there such an observable? What are its rules?</p>
<p>As a side-note, this means that naturalism need not "ground its own intelligibility". It is just the recognition that we can develop rules using the material on the Earth and make predictions over a wide range of time and space. There really isn't anything more we could ask of it.</p>Lessons from Jon Acuff's book Finish2018-01-17T00:00:00-05:002018-01-17T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-17:/posts/2018/Jan/17/lessons-from-jon-acuffs-book-finish/<p>Here are the lessons I learned from <a href="https://acuff.me/books/">Jon Acuff's book <em>Finish</em></a>.</p>
<ol>
<li>Cut Your Goal in Half<ul>
<li>half done is better than none, psychologically</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Choose what to bomb<ul>
<li>what gives? something …</li></ul></li></ol><p>Here are the lessons I learned from <a href="https://acuff.me/books/">Jon Acuff's book <em>Finish</em></a>.</p>
<ol>
<li>Cut Your Goal in Half<ul>
<li>half done is better than none, psychologically</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Choose what to bomb<ul>
<li>what gives? something will, and that's ok. it's called "seasons". </li>
<li>just say "no"</li>
<li>simplify</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Make it fun if you want it done<ul>
<li>give yourself rewards. This is also in "The Power of Habit"</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>get rid of secret rules<ul>
<li>avoid rules like "I'm not a ...."</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>use data to celebrate imperfect progress<ul>
<li>track time, pages, words</li>
<li>track miles run, pounds</li>
<li>books sold, thank you notes mailed</li>
<li>new contacts, books read</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>the day before done<ul>
<li>other ideas creep in - write them down for later, and don't let them derail you.</li>
<li>these ideas are your next project!</li>
<li>afraid of finishing? don't be!</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p>It seems to be related to the Art of Charm toolbox podcast episode <a href="https://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/aoc-toolbox-quality-want-focus-quantity-episode-683/">If Quality Is What You Want, Focus on Quantity (Episode 683)</a></p>How to be productive - Part 2 - Methods2018-01-16T00:00:00-05:002018-01-16T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-16:/posts/2018/Jan/16/how-to-be-productive-part-2-methods/<p>In <a href="">Part 1 of this series</a> I describe some of the apps I've used. Here I speak about some of the methods I have tried to be productive.</p>
<h3 id="the-list">The List …</h3><p>In <a href="">Part 1 of this series</a> I describe some of the apps I've used. Here I speak about some of the methods I have tried to be productive.</p>
<h3 id="the-list">The List</h3>
<p>Here's a list of some of the resources
* <a href="https://gettingthingsdone.com/">GTD (Getting things done)</a> - this is perhaps the universal "To Do" methodology. Most people seem to have a love/hate relationship with this method.
* <a href="https://zenhabits.net/zen-to-done-ztd-the-ultimate-simple-productivity-system/">Zen to Done</a> - a simplification of the GTD method.
* <a href="https://12weekyear.com/">12 Week Year</a>
* <a href="https://acuff.me/books/">Finish by Jon Acuff</a>
* <a href="https://theartofcharm.com/">The Art of Charm Podcast</a>
* <a href="http://www.asianefficiency.com/podcast/">The Productivity Show</a> - excellent, specific advice on productivity
* <a href="http://productivity-podcast.com/">Kevin Kruse - Extreme Productivity</a> - podcast seems to be over, but binge listen to this!
* <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/pomodoro-technique.htm">Pomodoro technique</a></p>
<h3 id="the-takeaway">The Takeaway</h3>
<ul>
<li>The filing system for resource materials described in GTD is golden. Basically, just alphabetically, one folder per letter. Doesn't matter whether you are filing "pet alligators" with "asthma paper" because you know close to where you need to look (e.g. is "asthma" under "asthma" or "medical"?). There usually isnt so much to look through that it takes long to find, and you <strong>simplify the filing so that you're more likely to do it</strong>.</li>
<li>The "2-minute rule" from GTD and zTD. If it would take more less than 2 minutes to do, do it right now. </li>
<li>To-do's should be <em>actions</em> not <em>nouns</em></li>
<li>Choose your MIT (Most Important Todos) each day - 3 of them - and get them done first.</li>
<li>If it is important to do, <strong>put it on your calendar</strong>, in 15 minute blocks.</li>
<li>Pomodoro rocks! 25 minutes, for me, seems to be a good time-period for getting a single non-trivial thing done. Trivial things (like email) can be done in 15 minute blocks.</li>
<li>Put "check email" on calendar, only for 2 specific times a day and don't look at it otherwise.</li>
</ul>
<p>As I am trying bullet journaling, I will post an update on that method, and how it compares to the digital methods I've tried.</p>How to be productive - Part 1 - Apps2018-01-15T00:00:00-05:002018-01-15T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-15:/posts/2018/Jan/15/how-to-be-productive-part-1-apps/<p>I am a to-do list app junkie, unfortunately. Actually, beyond that, I am a <em>productivity method</em> junkie. Of course, I recognize that in doing so I often make myself <em>less …</em></p><p>I am a to-do list app junkie, unfortunately. Actually, beyond that, I am a <em>productivity method</em> junkie. Of course, I recognize that in doing so I often make myself <em>less</em> productive. Still it's a hard interest to shake. Further, I find that when I switch to-do apps it makes it easier to throw out all kinds of items which I wasn't going to do anyway. So I feel like I get a burst of productivity simply by switching to-do apps every 6 months to a year. Here is a short list of the to-do apps I have tried, and some quick comments on them:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.todoist.com/">Todoist</a> (current app) - good free app, but the premium is worth it. I haven't used it for sharing to-do's but it has a clean interface and I can have it on my phone, mac, and windows tablet. You need to pay for some features that Wunderlist has in the free - like reminders, comments, and attachments.</li>
<li><a href="https://www.wunderlist.com/">Wunderlist</a> (former app) - nice free app, but seems to be aging a bit and there is no future support for it. Microsoft hopes to replace it with their own To Do app. Doesn't archive projects at all (you have to delete them!)</li>
<li><a href="https://culturedcode.com/things/">Things</a> - a solid app, but mac/iphone only - and expensive!</li>
<li><a href="https://ticktick.com/">Tick-tick</a> (as of June 2017) - maximum of 9 lists or go pro with $25/mo</li>
<li><a href="https://asana.com/">Asana</a> - looks interesting, but perhaps overkill as a to-do app - more for teams</li>
</ul>
<p>I've also tried, and rejected for various reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>Firetask</li>
<li>Todo Pro</li>
<li>Astrid</li>
<li>Taskpaper - nice idea for text-based to-dos, but a bit fragile</li>
<li>OmniFocus - complete, huge learning curve, and quite pricey. overkill for most of the things I need a to-do app to do.</li>
</ul>
<p>This year, I am going to try out an analog solution <a href="http://bulletjournal.com/">with bullet journal</a>, once I figure out how it works. I'll report on what I find!</p>I'm not a Denier, I'm a Skeptic2018-01-11T00:00:00-05:002018-01-11T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-11:/posts/2018/Jan/11/im-not-a-denier-im-a-skeptic/<p>In this tumultuous time, it is important to not demonize people who disagree with you. It is also important to recognize that people can have nuanced views on complex subjects …</p><p>In this tumultuous time, it is important to not demonize people who disagree with you. It is also important to recognize that people can have nuanced views on complex subjects. Calling someone a denier when they have such views is not constructive. For example, from <a href="http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/28/making-nonsense-of-climate-denial/">"Making (non)sense of climate denial"</a> we have:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Scientists agree that surface temperatures have increased since 1880, humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have a warming effect on the planet. However there is considerable disagreement about the most consequential issues:</p>
<ul>
<li>Whether the warming since 1950 has been dominated by human causes</li>
<li>How much the planet will warm in the 21st century</li>
<li>Whether warming is ‘dangerous’</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>This seems pretty reasonable to me, and is basically the view that I have. I have seen a lot of overblown attribution to climate (e.g. polar bears, more frequent hurricanes, more intense tornadoes, etc...). On the other hand, I've heard some ridiculous anti-climate change statements (e.g. it's cold outside now in New England therefore no climate change; people couldn't possible be influential enough to change the climate). </p>
<p>We must be vigilant to explore each claim, evaluate it on its own, and come closer to the truth which may indeed be messy. We need to be open to messy, nuanced positions.</p>Art, Scientific Reductionism, and the New Neuroscience2018-01-10T00:00:00-05:002018-01-10T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-10:/posts/2018/Jan/10/art-scientific-reductionism-and-the-new-neuroscience/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>In an <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/How-Art-Reveals-the-Limits-of/232821/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en">article in the Chronicle of Higher Education</a>, Alva Noë challenges the neuroscience paradigm, summarized as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The momentous proposition is this: Every thought, feeling, experience, impression, value, argument …</p></blockquote><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>In an <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/How-Art-Reveals-the-Limits-of/232821/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en">article in the Chronicle of Higher Education</a>, Alva Noë challenges the neuroscience paradigm, summarized as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The momentous proposition is this: Every thought, feeling, experience, impression, value, argument, emotion, attitude, inclination, belief, desire, and ambition is in your brain. We may not know how the brain manages this feat, but, so it is said, we are beginning to understand. And this new knowledge — of how the organization of bits of matter inside your head can be your personality, thoughts, understanding, wonderings, religious or sexual impulses — is surely among the most exciting and important in all of science, or so it is claimed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He believes art doesn't follow this model,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But a work of art, like the meaningful world around us, is not a mere stimulus. And we work hard — we look, we ask, we think, we collaborate — to bring art and world into focus for consciousness.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He then critiques neuroscience as claiming that the picture and the object are the same,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The equivalency of a picture and what it depicts, however, is deeply implausible.[...]You may see a woman in the statuette. But you are not in the same state you would be in if you were in the presence of an actual woman. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He continues exploring aesthetics, point out</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aesthetic responses are not fixed data points but are rather like positions staked out in a conversation, continuing in our day, our lives, and in the historical time of our culture. Aesthetic responses are cultivated and nourished, and they are also challenged. Encountering a work of art is more like an evening with a friend, or an afternoon at work, than it is like the transient relishing of a flavor. Aesthetic responses are also sometimes questions that the art poses to us rather than definitive answers; they are beginnings, opportunities, not data points.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In summary,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aesthetic responses, then, are not symptoms or reactions or stable quantities. They are actions. They are modes of participation. They are moments of conversation. There is nothing about which we can even ask: What are its neural correlates? And moreover, to look for neural correlates is already to have turned away from what deserves to be called aesthetic experience, for it is to have turned away from art and toward mere synaptic goings-on inside us.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="response">Response</h2>
<p>As I was reading this article, I was immediately struck by how limiting the author sees neuroscience. The "equivalency of a picture and what it depicts" is pretty silly - there is obviously a distinction both in and outside of the brain. We can tell the difference between a picture of an object and the object itself because internally there is a neural model which represents the object in all of the features we've experienced about the object. This neural model is activated when a sufficient number of its properties are activated - which may be associations from other areas. Seeing the 2D representation of a sculpture results in the neural model becoming active; seeing the 3D object as we walk around it also results in the neural model becoming active, perhaps even more strongly and with more associations.</p>
<p>The article also fails to include multiple modalities. It is true that you can get visual responses from art, but even going to a museum to see paintings provides a more rich neural representation including smells, alternate visual angles, connections to stories about the piece, etc... Even within the paradigm of neural models, nothing in the experience of art is inconsistent.</p>
<p>The idea of aesthetic responses as "actions" and "moments of conversation" is entirely consistent with the language of neural correlates. It's just an admission that most of our experience is an interplay between internal models and actions driven by the brain's representation in such a complex fashion that we can't easily summarize it. Scientifically, we can choose to isolate certain modalities - vision alone, for example - in order to understand pieces of it. The scientists aren't assuming that's all there is, but it may be all that can be described at this time - at least in quantitative detail.</p>
<p>It would be a very interesting research project to see how the visual system is modified by learning in other areas. Do people actually <em>see</em> art differently when they know the context or is the visual system doing the same thing in both cases but the increased aesthetic response comes from the interaction of multiple brain areas? Far from eliminating the language of neuroscience, we should wholeheartedly embrace it.</p>Where probabilities and theology meet2018-01-09T00:00:00-05:002018-01-09T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-09:/posts/2018/Jan/09/where-probabilities-and-theology-meet/<p>We start with the article <a href="https://calumsblog.com/2012/02/18/resurrection-for-theism/"><em>Why the resurrection data can be evidence for theism, and why arguments for resurrection need not presuppose theism – formal demonstrations</em></a>.</p><p>We start with the article <a href="https://calumsblog.com/2012/02/18/resurrection-for-theism/"><em>Why the resurrection data can be evidence for theism, and why arguments for resurrection need not presuppose theism –
formal demonstrations</em></a>.</p>
<h2 id="summary-of-the-article">Summary of the article</h2>
<p>Definitions:</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(T\)</span> = theism</li>
<li><span class="math">\(R\)</span> = the resurrection of Jesus</li>
<li><span class="math">\(D\)</span> = specific historical data</li>
</ul>
<p>Some definitions, and initial probability assessments. The numbers are not meant to be precise but to convey overall qualitative estimates:</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(P(T) \ge 0.01\)</span> which includes natural theology </li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(\sim T) = 1- P(T) \le 0.99\)</span> - prior on atheism</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(R|T) \approx 0.0001\)</span> - unlikely but not extraordinarily so</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(R|\sim T) \approx 0.00000001\)</span> - very unlikely</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(D|R) \approx 0.75\)</span> - relatively high</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(D|\sim R) \approx 0.00000001\)</span> - very unlikely</li>
</ul>
<p>Now some calculations.</p>
<ul>
<li>Probability of the data on atheism</li>
</ul>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(D|\sim T) &=& P(D| \sim T \cdot R)P(R|\sim T)+P(D| \sim T \cdot \sim R)P(\sim R|\sim T) \\
&=& 0.75 \cdot 0.00000001 + 0.00000001 \cdot 0.999999999 \\
&=&0.00000007501
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<ul>
<li>Probability of the data on theism</li>
</ul>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(D|T) &=& P(D| T \cdot R)P(R|T)+P(D|T \cdot \sim R)P(\sim R|T) \\
&=& 0.75 \cdot 0.0001 + 0.00000001 \cdot 0.9999 \\
&=&0.00007501
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<ul>
<li>From which follows</li>
</ul>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(T|D) &=& \frac{P(D|T)P(T)}{P(D|T)P(T)+P(D|\sim T)P(\sim T)} \\
&=&\frac{0.0000751 \cdot 0.01}{0.0000751 \cdot 0.01 + 0.0000000751 \cdot 0.99} \\
&=&0.977
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
where the prior probability for theism was <span class="math">\(P(T)=0.01\)</span> - definitely an increase in probability given the data!</p>
<p>The point of this argument is to "<em>serve as a rejoinder to those philosophers of religion who do not see the argument from miracles as supporting theism at all, or who think that one need to presuppose theism to argue for a miracle</em>". Further, "<em>I am not intending to argue that the probabilities given at the start are correct, only that it is in principle very much possible for one to argue to theism from miracle evidence</em>" and "<em>that it is also possible to argue for a particular miracle without presupposing theism.</em>"</p>
<h2 id="two-concerns-with-this-argument">Two concerns with this argument</h2>
<h3 id="lack-of-well-defined-propositions">Lack of well-defined propositions</h3>
<p>Probability theory only applies to well-defined propositions. Something like <span class="math">\(P(T)\)</span> may not mean anything if the proposition <em>theism is true</em>, shortened to <span class="math">\(T\)</span> is not well defined. If we are opening it up to all possible theisms, then we have to include deism, good gods, evil gods (think Cthulhu), chaotic gods (think Zeus), multiple gods (think Hinduism), gods as nature (think paganism), etc... It is unclear to me that, if you include all of that, that you can easily estimate <span class="math">\(P(T)\)</span>. </p>
<p>Further, quantities such as <span class="math">\(P(R|T)\)</span> become much lower if you include all of those other pieces of theism, <span class="math">\(T\)</span>. I may in the future go through the calculation explicitely. </p>
<h3 id="lack-of-a-connection-from-data-to-propositions">Lack of a connection from data to propositions</h3>
<p>What counts as "data" here and how does it connect to the propositions? For example, the only "data" I know concerning the resurrection are <em>claims</em> from people, <em>years</em> (possibly decades) after the event, from non eye-witnesses. So when Calum writes <span class="math">\(P(D|\sim R) \approx 0.00000001\)</span> (very unlikely), he is clearly wrong. This sort of terrible evidence for the event is exactly what we'd expect if the event didn't happen.</p>
<p>Also part of the "data" has to be what we <em>don't</em> see - official reports from Romans, mentions (either positive or negative) from contemporaries, physical evidence of <em>any</em> kind, etc... When Calum states something like <span class="math">\(P(D|R) \approx 0.75\)</span> (very likely), he isn't taking this into account at all. If the resurrection had actually happened, and the body was in fact missing from a guarded tomb, I would expect Paul to mention it and the trials in Acts to mention it. Here, the missing data works <em>against</em> the claim and the proposed probabilities. </p>
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</script>Happy New Year (again)!2018-01-08T00:00:00-05:002018-01-08T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2018-01-08:/posts/2018/Jan/08/happy-new-year-again/<p>As <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2016/Jan/01/happy-new-year/">I have written before</a>, I love the idea of New Year’s Day. It’s a time for reflection, contemplation, self improvement. I realize that it is technically just …</p><p>As <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2016/Jan/01/happy-new-year/">I have written before</a>, I love the idea of New Year’s Day. It’s a time for reflection, contemplation, self improvement. I realize that it is technically just another day and just another year, and that one could definitely have any day in the year serve this role, but there still feels like something special for this day.</p>
<p>Back in 2016 I wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This year, I want to focus on writing. My hope is to be able to write 300 words a day - that’s only a page of text. But if I can do it every day, that’s a book! </p>
</blockquote>
<p>which didn't quite get done. I did write more, but I couldn't keep the pace up consistently. I plan to do a bit better this year, at least as an improvement. My goal is to write on this blog 5 times a week. Some may be pretty short, but I am motivated by the Art of Charm toolbox podcast episode <a href="https://theartofcharm.com/podcast-episodes/aoc-toolbox-quality-want-focus-quantity-episode-683/">If Quality Is What You Want, Focus on Quantity (Episode 683)</a>. Go listen now! </p>
<p>Let's see how this goes!</p>Push Back Against Bayes2017-10-24T00:00:00-04:002017-10-24T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-10-24:/posts/2017/Oct/24/push-back-against-bayes/<p>In his <a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2017/08/the-parameters-of-bayes-thereom-part-1.html">blog post about Bayes' theorem</a> <a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2017/08/the-parameters-of-bayes-thereom-part-1.html">part 1</a> and <a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2017/08/the-parameters-of-bayes-theorem-part-2.html">part 2</a>, John Loftus wrestles with the notion of prior probability and the application of Bayes' Theorem. His concern seems …</p><p>In his <a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2017/08/the-parameters-of-bayes-thereom-part-1.html">blog post about Bayes' theorem</a> <a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2017/08/the-parameters-of-bayes-thereom-part-1.html">part 1</a> and <a href="http://www.debunking-christianity.com/2017/08/the-parameters-of-bayes-theorem-part-2.html">part 2</a>, John Loftus wrestles with the notion of prior probability and the application of Bayes' Theorem. His concern seems to be primarily with the idea that there should be some things that are impossible (e.g. pigs flying) and that one shouldn't even consider these claims. He then feels that people using Bayes' theorem in religious arguments are using it both to give the veneer of credibility but also so that they can attempt to justify impossible things - clearly an abuse.</p>
<p>Although I share Loftus' concern about abusing probability, I don't think he is viewing the problem properly. For example, he introduces one form of Bayes' theorem:
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(A|B) = \frac{P(B|A)P(A)}{P(B)}
$$</div>
<p>
but then also states </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Notice that the prior probability of event "B" cannot be zero." </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He thinks this restricts the use of the theorem, continuing with </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Anything that is given a zero prior probability is not the subject for Bayes' Theorem. Got it? To use it in cases where there is a zero probability is to use it incorrectly. That's the point, not that every claim has a nonzero prior probability to it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clearly <span class="math">\(P(B)\neq 0\)</span> - the theorem refers to the probability of <span class="math">\(A\)</span> <strong>given that <span class="math">\(B\)</span> is true</strong>. It wouldn't then make any sense to have <span class="math">\(P(B)=0\)</span>. Anyway, we are't talking about the prior probability of <span class="math">\(B\)</span> at all so this seems like a misdirected criticism. </p>
<p>As for claims with zero prior probability, these occur only for logically impossible claims, not simply outlandish claims.</p>
<p>Loftus continues with </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Let's say you know one student in a class of twenty has the flu. Then the prior probability that a student in that class named Sally has the flu, is 1/20. That is your prior probability." Notice you have some factual information, that is, one student in a class of twenty has the flu. This is significant. First comes data, then comes prior probabilities. Bayes is dealing with factual data from the beginning. Without it there is nothing to compute. Compute?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The term prior probability refers to <em>prior to the data</em>. But what is the data? For one problem - as with the flu case - it might be the flu test on an individual, in which case the prior to that data may include the data on general infection numbers. In the case of a coin flip, the prior probability of <span class="math">\(P(H)=1/2\)</span> comes from the symmetry of the coin leading to the fact that relabeling the sides results in an identical state of knowledge - and thus an identical probability assignment. Sometimes there is data before the prior, sometimes not. </p>
<p>Finally, Loftus states his biggest concern:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Are the following claims logically impossible?</p>
<ul>
<li>Can I ride Disney's elephant Dumbo? </li>
<li>When watching a Batman movie can the Joker leap out and attack me?</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>others he adds to this list include:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can I run a one second mile today, unaided by any technology and discounting the fact that I'm running on a moving earth traveling many miles per second around the sun?</p>
<p>Can I build a time machine before sundown today and travel back in time to prevent my grandparents from ever meeting, then come back prior to the time I built the time machine?</p>
<p>Can I build a spaceship and travel to the moon and back before sundown today? Hell, I don't have the money to do this, nor the know-how, nor access to the fuel needed without being arrested. I don't think even NASA could do this if the head received a directive to do this completely from scratch, even with the knowledge and materials. NASA wouldn't even attempt it due to safety concerns for the astronaut(s) inside. </p>
<p>Can pigs fly? Can they propel themselves through the sky without the aid of any technology? And for naysayers, a pig is a pig is a pig. They do not have the means to fly. And no, flying doesn't mean being thrown off a cliff, or riding in a plane.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Surely we would say that we know these are impossible, in the same sense of "know" that Stephen Gould stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In science, “fact” can only mean “confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.” I suppose that apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But how did we come to this? There are cases where people have claimed that pigs can fly, and I would bet that may children might entertain this as a possibility. It is through updating our state of knowledge to such a degree that we can demonstrate that any of these claims being true would undermine many other things we hold as true, and thus are unlikely in themselves. John Loftus is bringing a lot of background knowledge to the table, which he feels should bypass any probabilistic argument. Further, he asserts that the probabilistic arguments add nothing to it but tend to confuse the topic. Fair enough. </p>
<p>But, what if people don't agree on a conclusion? How does one adjudicate this without some formal structure to the argument? What structures do we have access to other than probability theory? </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem with using Bayes as a tool to evaluate magical mythical miraculous claims is that there are no hard data to go by. If one wants to calculate how many Firestone tires will go bad on Ford trucks, there are data to work with. We can calculate how many tires go bad generally speaking, and how many tires go bad on trucks, etc. Then we can state the probabilities. There's data to make a probability calculation. Magic doesn't provide any data from which to calculate. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here, Loftus is in fact wrong - there is data. It turns out that the data is always of the worst kind - anecdotal. For example, when pressed, Christians will often cite Craig Keener's tome of Miracle claims. It comes in over 1100 pages! This is actual data, but science has demonstrated that it is the worst kind of data and that our standards are higher now. What is the probability that miracles are actually occurring, and yet we have <em>zero</em> instances of it happening in a controlled setting or in a setting where we have careful pre- and post-miracle evidence? This is an application of Bayes' theorem, whether we couch it in numerical terms or not.</p>
<p>Loftus may be correct that in many cases Bayes' theorem is used to hide this fact, but in those cases I think it then becomes the best tool to demonstrate the fact. For those people that use Bayes to hide their poor reasoning, it is more likely that we can counter using the same tool. </p>
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</script>Not all Extraordinary Claims are Equal2017-09-05T00:00:00-04:002017-09-05T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-09-05:/posts/2017/Sep/05/not-all-extraordinary-claims-are-equal/<p>Although we may believe that a chick can be born inside a hen on weak testimonial evidence, we are not therefore justified to believe all other extraordinary claims on weak testimonial evidence.</p><p>It's the beginning of the school year and time to get back into writing and exploring interesting scientific questions, or at least exploring scientific thinking. We start with <a href="http://www.saintsandsceptics.org/extraordinary-claims-do-not-require-extraordinary-evidence/">this article</a> which maintains that extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence. They make the analogy with a story about a vet claiming that a chicken gave birth to a chick internally, without laying the egg. The author states that he believes this claim, despite the meager evidence, because "this is the sort of evidence that I’d expect if the claim is true and not at all what I’d expect if the claim is false."</p>
<p>As a skeptic, I thought "well, that's unusual" but am also inclined to believe it - although not particularly strongly. Why? And does this undermine my skepticism for other extraordinary claims? Here are five reasons for why I believe the claim (but not strongly) and why it is different than many other extraordinary claims:</p>
<ol>
<li>we have the word of a trained scientist, who'd be in the position to tell the difference between a hoax and something legitimate</li>
<li>we understand that the biological mechanisms of birth are stochastic, and this sort of thing is totally within the possibility of the biology</li>
<li>it led to the death of the hen, which is the most likely outcome in such a rare case</li>
<li>although the prior probability of such a thing happening is small, we have <em>many</em> chickens in the world. It's like winning the lottery twice - it happens frequently because there are so many people playing lotteries.</li>
<li>I'm still a little dubious, because I can't find any other corroboration, and the story is sensational enough to warrant making it up, so I wouldn't stake my life on the story. </li>
</ol>
<p>Maybe a probability of about 80 percent?</p>
<p>Now, ask yourself, other than point (5), do we have for any ancient miracles, or for that matter any other supernatural claims, an analogous match to any of the points 1-4? </p>Do Skeptics Underestimate the Case for the Resurrection?2017-06-07T00:00:00-04:002017-06-07T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-06-07:/posts/2017/Jun/07/do-skeptics-underestimate-the-case-for-the-resurrection/<p>As someone who is skeptical of the resurrection myself, I am not particularly impressed when someone finds it “extremely difficult to deal with as a critic”. It really isn’t all that hard.</p><p>Here's a post that has been brewing for quite a while and never really made it out.</p>
<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>Blake Giunta is up to his usual philosophizing over at <a href="https://beliefmap.org">BeliefMap</a> with a short article on <a href="https://beliefmap.org/jesus-resurrected/#underestimated">“Skeptics tend to underestimate the case”</a>. The argument seems to fall into two parts. The first part quote two so-called atheists claiming that the case for the resurrection was surprisingly good or hard to refute, even if they do not find it personally compelling. The second part is a quote from William Lane Craig, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man">strawmanning</a> an argument he had with an atheist, and stating that his opponent “could not deny the facts of Jesus’s honorable burial, his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection.” Giunta ends with an invitation, “Why not explore the case for Jesus's resurrection yourself?”, perhaps getting closer to God in the process.</p>
<p>As someone who is skeptical of the resurrection myself, I am not particularly impressed when someone finds it “extremely difficult to deal with as a critic”. It really isn’t all that hard. So, the first part of the argument doesn’t hold much water - and I think it is probably a rare case that well-informed skeptics find it hard to dismiss the claims of the resurrection.</p>
<h2 id="the-argument">The argument</h2>
<p>The strongest argument for resurrection definitely comes in the form that William Lane Craig proposes, sometimes referred to as the minimal facts approach. In this approach a core handful of claims are supposedly supported even by secular scholars, and that this core inevitably leads directly to supporting the resurrection. Different people have somewhat different lists of these minimal facts, but Craig summarizes them neatly as “Jesus’s honorable burial, his empty tomb, his post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ belief in his resurrection”. A complete take-down of this approach is found in Matthew Ferguson’s excellent article <a href="https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/knocking-out-the-pillars-of-the-minimal-facts-apologetic/">Knocking Out the Pillars of the “Minimal Facts” Apologetic</a>. </p>
<p>As an immediate rejoinder to the minimal facts approach is the fact that Paul, the earliest Christian writer, doesn’t mention most of them - the honorable burial or the empty tomb. Paul also uses the same word for Jesus "appearing" to Peter and James as to "appearing" to himself, which calls into question whether these were actual visitations or just visions, clearly not requiring an empty tomb or any other details of the crucifixion. Further, Paul never talks about any post-resurrection <em>stories</em>, only <em>visions</em>. This, too, doesn’t lend any support to the minimal facts argument because a big part of the post-resurrection appearances are in the stories. If the stories aren’t true then the appearances are called into question too.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is that if this line of logic were applied to, say, the Roswell Incident it would be quite easy to argue for alien visitation. Given the rarity of alien visitations, as well as supernatural resurrection, I will need more than a few claims about tombs and visions to convince me that something extraordinary occurred. </p>Does Art Lead Math?2017-05-05T00:00:00-04:002017-05-05T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-05-05:/posts/2017/May/05/does-art-lead-math/<p>In all of these comparisons between art and mathematics I am struck with a feeling that the writer is somehow trying to add a layer of legitimacy to the art by connecting it to mathematics or to science. I don't think this does a service to either the art or the mathematics.</p><p>I was sent a very interesting article on <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-artists-lead-the-way-in-mathematics-75355">the interplay between math and art</a>. The basic premise of the article is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Does art sometimes spur mathematical discovery? There’s no simple answer to this question, but in some instances it seems very likely.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One example is the Tiles at the Alhambra (shown above), where we have the statements from the article,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But what’s fascinating about such Islamic tilings is that the work of anonymous artists and craftsmen also displays a near-perfect mastery of mathematical logic. Mathematicians have identified 17 types of symmetry: bilateral symmetry, rotational symmetry and so forth. At least 16 appear in the tilework of the Alhambra, almost as if they were textbook diagrams.</p>
<p>The patterns are not merely beautiful, but mathematically rigorous as well. They explore the fundamental characteristics of symmetry in a surprisingly complete way. Mathematicians, however, did not come up with their analysis of the principles of symmetry until several centuries after the tiles of the Alhambra had been set in place.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The implication here is that if the art work itself "displays a near-perfect mastery of mathematical logic" then the artist must, in some way, understand the mathematics and know that is what they are doing. </p>
<p>I'm reminded of another math-art connection with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza">Pyramid of Giza</a>. If you take, for example, the base length (230.4 m) divided by the height (146.5 m) you get <span class="math">\(\pi/2\)</span> out to 3 decimal places. The Egyptians show no evidence of understanding <span class="math">\(\pi\)</span> in other contexts, so is this evidence of advanced math on the part of the Egyptians? Probably not. All you need to do is have a <em>process</em> which gives you this "coincidence". In the case of Egyptians, all you need to do is measure heights with a standard that you use to make the size of a wheel, and then use that wheel as a standard to roll out long linear distances as is needed to measure the base of a pyramid. The consequence of geometry guarantees that <span class="math">\(\pi\)</span> will come in.</p>
<p>The "near-perfect mastery of mathematical logic" in the Tiles at the Alhambra can be made with <a href="http://mathstat.slu.edu/escher/index.php/Tessellations_by_Recognizable_Figures">some simple tessellation techniques</a> without any deep understanding of the mathematics. </p>
<p>The other example the article raises is a Pollock painting:</p>
<p><img src="images/pollock.jpg"></p>
<blockquote>
<p>To those who first encountered them, the paintings of Pollock seemed chaotic and senseless. With time, however, we’ve come to see that they have elements of order, though not a traditional sort. Their shapes are simultaneously predictable and unpredictable, in a fashion similar to the pattern of dripping water from a faucet. There’s no way to predict the exact effect of the next drip. But, if we chart the pattern of drips, we find that they fall within a zone that has a clear shape and boundaries.</p>
<p>Such unpredictability was once out of bounds for mathematicians. But, in recent years, it has become one of the hottest areas of mathematical exploration. For example, chaos theory explores patterns that are not predictable but fall within a definable range of possibilities, while fractal analysis studies shapes that are similar but not identical.</p>
<p>Intriguingly, mathematicians have not been able to accurately describe what Pollock was doing in his paintings. For example, there have been attempts to use fractal analysis to create a numerical “signature” of his style, but so far the method has not worked – we can’t mathematically distinguish Pollock’s autograph work from bad imitations. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Again, the implication here is that the artist is somehow ahead of his time, and doing things beyond the understanding of the mathematicians. However, if Pollock is using some complex physical process to produce the painting (e.g. randomly spraying paint all over) then it is not surprising that simple mathematical models won't capture the details. This, to me, doesn't suggest a connection between art and math but rather suggests that the writer is stretching to make a connection between the two.</p>
<p>In all of these comparisons between art and mathematics I am struck with a feeling that the writer is somehow trying to add a layer of legitimacy to the art by connecting it to mathematics or to science. I don't think this does a service to either the art or the mathematics.</p>
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</script>Four Types of Bayesian-Frequentist Comparisons2017-04-10T00:00:00-04:002017-04-10T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-04-10:/posts/2017/Apr/10/four-types-of-bayesian-frequentist-comparisons/<p>It is important when discussing different perspectives to keep clear what the vocabulary is. If you expand the problem set to include limited <span class="math">\(N\)</span> problems, with non-Normal distributions (such as Beta and Cauchy), then the differences start to become apparent.</p>
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</script><p>In my conversations with some of my statistics colleagues who are less familiar with Bayes methods, I came up with four categories of problems that come up in Bayesian-Frequentist comparisons.</p>
<h2 id="conditional-probability-problems">Conditional probability problems</h2>
<p>An example of this is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A patient goes to see a doctor. The doctor performs a test with 99 percent reliability--that is, 99 percent of people who are sick test positive and 99 percent of the healthy people test negative. The doctor knows that only 1 percent of the people in the country are sick. Now the question is: if the patient tests positive, what are the chances the patient is sick?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are a million of these sorts of questions, and I did about 5-10 of the questions from the actuarial P test. Clearly the use of Bayes Theorem is essential in all of this, and is uncontroversial on these problems - there really isn’t an alternative. If you dislike the term "Bayesian" here, as some textbooks seem to, you can refer to these as conditional probability problems but we're talking about the same thing. So, the difference between so-called Orthodox or Frequentist approaches and so-called Bayesian approaches to problems must lie in other types of problems. I'll note that intro stats books of all stripes include these problems, and from a Bayesian perspective they are typically limited to these types of problems.</p>
<h2 id="sampling-distribution-of-the-mean">Sampling distribution of the mean</h2>
<p>My first encounter with the difference between Frequentist and Bayesian perspectives was in the "sampling distribution of the mean” chapter. The problem, say, is given a series of measurements of something (i.e. the mass of Saturn, the lengths of flower petals, etc…) what is the best estimate for the underlying quantity - e.g. what is the best estimate of the mass of Saturn and how confident are we in that measurement? Say, from orbital data, we get the following 10 data points for the mass of Saturn (in Earth-masses):</p>
<p>102, 95, 85, 86, 93, 105, 96, 91, 104, 115</p>
<p>What is the best estimate for the mass of Saturn, and our uncertainty in that estimate?</p>
<p>Both Frequentist and Bayesian methods come up with
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\mu&=&\bar{x} \pm \frac{S}{\sqrt{N}} \\
\bar{x}&=& \frac{1}{N} \sum_{k=1}^{N} x_k \\
S^2&=& \frac{1}{(N-1)}\sum_{k=1}^{N} (x_k-\bar{x})^2
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>The Bayesian and Frequentist approaches will come up with - numerically - the same answer to this question, but the vocabulary will be different. One speaks about the probability of the mean value, the other about the properties of the sampling distribution with respect to <span class="math">\(N\)</span> data points. In either case, it makes no difference <em>practically</em>.</p>
<h2 id="jaynes-type-galilean-problems">Jaynes-type Galilean problems</h2>
<p>Where the rubber meets the road is a problem like the one proposed by Lindley, where he flipped a thumbtack and noted that sometimes it lands "point up" and others “point down”. His actual data was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>U U U D U D U U U U U D (9 Ups, and 3 Downs)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And the question is, <em>can we be 95% sure of this tack being an unfair tack?</em> Given the physical properties of thumbtacks, we really don’t have any expectation that it <em>should</em> be fair (unlike a coin, where we have a symmetry argument). We come up with different answers - quantitatively and possible qualitatively - on this one (see page 54 of the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/pres_011407.pdf">presentation on the three-sided coin I gave</a>)</p>
<h2 id="anything-with-the-cauchy-distribution">Anything with the Cauchy distribution</h2>
<p>There is one final category of problems in the comparison with Bayesian and Frequentist methods. </p>
<p>Imagine we have a lighthouse which is off shore some known distance, B, and is located along the shore at some unknown location <span class="math">\(x=a\)</span>:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code> (lighthouse)
* ---
^
|
B
|
V
————shore——————+——————————————————————> x
x=a
</code></pre></div>
<p>we want to estimate the location (“a”) from a series of locations of flashes on the shore - the lighthouse is spinning around and flashing at random times. We can only observe where the flash lands on the shore, not the direction it came from. The data is, for example, the locations of these 10 flashes:</p>
<p>-4.89, 1.03, 1.64, 1.17, 0.74, 1.46, 0.76, -7.16, 0.31, 2.48</p>
<p>One can show that the location of a single flash should follow a Cauchy distribution: <span class="math">\(p(x|a,B) = B/(B^2 + (x-a)^2)\)</span>. This is due to the angular geometry of the problem.</p>
<p>The question is, what is the best estimate of “a”? What is the uncertainty in this estimate? What methods would you employ? The Bayesian treatment for this problem is in D.S. Sivia’s, <em>Data Analysis: a Bayesian Tutorial, Second Edition</em> (Oxford, 2006). A very similar problem is given in <a href="http://www.greenteapress.com/thinkbayes/html/thinkbayes010.html">Think Bayes</a> and another nice treatment is on <a href="http://www.di.fc.ul.pt/~jpn/r/bugs/lighthouse.html">João Pedro Neto's blog</a>.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure this problem is resistant to any procedure relying on sampling distributions (as all Frequentist procedures are) due to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchy_distribution">peculiar properties of the Cauchy Distribution</a>.</p>
<h2 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h2>
<p>It is important when discussing different perspectives to keep clear what the vocabulary is - what are we actually talking about? If you limit the problems to simple conditional probability problems, there isn't any difference between the Bayesian and Frequentist perspectives and one might wonder what the big deal is? However, if you expand the problem set to include limited <span class="math">\(N\)</span> problems, with non-Normal distributions (such as Beta and Cauchy), then the differences start to become apparent. </p>
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</script>Twitter, Zombies, and the Fate of the World2017-03-31T00:00:00-04:002017-03-31T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-03-31:/posts/2017/Mar/31/twitter-zombies-and-the-fate-of-the-world/<p><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Twitter Zombies and the Fate of the World.pdf">Twitter, Zombies, and the Fate of the World</a></em> is my presentation today at the <a href="http://www.bentley.edu/analytics-without-borders">Analytics without Borders Conference</a>. </p>
<p>Dynamical systems are mathematical constructions containing multiple interacting parts which vary in …</p><p><em><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Twitter Zombies and the Fate of the World.pdf">Twitter, Zombies, and the Fate of the World</a></em> is my presentation today at the <a href="http://www.bentley.edu/analytics-without-borders">Analytics without Borders Conference</a>. </p>
<p>Dynamical systems are mathematical constructions containing multiple interacting parts which vary in time. This can include physical systems such as those in astronomy or systems of interacting behaviors like those found in economics. Here we present some recent work combining the dynamical systems approach to several problems, including the spread of ideas on Twitter and the spread of zombie infections, with the statistical methods of Bayesian parameter estimation. We will also present a how-to guide to using these examples in a classroom setting, appropriate for undergraduate students and for the communication of those ideas to the public.</p>
<p><a href="https://gist.github.com/bblais/181abd99f878282666b98a29588dda41">Supplemental Notebook is here</a>.</p>Mind Reader and Skepticism2017-03-24T00:00:00-04:002017-03-24T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-03-24:/posts/2017/Mar/24/mind-reader-and-skepticism/<p>From the archives, but I bumped into this on my computer and was reminded how cool of a demo for skepticism it is. Enjoy!</p>
<p>Here is a simple website which …</p><p>From the archives, but I bumped into this on my computer and was reminded how cool of a demo for skepticism it is. Enjoy!</p>
<p>Here is a simple website which claims to read your mind: the <a href="http://www.flashlightcreative.net/swf/mindreader/">Flash Mind Reader</a>! This is a pretty extraordinary claim, so I would want extraordinary evidence. It's a nice exercise in evaluating claims. First, we ask, <em>does it do what it specifically claims to do, regardless of interpretation?</em>. On the site, it asks you to think of a two-digit number, then do some basic math on it to get another number, which you then look up on a table. The table associates the final number with a symbol, and it is that symbol which the "Mind Reader" determines. So regardless of whether the interpretation is a psychic process, or some mundane process, does the process work as claimed? In many extraordinary claims of this sort, the claimant fails even at this preliminary step. This is well documented at the <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-faq.html">JREF Challenge</a> site. </p>
<p>However, in the case of the <a href="http://www.flashlightcreative.net/swf/mindreader/">Flash Mind Reader</a>, the process does seem to work! Okay, then the next step kicks in. How many ways can we think of this thing to work, and can we test them? Is it <em>overly skeptical</em> to not consider mind-reading in that list? I don't think so, but we could probably come up with some tests even there. For example, would it work done on a group of people all at once? If it did, that would certainly count <em>against</em> mind reading. Here are a few ways that I initially thought it could work, and I could quickly discount them by looking at the table, or trying it a few times.</p>
<ol>
<li>does the calculation lead to the same number each time? No!</li>
<li>is it the same symbol each time you run it? No!</li>
<li>do all the numbers have the same symbol? No!</li>
</ol>
<p>With a little imagination, one can come up with a probable explanation that does not involve telepathy, but it is a nice recreation of the way a scientist would address <em>any</em> claim, extraordinary or not.</p>Do we really need algebra 2 and calculus?2017-03-17T00:00:00-04:002017-03-17T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-03-17:/posts/2017/Mar/17/do-we-really-need-algebra-2-and-calculus/<p>From time to time I hear proposals to restructure math or science secondary education. Two examples are <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2016/03/algebra_ii_has_to_go.html">an article in slate about algebra 2</a> and a <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_for_changing_math_education">popular ted talk about …</a></p><p>From time to time I hear proposals to restructure math or science secondary education. Two examples are <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2016/03/algebra_ii_has_to_go.html">an article in slate about algebra 2</a> and a <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_for_changing_math_education">popular ted talk about calculus</a>. In each case, the argument goes that <em>statistics</em> - and I would add <em>probability</em> - is far more useful to a larger fraction of students than, say, calculus or algebra 2. I think the argument has merit, although I think that algebra 2 is probably needed to do much of statistics and I should stress that those students going into the sciences or engineering really still need both calculus and statistics.</p>
<p>For an interesting discussion, see <a href="https://www.quora.com/Should-statistics-replace-calculus-as-the-most-advanced-math-course-in-the-high-school-curriculum">this Quora thread</a>. None of the counter arguments are convinving to me but there is some nuance to the argument expressed that I feel is productive.</p>Are there serious problems with evolution?2017-03-11T00:00:00-05:002017-03-11T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-03-11:/posts/2017/Mar/11/are-there-serious-problems-with-evolution/<p>In their article, <a href="http://www.discovery.org/a/24041"><em>Top 10 problems with biological and chemical evolution</em></a>, the Discovery Institute outlines their best critiques of evolution (i.e. biological evolution) and abiogenesis (i.e. chemical evolution …</p><p>In their article, <a href="http://www.discovery.org/a/24041"><em>Top 10 problems with biological and chemical evolution</em></a>, the Discovery Institute outlines their best critiques of evolution (i.e. biological evolution) and abiogenesis (i.e. chemical evolution). As an initial response, I thought to start with <a href="http://www.discovery.org/a/24041#problem3">Problem 3: Random Mutations Cannot Generate the Genetic Information Required for Irreducibly Complex Structures</a>. </p>
<p>It starts with this uncontroversial paragraph:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>According to evolutionary biologists, once life got started, Darwinian evolution took over and eventually produced the grand diversity we observe today. Under the standard view, a process of random mutation and natural selection built life's vast complexity one small mutational step at a time. All of life's complex features, of course, are thought to be encoded in the DNA of living organisms. Building new features thus requires generating new information in the genetic code of DNA. Can the necessary information be generated in the undirected, step-by-step manner required by Darwin's theory?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They then comment on some possible issues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>However, when multiple mutations must be present simultaneously to gain a functional advantage, Darwinian evolution gets stuck. As Behe explains, "If more than one [mutation] is needed, the probability of getting all the right ones grows exponentially worse."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And continuing</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University, coined the term <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity">"irreducible complexity"</a> to describe systems which require many parts -- and thus many mutations -- to be present -- all at once -- before providing any survival advantage to the organism. According to Behe, such systems cannot evolve in the step-by-step fashion required by Darwinian evolution. (Wikipedia link added)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Darwin himself raised the issue, <em>"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case."</em> So the challenge being raised is a legitimate one - but one that requires the demonstration that such an irreducibly complex system actually exists. As far as I've ever read, every case has failed. For example, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity#Flagella">bacteria flagellum</a> mechanism, it is claimed, is so complex that it can't function without any of it's pieces. It fails as a motor if any of the pieces are missing, so the argument goes. However, what is commonly overlooked is that the theory of evolution merely states that the pieces have to have <em>some</em> function possibly (likely?) a <em>different function</em> for selection to work. Despite this fact, you don't see it mentioned in the discussion on flagellum in the original article, nor have I ever seen it mentioned in any critique on evolution. That omission I think is fairly telling. </p>
<p>I think the problem as phrased is also misleading -- mutations aren't the driver of the "Genetic Information Required for Irreducibly Complex Structures". The <em>selection process</em> is the driver. The mutations are random, but the information comes from the environment. Imagine taking a million lions and dropping them randomly over the earth. Three quarters of them will drown in the oceans, another large fraction will die of cold or of heat. Only a small fraction will survive. The process that leads to their survival or not is <em>completely non-random</em> even while the locations of each lion is completely random.</p>
<p>There is a lot to respond to in this article, even this one section, but this is a start. I'll keep chipping away at it because each piece of it leads to a lot of external reading. </p>Philosophy of science and the burden of proof2017-03-03T00:00:00-05:002017-03-03T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-03-03:/posts/2017/Mar/03/philosophy-of-science-and-the-burden-of-proof/<p>I was just reminded about the difference between philosophy and science. I've written about this topic before <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/May/18/we-find-god-not-guilty-of-existing/">here</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2016/Jan/11/philosophy-and-science/">here</a>. This particular reminder came in the form of Blake Giunta's …</p><p>I was just reminded about the difference between philosophy and science. I've written about this topic before <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/May/18/we-find-god-not-guilty-of-existing/">here</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2016/Jan/11/philosophy-and-science/">here</a>. This particular reminder came in the form of Blake Giunta's challenge to the argument from "divine hiddenness" as stated in the <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Why-is-God-hidden-Justin-Schieber-and-Blake-Giunta">Unbelievable Podcast episode</a>. A very detailed summary of the argument and the counterargument can be found on the <a href="https://beliefmap.org/god-exists/divine-hiddenness/">beliefmap website</a>. Essentially the main argument goes that a loving God who wants to be in a personal relationship with the subjects he creates would not then choose to be hidden from anyone who is non-resistant. Thus the existence of anyone willing to be in relationship with God, but isn't, demonstrates that God doesn't exist. The challenge from Blake Giunta, broken up into many different parts in categories, is essentially that God may have reasons to hide if there's a greater good.</p>
<p>And further Blake will say that the atheist must defeat all of these possible exceptions -- show that they are all impossible -- in order to defeat his challenge. When he said this in the interview, it really struck me as shifting the burden of proof. However, he is technically correct. In a philosophical argument where you were trying to <em>prove</em> something you <em>do</em> you have to demonstrate that possible counter arguments are in fact impossible. But this isn't how we gain knowledge in the world. I've <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jan/21/philosophy-and-science-whats-the-difference/">written about this before</a> but I don't think that philosophy can produce new knowledge of things in the world. With philosophy, I can point out the possible contradictions in certain types of statements but I can never demonstrate the existence of a particular thing or phenomenon. We need science for that.</p>
<p>So the original argument really should be recast in probabilistic terms. Given the properties of God, namely his infinite love and justice, it is supremely <em>unlikely</em> that he would hide himself from so many nonresistant people. Further, it would be highly <em>unlikely</em> that, for the people who already believe in him, he wouldn't choose to be absolutely obvious. Instead, even most believers admit that the actions of God in their life -- although sometimes seemingly palpable -- are very hard to distinguish from their own thoughts or their projections onto events. Mysterious ways. This seems unlikely in the face of an all-loving God that wants to be a relationship with his subjects. </p>
<p>Recasting the argument in probabilistic terms modifies Blake's challenge. When he says that "maybe God has some reason for hiding" you can turn it around and simply ask "what evidence do you actually have that he's there and hiding?" or "what evidence do you have that these reasons for hiding are in fact salient?" Yes it's <em>possible</em> that God is hiding for some reasons but how have you demonstrated that these reasons are likely? One can make all sorts of excuses about why it's <em>possible</em> God would be hidden, but the reality is that God's actions are definitely hidden and, at best, this does not suggest the existence of a loving God.</p>
<p>The burden of proof needs to land squarely on the person making claims about God's motivations, and providing evidence of his existence in the first place. It is not the role of the skeptic to have to disprove every possible excuse the philosopher imagines, which is why the argument is much more useful in probabilistic rather than philosophical terms.</p>Pascal's Wager Again2017-02-24T00:00:00-05:002017-02-24T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-02-24:/posts/2017/Feb/24/pascals-wager-again/<p>I haven't written much on Pascal's Wager, but I had this small thought. Perhaps someday I'll flesh this out a bit more.</p>
<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>In the standard Pascal’s Wager, the …</p><p>I haven't written much on Pascal's Wager, but I had this small thought. Perhaps someday I'll flesh this out a bit more.</p>
<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>In the standard Pascal’s Wager, the calculation goes something like this. You have two actions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Believe in God (B)</li>
<li>Not believe in God (~B)</li>
</ol>
<p>Then you have certain rewards and punishments, given the existence of God.</p>
<ol>
<li>If there is a God, and you believe, the reward is huge: <span class="math">\(U(B|G)\gg 1\)</span></li>
<li>If there is a God, and you <em>dont</em> believe, the penalty is huge: <span class="math">\(U(\sim B|G)\ll -1\)</span></li>
<li>If there is <em>no</em> God, and you <em>dont</em> believe, no big deal: <span class="math">\(U(\sim B|~G)\approx 0\)</span></li>
<li>If there is <em>no</em> God, and you <em>do</em> believe, perhaps you’ve wasted your time a bit: <span class="math">\(U(B|~G) \approx -{\rm small}\)</span></li>
</ol>
<p>So you should believe! Essentially it is an expected value problem, but what if that is not the proper calculation?</p>
<h2 id="where-expected-value-breaks-down">Where Expected Value Breaks Down</h2>
<p>Here is an example from E. T. Jaynes (see <a href="http://omega.albany.edu:8008/JaynesBook.html">his book here</a> - the chapter on Decision Theory):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Suppose that you are offered the following opportunity. You can bet any amount you want on the basis that, with probability (<span class="math">\(1 − 10^{−6}\)</span>), you will lose your money; but with probability <span class="math">\(10^{−6}\)</span>, you will win 1000001 times the amount you had wagered. Again, the criterion of maximizing expected profit says that you should bet all the money you have. Common sense rejects this solution even more forcefully. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Quoting Laplace we have:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[I]t is apparent that one franc has much greater value for him who possesses only a hundred than for a millionaire. We ought then to distinguish in the hoped-for benefit its absolute from its relative value.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The solution is to not use the expected value of the actual money, <span class="math">\(M\)</span>, but the <em>log</em> of that, <span class="math">\(\log(M)\)</span>. </p>
<h2 id="back-to-the-wager">Back to the Wager</h2>
<p>So, in the case of Pascal's Wager we have a similar thing. If there is no God, then the life we have is the only life we will have. Gambling that away on the basis of poor evidence is not rational. This life has more value to the non-believer, so the possibility of a great afterlife isn’t enough to offset the more likely wasting of the only life we know to actually have. It is for this reason that atheists find meaning in life, and further, they tend to find notions of an afterlife cheap and distracting.</p>
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</script>Climate Change2017-02-17T00:00:00-05:002017-02-17T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-02-17:/posts/2017/Feb/17/climate-change/<p>In this post, I am reacting to a very interesting and well researched post <a href="https://medium.com/@pullnews/what-i-learned-about-climate-change-the-science-is-not-settled-1e3ae4712ace">where a liberal argues that the climate science is not as settled as we hear</a>. I …</p><p>In this post, I am reacting to a very interesting and well researched post <a href="https://medium.com/@pullnews/what-i-learned-about-climate-change-the-science-is-not-settled-1e3ae4712ace">where a liberal argues that the climate science is not as settled as we hear</a>. I agree with many points and am critical of other points. The overall message I think is a good one, however.</p>
<p>This is a lot to go through so my initial thoughts may be a bit scattered as I go through pieces of this document.</p>
<p>Let's start with some critique. The argument that temperature causes CO<span class="math">\(_2\)</span> to increase in the past and not vice versa is a pretty terrible argument. The physics is known - they each influence each other. In the past it has been temperature that has changed due to the orbital changes, and that consequently drove increases in CO<span class="math">\(_2\)</span>. But you can just as easily change CO<span class="math">\(_2\)</span> directly as in burning fossil fuels and affect temperature. It's not an either-or situation so this argument is misleading.</p>
<p>As for whether the earth was warmer a thousand years ago, I am somewhat agnostic. The tree ring data and other proxy data in my view is <em>extremely noisy</em> and hard to make concrete conclusions. So the uncertainty around the medieval warming period is something to be concerned about. If it was warmer 500-1000 years ago, many of the stronger claims, about climate change and how unusual the modern time period is, collapse. The statistical arguments that lead to the hockey stick are not convincing to me and are vulnerable to confirmation bias.</p>
<p>The solar connection to temperature is weaker than what the author presents here. The recent inactive sun should have led to an actual cooling not a leveling off if the solar connection was really as strong as they are saying in this article. The correlation is really somewhat weak especially in modern times. It's still there, though, and needs to be dealt with but it is in fact dealt with in many, if not all, of the models already so this is not a strong argument.</p>
<p>One thing where I agree with the article concerns a number of the predictions that have been made in the past concerning global warming. Many have not really come to fruition. Things like the polar bear population dropping and the increase in hurricanes and tornadoes are examples of this. These just haven't turned out to be the case. In addition, it happens that more people die from cold spells than do from hot spells which means there is at least one <em>benefit</em> of global warming (and there may be more). I'm not saying that it is necessarily a good thing when the climate changes or that it is overall a benefit that we are affecting the climate with our behavior. However one has to look at both the costs and the benefits of any change when trying to assess what to do about it. </p>
<p>I find many environmentalists, although well-meaning, are one-sided and do not look for the benefits of a perceived problem. The best example I can think of is pollution. What are the costs and benefits of pollution? Environmentalists are quick to point out the costs - namely the health damages. They are not so keen on pointing out the benefits. In fact if you ask an environmentalist what the benefits of pollution are they will often look offended as if the answer is obvious… None! I'll admit that when I first heard that phrase from an economist it was a little puzzling until it was explained that the meaning of the phrase "benefit of pollution" is what is the "benefit of the thing that is giving you the pollution". So if you look at cars for example we can see that the air pollution the cars give us has a cost - the pollution's impact on health and property - but it also has some clear benefits, even for health. Namely, with cars it is easier to access healthcare, there are more rapid transportation options than with horses, etc... Ironically the advent of cars while increasing air pollution, also produced a huge reduction in <em>water pollution</em> due to the reduction in animal carcasses (especially in cities) and the fertilizer used for animal feed. In the same way there are both costs and benefits of climate change and we need to be clear about which they are.</p>
<p>The Arctic ice dynamics do seem to be decreasing although the Antarctic ice seems to be increasing somewhat. Some of the predicted consequences have been overblown, however. The fact that polar bears for example, have been around for 200000 years and there have been ice free times in the arctic it during that time means that ice cover alone does not drive polar bear population declines. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"According to Bob Tisdale, a researcher I respect after reading his book Climate Models Fail, the IPCC models simply aren’t skillful. They failed to predict the past twenty years, they don’t realistically model the cloud response, and there is simply too much uncertainty about the inputs to get decent outputs."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree with this paragraph. The reason the "pause" is called the "pause" is because <em>none of the models predicted it</em>, even if you see it as a couple-decades long variation in the overall increase, none of the models predicted it. It lies outside of the uncertainty range given for these models. This just shows that the models have a great deal of uncertainty which is not accurately characterized. </p>
<p>The biggest place where uncertainty plays a role it seems is in the climate sensitivity. Namely how much should we expect the temperature to change given an increase in carbon dioxide, given all of the Earth feedbacks (both positive and negative feedbacks). It seems as if most of the estimates that are done for theoretical reasons disagree with those empirically measured and always in the same direction - the theory predicts a bigger sensitivity than observed. This means that the climate sensitivity assumed in the models doesn't match the actually measured climate sensitivity. There is still a lot of uncertainty in this topic, mostly due to potential negative feedbacks like cloud cover.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"we should switch to renewable sources of energy, but for the right reasons at the right price."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I agree with this entirely. While it may be the case that carbon dioxide is causing climate change, the uncertainty surrounding the issue makes it a harder sell in my opinion than, for example, reducing fossil-fuel use for national security. If we can wean ourselves off of fossil fuels then we might be able to remove ourselves politically from those struggles in the Middle East that seem to cause so much grief. Unfortunately the only long-term solution is nuclear power which is another discussion altogether.</p>
<p>The section of the article which describes whom you should trust and whom you shouldn't trust smacks to me of conspiracy-theory thinking. I think you should look at <em>all</em> of the data and look at competing views and see for yourself on particular issues which side seems to be making more sense. Which side posts the data, and the analysis, so that you can reproduce it? What are the types of criticisms and counter arguments are presented? Look for cherry-picking and ad hominem attacks as a sign of a bad argument.</p>
<p>I agree with most of the skepticism the author communicates and with his recommendations for reading the "protagonist" side, as he calls them. People like Judith Curry and Steve McIntyre, for example. However he includes people like Michael Crichton, whose novel discussing climate change is really an exercise in cherry picking. We go through the actual data in a classroom exercise and the pattern is pretty clear. </p>
<p>So, look at all sides of an argument, examine the evidence, and look at the arguments. In addition, try to go in assuming that people intend the best - make the most charitable reading, and avoid attributing motives to the side you disagree with. On any complex issue, those that disagree with you are probably right on some level no matter what side of the argument they are on. </p>
<p>Finally, I want to add that I can be convinced of any reasonable position - just present the evidence. So please do!</p>
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</script>Can you guess my sign?2017-02-11T00:00:00-05:002017-02-11T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-02-11:/posts/2017/Feb/11/can-you-guess-my-sign/<p>A friend of mine who is interested in astrology claims that he can determine my astrological sign from some simple questions, and knowing me for years (although not knowing my …</p><p>A friend of mine who is interested in astrology claims that he can determine my astrological sign from some simple questions, and knowing me for years (although not knowing my birthday). The claim is that he can determine it "well above random chance". A 20% number was floated out by him, although without many specifics, and I note that this number may depend on the procedures used. Also, this sort of <span class="math">\(N=1\)</span> exercise is not exactly compelling regardless of the result but I find it interesting nonetheless. What makes a good test? What would convince me? What would unconvince him?</p>
<p>Of course we'd have to agree that it was a twelve sign zodiac, not the more "accurate" <a href="http://nasa.tumblr.com/post/150688852794/zodiac">13 sign zodiac</a>. We'd also have to agree on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidereal_and_tropical_astrology">tropical signs vs sidereal signs</a>. And of course, the shift in the signs due to the <a href="http://www.livescience.com/9292-wobbly-earth-means-horoscope-wrong.html">changing tilt of the Earth over time</a>. Of course, I'm not taking this concept too seriously, not because of some anti-astrological bias or prejudice. The reason I don't take astrology too seriously currently is that I have never seen any compelling evidence for astrological effects, nor have I heard any plausible mechanism for the proposed effects, and further I have seen astrological predictions that have not been demonstrated. I can be convinced if someone shows me the actual data to support it - data that doesn't collapse under scrutiny. </p>
<p>Back to my friend...he then added that he'd prefers to rule out signs one-by-one, leaving the actual sign for last, and the exercise ends if he tries to rule out my actual sign. At first I thought this would make a difference, but if all of the questions are like "are you typically impulsive or cautious" I can't imagine how that could give any information about birthday. If there is no new information, then there should be no change in the probabilities. I even did a quick simulation to confirm this, although not worth posting the code, because sometimes ones intuition leads one astray when talking about probabilities. </p>
<p>My next question for myself will be to ask: how much data does one need to take in order to tell the difference between a 20% correct astrologer and a random (about 9%) astrologer. Even at best, if my friend gets my sign wrong he still was 80% likely to do so. </p>
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</script>Even if determinism were true it wouldn't matter2017-02-03T00:00:00-05:002017-02-03T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-02-03:/posts/2017/Feb/03/even-if-determinism-were-true-it-wouldnt-matter/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>There is a great paper <em><a href="http://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.3095810?journalCode=ajp">Thermal noise and the emergence of the arrow of time: A simple model</a></em> that illustrates the notion of the role of uncertainty in the …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>There is a great paper <em><a href="http://aapt.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1119/1.3095810?journalCode=ajp">Thermal noise and the emergence of the arrow of time: A simple model</a></em> that illustrates the notion of the role of uncertainty in the law of increasing entropy. It starts with a very simple system of particles on a grid that can have one of 4 states - up, down, left, or right. The rules of this "universe" are entirely deterministic, and are the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>First, particles move in the direction they are pointing - particles pointing up move up, those pointing down move down, etc...</li>
<li>If a particle hits the edge at this step then it reverses direction - a particle hitting the top reverses and will point down now, etc...</li>
<li>Finally, all particles that now find themselves in a cell with two or more particles rotate 90 degrees <em>clockwise</em> - this represents an interaction. </li>
</ol>
<p>That's it! If you start with a system of particles, say, all on the left half this system will evolve to a state which is pretty well mixed. </p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/entropy/1a.png"></p>
<p>One way to measure this is to count the number of particles on the left-half of the box.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/entropy/1b.png"></p>
<h2 id="unscrambling-the-egg">Unscrambling the egg</h2>
<p>One thing that is interesting is that, although the system is entirely deterministic, it does lead to a well-mixed system over time - entropy increases. Another thing that is interesting is that if we were to run time backwards -- reverse all of the particles, and make the interaction rotate now <em>counter-clockwise</em> instead of clockwise -- we should be able to "unwind" the simulation back to its very ordered beginning. This is like reversing time in the universe and unscrambling an egg. </p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/entropy/3.png"></p>
<h2 id="why-dont-we-see-an-egg-unscrambling">Why don't we see an egg unscrambling?</h2>
<p>In the case of the real world, we never see an egg unscramble -- ever. Why? Even the slightest variation or uncertainty in the system makes the mixing not reverse. If, after the mixing, we were to randomly modify just <em>one</em> particle in the small, simple system described and then try to unmix it by running time backward it won't work. Even that tiniest change is enough to block us from unscrambling the egg, as shown below. First the original mixing...</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/entropy/4.png"></p>
<p>and then messing up one particle (can you see which one? compare <span class="math">\(t=36\)</span> to <span class="math">\(t=37\)</span>)...and then reversing time and trying to "unmix" the system.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="https://bblais.github.io/images/entropy/7.png"></p>
<h2 id="what-does-it-mean">What does it mean?</h2>
<p>As I stated in <a href="free-will-on-my-mind.html">a previous post</a>, "<em>The key idea with free will, as described by Sean Carroll, is that we live in a world where uncertainty dominates.</em>" It is a practical matter that even the slightest uncertainty in the simplest and smallest deterministic system leads to the system not behaving deterministically in practice. Thus, in our own much more complex universe, we should not be overly concerned that there is theoretical conflict between "I could have done otherwise" and determinism. In practice, which is where we all are, it doesn't matter.</p>
<h2 id="code">Code</h2>
<p>The code for these simulations can be <a href="https://gist.github.com/bblais/d7d83320003de94e3c4f1de5501e8266">found here</a>.</p>
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</script>Free Will On My Mind2017-01-27T00:00:00-05:002017-01-27T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2017-01-27:/posts/2017/Jan/27/free-will-on-my-mind/<p>Usually when thinking about free will my thoughts run in circles. However the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0F4l9A2CzM&list=PL3v5wvkmbVtdBD8upZns_VTaWMhXyYtMQ">recent talks by Sean Carroll</a> were some of the clearest exposition on the topic. In summary we …</p><p>Usually when thinking about free will my thoughts run in circles. However the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0F4l9A2CzM&list=PL3v5wvkmbVtdBD8upZns_VTaWMhXyYtMQ">recent talks by Sean Carroll</a> were some of the clearest exposition on the topic. In summary we have different levels of description. Footballs for example are not in the fundamental laws of physics but that doesn't make footballs any less real - they are an emergent phenomenon. It also doesn't make the word <em>football</em> any less useful in describing the world at the level of human interactions. The problem occurs when you try to mix levels of description.</p>
<p>The key idea with free will, as described by Sean Carroll, is that we live in a world where uncertainty dominates. As a result, the fact that the universe is deterministic is irrelevant when describing human behavior - we simply don't have daily, practical access to that determinism. Free will, then, is a useful construct when discussing agency just as footballs are a useful concept when describing Sunday behavior.</p>
<p>And by the way, go Pats!</p>Jaynes vs Gelman2016-11-24T00:00:00-05:002016-11-24T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-11-24:/posts/2016/Nov/24/jaynes-vs-gelman/<p>I copied a <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/is-science-a-self-sealing-process/#comment-1306">comment on my old site</a>, and am replying to it here. It is a <em>fantastically interesting question</em>, which I have been enjoying thinking about.</p>
<p>It refers to …</p><p>I copied a <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2016/08/20/is-science-a-self-sealing-process/#comment-1306">comment on my old site</a>, and am replying to it here. It is a <em>fantastically interesting question</em>, which I have been enjoying thinking about.</p>
<p>It refers to <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/philosophy.pdf">a critique of E. T. Jaynes by Andrew Gelman</a> which I comment on below. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m working through a hard copy of your book and I stumbled upon Gelman’s criticism that Jayne’s for more messy datasets (people vs physics) without objective parameters might not work well.</p>
<p>Gelman seems to take issue with Jayne’s in that:</p>
<ol>
<li>The prior or model cannot be falsified and there isn’t enough model checking. He is more falsificationist</li>
<li>Gelman has a more frequentist definition of probability</li>
<li>Cannot change, adjust or add new priors.</li>
<li>
<p>Often impossible to know true prior…then is it ok to have a subjective one?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>All models are wrong in social science, but some are less wrong or more useful, so important to cycle through models.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Jayne’s seems to be purist and justified, whereas gelman has pragmatic approach from practice and incorporation of other philosophies.</p>
<p>Since you have cited Gelman’s book, what are your thoughts on these points? The practical implication is that I’m going to be analyzing social science data, and Gelman per those dimensions seems to make more sense, but Jayne’s is more philosophically grounded.</p>
<p>Is your book Pure Jayne’s or would it work for a social scientist? I’m particularly interested in the idea of subjective priors incorporating theory or other non statistical experiments like ABM, falsifying and cycling through models etc</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not sure Gelman is a frequentist, but he is definitely a pragmatist. He's also working with messy data. </p>
<p>Gelman seems to be against <em>model comparison</em>, admitting that all of the models are in fact wrong. This reminds me of a comment Jaynes made that Ronald Fisher (the King of Frequentism) was motivated by the types of problems he was an expert in - genetics - where frequencies <em>were</em> the data, and populations actually existed. Gelman prefers model <em>checking</em> because the models he considers cannot be derived from first-principles or come from estabished quantitative theories. Compare this to Tom Loredo's paper <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/gregory/articles.pdf"><em>From Laplace to Supernova SN 1987A: Bayesian Inference in Astrophysics</em></a>, an article that was formative for myself. Loredo's model comparison example "Measuring a Weak Counting Signal" is an icon of what Gelman calls the, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>view of Bayesian inference as inductive reasoning (what we call here ‘the usual story’)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Loredo's case, there are a number of characteristics of the problems he's investigating which are fundamentally different than the problems Gelman faces.</p>
<ol>
<li>There is a theoretical justification for the existence of, and the mathematical form of, the "background" effect</li>
<li>There is a theoretical justification for the existence of, and the mathematical form of, the "signal" he is working with</li>
<li>There is a reasonable justification for the prior probability</li>
<li>The result would probably not be very sensitive to the choice of prior</li>
<li>Many of the parameters estimated can be independently measured</li>
</ol>
<p>These characteristics of the <em>problem</em> have profound effects on the <em>models</em> and the methods for verifying them. In Gelman's case, with social science data, there are no theoretical models - he's interested only in establishing the existence of relationships. The parameters cannot be independently verified, and there are no theoretical justifications for priors. The social scientist must use qualitative correspondence with expert knowledge, knowing that it will be debatable. The parameters estimated cannot be explored directly. So, what is the social scientist to do? Spin out consequences, and compare with observations, the "hypothetico-deductive Bayesian modelling process".</p>
<p>Gelman makes a big deal about induction. Perhaps I am not understanding something, but I don't see the big deal. Gelman says </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The common core of various conceptions of induction is some form of inference
from particulars to the general – in the statistical context, presumably, inference from the observations <span class="math">\(y\)</span> to parameters <span class="math">\(\theta\)</span> describing the data-generating process. But if that
were all that was meant, then not only is ‘frequentist statistics a theory of inductive inference’ (Mayo & Cox, 2006), but the whole range of guess-and-test behaviors engaged in by animals (Holland, Holyoak, Nisbett, & Thagard, 1986), including those formalized in
the hypothetico-deductive method, are also inductive. Even the unpromising-sounding procedure, ‘pick a model at random and keep it until its accumulated error gets too big, then pick another model completely at random’, would qualify (and could work surprisingly well under some circumstances – cf. Ashby, 1960; Foster & Young, 2003). So would utterly irrational procedures (‘pick a new random ! when the sum of the least significant digits in <span class="math">\(y\)</span> is 13’). Clearly something more is required, or at least implied, by
those claiming that Bayesian updating is inductive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Contrary to what Gelman is inferring here, I actually believe that the guess-and-test is in fact inductive, in addition to frequentism being inductive. What's the "something more" that Bayesian updating has that the others don't? It has a theoretical justification - any and all other methods that disagree with Bayesian conclusions must violate one of the listed "deciderata" of Jaynes. This doesn't seem to me to be a controversial statement. There are many methods of induction, but only probability theory properly followed is optimal. </p>
<p>Bayesian approaches can also be <em>deductive</em>, as Gelman prefers. Deductive logic is a subset of probability theory, and that's all we're talking about here. </p>
<p>As far as I can tell, Jaynes and Gelman are not really in disagreement. </p>
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</script>Probability Does Extend Logic2016-11-17T00:00:00-05:002016-11-17T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-11-17:/posts/2016/Nov/17/probability-does-extend-logic/<p>In the article <a href="https://meaningness.com/probability-and-logic"><em>Probability theory does not extend logic</em></a> David Chapman, the author, criticizes the claim that probability theory generalizes logic to cases with uncertainty. He is particularly scornful of …</p><p>In the article <a href="https://meaningness.com/probability-and-logic"><em>Probability theory does not extend logic</em></a> David Chapman, the author, criticizes the claim that probability theory generalizes logic to cases with uncertainty. He is particularly scornful of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Thompson_Jaynes">E. T. Jaynes'</a> <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf">treatment of this</a>. As far as I can see, his criticisms are misplaced. I have broken the critcisms up into into a couple of categories, and explained the problem with each. In summary, I couldn't find a <em>specific</em> problem where a logical conclusion was outside the domain of probability, or a <em>specific</em> problem where probability theory resulted in an incorrect conclusion that could be demonstrated independently. Mostly, it seemed to be a criticism of notation and the ambiguity of English.</p>
<h2 id="abuse-of-notation">Abuse of notation</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Suppose you roll a die, and you believe it is fair. Then you believe that the probability it will come up as a three is 1/6. You could write this as P(3) = 1/6.</p>
<p>People write things like that all the time, and it is totally legitimate. It might make you slightly uneasy, however. 3 is a number. It’s abstract. Do numbers have probabilities? Not as such. You assign 3 a probability, in this particular context. In a different context—for example, rolling an icosahedral die—it would have a different probability.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He goes on to use a more abstract example,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the logician C. L. Dodgson demonstrated that some snarks—not all—are boojums. A probabilist may write this generalization as a conditional probability:</p>
<p><span class="math">\(P(boojum|snark) = 0.4\)</span></p>
<p>The vertical bar | is read “given”. The statement is understood as something like “if you see a snark, the probability that it is a boojum is 0.4.” Or, “the probability of boojumness given snarkness is 0.4.”</p>
<p>Mathematicians would call this “an abuse of notation”; but if it is interpreted intelligently in context, it’s unproblematic. Still, it’s rather queer. What exactly are “snark” and “boojum” supposed to mean here?
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you actually read Jaynes, he stresses pedantically that <em>all</em> probabilities are conditional - there is an <span class="math">\(I\)</span> on the right-hand side in <em>all</em> of his equations. Most of us (lazily) drop this, but there are some paradoxes that can arise when ignored. For example, David Chapman's first example </p>
<div class="math">$$
P(3)=1/6
$$</div>
<p>should be changed to</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(3|I)=1/6
$$</div>
<p>where the <span class="math">\(I\)</span> contains the interpretation (e.g. six-sided vs four-sided die, rolling procedure, <em>any</em> other knowledge we bring to the table). So the bulk of this discussion seems to be much ado about nothing.</p>
<h2 id="relationships-vs-propositions">Relationships vs propositions</h2>
<p>David Chapman points out the benefits of using predicate logic to express relationships explicitly, such as </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Back to the cave:</p>
<p>∀x: ∀y: P(∃z: grue(z) ∧ near(z,x) | person(x) ∧ cave(y) ∧ in(x, y)) = 0.8</p>
<p>“If a person (x) is in a cave (y), then the probability that there’s a grue (z) near the person is 0.8.” Most of what is going on this statement is predicate logic, not probability. Remember that for probability theory, propositions are opaque and atomic. As far as it is concerned, “person(x) ∧ cave(y) ∧ in(x, y)” is just a long name for an event that is either observed or not; and so likewise “∃z: grue(z) ∧ near(z,x).” It can’t “look inside” to see that we’re talking about three different things and their relationships.
In practice, probability theory is often combined with other mathematical methods (such as predicate logic in this case). Probabilists mostly don’t even notice they are doing this. When they use logic, they do so informally and intuitively.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am no philosopher, nor mathematician, but as far as I can tell the only "work" that is being done by the predicate calculus is a compact, unambiguous summary of what is expressed in English adequately. Of course, we'll often (lazily) short-hand even this to </p>
<div class="math">$$
P({\rm grue}|{\rm cave},I) = 0.8
$$</div>
<p>where again, the <span class="math">\(I\)</span> includes the more verbose description. There is a balance between explicitness and economy of symbols. I still don't see the conflict - the predicate logic seems to offer nothing more in these cases.</p>
<h2 id="specifics-to-generalities">Specifics to Generalities</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>Suppose we sequence DNA from some monsters and find that it sure looks like Arthur and Harold are both fathers of Edward:</p>
<p>P(father(Arthur, Edward) | experiment) = 0.99</p>
<p>P(father(Harold, Edward) | experiment) = 0.99</p>
<p>P(Arthur = Harold | observations) = 0.01</p>
<p>This should update our belief that every vertebrate has only one father. How?
Here we would be reasoning from specifics to generalities (whereas the implicit instantiation trick of Bayesian networks allows us to reason from generalities to specifics). This is outside the scope of probability theory.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is definitely wrong. What we have are experiments (i.e. data) and we have models. We could easily have models like:</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
M_1 &=& \mbox{every vertebrate has only one father} \\
M_2 &=& \mbox{every vertebrate has either one or two fathers} \\
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>and we'd want to know,</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
P(M_1|{\rm data},I) &=& \cdots \\
P(M_2|{\rm data},I) &=& \cdots \\
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>where the data are above. Although it could get messy, it certainly is not "outside the scope of probability theory". It comes down to the models.</p>
<h2 id="models-and-rationality">Models and Rationality</h2>
<p>David Chapman includes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Formal systems (such as logic and probability theory) are also only useful once you have a model. Where do those come from? I think it’s important to go about finding models in a rational way—but formal rationality has nothing to offer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here I agree - your inference is only as good as your models. Where did the structure of General Relativity come from, originally? From the creative process of Einstein. Models are not derived, but are created.</p>
<p>I don't think we spend enough time celebrating the creative enterprise that is the scientific process. </p>
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</script>Mapping Worldview to Probability2016-09-06T00:00:00-04:002016-09-06T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-09-06:/posts/2016/Sep/06/mapping-worldview-to-probability/<p>I've heard many times (see <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/debate-with-dr-robert-price-part-4/">here</a> and <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Derren-Brown-show-2-discussing-miracles-and-healing">here</a>, for examples) the objection from apologists that certain claims (i.e. supernatural events, miracles, etc…) are ruled either impossible or highly unlikely …</p><p>I've heard many times (see <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/debate-with-dr-robert-price-part-4/">here</a> and <a href="https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Derren-Brown-show-2-discussing-miracles-and-healing">here</a>, for examples) the objection from apologists that certain claims (i.e. supernatural events, miracles, etc…) are ruled either impossible or highly unlikely because of the skeptics "worldview" - that somehow if one has a "worldview" that permits such things, then the evidence would look a lot different. I agree with this, and think that this is another concept which is improved by mapping it onto probability theory. For "worldview" read "prior probabilities for the models under consideration" and it becomes clear. Further, ones <em>prior</em> probability for a claim is just the <em>posterior</em> probability, given all of the evidence you've seen in the past. Bayes' Theorem written this way is</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
P(\mbox{model}|\mbox{new evidence}, \mbox{past evidence}) &\sim& P(\mbox{new evidence}|\mbox{model},\mbox{past evidence}) \times \\
&& \underbrace{P(\mbox{model}|\mbox{past evidence})}_{\mbox{prior}}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>If you've been presented with evidence in the past which makes, under your state of knowledge, certain miracles <em>more likely</em> then you'll have a <em>higher</em> prior probability for a miracle interpretation of a new extraordinary claim. If you've been presented with evidence in the past which makes, under your state of knowledge, miracles <em>less likely</em> then you'll have a <em>lower</em> prior probability for a miracle interpretation of a new extraordinary claim. There is nothing wrong with this situation. However, where it goes wrong is when people think that having a high prior probability <em>justifies</em> the belief, or that someone with a low prior is <em>too</em> skeptical. The bottom line is,</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>If your conclusion is highly sensitive to your prior probability, then your evidence is insufficient to make it reasonable to strongly believe the claim.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>If there is good evidence for a claim then you should be able to convince a skeptic. Excuses like, your <em>prior</em> probability (i.e. your "worldview") makes the claim less likely its just that…an excuse for the lack of evidence.</p>
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</script>Is Science a Self-Sealing Process?2016-08-19T00:00:00-04:002016-08-19T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-08-19:/posts/2016/Aug/19/is-science-a-self-sealing-process/<p>In 1969, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories">NASA faked the moon landing</a> - there was a huge conspiracy to cover up the facts that the landing was actually filmed in Hollywood. Well, that's what the conspiracy …</p><p>In 1969, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing_conspiracy_theories">NASA faked the moon landing</a> - there was a huge conspiracy to cover up the facts that the landing was actually filmed in Hollywood. Well, that's what the conspiracy theories claim. What about the eye-witness claims of the astronauts themselves? They must have been in the conspiracy. What about all of the people supporting the landing effort - scientists, engineers, film crews, etc…? They must have also been in the conspiracy. </p>
<p>Conspiracy theories are examples of <em>self-sealing ideas</em> - any criticism can be rolled up into the theory, and either used to support the theory or to make it easy to dodge criticism. In general <em>self-sealing ideas</em> obstruct efforts to find the truth because they make it particularly challenging to dislodge the bad idea. As such, scientists try to make sure that all proposed explanations are <em>falsifiable</em>, and are thus much less likely to fall prey to this effect. </p>
<h2 id="argument-for-the-limits-of-science-from-its-self-sealing-methods">Argument for the limits of science from its self-sealing methods</h2>
<p>In his debate with Matt Dillahunty on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R4DYhpvNzc">"Did Jesus Rise From The Dead?"</a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/3R4DYhpvNzc?t=2h30m32s">Blake Giunta's closing statement</a> has this very clever argument for the supernatural, claiming that the methods of science itself form such a self-sealing process. He then provides two analogies to drive home the point. I have never heard anyone else make this argument, and it is challenging to see what the issue actually is, which is why it has been on the back of my mind since the first time I heard it expressed on <a href="http://login.dogmadebate.com/podcast/191-matt-dillahunty-in-studio/">the Dogma Debate</a>.</p>
<p>So here is the argument, and the two analogies. The argument starts with the statement that the basis of science is <em>methodological naturalism</em> - the deliberate restriction of science to natural causes for natural events. This is distinct from <em>philosophical naturalism</em> - the claim that the natural world is all there is. Philosophical naturalism is typically seen as not scientific, because science can never demonstrate that there is nothing beyond the natural world. However the processes of science proceed <em>as if</em> there is nothing beyond the natural world. So far I have no problem with this. Matt looked at the evidence put forward about the resurrection, claimed that Blake had not demonstrated supernatural cause, further claimed that there is no known demonstration of the supernatural, and that the "facts" surrounding the resurrection (e.g. apostle's claims to have seen the risen Jesus after he had apparently died, followed by their life reformation) probably have a natural explanations, even if we can't be sure right now what they are. Matt is perfectly correct here.</p>
<p>Blake's argument continues here and says that Matt has chosen a self-sealing methodology that rules out, a priori, any supernatural explanations. Blake's argument is:</p>
<ol>
<li>Science has been very successful in the past in coming up with natural explanations by presupposing naturalism (i.e. methodological naturalism).</li>
<li>We are faced with an explanation that may go beyond science (i.e. a supernatural explanation).</li>
<li>We reject the supernatural explanation as a matter of method (i.e. methodological naturalism again).</li>
<li>We claim that eventually we will find a naturalistic explanation.</li>
</ol>
<p>Thus, the method is sealed against any possible supernatural explanations.</p>
<h2 id="analogies-to-the-self-sealing-nature-of-science">Analogies to the self-sealing nature of science</h2>
<p>The two analogies Blake introduces are methodological geologism and methodological Biblical inerrantism. In the former, the investigator is studying formations of rocks and presupposes geological (i.e. non-agent driven) processes - and happens to be looking at Stonehenge at the time. In the latter, the investigator is studying the claims in the Bible. Let's see how this plays out.</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Geology</strong> has been very successful in the past in coming up with <strong>geological</strong> explanations by presupposing <strong>geological</strong> processes (i.e. methodological <strong>geologism</strong>).</li>
<li>We are faced with an explanation that may go beyond <strong>geology</strong> (i.e. humans designed Stonehenge).</li>
<li>We reject the "humans designed Stonehenge" explanation as a matter of method (i.e. methodological <strong>geologism</strong> again).</li>
<li>We claim that eventually we will find a <strong>geological</strong> explanation for Stonehenge.</li>
</ol>
<p>And the other case</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Inerrantism</strong> has been very successful in the past in coming up with <strong>literal</strong> explanations by presupposing <strong>inerrancy</strong> in the Bible (i.e. methodological <strong> inerrantism</strong>).</li>
<li>We are faced with an explanation that may go beyond <strong>inerrantism</strong> (i.e. a supposed contradiction).</li>
<li>We reject the "supposed contradiction" as a matter of method (i.e. methodological <strong> inerrantism</strong> again).</li>
<li>We claim that eventually we will find a <strong>literal</strong> explanation for the contradiction (i.e. context, misinterpretation, we don't have the original, etc…).</li>
</ol>
<p>Each of these cases clearly leads to incorrect conclusions, yet the process seals itself away from the injection of the truth. Blake claims that the same problem happens with science in general - it seals itself away from the injection of the truth of supernatural claims.</p>
<h2 id="where-the-problem-lies">Where the problem lies</h2>
<p>Let's say that we decide not to declare the Bible inerrant. Where does that get us? We almost immediately make more sense of the data than would be with the presumption of inerrancy. These patterns allow us to make predictions, both about new texts we might discover, but also about the types of patterns we might not observe otherwise. If we assume that, say, the texts were copied from each other we immediately see that Mark was most likely the first Gospel, and suddenly the goals of the authors becomes more clear. It suddenly makes sense of the <em>types</em> of discrepancies - how, for example, could there be very detailed word-for-word correspondence on mundane details in stories and yet there can be clear deviations on things as simple to memorize as the Lord's Prayer? The disconnected two-creation stories of Genesis make sense, especially when compared to books outside the Bible which we wouldn't have considered with "methodological inerrantism". </p>
<p>What about abandoning the geological processes for human-design processes? There are fields of science around the description of human-designed artifacts, fitting into the overall fields of anthropology and archaeology. If we abandon a geological description of Stonehenge and assume human design, we can make many predictions which end up being verified - whereas the same sort of predictions assuming geological processes only are either refuted or become ad-hoc when faced with Stonehenge. We would want our geologists to not waste their time on this sort of thing, and thus expect them to recognize (most of the time) structures that have been influenced by living beings and those influenced by geology. </p>
<p>So, when we abandon the "methodological inerrantism" and "methodological geologism" we find that we can make specific predictions and realize that the method itself was too restrictive. We could cling to the method anyway, of course, but that would be a dogmatic ideological position to hold. </p>
<h2 id="back-to-science">Back to Science</h2>
<p>What happens if we try to expand our scientific inquiry to include the supernatural? Are we being dogmatic and ideological to reject it out of hand? Methodological naturalism is the resulting method when you attempt to include the supernatural, or supernatural agency, and fail…again….and again. The reason why scientists apply methodological naturalism is not that they believe that there are no possible supernatural entities, it is just that every attempt to include them has either failed or found after the fact to have diverted the attention away from the correct explanation. Further, those proposing the supernatural have <em>never</em> developed a method for confirming it. Unlike deviating from Biblical inerrancy, where it is immediately informative, or deviating from geology, where it is immediately informative, deviating from naturalism has never been informative. Unlike the other two analogous cases proposed, if we try to include the supernatural we don't end up with predictions, we don't end up with self-consistent explanations, and we don't end up with anything <em>useful</em>. Methodological naturalism is the <em>result</em> of trying to deviate from that method and falling flat. Methodological naturalism is used not merely for its success (as Blake contends) but also for the failure of the alternatives. In his analogous cases, the alternatives don't fail.</p>
<h2 id="do-we-even-need-to-interject-the-supernatural-here">Do we even need to interject the supernatural here?</h2>
<p>This is the final problem with the argument Blake presents. He is <em>forced</em> to interject the supernatural into his explanation precisely because the evidence is so weak. Consider what would convince us someone came back from the dead after three days. Pretty much some simple medical tests (EEG, EKG, etc…) after the person was dead, and perhaps for some time during the three days, and then observations afterward. We could have compelling evidence (it wouldn't have to convince everyone) for this regardless of the explanation. The explanation could be all natural - a new cure, new technology, alien intervention, etc… or we could leave it as an unknown - "hmmmm, that's odd…." The evidence for the event is different than the cause of the event. In the case of the resurrection, as with all other claimed miracles, we don't have good evidence that anything actually happened for us to explain, so trying to come up with a cause is premature.</p>
<p>What we have in Blake's argument, assuming all of his best data is correct, is that some anonymous person reports years after the events that someone else claims he saw a person alive, crucified, and walking around again several days later. There is no physical evidence at all, there are no medical scans or anything that can distinguish a hundred different possibilities, and we are hearing it second-hand, years afterward, in anonymous texts which show evidence of legendary development. That wouldn't convince anyone today, and so shouldn't convince anyone about the events 2000 years ago. The only way to bring it to the point of convincing is to assume the supernatural, an assumption that has never been demonstrated to be reliable. This is an admission of defeat - the evidence for the event itself is so bad we have to assume an untestable, unreliable process that caused it.</p>
<p>Science isn't the only show in town because it excludes the contenders as a matter of method. It is the only show in town because the contenders never showed up.</p>What Makes an Explanation Bad?2016-07-29T00:00:00-04:002016-07-29T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-07-29:/posts/2016/Jul/29/what-makes-an-explanation-bad/<p>In <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation">David Deutsch's TED Talk</a> he describes what makes good and bad explanations. In particular he outlines what makes scientific explanations good ones whereas mythological ones bad. Many people claim …</p><p>In <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation">David Deutsch's TED Talk</a> he describes what makes good and bad explanations. In particular he outlines what makes scientific explanations good ones whereas mythological ones bad. Many people claim that what makes an explanation bad is its lack of testability - goblins are a bad explanation for my car breaking down because you cannot test for goblins. Although somewhat true, this is not the primary problem with the explanation, according to Deutsch. The problem is that, even if shown to be false, the goblin explanation is <em>too easy to vary</em>. We can tweak it slightly to get the different prediction. The example in the talk refers to the Greek gods creating the seasons, and that one can easily modify the presumed behavior of those gods to get any result you'd like. </p>
<p>In science, we look for explanations that one can't wiggle out of. If it is wrong, it must be discarded. The Higgs boson held a specific and irreplaceable role in the overall theory, and if not observed the theory would have to be seriously rethought and restructured. Some of the issues with string theory is that it predicts too much, and is too flexible, and thus fails as an explanation. </p>
<p>A very similar idea I had <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Feb/15/resurrection-linear-regression-and-the-art-of-harmonization/">written about before</a>, with respect to the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus. An explanation that is too flexible becomes meaningless, and shouldn't be relied on. It's the same idea that underscores <em>overfitting</em> in regression and neural network models and the role of Ockam's razor.</p>Laplace and Twins2016-03-28T00:00:00-04:002016-03-28T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-03-28:/posts/2016/Mar/28/laplace-and-twins/<p>From this paper,</p>
<p><a href="http://statweb.stanford.edu/~ckirby/brad/other/2013Perspective.pdf">http://statweb.stanford.edu/~ckirby/brad/other/2013Perspective.pdf</a></p>
<p>we have the following text:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Controversial theorem” sounds like an oxymoron, but Bayes’ Rule has played this
part …</p></blockquote><p>From this paper,</p>
<p><a href="http://statweb.stanford.edu/~ckirby/brad/other/2013Perspective.pdf">http://statweb.stanford.edu/~ckirby/brad/other/2013Perspective.pdf</a></p>
<p>we have the following text:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Controversial theorem” sounds like an oxymoron, but Bayes’ Rule has played this
part for two and a half centuries. Twice it has soared to scientific celebrity, twice it has crashed,
and it is currently enjoying another boom. The Theorem itself is a landmark of logical reasoning
and the first serious triumph of statistical inference, yet is still treated with suspicion by a
majority of statisticians. There are reasons to believe in the staying power of its current
popularity, but also some worrisome signs of trouble ahead.</p>
<p>Here is a simple but genuine example of the Rule in action (1). A physicist couple I know
learned, from sonograms, that they were due to be parents of twin boys. “What is the probability
our twins will be Identical rather than Fraternal?” was their question. There are two pieces of
relevant evidence: only one-third of twins are Identical; on the other hand, Identicals are twice as
likely to yield twin boy sonograms, since they are always same-sex while Fraternals are 50/50.
Putting this together, the Rule correctly concludes that in this case the two pieces balance out,
and that the odds of Identical are even. Note: the twins were fraternal.</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>The trouble and the
subsequent busts came from overenthusiastic application of the Theorem in the absence of
genuine prior information, with Laplace as a prime violator. Suppose that in the twins example
we lacked the “one-third Identicals” prior knowledge. Laplace would have casually assumed a
uniform distribution between zero and one for the unknown prior probability of Identical
(yielding 2/3 rather than 1/2 as the answer to the physicists’ question.) In modern parlance,
Laplace would be trying to assign an “uninformative prior,” one having only neutral effects on
the output of Bayes’ rule (3).</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="the-original-calculation-with-knowledge">The original calculation, with knowledge</h2>
<p>So, let's start with the following knowledge and some notation.</p>
<ul>
<li>we've observed twin boy sonograms, a proposition denoted as <span class="math">\(S\)</span></li>
<li>1/3 of twins are identical, thus <span class="math">\(P(I) \equiv q = 1/3\)</span>. You'll see why I use <span class="math">\(q\)</span> later.</li>
</ul>
<p>We are interested in <span class="math">\(P(I|S)\)</span>. We can derive a few related probabilities, like</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(P(S|I) = 1/2\)</span>. This comes from the notion that identical twins must be either BB or GG, and only half of them would give twin <em>boy</em> sonograms.</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(S|\sim I) = 1/4\)</span>. This comes from the notion that fraternal twins must be BB, BG, GB or GG, and only 1/4 of them would give twin <em>boy</em> sonograms.</li>
</ul>
<p>Setting the calculation in terms of odds ratios (which I don't like as much as direct probabilities), we get</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\frac{P(I|S)}{P(\sim I|S)} &=& \frac{P(S|I)P(I)}{P(S|\sim I)P(\sim I)} \\
&=& \frac{1/2 \times 1/3}{1/4 \times (1-1/3)} = 1
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
or 1:1 odds, and thus</p>
<div class="math">$$P(I|S)=1/2$$</div>
<h2 id="what-would-laplace-do">What would Laplace do?</h2>
<p>The text refers to an "uninformative prior", in a derogatory way, and then proceeds to mistakenly use an <em>informative</em>, incorrect prior and attribute it to Laplace. Laplace, <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Feb/21/misquoting-hume/">like Hume</a>, is mischaracterized so often it really is remarkable. Let's follow through how the text gets the <span class="math">\(P(S|I)=2/3\)</span> presumably what Laplace would do. To get this, we assume that there are two states (identical and fraternal) and that uninformative means equal probability to these states. Thus the prior is <span class="math">\(P(I)=1/2\)</span>, and the same calculation proceeds as </p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\frac{P(I|S)}{P(\sim I|S)} &=& \frac{P(S|I)P(I)}{P(S|\sim I)P(\sim I)} \\
&=& \frac{1/2 \times 1/2}{1/4 \times (1-1/2)} = 2
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
or 2:1 odds and thus</p>
<div class="math">$$P(I|S)=2/3$$</div>
<p>The author then implies that this is clearly wrong, even though it does make sense that different knowledge <em>should</em> lead to different probability assignments. Regardless, the author calls Laplace the "prime violator" of the "overenthusiastic application" of Bayes Theorem, where Laplace "casually assumed a uniform distribution" for the probability of getting identical twins. However I would say that this is the <em>correct</em> thing to do when one has no information - to do otherwise <em>inserts</em> unjustified information into the system.</p>
<h2 id="what-would-laplace-really-do">What would Laplace <em>really</em> do?</h2>
<p>Let's assume Laplace is really starting from scratch, and can't even estimate the number of twins well, so he does use a uniform distribution on <span class="math">\(q\)</span> above. The proper calculation then is to <em>marginalize</em> over this uniform distribution. Applying Bayes Theorem, we get</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(I|S) &=& \int_0^1 \frac{P(S|I) \cdot q}{P(S|I)\cdot q + P(S|\sim I)\cdot (1-q)} P(q) dq
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>As above we have</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(P(S|I) = 1/2\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(S|\sim I) = 1/4\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(q) =\)</span> uniform from 0 to 1</li>
</ul>
<p>and so we get (with some <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=integrate+1%2F2*q%2F%5B1%2F4*q%2B1%2F4%5D+for+q+from+0+to+1">Wolfram Alpha magic</a> )</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(I|S) &=& \int_0^1 \frac{1/2 \cdot q}{1/2\cdot q + 1/4\cdot (1-q)} dq = 2-\log 4 \approx 0.614
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>again, different than our informed probability, but also different than assuming that identical twins must occur 50% of the time. Essentially, by not knowing that identical twins are actually as rare as 1/3 of all twins, we will overestimate the probability that a pair of boy sonograms would be identical - this is a <em>good</em> thing, not a bad one. To do otherwise would be assuming knowledge we don't have (at the time).</p>
<h2 id="what-would-laplace-do-next">What would Laplace do <em>next</em>?</h2>
<p>Like a good scientist, Laplace would probably follow this line of logic with some data taking. Imagine he observes <span class="math">\(h\)</span> identical twins in <span class="math">\(N\)</span> twins, he would change his uniform distribution to a Beta distribution - just like a coin flip. The calculation now looks like:</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(I|S) &=& \int_0^1 \frac{1/2 \cdot q}{1/2\cdot q + 1/4\cdot (1-q)} {\rm Beta}(h+1,N+1) dq
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>which is easiest done numerically. Using the sie library from <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Nov/21/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie/">my book</a> I have for <span class="math">\(h=0\)</span>, <span class="math">\(N=0\)</span>, </p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">d</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">beta</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">q</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1000</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">dq</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">pq</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">d</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">pdf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">f</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">sum</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">0.5</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">.5</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mf">.25</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">pq</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dq</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nb">print</span> <span class="n">f</span>
</code></pre></div>
<blockquote>
<p>f = 0.614</p>
</blockquote>
<p>matching our analytical calculation. Now, with a modest 30 sets of twins, 10 of which are identical (consistent with our modern observations), we have</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">h</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10</span>
<span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">30</span>
<span class="n">d</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">beta</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">h</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">q</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">linspace</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">1000</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">dq</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="n">pq</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">d</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">pdf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">f</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">sum</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">0.5</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mf">.5</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="mf">.25</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">q</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">pq</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="n">dq</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="nb">print</span> <span class="n">f</span>
</code></pre></div>
<blockquote>
<p>f = 0.506</p>
</blockquote>
<p>or within 1% of the modern value. So Laplace would have arrived at a perfectly reasonable answer prior to looking at the data and a well-informed answer within one visit to a French hospital. </p>
<p>So, what is the objection to Bayes' Theorem again?</p>
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</script>Student Course Evaluations2016-01-15T00:00:00-05:002016-01-15T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-01-15:/posts/2016/Jan/15/student-course-evaluations/<p>I’m always interested in the process of evaluation, especially for professors. It is common to have student evaluations performed at the end of the semester, and there are endless …</p><p>I’m always interested in the process of evaluation, especially for professors. It is common to have student evaluations performed at the end of the semester, and there are endless debates about their value. I try to take the evaluations seriously, usually trying to glean some general places where I can improve things. I figured I’d try something a bit different here. I’m posting the full response to the question “What are your comments regarding the instructor of the course?” from one of my 200-level Weather and Natural Disasters sections. It is a course which satisfies a general education requirement at the foundational level, and typically focusses on the analysis of weather, climate, and disaster data. It introduces and reinforces notions of plotting data, regression, interpretation of data, reading contour maps, etc…</p>
<p>It’s an interesting and somewhat entertaining read. I don’t take the negative evaluations personally, always trying to see the kernel of truth or where the student might be coming from. My question here is, what should I do with responses like this? You may notice a few conflicting viewpoints.</p>
<hr>
<ul>
<li>Though tough and giving a lot of work, Brian Blais is always ready to help students who will ask questions. He explains the material really well, and takes his time to answer many questions in class. I sometimes had a hard time linking the different chapters we did though. But he used different ways of making us understand the class by analyzing different documentaries for example, and tried to vary the form our assignments should take which is pretty interesting. I would recommend this professor to others because he is very helpful, but would warn them that he gives a lot of work.</li>
<li>If everyone in the class gets an answer wrong take it off the test. It may be a "good" question but if everyone gets it wrong then it is to good of a question. Also if everyone gets the same question wrong, maybe you should go over it more in class, so that the students actually understand the question. I spent hours on each homework assignment and it was a struggle to complete them correctly.</li>
<li>Frustrating at times, however always available for extra help, you have to work hard to get a good grade.</li>
<li>professor blais is smart and engaging and i really enjoy taking his class. i would recommend him to anyone, also his passion for the subject is clearly shown through his enthusiasm in class.</li>
<li>Good guy, knows everything basically off the top of his head. Could be a bit more clear with his assignments but overall, good professor.</li>
<li>Sometimes assumes students know more than they do. Tough to keep up. Homework is painfully difficult which he thinks is good but I just give up on them because I don't understand how to do them. Challenge is good, but sometimes too much is counterproductive to learning.</li>
<li>It took a little while getting use to how Blais operated. A couple of times in the beginning of the semester I was taken aback at some of his statements, but it's always a truthful and very straightforward statement; something I was not used to coming from college professors.</li>
<li>the instructor does a great job applying this class to real life situation</li>
<li>decided to not even even use blackboard and put everything on google drive, made it much harder because it was so different then my other classes</li>
<li>For a 200 level course that most if not all students are taking as an elective, it is extremely difficult and the material is not taught in a simple way. The lectures are all over the place sometimes and they are hard to follow. It would be more beneficial to students if you just slowed down and answered our questions.</li>
<li>Truly awful, Answers questions with thats a good question.. why are you there if you wont answer the question. There is no need to make an science elective this hard and full of unnecessary work at a business school, we have other stuff we have to put our attention on that we actually want to learn.</li>
<li>The instructor is a very nice person. In class I enjoyed having him as a professor. However, I believe because he is so intelligent he will explain topics rapidly with the expectation that the class understands. As a result the class is so confused that they refrain from asking questions. Further more the instructors lectures were very little help when doing home work leading to the great frustrations and long hours trying to understand the homework and figuring out solutions.</li>
<li>Professor is a helpful and was a great resource to myself throughout the semester when questions arose. He can be really sarcastic</li>
<li>Please give more clear answers to student's questions, rather than saying "I don't know" to certain questions. If you don't know can you at least try to find out, that's kind of your job......</li>
<li>I thought the instructor was very tough at first but if you put in the effort his teaching style is very smooth.</li>
<li>Professor Blais seems like a pretty laid back person. However, he can sometimes be rude without realizing it, and his "bus policy" is the worst rule I have ever seen by a professor. Some students have appointments with advisors, etc. before his class. He should be understanding of those walking in late. Locking the door is pretty excessive, no? Assignments are too long, but his teaching ability is adequate and he clearly loves his job. I can't say I would recommend him to a friend, though.</li>
<li>The instructor of this course is very helpful outside of the classroom, however, during class time he does not provide clear instructions for homework assignments and fails to answer students' questions clearly.</li>
<li>Obviously the professor is very smart and really knows about what he is teaching, but how he teaches is very confusing and scattered. We sort of jump around from subject to subject so I get confused about what is related to what. The professor also doesn't answer questions clearly and ends up leaving many of us more confused than before. He does not communicate clearly what is expected for assignments so it leaves us guessing and hoping we did it right. He has a good amount of office hours available for extra help but only in the morning which is when many students are in classes so it can be difficult to meet with him outside of class.</li>
<li>Professor Blais is often vague or flippant in answering genuine questions asked by the class and greatly underestimates how long his assignments actually take.</li>
<li>Professor Blais is a really nice guy, considerate to students, loves what he is teaching. I think he needs to better explain the material though because we are most likely hearing all of this for the first time and might not be able to grasp the concepts and connections right away.</li>
<li>The professor is very knowledgeable. The topics seem difficult at first, but after a few days the material becomes easier. Believes his class is the only class a student is enrolled in</li>
<li>I have actually recommended this class to many of my friends and also the teacher.</li>
<li>Unclear or misleading at times, but very enthusiastic about the subject.</li>
<li>Assignments need to be improved because the course material did not connect enough between lectures and homework. Also needs to be much more organized. The grading system, well there sometimes isn't a grading system. He just distributes grades based off of aesthetic quality and relative .connection to the student</li>
</ul>Philosophy and Science2016-01-11T00:00:00-05:002016-01-11T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-01-11:/posts/2016/Jan/11/philosophy-and-science/<p>I was listening to the Dogma Debate episode <a href="http://login.dogmadebate.com/podcast/218-does-god-really-love-you/">“Does God Really Love You?”</a> with Blake Giunta, and was really struck by the structure of the discussion. I have dealt with …</p><p>I was listening to the Dogma Debate episode <a href="http://login.dogmadebate.com/podcast/218-does-god-really-love-you/">“Does God Really Love You?”</a> with Blake Giunta, and was really struck by the structure of the discussion. I have dealt with Blake’s discussions <a href="the-giunta-dillahunty-debate.html">here before</a>, but this time it really jumped out at me what the problem was. The topic was divine hiddenness, and Blake specifically wanted to address that part of the divine hiddenness problem where God seems to be invisible in every way to non-believers - why does he hide? You can listen to the debate, jump to 44:40 where he outlines many possibilities for why God might not want to or feel the need to appear to unbelievers. They include things like “the human might lack the right desire for God” (e.g. to escape punishment) or “some non-theists might form an initial proper relationship with God [if he was revealed to them] but then abandon it later on”. There is another list of responses from other philosophers Blake gives later in the show, but a more complete exploration can be found at <a href="https://beliefmap.org/god-exists/divine-hiddenness/">Blake’s website here</a>. In each of these cases, the argument goes, God would have good reason not to make himself known. </p>
<p>The response given here is essentially the same response apologists give for the problem of suffering - God may have good reasons you don’t know about. Fair enough, but that doesn’t give us any reason to actually believe in this being. I think it is probably true that, give the conception of God that Blake gives, there is sufficient flexibility that <em>any and all</em> philosophical arguments will fail - one cannot assign either a probability 1 or 0 to the existence of this God. For me, I don’t really care. I want a reason to actually believe that something exists; if someone is making the claim, I want evidence. This sort of argument might be a first step - maybe God is silent because “some non-theists might form an initial proper relationship with God [if he was revealed to them] but then abandon it later on”. Ok, but how could you test that? It may be <em>plausible</em> yet still false, as are most of the reasonable ideas people come up with. In science, we don’t finish with the argument, we start with it and ask “how would we know?” I’ve never heard Blake, or any other apologist, take that next crucial step. How can you, through some kind of observation, tell the difference between one of these excuses being true and God simply not existing? How can you, through some kind of <em>observation</em>, tell the difference between the different reasons purported to explain this hiddenness - given that it is impossible they are all true in all cases.</p>
<p>Care to try? </p>Incompetence or Nervousness?2016-01-03T00:00:00-05:002016-01-03T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-01-03:/posts/2016/Jan/03/incompetence-or-nervousness/<p>I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about the supposedly incompetent response by “accident reconstruction expert”, as shown in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYqXlRQrBN4&feature=youtu.be">this video</a>. You can read one response in the <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/opinion/verbatim-expert-witness.html">opinion …</a></p><p>I’ve been seeing a lot of talk about the supposedly incompetent response by “accident reconstruction expert”, as shown in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYqXlRQrBN4&feature=youtu.be">this video</a>. You can read one response in the <a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/opinion/verbatim-expert-witness.html">opinion piece in the NY Times</a>. The summary is that the “expert” was supposedly unable to perform the following calculation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For those who may be curious about the specific math, let me lay out the numbers. The diagram had a distance the witness measured as 3 and three-sixteenths inches with a scale of 20 feet per inch. The witness said this came to approximately 68 feet. In fact it is 63.75 feet. If the expert witness had taken a few seconds to use his calculator, he could have (hopefully) come to the same conclusion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I watched the video, and can confirm that the expert should have done better, but I am not entirely convinced that this is incompetence. I could imagine someone being nervous about lawyers, feeling that the questions were going to be “gotcha” questions - or at least lead to that - and that you’d want a away to double-check any calculation. Although looking bad, imagine if he had tried this calculation and (through nervousness) came to an incorrect number. How bad would that look? Certainly that would have looked worse. What if he came to the correct number, but noticed the discrepancy - he’d still want to double-check the numbers through the methods he typically uses. </p>
<p>Clearly, once he had decided that the line of questioning was just trying to “get him”, whether he was competent or not, there was no way that he was going to budge.</p>
<p>I think his incompetence may lay in the fact that he didn’t bring the materials he needed to assess the situation quantitatively. That seems ridiculous. What sorts of lessons can we draw from this video?</p>
<ol>
<li>Always bring your materials that you need, if you’re going to be questioned about the details of a result you’ve claimed.</li>
<li>Be prepared to address the claims on several levels of detail - from the fully quantitative level worthy of a technical report, to a back-of-the-envelope calculation which gets close to it.</li>
<li>Listen to the question that someone is actually asking, not the question you think they are asking. </li>
</ol>
<p>More lessons?</p>Argument is Not Evidence2016-01-02T00:00:00-05:002016-01-02T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-01-02:/posts/2016/Jan/02/argument-is-not-evidence/<p>So <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Yc_DuZkLY">the Mr. Deity video</a>, part two of his new series has an interesting point. The point is that arguments are not evidence. He says that in all of the …</p><p>So <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76Yc_DuZkLY">the Mr. Deity video</a>, part two of his new series has an interesting point. The point is that arguments are not evidence. He says that in all of the debates that he seen between atheists and theists he's never seen anyone bring up this idea which really should show that the theist has lost the debate from the beginning. I <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Jul/28/evidence-vs-argument/">mentioned it here</a> when I was looking at Blake Giunta debate with Matt Dillahunty. </p>
<p>There are some things that you can learn from proofs - such as mathematical proofs. For example you may find a relationship between two things that was unintuitive at first. However I think in the case of the <em>existence</em> of an actual thing then you can gain no knowledge from philosophy or argumentation or proof. You really need something that's demonstrable, that's repeatable, something that gets around the biases and failings of the human thought process. </p>
<p>I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Deity in stating that science is simply the process people use to bypass the failings of human biases. I also agree with the idea that the argument is the <em>start</em>, not the end, of the discussion - the argument serves as a hypothesis.<sup id="fnref:grammar"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:grammar">1</a></sup> Given that there are a million different intuitive, simple, logically consistent, wrong hypotheses out there the effort must be made by anyone making a claim to find alternate ways of confirming the claims.<br>
. </p>
<div class="footnote">
<hr>
<ol>
<li id="fn:grammar">
<p>I never know whether to use “an” or “a” with hypothesis, either in written form or spoken. It sounds weird to me either way. <a class="footnote-backref" href="#fnref:grammar" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>Happy New Year!2016-01-01T00:00:00-05:002016-01-01T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2016-01-01:/posts/2016/Jan/01/happy-new-year/<p>I love the idea of New Year’s Day. It’s a time for reflection, contemplation, self improvement. I realize that it is technically just another day, and that one …</p><p>I love the idea of New Year’s Day. It’s a time for reflection, contemplation, self improvement. I realize that it is technically just another day, and that one could definitely have any day in the year serve this role, but there still feels like something special for this day. I try to have some modest New Years resolutions. Ones I have failed in the past are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Lose weight</li>
<li>Do a triathlon</li>
</ol>
<p>Ones that I have succeeded in the past are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Lose weight</li>
<li>Read the entire Bible, cover to cover</li>
<li>Run a 5k</li>
<li>Run a half marathon</li>
<li>Read 6 books cover to cover (I have a bad habit of starting books and not finishing them)</li>
</ol>
<p>This year, I want to focus on writing. My hope is to be able to write 300 words a day - that’s only a page of text. But if I can do it every day, that’s a book! Mostly, I want to get the habit. In the spirit of new things, I’m trying <a href="https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php">Scrivener</a> as a new editing tool. I’m not sure if it will work for me, but I do hope to get more blog writing and book writing this year.</p>
<p>This past semester got totally crazy, as I am to the chair of the department and thus have a lot of new responsibilities. I am slowly getting used to it, but the end of the semester took all my writing time away. Now, with a commitment to it, I do think that I can make progress on a number of projects that have been languishing somewhat - including this blog. </p>
<p>On the plus side, this year I read <em>The Martian</em>, and saw the movie, both of which were fantastic. Definitely a good science movie and book, highly recommended.</p>End of a long semester2015-12-21T00:00:00-05:002015-12-21T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-12-21:/posts/2015/Dec/21/end-of-a-long-semester/<p>So, I've been off the blog because of new job duties that overwhelmed me for a while. I enjoy the new year as a way of starting again, clean slate …</p><p>So, I've been off the blog because of new job duties that overwhelmed me for a while. I enjoy the new year as a way of starting again, clean slate, and to try to be better at what I like to do. I'd like to write a lot more in the coming year so I'm trying something new. I'll post here if it works out (or not) somewhat later. </p>
<p>Things on my to-do list for the winter "break":</p>
<ol>
<li>Write a paper on the use of Wikipedia in the classroom</li>
<li>Finish and submit a paper on the dynamics of Twitter</li>
<li>Write some more about probability</li>
<li>Write a paper on the analysis of Michael Crichton's <em>State of Fear</em> for the classroom</li>
</ol>
<p>If I can do even half of that, I'll call it a success!</p>Disagreeing with Neil deGrasse Tyson2015-10-07T00:00:00-04:002015-10-07T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-10-07:/posts/2015/Oct/07/disagreeing-with-neil-degrasse-tyson/<p>I was reading <a href="http://sploid.gizmodo.com/neil-degrasse-tysons-nine-interstellar-mysteries-1657852689">a list of things Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't understand about Interstellar</a> and was reminded about some of the things I don't like about Neil deGrasse Tyson. Let …</p><p>I was reading <a href="http://sploid.gizmodo.com/neil-degrasse-tysons-nine-interstellar-mysteries-1657852689">a list of things Neil deGrasse Tyson doesn't understand about Interstellar</a> and was reminded about some of the things I don't like about Neil deGrasse Tyson. Let me start positive, however. I really love <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmos:_A_Spacetime_Odyssey">Cosmos</a>, and feel that Tyson is well cast as the narrator (although I will always be partial to Carl Sagan). I find, however, that Neil deGrasse Tyson commonly makes glib statements that sound smart at first but then when you think about them they aren't as profound. One such example is his list of 9 things that he doesn't understand about the movie Interstellar (serious spoilers below). Most, if not all, of them have ready answers but are presented in a glib manner. Here is the list:</p>
<ol>
<li>If you can poke through a tesseract and touch books, why not just write a note and pass it through.</li>
<li>Stars vastly outnumber Black Holes. Why is the best Earthlike planet one that orbits a Black Hole</li>
<li>Who in the universe would ever know the titles of all their books, from behind, on an bookshelf.</li>
<li>How a pickup truck can drive with a flat tire among densely planted corn stalks taller than it.</li>
<li>If wormholes exist among our planets, then why can't one open up near Earth instead of Saturn.</li>
<li>Gotta tell you. Mars (right next door) looks waay safer than those new planets they travelled to.</li>
<li>If you crack your space helmet yet keep fighting, the Planet's air can't be all that bad for you.</li>
<li>Can't imagine a future where escaping Earth via wormhole is a better plan than just fixing Earth.</li>
<li>In this unreal future, they teach unscientific things in science class. Oh, wait. That is real.</li>
</ol>
<p>Take (1), for example. If you watch the scene you'll notice that a) Cooper doesn't <em>have</em> any paper in the scene and b) he's in a space suit - a little challenging to write on paper, even if he had it. Seriously? Then there is (3), which is factually incorrect - he doesn't know the titles, he's punches out Morse code (backwards, of course) so that the book and spaces show the dots and dashes. Even if he needed the titles, there is a famous scene described in Gleick's book <em>Genius</em> where Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger at a party both rattle off from memory the encyclopedia titles of their child-hood encyclopedia set, so that isn't completely ridiculous.</p>
<p>On points (2), (5) and (6) - the humans had no choice in the placement of the wormhole - there could very well be a good reason for its placement - or the placement of the types of planets. In fact, if you understand the narrative, the future humans need to lead Cooper over to a black hole in order to communicate the info to the daughter. In (6), it's clear that the astronauts think these planets might be more habitable than Mars - it's only after they get there that they realize that doesn't work. In (7) is it not possible to partially crack a helmet and still remain air-tight? Is (8) even serious? Can you not imagine messing up an environent to the point where it is better to leave than to stay behind?</p>
<p>So we're left with (4), the problem of driving a truck fast with a flat tire. Not exactly a terrible science problem, as I see it. </p>
<p>The issue I have is that these are communicated (usally over twitter) as if they are clever, slam-dunk, obvious issues when a cursory glance at them shows otherwise. This is an <em>educational</em> criticism, and I expect better of science educators.</p>Answering Unanswerable Questions2015-09-11T00:00:00-04:002015-09-11T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-09-11:/posts/2015/Sep/11/answering-unanswerable-questions/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>There are a number of questions designed specifically to not have answers or statements designed to be imponderable. Some of them actually do have answers, it seems, when you …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>There are a number of questions designed specifically to not have answers or statements designed to be imponderable. Some of them actually do have answers, it seems, when you peel away what the question or statement actually says versus what is implied. Over the years, I've found alternate ways of looking at three of these - one came to me this week - so I thought I'd share these pearls of wisdom. Sometimes all it takes is to reframe the question.</p>
<h2 id="example-1-which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg">Example 1: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?</h2>
<p>This is an age-old question, designed to be imponderable - if the chicken is first, then didn't it hatch out of an egg? If the egg came first, what animal laid that egg? The answer to the question can be seen by reframing the question with a slight rewording:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Which came first, the chicken or the <em>chicken</em> egg?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That question might be imponderable, when the original one is not. Dinosaurs, as one example, laid eggs and predated chickens by millions of years. Thus, the egg came first.</p>
<h2 id="example-2-that-is-six-of-one-half-a-dozen-of-another">Example 2: That is six of one, half-a-dozen of another.</h2>
<p>This statement is clearly designed to mean something that doesn't make any difference - both alternatives are the same. However, a little reframing shows that they are not the same. Imagine I get my six or half dozen through a process of ordering food, especially at a bakery. In that context I might get 13 (a baker's dozen) and thus a "half-a-dozen" might yield 6.5 rather than just 6. It doesn't have to happen all the time for there still to be a difference - there is a small probability that half-a-dozen is a bit more than six.</p>
<h2 id="example-3-when-i-was-a-kid-i-walked-to-school-in-the-snow-up-hill-both-ways">Example 3: When I was a kid, I walked to school in the snow, up hill both ways.</h2>
<p>My final example is a common phrase uttered by parents to humorously exaggerate the efforts they had to make as kids. The imponderable, of course, is how can you walk to a place and back going up hill both ways. We can see that this is indeed a possibility, if we reframe the statement a bit.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I walked to school in the snow, up hill <em>the entire way</em> both ways.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now we can obviously see that the way to be able to go up hill both ways is if the trip involves a downhill and an uphill - you will be going up hill both ways, at <em>some</em> point.</p>
<p>Now, you may find some of these a little stretched, and making much ado about nothing, but I think the lesson here is larger. Sometimes people try to frame a problem with an "obvious" interpretation to get you to think in a certain way. However, with an eye for the difference between stated and implied, we can come to reasonable alternatives.</p>The Giunta-Dillahunty debate2015-08-23T00:00:00-04:002015-08-23T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-08-23:/posts/2015/Aug/23/the-giunta-dillahunty-debate/<p>I was listening to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea_p5eQE-iM">Giunta-Dillahunty debate</a>, "Does God Exist?", and the subsequent appearance of these two <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/191-matt-dillahunty-in-studio?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">on the Dogma Debate show</a> and felt there was enough there that required …</p><p>I was listening to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea_p5eQE-iM">Giunta-Dillahunty debate</a>, "Does God Exist?", and the subsequent appearance of these two <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/191-matt-dillahunty-in-studio?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">on the Dogma Debate show</a> and felt there was enough there that required comment. I've commented a bit <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Jul/28/evidence-vs-argument/">on the structure here</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Aug/10/deduction-induction-and-abduction-oh-my/">on the terminology here</a>, but took down a lot more notes listening to the debate again. In this post, I refer to the debaters as Blake (Blake Giunta) and Matt (Matt Dillahunty) because it is a lot easier to type. My notes are just my responses while listening to the debate.</p>
<h3 id="causation">Causation</h3>
<p>In Blake's debate he says that the Big Bang is plausibly our "first contingent event" and that "this is part of the standard cosmology" - however, he is wrong. There are many cosmological models. Some have the Big Bang as a recurrent event in an otherwise eternal universe. Some have the Big Bang as a recurrent event in a non-eternal universe, but the original event is lost to direct observation. Then there are multiverse models where the Big Bang is just one of many events. Since there are many competing models, each of which is consistent with the current observations but differ in the Big Bang being the first contingient event, one cannot state that it is plausible that the Big Bang is the first contingient event. </p>
<p>Another thing I noticed is that Blake talks a lot about "this causing that" and about "first causes" when referring to cosmology. Sean Carroll in his <a href="https://youtu.be/X0qKZqPy9T8?t=30m36s">excellent debate</a> with William Lane Craig says that this sort of Aristotelean vocabulary was "cutting edge stuff 2500 years ago", but "today we know better". The entire structure of the argument doesn't resemble anything a cosmologist would say, and I tend to trust the cosmologists on issues in cosmology. </p>
<p>Why focus so much on causation? Something like the universe may be uncaused. There are models of uncaused universes, and there are models of eternal universes - these are not a problem. Blake says that his argument "does not require that the universe has a cause. The argument only requires that a caused universe (contingent) is the kind of thing that could exist. It’s not a square-circle." I don't think this adds anything useful, but I'd have to go into that more with Blake.</p>
<p>Even quantum field theory has the production of pairs of particles, apparently uncaused. If you're going to say that these particles are caused in someway, then you need to put forward a model where are you demonstrate what the causation is. The current understanding is either these effects are uncaused, or the notion of the causation vocabulary doesn't enter in. So far I've never seen a causal a model put forward. Blake states later, and is correct in saying, that model equations in physics are not <em>causally</em> related to anything and that's exactly Sean Carroll's point - modern cosmology doesn't use the vocabulary of causation. </p>
<h3 id="philosophy-as-word-salad">Philosophy as Word Salad</h3>
<p>Blake takes a lot of time talking about "contingent" and "necessary" things. An argument he uses is the following, with <a href="https://beliefmap.org/god-exists/necessary-being/">several alternate forms found on his website</a>:</p>
<ol>
<li>It is possible that the first contingent thing is caused to exist. (Premise)</li>
<li>In the possible case where the first contingent thing is caused to exist, a causally powerful necessary being must cause it to exist. (Premise)</li>
<li>A causally powerful necessary being possibly exists. (From 1 and 2)</li>
<li>A possibly causally powerful necessary being necessarily exists. (From 3)</li>
</ol>
<p>He refers to S5, another <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S5_(modal_logic)">philosophical term I had to look up</a>. It is a modal logic system that implies the claim that "if something is possibly necessary, then it is necessary".</p>
<p>Blake talks about the necessary entity who "can possibly cause things" and because this entity is <em>necessary</em>, it can exist without space and time and that sounds "suspiciously like God". Further, he talks about the "non-necessitating nature of the causation" and thus claims that the action of this entity "must be nondeterministic", concluding that "this is exactly the sort of thing we get with a free will choice."</p>
<p>Blake says that the universe with all its 17 particles and all of the constants would be unlikely to be necessary itself (another version of the fine-tuning argument). However, Blake fails to realize that the same argument could've been made for the spectra of stars in the 1800's. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_spectrum">spectra of stars</a> are very specific, and complex. It was known that the patterns in the complexity could be used to classify stars and even <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium#History">infer some of their contents</a>. It would have been very hard to believe that all of that complexity, and the specific patterns observed, would follow from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger_equation">a single equation</a> - but that is in fact what is true. This is one of the reasons why these philosophical arguments for the existence of things is unconvincing to me - I simply do not trust human intuition when I hear the universe "must be" a certain way.</p>
<p>Aristotle made <em>philosophical</em> arguments for the existence of the four elements, the motion of objects relative to their composition, and an Earth-centered universe. We find these notions of Aristotle quaint now, not just because they were wrong (which they were) but because he never <em>tested</em> his ideas. That is a critical point here - you can make all the philosophical arguments you want for the existence of whatever you want but you need to close the loop and actually <em>test</em> something. It's not enough to show something is plausible (which I don't think Blake has even done) and that there are philosophical reasons for why you think it is there. </p>
<p>So here is a challenge to Blake, and similar theists making these philosophical arguments. Can you give me <em>one</em> prediction that the philosophical models actually make? I'm not talking about something that they explain that we already know, but something we haven't seen yet that differentiates their model from other models. We ask the same for the Big-Bang cosmologists, and the multiverse cosmologists, and the string theorists. I have yet to see that even <em>attempted</em> by the philosophers and that is why scientists just don't take them seriously.</p>
<h3 id="probabilistic-thinking">Probabilistic thinking</h3>
<p>Blake says that conceivability is a good guide to possibility - if you can conceive of something, then it is likely that something is at least possible. His notion of "possible" he states is "metaphysical possibility" which, as a scientist, I read as "useless possibility". Just show me whether there is evidence for something - I don't care to know if it is possible beforehand. If you show evidence, then the notion of possibility is answered automatically. If you don't, then who cares whether something is possible? A unicorn is possible, but does anyone really care? </p>
<p>Through purely philosophical arguments, Blake believes he has demonstrated that the prior probability of theism is high (which he of course hasn't). Then he devotes his attention to the likelihood, and focuses on the moral arena. The structure of the argument can be written mathematically like:
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(\mbox{moral arena }|\,{\rm theism}) &\sim& [10\%,90\%] \\
P(\mbox{moral arena }|\,{\rm atheism}) &\sim& P({\rm universe}\,|\,{\rm atheism})\times P({\rm life}\,|\,{\rm atheism})\times \nonumber \\
&&P({\rm consciousness}\,|\,{\rm atheism}) \times P({\rm morality}\,|\,{\rm atheism})
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
Then what happens is that, unless some of the terms in the atheist calculation are very large, the long product will give you something quite small. There are many problems with this line of reasoning, as one can imagine. First, why isn't the calculation symmetric? For example, shouldn't we really do:
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(\mbox{moral arena}\,|\,{\rm theism}) &\sim& P({\rm universe}\,|\,{\rm theism})\times P({\rm life}\,|\,{\rm theism})\times \nonumber\\
&&P({\rm consciousness}\,|\,{\rm theism}) \times P({\rm morality}\,|\,{\rm theism}) \\
P(\mbox{moral arena}\,|\,{\rm atheism}) &\sim& P({\rm universe}\,|\,{\rm atheism})\times P({\rm life}\,|\,{\rm atheism})\times \nonumber\\
&&P({\rm consciousness}\,|\,{\rm atheism}) \times P({\rm morality}\,|\,{\rm atheism})
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
Let's take one term, but similar things can be done with all of them. To demonstrate <span class="math">\(P({\rm universe}\,|\,{\rm atheism})\)</span> is low, Blake brings up the fine-tuning argument and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain">Boltzmann Brain</a> problem. Let's flip this around, and apply it to the theist part, <span class="math">\(P({\rm universe}\,|\,{\rm theism})\)</span>. The universe we observe should be very unlikely on theism for at least three reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>A perfect being is complete, and thus does not need to create anything. In fact the creation of imperfection is less than perfect, and thus cannot contribute to the greatest possible good. </li>
<li>A perfect being need not create a finely-tuned universe, so the existence of a finely-tuned one out of all possible not-finely tuned universes is unlikely.</li>
<li>A non-physical mind would actually <em>prefer</em> Boltzmann brains over brains with the particular physical limitations ours have. </li>
</ol>
<p>One can construct such arguments quite easily, which leads to Sean Carroll's observation that theism is not well defined. It also leads to my challenge above - give me an actual <em>prediction</em> or I don't need to take the arguments seriously. </p>
<p>Much of the atheist side of the calculation is a hidden God-of-the-gaps argument. Blake only includes terms for which we have the <em>least</em> understanding, and selectively omits all the things that used to be attributed to gods but no longer (e.g. weather and disease). He is almost explicit about it, when he says that he references the <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/309/5731/75.full.pdf">list of 25 top questions in science</a>, and focuses only on those terms which would be different between the theist and atheist models. This list is:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>What Is the Universe Made Of?</li>
<li>What Is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?</li>
<li>Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?</li>
<li>To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal Health Linked?</li>
<li>Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?</li>
<li>How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?</li>
<li>What Controls Organ Regeneration?</li>
<li>How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?</li>
<li>How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole Plant?</li>
<li>How Does Earth’s Interior Work?</li>
<li>Are We Alone in the Universe?</li>
<li>How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?</li>
<li>What Determines Species Diversity?</li>
<li>What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?</li>
<li>How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?</li>
<li>How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?</li>
<li>How Will Big Pictures Emerge From a Sea of Biological Data?</li>
<li>How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?</li>
<li>What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?</li>
<li>Can We Selectively Shut Off Immune Responses?</li>
<li>Do Deeper Principles Underlie Quantum Uncertainty and Nonlocality?</li>
<li>Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible?</li>
<li>How Hot Will the Greenhouse World Be?</li>
<li>What Can Replace Cheap Oil— and When?</li>
<li>Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>I could easily come up with terms which might be more likely "on atheism", if I wanted to approach the problem like that. Numbers 13, 14, and 15 would be pretty easy, I think. Much of this calculation, beyond being God-of-the-Gaps, simply lacks imagination.</p>
<p>One thing that I notice about Blake is his confidence in things that are well outside of expertise. For example, he confidently says things like "spontaneous combustion is just as common under multi-verse as anything else" or "there is a Boltzmann Brain problem in multiverse models". It's clear that he does not know what he's talking about in these cases yet his level of confidence does not scale with that. Again, reference the <a href="https://youtu.be/X0qKZqPy9T8">Craig-Carroll debate</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, on the moral issue, I would ask Blake what properties of the moral world would <em>not</em> be consistent with the God as Blake describes? I'm pretty sure everything that he is arguing for is post-hoc and that there is a rationalization for nearly everything - making the definition of God so plastic as to lack simplicity (see a <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Aug/10/deduction-induction-and-abduction-oh-my/">previous post when I talk about the notion of simplicity</a>). </p>
<h3 id="the-limits-of-science">The limits of science</h3>
<p>Here's another example of the kind of arrogance of the Blake's position when he says science cannot explain the fundamental laws of nature because it requires initial conditions, and those initial conditions cannot be given or justified by science itself. I don't think this is a good argument. For example, maybe the fundamental laws will be self-explanatory. We just don't know. However, I'm certainly not about to go claiming that I <em>know</em> what the form of those laws is going to take. I certainly won't trust that my intuition will accurately track all the way back to the fundamental laws - they haven't been a great guide for the past 100 years in physics, why should I expect them to work in the next 100 years?</p>
<p>In order to demonstrate the limits of science, he asks about the difference between "methodological naturalism" and "methodological almost-naturalism", where science would be correct 99.999% of the time, except for the occasional supernatural intervention. Is science limited to excluding the latter as a matter of principle? I don't think so, or at least not entirely. I've written about <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Feb/04/testing-the-supernatural/">science testing the supernatural</a> elsewhere, and in summary I state</p>
<blockquote>
<p>science cannot test supernatural <em>explanations</em>, because they are not defined. They can test specific predictions that incorporate unknown, and possibly unknowable, entities that have direct physical effects. In most cases of religious claims including supernatural effects there are no predictions made, and thus the term is empty and useless - an excuse for the intellectually lazy. Where specific predictions have been made (e.g. efficacy of prayer, existence of specific miracles, etc...) the predictions have not been supported. In this way, science can test God...and God has failed the test. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, again, I say to Blake - show me a <em>prediction</em> that almost-naturalism gives you, and then we can test it. </p>
<p>Blake says that fundamental particles cannot have deeper mechanisms, that there is no mechanism for, say, the electron and the charge pulling or pushing on another charge. That's just flat-out wrong. There is a mechanism, part of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics">QED</a>, either with fields or the exchange of virtual photons. There may be a somewhat separate explanation in string theory. The problem isn't that he is wrong, but that Blake is showing his trust in philosophical arguments to try to tell us what forms physical theories <em>must</em> have and it just comes off wrong because he is not proposing a <em>model</em>, he's not making any <em>predictions</em>, and in my book that means he's not even in the discussion.</p>
<p>Blake says that you can't have an infinite regress in mechanisms but I don't see how he could say that. Some infinite series actually converge. In the best theory that we know of, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics">QED</a>, we have Feynman diagrams including infinite number of finite interactions, but the collection gives a meaningful result. Just like the origin of the universe, I do not presume to think that my intuition will hold well for infinite things. For example, you would think the series <span class="math">\(1+2+3+4+5+\cdots\)</span> would not have a finite value...<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_%2B_2_%2B_3_%2B_4_%2B_%E2%8B%AF">but it does</a>...and it's negative!</p>
<h3 id="some-theology">Some theology</h3>
<p>On the topic of divine hiddenness, Blake says something like "you have to demonstrate that God doesn't have morally sufficient reasons to stay hidden" and I think that's really a dodge, especially given that there is basically no moral act one can think of that God couldn't do - just read the Bible for some whoppers. Another idea he proposes is that maybe you're in a position right now where you would just reject him if he showed up, or maybe more people would be saved if he doesn't show himself. Of course, as Matt pointed out, God didn't seem to have a problem with showing himself in the Bible stories.</p>
<p>When Blake talked about these different "theories" (using "theories" in the colloquial sense, of a hunch or idea), and when he did the same thing with different notions of Hell, the first thing I thought of was "how could you possibly confirm these?" He makes no attempt to do so, as far as I can tell. One thing that surprised me when I was first working with biologists was the length to which the biologists would try to eliminate alternative hypotheses and to verify <em>directly</em> any extra elements that they were positing. If they said that some effect could be this gene expressed, then they would have to go and verify that that the particular gene not only did that function but did it in the specific case that they were looking at etc... I don't see the same thing <em>ever</em> happening with these theological arguments. No attempt is ever made to directly confirm the hunches.</p>
<p>Matt states, correctly, that we always explain things in terms of other things that we understand and that "explaining" things in terms of things that we <em>don't</em> understand isn't an explanation. Robert Price puts it like "explaining X by double-X". Therefore, the God <em>explanation</em> isn't really an explanation. I would add that, because there are no <em>predictions</em> made, it is an unuseful idea anyway, whether you choose to call it an explanation or not. </p>
<p>Blake says that he believes in interventionist God, so I would ask him for his evidence for the interventions, and further, for his evidence that those interventions are caused by God. </p>
<h3 id="on-predictionsagain">On predictions...again</h3>
<p>On the origin of life, I would love to hear what predictions the Blake would make given his God model for starting life and what the researchers should look for? What should be the next test, with various proposals like RNA world or early biotic chemistry or replicating chemistry? There are predictions that these ideas make, even when they incomplete, so tell me what should we do with theistic models?</p>
<p>To make the comparison more explicit, let's look at two examples from physics: the Higgs boson and string theory. In the case of the Higgs boson, it was proposed 50 years ago to complete a theory that already explained every known experiment to the accuracy of every known measurement. The Higgs took 50 years of very hard work to confirm, and although most scientists were confident that we'd observe it (that confidence came from the other predictions of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_electrodynamics">QED</a>), the direct confirmation was necessary to rationally accept the model.</p>
<p>In the case of string theory, scientists are not confident, even though there are no experiments currently which contradict it. The problem is that there are also no unique predictions from string theory which can distinguish it from others. Lacking those predictions completely undermines the confidence one has in the theory. Think about this: string theory is consistent at the equation level with our best understanding of gravity and quantum mechanics (which is way better than any theist model), and it <em>still</em> doesn't convince scientists due to the fact that it makes no predictions.</p>
<h3 id="summary">Summary</h3>
<p>So in summary, I am not convinced <em>at all</em> that philosophical arguments - by themselves - can give us <em>any</em> knowledge of the external world. The only methods that work involve prediction, and are the methods of science. When I say science, I generally mean the rational enterprise, combined with the empirical foundation of observational science (this includes history and possibly economics, for example). As far as I can tell Blake doesn't offer any real evidence for the existence of the interventionist God, nor does he make any predictions from his theistic model. Essentially, as far as I can tell, his arguments have the same content as "magic did it".</p>
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</script>Deduction, Induction, and Abduction, Oh My!2015-08-10T00:00:00-04:002015-08-10T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-08-10:/posts/2015/Aug/10/deduction-induction-and-abduction-oh-my/<p>As a scientist, I don't typically hold philosophy in that high regard. It has its uses, but can easily devolve into a word game with no real substance. <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jan/21/philosophy-and-science-whats-the-difference/">My basic …</a></p><p>As a scientist, I don't typically hold philosophy in that high regard. It has its uses, but can easily devolve into a word game with no real substance. <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jan/21/philosophy-and-science-whats-the-difference/">My basic perspective</a> is that philosophy is "science without data". However, in my reading and listening to debates in religious thought I come across philosophers often, and have to parse their arguments. An interesting collection of these arguments occurs in the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea_p5eQE-iM">Giunta-Dillahunty debate</a> and subsequent appearance of these two <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/191-matt-dillahunty-in-studio?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">on the Dogma Debate show</a>.</p>
<p>During the Dogma Debate episode, the term "abduction" was bandied about comparing methods of inference, including deduction and induction. I was not familiar with the term "abduction", and had to look it up. After much reading, it seems that the term "abductive reasoning" is basically needless - there is only one method of inference, and these other terms are at best subsets. First, we explore the philosopher's definitions of these terms, and then look at the proper way to describe them. ;)</p>
<h2 id="definitions-of-terms">Definitions of Terms</h2>
<p>I'm getting the material here from the <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Abduction</a>.</p>
<h3 id="deduction">Deduction</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>In deductive inferences, what is inferred is necessarily true if the premises from which it is inferred are true; that is, the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. </p>
<p>A familiar type of example is inferences instantiating the schema</p>
<p>All As are Bs.
a is an A.
Hence, a is a B.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>or, in other words</p>
<ol>
<li>All men are mortal</li>
<li>Socrates is a man</li>
<li>Therefore, Socrates is mortal.</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="induction">Induction</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>Inductive inferences form a somewhat heterogeneous class, but for present purposes they may be characterized as those inferences that are based purely on statistical data, such as observed frequencies of occurrences of a particular feature in a given population. An example of such an inference would be this:</p>
<ul>
<li>96 per cent of the Flemish college students speak both Dutch and French.</li>
<li>Louise is a Flemish college student.</li>
<li>Hence, Louise speaks both Dutch and French.</li>
</ul>
<p>However, the relevant statistical information may also be more vaguely given, as in the premise, “Most people living in Chelsea are rich.” (There is much discussion about whether the conclusion of an inductive argument can be stated in purely qualitative terms or whether it should be a quantitative one — for instance, that it holds with a probability of .96 that Louise speaks both Dutch and French — or whether it can sometimes be stated in qualitative terms — for instance, if the probability that it is true is high enough — and sometimes not.</p>
<p>The mere fact that an inference is based on statistical data is not enough to classify it as an inductive one. You may have observed many gray elephants and no non-gray ones, and infer from this that all elephants are gray, because <em>that would provide the best explanation for why you have observed so many gray elephants and no non-gray ones</em>. This would be an instance of an abductive inference.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That gets us to the final term, abduction.</p>
<h3 id="abduction">Abduction</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>Abduction or, as it is also often called, Inference to the Best Explanation is a type of inference that assigns special status to explanatory considerations. Most philosophers agree that this type of inference is frequently employed, in some form or other, both in everyday and in scientific reasoning.
[....]
It suggests that the best way to distinguish between induction and abduction is this: both are ampliative, meaning that the conclusion goes beyond what is (logically) contained in the premises (which is why they are non-necessary inferences), but in abduction there is an implicit or explicit appeal to explanatory considerations, whereas in induction there is not; in induction, there is only an appeal to observed frequencies or statistics. (I emphasize “only,” because in abduction there may also be an appeal to frequencies or statistics, as the example about the elephants exhibits.)</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="a-couple-of-examples-of-abductive-reasoning">A couple of examples of abductive reasoning</h3>
<blockquote>
<p>You happen to know that Tim and Harry have recently had a terrible row that ended their friendship. Now someone tells you that she just saw Tim and Harry jogging together. The best explanation for this that you can think of is that they made up. You conclude that they are friends again.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and another</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One morning you enter the kitchen to find a plate and cup on the table, with breadcrumbs and a pat of butter on it, and surrounded by a jar of jam, a pack of sugar, and an empty carton of milk. You conclude that one of your house-mates got up at night to make him- or herself a midnight snack and was too tired to clear the table. This, you think, best explains the scene you are facing. To be sure, it might be that someone burgled the house and took the time to have a bite while on the job, or a house-mate might have arranged the things on the table without having a midnight snack but just to make you believe that someone had a midnight snack. But these hypotheses strike you as providing much more contrived explanations of the data than the one you infer to.</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>In these examples, the conclusions do not follow logically from the premises. For instance, it does not follow logically that Tim and Harry are friends again from the premises that they had a terrible row which ended their friendship and that they have just been seen jogging together; it does not even follow, we may suppose, from all the information you have about Tim and Harry. Nor do you have any useful statistical data about friendships, terrible rows, and joggers that might warrant an inference from the information that you have about Tim and Harry to the conclusion that they are friends again, or even to the conclusion that, probably (or with a certain probability), they are friends again. What leads you to the conclusion, and what according to a considerable number of philosophers may also warrant this conclusion, is precisely the fact that Tim and Harry's being friends again would, if true, best explain the fact that they have just been seen jogging together. </p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="explanatory-virtues">Explanatory Virtues</h3>
<p>The article continues,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In textbooks on epistemology or the philosophy of science, one often encounters something like the following as a formulation of abduction:</p>
<p>ABD1 Given evidence <span class="math">\(E\)</span> and candidate explanations <span class="math">\(H_1\)</span>,<span class="math">\(\ldots\)</span>, <span class="math">\(H_n\)</span> of <span class="math">\(E\)</span>, infer the truth of that <span class="math">\(H_i\)</span> which best explains <span class="math">\(E\)</span>.</p>
<p>An observation that is frequently made about this rule, and that points to a potential problem for it, is that it presupposes the notions of candidate explanation and best explanation, neither of which has a straightforward interpretation. While some still hope that the former can be spelled out in purely logical, or at least purely formal, terms, it is often said that the latter must appeal to the so-called theoretical virtues, like simplicity, generality, and coherence with well-established theories; the best explanation would then be the hypothesis which, on balance, does best with respect to these virtues. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The article doesn't define these "virtues", and googling around isn't much clearer. A list from Richard Carrier's book Proving History is:</p>
<ol>
<li>Plausibility - "conform to the expectations set by our background knowledge"</li>
<li>Ad Hocness or Simplicity - "it must include fewer new suppositions"</li>
<li>Explanatory power - "it must make the observation statements it implies more probable than any other."</li>
<li>Explanatory fitness - "must not contradict any evidence or well-established beliefs"</li>
<li>Explanatory scope - "it must imply a greater variety of observation statements"</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="where-does-this-all-fit-together">Where does this all fit together?</h2>
<p>E. T. Jaynes, in his great <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf">book on probability</a>, starts with this example:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Suppose some dark night a policeman walks down a street, apparently deserted; but suddenly he
hears a burglar alarm, looks across the street, and sees a jewelry store with a broken window. Then
a gentleman wearing a mask comes crawling out through the broken window, carrying a bag which
turns out to be full of expensive jewelry. The policeman doesn't hesitate at all in deciding that this
gentleman is dishonest. But by what reasoning process does he arrive at this conclusion?</p>
<p>A moment's thought makes it clear that our policeman's conclusion was not a logical deduction
from the evidence; for there may have been a perfectly innocent explanation for everything. It
might be, for example, that this gentleman was the owner of the jewelry store and he was coming
home from a masquerade party, and didn’t have the key with him. But just as he walked by
his store a passing truck threw a stone through the window; and he was only protecting his own
property.
Now while the policeman's reasoning process was not logical deduction, we will grant that it
had a certain degree of validity. The evidence did not make the gentleman's dishonesty certain,
but it did make it extremely plausible. This is an example of a kind of reasoning in which we have
all become more or less proficient, necessarily, long before studying mathematical theories. We are
hardly able to get through one waking hour without facing some situation (e.g. will it rain or won't
it?) where we do not have enough information to permit deductive reasoning; but still we must
decide immediately what to do.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sounds a lot like the scenarios outlined in the <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Abduction</a>, yet the word <em>abduction</em> is not found in any of the pages of Jaynes. <em>Deduction</em> and <em>induction</em> are both mentioned, yet <em>abduction</em> is not - why? It's because <em>abduction</em> is just a special case of <em>induction</em>, and a not a very interesting one at that. <em>Deduction</em> is also a special case of <em>induction</em>, but is worthy of the distinction.</p>
<h3 id="induction-vs-deduction">Induction vs Deduction</h3>
<p>The process of <em>induction</em>, or inference in general, is simply the application of the rules of probability. These are derived from a set of axioms, </p>
<ol>
<li>Degrees of Plausibility are represented by real numbers.</li>
<li>Qualitative Correspondence with common sense. (aka consistency with <em>deductive</em> logic)</li>
<li>Consistency<ol>
<li>If a conclusion can be reasoned out in more than one way, then
every possible way must lead to the same result.</li>
<li>One always takes into account all of the evidence it has
relevant to a question. One does not arbitrarily ignore some of
the information, basing its conclusions only on what remains.
In other words, one should be completely non-ideological</li>
<li>One always represents equivalent states of knowledge by
equivalent plausibility assignments. That is, if in two problems
one's state of knowledge is the same (except perhaps for
the labeling of the propositions), then one must assign the same
plausibilities in both.</li>
</ol>
</li>
</ol>
<p><em>Deduction</em> is simply this process applied exclusively to true/false propositions - essentially degrees of plausibility of 0 or 1. In this way, the total certainty of mathematical and philosophical proofs are a subset of the general inductive framework known as probability theory. </p>
<h2 id="the-rules-of-probability">The Rules of Probability</h2>
<p>Mathematically, the axioms above lead directly to a few simple quantitative rules. A very nice derivation is in Tom Loredo's article <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/gregory/articles.pdf">From Laplace to Supernova SN 1987A: Bayesian Inference in Astrophysics</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>The Definition Rule</li>
</ul>
<p><span class="math">\(P(A)\)</span> is a number between 0 and 1, representing the strength of belief in a statement, <span class="math">\(A\)</span>. </p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The Negation Rule
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(A) + P({\rm\bf not}\, A) = 1
\end{eqnarray}</div>
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The Sum Rule </p>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(A \,{\rm\bf or}\, B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A \,{\rm\bf and}\, B)
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<ul>
<li>The Conjunction Rule</li>
</ul>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(A \,{\rm\bf and}\, B) = P(B|A)P(A)
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<ul>
<li>Bayes Rule (derived from the Conjunction Rule)</li>
</ul>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(A|B) = \frac{P(B|A)P(A)}{P(B)}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>These are then applied to all cases. </p>
<h2 id="abduction-mapped-to-probability">Abduction mapped to Probability</h2>
<p>The basic idea of abduction is to find the "best explanation" given the data we have. This reads like the following,</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
P(\mbox{explanation 1}|\mbox{data})\\
P(\mbox{explanation 2}|\mbox{data})\\
P(\mbox{explanation 3}|\mbox{data})\\
\vdots
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
or with shorter notation
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
P(E_1|\mbox{data})\\
P(E_2|\mbox{data})\\
P(E_3|\mbox{data})\\
\vdots
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>Then we find the one with the largest probability. Setting one of these terms up with Bayes Rule, we can see where the explanatory virtues come in.
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
P(\mbox{explanation 1}|\mbox{data})=\frac{P(\mbox{data}|\mbox{explanation 1})\times P(\mbox{explanation 1})}{P(\mbox{data})}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
where the denominator includes terms for all other explanations, again written with shorter notation for convenience</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
P(E_1|\mbox{data})=\frac{P(\mbox{data}|E_1)\times P(E_1)}{P(\mbox{data}|E_1)\times P(E_1) + P(\mbox{data}|E_2)\times P(E_2)+\cdots}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>For any of the explanations, we have the following</p>
<ol>
<li>Plausibility - "conform to the expectations set by our background knowledge" - high prior probability, <span class="math">\(P(\mbox{explanation 1})\)</span> in the numerator.</li>
<li>Ad Hocness or Simplicity - "it must include fewer new suppositions" (see below on simplicity)</li>
<li>Explanatory power - "it must make the observation statements it implies more probable than any other." - high likelihood, <span class="math">\(P(\mbox{data}|\mbox{explanation 1})\)</span> especially compared to others. This appears both in the numerator and denominator of Bayes Rule.</li>
<li>Explanatory fitness - "must not contradict any evidence or well-established beliefs" - must not have a low likelihood, <span class="math">\(P(\mbox{data}|\mbox{explanation 1})\)</span>, in the numerator (and one term in the denominator).</li>
<li>Explanatory scope - "it must imply a greater variety of observation statements" - again, high likelihood in the numerator (and one term in the denominator), <span class="math">\(P(\mbox{data}|\mbox{explanation 1})\)</span> - it is higher for more data explained with the same idea.</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="what-is-up-with-simplicity">What is up with simplicity?</h3>
<p>Perhaps the concept in the process of inference which is most often mistaken, especially with apologetic arguments, is the notion of <em>simplicity</em>. In the debate, Blake Giunta argues that God has very <em>few</em> properties, and is thus <em>simple</em>. Simple typically means higher prior probability. However, it isn't the number of components that is important, but their flexibility. One can explain anything by saying "magic did it" using only one component (magic). This is simple in the sense of number of components, but not simple in the probabilistic sense. Why is that? It's because "magic" has a high flexibility. For a process, this can take the form of different <em>mechanisms</em>. For a parameter, it can take the form of different numerical <em>values</em>. In Loredo's article, it
is phrased as</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Crudely speaking a complicated model can explain anything;
thus, its prior predictive probability for any particular outcome is small, because the predictive probability is spread out more or less evenly among the many possible outcomes. But a simpler model is more constrained and limited in its ability to explain or fit data. As a result, its predictive distribution is concentrated on a subset of the possible outcomes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Bayesian probability analysis, there is an automatic penalty for models with larger parameter ranges compared to models with narrow ranges (see <a href="http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~mackay/itprnn/ps/345.357.pdf">Mackay here</a> for one treatment). Blake Giunta's "simple" definition of God is anything but - it is so ill-specified as to be consistent with nearly any result in the world. The "fewer new suppositions" definition of Ad Hocness may work, but it doesn't work for the virtue of Simplicity. Bayesian probability analysis captures both.</p>
<h2 id="final-thoughts">Final Thoughts</h2>
<p>As far as I can tell, the term abduction is an unnecessary term. It seems to me to be just a renaming of induction and doesn't add anything useful to it. The explanatory virtues are themselves somewhat ad hoc and not properly specified, and where they are they are a trivial consequence of the well-specified process of induction. I had never heard of abduction, except in the realm of Christian apologetics, which makes me wonder what purpose it serves there that properly doing induction doesn't. Perhaps it lets one distance oneself from the extremely low prior probability of the claims made, and focus on fancy sounding terms like "explanatory power" and "ad hocness".</p>
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</script>Evidence vs Argument2015-07-28T00:00:00-04:002015-07-28T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-07-28:/posts/2015/Jul/28/evidence-vs-argument/<p>I was listening to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea_p5eQE-iM">Giunta-Dillahunty debate</a>, "Does God Exist?", and the subsequent appearance of these two <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/191-matt-dillahunty-in-studio?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">on the Dogma Debate show</a>, and was struck by the structure of the …</p><p>I was listening to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea_p5eQE-iM">Giunta-Dillahunty debate</a>, "Does God Exist?", and the subsequent appearance of these two <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/191-matt-dillahunty-in-studio?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">on the Dogma Debate show</a>, and was struck by the structure of the argument. Blake Giunta seems to be confident that <em>philosophical</em> arguments can be used as evidence for the existence of God when scientific procedures fail. </p>
<p>Although much of the discussion involves what counts as evidence, the notion of probability and knowledge, and the role of the supernatural in inference, there is a more basic question that is never brought up. I would love to hear even one case of the existence of an entity that was ever best described only in <em>philosophical</em> terms, or an entity whose existence we could at some point be confident in through <em>only</em> a philosophical argument. </p>
<p>It seems that if you are asked for your best evidence for the existence of something, and you present only a <em>philosophical</em> argument, then you are <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jan/21/philosophy-and-science-whats-the-difference/">conceding that you have no data</a>. If someone asked for the best evidence for Neptune, you'd show the <a href="http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/imagesvideo/neptune.html">Voyager pictures</a> and the pictures from telescopes. If it were 100 years ago, you'd show telescopic traces in the sky. If it were 200 years ago, one might be able to give a <em>philosophical</em> argument about the simplicity of 8 planets instead of 6, or the <em>possibility</em> of large gas giants other than Jupiter and Saturn, but one would never be justified in a strong belief in such an entity with such arguments.</p>
<p>Blake Giunta also commented that "before you can give evidence for what God did in the world you first have to demonstrate possibility [of his existence]." He does this with the philosophical arguments, but again this is misguided. If someone asks for your evidence for the existence of something, and you give a <em>philosophical</em> argument for its possibility you are conceding defeat. Why not present the evidence of the existence? That itself will answer the possibility question - if I present pictures of Neptune from the Voyager mission, the question of the possibility of Neptune's existence becomes moot. </p>Pluto, Pluto, Here We Come2015-07-03T00:00:00-04:002015-07-03T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-07-03:/posts/2015/Jul/03/pluto-pluto-here-we-come/<p>In anticipation of the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html">New Horizons</a> close <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJxwWpaGoJs">flyby of Pluto</a> in a little over a week on July 14, 2015, I read with interest the article "<a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/07/calculating-plutos-mass-snapshots-new-horizons/">Calculating Pluto’s Mass …</a></p><p>In anticipation of the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html">New Horizons</a> close <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJxwWpaGoJs">flyby of Pluto</a> in a little over a week on July 14, 2015, I read with interest the article "<a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/07/calculating-plutos-mass-snapshots-new-horizons/">Calculating Pluto’s Mass With Snapshots From New Horizons</a>". This is totally something I would do with my students, although I would have done it a little differently. Both my approach and theirs are perfectly fine, and come to equivalent answers. The difference is in which concepts are stressed. </p>
<h2 id="assumptions-and-data">Assumptions and Data</h2>
<p>Using their numbers for the following:</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
\mbox{Period of Orbit}&=&3.2 \mbox{days} \\
\mbox{Distance between Pluto and Charon}&=&r=1.957\times 10^{4} \mbox{km}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
I, like the authors of the article, would prefer to calculate this distance using angular distances of the image but I'll use the short-cut they used in the article for expediency.</p>
<h2 id="keplers-law">Kepler's Law</h2>
<p>My first deviation uses <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler's_laws_of_planetary_motion#Third_law">Kepler's Law</a>, or rather, <a href="http://astro.physics.uiowa.edu/ITU/glossary/keplers-third-law/">Newton's version of Kepler's Law</a>. The simplest <em>looking</em> version of this equation uses units of AU for the distances, Solar Masses for the total mass of the orbiting bodies, and years for the period. In this form, Kepler's Law looks like:
</p>
<div class="math">$$
T^2 [\mbox{years}] = \frac{r^3 [\mbox{AU}]}{M_{\rm total}[\mbox{solar masses}]}
$$</div>
<p>
This law basically says that more massive systems, or more tightly bound systems, orbit faster. In this case the units are a little inconvenient. Newton's form uses meters, seconds, and kilograms - which also can involve a number of conversions, making it easier to lose track of the concepts. I prefer an intermediate form, with a conversion factor out front to take care of units. This form looks like:
</p>
<div class="math">$$
T^2 [\mbox{days}] = \frac{r^3 [\mbox{km}]}{M_{\rm total}[\mbox{kg}]} \times 7.9\times 10^{10}
$$</div>
<p>
From this, and the data above, we can arrive at the total mass of the Pluto-Charon system directly as:
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
M_{\rm total}[\mbox{kg}] &=&\frac{r^3 [\mbox{km}]}{T^2 [\mbox{days}]}\times 7.9\times 10^{10}\\
&=&\frac{\left(1.957\times 10^{4}\right)^3 [\mbox{km}]}{3.2^2 [\mbox{days}]}\times 7.9\times 10^{10}=1.44\times 10^{22} {\rm kg}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>Notice this number is a bit higher than the mass of Pluto, coming in at <span class="math">\(1.3\times 10^{22} {\rm kg}\)</span>. That's because the mass calculated here is the total mass of the Pluto-Charon system, so it is <span class="math">\(M_{\rm total} = M_{\rm Pluto}+M_{\rm Charon}=1.44\times 10^{22} {\rm kg}\)</span>. To get the masses separately, we bring in the concept of the center of mass.</p>
<h2 id="center-of-mass">Center of Mass</h2>
<p>From the video in the <a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/07/calculating-plutos-mass-snapshots-new-horizons/">original article</a>, you can see that Charon orbits about a little "x" in the middle in a big circle, and Pluto orbits about that same "x" in a smaller circle . That "x" marks the point in space of the <em>center of mass</em> of the two. It's like two ice skaters holding on to each other as that spin in a circle - each one going in a circle. If the two are the same size, then the center of their spinning is right in the middle of the two. If one of the skaters is more massive, then the lighter person spins in a larger circle and the heavier person is pulled only slightly and spins in a smaller circle. The relationship that they exhibit, mathematically, is
</p>
<div class="math">$$
m_1 r_1 = m_2 r_2
$$</div>
<p>
or the product of their masses and the sizes of the circles is the same for both - the more massive object orbits in a smaller circle. For Pluto and Charon, we can draw these circles from the images taken from the frames of the movies - I used Keynote, but you can use any drawing program. Even by eye you can see that the size of Pluto's circle is about 1/8 that of Charon's.</p>
<p>So, from the center of mass, we have</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
M_{\rm Pluto} r_{\rm Pluto} &=& M_{\rm Charon} r_{\rm Charon}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
or, rearranging and measuring off of the image,
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
\frac{M_{\rm Charon}}{M_{\rm Pluto}}&=&\frac{r_{\rm Pluto}}{r_{\rm Charon}} \\
&=&\frac{1}{8}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<h2 id="putting-it-together">Putting it together</h2>
<p>So we finally have, from Kepler's law,
</p>
<div class="math">$$
M_{\rm Pluto}+M_{\rm Charon}=1.44\times 10^{22} {\rm km}
$$</div>
<p>
and from center of mass,
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
\frac{M_{\rm Charon}}{M_{\rm Pluto}}&=&\frac{1}{8}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
This leads to
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
M_{\rm Pluto}+\frac{1}{8}M_{\rm Pluto}&=&1.44\times 10^{22} {\rm kg}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
or
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
M_{\rm Pluto}&=&1.28\times 10^{22} {\rm kg}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
very close to the "right" answer. Of course, the "right" answer was obtained in exactly the same way, just being more careful. In fact, this is how we know nearly <em>all</em> of the masses of astronomical entities, from planets to stars to galaxies. </p>
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</script>Football Physics2015-06-24T00:00:00-04:002015-06-24T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-06-24:/posts/2015/Jun/24/football-physics/<p>In <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Jan/23/how-to-deflate-a-football-deflating-story/">another post</a>, I outlined how the drop in pressure was entirely consistent with what was measured with the laws of physics. That post was done when the only data …</p><p>In <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Jan/23/how-to-deflate-a-football-deflating-story/">another post</a>, I outlined how the drop in pressure was entirely consistent with what was measured with the laws of physics. That post was done when the only data was the drop in pressure - nothing specific about the methods, or the data. Then the 243 page <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2073728/ted-wells-report-deflategate.pdf">Wells report</a> came out with the methods and the data, as well as a sophisticated statistical report (see the Appendix A, page 229). Once I saw (one page 231 (A-2)) that the pre-game pressures were "Assumed Pressure at Start of Game", I realized that there was nothing that the report could say. The fact that there weren't <em>measurements</em> taken at the beginning of the game invalidates nearly any analysis. I was going to leave it at that, and possibly explore the problem as an introductory statistics problem, but basically dropped it. </p>
<p>Then, I was forwarded <a href="https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/On-the-Wells-report.pdf">this critical analysis</a> of the Wells report by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and my interest piqued again. There is a nice <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/opinion/deflating-deflategate.html?_r=1">New York times piece</a> to go along with the <a href="https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/On-the-Wells-report.pdf">detailed report</a>. Suddenly it became clear that:</p>
<ol>
<li>the methods used in the Wells report were unorthodox, and basically incorrect</li>
<li>there is another alternative explanation for their finding that the Colt's footballs were significantly more inflated than the Patriot's footballs - physics again!</li>
</ol>
<p>From the Wells report plots, the <span class="math">\(1/e\)</span> time constant of a football going from one equilibrium pressure to another with a change in temperature comparable to that observed on the day is about 10 minutes. What I hadn't realized in my initial analysis was that the <em>Patriots' footballs were measured first</em> during the half-time, and the Colts footballs measured afterward - right at the end of half-time. This is a delay of about 10 minutes. This leads to the following two consequences:</p>
<ol>
<li>The Patriots' footballs are measured when they are the lowest pressure, or near lowest pressures, right after coming in from the cold.</li>
<li>The Colts' footballs are measured when they have had an ample chance to warm up by the end of half-time. A delay of 10 minutes would bring the pressure up to about 66% of the distance from the cold temperature equilibrium pressure to the high temperature equilibrium pressure given the measured <span class="math">\(1/e\)</span> time constant of the football. It would be closer to 75% if the delay is nearly a full 15-minute half-time.</li>
</ol>
<p>You don't even need to throw in some confusion about which gauge was used a the beginning of the game vs the middle of the game (with a difference of 0.4 psi!). You easily have a situation where, plausibly, all footballs could have been in regulation at the beginning of the game yet end up with one set higher pressure on average than the other in the middle of the game - even with no foul play. </p>
<p>Frankly, I've found this so-called sophisticated quantitative analysis a great example of a smoke screen for alternative motivations.</p>
<p>Finally, I want to add that although I am not convinced that the Patriots cheated, I am also not convinced that they didn't. However, the burden of proof (as in the court of law) lies squarely with the prosecution, not the defense - and they have clearly not made their case.</p>
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</script>We find God "not guilty" of existing2015-05-18T00:00:00-04:002015-05-18T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-05-18:/posts/2015/May/18/we-find-god-not-guilty-of-existing/<p>As part of the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Feb/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I was listening to the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> on the definition of atheism, whether it is "lack in a belief in God" or "believing that …</p><p>As part of the <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Feb/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I was listening to the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> on the definition of atheism, whether it is "lack in a belief in God" or "believing that God does not exist" or something else, which got me thinking about how it maps to probability (as I always do). Matt Dillahunty clearly defines atheism as a lack of belief, and in a court-room analogy says that he finds God "not guilty of existing". In court, you find the plaintiff "guilty" or "not guilty", not "guilty" or "innocent". The burden of proof lies squarely with the prosecution. If they haven't met that burden, then the jury finds the plaintiff "not guilty". They may, or may not, believe that the plaintiff is innocent. Establishing <em>innocence</em> in the crime changes the burden of proof to the defendant. The difference here comes down to priors, which we can see through some illustrative examples mapped to probability.</p>
<h2 id="odd-and-even-stars">Odd and Even Stars</h2>
<p>Are there an odd number of stars in the universe or an even number? Clearly, at any single point in time, there is a correct answer this question. Given our lack of knowledge, we should have</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(O)=P(E)=\frac{1}{2}
$$</div>
<p>If someone were to claim that there was very likely an odd number of stars, we'd ask for evidence. If that evidence is not persuasive,</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(O|{\rm evidence}) \sim P(O)
$$</div>
<p>
then we would certainly <em>lack</em> a belief in the odd-ness of the number of stars yet we would not say that we "believe there is not an odd number of stars". It is up to the odd-number supporter to provide the evidence to raise our prior probability significantly above <span class="math">\(P(O)=0.5\)</span> - they have the burden of proof. </p>
<h2 id="different-data">Different Data</h2>
<p>If we imagine data that might actually affect this prior probability, the situation is a bit different. Let's imagine that through the laws of physics we could demonstrate that</p>
<ol>
<li>stars are nearly always formed in pairs</li>
<li>single stars are very short-lived</li>
</ol>
<p>we may actually have an argument for an even-number of stars in the universe. In this case, we have
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(O|{\rm data}) \ll P(O)
$$</div>
<p>
and thus
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(E|{\rm data}) \gg P(E)
$$</div>
<p>Where one belief goes down, the other goes up. For our belief in odd-ness to go down our belief in evenness must go up. We no longer simply <em>lack</em> a belief in odd-ness, we now both <em>believe</em> in even-ness and <em>believe</em> in non-odd-ness.</p>
<h2 id="more-than-two-outcomes">More than two outcomes</h2>
<p>Something interesting happens when there are more than two outcomes. </p>
<div class="math">$$
P(H)=P(R)=P(Y)=\frac{1}{3}
$$</div>
<p>Some data that nearly rules out one hypothesis, say <span class="math">\(R\)</span>, may not speak to either other hypothesis directly, so you get the equal redistribution like:
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\nonumber P(R)&\sim& 0 \\
\nonumber P(H)=P(Y)&\sim& 1/2
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>or it might be the case that the data leaves unchanged the prior probability of one of the hypotheses, raising the probability of the other, like
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\nonumber P(R)&\sim& 0 \\
\nonumber P(H)&\sim& 1/3 \\
\nonumber P(Y)&\sim& 2/3
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>Notice that it is possible to reduce the probability of one hypothesis (i.e. <span class="math">\(R\)</span>) and not effect the probability of a separate hypothesis (i.e. <span class="math">\(H\)</span>), when there are more than two outcomes. It is also possible for the probability of that separate hypothesis (i.e. <span class="math">\(H\)</span>) to go up, or even go down. In other words, when there are more than one hypothesis, presenting evidence for (or against) one hypothesis does not always guarantee an adjustment in another hypothesis down (or up).</p>
<h2 id="back-to-court">Back to court</h2>
<p>So, in court, the jury is tasked to decide "guilty" or "not-guilty", rather than "guilty" or "innocent". Why are these not the same? Because the <em>claim</em> is that the accused is "guilty" (like "oddness of stars"), so the evidence needs to be established for the claim. A jury deciding "not-guilty" is saying that
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P({\rm guilty}|{\rm evidence}) \sim P({\rm guilty})
$$</div>
<p>
and the evidence is not convincing.</p>
<h2 id="back-to-god">Back to God</h2>
<p>The atheist is just that person who is unconvinced by the evidence,
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P({\rm God}|{\rm evidence}) \sim P({\rm God})
$$</div>
<p>
not the person who believes there is no God,
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P({\rm God}|{\rm evidence}) \ll 0.5
$$</div>
<p>Atheists find God "not guilty" of existing</p>
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</script>On Miracles2015-05-13T00:00:00-04:002015-05-13T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-05-13:/posts/2015/May/13/on-miracles/<p>After my <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Feb/21/misquoting-hume/">post about the misquoting Hume</a> and the miraculous, I was recommended to read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/">article on miracles</a> where it supposedly explains why "Hume was …</p><p>After my <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2015/Feb/21/misquoting-hume/">post about the misquoting Hume</a> and the miraculous, I was recommended to read the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/">article on miracles</a> where it supposedly explains why "Hume was toast" before any misquoting of him. In this post, I hope to sketch the relevant parts of the encyclopedia article, and demonstrate how it does not establish any significant deficiency of Hume. I use the same headings as the <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/">article on miracles</a> to make it easier to follow.</p>
<h1 id="concepts-and-definitions">Concepts and Definitions</h1>
<p>The article begins by discussing one of Hume's definitions of a miracle as "a violation of the laws of nature". From what I can tell, their main critique is they don't like the connotations of the word "law", a perspective I share - it is a bit loose terminology, with too many alternate meanings to be the foundation of a well-defined argument. Their revised definition is the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A miracle is an event that exceeds the productive power of nature</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Perhaps this is the scientist in me, and why I am not a philosopher, but I don't see a striking difference between these two definitions in at least how they are used. So it seems reasonable to adopt this as a good working definition.</p>
<p>They go on to clarify a subset of miracle,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a religiously significant miracle is a detectable miracle that has a supernatural cause.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This clarification is to deal with the following problem, and I'd agree with at least the sentiment.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>An insignificant shift in a few grains of sand in the lonesome desert might, if it exceeded the productive powers of nature, qualify as a miracle in some thin sense, but it would manifestly lack religious significance and count not be used as the fulcrum for any interesting argument.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am not sure how, in practice, one would be able to determine a "supernatural cause", let alone establish how an event could be beyond the "productive power of nature" without committing a fallacy of <em>argument from ignorance</em>, but let's leave that for now.</p>
<h1 id="arguments-for-miracle-claims">Arguments for Miracle Claims</h1>
<p>This section starts with a quick list of the types of evidence and arguments made for miracles.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many arguments for miracles adduce the testimony of sincere and able eyewitnesses as the key piece of evidence on which the force of the argument depends. But other factors are also cited in favor of miracle claims: the existence of commemorative ceremonies from earliest times, for example, or the transformation of the eyewitnesses from fearful cowards into defiant proclaimers of the resurrection, or the conversion of St. Paul, or the growth of the early church under extremely adverse conditions and without any of the normal conditions of success such as wealth, patronage, or the use of force. These considerations are often used jointly in a cumulative argument. It is therefore difficult to isolate a single canonical argument for most miracle claims. The various arguments must be handled on a case-by-case basis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All of these pieces of so-called evidence are the worst kind of evidence, for which there are countless examples of the same, or similar evidence use to shore up the claims of other (presumably false) beliefs. You can think "Mormonism" or "Alien Abductions" for nearly every point listed.</p>
<p>They then outline two types of inductive arguments:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>the conclusion (in this case that the miracle in question has actually occurred) is probable to some specific degree, or at least more probable than not</li>
<li>the conclusion is more probable given the evidence presented than it is considered independently of that evidence</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>Point (1) is just either specifying either <span class="math">\(P({\rm miracle}|{\rm data})\)</span> directly or establishing only that <span class="math">\(P({\rm miracle}|{\rm data})>0.5\)</span>. Point (2) is <span class="math">\(P({\rm miracle}|{\rm data})>P({\rm miracle})\)</span>. Point (2) is nearly useless. For example, you could have
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
P({\rm miracle})&=&0.00001 \\
P({\rm miracle}|{\rm data})&=&0.001
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
and still have a seriously unlikely hypothesis, even given a factor of 100 increase in probability of a miracle given the data. Thus the <em>only</em> thing that matters must be the actual value of <span class="math">\(P({\rm miracle}|{\rm data})\)</span>.</p>
<p>One such argument for miracles specifies the type of evidence needed to make one confident that one is talking about a miracle. The article calls this a "criteriological" argument, but all of the arguments dealt with are probabilistic. What are the criteria, for example? This one is from Charles Leslie:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>That the matters of fact be such, as that men's outward senses, their eyes and ears, may be judges of it.</li>
<li>That it be done publicly in the face of the world.</li>
<li>That not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions to be performed.</li>
<li>That such monuments, and such actions or observances, be instituted, and do commence from the time that the matter of fact was done.</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>One can easily site both the golden plates of Joseph Smith, and also the events surrounding Roswell, that satisfy all of these. Clearly, there is an issue with them.</p>
<p>Another common argument is called the "minimal facts" approach. The best summary, and take-down of this argument is on <a href="https://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/knocking-out-the-pillars-of-the-minimal-facts-apologetic/">Matthew Ferguson's blog</a>. One essential missing part of the minimal facts approach is that it only includes <em>likelihoods</em> and not <em>priors</em>, and thus fails a basic probabilistic analysis.</p>
<h2 id="probabilistic-arguments">Probabilistic arguments</h2>
<p>The first form here deals with <em>testimony</em>, with the following assumptions and conventions:</p>
<ol>
<li><span class="math">\(T_i\equiv\)</span> the proposition "Witness <span class="math">\(i\)</span> testifies to <span class="math">\(M\)</span>"</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(T_i,T_j) = P(T_i)\times P(T_j)\)</span>: independence</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(T_i|M)=P(T_j|M)\)</span> for all <span class="math">\(i\)</span> and <span class="math">\(j\)</span>: all testimony is equally informative</li>
</ol>
<p>We then easily derive:
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{P(M|T_1,T_2,\cdots,T_n)}{P(\sim\!M|T_1,T_2,\cdots,T_n)} = \left(\frac{P(T_1|M)}{P(T_1|\sim\!M)}\right)^n \times \frac{P(M)}{P(\sim\!M)}
$$</div>
<p>The article then spins this in a positive way toward miracles:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[I]f independent witnesses can be found, who speak truth more frequently than falsehood, <em>it is ALWAYS possible to assign a number of independent witnesses, the improbability of the falsehood of whose concurring testimony shall be greater than the improbability of the alleged miracle.</em> (Babbage 1837: 202, emphasis original; cf. Holder 1998 and Earman 2000)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, comparing with Hume, it becomes obvious why this spin fails:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should have really happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of the testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion. (Hume)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The first quote implies that the terms <span class="math">\(P(T_1|M)\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(T_1|\sim\!M)\)</span> refer to speaking truth vs falsehoods (i.e. lying), as opposed to speaking correctly vs being mistaken. In the latter, it is very easy to see why, for certain types of extraordinary events, we would expect fallible observers to have <span class="math">\(P(T_1|\sim\!M)>P(T_1|M)\)</span> and further that even <em>if</em> witnesses were in general slightly more reliable than not, we can't expect the observations to be <em>independent</em> in general. In the specific case of the (anonymous) Gospel writers, there is strong evidence of <em>dependence</em> in the accounts to make this entire calculation (except in its gross qualitative features) irrelevant.</p>
<h1 id="arguments-against-miracles">Arguments against miracles</h1>
<p>Quoting Hume again,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish: And even in that case, there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is correct, and is a direct statement of Bayesian reasoning
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{P(M|E)}{P(\sim\!M|E)} =\frac{P(E|M)}{P(E|\sim\!M)} \times\frac{P(M)}{P(\sim\!M)}
$$</div>
<p>
where we can use the approximations <span class="math">\(P(E|M)\approx 1\)</span> and <span class="math">\(P(\sim\!M)\approx 1\)</span> and achieve
</p>
<div class="math">$$
\frac{P(M|E)}{P(\sim\!M|E)} \approx \frac{P(M)}{P(E|\sim\!M)}
$$</div>
<p>The <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/">article on miracles</a> continues to try to map this to a philosophical structure (needlessly, I'd say), with the following "simple version" of the argument:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A very simple version of the argument, leaving out the comparison to the laws of nature and focusing on the alleged infirmities of testimony, can be laid out deductively (following Whately, in Paley 1859: 33):</p>
<p>1) Testimony is a kind of evidence very likely to be false.</p>
<p>2) The evidence for the Christian miracles is testimony.</p>
<p>Therefore,</p>
<p>3) The evidence for the Christian miracles is likely to be false.</p>
<p>This is, however, much too crude an argument to carry any weight, since it turns on a simple ambiguity between all testimony and some testimony. Whately offers an amusing parody that makes the fallacy obvious: Some books are mere trash; Hume's Works are [some] books; therefore, etc.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It's remarkable that such a silly parallel is seriously made. The structure isn't really parallel at all, so let's make it explicit:</p>
<ol>
<li>Books are likely to be trash. (in other words, most books are trash)</li>
<li>Hume wrote some books</li>
<li>therefore, Hume's books are likely to be trash.</li>
</ol>
<p>This is a correct argument, given the premises. If all we knew was that "some guy named Hume" wrote "some book", then with all probability (if premise 1. is correct) that book would be trash. The issue is that, unconsciously, we are inserting extra information - Hume was a famous philosopher, he had a particular education, etc... With this extra information, we would have a hard time supporting a similar premise as 1. above. </p>
<p>The fact that this is so trivially dispensed with makes one wonder - why would anyone be convinced by this? Why couldn't the author of the article see it? It smacks of grasping at straws to try to dispel Hume's main arguments. </p>
<p>The article continues with some odd re-phrasings of Hume, where the mathematics is just the single line above. I don't understand all the work. A strange one is then critiqued with an even stranger statement:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The presumptive case against the resurrection from universal testimony would be as strong as Hume supposes only if, <em>per impossible</em>, all mankind throughout all ages had been watching the tomb of Jesus on the morning of the third day and testified that nothing occurred. Even aside from the problems of time travel, there is not a <em>single piece</em> of direct testimonial evidence to Jesus' non-resurrection.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Does anyone seriously think that the case against a claim always (or even usually) takes the form of direct testimony against that claim? Where is the testimony that Zeus didn't exist? Anyone who can explain this odd line of reasoning, please chime in.</p>
<h1 id="particular-arguments">Particular Arguments</h1>
<p>According to the article, Hume lists a set of conditions needed to make testimony carry maximum weight:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[T]here is not to be found, in all history, any miracle attested by a sufficient number of men, of such unquestioned good sense, education, and learning, as to secure us against all delusion in themselves; of such undoubted integrity, as to place them beyond all suspicion of any design to deceive others; of such credit and reputation in the eyes of mankind, as to have a great deal to lose in case of their being detected in any falsehood; and at the same time attesting facts, performed in such a public manner, and in so celebrated a part of the world, as to render the detection unavoidable: All which circumstances are requisite to give us a full assurance in the testimony of men. (Hume 1748/2000: 88)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Essentially, he is saying that the methods of science have never confirmed a miracle. The methods of science help "secure us against all delusion in themselves", remove "suspicion of any design to deceive others", with processes "performed in a public manner" that "render the detection unavoidable".</p>
<p>It is criticized by noting that some of these conditions can cut the other way, such as the condition of "credit and reputation",</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It might have been said with some shew of plausibility, that such persons by their knowledge and abilities, their reputation and interest, might have it in their power to countenance and propagate an imposture among the people, and give it some credit in the world. (Leland 1755: 90–91; cf. Beckett 1883: 29–37)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is, essentially, pointing out fallacy of authority - a good critique. Science, by its processes, attempts to avoid that as well. Of course, Hume predates modern science, so I think we can forgive him some sloppiness or poor choice of terminology.</p>
<p>Hume continues to suggest that the religious context of the miracle claime makes the telling of the miracle story even more likely. This would increase the probability of obtaining the testimony even if no miracle happened - <span class="math">\(P(E|\sim\!M)\)</span> increases - making the probability of a miracle go down. The criticism here? The effect could happen in the other direction:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But as George Campbell points out (1762/1839: 48–49), this consideration cuts both ways; the religious nature of the claim may also operate to make it less readily received:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[T]he prejudice resulting from the religious affection, may just as readily obstruct as promote our faith in a religious miracle. What things in nature are more contrary, than one religion is to another religion? They are just as contrary as light and darkness, truth and error. The affections with which they are contemplated by the same person, are just as opposite as desire and aversion, love and hatred. The same religious zeal which gives the mind of a Christian a propensity to the belief of a miracle in support of Christianity, will inspire him with an aversion from the belief of a miracle in support of Mahometanism. The same principle which will make him acquiesce in evidence less than sufficient in one case, will make him require evidence more than sufficient in the other….</p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<p>I disagree quite strongly with this line of thinking. One of the big problems with pseudoscience is that it promotes poor thinking in other domains. Someone who believes in miracles will not find it hard to believe that the miracle claims of other religions are at least possible. If you believe in unseen agents, then to move from Christianity to New Age to Scientology isn't that large of a stretch. Often, when ones religion is undermined, the typical response is to switch to another religion! Thus, they are not as opposite as "light and darkness". Poor thinking is poor thinking, regardless of the context.</p>
<h2 id="argument-from-parity">Argument from Parity</h2>
<p>Hume brings up miracles in other religions. In a fit of special pleading, the <a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/miracles/">article on miracles</a> retorts,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All attempts to draw an evidential parallel between the miracles of the New Testament and the miracle stories of later ecclesiastical history are therefore dubious. There are simply more resources for explaining how the ecclesiastical stories, which were promoted to an established and favorably disposed audience, could have arisen and been believed without there being any truth to the reports.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The argument is quite simple - if there are known cases of miracle claims where no miracle actually occurred, that increase <span class="math">\(P(E|\sim\!M)\)</span>, making the probability of a miracle go down given testimony. It doesn't matter whether you have good reasons to believe there was no miracle for these cases - it undermines testimony of miracles in general.</p>
<h1 id="in-conclusion">In conclusion</h1>
<p>So, as far as I can tell, there is no substantive critique to Hume's statements about miracles. He lacks the rigor of the mathematics of probability, but his wording is so straightforwardly translated to it that I find it difficult to see what the problem is. I also found it ironic that the entire article, which has been pro-miracle the entire time, ends with this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For the evidence for a miracle claim, being public and empirical, is never strictly demonstrative, either as to the fact of the event or as to the supernatural cause of the event. It remains possible, though the facts in the case may in principle render it wildly improbable, that the testifier is either a deceiver or himself deceived; and so long as those possibilities exist, there will be logical space for other forms of evidence to bear on the conclusion. Arguments about miracles therefore take their place as one piece—a fascinating piece—in a larger and more important puzzle.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is pretty much exactly what Hume was saying. Given that there is always a non-zero probability of the testifier either lying or being mistaken, one has to establish the evidence for a miracle strong enough to overcome both the negligibly small prior probability and this non-zero probability of the testimony being wrong. Since mistakes are a common human trait, and distortions are also common on testimony, evidence for miracles according to probability theory, Hume, and all rational thought have always been found lacking.</p>
<p>Of course, if you could demonstrate it otherwise, please let me know! I'd love to believe in miracles. I just have never seen anything even remotely convincing. </p>
<p>For some other items I've written about miracles, see:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jun/03/do-healing-miracles-happen/">Do healing miracles happen?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/May/21/a-little-about-miracles/">A little about miracles</a></li>
<li><a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Mar/18/unbelievable-project-miracles-and-healing-is-it-evidence-for-the-truth-of-christianity/">Miracles and healing - is it evidence for the truth of Christianity?</a></li>
</ol>
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</script>It's not the New Atheists that are Arrogant2015-05-12T00:00:00-04:002015-05-12T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-05-12:/posts/2015/May/12/its-not-the-new-atheists-that-are-arrogant/<p>In a <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_glaring_intellectual_laziness_of_bill_maher_richard_dawkins/">Salon article</a> entitled "<a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_glaring_intellectual_laziness_of_bill_maher_richard_dawkins/">New Atheism’s fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins</a>", Sean Illing outlines what he seems to think are knock-down arguments …</p><p>In a <a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_glaring_intellectual_laziness_of_bill_maher_richard_dawkins/">Salon article</a> entitled "<a href="http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_glaring_intellectual_laziness_of_bill_maher_richard_dawkins/">New Atheism’s fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins</a>", Sean Illing outlines what he seems to think are knock-down arguments about the content and approach of those so-called "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. The core of the article is in the third paragraph:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But there’s something missing in their critiques, something fundamental. For all their eloquence, their arguments are often banal. Regrettably, they’ve shown little interest in understanding the religious compulsion. They talk incessantly about the untruth of religion because they assume truth is what matters most to religious people. And perhaps it does for many, but certainly not all – at least not in the conventional sense of that term. Religious convictions, in many cases, are held not because they’re true but because they’re meaningful, because they’re personally transformative. New Atheists are blind to this brand of belief.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another gem:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Of course, most religious people consider their beliefs true in some sense, but that’s to be expected: the consolation derived from a belief is greater if its illusory origins are concealed. The point is that such beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Seriously? </p>
<p>Just ask yourself, if you swapped out "religion" in the texts above, and inserted astrology, witchcraft, alien visitation, scientology, 911 Truther or Anti-vaccination, would the author still have such a glib response to the lack of evidence? These all give their adherents meaning, a feeling of belonging to something greater than themselves, or an importance to themselves that they wouldn't otherwise have. Who are we to criticize these? They "consider their beliefs true in some sense" but gain some "consolation derived from the belief", and thus these "beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful". </p>
<p>Essentially Sean Illing is saying that it doesn't matter whether the belief is true, it only matters if it makes you feel good. Of course he excludes himself from these false notions with "many people (myself included) find no practical advantage in believing things without evidence. But what about those who do?" What a patronizing and arrogant thing to say! Seems like he's projecting a bit.</p>
<p>Does Sean Illing not see the dangers in this line of reasoning? It <em>does</em> matter if people believe things without evidence. It <em>does</em> matter that, even in the cases where the belief is "content free", that the believers are using the same vocabulary as the fanatics - and thus provide intellectual cover for the fanatics. It <em>does</em> matter that believing in something merely because it gives you meaning, or makes you feel good, is a bad idea. How much legitimate meaning could be derived from beliefs that are not well supported by evidence?</p>
<p>This is the message of the so-called New Atheists, and it is not arrogant. </p>Expressing Ignorance2015-05-09T00:00:00-04:002015-05-09T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-05-09:/posts/2015/May/09/expressing-ignorance/<p>I continue with my critique of the article <a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/why-i-am-not-a-bayesian/">Why I am not a Bayesian</a> by Greg Mayer, where complains about the Bayesian approach to inference, and then espouses Maximum Likelihood …</p><p>I continue with my critique of the article <a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/why-i-am-not-a-bayesian/">Why I am not a Bayesian</a> by Greg Mayer, where complains about the Bayesian approach to inference, and then espouses Maximum Likelihood methods. <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/priors-vs-likelihoods.html">My previous post</a> looked at the notion of prior vs likelihood, why we commonly use priors (even without always knowing it), and why they are necessary for hypothesis comparison. Here I wanted to focus on what I consider to be his biggest issue with the Bayes approach, and it is technical in nature. It happens to be the same issue that I've heard from others - how to specify priors. Mayer goes further, and says that the specification of ignorance is not well defined. I admit that there may be cases where that is true, but I haven't seen a convincing one yet. In the article he outlines the following argument against specifying initial ignorance with a prior:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let’s look at simple genetic example: a gene with two alleles (forms) at the locus (say alleles <span class="math">\(A\)</span> and <span class="math">\(a\)</span>). The two alleles have frequencies <span class="math">\(p + q = 1\)</span>, and, if there are no evolutionary forces acting on the population and mating is at random, then the three genotypes (<span class="math">\(AA\)</span>, <span class="math">\(Aa\)</span>, and <span class="math">\(aa\)</span>) will have the frequencies <span class="math">\(p^2\)</span>, <span class="math">\(2pq\)</span>, and <span class="math">\(q^2\)</span>, respectively. If I am addressing the frequency of allele <span class="math">\(a\)</span>, and I am a Bayesian, then I assign equal prior probability to all possible values of <span class="math">\(q\)</span>, so</p>
<p><span class="math">\(P(q>.5) = 0.5\)</span></p>
<p>But this implies that the frequency of the <span class="math">\(aa\)</span> genotype has a non-uniform prior probability distribution</p>
<p><span class="math">\(P(q^2>0.25) = 0.5\)</span>.</p>
<p>My ignorance concerning <span class="math">\(q\)</span> has become rather definite knowledge concerning <span class="math">\(q^2\)</span> (which, if there is genetic dominance at the locus, would be the frequency of recessive homozygotes; as in Mendel’s short pea plants, this is a very common way in which we observe the data). This apparent conversion of ‘ignorance’ to ‘knowledge’ will be generally so: prior probabilities are not invariant to parameter transformation (in this case, the transformation is the squaring of <span class="math">\(q\)</span>). And even more generally, there will be no unique, objective distribution for ignorance. Lacking a genuine prior distribution (which we do have in the diagnosis example above), reasonable men may disagree on how to represent their ignorance. As Royall (1997) put it, “pure ignorance cannot be represented by a probability distribution”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This example intrigued me because of its simplicity - it must have some solution. It also gave me an excuse to play with <a href="http://plot.ly">plotly, the online plotting program</a> and <a href="http://dan.iel.fm/emcee/current/">emcee: The MCMC Hammer</a>, both of which I had been meaning to get some practice in.</p>
<h2 id="summary">Summary</h2>
<p>In summary,</p>
<ol>
<li>Probability is a measure of our <em>state of knowledge</em>.</li>
<li>If we gain new information about our system, our <em>state of knowledge</em> changes, and thus the <em>probabilities</em> we assign must change.</li>
<li>Humans are bad an intuiting where information comes from in some cases, and thus often mistakenly think that two problems are equivalent when they are not. </li>
</ol>
<p>Mayer's critique of priors with this genetic example is an example of point (3), and we outline that with a model analogy. In sum, the "apparent conversion of ‘ignorance’ to ‘knowledge’" that Greg Mayer is so concerned about is in fact not just apparent - it is explicit. This is not due to some arcane mathematics on priors, but to <em>added information</em>. What Mayer's considers to be equivalent situations - knowledge of only two possible states, and knowledge of the process that produces those states - are not equivalent at all. </p>
<h2 id="the-model-part-1">The Model - Part 1</h2>
<p>The model that I'm using comes in two steps. The first step concerns the observation of a system with two states, call them <span class="math">\(+\)</span> and <span class="math">\(-\)</span>, and we want to infer from the observations of these states what the underlying probabilities, denoted <span class="math">\(\theta_+\)</span> and <span class="math">\(\theta_-\)</span> respectively, are. The observed data is something as simple as the number observed in one state vs the other, such as
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
N_+ &=& 16 \\
N_- &=& 4 \\
N&\equiv& N_+ + N_- = 20
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>The solution to this is achieved with a straightforward application of Bayes' rule:</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
P(\theta_+|{\rm data}) &=& P({\rm data}|\theta_+)\times P(\theta_+)/K \\
P(\theta_-|{\rm data}) &=& \underbrace{P({\rm data}|-)}_{\rm likelihood}\times \underbrace{P(\theta_-)}_{\rm prior}/K
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>with normalization constant</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
K\equiv P({\rm data}|\theta_+)\times P(\theta_+) + P({\rm data}|\theta_-)\times P(\theta_-)
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
and where the data is defined as
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
{\rm data}&\equiv & \left\{ N_+,N \right\}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>
or equivalently
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
{\rm data}&\equiv & \left\{ N_-,N \right\}
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>Although analytical solutions exist for this problem, I'll solve it with MCMC both to work on my implementation, but also to see how this could be applied to more challenging cases. To do this, we specify the log-prior and log-likelihoods for our parameters. </p>
<h3 id="prior">Prior</h3>
<p>Notice that we know <em>nothing</em> about the origin of these states or the process which gives rise to these states, we only observe how many there are. Thus, we have <em>total ignorance</em> of the <span class="math">\(\theta_-\)</span> parameter, and we assign a uniform prior probability to reflect that.</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(\theta_-) = \left\{\begin{array}{cl}1 & \mbox{ for } 0 \le \theta_- \le 1 \\
0 & \mbox{ otherwise }
\end{array}\right.
$$</div>
<h3 id="likelihood">Likelihood</h3>
<p>Since this is a straightforward Bernoulli process, we have for the likelihood</p>
<div class="math">$$
P({\rm data}|\theta_-) = \left(\begin{array}{c}N \\ N_- \end{array}\right) \theta_{-}^{N_-}\times (1-\theta_-)^{N-N-}
$$</div>
<h3 id="result">Result</h3>
<p>The resulting posterior for <span class="math">\(\theta_-\)</span> is</p>
<div>
<a href="https://plot.ly/~bblais/77/" target="_blank" title="$\hat{\theta_-}|^{97.5}_{2.5}=0.219^{+0.200}_{-0.137}$" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://plot.ly/~bblais/77.png" alt="$\hat{\theta_-}|^{97.5}_{2.5}=0.219^{+0.200}_{-0.137}$" style="max-width: 100%;" onerror="this.onerror=null;this.src='https://plot.ly/404.png';" /></a>
<script data-plotly="bblais:77" src="https://plot.ly/embed.js" async></script>
</div>
<p>Again, clearly there is an analytic solution to this part, but that isn't the point. And I'm not sure whether the second part has an easy solution, but the MCMC approach is just as easy.</p>
<h2 id="model-part-2">Model - Part 2</h2>
<p>The second step in the model is when we get some detail of the <em>process</em> by which the <span class="math">\(+\)</span> and <span class="math">\(-\)</span> states are generated. Here is the recipe:</p>
<ol>
<li>I flip a two identical thumbtacks, each of which can land with the point up (<span class="math">\(U\)</span>) or down (<span class="math">\(D\)</span>) - and I don't know anything about the probability of these two cases. </li>
<li>If either (or both) of the tacks lands with the point up, that is reported as the <span class="math">\(+\)</span> state. The only remaining case (i.e. both tacks land pointing down), is reported as the <span class="math">\(-\)</span> state.</li>
</ol>
<p>We have, then, the following mapping:</p>
<ol>
<li><span class="math">\(UU \rightarrow +\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(UD \rightarrow +\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(DU \rightarrow +\)</span></li>
<li><span class="math">\(DD \rightarrow -\)</span></li>
</ol>
<p>The parallel with alleles should be obvious. By keeping it to a simple physical model, I avoid the extra complexities of genetic inheritance, and other biological processes.</p>
<p>This model, again, is a basic problem in probability, but note the following very important point:</p>
<p><strong>Our knowledge of the system has changed, so our probabilities must also change.</strong></p>
<p>The only difference is that our ignorance is now on <span class="math">\(\theta_U\)</span> and <span class="math">\(\theta_D\)</span>, and the probabilities for the <span class="math">\(+\)</span> and <span class="math">\(-\)</span> states are <em>derived</em> from that, </p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray*}
\theta_- &=& \theta_D^2 \\
\theta_+ &=& 1-\theta_-
\end{eqnarray*}</div>
<p>Now we have posterior for the underlying parameters, such as <span class="math">\(\theta_D\)</span>, as well as for the state parameters, such <span class="math">\(\theta_-\)</span>, which are determined entirely from the underlying parameters. The posterior for <span class="math">\(\theta_D\)</span> is </p>
<div>
<a href="https://plot.ly/~bblais/84/" target="_blank" title="$\hat{\theta_D}|^{97.5}_{2.5}=0.447^{+0.187}_{-0.184}$" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://plot.ly/~bblais/84.png" alt="$\hat{\theta_D}|^{97.5}_{2.5}=0.447^{+0.187}_{-0.184}$" style="max-width: 100%;" onerror="this.onerror=null;this.src='https://plot.ly/404.png';" /></a>
<script data-plotly="bblais:84" src="https://plot.ly/embed.js" async></script>
</div>
<p>while the posterior for <span class="math">\(\theta_-\)</span> in the Model 2 is</p>
<div>
<a href="https://plot.ly/~bblais/85/" target="_blank" title="${\hat{\theta}_-}|^{97.5}_{2.5}=0.200^{+0.202}_{-0.131}$" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://plot.ly/~bblais/85.png" alt="${\hat{\theta}_-}|^{97.5}_{2.5}=0.200^{+0.202}_{-0.131}$" style="max-width: 100%;" onerror="this.onerror=null;this.src='https://plot.ly/404.png';" /></a>
<script data-plotly="bblais:85" src="https://plot.ly/embed.js" async></script>
</div>
<h2 id="comparisons-and-conclusions">Comparisons and conclusions</h2>
<p>It's a bit more convenient to plot the consequences of Model 1 (ignorance in +/-) and Model 2 (ignorance in U/D), with the same data, both together on the same plot.</p>
<div>
<a href="https://plot.ly/~bblais/86/" target="_blank" title="Ignorance on +/- vs Ignorance on U/D" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://plot.ly/~bblais/86.png" alt="Ignorance on +/- vs Ignorance on U/D" style="max-width: 100%;" onerror="this.onerror=null;this.src='https://plot.ly/404.png';" /></a>
<script data-plotly="bblais:86" src="https://plot.ly/embed.js" async></script>
</div>
<p>We can easily see that, although they are different, there is no <em>practical</em> difference between them given this data. For larger <span class="math">\(N\)</span> this difference gets less significant.</p>
<div>
<a href="https://plot.ly/~bblais/87/" target="_blank" title="Ignorance on +/- vs Ignorance on U/D" style="display: block; text-align: center;"><img src="https://plot.ly/~bblais/87.png" alt="Ignorance on +/- vs Ignorance on U/D" style="max-width: 100%;" onerror="this.onerror=null;this.src='https://plot.ly/404.png';" /></a>
<script data-plotly="bblais:87" src="https://plot.ly/embed.js" async></script>
</div>
<p>In sum, the "apparent conversion of ‘ignorance’ to ‘knowledge’" that Greg Mayer is so concerned about is in fact not just apparent - it is explicit. This is not due to some arcane mathematics on priors, but to <em>added information</em>. What Mayer's considers to be equivalent situations - knowledge of only two possible states, and knowledge of the process that produces those states - are not equivalent at all. </p>
<p>In practice, for this problem, it makes very little difference whether you think of things in terms of Model 1 or Model 2 except in the case of extremely rare underlying events. This is also as it should be - if you know that the process essentially hides the existence of itself (i.e. the recessive gene is not observed phenotypically) - then you would assign a lower probability for the phenotype than you would if you only knew that there were two possible states and knew nothing about the properties of recessive characteristics. To repeat, different states of knowledge require different probability assignments - this is a feature, not a bug.</p>
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</script>Priors vs Likelihoods2015-05-05T00:00:00-04:002015-05-05T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-05-05:/posts/2015/May/05/priors-vs-likelihoods/<p>I was reading the article <a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/why-i-am-not-a-bayesian/">Why I am not a Bayesian</a> where Greg Mayer complains about the Bayesian approach to inference, and espouses Maximum Likelihood methods. There is much to …</p><p>I was reading the article <a href="https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/16/why-i-am-not-a-bayesian/">Why I am not a Bayesian</a> where Greg Mayer complains about the Bayesian approach to inference, and espouses Maximum Likelihood methods. There is much to critique in the article, but let's consider one question he raises.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are three ways round the problem of prior distributions. First, try really hard to find an objective way of portraying ignorance. This hasn’t worked yet, but some people are still trying. Second, note that the prior probabilities make little difference to the posterior probabilty as more and more data accumulate (i.e. as more experiments/observations provide more likelihoods), viz.</p>
<p>P(posterior) ∝ P(prior) × Likelihood × Likelihood × Likelihood × . . .</p>
<p>In the end, only the likelihoods make a difference; but this is less a defense of Bayesianism than a surrender to likelihood. Third, boldly embrace subjectivity. But then, since everyone has their own prior, the only thing we can agree upon are the likelihoods. So, why not just use the likelihoods?</p>
<p>The problem with Bayesianism is that it asks the wrong question. It asks, ‘How should I modify my current beliefs in the light of the data?’, rather than ‘Which hypotheses are best supported by the data?’. Bayesianism tells me (and me alone) what to believe, while likelihood tells us (all of us) what the data say.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I follow his question of "why not just use the likelihoods" with the following question: Given that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus">Paul the Octopus</a> predicted 12 out of 14 World Cup matches, does Greg Mayer accept that the octopus is psychic? Why or why not?</p>
<p>My guess is "no", but why? The <em>likelihood</em> (i.e. how well the hypothesis supports the data) is exceptionally high. Higher, I'd say, than nearly any other hypothesis. Actually, now that I think about it, the hypothesis "aliens that like the number 12 and influence octopi made it happen" is a better one. These are clearly ridiculous because they are <em>implausible</em> to start, and thus have a lower <em>prior probability</em>. In fact Bayesianism is asking the only interesting question, and it provides the framework to actually compare hypotheses, something that frequentist methods fail spectacularly at.</p>
<p>Greg Mayer is a Bayesian, he just fails to admit it.</p>Superseding the $t$ test2015-04-23T00:00:00-04:002015-04-23T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-04-23:/posts/2015/Apr/23/superseding-the-t-test/<p>There's a very nice paper, <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~kruschke/articles/Kruschke2013JEPG.pdf">Bayesian estimation supersedes the t test</a>. John K. Kruschke, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2013, v.142(2), pp.573-603. The methods described provide at …</p><p>There's a very nice paper, <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~kruschke/articles/Kruschke2013JEPG.pdf">Bayesian estimation supersedes the t test</a>. John K. Kruschke, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2013, v.142(2), pp.573-603. The methods described provide at once posterior probabilities not just for the means of two groups, but their standard deviations, their normality, and effect size. The <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~kruschke/BEST/">supporting website</a> has a lot of useful resources, including a number of implementations. The original implementation is in R, but there is a <a href="https://github.com/strawlab/best">Python implementation using PyMC</a>.</p>
<p>I decided to implement the same thing using the <a href="http://dan.iel.fm/emcee/current/">emcee package</a>. The full implementation is <a href="http://nbviewer.ipython.org/gist/bblais/7a1c6ec3b4c8d1b0465f">viewable here</a>. My implementation is pretty general, and can handle some arbitrary tests of the variables, like:</p>
<div class="highlight"><table class="highlighttable"><tr><td class="linenos"><div class="linenodiv"><pre><span class="normal">1</span>
<span class="normal">2</span>
<span class="normal">3</span></pre></div></td><td class="code"><div><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'(mu1>101) & (mu1<102.1)'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="mf">0.85502222222222224</span>
</code></pre></div></td></tr></table></div>
<p>and</p>
<div class="highlight"><table class="highlighttable"><tr><td class="linenos"><div class="linenodiv"><pre><span class="normal">1</span>
<span class="normal">2</span>
<span class="normal">3</span></pre></div></td><td class="code"><div><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">P</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'sigma1<sigma2'</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="mf">0.0060111111111111112</span>
</code></pre></div></td></tr></table></div>
<p>and</p>
<div class="highlight"><table class="highlighttable"><tr><td class="linenos"><div class="linenodiv"><pre><span class="normal">1</span></pre></div></td><td class="code"><div><pre><span></span><code><span class="n">model</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">plot_distribution</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Effect Size=(mu1-mu2)/sqrt((sigma1**2+sigma2**2)/2)'</span><span class="p">)</span>
</code></pre></div></td></tr></table></div>
<p><img alt="effectsize" src="images/effect_size.png"></p>
<p>Hopefully the code will be useful to someone, perhaps just me as I explore similar problems.</p>Simple Questions that Get to the Heart of the Matter2015-03-03T00:00:00-05:002015-03-03T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-03-03:/posts/2015/Mar/03/simple-questions-that-get-to-the-heart-of-the-matter/<p>E. T. Jaynes wrote extensively about Bayesian inference, and one of his strategies was to use a "Galileo's telescope for statistics", such as outlined in his paper on <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/confidence.pdf">Confidence Intervals …</a></p><p>E. T. Jaynes wrote extensively about Bayesian inference, and one of his strategies was to use a "Galileo's telescope for statistics", such as outlined in his paper on <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/confidence.pdf">Confidence Intervals vs Bayesian Intervals</a>. This method is used to distinguish between two alternate approaches to a problem. The strategy entails finding particularly simple cases where the two cases yield very different answers, and the correct one is obvious from the context and the simplicity of the problem. In this way, the difference is magnified like a telescope so that it is clear to the unaided observation.</p>
<p>There are, I've found, similar sorts of cases in apologetics. There are a few questions I've heard that are so simple, yet get to the heart of the matter. I've collected them here, and always enjoy finding others. </p>
<h2 id="is-there-free-will-in-heaven">Is there free will in Heaven?</h2>
<p>If there is, then the free-will argument for the the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil">Problem of Evil</a> falls apart. If there is not, then heaven is filled with automatons and the soul is meaningless.</p>
<h2 id="how-did-paul-know-it-was-jesus-that-he-saw">How did Paul know it was Jesus that he saw?</h2>
<p>Since Paul wasn't an eyewitness to Jesus, how did he know that he was being visited by Jesus in a vision? How does he know that he saw the same person that others saw? Thus, even at best, how do we know as readers that his testimony is reliable at all, as the apologists claim?</p>
<h2 id="how-did-you-determine-in-the-bible-that-god-is-the-good-guy-and-satan-is-the-bad-guy">How did you determine in the Bible that God is the good guy and Satan is the bad guy?</h2>
<p>This one points to the real source of morality - ourselves. We use our own moral intuitions to decide which parts of the Bible are worth keeping and which to ignore. Even if you look at the beginning of Genesis, the snake is the one that is correct about the Tree of Knowledge when God is not. Using the argument that God's book says that God is good is, obviously, fallacious.</p>
<h2 id="why-does-paul-never-use-the-word-disciple-and-only-uses-the-word-apostle">Why does Paul <em>never</em> use the word disciple and only uses the word apostle?</h2>
<p>This one isn't quite as strong, but it was the one that got me thinking about the evidence (or lack of evidence) for the existence of Jesus. This simple question highlights the fact that Paul never mentions anything about the life of Jesus at all. He doesn't seem to be aware that Peter and James, for example, were supposedly disciples of of Jesus - following an actual person - not just apostles - spreading the word about Jesus. He never mentions Nazareth, or anything at all that Jesus said - not a single quote from Jesus is found in any of Paul's writing, and he is the earliest and most prolific New Testament writer. I find that really interesting. For me, it makes me agnostic about Jesus existing at all as a historical figure. I've never seen a compelling case either way. </p>
<p>Are there any more such questions?</p>Misquoting Hume2015-02-21T00:00:00-05:002015-02-21T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-02-21:/posts/2015/Feb/21/misquoting-hume/<p>I recall a comment in E. T. Jaynes' book about Laplace, where he realized that most of the arguments against the claims of Laplace were arguments against things Laplace never …</p><p>I recall a comment in E. T. Jaynes' book about Laplace, where he realized that most of the arguments against the claims of Laplace were arguments against things Laplace never said. Jaynes would habitually check the original source whenever he heard claims ascribed to Laplace, and found that Laplace was consistently misquoted. Recently, I have realized that the same can be said of Hume. I've <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Sep/22/will-the-sun-rise-tomorrow/">written before</a> about the claim that Hume believed we have "no good reason at all for thinking the sun will rise tomorrow" (spoiler alert: he didn't believe this). </p>
<p>So, I've seen this little pithy Hume quote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"The evidence for the regular is always greater than that for the rare."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>in <a href="http://www.bethinking.org/are-miracles-possible/the-question-of-miracles-the-contemporary-influence-of-hume">various</a> <a href="http://www.roomfordoubt.com/examine/2/Questions-of-Faith/11/Don-t-miracles-violate-the-laws-of-nature-Isn-t-that-just-unbelievable">critiques</a> <a href="http://www.mbu.edu/seminary/journal/a-critique-of-david-humes-on-miracles/">of Hume</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FPmV30uX1_4C&pg=PA207&lpg=PA207&dq=%22The+evidence+for+the+regular+is+always+greater+than+that+for+the+rare%22&source=bl&ots=d9it4bTi3N&sig=5D-zAM9UJ0CkkM17J0ovbCWR9XY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=w6HoVN6PHpbbsATFgIGADg&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22The%20evidence%20for%20the%20regular%20is%20always%20greater%20than%20that%20for%20the%20rare%22&f=false">on the web</a>. The problem? Hume never says this. You can read Hume's <em>actual</em> statements about miracles in the two parts of his argument here: <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/37/3/14.html">part 1</a> and <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/37/3/15.html">part 2</a>. The misquotes that I have seen are always from Christian apologists, so it isn't totally surprising. </p>
<p>I think one of the reasons this occurs is that Hume predates probability theory, so he uses verbose explanations where the modern reader can insert a single statement. For example, reading Hume's work on Miracles, it is clear to me that what he intends to say is simply</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the <em>prior probability</em> for the regular is always greater than the rare </p>
</blockquote>
<p>a bit less pithy, but more correct (although Hume doesn't phrase it quite like that either). This is at least a factual statement - before the data, we should believe the regular over the rare. That doesn't imply that data couldn't <em>convince</em> us of rare events, it only implies that it is more <em>difficult</em> for data to convince us of rare vs regular events (i.e. you need better evidence for the rare). </p>
<p>In an <a href="http://ez.premierchristianradio.com/radio/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-9-Aug-2008-Norman-Geisler-American-Masters-of-Apologetics-pt-4">Unbelievable podcast interview with apologist Norman Geisler</a>, Geisler uses the first "quote" of Hume above, and then argues that Hume must be wrong because science already accepts singular and rare events - the Big Bang, the origin of life, and macro evolution (this last one is, of course, neither singular nor rare). Geisler then concludes that miracles can exist! However, seen in the light of probability theory, it becomes clear. </p>
<p>The prior probability of the events is low:
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(\mbox{Big Bang})\ll 1 \\\\
P(\mbox{Origin of Life})\ll 1 \\\\
P(\mbox{Macro Evolution})\ll 1 \\\\
P(\mbox{Miracles})\ll 1
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
but with data, we have something quite different:
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(\mbox{Big Bang}|{\rm data})\sim 1 \\\\
P(\mbox{Origin of Life}|{\rm data})\sim 1 \\\\
P(\mbox{Macro Evolution}|{\rm data})\sim 1 \\\\
P(\mbox{Miracles}|{\rm data})\sim 0
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
where the data are</p>
<ul>
<li>Big Bang - <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html">a long list</a> </li>
<li>Origin of Life - a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis">nice summary</a> with RNA world, and autocatalysis</li>
<li>Macro Evolution - a term not used by biologists, but <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/">another long list</a> for evolution</li>
<li>Miracles - nothing convincing to the scientific community</li>
</ul>
<p>So, although all these things <em>can</em> occur, only a few of them <em>actually</em> have evidence strong enough to overcome their initial low prior probability. Hume recognized this for miracles, as was clear from his writings, although it would have been clearer had he had the benefit of probabilistic vocabulary. Don't take my word for it, go read Hume <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/37/3/14.html">here</a>, <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/37/3/15.html">and here</a>.</p>
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</script>Testing the Supernatural2015-02-04T00:00:00-05:002015-02-04T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-02-04:/posts/2015/Feb/04/testing-the-supernatural/<p>In an interesting paper entitled "<a href="http://www.naturalism.org/Can%20Science%20Test%20Supernatural%20Worldviews-%20Final%20Author%27s%20Copy%20%28Fishman%202007%29.pdf">Can Science Test Supernatural Worldviews</a>", Yonatan Fishman proposes an unusual answer of "yes". I've spoken to this issue <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2011/Dec/20/closed-to-the-supernatural/">here</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Sep/04/the-supernatural-and-the-history-of-cosmology/">again here</a>, where I refer …</p><p>In an interesting paper entitled "<a href="http://www.naturalism.org/Can%20Science%20Test%20Supernatural%20Worldviews-%20Final%20Author%27s%20Copy%20%28Fishman%202007%29.pdf">Can Science Test Supernatural Worldviews</a>", Yonatan Fishman proposes an unusual answer of "yes". I've spoken to this issue <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2011/Dec/20/closed-to-the-supernatural/">here</a> and <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2013/Sep/04/the-supernatural-and-the-history-of-cosmology/">again here</a>, where I refer to the term "supernatural" as a label-of-the-gaps, and trace its usage in ancient cosmology. I've stated that the term itself is either content-free or not defined specifically enough to be useful. However, I do make the following statement which I think points to Fishman's perspective:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I'd love to see something that really rises to the level of a miracle, like the 10 commandments etched in Pluto or something. Although technically a God-of-the-Gaps argument, it would be very interesting indeed! </p>
</blockquote>
<p>We can ask the question, what would convince you of the existence of the supernatural, or of God? Fishman points out that if prayer actually worked, and only Catholic prayers were effective, that would in fact be evidence for the supernatural. What I find interesting about this line of thinking is that, even if you expect that there should be a natural explanation, if the person claiming supernatural agency continues to make specific predictions that turn out true - predictions that, at least on the face, seem to be unexpected from our current understanding - then you'd have to start thinking that they are on to something.</p>
<p>What I think is going on here is something a bit different than a God-of-the-gaps, at least in some contexts. One way of thinking about it is with an analogy to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter">Dark Matter</a>. In astronomy it was observed that galaxies rotated more rapidly than expected. Using the light emitted from the galaxy, you can estimate the amount of material needed to emit that light, and use that to determine rotation speeds. The amount of mass estimated from the light emitted is far less than the amount of mass estimated from the rotation speeds - somehow there is a large amount of mass unaccounted for. Astronomers named this extra mass "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter">Dark Matter</a>". Notice, that this is not an <em>explanation</em> for the extra mass, but a <em>label</em> for "something I don't know is causing this effect". One then has to make propositions of specific causes, like neutrinos, black holes, or even modifications of the laws of physics. From there one makes specific predictions, constructs methods for testing the propositions, and explores alternatives. The term, "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter">Dark Matter</a>", is still used as the umbrella term to label all of these alternatives. </p>
<p>In this way, the term "supernatural" may be a label for "something I don't know is causing this effect", where the effect may be a miracle claim, prayers answered, origin of the universe, origin of life, etc... Thus, the phrase "supernatural explanation" is a meaningless phrase - there can be no supernatural explanation, just as Dark Matter is not an explanation. However, as Fishman uses in his title, one could test "supernatural worldviews" - those constructions that use the label to suggest some unknown (and possibly unknowable) agency at work. </p>
<p>One might think that a scientific theory can't have anything like this in it, but that is not correct. For example, consider the wavefunction in quantum mechanics. Here we have an entity in a theory which is not directly observable - even in principle - yet the theory makes very specific predictions. It is possible to have such entities in a scientific theory, and we accept such entities in so far as the predictions which come from them are observed.</p>
<p>There is a certain appeal to this way of thinking, and I feel that an honest assessment of religious claims could proceed in this way. However, I think more people use "supernatural" as an excuse, a truly God-of-the-gaps, and stop all inquiry into alternatives. They see it as an explanation, not a label, but fail to make the next proper step of following the predictions - everything is a post-diction. You say that the universe is finely tuned for life because of God? Ok, what suggestion can you make for the next cosmological experiment to perform? What experiment would you propose to distinguish your theory (with supernatural entities) from a theory of physical necessity (i.e. the constants must be that way) or statistical necessity (i.e. the multiverse)? You say that the supernatural is needed to understand prayers being answered? Sure, but how would you test that? How would you explain the (many) failed experiments to demonstrate the efficacy of prayer, and propose an alternative? These experiments should be easy to propose, if one is not just applying a God-of-the-gaps. Of course, we don't see these experiments proposed. </p>
<p>So in summary, science cannot test supernatural <em>explanations</em>, because they are not defined. They can test specific predictions that incorporate unknown, and possibly unknowable, entities that have direct physical effects. In most cases of religious claims including supernatural effects there are no predictions made, and thus the term is empty and useless - an excuse for the intellectually lazy. Where specific predictions have been made (e.g. efficacy of prayer, existence of specific miracles, etc...) the predictions have not been supported. In this way, science can test God...and God has failed the test. </p>How to Deflate a Football Deflating Story2015-01-23T00:00:00-05:002015-01-23T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-01-23:/posts/2015/Jan/23/how-to-deflate-a-football-deflating-story/<p>So, it's all over the news, the <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/01/20/nfl-says-patriots-used-under-inflated-footballs/7UlPZI3eotRTBadM89saeO/story.html">Patriots cheated</a> with deflating the football by 1-2 psi, and are <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2339195-is-the-nfl-going-to-let-brady-and-belichick-play-it-for-a-fool">lying about not knowing anything about it</a>. There are even claims that …</p><p>So, it's all over the news, the <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/01/20/nfl-says-patriots-used-under-inflated-footballs/7UlPZI3eotRTBadM89saeO/story.html">Patriots cheated</a> with deflating the football by 1-2 psi, and are <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2339195-is-the-nfl-going-to-let-brady-and-belichick-play-it-for-a-fool">lying about not knowing anything about it</a>. There are even claims that there are <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/01/23/deflate-gate-science-underinflated-footballs/">scientific reasons for this being an advantage</a>. What seems to be lacking at this point is:</p>
<ol>
<li>any actual evidence of wrongdoing - no video, no eyewitnesses, nothing</li>
<li>any actual <em>data</em> concerning the footballs in question, i.e. their actual pressures at various times</li>
<li>any actual <em>data</em> concerning all of the footballs in the game, i.e. their actual pressures at various times</li>
</ol>
<p>The only data we have is that the balls were measured later in the game, with an observed drop from the beginning of the game, and a possible way to benefit from that. The first thing we have to ask is, are there any mundane explanations of this observation? The second thing we have to ask is if there is a way to distinguish between the mundane explanations and the possible nefarious ones. Let's tackle the first. </p>
<h2 id="can-temperature-change-account-for-the-data-yes">Can Temperature Change Account for the Data? Yes!</h2>
<p>When measuring the pressure in a football, we measure the <em>difference</em> between the pressure inside of the football and the atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure is about 14.7 psi, so when the reading of the football pressure is, say, 13 psi then the absolute pressure is </p>
<div class="math">\begin{equation}
14.7 \,{\rm psi} + 13 \,{\rm psi} = 27.7 \,{\rm psi}
\end{equation}</div>
<p>From the ideal gas law we also have the relationship between pressure and temperature,
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
PV&=&nkT \\\\
P&\propto& T \\\\
\frac{P_1}{P_2}&=&\frac{T_1}{T_2}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>So a change of temperature from 70 F (294 K) down to 40 F (278 K) leads to a drop in football pressure from 27.7 psi down to</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\frac{27.7\,{\rm psi}}{P_2}&=&\frac{294 K}{278 K}\\\\
P_2&=& 26.2 \,{\rm psi}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>or a football pressure reading of</p>
<div class="math">\begin{equation}
26.2 \,{\rm psi}- 14.7 \,{\rm psi} = 11.5 \,{\rm psi}
\end{equation}</div>
<p>Perfectly within the range of data that we have access to. If the amount were much more (4 psi, for example) then we might get suspicious, but this does not seem to be the case.</p>
<h2 id="well-thats-nice-in-theory-but">Well, that's nice in theory, but...</h2>
<p>Sure, it seems to work in theory, but we should test it. Well, <a href="http://www.wcsh6.com/story/news/local/2015/01/22/deflategate-patriots-football-pressure-inflated/22174475/">someone has</a>. He inflated two balls to 13 psi, one in the room and one in the refrigerator. It went down to 11.7 psi. He added that someone falling on the ball could also make the ball lose air. Nice and tidy. Hearing this, my mind was instantly made up - unless someone can provide actual evidence to the contrary. Was the interviewer convinced? Nope - </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Ok, disclaimer time. Yes, the professor is a Patriots fan, and these sound like a lot of excuses to let the Patriots off the hook. But he says that this is real scientific stuff." </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, it is - and it's not rocket science either. It's not <em>"excuses"</em>, it's the most plausible explanation until someone can actually provide evidence contrary to it.</p>
<h2 id="what-do-we-do-with-mundane-explanations">What do we do with mundane explanations?</h2>
<p>Now that we have a mundane explanation, what do we do? We need to require of any other explanation a much more rigourous and strong case - the evidence has to be much stronger than otherwise, because the mundane explanation has a very high prior probability. Do we have that evidence? Not that I've seen. So, until someone shows me the video of a person letting out air from the football, or provides a credible witness, I'm chalking this one up to the typical hysteria Americans like in their news stories and go on with more important things. Let's hope the NFL listens to the science, and does the same.</p>
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</script>Demo vs Experiment2015-01-20T00:00:00-05:002015-01-20T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-01-20:/posts/2015/Jan/20/demo-vs-experiment/<p>I was a judge for a local science fair this past week, and found a number of projects lacking. After thinking about it for a while, I realized that one …</p><p>I was a judge for a local science fair this past week, and found a number of projects lacking. After thinking about it for a while, I realized that one of the problems seems to be the distinction (or, rather, lack of distinction) made between <em>demos</em> and <em>experiments</em>. In teaching science, especially in the younger grades, it seems common to say something like <em>"today we are going to do an experiment, mixing baking soda and vinegar"</em>. This, to me, is not an <em>experiment</em>. So, what do I think is the difference? Here are a few thoughts. Are there any more?</p>
<ol>
<li>The outcome of an experiment is <em>unknown</em>, whereas the outcome of a <em>demo</em> is <em>known</em> - deliberately.</li>
<li>In an experiments, the variables are <em>quantifiable</em>, whereas the variables of a <em>demo</em> are typically discrete and not quantitfiable. </li>
<li>In an experiment, the outcomes are also <em>quantifiable</em>. </li>
</ol>
<p>To continue with the example, the following <em>demos</em> would be bad science fair topics:</p>
<ul>
<li>what happens when we mix baking soda and vinegar?</li>
<li>which produces more gas, baking soda and vinegar or baking power and vinegar?</li>
</ul>
<p>To make them true experiments, we could ask</p>
<ul>
<li>how does the amount of gas produced with baking soda and vinegar depend on the quantity of baking soda? (both the amount of baking soda and the amount of gas are quantifiable)</li>
<li>to follow up, how does the amount of gas produced with baking <em>powder</em> and vinegar depend on the quantity of baking <em>powder</em>? Is this the same as the dependence on baking <em>soda</em>?</li>
</ul>
<p>So how many of the "experiments" shown in, for example, <a href="http://www.education.com/science-fair/fifth-grade/">this science fair site</a> are actual experiments? The first few I checked did not meet the criteria above for experiment, but one could possibly modify them to do so. However, without this guidance, the students are left with a sterile view of science.</p>We should all be biased2015-01-05T00:00:00-05:002015-01-05T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2015-01-05:/posts/2015/Jan/05/we-should-all-be-biased/<p>A friend and colleague of mine said to me recently that she was nervous that she might become "biased against any new health invention/method/etc... because virtually all of …</p><p>A friend and colleague of mine said to me recently that she was nervous that she might become "biased against any new health invention/method/etc... because virtually all of them have been ridiculous". This is a feeling I've had from time to time, and I've heard it leveled against skeptics from the proponents of these new methods.</p>
<p>I think, however, given the (lack of) performance of the bulk of these claims, ones prior probability - quite rationally - should be low for the next one. It's not a bias to recognize that, all things being equal, the next silver bullet health claim is likely to be false. It should, however, be very easy for a health treatment <em>that actually works</em> to redeem itself above this prior probability. The criticism of "bias" is raised only when the treatment hasn't actually been demonstrated.</p>
<p>The term bias is tricky depending on its usage. In many ways, bias is perfectly rational, if it means assuming something is false before the evidence. Does one say that a jury is biased against the guilt of the suspect? I think this sentence points to the fact that the word "bias" is typically used in a pejorative fashion, synonymous with being resistant to evidence. Even here, resistant to evidence is rational to the extent that stronger evidence is needed to raise a lower prior probability. </p>
<p>Perhaps "bias" should mean willing to ignore some of the evidence against ones present view, in order to maintain this view. This can come innocently in the form of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias">confirmation bias</a>, and not be a deliberate distortion. Clearly this violates the <a href="http://oneecologistsview.blogspot.com/2012/06/basic-desirderata-jaynes.html">axioms of probability</a>, and should be avoided. Proper scientific thinking and process is constructed specifically to avoid this sort of bias, while at the same time supporting the rational forms of bias.</p>LaTeX vs Word2014-12-31T00:00:00-05:002014-12-31T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-12-31:/posts/2014/Dec/31/latex-vs-word/<p>Reading <a href="http://serialmentor.com/blog/2014/12/27/post-publication-review-of-the-plos-one-paper-comparing-ms-word-and-latex-how-not-to-compare-document-preparation">this review</a> of a <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0115069">PloS One comparison</a> between MS Word and <a href="http://latex-project.org/ftp.html">LaTeX</a>, I was struck by how much it resonates. There are many things that I do in both …</p><p>Reading <a href="http://serialmentor.com/blog/2014/12/27/post-publication-review-of-the-plos-one-paper-comparing-ms-word-and-latex-how-not-to-compare-document-preparation">this review</a> of a <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0115069">PloS One comparison</a> between MS Word and <a href="http://latex-project.org/ftp.html">LaTeX</a>, I was struck by how much it resonates. There are many things that I do in both (or, more precisely, in Pages rather than Word) depending on the application. There are things that <a href="http://latex-project.org/ftp.html">LaTeX</a> can do much better than any other solution I have found, none of which is touched in the <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0115069">PloS One comparison</a>.</p>
<p>For me, some things that could not be done in Word or Pages without a ton of work, are mentioned in <a href="http://serialmentor.com/blog/2014/12/27/post-publication-review-of-the-plos-one-paper-comparing-ms-word-and-latex-how-not-to-compare-document-preparation">the review</a>:</p>
<ol>
<li>Set up 50 numbered equations, refer to them throughout the text, then change the equation order.</li>
<li>Have figures and their captions float to appropriate locations at the top or bottom of pages.</li>
<li>Change the order of figures in a document and fix all references to those figures.</li>
</ol>
<p>The referencing (figures, equations, and bibliography) is one of the strong points of <a href="http://latex-project.org/ftp.html">LaTeX</a>. I see how much time my students spend on this in Word, and it completely erases the time-savings of Word. I would add the following as well:</p>
<ol>
<li>Programatically change the content of the document - for example, I've had flags to change mathematical notation, and flags for the student vs teacher versions of a document</li>
<li>Easily generate <a href="http://latex-project.org/ftp.html">LaTeX</a> formatting from a script - I've written Python scripts to make tedious, large tables, and write them in <a href="http://latex-project.org/ftp.html">LaTeX</a> to be included in <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Nov/21/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie/">my book</a>.</li>
<li>Organize multi-part documents, with references, into multiple files</li>
<li>Separate my thinking into separate content and layout modes</li>
</ol>
<p>I'm the first to admit that the learning curve of <a href="http://latex-project.org/ftp.html">LaTeX</a> is pretty steep, but once you know it, it really offers advantages for <em>complex</em> documents. For simple ones, it doesn't stack up to an easier program, but isn't that the case with most powerful tools? At that point, as <a href="http://serialmentor.com/blog/2014/12/27/post-publication-review-of-the-plos-one-paper-comparing-ms-word-and-latex-how-not-to-compare-document-preparation">the review</a> also suggests, it makes more sense to write things in <a href="http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax">Markdown</a> - which this blog is written in. So MS Word lands in that area of too-complex for simple documents and too-simple for complex documents.</p>The Longest Night Ever2014-12-23T00:00:00-05:002014-12-23T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-12-23:/posts/2014/Dec/23/the-longest-night-ever/<p>I recently saw a claim that this past December 21 was the longest solstice night ever...in the history of the planet! When I first heard this, and when I …</p><p>I recently saw a claim that this past December 21 was the longest solstice night ever...in the history of the planet! When I first heard this, and when I have told others, the first reaction is puzzlement - "why is this <em>particular</em> Solstice special?", "how could it be that in the 4.5 billion years of the planet I would be here for this unique event?"</p>
<p>Of course, although unique, this is not an unusual event - the Earth is slowing down its spin, due to the interaction with the Moon. Thus, each year, <strong>every day</strong> is just a smidgen longer - about 20 millionths of a second each year. So next year's Solstice will be the longest in the history of the planet as well, as was every Solstice in the past (at the time). </p>
<p>What I find interesting is the habit of people to infer specialness so quickly when faced with a puzzle. It is also interesting that once one understands the process, that specialness is immediately eliminated, and replaced with a more cosmic picture. There is a direct parallel with all times in our history when we have (falsely) inferred the specialness of people - the heliocentric Universe, the distinction between humans and animals, Earthly vs Celestial material, organic vs inorganic life, etc... This should serve as a reminder to us all to be skeptical of claims of specialness before understanding.</p>
<p>On the positive side, those people who keep wanting more hours in the day need only wait and it will happen automatically! </p>Why Python is the language everyone should learn2014-12-15T00:00:00-05:002014-12-15T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-12-15:/posts/2014/Dec/15/why-python-is-the-language-everyone-should-learn/<p>I have been a fan of the <a href="http://www.python.org">Python programming language</a> for many years. It was encouraging to me lately that there are two articles about Python, reiterating many of my …</p><p>I have been a fan of the <a href="http://www.python.org">Python programming language</a> for many years. It was encouraging to me lately that there are two articles about Python, reiterating many of my experiences, and teaching me some things I was unaware of. The first, about <a href="https://www.paypal-engineering.com/2014/12/10/10-myths-of-enterprise-python">myths about Python</a> and its use in large-scale applications, was a real eye-opener. I've never had to scale my apps up, or have high security, so I had implicitly bought into the two myths that Python was not suited for the job. Nice to know I was wrong!</p>
<p>The other, about someone's <a href="http://allhailtothepenguin.blogspot.com/2014/12/after-years-of-c-and-java-i-chose-python.html">programming journey away from C and Java to Python</a>, mirrored <a href="https://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/python_matlab.pdf">my own experience</a> somewhat. For me, it was coming off of Matlab, and finding that I could do all of what Matlab offered and much more. At one time, I rewrote Matlab, Perl, Sed, Awk, and Jed scripts all in Python - being able to think in one language as opposed to five was a huge boon to productivity.</p>
<p>In my experience, Python is the easiest language for a beginner to learn, and it is one of the most powerful languages I've ever worked with. I've been able to get a few of my colleagues hooked on Python over the years, and have yet to find a problem for which it is not well suited. Even this website is written in Python!</p>Evolution and Morality2014-12-02T00:00:00-05:002014-12-02T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-12-02:/posts/2014/Dec/02/evolution-and-morality/<p>In an <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Nov/25/objective-morality-defined/">ongoing discussion about morality</a>, I said </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is perfectly plausible to me that an evolutionary framework explains much of the process of getting our current moral intuitions, such …</p></blockquote><p>In an <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Nov/25/objective-morality-defined/">ongoing discussion about morality</a>, I said </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is perfectly plausible to me that an evolutionary framework explains much of the process of getting our current moral intuitions, such as the close-kin bias.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are a couple of things I want to make plain from the outset.</p>
<ol>
<li>Evolution is a <em>terrible</em> guide for morality. We don't derive our moral intuitions by looking at the process of evolution and using that to evaluate them. We, and our moral intuitions, are the product of the process of evolution.</li>
<li>We can go beyond evolution in this, and in other, domains. I hope to make this clear as we go on. Let me explore an analogy which I think is helpful.</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="vision-as-an-analogy-to-morality">Vision as an analogy to morality</h3>
<p>Evolution has shaped our eyes, and the cognitive facilities that allow us to use them to build internal models of the world. There is almost certainly an objective reality, although I cannot think of any experiment which could possibly confirm this. It is possible that every persons' "<em>reality</em>" is relative to them, but I don't find this either a useful or convincing perspective.</p>
<p>Even assuming an objective reality, our eyes do not give us a perfect rendition of it. Perception is as much constructed from the brain as it is perceived. Just because we can't "get outside" our own perceptions, this does not imply that we can't know anything about objective reality. This also doesn't imply that our vision system doesn't give us a decent approximation to reality - it does give us a decent approximation, but like all approximations, there are limits. How do we get around those limits? How do we surpass the limitations imposed by the evolutionary process on our vision to confirm the properties of objective reality? The process of science! </p>
<p>We use a process of verification by others, of repeatability, of open and honest discovery to distinguish what is true from what isn't. We quantify the observations, we structure experiments, we explore our biases and design processes to reduce our sensitivity to them. We recognize that evolution didn't care about perfect vision, only what was good enough. We recognize that evolution is limited in terms of the solutions it can reach - full of jury-rigged partial solutions - which lead to things like the blind spot, and the brain processing to fill the spot in. We recognize the situations where our vision is particularly limited - two dimensional environments, environments without clear objects for comparison, odd coincidences in object placement, etc... In those cases we do not trust our visual intuitions, and lean on the more objective measures of scenes. </p>
<h3 id="drawing-out-the-analogy">Drawing out the analogy</h3>
<p>Here's a cut-and-paste job. What do you think?</p>
<p>Evolution has shaped our moral intuitions, and the cognitive facilities that allow us to use them to build moral models of the world. There is almost certainly an objective morality, although I cannot think of any experiment which could possibly confirm this. It is possible that every persons' "<em>morality</em>" is relative to them, but I don't find this either a useful or convincing perspective.</p>
<p>Even assuming an objective morality, our intuitions do not give us a perfect rendition of it. Moral perception is as much constructed from the brain as it is perceived. Just because we can't "get outside" our own perceptions (which seemed to be the primary criticism in the original <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/154-atheist-vs-atheist-on-morals_1?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">Dogma Debate Episode</a> which started this whole thing), this does not imply that we can't know anything about objective morality. This also doesn't imply that our moral intuition doesn't give us a decent approximation to reality - it does give us a decent approximation, but like all approximations, there are limits. How do we get around those limits? How do we surpass the limitations imposed by the evolutionary process on our moral intuitions to confirm the properties of objective morality? The process of science! </p>
<p>We use a process of verification by others, of repeatability, of open and honest discovery to distinguish what is true from what isn't. We quantify the observations, we structure experiments, we explore our biases and design processes to reduce our sensitivity to them. We recognize that evolution didn't care about perfect moral systems, only what was good enough. We recognize that evolution is limited in terms of the solutions it can reach - full of jury-rigged partial solutions - which lead to things like moral blind spots (e.g. <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-risky-is-it-really/201108/statistical-numbing-why-millions-can-die-and-we-don-t-care">statistical numbing</a>), and the brain processing to fill the moral blind spots in. We recognize the situations where our moral intuition is particularly limited - large numbers of people, in-group/out-group distinctions, etc... In those cases we do not trust our moral intuitions, and lean on the more objective measures of well-being. </p>Objective Morality Defined2014-11-25T00:00:00-05:002014-11-25T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-11-25:/posts/2014/Nov/25/objective-morality-defined/<p>I <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Nov/21/objective-morality/">was asked the following question</a> about my claim that objective moral values exist:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you say that you firmly believe in objective morality, do you mean objective relative to …</p></blockquote><p>I <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Nov/21/objective-morality/">was asked the following question</a> about my claim that objective moral values exist:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you say that you firmly believe in objective morality, do you mean objective relative to the human species, or in an absolute sense? And is your primary reason for this belief the difficulty we would otherwise have in holding people accountable?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The quick answer is that it is not relative to the human species, and no it is not due to any difficulty holding people accountable otherwise. The longer answer requires a bit more, and I think it useful to try to write down my thoughts on it. Almost all of this idea is encapsulated in Sam Harris' view of the Moral Landscape, or Matt Dillahunty's view of Secular Morality.</p>
<p>As far as I can see it, all questions of morality have to deal with the well-being of conscious life. John Figdor on the <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/154-atheist-vs-atheist-on-morals_1?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">Dogma Debate episode</a> which sparked this, seemed to contrast the notion of well-being with other metrics of morality such as Utilitarianism (i.e. the "greatest good for the greatest number"), Rawlsian "Veil of Ignorance", and Christian Fundamentalism. However, what he didn't seem to realize, is that each of these is a <em>subset</em> of well-being, and offer "rules of thumb" to trying to maximize it. Even the Christian fundamentalist sees questions of morality, ultimately, in terms of well-being - just not in this life. So I find it not a hard stretch to define morality in such terms. If someone has a better usage, please have them put it up, but I haven't seen anything that isn't already part of the larger notion of well-being. Further, every use of the term that I have ever seen matches the perspective of morality centered on the well-being of conscious life.</p>
<p>Once you accept this, either as a given or at least for the sake of argument, then the objectivity of morality naturally comes from the truth that the facts about well-being must derive from the facts of the universe - there must be right and wrong answers to questions about what will maximize well-being, whether we are able to access it perfectly or not. I do not think that the math of well-being is easy, nor is it linear, but I think one can come to some decent approximations. Slavery (i.e. owning other people as property) can be shown, objectively, to decrease well-being on many fronts. It is then quite likely that this is a moral absolute, although I could imagine someone coming up in the future with a derivation that shows that slavery is in fact better for well-being - but I doubt it. In the sciences, all conclusions are tentative, and the conclusions about slavery may be much like the conclusion that the Earth goes around the Sun and not vice versa. Sure, it's tentative, but I can't imagine it ever being overturned, and it would be perverse to think otherwise. </p>
<p>Some moral questions, however, may be more like what happens sometimes in medicine where one may find something commonly thought of as good for you to turn out not to be. This doesn't negate the fact that there are, objectively, things that are good for you and things that are bad for you. It just speaks to our ability to know such things well, poorly, or approximately. </p>
<p>I think the real benefit, however, in thinking in these terms is that it structures the discussion. Any discussion about the moral rightness of a position such as pro-choice, anti-gay marriage, anti-war, etc... must be framed in terms of well-being. When it isn't then it is divorced from the real consequences of those positions, and can lead to real harm. The problem with the religious discourse on these issues is not necessarily that they are wrong, but it is that their positions are disconnected from the real consequences of those positions. Or, perhaps, they are framed in terms of well-being but they make use of well-being in an afterlife, which they fail to be able to demonstrate actually exists - amounting to the same problem.</p>
<p>Secular progress in moral domains occurs when there is a reasoned discussion, always focusing on the well-being of conscious life. </p>Objective Morality2014-11-21T00:00:00-05:002014-11-21T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-11-21:/posts/2014/Nov/21/objective-morality/<p>In a recent <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/154-atheist-vs-atheist-on-morals_1?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">Dogma Debate Episode</a>, we have a debate between the position of objective morality as espoused by Matt Dillahunty and subjective morality as espoused by John Figdor. I …</p><p>In a recent <a href="http://www.spreaker.com/user/smalleyandhyso/154-atheist-vs-atheist-on-morals_1?utm_source=widget&utm_medium=widget">Dogma Debate Episode</a>, we have a debate between the position of objective morality as espoused by Matt Dillahunty and subjective morality as espoused by John Figdor. I firmly believe in objective morality, and thought Matt did an ok job, but I disliked the directions the conversation took most of the time. The biggest problem I saw with John's argument was that he said that there is a <em>fundamental</em> difference between social sciences and physical sciences, and that knowledge in latter can be considered "objective". He then argued that questions of morality are more like the former, and can only be discussed subjectively. He argued that we can't get outside of our biases and opinions to be objective about questions of morality, and thus it is the result of opinion. He contrasted it to the objective engineering reality that a spring has a finite, measurable, and specific breaking point - which can be written in pounds or some other force.</p>
<p>The issue is a matter of complexity. There is no <em>fundamental</em> difference between sociology, economics, and physics. Different methods are needed because the level of complexity, levels of uncertainty, and the limits of our techniques dictate this. Although moral questions are complex, and challenging, that morality has to do with the well-being of conscious creatures is true by definition. As such, all such questions connect to the real world, and have real-world consequences, and we can have knowledge of these moral facts as we have knowledge in any domain of rationality.</p>
<p>Even something as direct as the breaking point of a spring has more complexity than John is willing to admit. It is not a single number, but depends on temperature, the history of the spring, and other things. These are things that one can possibly quantify, but there are complexities still not entirely understood. Moral questions may suffer from the same uncertainties as even the least quantitative social sciences, it doesn't change the fact that there are objective moral facts in principle. The problem with John's position, as I see it, is that he can never possibly say another moral viewpoint is wrong - even the most horrendous acts. These other viewpoints are just unfashionable. Such thinking is dangerous, I believe, and leads to a kind of moral paralysis. </p>Statistical Inference for Everyone (sie)2014-11-21T00:00:00-05:002014-11-21T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-11-21:/posts/2014/Nov/21/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie/<p>This is a new approach to an introductory statistical inference textbook, motivated by probability theory as logic. It is targeted to the typical <em>Statistics 101</em> college student, and covers the …</p><p>This is a new approach to an introductory statistical inference textbook, motivated by probability theory as logic. It is targeted to the typical <em>Statistics 101</em> college student, and covers the topics typically covered in the first semester of such a course. It is freely available under the Creative Commons License, and includes a software library in Python for making some of the calculations and visualizations easier. </p>
<h3 id="get-the-book">Get the book</h3>
<ul>
<li>Download the <a href="https://github.com/bblais/Statistical-Inference-for-Everyone">latest version of the book</a></li>
<li>The print book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Inference-Everyone-Brian-Blais/dp/1499715072">available on Amazon</a>, or directly <a href="https://www.createspace.com/4808244">on Createspace</a></li>
<li>Download the <a href="https://github.com/bblais/Statistical-Inference-for-Everyone/tree/master/python">latest version of the software</a>. It requires the installation of a scientific distribution of Python, such as the <a href="https://store.continuum.io/cshop/anaconda/">Anaconda distribution</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="in-the-movies">In the movies</h3>
<ul>
<li>Watch the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-heresies-the-movie.html">seminar I give outlining the motivation and philosophy of the book</a>.</li>
<li>Watch the <a href="https://www.causeweb.org/cause/ecots/ecots16">eCOTS 2016</a> poster <a href="https://youtu.be/chwyqhgCz9s">presentation that I gave here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="more-info">More info</h3>
<p>For instructors who want to see a more technical justification for this approach, you can see a <a href="http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/bblais/Tech-SIE/blob/master/Prologue/Prologue.ipynb">technical supplement</a> that I am putting together.</p>
<p>If you have any suggestions or comments, please comment here, or email me directly!</p>Something from Nothing2014-10-28T00:00:00-04:002014-10-28T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-10-28:/posts/2014/Oct/28/something-from-nothing/<p>In a talk about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EilZ4VY5Vs">something from nothing</a>, Lawrence Krauss describes how physics addresses the concept of "nothing". He has been criticized <a href="http://www.bethinking.org/is-there-a-creator/a-universe-from-someone-against-lawrence-krauss">here</a> and <a href="http://www.reasonablefaith.org/a-universe-from-nothing">again here</a>, primarily for redefining "nothing" in …</p><p>In a talk about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EilZ4VY5Vs">something from nothing</a>, Lawrence Krauss describes how physics addresses the concept of "nothing". He has been criticized <a href="http://www.bethinking.org/is-there-a-creator/a-universe-from-someone-against-lawrence-krauss">here</a> and <a href="http://www.reasonablefaith.org/a-universe-from-nothing">again here</a>, primarily for redefining "nothing" in a way that the philosophers don't consider as nothing. Essentially, philosophers want to say that "nothing" is without properties or process, and that Krauss' physics-based "nothing" has properties. Thus the apologists claim that the universe cannot come from "nothing", that there must be a creator.</p>
<p>I was thinking about this today. One response is that no one has demonstrated that the philosophical notion of "nothing" is at all possible - there may not be a way for there to be "nothing". One also hasn't demonstrated that the universe itself couldn't have always existed, or perhaps the laws have always existed. </p>
<p>But even granting all of that, the creation of the universe from "nothing" by the creator is not even a creation from "nothing" - the creator has to be there first, and the creator has properties, and is presumed to be eternal. Thus the philosophers and apologists who claim that the creator made the universe "ex nihilo" are really claiming nothing of the sort.</p>What is AI?2014-10-14T00:00:00-04:002014-10-14T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-10-14:/posts/2014/Oct/14/what-is-ai/<p>In his blog post, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/09/11/chatbots-are-boring-they-arent-ai/"><em>Chatbots are boring. They aren't AI.</em></a>, PZ Myers the professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris has this to say about chatbots and AI …</p><p>In his blog post, <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/09/11/chatbots-are-boring-they-arent-ai/"><em>Chatbots are boring. They aren't AI.</em></a>, PZ Myers the professor of biology at the University of Minnesota Morris has this to say about chatbots and AI:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Chatbots are kind of the lowest of the low, the over-hyped fruit decaying at the base of the tree. They aren’t even particularly interesting. What you’ve got is basically a program that tries to parse spoken language, and then picks lines from a script that sort of correspond to whatever the interlocutor is talking about. There is no inner dialog in the machine, no ‘thinking’, just regurgitations of scripted output in response to the provocation of language input.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He then goes on to say what should work:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Programming in associations is not how consciousness is going to arise. What you need to work on is a general mechanism for making associations and rules. The model has to be something like a baby. Have you noticed that babies do not immediately start parroting their parents’ speech and reciting grammatically correct sentences? They flail about, they’re surprised when they bump some object and it moves, they notice that suckling makes their tummy full, and they begin to construct mental models about how the world works. I’ll be impressed when an AI is given no pre-programmed knowledge of language at all, and begins with baby-talk babbling and progresses over months or years to construct its own competence in comprehending speech.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He may be justified in complaining about overzealous claims from some researchers, but he is dead wrong about what AI is, what it takes to be considered AI, and his criterion for accepting an intelligent machine. He's even wrong about the biology, which is somewhat surprising given his field. Let's have a look at this more closely.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-ai">What is AI?</h2>
<p>In general, the field of AI, can be summarized as the production of machines that do things that typically only humans have done in the past. It says nothing about the <em>way</em> that those machine solve those problems. The chess-playing tour-de-force, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_(chess_computer)">Deep Blue</a>, defeated the best human at chess - a game that at one time was a symbol of human intellect - not by playing like the grandmaster, but by being a really fast, stupid machine. It examined trillions of ridiculous options that the grandmaster never even considered, to cull from those trillions the one or two good moves. Was there any "inner dialog in the machine" or "thinking"? Not at all. Was it AI? Of course it was. It was a machine solving a problem that was, before that point, limited to humans. </p>
<h2 id="what-is-intelligence">What is Intelligence?</h2>
<p>Perhaps PZ Myers is complaining that these machine aren't intelligent, like humans are, and I'd agree that we are a long way from the sorts of machines that rival humans in some domains. However, I am not sure that when he uses the term <em>intelligence</em> that he is considering a well-defined quantity. Like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room">Searle's Chinese Room</a>, how do we know that there is a 'dialog in the machine' even inside of a human? How do we know that we are not simply picking "lines from a script", albeit a fairly complex script? I'm not sure we do, so the critique to me seems a bit vacuous.</p>
<h2 id="pre-programmed">Pre-programmed?</h2>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ll be impressed when an AI is given no pre-programmed knowledge of language at all, and begins with baby-talk babbling and progresses over months or years to construct its own competence in comprehending speech</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This line baffled me - does PZ Myers believe that a human baby has <em>no</em> pre-programming for language? That the baby is a complete blank slate? Evolution has clearly pre-programmed us for abilities in general language acquisition, so even babies are not a blank slate. His challenge then, for AI, would rule out humans as well! </p>
<p>Finally, much of the recent <a href="http://deeplearning.net/">Deep Learning research</a> is essentially what PZ is wishing for (although not in the domain of language, that I have read). Here, artificial networks start with random starting conditions and learn patterns from the data, to achieve sophisticated inference in complex domains. </p>
<p>It may be premature to claim that we are on the verge of creating artificial consciousness, but the naive responses such as those exemplified by PZ Myers here do not reflect the reality of AI research. Ironically, it smacks of the same tone creationists take to try to keep humans special at all costs, a tone that I am sure PZ Myers would not appreciate being attributed to him.</p>Naturalism of the Gaps?2014-09-30T00:00:00-04:002014-09-30T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-09-30:/posts/2014/Sep/30/naturalism-of-the-gaps/<p>I heard a term yesterday that I hadn't every heard before, while listening to a very interesting interview/debate with <a href="http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=261">Mike Licona on the Resurrection</a>. The term is "naturalism of …</p><p>I heard a term yesterday that I hadn't every heard before, while listening to a very interesting interview/debate with <a href="http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=261">Mike Licona on the Resurrection</a>. The term is "naturalism of the gaps", as a parallel (and supposedly equally flawed) argument to the "god of the gaps". In a nutshell, it refers to those people who claim that someday there will be a natural explanation for a particular problem currently not understood (e.g. consciousness, origin of life, origin of the universe, etc...) As <a href="http://www.reasons.org/articles/god-of-the-gaps-or-best-explanation">one apologetic website puts it</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Yet it is important to notice how entrenched naturalists are to their mindset and worldview. When it comes to science, only physical and material explanations are allowable (called methodological naturalism)–the supernatural is ruled out a priori (without examination). Also, some naturalists express excessive confidence that the future will explain reality. But they don't live in the future and it is illegitimate to appeal to the expected explanations of the future to explain present reality (what is needed is evidence in the present). This faulty form of reasoning constitutes the argumentum ad futuris fallacy ("accept this because future evidence will support it"). Ironically it might even be called "naturalism-of-the-gaps" reasoning.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are two very straightforward responses to this kind of reasoning.</p>
<ol>
<li><em>Methodological naturalism</em> is the only choice we have available, because no one has demonstrated any procedure to distinguish supernatural claims. Thus, if we are in the business of distinguishing claims, we are left as a matter of practicality with the only option that does not address supernaturalism at all.</li>
<li>To assume a naturalistic explanation in the future is simply the recognition that in <em>every single case</em> where we have finally understood a topic, the best explanation has <em>never</em> turned out to be supernatural...<em>ever</em>. There are literally millions of cases going the other direction, where a supernatural agent was used to explain something and a natural explanation supplanted the supernatural explanation. This happened with lightning, seasons, the sun moving in the sky, the planets moving in the sky, earthquakes, disease, etc....</li>
</ol>
<p>To bet on naturalism is simply to recognize this historical pattern, and to put your money down on the only horse that has ever won in this race against the horse that has always lost in this race. </p>
<p>On which horse would you put your money?</p>Three Years of Weather2014-09-23T00:00:00-04:002014-09-23T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-09-23:/posts/2014/Sep/23/three-years-of-weather/<p><img alt="surface map" src="http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sfc_map/1210/12103000.gif"></p>
<p>I just posted an <a href="https://vimeo.com/106992815">8-minute movie I made</a> showing weather maps for 3 years from July 2011 to September 2014. These surface maps are archived at the <a href="http://weather.unisys.com/archive/">Unisys Weather Image …</a></p><p><img alt="surface map" src="http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sfc_map/1210/12103000.gif"></p>
<p>I just posted an <a href="https://vimeo.com/106992815">8-minute movie I made</a> showing weather maps for 3 years from July 2011 to September 2014. These surface maps are archived at the <a href="http://weather.unisys.com/archive/">Unisys Weather Image Archive</a>, and are generated every 12 hours. It's pretty cool to see the pattern of the weather sweeping across the US, and noting certain memorable storms. Hurricane Sandy, for example, shows up at the end of October 2012 and you see the other front crossing the US at the same time, meeting Sandy on the East Coast.</p>
<p>Which things do you see?</p>Will the Sun Rise Tomorrow?2014-09-22T00:00:00-04:002014-09-22T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-09-22:/posts/2014/Sep/22/will-the-sun-rise-tomorrow/<p>On a recent <a href="http://www.premierchristianradio.com/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> there is a discussion between <a href="http://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Is-our-universe-more-likely-on-atheism-or-theism-Calum-Miller-vs-James-Croft">Calum Miller and James Croft</a> on the topic "is our universe more likely on atheism or theism?", where Calum introduces …</p><p>On a recent <a href="http://www.premierchristianradio.com/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> there is a discussion between <a href="http://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Is-our-universe-more-likely-on-atheism-or-theism-Calum-Miller-vs-James-Croft">Calum Miller and James Croft</a> on the topic "is our universe more likely on atheism or theism?", where Calum introduces probabilistic arguments throughout. At one point he brings up evidence for the sun coming up, as an example of knowledge claims and models.</p>
<h2 id="calum-describes-hume">Calum describes Hume</h2>
<p>Calum - "Hume basically noted that we don't have any non-circular justification for thinking that the universe will be regular, that it will continue to be regular in the future. [...] He doesn't just say that we have to be a bit unsure that the sun will rise tomorrow, he says that we have no good reason at all for thinking the sun will rise tomorrow. The most common justification that the sun will rise tomorrow is that it has risen every day in the past. But then if you compare two theories, one says that the sun rises everyday in the past and in the future and the other theory says that the sun rises everyday in the past but won't rise tomorrow. Both those theories predict the observations we already have, both those theories lead us to expect the observations, and so the observations we currently have don't distinguish between these two theories. And yet one of those theories predicts the sun will rise tomorrow and one of them predicts that the sun won't rise tomorrow. So, even though we have those observations, they don't really do an obviously good job of determining which of these theories is true. [...] He is saying that the past observations don't give us that good reason for thinking that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is the Problem of Induction and has perplexed philosophers for centuries."{.tq}</p>
<h2 id="what-does-hume-actually-say-about-the-sun-rising">What does Hume <em>actually</em> say about the Sun rising?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/hume.htm">Hume writes</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible, because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1772). Hackett Publ Co. 1993; Chapter on Cause and Effect.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here Hume is essentially stating that all propositions have a non-zero probability (however small they might be) unless they are <em>logically</em> impossible. This is not saying, at all, that we have no good reason to believe the sun will rise tomorrow.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The bread, which I formerly ate, nourished me: that is, a body of such sensible qualities was, at that time, endued with such secret powers; but does it follow, that other bread must also nourish me at another time, and that like sensible qualities must always be attended with like secret powers? The consequence seems nowise necessary. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Again, although Hume predates probability theory, this is essentially what he is saying - the consequence is not logically <em>necessary</em> (i.e. <span class="math">\(P({\rm consequence}|{\rm observations})<1\)</span>). We see this as a direct application of probability theory, a totally uncontroversial application at that. </p>
<p>I fail to see that the "problem" of induction is really a problem. I also fail to see Hume claiming that there is no good reason to see the consequence following from the the observations, just that he doesn't see one:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The connection between these propositions is not intuitive. There is required a medium, which may enable the mind to draw such an inference, if indeed it be drawn by reasoning and argument. What that medium is, I must confess, passes my comprehension, and it is incumbent on those to produce it, who assert that it really exists, and is the origin of all our conclusions concerning matter of fact.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The medium Hume refers to is simply the calculus of probability, something which post-dates Hume's writings. Hume was being honest that he didn't see a way, and he did not claim that there was no possible way - that would be an argument from ignorance. </p>
<h2 id="what-does-laplace-say-about-the-sun-rising">What does Laplace say about the Sun rising?</h2>
<p>Once we have probability theory, then we can actually do some simple calculations concerning the probability of the sun rising tomorrow. Of course these calculations are not a complete description of the problem, but give the flavor of it. Laplace used the sunrise problem as an example application of his Rule of Succession, which itself is derived from the rules of probability. The calculation goes something like this.</p>
<ul>
<li>Our model is that the sun rises with unknown probability <span class="math">\(p\)</span></li>
<li>Given complete ignorance of <span class="math">\(p\)</span> we assume an initial uniform probability</li>
<li>The sun has risen every day for the written record, say, 10000 years</li>
<li>the probability for rising tomorrow, which is also the mean value of <span class="math">\(p\)</span> over the posterior, is given by the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_succession">Rule of Succession</a> (also known as the "assume one success and one failure"):
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(r_{\rm tomorrow}|r_{\rm today}, r_{\rm yesterday}, r_{\rm day before}, \ldots, r_{0})
&=& \frac{10000 {\rm yr}\times 365 {\rm d}/{\rm yr}+1}{10000 {\rm yr}\times 365 {\rm d}/{\rm yr}+2}\\\\
&=&0.9999997
\end{eqnarray}</div>
</li>
</ul>
<p>It <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_succession#Mathematical_details">gets messier</a> when you can't even assume that both a failure and a success are possible, but it <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_succession#Mathematical_details">can still be done</a> without any change to the qualitative result.</p>
<p>Clearly we have quite good reasons to believe the that sun will rise tomorrow.</p>
<h2 id="two-theories">Two theories</h2>
<p>We go back to Calum's two theories: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you compare two theories, one says that the sun rises everyday in the past and in the future and the other theory says that the sun rises everyday in the past but won't rise tomorrow. Both those theories predict the observations we already have, both those theories lead us to expect the observations, and so the observations we currently have don't distinguish between these two theories.{.tq}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The situation for arguing a high probability of tomorrow's sun rise is far more compelling, however, because our information is not simply that the sun has risen in the past, but includes observations of the patterns of the seasons, the predictions of the phases of the moon and Venus, and a whole host of other factors which significantly increase the chance the sun will rise. Laplace knew this well, and was using this example not as a serious calculation, but as a pedagogical example.</p>
<p>As a consequence, both of Calum's so-called theories do <em>not</em> predict the observations we already have - only one of them does. Even if we accept just the observations for which both theories are consistent in the past, one has to view this two-theory perspective from the point of prediction. It's now tomorrow, and "Theory B" doesn't work - so we modify it to say the sun won't rise <em>tomorrow</em> (the new tomorrow). That next day comes with a sunrise, and this "Theory B 2.0" is wrong (again) and has to be modified (again). It is clear that "Theory B" fails, and we should be less confident in it. That's why, in science, it isn't nearly enough to be consistent with past data - one must make predictions, not just post-dictions, and test it. It is often trivial to come up with "explanations" for data we already have.</p>
<h2 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h2>
<p>It seems to me that the so-called "Problem of Induction" was solved centuries ago, with the advent of probability theory, and all such hand-wringing seems to be only for philosophers. In the sciences, these challenges to induction just aren't taken seriously. I'll sleep soundly tonight with the confident knowledge that the sun will rise again tomorrow, despite the protestations of philosophers.</p>
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</script>Theism vs Atheism2014-09-18T00:00:00-04:002014-09-18T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-09-18:/posts/2014/Sep/18/theism-vs-atheism/<p>On a recent <a href="http://www.premierchristianradio.com/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> there is a discussion between <a href="http://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Is-our-universe-more-likely-on-atheism-or-theism-Calum-Miller-vs-James-Croft">Calum Miller and James Croft</a> on the topic "is our universe more likely on atheism or theism?", where Calum introduces …</p><p>On a recent <a href="http://www.premierchristianradio.com/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> there is a discussion between <a href="http://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Is-our-universe-more-likely-on-atheism-or-theism-Calum-Miller-vs-James-Croft">Calum Miller and James Croft</a> on the topic "is our universe more likely on atheism or theism?", where Calum introduces probabilistic arguments throughout. Although James does a good job of pressing Calum's arguments in weak points, and framing the argument in a more coherent way, I think there is much more to be said about the weaknesses of this particular argument, and the framing of these problems in terms of probability. There is a danger in this sort of thing of using mathemtics to give the veneer of authenticity to an argument that is riddled with random guesses, ill-defined concepts, and unsupported premises. Let's start with some quotes from the episode, so we can see where this is going.</p>
<h2 id="the-argument">The Argument</h2>
<p>Calum - "I think one useful way of thinking about is is to consider what evidence is in general. When we think about evidence for a theory, in this case the theory is that God exists - we want to explain some features of the world, we look for things (observations) which are surprising if the theory isn't true but which aren't that surprising if the theory is true."{.tq}</p>
<p>Calum then goes on to do an analogy with fingerprints on a murder weapon. And then points out the observation that he believes is evidence for God. {.theist}</p>
<p>Calum - "There are a number of arguments that work this way. But one of the partiular pieces of evidence that I want to discuss today is that the world exhibits a real kind of regularity and there are basic laws, science works, that we can understand the world. For all we know, the universe could have been chaotic, might not have been any laws at all, we might not have been able to do science - it might have been complete chaos. "{.tq}</p>
<p>Here he's describing the form of the argument, as it might apply to the sun rising.{.theist}</p>
<p>Calum - "Even more basic things that we use scientific reasoning for, but do not always strike us as scientific truth. For example, <em>'the sun will rise tomorrow'</em>. Most of us believe that. This is a common-sense inference from our observations. On atheism to expect that regularity, for the sun could just fail to rise tomorrow, but on theism we can expect that kind of regularity because God set it in place. [...] That's just one example, and you'd need a lot more for the full argument."{.tq}</p>
<p>He finishes by describing how moral responsibility hinges on this regularity, because I need to know the likely effect of my actions on others in order to make moral decisions and be responsible for them. If things were chaotic, if my actions had random effects, then moral responsibility could not work.{.theist}</p>
<h2 id="the-problem-with-the-math-posteriors-vs-likelihoods">The problem with the math - posteriors vs likelihoods</h2>
<p>The first problem that struck me was that, from a math point of view, he is simply doing a likelihood ratio:
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\frac{P({\rm data}|{\rm theism})}{P({\rm data}|{\rm atheism})}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
and saying that this is greater than one, and thus theism is more likely. That is just the wrong question to ask. What we really want to look at, even keeping the same structure, is the ratio of the <em>posterior</em> probabilities, or</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\frac{P({\rm theism}|{\rm data})}{P({\rm atheism}|{\rm data})}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
which is related to the likelihood ratio through Bayes' theorem:</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\frac{P({\rm theism}|{\rm data})}{P({\rm atheism}|{\rm data})} &=& \frac{P({\rm data}|{\rm theism})}{P({\rm data}|{\rm atheism})} \times \frac{P({\rm theism})}{P({\rm atheism})}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
where we factor in the <em>prior</em> probabilities. Already, we have an issue, because the prior probability for the universe with an extra agent should be smaller than one without such an agent. If you factor in the an agent with many specific properties, then this is smaller still. By omitting this part, you could argue for anything. For example,
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
\frac{P({\rm data}|{\rm fairies})}{P({\rm data}|{\rm no-fairies})}>1
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
or the regularity of the universe is much more likely given fairies than no-fairies, so that is evidence for the fairies. Even if true, it is clearly an uninteresting and unuseful claim.</p>
<h2 id="the-problem-with-the-premise-regarding-theism">The problem with the premise regarding theism</h2>
<p>The next problem that struck me was that it seemed that Calum was trying to sneak in many more details into his theism than his argument would warrant. He needs to <em>define</em> what he means by theism to state that it is more likely to result in a regular universe. For example, a number of counter examples can be made:</p>
<ul>
<li>Under the Greek pantheon, it is more likely that things would be chaotic, at the will of capricious deities</li>
<li>Gods or divine beings, such as Cthulhu, revel in chaos and thus would make it less likely to result in a regular universe</li>
</ul>
<p>So when Calum says "theism", what he seems to mean is the existence of "order-making Gods", but then his argument is circular: a regular universe is more likely under a regular-universe-making God hypothesis than not. </p>
<h2 id="the-problem-with-the-premise-regarding-atheism">The problem with the premise regarding atheism</h2>
<p>Further, Calum never supports (and James reiterates this many times) that it is unlikely to have an ordered universe under atheism. "For all we know, the universe could be chaotic", Calum says. However, that needs to be <em>demonstrated</em>, not asserted, or it is an argument from ignorance in disguise. It is possible, and in fact cosmology seems to be pointing more in this direction, that the universe could not be any other way - that the regularity is the result of the production of any universe, and further that the production of universes is the only stable solution. The notion of philosophical "nothing" may be physically unstable and thus unlikely to ever exist. </p>
<h2 id="concluding-thoughts">Concluding thoughts</h2>
<p>I find Calum's introduction of morality to the argument adds nothing, and only serves as a red herring. Without some regularity in the universe, even thought itself would be impossible . We couldn't even have the idea of a "being", or an animal, or life without regularity. Thus, our mere existence requires regularity - but one that need not be imposed from the outside, with a God. Introducing the notion of a generic theism causes more problems to the argument than it solves, because it includes Zeus and Cthulhu. Circularity results when restricting the relevant theism to exclude these possibilities. Even if Calum solved this, the basic set-up of the problem is answering the wrong question, and is at best an uninteresting and useless result.</p>
<p>There is more to this episode, which I'll address later, but these objections are enough to derail the entire argument Calum makes.</p>
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</script>What's the Harm in Alternative Medicine?2014-08-26T00:00:00-04:002014-08-26T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-08-26:/posts/2014/Aug/26/whats-the-harm-in-alternative-medicine/<p>When challenging the bogus medical claims of herbalists, chiropractors, and homeopaths one is often countered with the question "what's the harm?" How could harm come from a treatment that, even …</p><p>When challenging the bogus medical claims of herbalists, chiropractors, and homeopaths one is often countered with the question "what's the harm?" How could harm come from a treatment that, even if false, doesn't do anything? Well, we have an example in the recent news of the ebola outbreak. </p>
<p>We hear that the outbreak in Sierra Leone, with the death toll in the hundreds now, was started by an herbalist claiming cures of ebola that were unfounded. No more can one honestly claim that no harm is done by alternative medicine. It's just too bad it takes such a tragedy for some to come to this realization. For others, this may not even be enough.</p>
<p>http://www.ibtimes.com/faith-healer-helped-spread-ebola-sierra-leone-report-1663694</p>What evidence would it take?2014-08-15T00:00:00-04:002014-08-15T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-08-15:/posts/2014/Aug/15/what-evidence-would-it-take/<p>I heard over the past couple of days the question being asked "what evidence would convince you that there is a God?", and the reverse (to a believer) "what evidence …</p><p>I heard over the past couple of days the question being asked "what evidence would convince you that there is a God?", and the reverse (to a believer) "what evidence would convince you that there is not a God?" It got me thinking about the cases where I may have changed my mind due to evidence, and what evidence would convince me of various claims. This leads inexorably to the processes of science. </p>
<p>Lawrence Krauss flippantly said that if the stars in the sky reorganize and spelled out the words of the Bible it would get him to start considering it (however, upon reflection, one might want to consider delusion at that point). Believers talk about, if the bones of Jesus were found that would do it...however, is that even reasonable to expect under any circumstances? It's a lot simpler than that, than trying to find nearly impossible data.</p>
<p>If we insert any kind of scientific claim, like "what evidence would convince me of [the Sun orbiting the Earth], [evolution], [evolution is false], etc...", we can start to see part of the problem. It's not a matter of new evidence, it is a matter of explaining the existing evidence...and then some. In order to convince me that evolution by natural selection is false, you have to come up with an explanation that does as well explaining all the existing data (e.g. geographic organization of animals, embryology, genetic relationships, vestigial features, etc...) as well as find a domain which cannot be explained by evolution by natural selection. Apologists often focus on the latter, pointing out supposed flaws or gaps in our understanding, but that is not nearly enough. The gaps are either things we already understand with this theory (e.g. intermediate forms), or are not addressed by this theory (e.g. origin of life), or are details that don't change the overall picture (e.g. punctuated equilibrium). Even if true gaps were found, to mount an actual overthrow of evolution by natural selection, you have to put forward a useful explanation that works for all of the cases natural selection works for. </p>
<p>Here we can think of Newton's laws. What evidence would it take for me not to believe in Newton's Law of Gravity? Pretty much nothing at this point, even though I know there is a correction with Einstein's equations - Newton's laws work so well, that it is very nearly the truth even <em>given</em> its limitations. All of the evidence for Newton's Law of Gravity is still around, and isn't changing, and any replacement has to address that (which Einstein's equations do). This is why science gets progressively harder.</p>
<p>Now, with the evidence for God, any explanation has to deal with the fact that the various direct predictions from, say, Christianity have been systematically undermined by science. Mental disease caused by spirits? World created in the order (orders?) specified in Genesis? End of the world coming before 100AD? Prayer is a direct, and effective, method for healing? People are actually spoken to by spirits/God? God designed the diversity of life on the planet? There was a global flood in the past 10,000 years? These are topics, directly supported in the Bible, and refuted by science. The only way modern Christians deal with them is to either say the science is wrong (which it isn't) or to ignore those inconvenient parts of the Bible as "metaphor".</p>
<p>Like the evidence for a flat Earth, or the heliocentric solar system, the evidence for Christianity is a tale of an ever increasing list of refuted claims, until all we are left with are claims about the fringes of our understanding and a possible deist agent out there...somewhere. Any theist explanation must first to be able to contend with this mountain of negative evidence before it can get off the ground. </p>
<p>What would convince me of the truth of Christianity? I don't need the stars reorganized, or a big booming voice from the sky. If <em>any</em> of the direct claims of Christianity were to be demonstrated as true, then I'd be willing to begin to consider it.</p>What Sane Climate Discussion Looks Like2014-08-05T00:00:00-04:002014-08-05T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-08-05:/posts/2014/Aug/05/what-sane-climate-discussion-looks-like/<p>One of the standard climate blogs I read is <a href="http://judithcurry.com/">Judith Curry's blog Climate Etc...</a> I find that the topics she brings up, and the points she adds to it, are …</p><p>One of the standard climate blogs I read is <a href="http://judithcurry.com/">Judith Curry's blog Climate Etc...</a> I find that the topics she brings up, and the points she adds to it, are always very engaging and even-handed, without the usual alarmism. For example, here is a <a href="http://judithcurry.com/2014/07/30/lomborgs-senate-testimony/">summary of Bjorn Lomborg's Senate testimony</a>, all points perfectly reasonable, as far as I can see.</p>
<p>From his estimates, "The cost of inaction by the end of the century is equivalent to an annual loss of GDP growth on the order of 0.02%....equivalent to losing one year’s growth, or a moderate, one year recession." while "policy action as opposed to inaction, also has costs, and will still incur a significant part of the climate damage." and incur (optimistically) a cost of "1.5% of GDP by the end of the century." </p>
<p>Further, he addresses certain specific policies, like</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Solar and wind power was subsidized by \<span class="math">\(60 billion in 2012,
despite their paltry climate benefit of \\)</span>1.4 billion. <br>
Essentially, $58.6 billion were wasted. Depending on political <br>
viewpoint, that money could have been used to get better <br>
health care, more teachers, better roads, or lower taxes. <br>
Moreover, forcing everyone to buy more expensive, less reliable <br>
energy pushes higher costs throughout the economy, leaving less <br>
for welfare.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I find, nearly universally, that people who espouse strong environmental policies never look at the <em>benefits</em> of <em>not doing</em> those policies - they focus entirely on one side of the economics. </p>
<p>Finally, I like the metaphor that he brought in</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The metaphor here is the computer in the 1950s. We did <br>
not obtain better computers by mass producing them to get <br>
cheaper vacuum tubes. We did not provide heavy subsidies so <br>
that every Westerner could have one in their home in 1960. <br>
Nor did we tax alternatives like typewriters. The breakthroughs <br>
were achieved by a dramatic ramping up of R&D, leading to <br>
multiple innovations, which enabled companies like IBM and <br>
Apple to eventually produce computers that consumers wanted to <br>
buy. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This seems to me to be a rational way to discuss these topics.</p>
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</script>What is Science?2014-07-29T00:00:00-04:002014-07-29T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-07-29:/posts/2014/Jul/29/what-is-science/<p>Today I gave <a href="pdf/What%20is%20Science.pdf">a presentation on the general topic of "What is Science?"</a> After some brief remarks about what science isn't and some of the factors (such as attitude) which …</p><p>Today I gave <a href="pdf/What%20is%20Science.pdf">a presentation on the general topic of "What is Science?"</a> After some brief remarks about what science isn't and some of the factors (such as attitude) which reflects the best of science, I had the audience of around 16 students perform tests on automatic flushing toilets. The exercise, which I <a href="http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/tpt/49/3/10.1119/1.3555503">published before</a>, is a great way of getting at all of the concepts of experimental verification without any specialize equipment or preparation - the perfect platform for an informal talk or class. </p>
<p>I then tried to show some things that we are confident work (and why) and things that we are confident <em>don't</em> work (and why) and finally some things where the picture is a bit fuzzier. I'd prefer to have at least one more example of something non-trivial that we are confident works, for which the data is accessible. I use vaccines as an example, given its rising popularity and relevance in the news, but I'd love to have another.</p>Is Faith the Same as Trust or Baseless Belief?2014-07-28T00:00:00-04:002014-07-28T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-07-28:/posts/2014/Jul/28/is-faith-the-same-as-trust-or-baseless-belief/<p>I was listening to the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> debate between <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={1D4751A4-7692-48E0-BB9E-CCDBA08C9AE3}">Tim McGrew and Peter Boghossian</a> on the definition of faith, and whether it is a valid way of knowing. I have …</p><p>I was listening to the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> debate between <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={1D4751A4-7692-48E0-BB9E-CCDBA08C9AE3}">Tim McGrew and Peter Boghossian</a> on the definition of faith, and whether it is a valid way of knowing. I have <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/faith-trust-and-evidence.html">my initial response here</a>, but want to look at another aspect of it in the current post.</p>
<p>Peter defines faith either as "pretending to know things you do not know" or "belief without evidence." From the OED we have faith defined as "complete trust or confidence in someone or something". Tim says that very few Christians (less than 1%) would use Peter's definition, with the vast majority using something similar to the OED. Peter claims that it is just the reverse. Which is it?</p>
<h2 id="research-via-google">Research via Google</h2>
<p>In an informal way, one can do research via google to get an overall sense for how a term is used. I make no claims this is exhaustive, or even particularly scholarly, but I would wager that if a term is used in less than 1% of the population in a certain way it is unlikely to appear in the first few google results. </p>
<p>I casually googled around, and found a few quotes. As you can easily verify, I found that the dominant definition does seem to be Tim's, but that the "belief without [sufficient] evidence" occurs more then 1% of the time, but not nearly 50%. In some of the cases, it is hard to determine which way (or both!) that they are understanding the term. Obviously a more systematic approach might be useful, but as with nearly all such empirical matters, the case is less black-and-white than proponents or opponents like to portray.</p>
<p>The two terms I tried were "faith in God", which universally gives Tim's definition in the first page of hits, and "you must have faith", which uses Peter's definition in at least two of the 15 or so top hits. One of these (http://www.strangenotions.com/do-atheists-have-faith/) says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think that the concept of faith can be understood, in many cases, as involving belief without a certain kind or amount of evidence—the kind or amount that would give us certain proof.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is entirely equivalent to the "faith = probability" definition of Peter's, and the website author levels this against atheists saying that they have "faith". Another (http://hopefaithprayer.com/you-cant-believe-until-you-have-faith/) says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Believing requires faith, and faith requires the action of believing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Which, when you apply to the parachute example makes no sense at all, unless you interpret faith as believing without suffient evidence.</p>
<h2 id="using-the-word-faith-in-an-argument">Using the word "faith" in an argument</h2>
<p>I think it is clear that people do use the term "faith" in both ways, but let's for the moment accept Tim's definition. "Faith" then should never be used in an argument in any way, especially with people who don't believe in God. Why is that? Because, any analysis of utility theory has essentially two components - the probability part, where one has to present evidence for the different possibilities, and the utility part, which places the value on different outcomes. The atheist hasn't even gotten through the first part, so the utility part is a non-sequitur. Since faith, under Tim's definition, requires the utility part to have any meaning, then to bring faith into the argument before, or along with, the evidence is simply not useful. Doing so is much more likely to be interpreted by the atheist as a substitute for evidence, and make people like Peter assume that faith is belief without evidence.</p>
<h2 id="is-faith-a-way-of-knowing">Is "faith" a way of knowing?</h2>
<p>As for the question about whether faith is a way of knowing, the answer has to be a clear "No." Even under Tim's definition, faith is not a way of knowing, but a label we give to the act of weighing the probability and the utility of unlikely (a-priori) possibilities, actions, and outcomes. </p>
<p>So let's ditch the word faith, which is a loaded term anyway, and use the word "trust" when we mean "trust" and "evidence" when we mean "evidence".</p>Faith, Trust, and Evidence2014-07-24T00:00:00-04:002014-07-24T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-07-24:/posts/2014/Jul/24/faith-trust-and-evidence/<p>I was listening to the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> debate between <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={1D4751A4-7692-48E0-BB9E-CCDBA08C9AE3}">Tim McGrew and Peter Boghossian</a> on the definition of faith and whether or not faith is a valid way of knowing …</p><p>I was listening to the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> debate between <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={1D4751A4-7692-48E0-BB9E-CCDBA08C9AE3}">Tim McGrew and Peter Boghossian</a> on the definition of faith and whether or not faith is a valid way of knowing. In this discussion, Boghossian's main point - that "faith is belief without evidence" or "pretending to know things you do not know" - is derailed quite early and he never truly addresses the counter definition other than to claim that few people use it. The discussion then devolved into a back and forth with both sides claiming that "all the people I know use my definition", and got nowhere. Let's look at these definitions, and see where it goes. {.me}</p>
<h2 id="the-definitions">The Definitions</h2>
<p>Peter - "Belief without evidence."{.aq}</p>
<p>Peter - "Pretending to know things you do not know."{.aq}</p>
<p>OED - "complete trust or confidence in someone or something"</p>
<p>Tim says that very few Christians (less than 1%) would use Peter's definition{.theist}</p>
<p>I agree that no Christian would <em>articulate</em> this definition of faith, however they may be <em>functionally</em> using it, which we will address later. Peter really should have said that.{.me}</p>
<p>Tim - "Faith is trusting in, holding to, and acting on what one has good reason to believe is true in the face of difficulties. The difficulties may be where you have to take an action where the outcome is beyond your control."{.tq}</p>
<p>The example Tim gives is jumping out of an airplane, where you have faith in your instructor that he packed your parachute properly. Your act of jumping makes faith more than simply hope (if you just hoped your instructor packed it, you wouldn't jump), and the decision is made in the face of evidence, not despite it or without it.{.me} </p>
<p>When Peter asks Tim what people mean when they accuse someone of having "faith in evolution", Tim responds {.atheist}</p>
<p>You're trusting in something that you cannot completely verify because it doesn't lie open to your senses. {.tq}</p>
<p>When Peter asks Tim what people mean when they say "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist", Tim responds{.atheist}</p>
<p>Belief in something in the face of certain difficulties, where the weight of the difficulties is greater on one side compared to the other.{.tq}</p>
<p>When Peter asks Tim "Why don't we say that we have faith in the existence of chickens?", Tim responds{.atheist}</p>
<p>We are venturing nothing on the existence of chickens. When I believe that chickens exist and I act on that belief I am not taking any step that places outcomes I care about beyond my direct control. [In the case of religion], people are placing the outcome of their eternal soul out of their control. They are taking a risk where the outcomes matter. The decision itself is evidenced but the outcome is uncertain.{.tq}</p>
<p>When Peter asks Tim "Do you have faith or evidence that Islam is false?", Tim responds{.atheist}</p>
<p>Why would I use the word "faith" when I am venturing nothing on Islam? I am a little bit confused about the framing of the question that way. I think I have evidence that it is false, but since I am not venturing on Islam, I'm not sure why the word faith would come in. {.tq}</p>
<h2 id="addressing-the-definitions">Addressing the Definitions</h2>
<p>I've <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/knowledge-faith-and-belief.html">said this before</a>, but it bears repeating. The word <em>faith</em> conflates two related terms - probability and utility. <em>Probability</em> is just the value we assign to the strength of belief, and <em>utility</em> is the value we assign as the reward (or penalty) we receive when taking an action. They both have well-defined mathematical relationships and procedures (e.g. Bayes theorem, decision theory, etc...) A rational actor should try to maximize expected utility. From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_theory">Wikipedia on Decision Theory</a>,{.me} </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The idea of expected value is that, when faced with a number of actions, each of which could give rise to more than one possible outcome with different probabilities, the rational procedure is to identify all possible outcomes, determine their values (positive or negative) and the probabilities that will result from each course of action, and multiply the two to give an expected value. The action to be chosen should be the one that gives rise to the highest total expected value.{.me}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clearly claims using expected utility require that probability assignments have already been made, so claims of utility must necessarily be probability claims as well. When translated into these more precise terms, both Tim's and Peter's claims begin to make more sense. It will also show that Tim is in fact using the definition, in some cases, like Peter and is therefore inconsistent.{.me}</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have faith in your instructor that he packed your parachute properly. Your act of jumping makes faith more than simply hope (if you just hoped your instructor packed it, you wouldn't jump), and the decision is made in the face of evidence, not despite it or without it.{.tq}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The equations are:{.me}</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(\langle U(J) \rangle = U_I \times P(K_I) + U_B \times P(K_B)\)</span> </li>
<li><span class="math">\(\langle U(N) \rangle = V_I \times P(K_I) + V_B \times P(K_B)\)</span></li>
</ul>
<p>with the notation{.me}</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(K_I\)</span> is the proposition "my instructor packed my parachute"{.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(K_B\)</span> is the proposition "Peter Boghossian packed my parachute"{.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(U(J)\)</span> is the utility gained from jumping{.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(U(N)\)</span> is the utility gained from not jumping{.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(U_I\)</span> (<span class="math">\(V_I\)</span>) is the utility gained if you jump (don't jump) and the instructor packed the parachute{.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(U_B\)</span> (<span class="math">\(V_B\)</span>) is the utility gained if you jump (don't jump) and Peter Boghossian packed the parachute{.me}</li>
</ul>
<p>We have the following approximate values for the variables:{.me}</p>
<ul>
<li><span class="math">\(P(K_I)\sim 1\)</span> (nearly certain the instructor packed the parachute){.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(P(K_B)\sim 0\)</span> (nearly certain that Peter didn't pack the parachute){.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(U_I\gg 1\)</span> (good benefit from jumping, with instructor packing the parachute){.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(U_B\ll 0\)</span> (very bad penalty for jumping, with Peter packing the parachute){.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(V_B\sim V_I \sim 0\)</span> (neutral gain for not jumping in either case){.me}</li>
</ul>
<p>Notice, for Tim to have "faith in his instructor", two things must be true:{.me}</p>
<ol>
<li><span class="math">\(P(K_I)\sim 1\)</span> (nearly certain the instructor packed the parachute){.me}</li>
<li><span class="math">\(U_I\gg 1\)</span> (good benefit from jumping, with instructor packing){.me}</li>
</ol>
<p>Tim wants to focus on point (2), while Peter wants to focus on point (1). Once seen this way, it is very easy to understand the responses. {.me} </p>
<p>Why don't we say that we have faith in the existence of chickens?{.atheist}</p>
<p>Because <span class="math">\(U_{\rm chickens}\sim V_{\rm chickens}\sim W_{\rm chickens}\sim \cdots\sim 0\)</span>, for all choices with utilities <span class="math">\(U, V, W, \cdots\)</span> even if we are confident that chickens exist (i.e. <span class="math">\(P({\rm chickens})\sim 1\)</span>). {.me}</p>
<p>Do you have faith or evidence that Islam is false?{.atheist}</p>
<p>Tim has evidence that Islam is false, <span class="math">\(P(I|{\rm data})\ll 1\)</span>, but is not venturing anything on Islam (or more accurately, on his choice to not follow Islam), <span class="math">\(U_{\rm not-Islam}\sim 0\)</span>. Again, Peter sees the first part, yet ignores the second part. {.me}</p>
<h3 id="not-all-is-well-with-tim">Not all is well with Tim</h3>
<p>Going back to this little exchange, we note that Tim is also using Peter's definition:{.me}</p>
<p>When Peter asks Tim what people mean when they accuse someone of having "faith in evolution", Tim responds {.atheist}</p>
<p>You're trusting in something that you cannot completely verify because it doesn't lie open to your senses. {.tq}</p>
<p>Now I can think of no way to understand this statement from the perspective of Tim's definition:{.me}</p>
<p>"When I act on that belief I am taking some step that places outcomes I care about beyond my direct control"{.tq}</p>
<p>What outcomes are you placing beyond your control believing in evolution? What obvious utility are you weighing in this case? As far as I can see there is none, and so faith is in fact being used here as "belief without sufficient evidence". {.me} </p>
<h2 id="priors-and-faith">Priors and Faith</h2>
<p>I think this brings in another aspect of faith, which I believe applies to all of the cases explored so far, and that is that faith is used only in contexts with low <em>prior</em> probability. In this conversation, they spoke of faith in the context of the supernatural, extreme activities (i.e. jumping out of planes), events beyond our immediate senses - all of which coincide with lower <em>prior</em> probability, and need <em>more</em> evidence than is typical to overcome them. They may, or may not, also have high utility. We don't have faith in the existence of chickens because the existence of chickens has high <em>prior</em> probability. {.me}</p>
<h2 id="the-empirical-claim">The Empirical Claim</h2>
<p>I'll have to address the empirical question Tim raises in another post. Is it empirically true, as Tim claims, that less than 1% of the people use the term <em>faith</em> in the way that Peter defines it (i.e., belief without [sufficient] evidence)? {.me}</p>
<p>Even in Tim's case, however, I have found he doesn't use it <em>all</em> the time in the way he claims, and reverts to Peter's definition when convenient. That is the problem with the word - since it is referring to two distinct components, the apologist can easily switch between them without even noticing themselves. That's why I don't like using the word, and simply try to address the question, "what do you believe and why?".{.me}</p>
<h2 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h2>
<p>All in all, Peter does a lousy job and seemed completely unprepared to deal with this rather common understanding of the word faith. He also insisted on using the "belief without evidence" instead of the more honest "belief without <em>sufficient</em> evidence". When people say there is no evidence for something (like God, UFOs, astrology, psychic phenomena, etc...), they really mean that there is terrible evidence for something. There is <em>some</em> evidence for astrology, it's just that it is <em>terrible</em> evidence. The exaggerated, more simple, phrase of "belief without evidence" is counterproductive, especially when the more accurate phrase, "belief without <em>sufficient</em> evidence", is nearly as simple. {.me}</p>
<p>Peter does say that by claiming faith, one is "assigning a confidence value to a belief higher than what is warranted by the evidence." This doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well as "pretending to know things you do not know", and he should have made clear the distinction between the precise language and the slightly hyperbolic simplifications.{.me}</p>
<p>I also feel that words like faith are so slippery as to be useless, and in fact dangerous in a debate or discussion. It is too easy to slide from probability to utility and back when using the word faith. Although I might advise one to stick to the math, I think the equations are just more concise representations of the statements that could be made in plain English. {.me}</p>
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</script>Bayesian vs Frequentist Perspectives2014-06-19T00:00:00-04:002014-06-19T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-06-19:/posts/2014/Jun/19/bayesian-vs-frequentist-perspectives/<p><img alt="Bayes" src="images/Thomas_Bayes.gif"></p>
<p><a href="http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/vanderplas/">Jake VanderPlas</a> has what I believe is the clearest, and most thorough, take-down of the frequentist approach to statistical inference. It's in four parts, so far. The <a href="http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/06/12/frequentism-and-bayesianism-3-confidence-credibility/">third part</a>, in …</p><p><img alt="Bayes" src="images/Thomas_Bayes.gif"></p>
<p><a href="http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/vanderplas/">Jake VanderPlas</a> has what I believe is the clearest, and most thorough, take-down of the frequentist approach to statistical inference. It's in four parts, so far. The <a href="http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/06/12/frequentism-and-bayesianism-3-confidence-credibility/">third part</a>, in my opinion, is the clearest example of the differences in the approaches, demonstrating the superiority of the Bayesian approach, and why frequentist statistics is wrong in science. The four parts are:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/03/11/frequentism-and-bayesianism-a-practical-intro/">Frequentism and Bayesianism: A Practical Introduction</a></li>
<li><a href="http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/06/06/frequentism-and-bayesianism-2-when-results-differ/">Frequentism and Bayesianism II: When Results Differ</a></li>
<li><a href="http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/06/12/frequentism-and-bayesianism-3-confidence-credibility/">Frequentism and Bayesianism III: Confidence, Credibility, and why Frequentism and Science do not Mix</a></li>
<li><a href="http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/06/14/frequentism-and-bayesianism-4-bayesian-in-python/">Frequentism and Bayesianism IV: How to be a Bayesian in Python</a></li>
</ol>
<p>One of the reasons I particularly like this series is that the examples are explored with simple Python code, which makes it completely obvious what is going on. Computer simulations force one to put all of the assumptions down explicitly, and to see what the practical differences are. </p>
<p>Once you read this, and convert to Bayesianism, you may want to <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Nov/21/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie/">read my book</a> too which takes this perspective without focusing on the debate.</p>Statistical Heresies - The Movie2014-06-11T00:00:00-04:002014-06-11T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-06-11:/posts/2014/Jun/11/statistical-heresies-the-movie/<p>The moment we've been all waiting for, Statistical Heresies the movie is out! You can watch it in a couple of places:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://youtu.be/lL1LdNxhDnU">YouTube</a>: You can hear me, but you might …</li></ul><p>The moment we've been all waiting for, Statistical Heresies the movie is out! You can watch it in a couple of places:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://youtu.be/lL1LdNxhDnU">YouTube</a>: You can hear me, but you might want to <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1h8q8lj42w1bnxzqogohc/Statistical-Heresies.pdf?rlkey=l2mxnqu9mjayfvv3kof13awqi&dl=0">download the pdf here</a> to follow along.</li>
</ul>
<p>The talk highlights some of the current Bayesian/frequentist relationships as they relate to introductory statistics education. The discussion includes faculty from math, finance, environmental science, and others.</p>
<p>The abstract is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We live in a world where analytics in the form of statistical
inference is playing a significant role, from predicting
elections, learning patterns in shopping habits, finding the
genetic sources for diseases, and recognizing voice for
computer control. Despite these successes, there is a serious
disconnect between the best practices in the industry and
what is typically taught at the undergraduate level. This
faculty development seminar will introduce this problem,
explore its history, present its causes, and make some modest
proposals to solving it.</p>
</blockquote>Turing Test Passed2014-06-09T00:00:00-04:002014-06-09T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-06-09:/posts/2014/Jun/09/turing-test-passed/<p>There has been an announcement that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing Test</a> has finally <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/06/09/computer-passes-the-turing-test/">been passed</a>! So a computer has fooled humans into thinking that the computer is a human, as proposed in …</p><p>There has been an announcement that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test">Turing Test</a> has finally <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/06/09/computer-passes-the-turing-test/">been passed</a>! So a computer has fooled humans into thinking that the computer is a human, as proposed in the <a href="http://loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html">original article</a> by Turing. Have we solved intelligence? Not really, but our tools are getting pretty cool. Apparantly you can try the system <a href="http://default-environment-sdqm3mrmp4.elasticbeanstalk.com/">online here</a>. Let me know what you think! </p>It's Unreasonable to Believe Some True Things2014-06-06T00:00:00-04:002014-06-06T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-06-06:/posts/2014/Jun/06/its-unreasonable-to-believe-some-true-things/<p>In the <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/06/04/this-may-be-the-most-mismatched-debate-over-gods-existence-youll-ever-see/">frustrating debate</a> between Matt Dillahunty and Sye Ten Bruggencate, linked below, an "argument" is put forward that belief in God is reasonable. If you are unfamiliar with presuppositional …</p><p>In the <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/06/04/this-may-be-the-most-mismatched-debate-over-gods-existence-youll-ever-see/">frustrating debate</a> between Matt Dillahunty and Sye Ten Bruggencate, linked below, an "argument" is put forward that belief in God is reasonable. If you are unfamiliar with presuppositional apologetics, it doesn't use evidence at all and can be a frustrating process. Have a look at what stands in for a proof of God from the <a href="http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/">Sye's website</a>. A nice summary, and some tactics to use against presuppositionalists, can be found at the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2012/02/09/episode-97-presuppositional-apologetics-part-1/">Reasonable Doubts Podcast</a>.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OL8LREmbDi0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>In this post I want to summarize the initial "argument" put forward by Sye:</p>
<ol>
<li>Premise: It's reasonable to believe that which is true</li>
<li>Premise: It's true that God exists</li>
<li>Therefore, it's reasonable to believe that God exists</li>
</ol>
<p>After presenting this "argument", he claims that he doubts that Matt will challenge the first premise, and he was correct. I, however, challenge the first premise - it is not always reasonable to believe in true things. For something to be <em>reasonable</em>, it must mean that you have followed the proper procedures of inductive reasoning, or in other words, are applying probability theory properly. This means that the confidence in a claim must scale with the available evidence.</p>
<p>For it to be <em>reasonable to believe in something</em>, it must rise to a level of probability that you would label it as "belief". Does this ever happen, or should this ever happen, with untrue things? Certainly. Here are a few that come to mind.</p>
<ol>
<li>the world is flat - as long as you are constrained to not live near the shore, or see a lunar eclipse</li>
<li>life is designed - before the advent of Darwin's theory of natural selection</li>
<li>the Sun, and the stars, all go around the Earth - until the advent of physics</li>
</ol>
<p>In each of these cases there is in fact strong evidence for the claims, and against the counter claims, to make it reasonable to believe them (at the time). It no longer is reasonable - the process of reason forces one to re-weight the probabilities of the hypotheses given new evidence, and to discard those hypotheses that become too improbable. </p>
<p>I'd like to see Sye to define reason. Even if we assume his God is real, the process of God-given reason needs to be consistent with what we already establish for inductive reason. There is no spot in it for special pleading, so it would undermine the thing he is claiming. For example, proper reasoning concludes that special revelation is not reliable, and thus cannot be used as strong evidence for adjusting probabilities. If Sye is making the claim that even using logic presupposes God, he needs to define reason in such a way that it doesn't turn back on his presupposition. </p>
<p>Of course, he won't, because all presuppositionalist arguments are circular.</p>Free, or Not-So-Free, Will2014-06-04T00:00:00-04:002014-06-04T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-06-04:/posts/2014/Jun/04/free-or-not-so-free-will/<p>I felt compelled to write this post, for some reason. </p>
<p>Reading an interesting <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/free_will_debate_what_does_free_will_mean_and_how_did_it_evolve.html">article about free will</a> has gotten me thinking about it again, despite the fact that doing so …</p><p>I felt compelled to write this post, for some reason. </p>
<p>Reading an interesting <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/09/free_will_debate_what_does_free_will_mean_and_how_did_it_evolve.html">article about free will</a> has gotten me thinking about it again, despite the fact that doing so makes my head hurt a bit. It is easy to go in circles with this. I have given my <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2012/May/07/free-will-and-entropy/">initial perspective elsewhere</a>, and this article doesn't really sway me from that. </p>
<p>Roy Baumeister in the above article states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These arguments leave untouched the meaning of free will that most people understand, which is consciously making choices about what to do in the absence of external coercion, and accepting responsibility for one’s actions. Hardly anyone denies that people engage in logical reasoning and self-control to make choices. There is a genuine psychological reality behind the idea of free will. The debate is merely about whether this reality deserves to be called free will. </p>
<p>There is no need to insist that free will is some kind of magical violation of causality. Free will is just another kind of cause. The causal process by which a person decides whether to marry is simply different from the processes that cause balls to roll downhill, ice to melt in the hot sun, a magnet to attract nails, or a stock price to rise and fall. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He states this with no support whatsoever. He presents some analogies, like:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No number of facts about a carbon atom can explain life, let alone the meaning of your life. These causes operate at different levels of organization. Even if you could write a history of the Civil War purely in terms of muscle movements or nerve cell firings, that (very long and dull) book would completely miss the point of the war. Free will cannot violate the laws of physics or even neuroscience, but it invokes causes that go beyond them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is true that we don't typically describe things like the Civil War in terms of the underlying physics, but that is a <em>practical</em> limitation of human knowledge. If we had infinite faculties for such descriptions, then one <em>could</em> even get the "point of the war" from the "muscle movements or nerve cell firings". In just the same way that we use the concept of entropy when we cannot specify the locations and speeds of all of the molecules of air in the room, we use the concept of free will to summarize and label our ignorance. It becomes real, as entropy is real, but doesn't mitigate the ultimate determinism of the system.</p>
<p>Finally, he gets to the topic of agency with</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The evolution of free will began when living things began to make choices. The difference between plants and animals illustrates an important early step. Plants don’t change their location and don’t need brains to help them decide where to go. Animals do. Free will is an advanced form of the simple process of controlling oneself, called agency.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, when a flower opens in the day and closes a night, or even <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8mr0R3ibPU">follows the sun</a>, how is that different than the animal "choosing" to run toward rewards and away from punishments? It isn't different, except in complexity, but complexity alone does not elliminate fundamental determinism or produce freedom.</p>Do healing miracles happen?2014-06-03T00:00:00-04:002014-06-03T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-06-03:/posts/2014/Jun/03/do-healing-miracles-happen/<p>As part of the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a …</p><p>As part of the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">full RSS Feed of the podcasts</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>Full Title: <em>Do healing miracles happen? Robby Dawkins & David Beebee - Unbelievable? - 15 March 2014</em></li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>Robby Dawkins (not to be confused with Richard) says he regularly sees healing miracles occur for the people he prays for. Cancer is gone, blind eyes see, pain disappears, even a lung was re-grown.</p>
<p>David Beebee, an atheist sceptic with an interest in the charismatic church interacts with Dawkins and questions why we don't see more convincing proof, and what he does about the 'misses'.</p>
<p>We also hear from a Christian who is sceptical of modern miracle claims, Dr Peter May.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/b3e2271e-c79d-40c0-b9ba-f2e7a014f6e8.mp3">Download mp3</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li class="theist">Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator </li>
<li class="theist">Robby Dawkins - Christian</li>
<li class="atheist">David Beebee - Atheist</li>
<li class="theist">Dr Peter May -Christian, skeptic</li>
<li class="me">Comments by myself, bblais</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p class="theist">Justin - He starts the conversation by stating that <strong>"miracle stuff"</strong> is considered a bit <strong>"out there"</strong>, that it's <strong>"very difficult to verify, it's not objective in the way we can talk about evidence for God and the Bible, and that kind of thing"</strong>. </p>
<p class="me">It's funny how he started off like that. They steer clear of miracles in this show because it is hard to verify, and not objective evidence for God. The funny thing about that statement is that it is just totally wrong! In fact, miracles <em>would be</em> objective evidence if there <em>were</em> a God. So, if even some miracle claims were verified, they would be trumpeted as the most objective evidence for the existence of God and the claims of the Bible. The fact Justin Brierley can say that the claims are "not objective" is pretty much an admission that there is no good evidence for miracles and the entire topic should be avoided. It has disagreeable consequences for the theology if they really have to confront the question "where did all the miracles go?" - they seem to be common and public in ancient days, yet disappear as our understanding of science improves. Starting off the show like that is already an admission of failure.</p>
<p class="theist">So Robby Dawkins claims he prayed for a guy who was going to have open heart surgery, and that the guy also had half a lung removed in the past due to lung cancer. The story claims that the surgeon opened him up, and said "This man has the heart of a 30-year old man, and the lungs have regrown".</p>
<p class="me">That is a <em>fantastic</em> story. I don't believe it. So, the question is, who's right, and should I be that skeptical? Here is someone giving this story, and I don't have any of the details such as the name of the person, etc... I am going to look this up and I would bet money (I never bet more than a dollar on any bet) , but I'd be willing to bet $1 that this story doesn't pan out. The reason is that the story is totally ridiculous and fantastic. If it were true, I would have heard about it before. If they <em>actually</em> had medical records of the guy, before and after scans of the heart and lungs, it would be totally trivial to demonstrate this to the satisfaction of pretty much any skeptic. The fact that I haven't heard about it probably means that it is made up.</p>
<p class="me">The data should be able to sway me from my skepticism, if it is real. If it is anything like the UFO cases I've read or the other healing cases I've read, it will either:</p>
<ol>
<li class="me">Not have enough information to verify at all - just the story, with no evidence or</li>
<li class="me">Turn out to be wrong</li>
</ol>
<p class="me">This has been the case for every miracle claim and UFO claim I have ever taken the time to investigate.</p>
<p class="me">Why would someone make up a story about this? One is to feel better about the world, another is that it was a mundane story that got distorted over time. One thing is clear is that Robby Dawkins has a vested interest in this story.</p>
<p class="theist">Then they relay a movie, where Robby Dawkins supposedly heals a young man, Jacob, of neck and back pain. He prays 3 times over the young man. The first time the next pain goes down to a "zero", but the back is still at a "seven", the second time the back goes down to a "one", and then down to a "zero" for last prayer.</p>
<p class="me">Here we have a crowd around the young man during the prayer, and a completely subjective reporting of pain. Don't you think there is significant social pressure on this young man to claim more pain loss than he actually experiences? Robby Dawkins, in the clip, jokes with the young man "you're not just being nice to me, are you?" What is he supposed to say to that? This is the problem with "healing" pain this way - there is nothing objective to measure, no way to test if there is in fact an effect. Is it more likely that the young man is lying, or perhaps distorting due to the social pressures, than he's actually healed? Absolutely. In order to test this, one would have to have an objective way to verify, which is not presented. </p>
<p class="me">I'm reminded again of the website <a href="http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/">http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/</a>. Sure, God can heal these vague issues like my back pain this hour, but can't seem to heal anything tangible.</p>
<p class="theist">He finishes his miracle healing by asking the young man to touch his toes.</p>
<p class="me">Now this is a somewhat objective measure, rather than the 0-10 pain scale, which may reflect objective evidence of an improvement from the prayer. If he couldn't touch his toes before, because of the pain, and now he can then that would be at least some evidence (not convincing, but some) toward the efficacy of the prayer. Could the young man touch his toes afterward? No. What did Robby Dawkins do? He made a joke about it - "That's about as far as I could do". I have to wonder, if it had come out a different way what would the response have been? </p>
<p class="me">This is emblematic of the approach of unskeptical people. You do a test that you think might point in the right direction (generally not done very carefully), but you design the test so that you win either way. If it works, then it's a miracle, and if it doesn't then it is shrugged off as something the person needs to work on, you shouldn't have passed the test anyway, etc... Essentially a rationalization. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose. Perhaps another test is done that shows some mild improvement from before, and that is touted as the evidence while the counter examples are quietly ignored. Selective bias, completely unskeptical. There is nothing miraculous about any of the things Robby Dawkins actually demonstrated in these examples.<br></p>
<p class="me">One could claim I'm being hyperskeptic, and yes, I am being skeptical. I am demanding that if you make a claim that violates my understanding of the laws of physics, and the way the universe works, then you had better pony up an equivalent amount of evidence that the people who established those laws of physics did in the first place. You should be able to convince the skeptics, because that is exactly what the scientists have done to get us here. They have taken things where people were skeptical, such as germ theory of disease, plate tectonics, big bang cosmology, etc... and provided testable predictions that were borne out, especially when unintuitive. In the germ theory of disease, something as simple as washing your hands should reduce infection - which is demonstrably does. This would be very difficult to explain if you believed disease were some kind of spiritual phenomenon (which was once believed) or an imbalance in the humors, or some kind of energy imbalance. This is before even having a microscope to confirm the small living beings called germs.</p>
<p class="me">We don't need to understand how miracles occur to verify that they occur, so it is not an argument against the skeptic to accuse them of a naturalistic bias. It is not a bad thing to be skeptical. It keeps you from being taken in by false claims, from falling victim to selection bias, etc...</p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "Some people would say that they felt better, but I found out later that they still had some pain. I found out that this girl that had scoliosis, her shoulders were severely tilted, said "It is better", but I could see that her shoulders were not 100% straight. And I would be like, I need to get a number from them because I'm not getting a clear answer."</p>
<p class="me">So he's trying to be more quantitative, which is a good thing, it's still not any better than what it was before. This is not a controlled setting, there is a serious vested interest for the child to say that they are feeling better, and there is no way to independently verify that they are in fact getting better in the cases that he is talking about. It is still a subjective claim, while <em>sounding</em> more quantitative with the number. It makes it <em>sound</em> more scientific, but it is no better than them saying "I'm feeling better."</p>
<p class="tq">Justin - "How often does it work, as it were, that people go down to a two or a zero?"</p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "It's a hard question, but I would say more than half of the times...I'd say probably around 65% of the time. If people let you keep praying for them, it will go down. But some people get freaked out by the fact that something is happening, and they will be 'all right, stop.'"</p>
<p class="me">Here's another interesting case. He's making a bold claim that it is working 65% of the time, but it's hard to tell, which lets him write off the failures. But these seem like much better odds than science-based medicine, if it is correct. He's also saying that people want him to stop, because they experience the change. That let's him write off anyone who stops early, while still maintaining that it is working, so in his mind it remains evidence that it is working. Again, maybe there are other explanations. Perhaps they are freaking out because there is a crowd that is expecting something, and <strong>nothing</strong> is happening, which would totally be uncomfortable for someone. Again, they are setting up a situation where people have a vested interest to lie, not out of a malicious intent, but to simply cover themselves from an embarrassing situation, for themselves, the congregation or the minister.</p>
<p class="aq">David - "If someone is feeling better then that is great..."</p>
<p class="me">Ok, I'm going to interrupt, and comment on that little amount. Yes, it is good if they are feeling better - no one wants another to be in pain. But I think it does matter how they are feeling better. If a doctor gave a sugar pill, said that it would help the pain, the patient gets the transient pain relief from placebo effect - I don't think that's a good thing. When the pain comes back, they haven't dealt with the symptoms, and they are likely to return to the same bogus treatment. I think back on a friend of mine who pursued dubious so-called alternative medical treatments, while her (unknown to her at the time) cancer progressed. She kept going back to these treatments, like acupuncture and homeopathy, when the placebo pain relief ended. In the end the cancer was too advanced by the time it was diagnosed, so it really does matter not just <em>that</em> you feel better, but <em>why</em>. It's not always a good thing that someone is feeling better, if by feeling better makes them worse in the long run. </p>
<p class="aq">David - "it doesn't seem to be something that could be explained by a much simpler set of assumptions. for example, they are in a suggestive, persuasive environment, on stage. If they already believe that it could happen anyway, then the strong personality speaking to them, even with the caveats of 'are you just being nice to me', there still would be some psychological pressure to conform, even if subconscious."</p>
<p class="me">Bingo!</p>
<p class="tq">Justin - "You'd probably prefer the simpler explanation, it's probably adrenaline, probably psychological pressure,..."</p>
<p class="aq">David - "Not probably, but it <em>could</em> be these things, and we know that these things happen routinely. "</p>
<p class="me">That was a nice catch. We have a whole host of <em>possible</em> explanations, all of which are more likely than a miracle healing, and any one of them (or multiple ones) would work but the person claiming the miracle would have to rule those out at least to justify this more complex more fantastical explanation of "miracle". The skeptic need to pin any of these alternatives on the particular case. The skeptic is not making the knowledge claim that they are confident in a <em>particular</em> explanation, they are just not convinced of the more complex and fantastical explanation.</p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "I had three young men who were atheists, and said "You're full of it." I appreciate your honesty. I grabbed the microphone as we were finishing this healing session and I asked if anyone had leg shortening. Since we had war survivors there, we had about 8 people come forward who had a leg shorter than another. And I had those guys, and said to just say the words, and they said that they didn't believe in it. I just told them to repeat the words after me, and we held the legs...and the all the legs were clear."</p>
<p class="atheist">David - Why is God limited to <em>incremental</em> leg extensions, as opposed to a full amputee? </p>
<p class="me">It would be so simple to document a healed amputee to the satisfaction of a skeptic. If this works 50% of the time they should be able to go to a convention of war veterans, or the paralympics, or something like that and heal 50% of the cases. I'd be satisfied with 10%...actually, I'd be satisfied with 1%, but the number is in fact <strong>zero</strong>.</p>
<p class="me">It makes you wonder why, when there is actual evidence to look at, it is <em>always</em> only the things that are either</p>
<ol>
<li class="me">subjective</li>
<li class="me">easily manipulated</li>
<li class="me">small scale</li>
</ol>
<p class="me">and never the big stuff, never the things that are easy to show actually happened. You don't even need to show that the prayer itself did it, just one case of an amputee regrowing a limb would at least show there is some effect there.</p>
<p class="tq">Justin - "Is David asking for too high a level of evidence here?"</p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "No, I don't. Here's the bottom line. Bottom line is it requires <em>faith</em>...and faith is risk. And faith is a hard thing to risk."</p>
<p class="me">I think he may go on to define his use of the word "faith", but I think he's using it in the way that I use it, and that is "believing things without appropriate evidence". Yes, that is risky! It's a dumb risk, you shouldn't do it. It's a needless risk. He's playing the "Oh, you're asking for too much evidence, and I expect you to believe this without the evidence" card.<br></p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "I did this all over Princeton University, an epicenter for atheists and skeptics, and many people were sitting there watching legs grow out and going 'Whoa'. They would say 'if I could see this happen, then I'd believe it' and then they sat there and watched it happen and responded 'no, no, no, this must have been happening, or that must have been happening'. There's always going to be another explanation."</p>
<p class="me">That is the moment that I have seen in so many of these. It's really the cry-baby response - "Boo hoo! You're asking for too much evidence! You're not convinced by my flimsy attempts at demonstrating this!" This sort of response just would not fly in any scientific arena, and that attitude just annoys me after a while. You have something to claim that you think is true...great. You should be able to demonstrate it to skeptics. They will come up with alternative explanations...great...that's their job, and the absolute right response to you making an extraordinary claim. That's what they are supposed to do, and if you can't demonstrate that it is not one of their alternative explanations, then <em>you</em> haven't done <em>your</em> job. That's the job that every scientist has to do, and sometimes it takes years, and sometimes it takes being more clever at designing the experiment and the proper controls, but you have to do that. </p>
<p class="me">You propose that the universe is <em>accelerating</em>, which wasn't on anyones radar, and people don't believe it, what do you do? You improve the data, you lower the uncertainties, you demonstrate how it fits in the understood cosmology. You address, and rule out, the alternative explanations and the possible biases. You say that anyone can inspect your methods, reproduce it themselves. If it is true, then the skeptics come around. The alternative explanations are not bad. The skepticism is not bad, it is the correct process of getting to the truth. Things that collapse under that pressure are probably not true.</p>
<p class="me">That's what it means to demonstrate something. It doesn't mean showing it once, under uncontrolled circumstances, from a distance, where the skeptics can't reproduce it. That's not demonstrating it, that's a <em>trick</em>. And people have seen magic tricks, and so they'll acknowledge that you've done a trick, even if they don't know exactly how it was done. They'll think 'if I try to do it, it won't work', or 'under this other set of circumstances, it won't work', etc... Like the spoon bending of Uri Geller. The problem is not just that these people are mistaken, but that they don't seem to recognize that the skeptical response is the <em>proper</em> one, and that if they actually had something to demonstrate that they should have no problem convincing the skeptics.<br></p>
<p class="me">If you claim to have an effect that worked 50% of the time that cured various diseases, especially physical structural ones, you should be able to an MRI or some other scan, do the prayer, then do the scan afterward and see a measurable effect. In addition, you should enthusiastically do that..."Game on! I think something here, so let's show it in the most quantifiable, reproducible way possible, in front of the skeptics!" That's what the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais">attitude should be</a>...if you think something is true.<br></p>
<p class="me">That's what science is - it's an attitude. It's that attitude that you test everything, that you don't believe anything until demonstrated, and you find ways to measure things to the point where even the skeptics are convinced. And that is the stuff we know is true, and everything else is questionable. These faith healers don't demonstrate the attitude, or ability, or the willingness to put their money where their mouth is. They have a ton of anecdotes, a bunch of things in uncontrolled circumstances that they claim are significant but just are not, and that is the problem. Then they chide the skeptics for being skeptics, for not being convinced by these parlor tricks. I'm sorry, but that won't convince me. Too bad...grow up...and don't cry about people demanding a lot of evidence. That's just the wrong <strong>wrong</strong> attitude.</p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "It could be a stadium, let's say Wimbledon is filled and somebody sees someone raised from the dead. There's going to be, say, 'it's mass hypnosis', there's always going to be something. It always comes down to this place of saying 'I'm <em>choosing</em> to have faith', 'I'm <em>choosing</em> to believe' "</p>
<p class="me">This is <em>exactly</em> what I said he would say about faith - he is <em>choosing</em> to believe, even though the evidence doesn't support it. You have 100,000 people see someone raised from the dead, yet have no actual data on it? Yes, that's likely to be mass hypnosis, or hysteria, or whatever. Fatima, is a good example of that, which <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/a-little-about-miracles.html">I cover elsewhere</a>. But if you had 100000 independent iphone videos, along with skeptical doctors following proper procedures, and they all say that this guy was dead for week and came back, then yes I would be convinced. But there is never <em>ever</em> data on that scale - it's always this flimsy, anecdotal, incremental, subjective crap that we get again and again that convinces the believer who <em>chooses</em> to believe, but doesn't convince anyone else. The same thing happens with alien abductions...the <em>exact</em> same thing happens. </p>
<p class="aq">David - "It would take extraordinary evidence, if you are going to make an extraordinary claim about something that doesn't happen routinely. The sort of evidence that would convince me that it happened would have to be similar. My question is, why do we get all sorts of stories of minute incremental centimeter changes in leg lengths, but nothing where it is entire regeneration?"</p>
<p class="atheist">David - He demonstrates that a simple hip motion can give the illusion of leg lengthening, without it actually happening, and adds that the person need not be doing it consciously, that they are responding the psychological pressure of the session.</p>
<p class="me">So here is <em>one</em> plausible explanation for the leg adjustment (there are probably many others), so the question I'd ask the Robby is - have there been any steps done to eliminate that as a possible explanation? For example, an actual amputation can't be "recovered" in this way. Some objective measure of length used, perhaps from a body scan, and measured off the image from a consistent point (edge of hip to bottom of heel, for example). You cannot play the card "these people are honest, they don't have any reason to lie" [even though they do!], that's just not the point. If it could possibly be explained by hip adjustment, how would you design the test to eliminate that as a possibility - this is what a scientist does and not at all what these people do.<br></p>
<p class="theist">Justin - "Is it still relevant that it happened when she was prayed for in a healing session, that it happened <em>then</em>? Can you at least acknowledge that it is an interesting correlation?"</p>
<p class="aq">David - "Absolutely not. What would it take to convince you that it is not real? Because, to make any sense at all, you have to count the misses not just the hits, because if you are only counting the hits and ignoring the misses, your confirmation bias insulates you from any refutation of what you believe. You have to look into how many times people have been prayed for and nothing happens at all."<br></p>
<p class="theist">Justin - "And you're [Robby] perfectly open to saying that happens sometimes..."</p>
<p class="theist">Robby - "Oh, yes. It happens all the time."</p>
<p class="me">That's correct - it happens <strong>all</strong> the time. You can't even count how many prayers people do, and they don't appear to work nearly all the time. Occasionally they appear to work - but this doesn't establish a correlation. This reminds me of the so-called tie between eclipses and earthquakes that is sometimes claimed. Unfortunately, eclipses happen so often that you're <em>guaranteed</em> to have an eclipse before an earthquake. If you pray all the time, the random medical improvements that people have will be <em>guaranteed</em> to be after a prayer. If you only report the events where you prayed and there was an improvement, then you'll seriously bias your conclusions. This is why one needs to do controlled prayer studies, to include <em>all</em> the cases - both successes and failures. When you do this for prayer, some studies there's an improvement, in others things get worse, in all of them the effect is barely measurable. This is exactly the sort of result you get from treatments that ultimately are shown not to have any real effect. Nothing ever comes close to these wild claims by Robby Dawkins that the healing effects happen "more than half the time" and that, by itself, is a refutation of what he's talking about. Now he could say, "Look, you have to do it in a Church setting, do it under the auspices of a minister, and perhaps a particular kind of minister, etc..." One might be able to design a controlled experiment around this stipulations, as long as those stipulations are specific enough. If the stipulation is something like "it doesn't work when skeptics are around", that doesn't count.<br></p>
<p class="theist">When asked why his own thyroid disease, despite prayers, has not been cured Robby's answer is - the devil does it! </p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "There's a spiritual opposition and there is a power of the enemy that is contending against that."</p>
<p class="aq">David - "That is introducing yet another untestable unknown to the equation, which is ballooning with unknowns. That doesn't get us anywhere toward what is objectively happening."</p>
<p class="tq">Justin - "What I'm seeing here myself is two completely different worldviews coming together...you don't believe, David, that there is a spiritual realm...full stop. Robby is convinced there is, and so for Robby this is the explanation."</p>
<p class="me">I've heard this "blame the worldviews" thing before, but I think that's bogus. The reason it is bogus is that, if there really is an agent opposing you, you should be able to tell that it is really an agent and that it is really opposing you, not just "sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, it must be an agent". That's not enough. It cannot be simply be that we can explain this with an agent, you have to be able to demonstrate that it is <em>likely</em> to be an agent because of X, Y, and Z. You can interpret the seasons, for example, as driven by agents (as the pagans do), but that doesn't make it so. It can't be post-hoc: if it doesn't work, it's the agent working against me, if it does work, it is another agent working for me. That doesn't wash, and it is not a matter of <em>worldviews</em>. The reason why I don't think there is a spiritual realm is that no one has posited <em>evidence</em> for the spiritual realm that is even remotely consistent or has any real content. </p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "I think what I see in every dialog with atheists like this, the kind of communication is, don't tell me about the headache being better, I want to know a whole limb growing out...but what about the person who is feeling better with the headache? Are we just throwing them out, that they don't matter? .... There is a video of a guy's toe, his big toe is missing, and after prayer it appears. There is a video, but I don't have it in my possession. Of course, anyone could say, that the film was doctored. It all comes down to an issue of faith. " </p>
<p class="aq">David - "I would need multiple, independent video of the same event. The hard thing for your position is that, with the proliferation of technology, almost everyone in the western world has a high quality 1080p camcorder in their pocket. If these things routinely happen, as much as is professed with testimony, there is no way that it wouldn't be captured by somebody somewhere, multiple people somewhere."</p>
<p class="me">This is the same thing with UFO claims - the number of visitations and observances of UFOs has gone <em>down</em> with the proliferation of the technology to record it, rather than the significant <em>increase</em> of recorded UFO events one would expect to happen if these things were real. This is strong evidence against the veracity of the claims.</p>
<p class="me">Notice what he's doing here. He's asking why we want to ignore the small effect (e.g. headache). I'd say, that he's making huge claims, so we'd need a comparable effect. If the headache goes away on its own without prayer much of the time, then you haven't demonstrated that the prayer actually made the headache go away, and that is the entire point. </p>
<p class="me">He still has this "cry-baby" response, that we'll be skeptical of the video. This is one of the reasons that science is hard - you do have to do the leg-work to design the experiment so that it is reproducible and eliminates the alternatives. That is a <em>good</em> thing. One could interpret the prayer as witchcraft, and that the nature spirits are coming in to heal the headache. Would you be convinced by that? Would Robby be convinced? How would he respond if the person said "you just have to have faith"?</p>
<p class="tq">Robby - (about the facts surrounding the lung regeneration story earlier) "The original facts that I got from the medical report, it was on an old scroll fax without the best of ink, and since then it's faded. Somebody did contact the doctor to see if they had a newer hard copy of the report since, but the doctor has since passed away, so it's been hard to get a hold of that information."</p>
<p class="aq">David - "It's a common theme, isn't it? Craig Marsh is it, with the stomach, and the eye in Peru...where there is a really tremendous example, there is always something like 'we've go the evidence but it's just not here, someone won't publish it', it's always supposedly there but never actually there."</p>
<p class="me">That is <em>totally</em> the common theme. They said that they tried to publish it in the medical journal, and the journal said it was 'too weird' and wouldn't publish it. That is ridiculous. If it is really weird, and true, then they'd love to see it! The only reason they wouldn't publish it is if was terribly written or there was no evidence of it. Also, this sounds suspiciously like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith">Joseph Smith</a> and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_plates">Golden Plates</a>.</p>
<p class="tq">Justin - "Those kind of verified medical records released, are hard to come by, and for miracles that occur in the developing world there are no such services to verify all of these."</p>
<p class="me">No, that's not quite correct. It is <em>all</em> the time, it's <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>every</em> <em>single</em></span> case. There is not a <em>single</em> case where there has been good documentary evidence of a significant miracle...not a <em>single</em> case in all of the anecdotes. If you contrast that with 50-60% of the healings work, that is devastating and is an indication of something that just doesn't work. How else could you explain that there is not a <em>single</em> case of <em>well-documented</em> miracle? </p>
<p class="tq">Justin - "There is some nervousness with some physicians that this could look like 'I misdiagnosed the illness', so I am not going to be easily releasing the medical records because this might come back to bite me."</p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "I've talk to doctors where this is the case."</p>
<p class="me">This is the first legitimate issue raised, I believe, but it still falls under the umbrella of "it's hard to get data sometimes". Boo hoo, cry-baby again. Does Robby think that it is a walk in the park to get the supernova data and make sure things are calibrated properly to establish the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_universe">accelerating universe</a>, or to find the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson">Higgs Boson</a>? Does he think that was really easy to do? One doesn't have to get medical records from the doctors, one can get them from the patients and the families who can release whatever they want without feeling nervous. If I can come up with, in one minute, an easy work-around for this problem, then Robby clearly is not putting much effort to do so.</p>
<p class="tq">Robby - (about a woman who had cancer supposedly healed, describing what the doctor would put in the report) "The doctor said 'you prayed for her, and that is the only explanation I have'. I asked him, 'what will go in your report?', and he goes that 'she is cancer free, that it is gone. I'd put down that it was there, and that we are not seeing any traces of it.' I asked him if he'd put down that she received prayer, and he said 'No, I wasn't in the room, and that would not be part of the treatment anyway so I would not document that'. And so that is very typical, and I understand that."</p>
<p class="me">He's taking the successes again and ignoring the misses. He's very quick to say that this is the <em>result</em> of the prayer, and not some other random thing, but when it doesn't appear to work 99.999% of the time when nothing happens, he responds with "the devil" or "God's plan" or individual unwillingness to accept the miracle. It always works when it works, and there is an excuse when it doesn't. This is not how we do science, and it is totally obvious selection bias.</p>
<p class="aq">David - "We do know that strange and unexplainable things happen, the body is a complex, messy system, and it really is the case the cancer does spontaneously remiss. That does happen with and without prayer. If someone prays for it, and it happens, you could try to say that the prayer worked but it doesn't mean anything unless you count the times that it doesn't work. So what I'd like to really ask, is there anything that would make you not believe it works?"</p>
<p class="me">This last question will just flew over Robby's head, because I don't think he understands the attitude of constructing falsifiable claims. For someone who is not a skeptic, I don't think he understand what it even means to craft claims in this way. I think a better way to put that is, once you recognize that cancer going away happens with or without prayer <em>sometimes</em>, if you know that pain goes way with or without prayer <em>sometimes</em> (all it takes is <em>sometimes</em>) - and you can insert for 'prayer' here 'new medical treatment X' - how do you figure out some way to distinguish between X <em>causing</em> the cancer to go away and the cancer going away for totally unknown and unrelated reasons. How do you do that, when you don't know and can't control those unrelated effects? What you do is to create a study, with a control group, blinded, etc... and you look at how often cancer goes away with and without X., counting all the successes and failures. What is found when you do that carefully is that prayer has no effect, or such a tiny effect to be totally meaningless. This is how you do it. If you can't distinguish between doing X and nothing, then that is equivalent to nothing. This is totally at odds with the grand claims Robby is making.<br></p>
<p class="tq">Robby - "You believe that things can happen out of nothing...and that is a really high level of faith."</p>
<p class="me">This is adding insult to injury. This is just false. We don't understand why things like cancer sometimes disappear, but that doesn't mean that we believe there is no cause. There is certainly <em>some</em> reason for it, but we just don't have access to it (at the moment). We don't know the conditions specific enough for the reason something worked in this case, and not another. We just don't know. If you're making the further claim that you can improve the situation with prayer, the only way to justify this claim is by isolating the variables, and doing a proper study. It has <em>nothing</em> to do with faith, it is simply saying that some things happen that we don't understand, not the positive claim that there is no cause.<br></p>
<p class="me">A few final thoughts on the episode. I did try to confirm the story of the man regrowing the lung or heart. I couldn't find <em>any</em> reference to it at all, except for the claims in Robby Dawkins' book, from which it appears that he was essentially reciting in the episode. He has this story, with no details at all, not even a city, a year, a hospital,...nothing, just nothing to go on. It could be that I didn't look long enough, but it makes me wonder if this guy simply made up the story because it sounds great and is a total dead-end for anyone trying to confirm it. I'd love to see the data!<br></p>
<p class="me">Now, how should Robby respond to this insinuation that he may be lying? He should be mad, I believe. Great! Robby, show me that I'm wrong. Present to me the evidence that you have for this bold claim, and I will take this back. I'd love to know that I'm wrong. Bring out the documentation. As of now, I can't tell the difference between a total fabrication, Robby simply being mistaken, or this even actually happened. If I can't tell that difference, I go with what is most likely, and a story like this totally benefits Robby, so he has a definite vested interest in making it up or uncritically accepting a rumor that he heard and proliferating it. Show me that I'm wrong...I'd love it. This is difference between scientists and many others.</p>
<p class="me">Let's end with an analogy. Let's say I claim that voodoo dolls actually work. Just the other day, I was mad at someone, I made a doll of them, poked a pin in their head, and they got a headache. I've done this many times - I've given people back aches, knee pain, etc... I've even caused someone serious harm, say, with a pin through the heart. No, I'm sorry I don't have any documentation for it or, I did have documentation for it but it's gone now, or the doctor verified that there was a large hole through this person's heart and they have the documentation but won't release it, etc... But you can examine all these cases where someone got a headache, or back aches, because of my voodoo dolls. No, it doesn't happen all of the time, but it happens most of the time. And when it doesn't happen, there are positive spirits that keep that from happening - but the voodoo dolls really work more the 65% of the time. How is this <em>any</em> different from Robby's claims? I doubt Robby would believe this, but the question is why? What process did he use to come to the negative conclusion that he couldn't have used on his own claims?</p>A Good Bet Lost2014-05-29T00:00:00-04:002014-05-29T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-05-29:/posts/2014/May/29/a-good-bet-lost/<p><img alt="clock" src="images/clock_small.png"></p>
<p>So I was sitting in the cafeteria the other day, and there was a clock which showed the wrong time and the second hand was being weird. I noted that …</p><p><img alt="clock" src="images/clock_small.png"></p>
<p>So I was sitting in the cafeteria the other day, and there was a clock which showed the wrong time and the second hand was being weird. I noted that the second hand was broken, and not advancing properly, and a student of mine said "No, the second hand is just advancing two seconds at a time, but it counting out the correct time." I looked briefly again, and it didn't seem that way, so I bet $1 (my highest bet).</p>
<p>Enthusiastically, we sat there for a minute or so, independently timing the clock and it turned out she was right and I was wrong. I happily handed over the $1, and was glad to know one fewer wrong thing in the universe. That is the attitude that we need to instill in our students, and in the public. Here are a few attitudes that we need to encourage:</p>
<ul>
<li>it is good to be shown to be wrong, and one should be happy when it happens</li>
<li>it is good to update ones belief based on the evidence</li>
<li>it is good to actively look for ways to challenge your beliefs</li>
<li>it is good to put your money where your mouth is</li>
</ul>
<p>If more of our politicians had this scientific attitude, the world would be a better place.</p>Pennies!2014-05-28T00:00:00-04:002014-05-28T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-05-28:/posts/2014/May/28/pennies/<p><img src="images/Saturn_with_Pennies.png" alt="SIE" style="width: 250px;"/></p>
<p>I just added an example of simple model construction to my textbook, <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie.html">Statistical Inference for Everyone</a>. It's a process I don't think I've ever seen in an intro stats book …</p><p><img src="images/Saturn_with_Pennies.png" alt="SIE" style="width: 250px;"/></p>
<p>I just added an example of simple model construction to my textbook, <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie.html">Statistical Inference for Everyone</a>. It's a process I don't think I've ever seen in an intro stats book, but is common in scientific work. The idea is that you start off with a simple model, collect data, then notice where your simple model breaks, propose a new more complex model, and do the analysis again. </p>
<p>The entire data set I use is here, where I have the mass of US Pennies for several years:</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Year</th>
<th>Mass</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>1960</td>
<td>3.133</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1961</td>
<td>3.083</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1962</td>
<td>3.175</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1963</td>
<td>3.120</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1964</td>
<td>3.100</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1965</td>
<td>3.060</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1966</td>
<td>3.100</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1967</td>
<td>3.100</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1968</td>
<td>3.073</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1969</td>
<td>3.076</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1970</td>
<td>3.100</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1971</td>
<td>3.110</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1972</td>
<td>3.080</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1973</td>
<td>3.100</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1974</td>
<td>3.093</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1989</td>
<td>2.516</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1990</td>
<td>2.500</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1991</td>
<td>2.500</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1992</td>
<td>2.500</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1993</td>
<td>2.503</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1994</td>
<td>2.500</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1995</td>
<td>2.497</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1996</td>
<td>2.500</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1997</td>
<td>2.494</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1998</td>
<td>2.512</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1999</td>
<td>2.521</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2000</td>
<td>2.499</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2001</td>
<td>2.523</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2002</td>
<td>2.518</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2003</td>
<td>2.520</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="single-true-value-model">Single "True" Value Model</h2>
<p>One starts this analysis loading the first part (earlier than 1975), and applying a model which states that there is a single "true" value. The best estimate of this value is the sample mean, and the posterior distribution is normal. A plot of this looks like</p>
<p><img alt="single" src="images/mass1965_1974_1_value.png"></p>
<p>If you apply it to all the data, you get something that clearly looks ridiculous:</p>
<p><img alt="single2" src="images/mass1965_2003_1_value.png"></p>
<p>It is then that it makes sense to change the model to a two "true" values model.</p>
<h2 id="double-true-value-model">Double "True" Value Model</h2>
<p>With this model, we have separate means for the pre- and post-1975 data, and can look at the overlap of the credible intervals, or the posterior distribution of the difference, both of which clearly show a statistically significant difference.</p>
<p><img alt="double" src="images/mass1965_2003_2_value.png"></p>
<p><img alt="double diff" src="images/mass1965_2003_2_value_diff.png"></p>
<h2 id="advantages">Advantages</h2>
<p>This approach has several advantages over the typically methods used to teach this topic:</p>
<ol>
<li>it progresses systematically from simple to complex</li>
<li>it shows the benefits and limitations of the simple models</li>
<li>it connects the procedures of the complex models to the earlier ones, so they don't seem like disjoint unrelated topics.</li>
</ol>Statistical Heresies2014-05-22T00:00:00-04:002014-05-22T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-05-22:/posts/2014/May/22/statistical-heresies/<p>I'm giving a talk today, highlighting some of the current Bayesian/frequentist relationships as they relate to introductory statistics education. You can <a href="pdf/Statistical%20Heresies.pdf">download the pdf here</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We live in a …</p></blockquote><p>I'm giving a talk today, highlighting some of the current Bayesian/frequentist relationships as they relate to introductory statistics education. You can <a href="pdf/Statistical%20Heresies.pdf">download the pdf here</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We live in a world where analytics in the form of statistical
inference is playing a significant role, from predicting
elections, learning patterns in shopping habits, finding the
genetic sources for diseases, and recognizing voice for
computer control. Despite these successes, there is a serious
disconnect between the best practices in the industry and
what is typically taught at the undergraduate level. This
faculty development seminar will introduce this problem,
explore its history, present its causes, and make some modest
proposals to solving it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One comment after the fact - every single claim I made about why Bayes is not taught was demonstrated in the seminar.</p>Supporting Dualism2014-05-16T00:00:00-04:002014-05-16T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-05-16:/posts/2014/May/16/supporting-dualism/<p>I just finished listening to this excellent debate. I thought the proponents of dualism were credulous, and ignored the specific requests by the opponents to rule out alternatives. I'll get …</p><p>I just finished listening to this excellent debate. I thought the proponents of dualism were credulous, and ignored the specific requests by the opponents to rule out alternatives. I'll get into that in another post, but I had to respond to this one point immediately, because it is so easy to confirm that it jumped out at me. </p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/h0YtL5eiBYw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<p>At <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0YtL5eiBYw&feature=youtu.be&t=1h26m29s">time point 1h26m29s</a> we have the following:</p>
<p>Eben Alexander:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The very renowned skeptic and scientist Carl Sagan admitted that past-life memories in children, the evidence for that is overwhelming. He said that in his book, the Demon Haunted World, on page 302, he says <strong>exactly that</strong>. <em>(emphasis original)</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Steve Novella:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I've read that book 100 times, Carl Sagan did not believe in past lives, he did not believe in anything paranormal or supernatural, that is <strong>just not true</strong>. <em>(emphasis original)</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>It turns out that I have that book on my bookshelf, and so it was an easy matter to check this claim. Here is the quote of the entire paragraph referenced from the Demon Haunted World, page 302, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Perhaps one percent of the time, someone who has an idea that smells, feels, and looks indistinguishable from the usual run of pseudoscience will turn out to be right. Maybe some undiscovered reptile left over from the Cretaceous period will indeed be found in Loch Ness or the Congo Republic; or we will find artifacts of an advanced, non-human species elsewhere in the Solar System. At the time of writing there are three claims in the ESP field which, in my opinion, deserve serious study: (1) that by thought alone humans can (barely) affect random number generators in computers; (2) that people under mild sensory deprivation can receive thoughts or images "projected" at them; and (3) that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation. I pick these claims not because I think they're likely to be valid (I don't), but as examples of contentions that <em>might</em> be true. The last three have at least some, although still dubious, experimental support. Of course, I could be wrong.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is very hard to imagine someone misreading this into thinking that Carl Sagan either believes these claims, or is claiming that they have overwhelming scientific support, given that he directly says he doesn't believe the claims and that the evidence is dubious!. I can see only two alternatives:</p>
<ol>
<li>the person making the claim doesn't expect anyone to check, and knows better - they are lying.</li>
<li>the person actually believes that Sagan had this stance, from reading this paragraph - they have misread it so profoundly, it defies explanation.</li>
</ol>
<p>I recognize that it is nearly impossible to determine whether someone is lying, but this claim stands out as such a distortion it is hard to imagine under what circumstances an intelligent person could unknowingly make this claim, or even convince themselves that the claim is true. Perhaps they didn't read it, or stopped at the list of things that Sagan said "deserves serious study" and misread that as an endorsement? Given how specific this is, it is also hard to imagine that Eben Alexander hasn't used this argument before, in which case someone must have tried to correct him on it. If not, he needs to read this blog! If so, and he persists in this quote, then the distortion is almost certainly deliberate. Every way I try to wrap my brain around this exchange, I am perplexed and dismayed.</p>Siblings and Astronomy2014-05-14T00:00:00-04:002014-05-14T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-05-14:/posts/2014/May/14/siblings-and-astronomy/<p><img alt="Sun" src="images/Sun.jpg"></p>
<p>On a "science is darn cool" note, the sibling of the Sun <a href="http://time.com/95587/astronomers-find-a-sibling-star-to-the-sun/">has been found</a>. It's a pretty straightforward idea, although technically challenging. Stars that are "born" from the same …</p><p><img alt="Sun" src="images/Sun.jpg"></p>
<p>On a "science is darn cool" note, the sibling of the Sun <a href="http://time.com/95587/astronomers-find-a-sibling-star-to-the-sun/">has been found</a>. It's a pretty straightforward idea, although technically challenging. Stars that are "born" from the same gas cloud will carry the same quantities of some rare elements, which can be used a a family signature. It's a direct confirmation of a long-standing theory of stellar formation, and totally cool. I'm reminded of a comment Richard Feynman made, which said that science adds to the appreciation of things that are available to everyone. Looking up at the stars, the scientist doesn't just see points of light against a dark background, but sees pieces of a long story, of which we are all a part. </p>Spurious Correlations2014-05-12T00:00:00-04:002014-05-12T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-05-12:/posts/2014/May/12/spurious-correlations/<p>I saw this list of <a href="http://www.tylervigen.com/">spurious correlations</a>, including "US spending on science, space, and technology" correlates with "Suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation", "Number people who drowned by falling into …</p><p>I saw this list of <a href="http://www.tylervigen.com/">spurious correlations</a>, including "US spending on science, space, and technology" correlates with "Suicides by hanging, strangulation and suffocation", "Number people who drowned by falling into a swimming-pool" correlates with "Number of films Nicolas Cage appeared in" and "Per capita consumption of cheese (US)" correlates with "Number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets". These aren't spurious correlations, actually, they are spurious <em>causations</em>. The correlation is real, it's just that there isn't a cause-and-effect relationship (in either direction) - there is some third variable (or variables) influencing both.</p>
<p>I love showing these sorts of examples to student to talk about correlations and causation. </p>
<p>Most of these are just correlated by trends - up or down for the entire timeframe, where it is clear what the third variable is - population growth, for example. A couple of them, like "Worldwide non-commercial space launches correlates with Sociology doctorates awarded (US)" and "Age of Miss America correlates with Murders by steam, hot vapours and hot objects" have interesting oscillations that are not obvious. There is almost certainly a third variable there...otherwise there is some space-tech training in sociology that I am unaware of.</p>"Skeptics" vs "Realists"2014-05-08T00:00:00-04:002014-05-08T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-05-08:/posts/2014/May/08/skeptics-vs-realists/<p>The graphic below has circulated the internet for a while, and I think it worthy of comment. The <em>intent</em> of the graphic is to point out how <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47">silly those so-called …</a></p><p>The graphic below has circulated the internet for a while, and I think it worthy of comment. The <em>intent</em> of the graphic is to point out how <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=47">silly those so-called global warming "skeptics" are</a>. However, I think there is a hidden proposal there as well, worthy of an undergraduate project. </p>
<p><img alt="Skeptics vs Realists" src="http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Escalator_2012_500.gif"></p>
<p>If we call the "skeptics" model <span class="math">\(M_S\)</span> and the "realists" model <span class="math">\(M_R\)</span>, then we want the following probabilities:</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(M_S|{\rm data})
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>and</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(M_R|{\rm data})
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
where the data is the temperature data for the past 40 years (or farther, if you want to compare to the entire known <a href="http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/">global temperature record</a>).</p>
<p>The reason that we consider the "skeptics" model as potentially silly is the direct consequence of the probability analysis. The "realist" model has two parameters, so when we calculate the model probability we marginalize over those parameters.
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(M_R|{\rm data})= \int_{\alpha,\beta} P(M_R|{\rm data},\alpha,\beta)P(\alpha,\beta)
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
where <span class="math">\(\alpha\)</span> and <span class="math">\(\beta\)</span> are the slope and intercept of the linear model, respectively. We incur an <a href="http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~mackay/itprnn/ps/345.357.pdf">Ockham penalty</a> for each marginalized parameter. </p>
<p>When we look at the "skeptics" model, we have the same.
</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(M_S|{\rm data})= \int_{\alpha_1,\beta_1,\alpha_2,\beta_2,\cdots,t_1,t_2,\cdots} P(M_S|{\rm data},\alpha_1,\beta_1,\alpha_2,\beta_2,\cdots,t_1,t_2,\cdots)P(\alpha_1,\beta_1,\alpha_2,\beta_2,\cdots,t_1,t_2,\cdots)
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>
where <span class="math">\(\alpha_1\)</span> and <span class="math">\(\beta_1\)</span> are the slope and intercept, respectively, of the first line up to year <span class="math">\(t_1\)</span>. <span class="math">\(\alpha_2\)</span> and <span class="math">\(\beta_2\)</span> are the slope and intercept, respectively, of the <em>second</em> line up to year <span class="math">\(t_2\)</span>, etc.... Since we incur an <a href="http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~mackay/itprnn/ps/345.357.pdf">Ockham penalty</a> for <em>each</em> marginalized parameter, this model needs to fit the data substantially better than the "realist" model to achieve the same level of probability. </p>
<p>What does <em>substantially</em> mean? That is the proposal - perhaps someone will do this proper probabilistic analysis of the problem. Maybe the "skeptics" will turn out correct!</p>
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</script>Dualism, Naturalism, and other Isms2014-05-06T00:00:00-04:002014-05-06T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-05-06:/posts/2014/May/06/dualism-naturalism-and-other-isms/<p>Haven't had a post in too long, and I hope to get back into things.</p>
<p>I was reading an <a href="http://siftingreality.com/2014/04/24/if-the-mind-and-brain-are-not-identical-naturalism-is-false/">article about dualism</a> where they point out 6 reasons that naturalism …</p><p>Haven't had a post in too long, and I hope to get back into things.</p>
<p>I was reading an <a href="http://siftingreality.com/2014/04/24/if-the-mind-and-brain-are-not-identical-naturalism-is-false/">article about dualism</a> where they point out 6 reasons that naturalism is false and that dualism must be true, as evidenced by properties of the mind and brain. It makes sense to respond to each of the claims in turn, and to focus on how we know what we know, how we can demonstrate dualism or not, and where to go from here.</p>
<p>1) First-person access to mental properties</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"This concept of your dream car is not something that people can see by looking at your brain structure.
Physical properties can be physically accessed, but the properties of your dream car and privately accessed"{.theist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although we are a bit far from publicly accessing as complex an object as a car, we can actually access brain states with various types of imaging and reconstruction. One interesting one is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbTf2nE3Lbw">reconstruction of concepts via fMRI</a> by Tom Mitchell. Another is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjDnYxJ0bo">movie reconstruction from brain activity</a> by Jack Gallant. Both of these demonstrate that what was once privately held experiences can be publicly accessed as activity patterns in the brain. Note this is not "looking at your brain structure", it is looking at the <em>process</em> of the brain. Thus, the sorts of dichotomies present in this article between the mind and the <em>structure</em> of the brain are all strawmen. </p>
<p>2) Our experience of consciousness implies that we are not our bodies</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Common sense notion of personhood is that we own our bodies, but we are not our bodies"{.theist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My first reaction with this is to think:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Common sense notion of the world is that it is flat, and unmoving"{.atheist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since when do we use <em>common sense</em> to determine truth? It might be an initial guide, but our experience with relativity and quantum mechanics should immediately make one wary about using common sense as the sole method for determining the truth of a claim. It is true that we have a label, we call "I" or "self" which seems separate from the body, but that is no argument that they are <em>actually</em> separate. It is easy to see that this label is not the entire picture, where we can push the boundaries. For example, the <em>E. coli</em> bacteria in our gut we often think of as separate from ourselves, and yet we cannot live without it, and the distinction between these beings and ourselves is <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-neuroscience-of-gut/">quite a bit blurred</a>. What about the mitochondria in our cells? Are the separate from you? Are they not? </p>
<p>It is a common pattern that, for any complex system, sharp distinctions are are rare. Animate vs inanimate, quantum systems vs classical, etc... To base ones objection to an idea because it isn't black and white is, frankly, childish.</p>
<p>3) Persistent self-identity through time</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"When you change even the smallest part of a physical object, it changes the identity of that object. Every cell in your body is different from the body you had 10 years ago. If you are the same person you were 10 years ago, then you are not your physical body" {.theist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, as your tire tread wears down from your car, it ceases to be your car? When your mechanic changes the spark plugs, it is no longer your car? "Your car" is the convenient label we give an object that has some form of permanence, whether it be a permanence of form or function. The label obviously has some limits as a result. Swapping every piece of one car with another, even if done gradually, may in fact change its identity (i.e. label) or is might not - depends on whether the label itself is useful. We aren't talking about some Platonic pure forms here, or a pre-scientific <em>essence</em>, neither of which are demonstrable. </p>
<p>When an amoeba splits, what about the identities of the resulting two? Is one of them the same original amoeba? Both of them? Neither (in which case the original one is simply gone)? Perhaps the simplistic picture of identity being used here is just not useful. The words may in fact not have any meaning.</p>
<p>So the label that we ascribe to "self" is perfectly fine 10 years later, despite the changes in cells, because there is some permanence of form and function. Each new brain cell, for example, fills the shoes of the ones that went before in much the same way that factory workers take shifts - the process continues, even if the components change over time. If the mind is the <em>process</em> of the brain, as stated before, then this is no problem. If the label "self" leads to contradictions when pushed too far, then perhaps the label or the way we imagine the label being used is no longer appropriate in those situations.</p>
<p>4) Mental properties cannot be measured like physical objects</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Physical objects can be measured (e.g. – use physical measurements to measure weight, size, etc.).
Mental properties cannot be measured. {.theist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Stated without support, and contradicted by the evidence above for (1).</p>
<p>5) Intentionality or About-ness</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Mental entities can refer to realities that are physical, something outside of themselves. A tree is not about anything, it just is a physical object. But you can have thoughts about the tree out there in the garden that needs water."{.theist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm not sure if this statement is even defined - what does it mean to be "about" something, such that a physical object can't be "about" something. Mental states, as represented by brain activity, are correlated with physical reality, can have representations of that reality (mental models) which are essentially a form of correlated activity, so in that sense mental states can be about physical reality. Of course there can be limited examples of this sort of correlation on a much simpler level. The ripples on a pond are correlated with the stone dropped in, for example. There is a very big difference between mental states and ripples on a pond, clearly, but the the notion of correlation with physical reality is shared between the two. I'd have to wait for a better definition of "about", used in this context, to make a better response.</p>
<p>6) Free will and personal responsibility</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"If humans are purely physical, then all our actions are determined by sensory inputs and genetic programming." {.theist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No argument there.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Biological determinism is not compatible with free will, and free will is required for personal responsibility." {.theist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Libertarian free will is what is being implied here, and I'd have to agree. There are other forms of "free will" which is completely consistent with biological determinism, such as <a href="http://bigthink.com/videos/daniel-dennett-explains-consciousness-and-free-will">those proposed by Dan Dennett</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Our experience of moral choices and moral responsibility requires free will, and free will requires minds/souls." {.theist}</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sorry, this doesn't follow. If free will is an illusion, perhaps a useful one for a functioning society, then our experience of it is in no way evidence of its existence. You would need to demonstrate this claim, beyond saying "It feels like I have free will" or "It feels like I make moral decisions". Again, just because it feels like the Earth is flat and unmoving doesn't mean it is so.</p>
<p>So, in sum, we have evidence that the activity of the brain is identical to the mind. The claims made in the article quoted above amount to nothing but unsubstantiated assertions, and the appeal to so-called common sense and feeling deep down that it is true. In science we hold things to higher standards, and that is a good thing. To cling to dualism because it simply <em>feels</em> right is a desperate move.</p>Noah and the Flood - did it happen? - 16 February 20082014-03-19T00:00:00-04:002014-03-19T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-03-19:/posts/2014/Mar/19/noah-and-the-flood-did-it-happen-16-february-2008/<p>As part of the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a …</p><p>As part of the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">full RSS Feed of the podcasts</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 16 Feb 2008 Noah and the Flood - did it happen? - 16 February 2008 -- Noah and the flood - did it really happen?</em>
> Creationist David Rosevear says that recent science suggests a global flood did occur, and that Christians should read Genesis literally. Atheist Robert Stovold contends that creationists routinely warp the facts to suit their agenda. Geologist Gregg Marshall and Christian evolutionist Michael Roberts also contribute.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/b3e2271e-c79d-40c0-b9ba-f2e7a014f6e8.mp3">Download mp3</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator{.theist}</li>
<li>David Rosevear - Christian{.theist}</li>
<li>Robert Stovold - Atheist{.atheist}</li>
<li>Gregg Marshall - Atheist Geologist{.atheist}</li>
<li>Comments by myself, bblais{.me}</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Noah's flood episode - this one is going to be painful. (said before listening to it) :-) {.me}</p>
<p>David - After exploring the concepts, he has determined that things don't go from dinosaurs to birds, and so on, <em class="tq">"there is too much complexity for it to have happened by chance."</em> {.theist}</p>
<p>This one sentence alone, which was what he started out saying, demonstrates without any doubt that he has <em>zero</em> understanding of science, especially the process of evolution. <em>By chance</em>? Not a <em>single</em> biologist on the planet makes the claim that this complexity arose by chance - a statement easily verified from any introductory biology textbook. With such a start, do I really need to listen to the rest of the argument? When someone demonstrates such a profound ignorance of the subject, can I trust that he has correctly assessed the evidence? If his sole motivation for seeking an alternative explanation is based on not understanding the original explanation, is there value in considering his point of view at all? I am not sure. {.me}</p>
<p>David - The laying down of chalk deposits all around Europe is evidence of a large catastrophe. {.theist}</p>
<p>Robert - Ice cores don't show evidence of a global flood, we have bristlecone pine trees that are over 5000 years old and others that are 10000 years old. Creationists like to be selective, and say that trees can lay down more than one ring in a year to try to cast doubt on the tree ring data. However, a bigger problem is that sometimes they don't lay down any rings in the year. Science is well aware of these problems, which is why they cross-reference to other methods, such as carbon dating, other tree rings, ice cores, the timing of known events such as volcanos, etc... {.atheist}</p>
<p>Gregg - asked why there aren't fossils of people and fish and animals all mixed into all of the layers? To point out a few things that are laid down quickly, like volcanic (igneous) rock, doesn't support the general pattern. {.atheist}</p>
<p>These are very good points. My favorite challenging question to creationists is <em>"how did the koala bear reach Australia after the flood?"</em> There isn't a <em>single</em> fossil of a koala from Mount Ararat to Australia. {.me}</p>
<p>David - nothing could fossilize in the fractions of an inch per year necessary for building up these large calcium carbonate deposits. {.theist}</p>
<p>Gregg - The creationists often have bizarre explanations for why the lower levels of the strata have simpler organisms and the upper levels have more complex organisms. The explanations are often like differential mobility yields order, i.e. "the bigger dinosaurs would die and sink, birds are faster and fly, and that's why we get the order we have". {.atheist}</p>
<p>One way to ask it is, why is there not a <em>single</em> rabbit fossil in the pre-cambrian layers...one small, sick and slow rabbit which couldn't keep up with the others, etc...? There isn't even <em>one</em> dinosaur in the layer with humans? This is a reminder that one can come up with <em>possible</em> scenarios for anything, but at some point they require so many extra assumptions, or things to be <em>just right</em> that they strain credulity. {.me}</p>
<p>Robert - Why is it that children are not found lower in the geological layering than the adults of the same species? {.atheist}</p>
<p>David - When clams die they open up, and yet all the clam fossils are closed. This speaks to a catastrophic event.{.theist}</p>
<p>Here again, there are no answers given to the obvious questions, and select examples (i.e. clams) are trotted out as if they demonstrate the entire pattern. The cherry-picking here is amazing! {.me}</p>
<p>David - Darwin observed beak changes, not origin of species.{.theist}</p>
<p>Going from Darwin's observations of small changes in an observable small time scale to speciation on the unobservable large time scale is a matter of inference, and does not require direct observation of speciation on the large scale to support it. Of course there are <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html">many observations of speciation</a>, but that is not the point here. Creationists love to make a distinction between so-called micro-evolution (small change) and macro-evolution (large change), and then claim that all that is observed is micro-evolution. From this line of argument, you could never talk about nearly any process in astronomy, because they almost all take place over scales too long to observe. In astronomy, as in the field of evolution, one often sees snapshots of the process at many different times along the process, and have to infer the process. Once you infer the process, there are ways of testing it by directing your observations to certain things, like the detailed structure of galaxies or the detailed relationships in DNA codes. This is a basic property of all science, really, and I have disdain for the creationist diversions. {.me}</p>
<p>David - Also the Bible says <em>kinds</em>, not species. Noah could have brought on one kind of wolf, not all kinds of dogs, for example. When it was pointed out that there would have had to have been a lot speciation in 4000 years or so, he countered that a lot can be done with breeding in that length of time. {.theist}</p>
<p>Of course, he fails to address the issue here, because I'm fairly certain people have not been breeding beetles this entire time, and the number of species of beetles would have overwhelmed the ark. {.me}</p>
<p>Robert brings up diversity, as measured by allele frequency, but I get the feeling that there are clearly, more direct arguments than the ones he is choosing to bring up. For example, the creationist would have to estimate speciation rates millions of times higher than is observed to get the diversity observed, and yet they still claim that speciation can't occur because of the slow process of evolution - you can't have it both ways! {.me}</p>
<p>The episode wasn't nearly as painful as I expected, but it does highlight the level of cherry-picking and failure of proper scientific inference that is required to be a creationist.{.me}</p>How to Dodge the Consequences of Belief2014-03-13T00:00:00-04:002014-03-13T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-03-13:/posts/2014/Mar/13/how-to-dodge-the-consequences-of-belief/<p>So I was recently reminded of an old <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt95KHe6hUU">interview of Alister McGrath by Richard Dawkins</a>. When I first listened to this, quite some time ago, I recall feeling that McGrath …</p><p>So I was recently reminded of an old <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt95KHe6hUU">interview of Alister McGrath by Richard Dawkins</a>. When I first listened to this, quite some time ago, I recall feeling that McGrath was rather slippery, that I listened for an entire hour and still couldn't really determine what the guy actually believed was true. I listened to it again, over the past couple days, and can see why I had my initial impression.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/vt95KHe6hUU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2 id="faith">Faith</h2>
<p>They start with a discussion about the term <em>faith</em>, and McGrath basically says that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>we're dealing with a different situation than, for example, evidence that the moon orbits the earth at a certain distance</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and </p>
<blockquote>
<p>there are many possible ways of explaining [the world], and we have to make the very difficult judgement of which is the best of these [explanations]...evidence takes us thus far, but then when it comes to deciding between a number of competing explanations, it is extremely difficult to make an evidence-driven argument</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I believe faith is rational, in the sense that it tries to make the best possible sense of things...even though we believe this is the best possible sense of things, we cannot <em>prove</em> this is the case...there is a point where [faith] goes <em>beyond</em> the evidence</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So essentially, as I read it, he is talking about probabilistic reasoning, yet if faith is simply probabilistic reasoning then why have another word? Why not talk about evidence, and the weight of probabilities? Historians, for example, don't use the word <em>faith</em> even though they deal with probabilities, some of which are highly uncertain. Scientists all the time deal with probabilities, without invoking the word <em>faith</em> in any paper. </p>
<p>Further, McGrath ignores the fact that there already is a proper and rational method to address the "decision between a number of competing explanations", that <em>doesn't</em> go beyond the evidence, and doesn't claim more knowledge than is justified. What is this method? It's called the mathematics of probability! So, McGrath is claiming there is a problem that faith solves, which is not a problem at all, and he is using the word faith (at the moment) as synonymous with probability.</p>
<p>Why is he doing this? It seems as if it is because McGrath is holding to a double standard, and shifts the definitions of concepts around whenever pressed. He doesn't like the notion of believing strongly without sufficient evidence (which is truly what faith is), so he defines it (at the moment) to be equivalent to probabilities. Of course he doesn't actually admit this, and if pressed he'd say that <em>faith</em> is more than a synonym for probability, but he fails to define it properly. </p>
<h2 id="inference-to-the-best-explanation">Inference to the Best Explanation</h2>
<p>So McGrath basically then goes on to talk about probabilistic reasoning, and says that with faith one is doing <em>inference to the best explanation</em>, given a number of competing multiple explanations. As I stated earlier, if all he means is that faith is probabilistic reasoning, then we don't have an argument - except in making things clear. I would contend, along with Dawkins, the the <em>vast</em> majority of people do not take it to mean this. </p>
<p>However, I'd like to also challenge his basic premise here: that in dealing with multiple competing explanations that one should try to "infer to the best explanation", and <em>believe strongly in that explanation</em>. A simple example, used in other contexts, suffices to see this. Say we have two explanations of the number of stars, one which says that there is an <em>even</em> number of stars and another that says that there is an <em>odd</em> number of stars. Pretty much we know that, at any given instant, one of these <em>must</em> be true. However strong belief in either one is completely unwarranted - there is simply no way to know. From a probabilistic framework, we express this as </p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P({\rm odd}) &=&0.5 \\\\
P({\rm even})&=&0.5
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>However, it is worse than that. Let's say we had a smidgen of evidence toward the even-star model, such that we had:</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P({\rm odd}) &=&0.499995 \\\\
P({\rm even})&=&0.500005
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>Even though there is a <em>best</em> explanation here (<em>even</em> is slightly more probable than <em>odd</em>), and we have the exact probabilities, it is <em>still irrational</em> to hold strong belief in either explanation. One really does have to look where the weight of the probabilities lay. Inference to the best explanation fails as a guiding principle in the face of uncertainty, and is not well defined in all contexts. I don't think McGrath is actually doing proper probabilistic inference at all, but even if he were, this "best explanation" approach fails to address our knowledge of the problem.</p>
<h2 id="playing-dodgeball-with-an-apologist">Playing Dodgeball with an Apologist</h2>
<p>So, here is how the game is played, and why I had my initial impression of slipperiness about McGrath.</p>
<ul>
<li>First it was "faith is reasonable", based on evidence, going beyond the evidence to the "inference to the best explanation" and that as a result one can have a reasonable faith in God</li>
<li>When asked about his belief in a creator, and the evidence for it, despite having difficulty with the implied complexity of such a creator, he says </li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>I want to go back to CS Lewis who says I believe in Christianity as I believe the Sun has risen, not simply because I see <strong>it</strong> by <strong>by it</strong> I see everything else. Belief in God gives you a way of seeing the world that makes an awful lot of sense of it.</p>
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>When pressed on what this implies, he says that "there are many reasons I believe in God and that [origins] is not even the primary one"</li>
<li>He then says that "religion really isn't much about where things came from, about things in the distant past, but really about how things are now. How to live your life, how to be moral, etc..." </li>
<li>Then this becomes "the key reason for believing God is Jesus, that there is something [in the Jesus story] that needs explanation"</li>
<li>Then this becomes that it is not really about the life of Jesus, and his historicity, but how he was perceived by his followers - the significance they saw in the life and teaching of Jesus.</li>
</ul>
<p>Notice how this keeps shifting? Every time he gets pushed on the specific consequences of his statement, he retreats, redefines, and redirects the conversation. </p>
<p>He doesn't seem to realize that any explanation, even of things currently, entails assumptions that can be tested - perhaps with observations about the past. He can't simply say that religion is "not about where things came from", when they explicitly make statements of origins - statements which have been universally discredited. The atonement, for example, <em>does</em> depend critically on the existence of Jesus, the existence the "Fall", and a creator of the universe - for none of which did McGrath provide evidence. If Jesus didn't exist as a real person (or even if he was just an ordinary guy) then it doesn't matter that his followers simply <em>believed</em> that Jesus was God incarnate when determining ones belief in the doctrine of salvation. The demonstration of the historicity of the events claimed is <em>necessary</em> for the doctrinal belief. If you don't have strong evidence of the former, then you are not rational to believe strongly in the latter - you'd be claiming to know things you could not know.</p>
<p>As a scientist, one takes an idea, and pushes the idea to it furthest consequences to see where it breaks, or to see what it depends on. McGrath changes the topic whenever this is done - he does not want to face the very real, specific consequences of his stated beliefs and refuses to see the connections between the things that may be confirmable (apparent design in the biology and the universe itself, historicity of people and events, alleged miracle claims, etc...) and the things that make him feel good, but are unmeasurable (existence of heaven, the atonement of sins, etc...). </p>
<h2 id="the-problem-of-evil">The Problem of Evil</h2>
<p>His biggest dodge came with the problem of evil. When initially asked about it, he says that there are two basic approaches. One is to "find an explanation for it, but that doesn't get us really far because we can't really make sense of these things". And the other approach is to address how to "cope with suffering" that is a part of this world. Now that is an amazing admission! He's basically missing the point of the argument, either willfully or otherwise, to focus on what feels good. He wants to wave away the real consequences of the beliefs he is claiming to have.</p>
<p>McGrath was quick to make the following statements:</p>
<ol>
<li>God does not act directly in this world</li>
<li>The single child saved in a tragedy killing ten thousand people he'd interpret as an act of God, and thus God is responsible for this child being saved.</li>
<li>The killing of ten thousand people was not God's fault, but rather perhaps there is no other way for the universe to be this way</li>
</ol>
<p>See the contradictions here? McGrath couldn't. Either God acts in the world, and is measurable, or he does not act in the world and is thus either impotent, immoral, or simply indifferent. The problem of evil has no other outlet. If you try to argue (as William Lane Craig does) that God may have sufficient reasons, then you undermine the entire notion of personal conscience - the seemingly immoral actions (or inactions) of God fly in the face of it.</p>
<h2 id="one-final-thought">One final thought</h2>
<p>McGrath stresses again and again the <em>usefulness</em> of religion, without once demonstrating that it is <em>true</em>. He failed, again and again, to address the immediate consequences of his beliefs and simply dodged at every point, in order to wallow in generalities.</p>
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</script>A Foreshadowing of the End of the World?2014-03-10T00:00:00-04:002014-03-10T00:00:00-04:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-03-10:/posts/2014/Mar/10/a-foreshadowing-of-the-end-of-the-world/<p><img alt="asteroid" src="images/Asteroid_1.png"></p>
<p>From time to time we see a headline like <em><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/science-technology/437733/The-end-of-the-world-IS-nigh-Huge-asteroid-will-hit-earth-in-2032-claim-astronomers">The end of the world IS nigh: Huge asteroid 'will hit earth in 2032' claim astronomers</a></em> or a more modest one …</p><p><img alt="asteroid" src="images/Asteroid_1.png"></p>
<p>From time to time we see a headline like <em><a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/science-technology/437733/The-end-of-the-world-IS-nigh-Huge-asteroid-will-hit-earth-in-2032-claim-astronomers">The end of the world IS nigh: Huge asteroid 'will hit earth in 2032' claim astronomers</a></em> or a more modest one from this week's close-shave, <em><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/10644805/Asteroid-to-hurtle-past-the-Earth-at-27000-mph.html">Asteroid to hurtle past the Earth at 27,000 mph</a></em>, and you are reminded of the random dangers that exist for us fragile creatures on this planet. I do have to grin whenever I hear the term "end of the world" (not used in the second article), because the end of the world will pretty much only happen when our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_the_Earth#Red_giant_stage">Sun possibly consumes it in 5 billion years</a> - the world is a big rock and hard to get rid of. What is intended in such phrases, of course, is the end of our lives on this world, which will happen at some point almost certainly much much sooner than that. </p>
<p>Whenever I see headlines about rocks flying close by, I go over to the <a href="http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/">Near Earth Objects site</a> and look at the close approaches. This week's particular rock, labeled <a href="http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2000%20EM26;orb=1">2000 EM26</a>, will pass within 9 lunar distances which is pretty close on the solar system scale. </p>
<p>It is educational, and fun, to <a href="http://www.lsst.org/lsst/public/neo1">read about these sorts of dangers</a>. From the chart below, this week's rock, if it were to strike, would deliver well over 100 megatons of TNT of energy, much larger than our largest nuclear bombs. Yikes! Luckily, this is unlikely to happen - for this rock. However, it <em>is</em> likely to happen at some point. I'm not sure if that makes for an optimistic or pessimistic message, but I'll let you decide. </p>
<p><img alt="neodamage" src="http://www.lsst.org/files/img/neodamage_lg.jpg">
(<a href="http://www.lsst.org/files/img/neodamage_lg.jpg">link to bigger image</a>)</p>Is Astrology Scientific?2014-02-26T00:00:00-05:002014-02-26T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-02-26:/posts/2014/Feb/26/is-astrology-scientific/<p>In a <a href="http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Blog/2014/02/11/Majority-of-young-adults-think-astrology-is-a-science/5201392135954/">recent article</a> bemoaning the pseudoscientific attitudes of the public, I was struck by the following result: When given the question...</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Astrology is </p>
</blockquote>
<ol>
<li>scientific</li>
<li>sort of scientific</li>
<li>not at …</li></ol><p>In a <a href="http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Blog/2014/02/11/Majority-of-young-adults-think-astrology-is-a-science/5201392135954/">recent article</a> bemoaning the pseudoscientific attitudes of the public, I was struck by the following result: When given the question...</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Astrology is </p>
</blockquote>
<ol>
<li>scientific</li>
<li>sort of scientific</li>
<li>not at all scientific</li>
</ol>
<p>…more than half think astrology is either <em>"scientific"</em> or <em>"sort of scientific"</em>. At first I was dismayed, but then when I thought about it, I honestly wasn't sure what to answer. My immediate impulse was to shy away from the <em>"not at all"</em> designation - that wording seemed too strong for anything in science. Then, upon further reflection, I realized that what I didn't like was actually the term <em>"scientific"</em>, in this context. What does it mean exactly? Is it really just a synonym for <em>"supported by the evidence"</em>? If so, then the <em>"not at all supported by the evidence"</em> would indeed be too strong - there is at least <em>some</em> evidence for astrology, albeit so meager and terrible that no one should be convinced or take it seriously. I have a similar response to the hyperbolic statement that <em>"there is no evidence for god"</em>. It's not that there is <em>no</em> evidence, it's simply that the evidence is not convincing. </p>
<p>Thinking further, I wondered can a <em>topic</em> be scientific or not scientific, when science really refers to a <em>process</em>? Is the spontaneous generation of life not scientific? It can be investigated, and shown to be both unlikely and unnecessary to explain the data, but does that make it <em>unscientific</em>? Or is it just that believing in it strongly, despite the evidence, is unscientific - in which case it is really the <em>process</em> that is being labeled unscientific. Not proportioning ones belief to the strength of the evidence is unscientific (and by definition irrational). Not following the processes of science is unskeptical and unscientific, but the topic itself cannot be <em>"scientific"</em> or <em>"not scientific"</em>.</p>
<p>Perhaps a topic could be not scientific if it is <em>untestable</em>, like deism. However, astrology does not fall into that category either. In fact one student, when I implemented the survey in class, later admitted that they voted for <em>"scientific"</em> because of the detailed tests that could be done for astrology. So if you are testing the claims of astrology, and following scientific procedures, does that make astrology scientific or not? Does it even make <em>"scientific"</em> a coherent label for a topic of inquiry? I don't think so. I think the term scientific <em>must</em> refer to a process, not a subject.</p>
<p>Perhaps a better wording would be 'well supported by the data', 'not well supported by the data', and 'barely to not at all supported by the data'. Where it says <em>data</em> here, replace with <em>evidence</em> if that reads better. I'm no expert on survey wording, but this one must be improved, I believe.</p>Scientific Knowledge2014-02-12T00:00:00-05:002014-02-12T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-02-12:/posts/2014/Feb/12/scientific-knowledge/<p>In a <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/creationist-math/#comment-706">comment on my Wordpress site</a> (a site I am replacing with this one) on a post about "<a href="creationist-math.html">Creationist Math</a>", the commenter says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I believe we all choose to …</p></blockquote><p>In a <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/creationist-math/#comment-706">comment on my Wordpress site</a> (a site I am replacing with this one) on a post about "<a href="creationist-math.html">Creationist Math</a>", the commenter says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I believe we all choose to have faith in one book or another. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is simply, and demonstrably, not true. First, <strong>faith is the belief in things without sufficient evidence</strong> - once you have evidence, it no longer is faith. Second, scientists don't simply take a "book" as an authority - on anything. The only authority is Nature herself, if you permit me a bit of anthropomorphic imagery there. Any idea is entertained, and then tested against what reality is. In no way would a scientist, performing science, simply "have faith in one book or another".</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Who knows what part of our “scientific knowledge” people are going to make fun of a few generations from now as we do from generations that came before?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, I was thinking about this, and was trying to come up with a list of things that were once felt to be known by scientists and yet we make fun of now. Pretty much the only examples I could come up with are things like the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>the glib use of radioactivity, when we first started to use radioactivity for things (e.g. sizing shoes with x-rays)</li>
<li>the frequent use of antibiotics, when we first started to use antibiotics regularly</li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory">phlogiston theory</a>, when we were working out the theory of thermodynamics</li>
</ol>
<p>Perhaps I am missing some really good examples. In each case I could think of, however, the common theme was a field that was either <em>new</em> or highly <em>uncertain</em> (like much of medicine). So, on the fringes of science, we can look back and point to many things that were wrong or where the scientists were unjustifiably confident. However, we have other things like:</p>
<ol>
<li>Newton's theory of gravity</li>
<li>Theory of optics</li>
<li>Atomic theory</li>
<li>Evolution theory</li>
</ol>
<p>all of which have withstood more than 100 years of scrutiny, and although some of the initial <em>details</em> have been shown to be incomplete, they haven't been substantially modified for a long time, and they aren't about to change <em>ever</em>. 10,000 years from now, Newton's laws will still be the best description of the mid-world (not too small, not too big and fast).</p>
<p>After a quick example about the preservation of bones, the commenter ended with this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m sure there’s a way to explain this issue logically, and as you say – us religious have a biased perspective and we make up our numbers… I agree… I also believe that ironically you do the same thing. Why don’t we just agree that we both have faith in our perspectives?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>An admission that creationists "make up their numbers" is a pretty bold admission! I would want to see evidence that I "ironically" do the same thing. At what point have I "made up numbers"?</p>
<p>The point of my post was that if you spin out the consequences of the claims of creationists, they lead to ridiculous results, or fly in the face of the data itself. This is how we dismantle false ideas, to leave the true ones. If there is a specific claim you want me to evaluate, let me know! If you can demonstrate convincingly that something I have claimed is incorrect, I would celebrate! It's a win-win for me - I learn something new, and I will then believe one fewer wrong thing in life. </p>
<p>So, no, I will not agree that we both have "faith", or confidence in our positions without evidence. If you show me the evidence, I'll change my mind, of course. </p>Creationism Laid Bare2014-02-06T00:00:00-05:002014-02-06T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-02-06:/posts/2014/Feb/06/creationism-laid-bare/<p>Seems as if everyone is talking about the recent Ken Ham vs Bill Nye debate on evolution and creation, so I figured I'd put in my two cents. </p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>I couldn't …</p></li></ol><p>Seems as if everyone is talking about the recent Ken Ham vs Bill Nye debate on evolution and creation, so I figured I'd put in my two cents. </p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>I couldn't help but notice the use of the word "proof" in this debate especially by Ken Ham. After reading my <a href="https://bblais.github.io/posts/2014/Jan/31/anyone-using-the-term-scientific-proof-doesnt-know-science/">post about proof</a>, can one really maintain that my distinction between "proof" and "evidence" is "splitting hairs", as one commenter put it? Said another way, when Ken Ham says "You can't prove the world is 5 billion years old, you weren't there", is this not obviously a word-game?</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The debate was not as bad as I thought it would be. Ken Ham did not do a <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop">Gish Gallop</a>, much to my relief. I think it may encourage other scientists to deal with this problem of creationism, although I do recognize the strength in the argument that "debates" on topics that are not in debate in the scientific community can give credence to the pseudoscience.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>I have no experience in debate, so take my criticisms with a grain of salt, especially given that I think Nye did quite a good job. I thought it was great that Nye used CSI to point out there is no difference between Ham's so-called "observational science" and "historical science". I think he could have gone a lot further and pointed out that parallel at every point. For example, what if one of the investigators brought out a 100 year old book that claimed that the butler did it? What would the other investigators say, and why? What if the first investigator said that he was starting with the position that the 100 year old book was absolutely true, and that nothing could sway him from that position? Placed in a more familiar setting, Ken Ham's position is seen to be ridiculous. Essentially we have a difference of <em>methodology</em> that needs to be highlighted, and one could use CSI examples to really accentuate that difference.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>To bring out the nature of evidence in assessing claims, even in the past, and lay bare this distinction that Ham likes between observational and historical one can simply explore the question (in an entertaining way, as only Nye can do) which forms the basis for all of scientific thought:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have two people claiming different things, how do we distinguish between what is true and what is not?</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>When Ham kept saying "You can't prove the world is 5 billion years old, you weren't there", I would have first reminded everyone of the distinction between evidence and proof. More importantly I would also point out that the entire premise of shows like CSI is that the investigators <em>were not there</em> and yet can establish to a high confidence what happened! Essentially, using Ham's argument, every CSI episode would have to end "you can't know, you weren't there!"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Although I'm a bit more partial to Columbo, it is the case in all of these sorts of shows that different hypotheses about "who done it" lead to different conclusions. Often they point in the same direction on some observations, like the two hypotheses "the butler did it" and the "the cook did it" are consistent with the observation that the victim seemed to know the person attacking them. But they also predict <em>different</em> possible observations, such as footprints, or tracks left in the hall. Ham claimed that the global flood could lay down fossil beds. Nye countered with "why did <em>no</em> mammal happen to sink down to the level of the dinosaurs (of the same size?", and "why do we see no evidence of kangaroos between the Middle East and Australia?". These are exactly right, and one can drive this home again and again. Pointing out the cherry-picking of the creationist is essential!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Ham made a big deal about the assumptions of radiometric dating. A quick comment about how one can establish the confidence in these methods by calibrating with <em>known</em> processes (e.g. tree rings, sediment layering) would have been nice. When this is done, it is amazing that all of these <em>independent</em> processes lead to the <em>same</em> <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dalrymple/scientific_age_earth.html">estimates of age</a>, within the uncertainties. The creationist would have us believe that this is just a coincidence!</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Finally, there were I think two statements by Ham that I found refreshing. He flatly admitted that he was <em>starting with</em> Biblical inerrancy, and working from there. He also flatly admitted that <em>no evidence</em> would sway him from that position. Those two statements really do lay the creationist agenda bare.</p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/z6kgvhG3AkI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Anyone using the term "scientific proof" doesn't know science2014-01-31T00:00:00-05:002014-01-31T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-31:/posts/2014/Jan/31/anyone-using-the-term-scientific-proof-doesnt-know-science/<p>In my introduction to probability in class this week, I was asked if proof and evidence really meant the same thing. They don't. To summarize,</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Proof</em> does not exist in …</p></blockquote><p>In my introduction to probability in class this week, I was asked if proof and evidence really meant the same thing. They don't. To summarize,</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Proof</em> does not exist in science, only in math an philosophy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The only place you can have proof is where you have <em>axioms</em> (i.e. unprovable assertions), and can then <em>prove</em> a number of consequences of those axioms. We can prove, for example, that the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees, if we start with the Euclidean axioms of geometry. Science doesn't have axioms, and thus there are no proofs - there is only evidence. We sometimes hear the term "proven scientifically", even from people who should know better (like Richard Carrier in his <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLvWz9GQ3PQ">"Is Philosophy Stupid" talk</a>, his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Proving-History-Bayess-Theorem-Historical/dp/1616145595">books</a>, and his <a href="http://infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/theory.html">articles</a>). Other treatments of this topic can be found on the <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Proof">RationalWiki</a> and on <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/sciproof.html">talkorigins</a>.</p>
<p>The mapping to probability theory is quite easy: proofs involve probabilities which are either <span class="math">\(P=1\)</span> or <span class="math">\(P=0\)</span>. Another way of putting it is,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All of the evidence in the world cannot bring the probability of a scientific claim to certainty. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>To see this with probability theory, imagine we have two hypotheses for the Earth - flat earth and round earth. We can write Bayes' Rule for the probability of each given the data. Note that this data includes things like the experience of airplane flight, Magellan's trip, pictures from space - all of which could be faked! The flat earth hypothesis is not <em>logically</em> impossible. </p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P({\rm round}|{\rm data}) &=& \frac{P({\rm data}|{\rm round})P({\rm round})}{P({\rm data}|{\rm flat})P({\rm flat})+P({\rm data}|{\rm round})P({\rm round})}\\\\
P({\rm flat}|{\rm data}) &=& \frac{P({\rm data}|{\rm flat})P({\rm flat})}{P({\rm data}|{\rm flat})P({\rm flat})+P({\rm data}|{\rm round})P({\rm round})}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>Notice that, no matter how well the round earth hypothesis explains the data,
</p>
<div class="math">$$P({\rm data}|{\rm round})\approx 1$$</div>
<p>
and how unlikely you believe it is that the Earth is flat even <em>before</em> the data (a far too strong of an anti-flat Earth bias than is actually warranted),
</p>
<div class="math">$$P({\rm flat})\ll 1$$</div>
<p>
as long as there is some <em>possible</em> (even if seriously contrived) way to explain the data with the flat earth hypothesis,
</p>
<div class="math">$$P({\rm data}|{\rm flat}) \neq 0$$</div>
<p>
it is <em>mathematically impossible</em> to make the round earth hypothesis certain,
</p>
<div class="math">$$P({\rm round}|{\rm data})\le 1$$</div>
<p>On the right-hand side of Bayes' Rule, the larger the round-earth terms and the flat-earth terms get to 1 and 0, respectively, the closer the left-hand terms get to 1 and 0, but they never <em>equal</em> 1 and 0. This does not mean that we can't be <em>confident</em> of claims, only that we cannot have <em>absolute certainty of anything</em> in science (and therefore, in life in general). Anyone who doesn't understand that does not understand science.</p>
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</script>Did Christians steal Christmas? - 22 December 20072014-01-29T00:00:00-05:002014-01-29T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-29:/posts/2014/Jan/29/did-christians-steal-christmas-22-december-2007/<p>As part of the <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a …</p><p>As part of the <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">full RSS Feed of the podcasts</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 22 Dec 2007 - Did Christians steal Christmas? - 22 December 2007 -- Did Christians steal Christmas?</em>
> <blockquote>
<p>Justin is joined by atheist Robert Stovold who claims that Christians stole Christmas! He says the Gospel stories are nothing more that a re-hashing of similar pagan legends. Doug Harris of the Reachout Trust says that's ridiculous and will be going head to head with Robert to defend the Christmas story. Guests Ken Humphreys and Anthony McRoy also join the fray.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/252696d2-9f07-48a7-8931-4518e975583c.mp3">Download mp3</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Doug Harris - Christian</li>
<li>Robert Stovold - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Justin - In the Christmas story, it isn't stated how many wise men, and they don't go to the stable. So is this Christmas story cobbled together from other pagan stories, other myths? Are Matthew and Luke simply drawing on these other religions? {.theist}</p>
<p>Robert - They may not have been taking from them directly, but using the <em class="aq">"currency of the time"</em> to tell their story, and these sorts of stories were around. Robert doesn't know if they were presented as fact (as Christians often claim today). We don't know what the earliest Christians believed. Keep in mind that the earliest Gospel (i.e. Mark) and the earliest Christian writings (i.e. Paul) don't mention the Nativity.{.atheist}</p>
<p>Doug - Some of these Pagan myths were written after the Gospels, some of them had many stories and weren't coherent. <em class="tq">"Where is the evidence that Matthew and Mark borrowed from them?"</em> Luke actually claims to be using eye witnesses. Why would he suddenly bring in myth and legend? {.theist} </p>
<p>A very quick answer to the last one is that Luke <em>claims</em> to be bringing in using eye witnesses, which could easily be to make his account seem more credible. It certainly works for Christian apologists!{.me}</p>
<p>Doug - Either it all came from legend or none of it came from legend. The virgin birth is not an isolated, incoherent event in the story. It is tied to his life work, to the Resurrection, etc... There is no legend that has all of these components. {.theist}</p>
<p>That's a very silly argument, because even Paul doesn't include any of these components - he doesn't mention the virgin birth, or kings, or censuses. He doesn't mention Resurrection <em>stories</em>, only <em>appearances</em>. The Iliad and Odyssey both include real places, even if much of the story is legend and myth. {.me}</p>
<p>Robert - <em class="aq">"How do you establish the virgin birth from eyewitnesses?"</em> You can't! Luke didn't have to be making things up, he could simply be writing what other people told him, which he believed. {.atheist}</p>
<p>Robert - Most people don't think that Adam and Eve really existed, because then you run into problems with archaeology, cosmology, etc... yet Luke has a genealogy of Jesus that goes back to Adam. You then have to take the Adam and Eve story seriously if you want to take the Luke story seriously. {.atheist}</p>
<p>Robert - People should be under no illusions that what they are doing is simply <em class="aq">"picking and mixing"</em> in the Bible. {.atheist}</p>
<p>I entirely agree here, and I really like the idea of tying Luke's genealogy to the story of Adam, because it makes clear one of the (many) reasons we don't trust these sources. As for "picking and mixing", it was Matt Dillahunty who said that
"the Bible is a giant book of multiple choice". You can read out of it any message that you want to, because it contains either contradictory statements, or statements that can be read either way. You agree with slavery? There are verses for that! You are opposed to slavery? There are verses for that!{.me}</p>
<p>Doug - Comments on the so-called mistranslation of virgin by Matthew, pointing out that the Greek word for maiden already was being used in the context of virgin at Matthew's time, and thus is not a mistranslation as is typically claimed by atheists.{.theist}</p>
<p>I believe this is correct, also stated by <a href="http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/">Robert Price</a>. It is one of the cases of a traditional atheist argument that is unfounded when you look at the data.{.me}</p>
<p>Doug - Where is the evidence that these stories either are legends or are borrowed from legends? Just because they may be similar, does not mean that they are in fact legends or borrowed from those legends.{.theist}</p>
<p>Robert - The burden of proof lies with the one making the extraordinary claim (e.g. virgin birth, star of Bethlehem, etc...), like claims for unicorns.{.atheist} </p>
<p>Doug - If you didn't have the <em class="tq">"naturalistic presupposition"</em> against miracles, you wouldn't be so skeptical.{.theist}</p>
<p>This canard really gets my goat. As Robert Price says, you don't have to believe miracles to be impossible to not believe that every miracle claim is true. Miracles, by their nature, must be rare so one would need particularly good evidence for one, <em>even if you believe they are possible</em>. There are no contemporary accounts of any of the events related in the nativity story, from the star, to the slaughter of the innocents, to the three kings, to the particulars of the census. Even if there was a miracle, this is not convincing evidence for it.{.me}</p>Unbelievable Project: Did Jesus Exist? Bart Ehrman Q&A - 18 August 20122014-01-25T00:00:00-05:002014-01-25T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-25:/posts/2014/Jan/25/unbelievable-project-did-jesus-exist-bart-ehrman-qa-18-august-2012/<p>As part of the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a …</p><p>As part of the <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and "arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates.html">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">full RSS Feed of the podcasts</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>Full Title: <em>Did Jesus Exist? Bart Ehrman Q&A - Unbelievable? - 18 August 2012 -- Did Jesus Exist? Bart Ehrman Q&A</em></li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>In this one-on-one edition of the show, Justin Brierley speaks to New Testament Historian Bart Ehrman about his recent book "Did Jesus Exist?" which argues for the historical fact of Jesus of Nazareth.
Ehrman, whose books are more usually at odds with evangelicals, was this time attacked by atheist proponents of "mythicism" - the view that Jesus never existed.
He responds to the criticisms, including mythicists Bob Price and Richard Carrier and answers questions sent in by Unbelievable? listeners.</p>
<p>For Did Jesus Exist? <a href="http://www.bartdehrman.com/books/did_jesus_exist.htm">http://www.bartdehrman.com/books/did_jesus_exist.htm</a>
Bart's blog http://ehrmanblog.org/</p>
<p>For more Christian/non-Christian debate visit http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievableor get the MP3 podcast http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx or Via Itunes</p>
<p>You may also enjoy:
Unbelievable? 16th April 2011 - Biblical evidence for the Resurrection Bart Ehrman & Mike Licona; Unbelievable? 3 Jan 2009 "Misquoting Jesus" Ehrman & Williams, Bart Ehrman & Peter Williams - "Misquoting Jesus: Do we have the original writings of the New Testament?"</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/aa266028-8748-4d6b-8024-88f44b49f7b6.mp3">Download mp3</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Bart Ehrman - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>This episode doesn't have a <em class="theist">theist</em>, just the moderator. </p>
<p>Bart - [around 13:50] Carrier's review of my work is <em class="atheist">"vitriolic"</em> and not carried out in a <em class="aq">"scholarly mode"</em>. Saying things like <em class="aq">"this book is crap is not scholarly discourse."</em>. <em class="aq">"People who are truly interested in the historical issues don't write like this."</em>{.atheist}</p>
<p>I would have to agree with Bart Ehrman in this case. I truly wish that people who have good points to make don't undermine it with juvenile behavior. However, I don't agree that Bart makes a strong case for the existence of the historical Jesus. Part of this is that I am not <em>strongly</em> convinced by historical arguments. I can see that a reasonable person could support a belief in a historical Jesus, but I can't see that a <em>strong</em> case can be made. The counter arguments, by Carrier and Price primarily, seem convincing to me to the point that I am really agnostic about the existence of a historical Jesus. As Robert Price says, the historical Jesus if he existed is forever lost behind the stained-glass curtain of legend.{.me}</p>
<p>Bart - So a typical sort of argument from Carrier makes in his review is the "Pilot" error, dealing with a very minor point which has nothing to do with the issue. Richard Carrier didn't mount any <em>positive</em> arguments that Jesus didn't exist, and only attacked Ehrman's scholarship.{.atheist}</p>
<p>Bart - [around 24:40] Bart has an appeal to authority, claiming that Bob Price's opinion is not shared by virtually all mainstream scholars.{.atheist} </p>
<p>I have found that people lean on the consensus too much, especially apologists and Bart Ehrman. Bob Price has gone on the record as saying that he doesn't care about the consensus, and just treats each case as it comes. In Price's words, <em>"truth isn't decided by a nose count."</em> A small note about consistency - sometimes I refer to Robert Price, Bob Price, or Robert M Price. I've heard each of these used, even in this single episode, so please forgive my inconsistent use. {.me} </p>
<p>Bart - [around 28:30] Bart introduces the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment">criterion of embarrassment</a>" for the crucifixion, citing Bob Price's response that there are popular novels from the second century and hero stories like Spartacus where their hero is crucified or tortured, but escapes. Thus, according to Bob Price, this sort of story was not embarrassing, but part of the literature already. Bart retorts that he <em class="aq">"doesn't know what Bob is talking about, and further, Bob doesn't know what he is talking about either"</em> in terms of novels. We have 5 Greek novels from the ancient world, and there are no characters in any of them who are crucified and then escape. He adds that the problem isn't that a hero gets crucified but a <em>Messiah</em> gets crucified. We don't have any record of any Jew prior to Christianity saying that the Messiah would get crucified. {.atheist}</p>
<p>To me, this isn't a problem. We have the same sort of thing in UFO cults and even in the Jehovah's Witnesses - the group expects something (e.g. rapture or getting beamed up) on a particular day. That day comes, nothing happens, and they rework the expectation. As for the Greek novels, I will have to check this. I am not familiar with the extent of the literature of the time. {.me}</p>
<p>Bart - challenges Bob Price to give a reference to <em>any Jew</em> mentioning <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris">Osiris</a> within 200 years of Jesus. He then highlights the differences, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osiris">Osiris</a> staying dead, with the soul going to the underworld but the body not coming back to life.{.atheist}</p>
<p>From my understanding of both Bob Price and Richard Carrier, the claim isn't that the Jews consciously borrowed from the Osiris myth, but that it was part of the gestalt, with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism">syncretism</a> being a common process, and that one wouldn't expect a direct mention. Further, Bart is assuming that the pre-Gospel tradition (i.e. Paul) referred to a bodily resurrection - I'm not convinced this is the case.{.me}</p>
<p>Bart - considering the idea that the entire <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus#Testimonium_Flavianum">Testimonium Flavianum</a> in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus">Josephus</a> is a forgery, he essentially says that if you take out the Christian bits, the rest of it reads like Josephus, has the style of Josephus, so it is likely to be Josephus. Also, if Christians had made up a passage, it would have been much longer and flowery.{.atheist}</p>
<p>I am not convinced at all by this. The passage right before the Testimonium and right after flow smoothly into each other, the passage does not appear in an otherwise complete table of contents, and there is no mention of the passage by Church fathers (such as Origen) who had every opportunity and desire to quote such a thing. Finally, perhaps the forger would know that if the language was too flowery it would be called out as a fraud. To me, trying to guess the language that might be used if the situation were different is not a strong foundation upon which to build an argument. {.me}</p>Properly Basic Obscurantism2014-01-24T00:00:00-05:002014-01-24T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-24:/posts/2014/Jan/24/properly-basic-obscurantism/<p>I was listening to a debate about the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2014/01/18/rd-extra-debate-is-belief-in-god-irrational-chris-hallquist-vs-randal-rauser/">irrationality of theism</a>, and the theist, Randall Rauser introduced me to a concept in philosophy that I had not heard of: properly …</p><p>I was listening to a debate about the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2014/01/18/rd-extra-debate-is-belief-in-god-irrational-chris-hallquist-vs-randal-rauser/">irrationality of theism</a>, and the theist, Randall Rauser introduced me to a concept in philosophy that I had not heard of: properly basic beliefs. <a href="http://randalrauser.com/2014/01/the-rationality-of-theism-and-the-problem-of-evil/">Rauser defines rationality</a> in the following way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Positively, a rational belief is any belief that is either properly non-basic or properly basic. A properly non-basic belief is a belief that is held appropriately in light of supporting evidence. A properly basic belief is a belief that is held appropriately but which does not require evidence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It seems as if, with this definition, properly basic beliefs are equivalent in function to axioms in mathematics. Fair enough. Examples Rauser and others have used for properly basic beliefs include:</p>
<ol>
<li>Your friend Joe says he ate cornflakes this morning.</li>
<li>The testimony of your wife saying that it is raining outside where she is.</li>
<li>Jesus rose from the dead.</li>
<li>A banana is in front of me, because I see it.</li>
<li>2+2=4.</li>
</ol>
<p>Now I am no philosopher (or perhaps I am, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLvWz9GQ3PQ">depending on whom you ask</a>). That being said, I don't find the concept of "properly basic belief" to be at all clarifying, when we have words like axioms. But, for the sake of charity, I will consider the axioms of math to be properly basic for much of this post. I think, however, that even something as basic as "2+2=4" is an <em>empirical</em> relationship. If the rules of the universe were such that sometimes "2+2=5", then we'd have a different math, and thus the rules of math are really tied to the rules of the universe. However, I could imagine someone successfully arguing that the basic laws of math are "properly basic" in the sense that Rauser would want - rationally held without requiring evidence. </p>
<p>But aside from that, I don't think that <em>any</em> of the other cases are properly basic in this way, <em>especially</em> testimony of <em>any</em> kind. Rauser will say thing like, belief in the testimony of your wife is a properly basic belief because you don't need to go check it out further, get documentary evidence and video evidence to verify it, but you can still believe it rationally. I would agree with all of that, but that <em>doesn't</em> make it properly basic. You don't need to get <em>more</em> evidence, but that doesn't imply that you are accepting it <em>without</em> evidence. You have the evidence of your entire experience with your wife, as a trustworthy person. How do you know she's trustworthy? Empirically! You also have the experience, in general, that even typically untrustworthy people don't tend to be untrustworthy about mundane claims. When you assess the probability that it is truly raining, given your wife's testimony, you are really doing that with a lot of other <em>empirical</em> evidence that you have built up over your life. It is easy to see this is the case, because changing the context can completely change whether you are rational to accept the testimony. Let's say that your wife is in Antarctica. Surely it would not be rational to accept her testimony, and more rational to think she is joking, exaggerating, or mistaken. The same testimony, with a different background experience, yields different probability assignments and thus a different strength of belief in the claim. Thus, the testimony alone cannot be a properly basic belief. You can follow this line of argument for the cornflakes example as well.</p>
<p>The reason we do not simply trust the testimony of others on resurrection claims is the same reason we wouldn't trust the claim of rain in Antarctica - especially because rain in Antarctica is <em>more likely</em> than a resurrection. We have established, empirically, when testimony can be trusted (not at 100 percent ever!), and when it can't. We've established certain patterns that occur when testimony is wrong, and those patterns exist in the Biblical claims. We've established historical patterns, the process of information transmission, the influence of political entities, the scientific workings of the universe, etc... All of this comes into play when establishing the probability of the resurrection. </p>
<p>If we take the axioms of mathematics to be "properly basic", then the probability calculus follows from that, which includes the proper procedures for updating states of knowledge given evidence. All other claims must be based on evidence to be rational, and thus cannot be "properly basic", or axiomatic. Want to challenge the axioms of math? Good luck with that! If we agree to take the axioms of math as "properly basic", then all we need to say is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Axioms [of math] are statements we believe rationally with no evidence. All other things need to be believed only with sufficient evidence, and the strength of the belief should scale with the evidence. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is simply a consequence of the math, probability theory in this case. You'll note that the entire term "properly basic" has disappeared, and introducing it would only muddy the discussion, making things less clear than a straightforward application of probability theory. </p>
<p>One final thought. I get the feeling, and I doubt I could ever demonstrate this convincingly, that the only reason someone would suggest that God, or the resurrection, are "properly basic" is because there is so little evidence for these claims yet the proponents do not want to admit that they are being irrational, so the only choice is to dispense with evidence for rational belief altogether. It smacks of a desperate move, but perhaps it is just an example of Shermer's "<a href="http://www.michaelshermer.com/2002/09/smart-people-believe-weird-things/">smart people believing weird things</a>", where they are smart about rationalizing things they came to believe for non-smart reasons. </p>
<p>In either case, I believe it is important to stick to well-established mathematical vocabulary when discussing the basis for beliefs, and not introduce vocabulary that is unnecessary and, as a consequence, unclear.</p>Physics and the Flash Mind Reader2014-01-22T00:00:00-05:002014-01-22T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-22:/posts/2014/Jan/22/physics-and-the-flash-mind-reader/<p>While preparing for physics class, I found this gem: the <a href="http://www.flashlightcreative.net/swf/mindreader/">Flash Mind Reader</a>! So, here is a simple website which claims to read your mind. This is a pretty extraordinary …</p><p>While preparing for physics class, I found this gem: the <a href="http://www.flashlightcreative.net/swf/mindreader/">Flash Mind Reader</a>! So, here is a simple website which claims to read your mind. This is a pretty extraordinary claim, so I would want extraordinary evidence. It's a nice exercise in evaluating claims. First, we ask, <em>does it do what it specifically claims to do, regardless of interpretation?</em>. On the site, it asks you to think of a two-digit number, then do some basic math on it to get another number, which you then look up on a table. The table associates the final number with a symbol, and it is that symbol which the "Mind Reader" determines. So regardless of whether the interpretation is a psychic process, or some mundane process, does the process work as claimed? In many extraordinary claims of this sort, the claimant fails even at this preliminary step. This is well documented at the <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-faq.html">JREF Challenge</a> site. </p>
<p>However, in the case of the <a href="http://www.flashlightcreative.net/swf/mindreader/">Flash Mind Reader</a>, the process does seem to work! Okay, then the next step kicks in. How many ways can we think of this thing to work, and can we test them? Is it <em>overly skeptical</em> to not consider mind-reading in that list? I don't think so, but we could probably come up with some tests even there. For example, would it work done on a group of people all at once? If it did, that would certainly count <em>against</em> mind reading. Here are a few ways that I initially thought it could work, and I could quickly discount them by looking at the table, or trying it a few times.</p>
<ol>
<li>does the calculation lead to the same number each time? No!</li>
<li>is it the same symbol each time you run it? No!</li>
<li>do all the numbers have the same symbol? No!</li>
</ol>
<p>With a little imagination, one can come up with a probable explanation that does not involve telepathy, but it is a nice recreation of the way a scientist would address <em>any</em> claim, extraordinary or not.</p>Philosophy and Science - What's the Difference?2014-01-21T00:00:00-05:002014-01-21T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-21:/posts/2014/Jan/21/philosophy-and-science-whats-the-difference/<p>In a discussion on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tH3AnYyAI8">The Limits Of Science</a> with Lawrence Krass, Dan Dennett, and Massimo Pigliucci, there is much haggling over the relationship between science and philosophy. Although I think …</p><p>In a discussion on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tH3AnYyAI8">The Limits Of Science</a> with Lawrence Krass, Dan Dennett, and Massimo Pigliucci, there is much haggling over the relationship between science and philosophy. Although I think they all "got it" in the end, it would have been much more direct if they adopted my definition of philosophy (and they didn't consult me?). If you go back and listen to the debate, keeping the definition below in mind, one can see where each of them is correct even when it seems as if they are contradicting themselves. The definition of philosophy is the following:</p>
<p><strong>Philosophy</strong></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Philosophy is science without data.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What that definition does is it makes sense of Pigliucci's claim that <em>"philosophy is about clarifying questions"</em>, but it also makes sense of Krauss' claim that <em>"philosophy doesn't benefit working scientists</em>" (in physics, he adds). The result of the definition is that now we can see a continuum between philosophy and science, dictated by the amount of data, or possibly the quality of the data. So when Dennett says that philosophy is important in neuroscience and cognitive science, what he's saying is that the level of data in those fields is at such an undeveloped level that philosophy is needed to help frame the questions. This is simply an admission that these fields are in their infancy.</p>
<p>I'm not entirely sure whether philosophers would particularly like this way of phrasing, but it does seem to make sense of a lot of the confusion which typically surrounds these discussions.</p>Chess, Morality, and Well-Being2014-01-17T00:00:00-05:002014-01-17T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-17:/posts/2014/Jan/17/chess-morality-and-well-being/<p>In a discussion on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tH3AnYyAI8">The Limits Of Science</a> with Lawrence Krass, Dan Dennett, and Massimo Pigliucci, Dan Dennett makes an analogy with chess (and its rules) to morality. The analogy …</p><p>In a discussion on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tH3AnYyAI8">The Limits Of Science</a> with Lawrence Krass, Dan Dennett, and Massimo Pigliucci, Dan Dennett makes an analogy with chess (and its rules) to morality. The analogy goes something like this. He says the game of chess has been improved over time. Things like the addition of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castling">castling</a> rule, things like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_passant">en passant</a> rule, and so on have improved the game. These are done because people like to have a fast-moving game, or one that doesn't take forever. He then said something like, if you had two groups of people that disagreed about the different rules of the game, each thinking a different set of rules was superior and if one side couldn't convince the other of their perspective, then there really wasn't a "right answer". He implied that there would be a right answer if one group <em>could</em> convince the other one of the superiority of their side, and he thought that this was like morality.</p>
<p>However I think, if you take <a href="http://fora.tv/2010/11/10/Sam_Harris_Can_Science_Determine_Human_Values">Sam Harris' perspective on morality</a> as I typically do, you notice that even for Dennett there is a <em>reason</em> why different versions of chess would be better, and it doesn't come up for a vote. People prefer certain types of games and this leads to an increase in the well-being of those people that play them. Certain rule changes would be better because some changes would lead to longer games, or more difficult games, and thus decrease overall well-being. It becomes an objective fact about human consciousness and games. Both in the area of morality, and in this analogy, there <em>would</em> be right and wrong answers to those questions based on the well-being of people. Dennett's analogy might be closer than he thinks, but not in the way he intends. </p>The Cover Art for Statistical Inference for Everyone (sie)2014-01-15T00:00:00-05:002014-01-15T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-15:/posts/2014/Jan/15/the-cover-art-for-statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie/<p>The cover art for my book, <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference-for-everyone.html">Statistical Inference for Everyone</a>, is something created by me and I'd like to explain my design. We have a picture of <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131113.html">Saturn</a>, taken by …</p><p>The cover art for my book, <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference-for-everyone.html">Statistical Inference for Everyone</a>, is something created by me and I'd like to explain my design. We have a picture of <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131113.html">Saturn</a>, taken by the <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/">NASA Cassini Mission</a>, with <em>moons</em> orbiting around replaced by dice. This is a nod to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace">Laplace</a> who used the sorts of analysis presented in this book and applied it to calculating the mass of Saturn. The point of the dice is to remind us that all of this analysis started in the determination of the chances of winning various games of gambling, and that all statistical inference derives from those basic principles. We start by an analysis of dice rolling, and as a consequence can estimate the mass of Saturn and explore many other properties of the Universe. Probability is everything!</p>Statistical Inference for Everyone - Book Announcement2014-01-14T14:52:00-05:002014-01-14T14:52:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-14:/posts/2014/Jan/14/statistical-inference-for-everyone-book-announcement/<p>For anyone interested in statistical inference or probability, you
should check out my new book (released under the Creative Commons
license). You can download it here:</p>
<p><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie.html">http://web.bryant.edu …</a></p><p>For anyone interested in statistical inference or probability, you
should check out my new book (released under the Creative Commons
license). You can download it here:</p>
<p><a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie.html">http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/statistical-inference-for-everyone-sie.html</a></p>
<p>There is a software package, written in Python, for doing the
computational examples but this is not needed to read the book.</p>
<p>Let me know what you think! This is an ongoing process, with a number
of additions in the works, but I wanted to put it out there to get
feedback and to make it a bit more official.</p>New Year and New Website2014-01-14T14:41:00-05:002014-01-14T14:41:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-14:/posts/2014/Jan/14/new-year-and-new-website/<p>I've completely redone my website, <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais">http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais</a>! I
may be moving my blog over there at some point, depending on how it
goes. For right now I …</p><p>I've completely redone my website, <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais">http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais</a>! I
may be moving my blog over there at some point, depending on how it
goes. For right now I may duplicate posts, or at least point the posts
over there for a bit. </p>
<p>Let me know what you think! Anything broken?</p>Why the new website?2014-01-13T19:38:55-05:002014-01-13T19:38:55-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-13:/posts/2014/Jan/13/why-the-new-website/<p>I completely changed the framework that I use for <a href="https://bblais.github.com">my website</a>, changing it from Rapidweaver (a mac-based, GUI website editor) to <a href="http://docs.getpelican.com/en/3.3.0/">pelican</a>, a Python-based framework for making static websites. Why …</p><p>I completely changed the framework that I use for <a href="https://bblais.github.com">my website</a>, changing it from Rapidweaver (a mac-based, GUI website editor) to <a href="http://docs.getpelican.com/en/3.3.0/">pelican</a>, a Python-based framework for making static websites. Why did I do this? There are many reasons.</p>
<ul>
<li>I liked the way that the website <em>becomes</em> a blog, so that updates to my research are more easily organized and documented</li>
<li>I am a control freak with such things, and like complete configurability</li>
<li>I like writing content in <a href="http://http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">Markdown</a>, so that I can make small textual changes in the site without opening up a bloated editor</li>
<li>Working in Markdown makes it easier to change frameworks/structure in the future</li>
</ul>
<p>Let me know if things work, or don't! I'd love to know if comments work, and if it is easy to follow updates via Atom, or perhaps RSS. You can contact me at <em>bblais at gmail.com or bryant.edu</em>.</p>
<p>I'm still playing, so expect changes!</p>New Website2014-01-10T00:00:00-05:002014-01-10T00:00:00-05:00Brian Blaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-10:/posts/2014/Jan/10/new-website/<p>I completely redid my website, and am still playing with a lot of the organization, etc... I'm hoping that it will be both easier to use, and include more detailed …</p><p>I completely redid my website, and am still playing with a lot of the organization, etc... I'm hoping that it will be both easier to use, and include more detailed information about my current projects and my progress in different areas. I think I've ported everything over, but we'll see!</p>A New Year and a Deepity2014-01-06T14:04:00-05:002014-01-06T14:04:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2014-01-06:/posts/2014/Jan/06/a-new-year-and-a-deepity/<p>A short video by Fr. Robert Barron, to start off the new year.</p>
<p>[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc&w=560&h=315]</p>
<p>Here is the summary:</p>
<ul>
<li>He …</li></ul><p>A short video by Fr. Robert Barron, to start off the new year.</p>
<p>[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zMf_8hkCdc&w=560&h=315]</p>
<p>Here is the summary:</p>
<ul>
<li>He starts by referring to what "serious theists" think about the
word "God.</li>
<li>Points out that many use the word very differently, calling
attention to differences between the usage by atheists and those by
"serious" theists</li>
<li>He talks about the "genus of being", and that atheists believe that
God is the supreme instance of that...but that is exactly what God
is not...according to Aquinas, God is not a being, a thing, or
individual</li>
<li>He is the "subsistent act of to-be itself", the "great ocean of
existence from which the world in its entirety comes"</li>
<li>he contrasts this with gods, which are the supreme existence of
being, and exist within nature...God does not exist within Nature</li>
<li>"The sciences in principle cannot eliminate God, because God is not
an item within the natural world. God is not some event or
phenomenon which can be examined by the physical sciences."</li>
<li>He claims that you don't produce evidence for the creator of the
universe, like you would for Yeti...this is a category error.</li>
<li>"authentic religion" begins with the extraordinary experience of the
contingency of the world - the deep intuition that the world exists
by doesn't have to exist.</li>
<li>"We know there is some reality whose very nature is 'to be' - that
infinite source of reality that grounds and gives rise to the whole
nexus of conditioned things...in you we live and move and have our
being...that's God."</li>
<li>He ends with criticizing atheists for suggesting that the universe
pops out of nothing, and accusing theists of magical thinking. He
accuses atheists of dropping the question (claiming "I don't know")
when the question gets really interesting - why is there something
rather than nothing.</li>
</ul>
<p>I have a number of responses to parts of this:</p>
<ol>
<li>He claims that Aquinas is particularly clear, and then quotes
Aquinas as saying that God is the "subsistent act of to-be itself"
amongst other things. Sorry, that's word soup, and doesn't mean
anything.</li>
<li>He is correct that science cannot disprove such a nebulous
definition of God. If everyone simply took this definition, and
went no further, they'd be deists. If every religious person became
a deists, the atheists would have no work to do. The problem is
that religious people do not stop with deism.</li>
<li>If God isn't a "being", then what does it mean for God to speak to
people? What does it mean for God to be three persons? What does
it mean for God to intercede in the world? A personal God? I think
this guy believes, when convenient, in nebulous deism and, when
convenient, medieval and Bronze age superstition.</li>
<li>"We know there is some reality whose very nature is 'to be' - that
infinite source of reality that grounds and gives rise to the whole
nexus of conditioned things...in you we live and move and have our
being...that's God." - Notice how easily he moves from nearly
content-free deepity speak, and then slides in "...in you..."
implying a mind, a person, a relationship. This is the jump where
he is claiming to know things he cannot know.</li>
<li>I'd further add that the entire claim in the previous point is
something he cannot know. He refers to philosophical <em>intuition</em> of
the contingency of everything (including the universe) but has not
demonstrated it to be true. Until then, "I don't know" is the
proper response.</li>
<li>The only reason anyone speaks like this at all is because religion
has lost its authority on nearly every level (medicine, history,
astronomy, physics, biology, etc...), so that no one can take the
stories seriously anymore.</li>
<li>Just because something lies outside of nature, if it affects nature
at all it can be tested. This has been done with "miracle" claims
(healings, visions, resurrections, etc...), efficacy of prayer, and
models of the cosmos - and they have been all shown to be wanting.
Thus, it reduces the probability of this interventionist God claim.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you want to retreat to a non-interventionist God, in principle immune
from science, no problem...but stop claiming that that is somehow a
victory.</p>Religion and the Illusion of Moral Authority2013-12-18T14:06:00-05:002013-12-18T14:06:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-12-18:/posts/2013/Dec/18/religion-and-the-illusion-of-moral-authority/<p>This post in response to a <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/a-story-of-humanity/#comments">comment I received about the source of
morality in society</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But I realize religion, even with its negatives, remains a net
positive in human …</p></blockquote><p>This post in response to a <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/12/01/a-story-of-humanity/#comments">comment I received about the source of
morality in society</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But I realize religion, even with its negatives, remains a net
positive in human endeavors because it supplies something that cannot
be supplied by any other…a body of moral precepts that humans can
rally around and use to guide behavior in society.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't believe this, and neither do most people if they thought about
it for a little while. On a practical level, how do we figure out what
is good and what is bad?</p>
<p>Let's focus just on the Christian message, which is informed from the
moral statements in the Bible. This includes things like the Golden
Rule, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Ten Commandments...or does it?
Here are a few quotes from the Bible, both Old and New Testament, and I
ask which ones are good and bad, and how do you know?:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Deuteronomy 22:20-1 If, however, the charge is true and no proof of
the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of
her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to
death.</p>
<p>Deuteronomy 20: However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your
God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that
breathes.</p>
<p>Exodus 21:20-21 If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and
the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not
to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the
slave is his property.</p>
<p>1 Peter 2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all
respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to
those who are harsh.</p>
<p>Matthew 5: 31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must
give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who
divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim
of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.</p>
<p>Leviticus 24:16 “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he
shall surely be put to death” - penalty for breaking one of the ten
commandments</p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5;">Matthew 12:32 “Whosoever speaketh
against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this
world, neither in the world to come”. </span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5;">Now, I am not making any claims here that
any of these are good or bad (although personally, I do have opinions on
them). What I am saying is that people look at some of these and say
they are bad, some are just fine, but </span><em>whatever reason people
use, they aren't using the religion as the authority to
decide</em><span style="line-height:1.5;">. That's the point. People
already pick and choose messages from the Bible, taking some of the more
unpleasant things as anachronistic or metaphorical, other unpleasant
things as exaggerations, and keeping the seemingly good things. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height:1.5;">In all of this, the religion isn't the
thing giving them guidance in their moral decisions. The religion is
simply giving a vocabulary to summarize the moral perspective someone
has for non-religious reasons, in much the same way that the
</span><a href="http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html">Robert Frost poem "The Road Not
Taken"</a><span style="line-height:1.5;"> summarizes the feeling many
have of being better choosing a more difficult path in life. However,
we come to that feeling for "non-Frostian" reasons. It could even be
said that for some, reading the Frost poem motivates them to see value
in a difficult decision. However, there is something "non-Frostian"
motivating the decision to draw inspiration from this poem, and not
another one.</span></p>
<p>We can take our moral messages from many sources, and in practice we do
that. Although many people claim that religion gives us our morality,
or moral guidance, in reality it does nothing of the sort.</p>A story of humanity...2013-12-01T00:03:00-05:002013-12-01T00:03:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-12-01:/posts/2013/Dec/01/a-story-of-humanity/<p>Carolyn Porco always finds a way to inspire...</p>
<p>[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJS77VR2OZI&w=560&h=315]</p>
<p>Check out Session 3 in the excellent Beyond Belief workshop …</p><p>Carolyn Porco always finds a way to inspire...</p>
<p>[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJS77VR2OZI&w=560&h=315]</p>
<p>Check out Session 3 in the excellent Beyond Belief workshop from 2006,
where she does it again:</p>
<p><a href="http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival">http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival</a></p>Life, Meaning, and Entropy2013-11-21T23:19:00-05:002013-11-21T23:19:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-11-21:/posts/2013/Nov/21/life-meaning-and-entropy/<p>I just watched a very nice video about our short time on this planet. I
particularly like how he says we "defy entropy and impermanence through
our films and our …</p><p>I just watched a very nice video about our short time on this planet. I
particularly like how he says we "defy entropy and impermanence through
our films and our poems". I would only add that we also transcend it
through the human enterprise we call science. It reminds me of the
mantra "leave the world a better place", and I hope I do that in my
small way.</p>
<p>[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb-OYmHVchQ&w=560&h=315]</p>The Trinity and Coherency2013-11-19T11:54:00-05:002013-11-19T11:54:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-11-19:/posts/2013/Nov/19/the-trinity-and-coherency/<p>When I hear things like this (taken from the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P17.HTM#1FT">Catechism of the Catholic
Church</a>, but could well be from any Christian Church):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Trinity is One. We do not confess …</p></blockquote><p>When I hear things like this (taken from the <a href="http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P17.HTM#1FT">Catechism of the Catholic
Church</a>, but could well be from any Christian Church):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three
persons, the "consubstantial Trinity".83 The divine persons do not
share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole
and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which
the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is,
i.e. by nature one God."84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council
(1215), "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine
substance, essence or nature."85</p>
<p>254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is
one but not solitary."86 "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit" are not simply
names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really
distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor
is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the
Father or the Son."87 They are distinct from one another in their
relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is
begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds."88 The divine Unity is
Triune.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is what I hear:</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
a&=&b=c\\\\
a&\neq& b\\\\
a&\neq& c\\\\
c&\neq& b
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>And then when I hear a Christian say something like this, which was on
the Unbelievable Facebook forum,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We [...] stress the Trinity a lot, not only because we think it is
true but because it explains some things.</p>
<p>For one thing, it means that the ideas of personal relationship and
love are built into existence and have always been. For another it
helps us understand how God can be completely transcendent (the
Father) and yet reveal Himself to us (via the Word and Spirit).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What I hear is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We [...] stress the X a lot, Not only do I think<br>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
a&=&b=c\\\\
a&\neq& b\\\\
a&\neq& c\\\\
c&\neq& b
\end{eqnarray}</div>
</p>
<p>is true, but it explains a number of things. For one thing, it means
that </p>
<p>
<div class="math">$$
a+x=b+x
$$</div>
</p>
<p>is built into the system. For another it helps us understand how<br>
<div class="math">$$
a-x\\neq b-x
$$</div>
<br>
and yet<br>
<div class="math">$$
b-x=c-x
$$</div>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So where am I going wrong here? Where does the analogy break? If you say
that the Trinity is a "mystery", that is simply an admission that the
Trinity is incoherent. If you say that I am not using the word "is"
correctly, then please enlighten me as to the proper definition, but
make sure it is well defined.</p>
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</script>Science as Entertainment2013-11-12T13:30:00-05:002013-11-12T13:30:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-11-12:/posts/2013/Nov/12/science-as-entertainment/<p>This past weekend I was at a Girl Scouts "Mad Science" program, not as
an instructor but as a parent. There was a lot of interesting things
presented, and the …</p><p>This past weekend I was at a Girl Scouts "Mad Science" program, not as
an instructor but as a parent. There was a lot of interesting things
presented, and the girls all seemed to have a good time, but I
constantly felt that there was little real science being done. I've had
that feeling with some "science" shows on television, and this was
another example of what I think of as "Science as Entertainment": lots
of cool-wow eye candy, but little content. Now, I recognize there are
some real constraints in doing programs like this, and I don't want to
be negative, so I've been thinking of ways to improve a program like
this. Some of the constraints are:</p>
<ol>
<li>you don't often have scientists running the individual activities,
even if you might have a scientist organize it</li>
<li>the people running the activities are either older girl scouts or
parents who are scout leaders - thus, there needs to be a bit of a
script to follow</li>
<li>you need to have the eye-candy to keep some interest</li>
<li>you have limited time</li>
</ol>
<p>Given these constraints, I'd offer this major suggestion: the
activities should start with a small cool-wow demo, followed by a
question like "I wonder how this works?" or "I wonder what this is
sensitive to?". Then do a followup activity (or more) where one
addresses these questions, always focussing on the "how do we know what
we know?" overarching theme.
<span style="text-decoration:underline;">That's what science is really
about!</span></p>
<p>Let me give some specific examples, taken from the activities actually
done.</p>
<h3 id="static-electricity-demo">Static Electricity Demo</h3>
<p>In this activity, the scouts did a number of observations of static,
including rubbing balloons in the hair and picking up pepper, attracting
ping-pong balls, and sticking the balloon to the wall. Although all
cool, it would be good to start with one, and ask "what's going on
here?" The example which was missing here is the <em>repulsion</em> from the
charge, giving the impression that static is always attractive. All it
would take is to put two balloons together (or try!) and see that they
don't <em>like</em> each other...this leads to the two-charge model. One could
even add/replace one of the activities with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_electricity#Charged_adhesive_tape">scotch-tape
version</a> of the experiment, and then ask if the charge on the balloon
is the same/different than the scotch tape.</p>
<h3 id="making-bubbles">Making Bubbles</h3>
<p>So, the scouts made a bubble mixture from household ingredients (i.e.
dish soap, corn syrup, etc...), took them outside and played with
bubbles for a while. A good question would be "which ingredient gives
which property?" With all the scouts there, throughout the morning, one
could do a <em>lot</em> of trial and error, even make it a contest for the
biggest bubble, the longest lasting bubble, etc... Does dish soap work
alone? Does corn syrup work alone? Why do both work? One could tie
this to a TV show like <a href="http://www.americastestkitchen.com/">America's Test Kitchen</a>, where they do tests
like this all the time.</p>
<h3 id="balance">Balance</h3>
<p>Here, there was a series of gravity-type experiments with free-fall, but
then at the end they did an activity about balance: leaning against a
wall with your right shoulder and head, and trying to lift your left
leg. Again, the sorts of questions that one could follow with is "why
is it hard to lift your leg?", "under what conditions would this be
true?", "could you come up with another pose that does something
similar?", etc... Personally, this would be a awesome place to do the
<a href="http://youtu.be/Piu75P8sxTo?t=2m30s">energy bracelet demo</a>!</p>
<h2 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h2>
<p>In each case, the point is to do a demo, ask some leading questions
related to "how do we know what we know", and structure the activities
to answer the questions. I would also add that the person overseeing
the activities should be encouraged to say "I don't know", and to know
that it is a perfectly fine answer. It should be followed up by a, "I
wonder how we could figure out" statement.</p>
<p>The danger in presenting science and anything that looks/sounds sciency
without any content is is primes kids to accept the latest
pseudoscience, just because it sounds technical. It also makes kids
start thinking that science is just about the technicalities, and not
about the general questions relating to knowledge and belief.</p>
<p>Another danger is that several times I heard an "explanation" of what
was going on in the activity that did not really match what was actually
observed. I know this is from following a script, but it is very
damaging. It gives kids the impression that one should believe in
science authorities, even in the face of contrary evidence. It also
increases confusion about what is actually happening. Cases like this
should bring up the idea of repeatability, variability, and careful
measurements. A response like this would be more appropriate:
"hmmm...that's odd, I don't know why it isn't working like I think it
should...how can we figure this out?" Even if there is no time, or
equipment, to do the proper job it is still useful to outline how
one <em>could</em> do it.</p>Knowledge, Faith, and Belief2013-10-24T19:30:00-04:002013-10-24T19:30:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-10-24:/posts/2013/Oct/24/knowledge-faith-and-belief/<p>Words have meaning, and if we are going to communicate with each other
we need to make sure to use words as carefully as we can. Otherwise,
misunderstandings abound. It …</p><p>Words have meaning, and if we are going to communicate with each other
we need to make sure to use words as carefully as we can. Otherwise,
misunderstandings abound. It seems very common that a word like "faith"
is used by different people for different ends, and the definition
shifts even within an argument. Take for example, this video:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH8np-WBa_o">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH8np-WBa_o</a></p>
<p>Here there is a distinction drawn between "faith" and "belief", using an
analogy of a roller-coaster - belief in the ride being safe vs trusting
it being safe enough to ride on. As with many things, I find it far
more useful to describe terms in probabilistic vocabulary. Let's start
with belief.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We say we believe a proposition A when P(A)>0.5. We say we believe
<em>strongly</em> in a proposition A when P(A)>0.95 or some other, somewhat
arbitrary, high number. The strength of a belief is a <em>scale</em>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is knowledge? I've heard philosophers give the following
definition of knowledge:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Knowledge is justified true belief. [note: bad definition, IMO]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am not satisfied with this definition because, it seems to me that, in
order to justifiably label anything as <em>knowledge</em> with this definition
we'd need to be able to independently determine that the proposition is
true. This presupposes that there is some "outside" knowledge, which I
feel comes too close to assuming a religious justification. I do
believe that there is probably a truth to be known, but that we can
never truly know what it is for certain - but this is not a problem. It
is a red herring to bring up 100% certainty for knowledge, because it is
never achievable, and isn't what we practically call knowledge. I
prefer a definition inspired by Stephen J Gould:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it
would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' I suppose that
apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not
merit equal time in physics classrooms.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Where it says "fact", read "knowledge". Where it says "science" read
"life". We label things as knowledge in our lives when they are
"confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold
provisional assent." Thus, <em>P(A)>0.9999 \~ 1</em>. Notice that we don't
need 100% certainty to claim knowledge, and that it is possible for the
"knowledge" to be wrong.</p>
<p>What about faith? Is faith "belief without evidence", as atheists like
to suggest? Is it "trust", as in the video above? We could start with
the Biblical reference,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and
assurance about what we do not see.” [NIV]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>which I read as a synonym for "wishful thinking". Others may read it as
"trust". Still others as "belief without evidence", and perhaps there
are more. The problem here is that it doesn't have a clear definition,
so it fails in its usefulness. What are people really claiming here?</p>
<p>Let's go back to the roller-coaster example. I would submit that, in
this case, strong belief must be a prerequisite to "faith" in the sense
he's using it. If you don't believe the roller-coaster is safe, or you
don't believe the roller-coaster exists, then you cannot have trust it
in. Once you believe it is safe, do you trust it to ride? This brings
in decision theory, where we mix probabilities with utility measures.
You could believe it to be safe at the <em>P(</em>safe<em>)=0.9</em> level, but still
not trust it "with your life" because of the <em>cost</em> associated with
being wrong. So trust requires both belief and a sufficiently positive
net utility. Placed in these terms it is much more clear how the
argument is set up.</p>
<ul>
<li>when the religious say that "faith" is like "trust", they are
already approaching the problem with strong belief, and are
assessing utility - and they rightly claim that belief is not
enough.</li>
<li>when the atheists say that "faith" is "belief without evidence",
they are addressing the strength of the evidence to obtain strong
belief - and saying that it is not sufficient.</li>
<li>when the religious say that "faith is rational" they are either
talking about utility, not belief, or they are claiming that the
evidence is in fact good enough for strong belief, and then
consequently high utility.</li>
</ul>
<p>In all cases, it seems as if for the religious, utility and belief are
muddled when using the word "faith". For the atheist, "faith" is always
about belief. Perhaps if we ditch the term "faith" altogether and focus
on what we're actually claiming it would make communication a lot
easier!</p>Nobel Prize - The "Higgs" and Predictions2013-10-09T16:57:00-04:002013-10-09T16:57:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-10-09:/posts/2013/Oct/09/nobel-prize-the-higgs-and-predictions/<p>So around 50 years ago a number of scientists made a prediction for an
unseen particle (typically referred to as the 'Higgs boson' but also
sometimes as the 'God particle' …</p><p>So around 50 years ago a number of scientists made a prediction for an
unseen particle (typically referred to as the 'Higgs boson' but also
sometimes as the 'God particle' - a silly name if I ever heard one)
which, if it existed, [helped to fill in an explanation of the
fundamental laws of the universe][]. It took 50 years, thousands of
people, and millions of dollars to directly confirm this prediction
but<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18702455">it was done last year</a>...and thus is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/science/englert-and-higgs-win-nobel-physics-prize.html">deserving of a Nobel
Prize</a>.</p>
<p>The Nobel Prize can only be give to at most three scientists, so the
letter-of-the-law committee <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/peter-higgs-francois-englert-win-nobel-prize-in-physics/2013/10/08/1d96aa72-2f98-11e3-8906-3daa2bcde110_story.html">omitted three other scientists</a> who also
contributed to this prediction. I had the fortune to take high energy
physics with one of these, Prof Gerry Guralnik, at Brown University.</p>
<p>To think that we, as a species, are able to predict something so subtle
in the universe, decades before our ability to actually confirm it, is
truly astounding. In times like this I have a feeling of optimism for
our species, an awe for the amazing structure in the universe that we
have uncovered, and an excitement for the things that we have yet to
discover.</p>The Fallacy of All-Natural2013-09-26T14:33:00-04:002013-09-26T14:33:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-09-26:/posts/2013/Sep/26/the-fallacy-of-all-natural/<p>I was<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jj-keith/vaccines_b_3829948.html">reading an article</a> about the anti-vaccine movement, encouraging
pro-vaccine supporters to be more vocal - something I support
whole-heartedly. In the article there was an awesome quote, that really …</p><p>I was<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jj-keith/vaccines_b_3829948.html">reading an article</a> about the anti-vaccine movement, encouraging
pro-vaccine supporters to be more vocal - something I support
whole-heartedly. In the article there was an awesome quote, that really
needs to be driven home whenever any of the anti-vaxers spout the
benefits of all-natural solutions to problems. I typically point out
that cobra venom is all-natural, but would not recommend ingesting it.
This quote, however, points out the all-natural effects of not
vaccination in a particularly powerful way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>However, while there is nothing more "natural" than large numbers of
children dying in a Malthusian cesspool of unchecked contagious
disease, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we should avoid
that. This shouldn't be a controversial opinion. </p>
<p>- JJ Keith</p>
</blockquote>MOOCs and Treadmills2013-09-25T18:08:00-04:002013-09-25T18:08:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-09-25:/posts/2013/Sep/25/moocs-and-treadmills/<p>MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are a hot topic in education, and no
one seems to know quite how it will play out. After sitting in on
several of these …</p><p>MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are a hot topic in education, and no
one seems to know quite how it will play out. After sitting in on
several of these, I've come to find (at least for me) that they are the
treadmill of education.</p>
<p>I try to keep up a running schedule, which I've been able to do during
the spring and summer, but have always fallen off the wagon in the
winter. In the winter, the dark and the cold makes it hard to run
outside and the academic schedule makes it hard to run during the
daylight hours. I hope to overcome this, but it means running more on
my treadmill (which I have). The difference between running outside and
running on a treadmill is psychological - if you run a mile and don't
feel up to the second mile you can get off the treadmill and go back
upstairs for a break. The same thing happens with a MOOC.</p>
<p>I've "attended" a few of these classes, but never really finished. This
is due to time and motivation, because the classes generally were pretty
good. However, given pressing time of things that I <em>have</em> to do, it is
hard to push my way through assignments that I might <em>like</em> to do. In
addition, I find it hard to find time to sit and watch a video, instead
of reading or listening to audio books, seminars and podcasts which are
all more convenient (at least for me).</p>
<p>Perhaps this is my particular failing, but I wonder how common this
perspective is.</p>What to do when you're not an expert2013-09-19T10:47:00-04:002013-09-19T10:47:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-09-19:/posts/2013/Sep/19/what-to-do-when-youre-not-an-expert/<p>So I was listening to the very interesting discussion between William
Lane Craig and Lawrence Krauss at the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt1YTYKDW8f5s5q9McoHJ_Q">City Bible Forum</a>, which I'll
discuss another time. There was a good …</p><p>So I was listening to the very interesting discussion between William
Lane Craig and Lawrence Krauss at the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt1YTYKDW8f5s5q9McoHJ_Q">City Bible Forum</a>, which I'll
discuss another time. There was a good question at the end where the
moderator asked - what is a layperson to do, when they may not have the
resources, knowledge, or time to be able to properly evaluate the
position of the "experts". Craig's response, which was reasonable by
incomplete, was to read the book <em>reviews</em> after reading a book by an
expert, to see what the responses are. Krauss retorted that that was
another appeal to authority, and added that when you read something, "if
it seems crazy, it probably is". Krauss' response is ridiculous, and is
especially bad given the field he is in - who <em>doesn't</em> think anything
in modern science sounds crazy?</p>
<p>So, what do I do? Mine is closer to Craig's, but I take it a step
further. When I hear a claim, I try to find someone claiming the polar
opposite. I then read each of their supporting arguments, and the
refutations of the other sides. I look, then, for a specific claim that
each side disagrees with, but can be easily checked - and I try to check
it. This usually involves going back and forth between the two sides a
bit, because of the qualifications to the arguments. Someone claims
that the Bible condones slavery, another doesn't. I hear the quotes
from each side, and the context, and then I go to the text to look at a
couple of the passages - the ones I think are most critical. I may then
go back to the arguments, to see if what they are saying matches what I
read, etc...</p>
<p>I also look at the style of the arguments. One of the reasons I switch
from being a global warming alarmist to a luke-warmist was because of
climateaudit.org. I could tell that they made a big deal about putting
the data up, and turn-key scripts to do the analysis, so it was
completely straightforward to check every step. I didn't need to check
every step myself, but the effort to make things transparent was quite
evident. If I see people dodging the meat of a challenge, or not being
transparent, or engaging in special pleading, I need not have to
evaluate the argument in quite so much detail to be reasonably convinced
that there is a problem with it.</p>
<p>I think the habit of examining the opposing view, even - and especially
- when you agree with the original view is extremely important, and
something that many do not do. They follow blogs that agree with them
only, read newspapers that agree with their point of view, listen to
podcasts that agree with them, etc... That's one of the reasons I
really like the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a>.</p>Origins of Religion - Two Hypotheses2013-09-13T09:30:00-04:002013-09-13T09:30:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-09-13:/posts/2013/Sep/13/origins-of-religion-two-hypotheses/<p>In one of <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/the-don-johnson-show-2/">Don Johnson's podcasts</a>, he gave some "data" which he
claims is supported by the theistic worldview and not the atheistic
worldview. The points he raises are:</p>
<ol>
<li>everyone …</li></ol><p>In one of <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/the-don-johnson-show-2/">Don Johnson's podcasts</a>, he gave some "data" which he
claims is supported by the theistic worldview and not the atheistic
worldview. The points he raises are:</p>
<ol>
<li>everyone has a moral code</li>
<li>all cultures have essential monotheism (one main creator god, with
lesser gods) and that humans are separated from the creator god</li>
<li>no atheist cultures</li>
</ol>
<p>I haven't done the research to confirm point (2), so I'll accept it for
the sake of argument. Points (1) and (3) I think are almost certainly
true (there are some exceptions for point (1) - sociopaths).</p>
<p>So what would an atheistic explanation for this data?</p>
<p>1. The moral code is exactly what one would expect for social
creatures, developed through a blind process of evolution. Social
creatures, by definition, need to work together to survive. Thus,
concepts such as fairness, supporting the weak members of the group,
caring for others, etc... would be a direct consequence of this process.
We'd also expect a conflict between biological drives for individual vs
group survival, variation in the altruism of the members, and evidence
of moral behavior in our nearest social species - all of which can be
seen experimentally. If this code is something uniquely human, which
the theists claim, then we shouldn't see it in other animals.</p>
<p>2. Answering a question with a question: how many societies have there
been without a hierarchical governing organization? It seems clear to
me that the structure of monotheism matches pretty well the development
of human cultures and the organization of those cultures. As they say
on the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts">Reasonable Doubts podcast</a>, "God thinks like you". I'd also
add that, unless you had a totally democratic pantheon, you'd end up
with one "most powerful" god, and probably fall under Johnson's
"essential" monotheism. In other words, the category of "essential
monotheism" may include nearly every possibility.</p>
<p>3. Atheism is not obvious, and we have a biological tendency to agency
detection. In addition, science is hard. It takes work to be
skeptical, against our many biases, etc... Finally, apparent design in
biology is so obvious that without the theory of evolution, the belief
in divine design is a completely reasonable position. Darwin did not
disprove God, but he made it possible to be an intellectually consistent
atheist.</p>
<p>Personally, I think these responses are far more compelling than:</p>
<p>1. God gave us a moral code (even with the inconsistencies between
individuals, and the immoral actions condoned and commanded in the
Bible)</p>
<p>2. All cultures believe in God , therefore it is true (even with the
inconsistencies between the different depictions of God, and the
observations that all cultures have had witchcraft without that being
true)</p>
<p>3. There are no atheist cultures because God is so obvious to everyone
(even though when we actually start figuring out how things really work,
God gets less and less obvious).</p>The Supernatural and the History of Cosmology2013-09-04T20:20:00-04:002013-09-04T20:20:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-09-04:/posts/2013/Sep/04/the-supernatural-and-the-history-of-cosmology/<p>I hold the view that the term "supernatural" is simply an incoherent
concept. No one has been able to demonstrate that that the set of
"supernatural" things is not empty …</p><p>I hold the view that the term "supernatural" is simply an incoherent
concept. No one has been able to demonstrate that that the set of
"supernatural" things is not empty, or how you would be able to tell!
Still, if we presume that there is a coherent definition, and there is
at least one thing in that set, and that one thing is a god which can
interact with the world, then at least the effects should be testable.</p>
<p>I was thinking about this term "supernatural" recently, and it occurred
to me that this term is really a label-of-the-gaps and, because the only
denizen of the supernatural is purported to be God: the term
"supernatural" is a mask for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps">God of the gaps</a>. This came to me
when I realized that the ancient Christians did not believe in the
supernatural! Their cosmology was weird (by modern standards), where
they imagined different materials - both earthly and heavenly. Thus,
God was in what they would call the universe, but located within a
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Heavens">divine part of the universe</a> (somewhere within the Moon and the other
planets). See a few ancient writings, like the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_of_Isaiah">Ascension of Isaiah</a>,
for a tour. One of the issues the Church had with Galileo was that,
with his telescope, it became clear that the Moon looked just like an
ordinary rock and not something perfect, made of divine materials.</p>
<p>Once we falsified the ancient cosmology, the "heavens" had to move
somewhere else. Essentially, it has to move beyond where we can directly
observe, which inconveniently for the theists, is nearly everywhere
these days. Thus, the only place to go is the (undefined) region of the
"supernatural". Notice that the influence of God has also followed this
path, with the <a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Scientific_evidence_for_God's_existence">strongest arguments for God</a> lurking in the ultimate
origin of the universe (through the so-called fine-tuning of the
physical constants), the origin of life (not the development of species,
because once the first replicator is formed, evolution explains the
resulting diversity), and ancient history (because modern history
doesn't show the evidence of God's influence) - all out of reach of our
current access to data.</p>
<p>So , when theists toss around the term "supernatural", we can recognize
it for what it is - a simple statement of ignorance, and another facet
of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps">God-of-the-Gaps</a>.</p>God in the head2013-09-02T12:08:00-04:002013-09-02T12:08:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-09-02:/posts/2013/Sep/02/god-in-the-head/<p>On the Unbelievable Facebook page, Delia Ives posted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The evidence that God exists as an idea inside peoples' heads and the
lack of evidence that he exists elsewhere is so …</p></blockquote><p>On the Unbelievable Facebook page, Delia Ives posted:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The evidence that God exists as an idea inside peoples' heads and the
lack of evidence that he exists elsewhere is so obvious that theists
have no excuse for denying it. And, being that this idea gives them a
sense of community and their lives such meaning and purpose, one
wonders why they have any need to deny it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>David Hickman commented the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>God as an idea explains Divine Hiddenness, Geographical distribution
of Religion, individual variety of understanding of god's
nature/character, and the evolution of theology.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Which I thought was very well put. If you think of it as two
hypotheses, H1="God is real" [I know that this isn't just one
hypothesis, because of the lack of definition...just to simplify], and
H2="God is in the head", it is interesting to think of the explanatory
power and the predictive power of the two hypotheses.</p>
<p>I would add that H2 also easily explains the <em>types</em> of miracles. We
don't get amputees growing back limbs, but we do get things that can be
influenced by placebo and those that can get better on their own. It
would be interesting to think of other things on each side of this
analysis. Of course, one would probably have to have H1a, H1b, etc...
to be specific.</p>Presuppositions and Science2013-08-30T10:22:00-04:002013-08-30T10:22:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-08-30:/posts/2013/Aug/30/presuppositions-and-science/<p>I heard on a podcast a theist say that he had a problem with <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FVictor_J._Stenger&ei=vWsgUrXsCPPcsATY-4DgCw&usg=AFQjCNG95MPQQo8A3iTYqIOUgau5LOm1PQ&sig2=aw2RrmUxSqP65wajuDiDGw&bvm=bv.51495398,d.cWc">Victor
Stenger</a>. The critique was phrased something like, that Dr Stenger
put his atheism first in …</p><p>I heard on a podcast a theist say that he had a problem with <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FVictor_J._Stenger&ei=vWsgUrXsCPPcsATY-4DgCw&usg=AFQjCNG95MPQQo8A3iTYqIOUgau5LOm1PQ&sig2=aw2RrmUxSqP65wajuDiDGw&bvm=bv.51495398,d.cWc">Victor
Stenger</a>. The critique was phrased something like, that Dr Stenger
put his atheism first in his explanations, that he has a presupposition
against against using God as an explanation, a presupposition against
the supernatural. Something struck me as odd about this perspective,
and then I realized that one never hears this sort of perspective in
scientific circles.</p>
<p>Why not? I think it's because, in science, it is recognized that the
natural world will correct any wrong presupposition...the truth will
out. So, if someone has a presupposition, just let it ride out and see
if it works. Einstein had a presupposition for a static universe - he
even "corrected " his theory to get rid of the dynamics when it was
pointed out to him that that was a consequence. Once the data came in
that was best explained with a dynamics universe, he modified the theory
and said it was a big mistake.</p>
<p>Another example comes from my own experience teaching astronomy. For
years I taught the prevailing wisdom that there were two possibilities
for the end of the universe. Either the expanding universe, initiated
at the Big Bang, would have enough mass to collapse again in a Big
Crunch or it would expand forever, slowing but never stopping. It was
never on the radar that it could be accelerating, and had anyone
suggested it, I would have said it was unreasonable. Of course the
universe doesn't care about my bias, lack of imagination, or
presupposition and it <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAccelerating_universe&ei=qHEgUoeAKImvsATtn4HYBg&usg=AFQjCNF_e7fQaSVCpDu_fd5kPvbv3rMjPg&sig2=ChrwqKtGXRTokLqdzr_OYQ&bvm=bv.51495398,d.cWc">does appear to be accelerating</a> nonetheless.</p>
<p>So, if someone has a presupposition against God as an explanation,
indulge them! If they are wrong, then at some point it will make a bad
prediction and fail. If not, then we've learned that, for the thing
explained, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace#I_had_no_need_of_that_hypothesis">the concept of God is not necessary</a>. Don't complain
about the presupposition. Know that the truth will out, eventually. On
the other hand, I would love to know what predictions the God theory
makes (not post-dictions), so that it can be tested.</p>Textual Transmission Bottlenecks2013-08-20T14:58:00-04:002013-08-20T14:58:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-08-20:/posts/2013/Aug/20/textual-transmission-bottlenecks/<p>So I've been thinking about the origins of Christianity and the texts
that we have which concern it. Then I watched Richard Carrier's new
presentation on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbTbEvFSSF8">why he thinks Jesus …</a></p><p>So I've been thinking about the origins of Christianity and the texts
that we have which concern it. Then I watched Richard Carrier's new
presentation on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbTbEvFSSF8">why he thinks Jesus didn't exist</a>, and I started
thinking about this again. The question I have, particularly for
Christians, is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What sort of effect, and what <em>magnitude</em> of an effect, do you believe
the process of textual transmission from 0CE to 1000CE had on what we
can look at today concerning the origin of Christianity?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This includes the number, quality, and contents of the ancient texts
around the time of Jesus, for example. I think there are a number of
uncontroversial claims we can make about this question.</p>
<ol>
<li>The Christian church had a near monopoly on the textual transmission
for over 1000 years, so any and all texts went through this
bottleneck of transmission.</li>
<li>Texts were written in other people's name (e.g. 1 Peter, Letter to
Timothy, etc...), whether well-meaning or not.</li>
<li>Texts were modified during this period, either deliberately or not.</li>
<li>Not all texts were preserved.</li>
</ol>
<p>This fourth point is key, because it plays into what we have to look at
now. First, only texts deemed important would generally be copied. So
we would expect to have more texts of the canonical view, whatever that
happened to be. Secondly, alternative theologies, different
perspectives, hostile and critical treatments would not make the cut.
This isn't deliberate censorship, it is simply a product of the limited
attentional energies of scribes. Thus, these texts would be exceedingly
rare or non-existent, thus giving a very different picture of the real
situation at the time. Thirdly, contrary views could possibly be
deliberately destroyed, and we have evidence of that happening sometimes
as well.</p>
<p>Now, apologists will often make the claim that the Biblical texts that
we do have are very near the originals, or we can reconstruct a near
original from the comparison with the many copies we have. They often
point out that we have many more copies (and earlier copies) of Biblical
texts than, say, of Plato's texts. Fair enough. But this is what we
would expect from the points above, and so it is not surprising.</p>
<p>I have two thoughts on this. Firstly what I always wonder is how much
of what we have is really a collection of the "winner's" texts. If
there were (as we know to be the case) many different views of Jesus
around the time, many with conflicting perspectives, would much of them
survive the points above? This is easily verified by the Dead Sea
Scrolls, where texts were hidden from the deliberate process of the
early church purging the conflicting theological texts. If the Library
of Alexandria hadn't been burned, would we have the same view of
Christianity as we have now? It's like, if the Discovery Institute were
the only publisher of science textbooks for 100 years, would we even
know science? At least in the case of science, there is the natural
world to consult to confirm, but no such confirmation comes from
historical texts. Of course what we don't have we can't really use in
an argument, but it does make one wonder, and should make one highly
suspect of any text that has survived the points above.</p>
<p>Secondly, and this is the part that really gets me, is the fact that
there is not a single mention in the first century of Jesus as a person,
except for the Gospels and less than a handful of known other sources
which are either Christian forgeries (i.e. the interpolations in
Josephus) or contested texts (i.e. Tacitus). Here, one might cry
"argument from silence fallacy", but the key difference is the process
described above. Given what we know about the process of textual
transmission for 1000 years, we would expect any significant, outside
reference to Jesus to be enthusiastically copied and distributed, and
yet we still have such a paucity of data? We have complaints from early
church fathers, such as Origen and Justin Martyr, concerning the lack of
early reference to Jesus in, say, Josephus so we know it mattered to
them. So much so that someone felt that Josephus needed to be modified
to include a reference! This point, for me, is what undermines my
confidence in the existence of Jesus.</p>
<p>I would say that for me, personally, I am agnostic on it. I am not
convinced that he existed at all - I don't find any of the arguments
compelling - however, I wouldn't bet strongly that he <em>didn't</em> exist.
Still an interesting question, though.</p>Trying to figure out fiction I like - Game of Thrones semi-fail2013-08-19T00:20:00-04:002013-08-19T00:20:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-08-19:/posts/2013/Aug/19/trying-to-figure-out-fiction-i-like-game-of-thrones-semi-fail/<p>So I just read the first book of the Fire and Ice series (Game of
Thrones), and am not going to read any more. In fact, I pulled a "24 …</p><p>So I just read the first book of the Fire and Ice series (Game of
Thrones), and am not going to read any more. In fact, I pulled a "24" on
it. This is a reference to what I did with the series "24" - a series I
liked, in many ways. At the time of watching "24", I got stressed out
with the kid-kidnapping scenes (as a parent, this sort of thing bothers
me way more than when I wasn't), and the entire scenario was just too
stressful! I felt I couldn't continue, but I also couldn't <em>not</em>
continue because I needed closure. So, I decided to watch the last
episode of that season, ruining all of the surprises, and then I had
closure and could put it down.</p>
<p>With Game of Thrones, I liked the narrative, but the world wasn't
compelling to me. I thought there was too much going on at once, so
there seemed like too little direction. I don't really care about this
king overthrowing that king, etc... I like a personal story, or
message. I want the story to be going somewhere, and after 600+ pages
it just wasn't. I could imagine the story in Game of Thrones just going
on and on, and not caring much for the outcome (especially when the only
people you care about in the story seem to have a short shelf life).
So, realizing this, I didn't want to put the effort in to read through
all of the rest of the novels, but I also wanted closure. So, I decided
to read all the plot summaries for the other four books - summaries
which actually supported my initial assessment of the story not really
going anywhere in particular, but a lot of stuff happening.</p>
<p>I am trying to think of what I like, and why. So I liked Lord of the
Rings, which if you recall you get the big story arc within the first
couple chapters, and then add to it as you go along. However, the
characters are always trying to accomplish something. Win or lose, at
least it is clear what the outcomes could be. Babylon 5, the big story
arc is introduced mid-season 1, and then added to from the end of season
1 to the peak in the middle-to-late season 3. There were a number of
compelling mini-arcs here, and mysteries, which allowed you to get into
the characters in the beginning, and also to tie the seasons together.
Battlestar Gallactica only had mini-arcs, and no big arc. Within each
mini-arc it was very good. Overall, it fell a bit flat because there
wasn't anything tying it together. Harry Potter was excellent, much of
which due to an interesting world.</p>
<p>So, Game of Thrones didn't fit the type of fiction I like, even though
the narrative itself was quite interesting and well written. What would
I like? Not sure. Not sure what the pattern is with what I like, and
what I don't. This is probably why I generally read non-fiction.</p>What would it take for me to believe the Resurrection?2013-07-27T23:37:00-04:002013-07-27T23:37:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-07-27:/posts/2013/Jul/27/what-would-it-take-for-me-to-believe-the-resurrection/<p>So in a <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/a-question-for-theists-why-do-you-not-believe-ufos-are-alien-spacecraft/#comments">comment on a previous post</a>, I am asked</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“what sort of evidence would convince you of, let’s say, the
resurrection of Jesus?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I want to break …</p><p>So in a <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/a-question-for-theists-why-do-you-not-believe-ufos-are-alien-spacecraft/#comments">comment on a previous post</a>, I am asked</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“what sort of evidence would convince you of, let’s say, the
resurrection of Jesus?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I want to break this up into two separate questions, because it will put
into context my perspectives on historical evidence.</p>
<h3 id="whatwouldittakeformetobelievethattherewasamodernresurrection">What would it take for me to believe that there was a <em>modern</em> resurrection?</h3>
<p>Take a case of a <a href="http://www.heavensfamily.org/ss/resurrection-from-the-dead-pastor-daniel-ekechukwu">Nigerian Pastor</a> resurrected in 2001 after being
dead for 3 days following a severe car accident. Sounds about as good as
it gets, as far as evidence. Certainly way more evidence than we have
for Jesus - many more “witnesses”, documentation of medical examination,
many more recent accounts, etc… There are some skeptical accounts
<a href="http://www.helium.com/items/506673-the-truth-about-the-resurrection-of-daniel-ekechukwu">here</a> and also <a href="http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/bonnke2.html">here</a>. This is the first I’ve heard of it. Am I
convinced? Nope. Why not?</p>
<ul>
<li>the fact that there is a definite possibility of motive for fraud
and/or exaggeration</li>
<li>the fact that the events occur in a culture riddled with
superstitious thinking</li>
<li>the fact that the events take place in a region without the proper
diagnostic technology</li>
<li>the story contains elements such as a transfer to a smaller, lesser
equipped hospital where the patient knew the doctors when - given
the supposed severity of the accident- the nearby, bigger hospital
would be the logical choice</li>
</ul>
<p>Each of these raises the level of suspicion. What I am criticizing here
is that the claims are being made and investigated by possibly credulous
individuals, who have something to gain, and do not make the proper
steps to rule out fraud, exaggeration, mistakes, etc… When I look at an
extraordinary claim, I want these. To convince me it would take</p>
<ul>
<li>a group of unrelated individuals backing up the claims…</li>
<li>…applying strict skeptical methods, …</li>
<li>…with nothing or little to gain, …</li>
<li>…and a history of honesty</li>
</ul>
<p>I would want to see confirmation from people who have something to
<em>lose</em> in agreeing to it, either a significant departure from their
professed beliefs, or something similar. Pretty much I’m asking for
something similar to the <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html">JREF prize</a>, although it need not be that
particular organization.</p>
<p>Is this <em>too</em> skeptical? I don’t think so. I hold this same level of
skepticism for scientific claims, two examples I outline in <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/naturalistic-bias-presupposing-naturalism/">a previous
post</a>. To shamelessly quote myself,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If the evidence is not enough to convince a reasonable skeptic, then
we can’t be particularly confident in it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is especially the case with extraordinary claims.</p>
<h3 id="whatwouldittakeformetobelievethattherewasanancientresurrection">What would it take for me to believe that there was an <em>ancient</em> resurrection?</h3>
<p>Given this, could I ever be made to believe in an ancient resurrection?
Probably not. Not because I am closed to it, but the kinds of methods
and evidence that I would need to convince me of a modern resurrection
just didn’t exist 2000 years ago. Four accounts (five if you count
Paul), that demonstrate mutual copying, and don’t even claim to be
eyewitnesses is hardly convincing for even more meagre claims than
miraculous resurrections.</p>
<p>Christians, do you believe every miracle claim? If not, what criteria do
you use? If the same amount of evidence for Jesus’ resurrection existed
today (i.e. a handful of 2nd and 3rd hand reports, no physical evidence,
and no skeptical inquiry), would you be convinced? I would wager that
not a single honest Christian would accept this, or else they’d have to
accept a million other miracle claims from other faiths, and be so
credulous as to not be functional.</p>A question for theists: why do you not believe UFOs are alien spacecraft?2013-07-13T01:12:00-04:002013-07-13T01:12:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-07-13:/posts/2013/Jul/13/a-question-for-theists-why-do-you-not-believe-ufos-are-alien-spacecraft/<p>Now, I am really not trying to be snarky here, so please hear me out.
Try to honestly ask yourself the question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>what evidence would make you reasonably sure that …</p></blockquote><p>Now, I am really not trying to be snarky here, so please hear me out.
Try to honestly ask yourself the question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>what evidence would make you reasonably sure that a UFO claim is in
fact an alien spacecraft?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Would it take 1 photo or 100? Would it take 4 testimonials from
eyewitnesses, or 50? Would it depend who reports it, like the New York
Times or NASA? Would you need someone to stake their reputation on it,
or their life? Would you require physical evidence, or would a report
suffice? What would it take? If you really wrap your head around this
question, and come up with a possible list of evidence that would
possibly sway your opinion, as well as the reasons why that evidence
would be convincing, you'll start to understand what an atheist thinks
of the resurrection of Jesus.</p>
<p>When the day is done, the only evidence for the resurrection comes from
(at best) four (so-called) eyewitness testimonials written decades after
the events and the possible (although extremely dubious) reports of a
handful of people believing so strongly they they laid their life down
for it. There is no physical evidence, and no more than a handful of
extra-biblical references (again, with dubious or weak content). From
all of the arguments I've heard, this seems convincing to Christians.</p>
<p>Compared to UFO reports, for every eye-witness claimed for the
resurrection, I can produce 100 witnesses for alien spacecraft - with
direct reports within hours of the events. For every supposed apostle
who is claimed to have been martyred, I can produce several people
giving their lives for the belief in alien spacecraft (think, Heaven's
Gate here). For every extra-biblical reference, I can give you
thousands of photos, metal implants and alien abduction therapy session
reports - all of which is stronger evidence than any of the
extra-biblical references to Jesus (some of which are forged). Yet,
despite all of this, I am not at all convinced that UFOs are alien
spacecraft, and neither are most people.</p>
<p>Why is it then, that people are convinced by the --far less-- evidence
for the resurrection? What's the difference?</p>Unbelievable Project: The Probability of the Resurrection2013-07-11T00:02:00-04:002013-07-11T00:02:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-07-11:/posts/2013/Jul/11/unbelievable-project-the-probability-of-the-resurrection/<h3 id="theprobabilityoftheresurrection-calummillerchrishallquist-unbelievable-06july2013--istheresurrection97likleyasswinburneclaims">The Probability of the Resurrection - Calum Miller & Chris Hallquist - Unbelievable? - 06 July 2013 – Is the resurrection 97% likley as Swinburne claims?</h3>
<p>As part of the <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking …</p><h3 id="theprobabilityoftheresurrection-calummillerchrishallquist-unbelievable-06july2013--istheresurrection97likleyasswinburneclaims">The Probability of the Resurrection - Calum Miller & Chris Hallquist - Unbelievable? - 06 July 2013 – Is the resurrection 97% likley as Swinburne claims?</h3>
<p>As part of the <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
“arm-chair” responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>See here for a <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">full RSS Feed of the podcasts</a>.</p>
<h4 id="descriptionofepisode">Description of Episode</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Full Title: <em>The Probability of the Resurrection - Calum Miller &
Chris Hallquist - Unbelievable? - 06 July 2013 – Is the resurrection
97% likley as Swinburne claims?</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne has used probability
theory to show that the likelihood of the resurrection of Christ
is 0.97.<br>
Calum Miller is a Christian apologist and student of Swinburne.
He talks about why he believes that probability theory can be used
to show that the resurrection is highly likely to be true.<br>
Chris Hallquist is an atheist blogger who argues that the
resurrection is not well supported by evidence or probability.<br>
For more debates visitwww.premier.org.uk/unbelievable<br>
Join the conversation viaFacebookandTwitter<br>
For Calum Miller http://www.dovetheology.com<br>
For Apologetics UK http://apologeticsuk.blogspot.co.uk/<br>
For Chris Hallquist http://www.patheos.com/blogs/hallq<br>
Get the MP3 podcast of
Unbelievable?http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspxor
ViaItunes<br>
You may also enjoy:<br>
Unbelievable? 16th April 2011 - Biblical evidence for the
Resurrection - Bart Ehrman & Mike Licona.<br>
Unbelievable? 7 April 2012 - Are the Jesus Scandals evidence for
Easter? David Instone-Brewer vs Bob Price.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/d8367d64-5f9f-496f-967a-ff4659e83027.mp3">Download mp3</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Calum Miller - Christian</li>
<li>Chris Hallquist - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h4 id="notes">Notes</h4>
<p><strong>Me - I was really looking forward to this episode. What was not to
like? Probability theory, ancient religions, evidence for
Christianity…bring it on! Unfortunately, it really wasn’t that
impressive.</strong></p>
<p>Calum - <em>“There’s what’s called the confirmation of resurrection, the
explanatory power. And this is basically the idea that there is a lot of
evidence which, if the resurrection happened would be expected but if
the resurrection didn’t happen, it would be very improbable. And if this
is true, if there really is that kind of evidence, then it follows from
probability theory that our confidence in the resurrection should be
greatly increased by this evidence. [Concerning the prior], more
extraordinary or extreme events are more improbable to begin with, and
so you would need more evidence to confirm them. So a lot of the debate
about the resurrection comes down to the prior probability, whether we
think it is actually really improbable and that no possible evidence
could ever make us convinced of it. ”</em></p>
<p><strong>Me - He basically has the distinction between the following as the
basis for all of the “calculation”:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><strong>evidence that, if it existed, would be very common if the
resurrection <em>did</em> happen</strong></li>
<li><strong>evidence that, if it existed, would be very rare if the
resurrection <em>didn’t</em> happen</strong></li>
<li><strong>the prior probability for the resurrection</strong></li>
</ol>
<p><strong>where he admits that <em>"the debate about the resurrection comes down to
the prior probability</em>". Anyone doing probabilistic inference knows that
it should never come down primarily to your choice of priors. The data
needs to rise above the prior, and the prior needs to be an honest
-ideally objective- assessment of the pre-data probability assignments
or, often, the initial state of ignorance. By admitting this, Calum is
essentially saying either that:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><strong>the data are not strong enough to constrain a diffuse prior, and
thus is unconvincing or…</strong></li>
<li><strong>you have to come into the debate with a <em>sharp</em> prior which admits
to a presupposition of the strength of the claim.</strong>.</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>Neither of these stances is convincing in the slightest.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Further, in response to this set up, he ignores the most important
thing in any Bayesian treatment is the set of models that you are using
to compare. You cannot simply test the truth of a single model in
isolation, nor is it generally informative to compare model A true or
false. Instead one wants to set up a list of models, hypotheses,
theories to explain the data and evaluate those multiple models. Instead
of,</strong></p>
<div class="math">$$
P({\rm resurrection}|{\rm data})
$$</div>
<p><br>
and<br>
</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(\mbox{not resurrection}|{\rm data})
$$</div>
<p><strong>you’d want</strong></p>
<p>$$
P({\rm resurrection}|{\rm data}), P({\rm hallucination}|{\rm
data}), P({\rm legend}|{\rm data}), P({\rm literary}|{\rm data}),
P({\rm hoax}|{\rm data}),</p>
<p>$$ etc…<br>
<strong>where of course each of these models would have many details beyond
the simple label I’m putting in here. By being explicit with what you’re
comparing to, it is easier to see where the different prior
probabilities come in. Are you really going to suggest that someone
rising from the dead is on par, prior to the data, with a legendary
construction given how many legendary constructions we’ve seen and how
many dead rising we’ve <em>not</em> seen?</strong></p>
<p><strong>What is clear is that all of these other models must, a priori, be
more probable than rising from the dead <em>even if a God exists</em>. Just
because you believe miracles <em>could</em> happen does not mean that you
believe every miracle claim is true, and given the number of clearly
false miracle claims, the prior probability for any miracle claim must
be quite low - even if you believe miracles actually occur.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Another point about the data which Calum never deals with is that it
should include things we <em>don’t</em> see, not just things we do. If we
expect something to occur with a claim, and we don’t see it, that is in
fact evidence against the claim.</strong></p>
<p>Chris - Most Christians might discount the claim that the miracles
around African religions seem to disappear in the US and UK because of
lack of faith. Or perhaps the miracle stories around Mormonism. What
makes the miracles of Jesus different than these ones? Once you accept
the idea that resurrection claims can exist quite commonly in a group of
religiously charged people, it is no longer quite so hard to understand
the resurrection claims in the Bible.</p>
<p>Calum - The reports of an empty tomb are exactly what you’d expect if
the resurrection actually happened, and would be unlikely in the case of
a non-resurrection event.</p>
<p><strong>Me - Dealing with this is actually very simple. He is correct that <em>if
the resurrection occurred</em>, then the report of an empty tomb would very
likely be given, and I would add that it would also be very likely to be
reported in the earliest accounts we have of the resurrection. Is this
what we see? No! The empty tomb is not mentioned in Paul, neither are
the physical visitations, both of which you’d expect to see if the
Resurrection actually occurred. Even the visitations are not mentioned
in Mark! So, from a probabilistic point of view, this is the exact
opposite of what we’d expect to see if the resurrection actually
occurred. In fact the descriptions of the resurrection get more
elaborate and more physical the later the text (Paul has visions, Mark
has no visitations but the empty tomb, Matthew and Luke have
visitations, John has the doubting Thomas story, etc…). This is exactly
what we’d expect for legendary development, or a story that has been
embellished over time.</strong></p>
<p><strong>The other thing, is it really all that unlikely to have an empty tomb
story with no resurrection? Notice, I’m not saying to have an empty
tomb, but to have an empty tomb <em>story</em>. There are several different
routes to get that. One is as a literary device. I believe Richard
Carrier supports this, as a reference to Daniel. Another is a deliberate
counter to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docetism">Docetism</a>, to gain favor and win an argument.</strong></p>
<p>Calum - <em>“It is not necessarily helpful to have just some kind of
religious context, it must be the right kind of one. So, for example, I
can see very good reasons why God would want to vindicate Jesus’
teaching by resurrecting him because I think Jesus taught a lot of very
good things, I thought he was (obviously as a Christian) I think he was
a very sincere, a very good person. And I can think of a lot of good
reasons why God would choose Jesus to be a prophet and to become
incarnate in him. Whereas I don’t see comparably good reasons why God
would want to vindicate Mormon teaching. Obviously a lot of that is
because I don’t know a lot about Mormonism but there’s still the
asymmetry there.”</em></p>
<p>Chris - The positive evidence for Mormonism is a lot better than for
Christianity. We have signed documents by the early followers and
founders attesting to the miracles. The best we can say about Paul’s
evidence is that he had a vision. We have a lot of negative evidence for
Mormonism, to be sure, but if we knew more about Christianity perhaps
things would be different.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I would add that we have this <em>pro-Christian</em> filter for all of
our documents, a filter called the Middle Ages, where documents
supporting Christianity had a much better probability of surviving (i.e.
copied) than ones critical of Christianity. The only reason we have the
Nag Hammadi texts is that the monks refused to burn them, as ordered by
the Christian orthodoxy at the time, and instead chose to store them in
a cave. Think about that campaign of whitewashing for hundreds of years!
Actually, the fact that we have so little actual documentary support for
Christianity coming from the first century, despite this huge bias, to
me argues against Christianity.</strong></p>
<p>Chris- How do you know Jesus was sincere or not? Seems like the same
could be said for Joseph Smith.</p>
<h3 id="afterward-abitaboutpriors">Afterward - a bit about priors</h3>
<p>(this section is all <strong>Me -</strong>, so I won’t put it in bold.)</p>
<p>I don’t really think that when Calum is referring to priors that he
really means that in the same way as <em>before the data</em>. It seems to me,
and I believe Swinburne’s analysis reflects this, that the prior for
<em>this</em> calculation is really the posterior for a <em>previous</em> calculation
regarding the existence and properties of God. This is perfectly
legitimate Bayesian procedure, but it makes the argument a different
one. Because of this, <a href="http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23553-the-resurrection-of-god-incarnate/">Swinburne’s calculation</a> for the probability of
God needs to be addressed before we can even deal with the priors in
this resurrection argument. That will have to be another post entirely,
but at any rate Calum did not do it a service in this debate, having not
really gotten to the meat of it when he could have.</p>
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the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2012/12/24/rd-extra-the-nativity-debate-with-jonathan-pearce-and-randal-rauser/">episode on the nativity</a> or the one on the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2013/03/17/rd-extra-orme-vs-shieber-debate-does-the-christian-god-exist/">reasonableness of
Christianity</a> (both debates), the theist in …</p><p>So I was listening to the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts">Reasonable Doubts podcast</a>, and in either
the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2012/12/24/rd-extra-the-nativity-debate-with-jonathan-pearce-and-randal-rauser/">episode on the nativity</a> or the one on the <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/reasonabledoubts/2013/03/17/rd-extra-orme-vs-shieber-debate-does-the-christian-god-exist/">reasonableness of
Christianity</a> (both debates), the theist in the debate said something
to the effect that, had the Gospels been forged (i.e. weren't written by
the claimed disciple Matthew, translator Mark, historian Luke, and
disciple John) then the forgers would have chosen more notable author
names, such as Peter or James, to enhance the reputation of the text.
He then made an analogy with baseball card forgeries, and said that if
you were to make a forgery of baseball cards you'd choose someone like
Babe Ruth, and not some lesser player.</p>
<p>I love analogies with the rebuttal built in! If you were forging
baseball cards, you most certainly <em>wouldn't</em> do one of Babe Ruth,
because the BS meter would peg on anyone who you showed it to. You
would want to choose one that was valuable but not <em>too</em> valuable.
Otherwise, it might be rejected outright.</p>
<p>It would follow that there is some advantage to choosing a name that has
some prestige (e.g. Matthew) but not <em>too</em> much (e.g. Peter).</p>
<p>This is not to mention that the names on the documents were added many
decades after they were written, the order of the Gospels was determined
with the mistaken idea that Matthew was primary, and that the so-called
eye-witness (Matthew) copies verbatim the text of a non eye-witness
(Mark).</p>Rules for Criticizing Opponents2013-06-14T13:40:00-04:002013-06-14T13:40:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-06-14:/posts/2013/Jun/14/rules-for-criticizing-opponents/<p>Below is an excerpt from <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/19/daniel-dennett-intuition-pumps-thinking-extract">Dan Dennett's article</a> article "tools for
thinking". I heard an <a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/daniel_dennett_tools_for_thinking/">interview with him on Point of Inquiry</a>, which
I would say was just "ok". I …</p><p>Below is an excerpt from <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/19/daniel-dennett-intuition-pumps-thinking-extract">Dan Dennett's article</a> article "tools for
thinking". I heard an <a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/daniel_dennett_tools_for_thinking/">interview with him on Point of Inquiry</a>, which
I would say was just "ok". I wanted to hear more about the tools, and
too much of the interview time was spent talking about free will and
consciousness.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticising the views
of an opponent? If there are obvious contradictions in the opponent's
case, then you should point them out, forcefully. If there are
somewhat hidden contradictions, you should carefully expose them to
view – and then dump on them. But the search for hidden contradictions
often crosses the line into nitpicking, sea-lawyering and outright
parody. The thrill of the chase and the conviction that your opponent
has to be harbouring a confusion somewhere encourages uncharitable
interpretation, which gives you an easy target to attack.</p>
<p>But such easy targets are typically irrelevant to the real issues at
stake and simply waste everybody's time and patience, even if they
give amusement to your supporters. The best antidote I know for this
tendency to caricature one's opponent is a list of rules promulgated
many years ago by social psychologist and game theorist Anatol
Rapoport.</p>
<p>How to compose a successful critical commentary:</p>
<p><strong>1. </strong>Attempt to re-express your target's position so clearly,
vividly and fairly that your target says: "Thanks, I wish I'd thought
of putting it that way."</p>
<p><strong>2. </strong>List any points of agreement (especially if they are not
matters of general or widespread agreement).</p>
<p><strong>3. </strong>Mention anything you have learned from your target.</p>
<p><strong>4. </strong>Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of
rebuttal or criticism.</p>
<p>One immediate effect of following these rules is that your targets
will be a receptive audience for your criticism: you have already
shown that you understand their positions as well as they do, and have
demonstrated good judgment (you agree with them on some important
matters and have even been persuaded by something they said).
Following Rapoport's rules is always, for me, something of a struggle…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I like these rules, in theory, and perhaps I should try practicing them
more strictly to see if they are valuable in practice. I think the
context might matter. In a debate, with limited time, it might not
work. It may also not work well if you suspect that your opponent is
going to quote-mine the heck out of your response. However, it may be a
good attitude to develop, and keep one from falling into closed-minded
arrogance. Even if one doesn't <em>communicate</em> this directly, forcing
yourself to itemize points of agreement is probably a good thing, and it
is always a good idea to be able to communicate ones opponents position
with fidelity.</p>
<p>A quick survey of responses of people who don't like Dan Dennett claim
that he isn't putting these words to good use himself, although I think
he probably comes closer than the other "horsemen" (i.e. Dawkins,
Harris, Hitchens).</p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>The source of morality2013-06-13T10:03:00-04:002013-06-13T10:03:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-06-13:/posts/2013/Jun/13/the-source-of-morality/<p>Over at <a href="http://christthetao.blogspot.com/">David Marshall’s blog</a> he has <a href="http://christthetao.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-does-brian-blais-oppose-slavery.html">another response</a> in our
ongoing conversation about the origins of morality, modern perspectives
on slavery, and the roles of Christianity in it …</p><p>Over at <a href="http://christthetao.blogspot.com/">David Marshall’s blog</a> he has <a href="http://christthetao.blogspot.com/2013/06/why-does-brian-blais-oppose-slavery.html">another response</a> in our
ongoing conversation about the origins of morality, modern perspectives
on slavery, and the roles of Christianity in it all. In this latest
reply he brings in a large amount of global history that I simply cannot
comment on. I am not nearly as well read in those issues. However, this
provides an opportunity to address another problem that comes up in many
of these conversations: how do you deal with claims that you can’t track
down yourself? Perhaps there is not enough time to track them down, or
it is too technical for you to understand, or some other reason. I’ll
deal with that issue at the end.</p>
<p>First, I want to comment on this from Marshall:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Brian argues at a lower decibel level.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Thanks! I’m not sure if everyone agrees that I operate at low decibel,
but I do try to be civil (most of the time!).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sam Harris thinks it is obvious that owning slaves is wrong. Brian
Blais thinks it obvious that gay marriage is OK. I think it is obvious
that both beliefs are formed in a particular culture due to that
culture’s heritage, pulled in certain directions by particular lines
of thinking, and would not likely take the same form in, say, Aztec or
Wahhabi societies so readily.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Again, I draw a distinction between the <em>cultural</em> bias that each of us
have and the more objective perspectives we can obtain through rational
discourse.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are two moral issues, here: (1) Why should we care about
“increasing suffering” that is not our own suffering, or (a
Confucianist may ask) of that of people we are intimately related to?
(2) Why should we assume that in fact, these particular “evils” really
do cause more suffering? (More than, say, pornography? Or growing up
with Dad? Or abortion? Or intellectual arrogance?)</p>
</blockquote>
<ol>
<li>If you read Sam Harris’ book, or see some of his lectures on this
issue, he deals with it far more eloquently than I. In a practical
way, we care about the suffering of others because it is directly
tied to the suffering of us. Further, we must care about the
suffering of conscious creatures because this is the moral thing to
do. I don’t want to repeat all of Harris’ theses here, however.</li>
<li>Why should we “assume” these particular “evils” do cause more
suffering? Actually, we do not simply assume it. We marshal (no pun
intended, David) the evidence for it. This is what separates a
rational basis for morality and a religious one - there are no
dictates from “on high”. I could be wrong about it, but from what
evidence I can see, depriving the rights of a minority that most
enjoy causes needless suffering. This applies to slavery and it
applies to the rights of consenting adults to marry.</li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<p>How does Blais know his own set of values is superior to all those
others</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I guess I don’t, except in cases where someone is making a moral claim
and cannot justify on the basis of decreased suffering. It’s like
scientific knowledge that way - how do I know that my knowledge is
better than another? I don’t, until they make specific claims and I see
their justification. I could be wrong about it. I could be corrected,
and convinced of a perspective I don’t currently hold. I don’t see a
problem with this.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Finally, one might argue, from a utilitarian point of view, that the
Athenians increased total happiness by enslaving half their
population, so that free men could sculpt, debate, write philosophy,
and invent science. Might there not be a larger total sum of happiness
in such a Republic, than among a people that is all free, but fails at
such achievements? Or would the Athenians have increased the world’s
total future happiness without those slaves?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is indeed possible. No one ever said that the moral calculus would
be easy.</p>
<p>Marshall continues…</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But the Gospel does say, very clearly, that we are to care even for
our enemies, return good for evil, and love our neighbors as
ourselves. There’s nothing “vague” about that: it’s repeated hundreds
of times, in different ways, and as eloquently as anything ever
written.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It also says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth; I did not come to
bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her
mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his
household.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over
them–bring them here and kill them in front of me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The recurring problem is that there <em>are</em> good things there, but
also <em>bad</em> things there. Given the history of Christianity, and the
current divisions between different groups of Christians, I am not
simply picking things out of context. Intelligent, well-meaning people
draw opposite messages from the Bible. If this were, say, the works of
Shakespeare I’d have no problem with it. We’d simply take the lessons we
like, and call the rest of it anachronistic. This is what moderate
Christians do with much of Bible. Even conservative Christians do it
with at least the brutal dictates in the Old Testament.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Even the New Atheists are waging verbal civil war on one another,
based on different ethical positions they take in regard to feminism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Atheism is simply the label we give to people who are not convinced by
the arguments of theists on the narrow question about the existence of
God. After that, there needn’t be any agreement. That atheists disagree
on feminism is perfectly fine. If they disagreed on the existence of
God, then there would be a problem.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But I don’t think educated Christians are so starkly divided, compared
to the various schools of atheism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Really? You think that, say, educated Baptists and Catholics really
agree on core interpretations of the divinity of Jesus? What about with
Universalists? These are divisions about <em>core</em> beliefs, not tangential
topics like feminism.</p>
<h3 id="dealing-with-claims-beyond-ones-ability-to-check">Dealing with claims beyond ones ability to check</h3>
<p>In Marshall’s post, he says</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My impression is that it is also rather hard to find early reform
movements within Hindu culture that challenged caste. Mohandas Gandhi
came at the tail end of reform inspired by outside forces (Christian
missions), as John Farquhar shows in Modern Religious Movements in
India. In China, while some ethnic groups refrained from binding the
feet of women, like the Hakka, it took an outside agent – Christian
missions, again – to challenge it inside the Han Chinese culture as a
whole.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don’t have the expertise in history to really comment, nor can I make
an authoritative judgement on it. However, I am skeptical of it
nonetheless. Why? If someone makes a claim about the rise of Napoleon,
beyond my ability to confirm, I will tend to believe them - unless I
suspect that this claim supports some other strongly held belief of the
person. In that case, I would be skeptical of it.</p>
<p>In the case of this description from Marshall, it sounds too much like
the claim that started this discussion, that somehow Christianity was
the source of “separation of church and state”. A claim that I believe
is biased in the direction of Marshall’s personal beliefs in the tenets
of Christianity. It seems, although I can’t demonstrate it conclusively
without a lot more work, to be of a similar flavor. I ran into the same
problem with UFO sightings. I can't investigate every single UFO claim,
but every one that I did have time to track down turned out to be
mundane. The same with faith-healings. This one deals with the force
of history, and I simply don't have the time to corroborate the facts,
but I am still left unconvinced.</p>
<p>Perhaps that puts this conversation at an end, with all of the issues
pretty much on the table for others to read and react to. It has
certainly been an interesting and challenging exchange.</p>Christianity and morality2013-06-10T12:50:00-04:002013-06-10T12:50:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-06-10:/posts/2013/Jun/10/christianity-and-morality/<p>In a comment to <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/miscellaneous-christian-topics-another-counter-to-marshall/">one of my posts</a> about miscellaneous Christian ideas,
David Marshall <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/miscellaneous-christian-topics-another-counter-to-marshall/#comment-446">asks the following question</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why do you suppose that you think slavery is wrong? How do …</p></blockquote><p>In a comment to <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/miscellaneous-christian-topics-another-counter-to-marshall/">one of my posts</a> about miscellaneous Christian ideas,
David Marshall <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/miscellaneous-christian-topics-another-counter-to-marshall/#comment-446">asks the following question</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why do you suppose that you think slavery is wrong? How do you know
it isn't because you are at the end of a long process of
Christianization of morals within western thought, that I (briefly)
describe?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think this is a fair question, and felt it needed some thought, so I
took a few days to ponder it. I'm sure there is more to be said on
this, but let me outline my thinking process on this.</p>
<p>Where did I come by the concept of why slavery is wrong? I'd say it
starts with the way I was brought up, where I learned to treat people
well. From there, learning history, I could see that history is filled
with examples of people treating others badly (including owning other
people as property) and people treating others well. Of course, this
part is cultural, and if I had been raised in the South in the 1830's,
slavery would not immediately seem obviously wrong. As an adult, one
learns about the proper justification for beliefs. How beliefs should
be based on evidence, and learning the methods of science, I was able to
much better evaluate the reasons behind claims, and also understand the
ways in which erroneous justifications have been made for many claims.
This ties into psychology, economics, and a whole host of other human
activities.</p>
<p>After all this, I've come to accept that morality relates to the
suffering and well-being of conscious creatures. As such, we can make
objective evaluations about how to increase well-being and decrease
suffering. It becomes clear, then, that owning people as property
needlessly increases suffering, and as such is objectively wrong. I can
then apply this principle in cases where I was raised with a different
moral perspective, and find that some of these are wrong. For example,
banning gay marriage is wrong (sorry for the double negative!), even if
I was raised with the opposite. It needlessly adds to human suffering.
So, I can override my cultural teachings on morality, and in the same
way I am able to judge other worldviews for obvious cases of immoral
behavior (e.g. suicide bombing, genocide, etc...)</p>
<p>How do I know it isn't because I am at the end of a long process of
Christianization of morals within western thought? I prefer to
rephrase, slightly, saying "why do I believe it is likely..." instead of
"how do I know...". This is a matter of probability, and I don't think
it is possible to demonstrate the truth of a claim like this to the
level of probability that I would consider knowledge. So why do I
believe "slavery is wrong" is <em>unlikely</em> to be simply the end of a
process of Christianization? First and foremost, I see no clear
evidence that Christianity as revealed in the Bible has a clear message
against slavery. You can find passages vaguely against particular
slave-master situations, and you can find dictates about how you should
treat your slaves. There is <em>never</em> a case where it says,
<span style="text-decoration:underline;"><em>clearly</em></span>, that slavery
is in fact wrong. Second, there is historical precedent for Christians
to argue for slavery based on a Biblical reading - and this wasn't just
a fringe reading. One might argue that they are using a wrong reading,
but how do we know?</p>
<p>Thirdly, following on this, my experience with <em>legitimate</em> searches for
truth is that they converge after some initial state of disagreement.
Take any previously contentious argument in science that is currently
well understood - say, the origin of heat. Over the past couple hundred
years there were many theories about what heat was - the elemental
theory of heat, a fluid theory, a statistical theory, etc... Once the
scientific methodology was improved to the point where this problem
could be explored rationally, the ideas started to converge. There were
fewer interpretations of the evidence considered valid, and now there
really is just one. This is true for <em>every</em> branch of science, and I
would contend, any approach that addresses the truth - you start off
with divergent ideas when you don't fully understand a topic, and
converge to a single understanding. I see<em>no evidence</em> of this in
Christianity. There is <em>more</em> disagreement now than 1000 years ago
about pivotal doctrines. This is not the pattern we see for something
that is <em>true</em>, but is a pattern for something we see a <em>cultural</em>.</p>
<p>Finally, I do see evidence of Christians changing their doctrines to
suit their particular ends. Most of the Old Testament is conveniently
ignored, interpreted away, because it has become untenable in a modern
society. Christian's don't do this because it is a natural, obvious
step in the faith but because modern, secular progress has demonstrated
that many of the doctrines are either wrong or simply useless. The
authority of religion has been battered from all directions.</p>
<p>Thus, I see evidence of cherry-picking, an inconsistent message in the
Bible which allows for nearly any philosophical stance to justified with
the proper cherry-picking, and a lot of post-hoc argumentation. I see
immoral acts not only allowed by God, but commanded by God, and thus at
best an inconsistent moral picture from the "good" book. I've heard it
referred to as the "great book of multiple choice", and I believe that
this interpretation is more consistent with all of the aspects I've seen
about Christianity, both present and historical.</p>Miscellaneous Christian topics - another counter to Marshall2013-06-07T12:33:00-04:002013-06-07T12:33:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-06-07:/posts/2013/Jun/07/miscellaneous-christian-topics-another-counter-to-marshall/<p><span style="line-height:1.5;">Over at David Marshall's blog he has
</span><a href="http://christthetao.blogspot.com/2013/06/response-to-brian-blais.html">posted a response</a><span style="line-height:1.5;"> to
</span><a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/unbelievable-project-the-new-atheism-barry-duke-and-david-marshall-debate/">one of my Unbelievable Project
posts</a><span style="line-height:1.5;"> (sidenote: I do promise to get
back to that project...I have a …</span></p><p><span style="line-height:1.5;">Over at David Marshall's blog he has
</span><a href="http://christthetao.blogspot.com/2013/06/response-to-brian-blais.html">posted a response</a><span style="line-height:1.5;"> to
</span><a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/unbelievable-project-the-new-atheism-barry-duke-and-david-marshall-debate/">one of my Unbelievable Project
posts</a><span style="line-height:1.5;"> (sidenote: I do promise to get
back to that project...I have a number of episodes in the hopper, I just
need a block of time to type). At any rate, let me counter again, and
see where this goes.</span></p>
<p>On the topic of "militant atheism", I pointed out a double standard in
the use of the word "militant" to atheists and islamists. Marshall
replies</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What causes us to call them "militant," rather, is the refusal to
admit the vast amount of good that the Judeo-Christian tradition has
accomplished</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think this makes my point. Do we call Militant Islamists "militant"
because they refuse to see the good in other people? No, it's because
they blow stuff up. You might call the New Atheists "agressive",
"obnoxious", "misguided" or "wrong", but "militant" they are not.
Marshall continues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Have more people been killed by angry Christian terrorists per
Christian in recent years, or by angry atheist terrorists? Timothy
McVeigh was an agnostic, that would count when atheists take census
for the purpose of expanding their ranks. The Unabomber appears to
have been an atheist. The Tamil Tigers, who do more of this sort of
thing than almost anyone, may be as well.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now I could counter with things like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence">anti-abortion violence</a>, and
that Timothy McVeigh's religious views were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_McVeigh#Political_views_and_religious_beliefs">mixed at best</a>, etc...
However I think that, even if we grant that McVeigh was an atheist and
the Unabomber too, that they didn't do the horrible things <strong><em>in the
name</em></strong> of their atheism. However, the anti-abortion violence, and the
historical violence of Christians, has been done <strong><em>in the name</em></strong> of
the religion. That's a big difference, and one that seems to be
conveniently ignored.</p>
<p>Further, to compare the New Atheists (say, any of the four of Dawkins,
Harris, Hitchens, and Dennett) to any of these people, or to Stalinist
Russia, or Hitler, or any of them is totally ridiculous. No matter how
strident they are, the New Atheists are not "militant" in the same way
that militant Islamists are.</p>
<p>On the point about "separation of church and state", which Marshall has
stated was a Christian idea, and that I had countered with: "If the
separation was truly was a Christian idea, then I’d expect a totally
different European history from 0 AD to 1700 AD! ", he counters with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But Blais is again not being reasonable about that history, either.
First of all, Christians didn't attain much power until almost 400
AD. And secondly, the world in which Christians then attained power
had fixed political structures, which transformed Christianity about
as much as Christianity changed it. It is anachronistic to judge the
5th Century by what humanity has attained since.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, what you're saying, is that the Christians were victims of the
political structure such that the fundamental Christian belief of
"separation of church and state" was not able to be implemented for the
1300 year Christian rule? Sorry, but that seems like a dodge to me.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Jesus also said, "Forgive your enemies." The claim that this, too, is
a Christian idea, is not rendered "ridiculous" by the fact that
Christians have often actually killed and cursed, not forgiven, their
enemies. An idea can be a Christian idea, even can come from Jesus'
mouth, without therefore determining all subsequent Christian history.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sure. However, since there is no statement "separation of church and
state" anywhere in the NT, it seems like quite a stretch to make the
same claim. One can probably find a decent number of examples of people
throughout the last 2000 years putting "forgive your enemies" to good
use, or at least claiming it is a Christian idea. Can you find any
examples prior to the enlightenment of any Christian espousing the
separation of church and state, except in the most limited cases (e.g.
you pay taxes to government not to the church). Clearly <strong><em>every</em></strong>
European monarchy was founded on the establishment of a direct
connection between church and state.</p>
<p>Marshall didn't seem to like my response concerning the topic of
slavery. I said: " It is faint praise indeed that the best you can say
about the Christian stance on slavery, historically, is that some slaves
were freed so that 700 years later (!!!) some small areas in the world,
that didn’t feel that they needed slaves anymore, didn’t have slaves. "</p>
<p>His response?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Faint praise? Tens of millions of slaves have been freed, due to the
abolitionist movements that began with praying Christians.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To be clear, I am definitely against slavery, and I definitely think it
is a great thing that tens of millions of slaves have been freed. That
wasn't the point. The point was that Marshall said in the Unbelievable
episode:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Beginning in the fourth century slaves were set free so that by the
eleventh century there were areas of western Europe free of slaves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, put another way, Christian doctrine was so anti-slavery that, when
the Christians had the most power, the best they could do was to take
700 years to rid some areas of Europe of slaves...areas that just didn't
need slaves anyway. I don't think that's an impressive record.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sixty percent of anti-slave organizers were Christian pastors.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Where does this come from? I'd like a citation for this. Regardless,
it doesn't surprise me. I would also guess that most of the <em>pro</em>-slave
organizers (like George Whitefield) were also Christian pastors. Why?
Because, at that time (and still now, in the US) most of the people
were Christians, and further, pastors were social and political
organizers. So as a matter of probability, this claim would seem to be
likely, and thus carries no weight in the argument.</p>
<p>Marshall continues</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is clear the New Testament condemns the slave trade, though. It is
clear Paul told Philemon he should accept Onesimus back "no longer as
a slave, but as a dear brother." And it ought be clear that "loving
your neighbor as yourself" is pretty hard to do if you put chains
around your neighbor's neck.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But Paul also says this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with
sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. 6 Obey them not
only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of
Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve wholeheartedly,
as if you were serving the Lord, not people, 8 because you know that
the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they
are slave or free ."(<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians%206:5-6:8&version=NIV">Ephesians 6:5-8</a>)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Paul is not being particularly anti-slavery here. This is part of the
problem - the message in the Bible is not clear, despite Marshall's
claims to the contrary. Like fables and proverbs, you can find opposite
messages, enough to justify whatever you'd like (e.g. too many cooks
spoil the broth; many hands make light work). As a result, you get
perspectives like:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned
in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has
existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest
civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts -
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_slavery#Opposition_to_abolitionism">Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is he reading the same Bible? Is he simply dense and uninformed? Is
the Bible so unclear that people can have such a diverse set of opinions
on it?</p>
<p>Finally, on the slavery issue, we have Marshall saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But it is unrealistic and unreasonable to expect the Bible to
institute a crusade against slavery from the get-go. Slavery was not,
in fact, an unambiguous evil in the ancient world: the alternative (as
in Herodotus, and even in Homer) was often to just kill enemy soldiers
(or even civilians) whom you captured. What the Bible did, was slowly
create a society, and a set of moral ideals, that made slavery less
and less important, and liberation of slaves more and more admirable,
even while glorifying labor, and enriching ordinary workers.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ok, let me get this straight. Marshall seems to be saying that the same
God that created the <strong><em>universe</em></strong>, inspired the writing of the Bible,
created our moral sense, and had a <em>direct and personal</em> hand in human
affairs from, say, 4000 BC to 50AD (at least!) couldn't come up with a
way to solve the slavery problem? Really? The best God could do was to
drop in some conflicting perspectives on the issue into a book so that
<strong><em>1500 years</em></strong> after that we could finally get rid of slaves? Is it
truly unreasonable to expect a clear condemnation of slavery in a book
purporting to deliver the message of absolute morality from an
all-knowing source? This is a remarkable claim!</p>
<p>On to ID. One point of clarification I want to make is the following.
Marshall tires of the lying label that I used:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As for "lying," the charge grows tedious. New Atheists are so eager
with this charge -- even against C. S. Lewis, recently, and often
against me -- one just wishes they would choose to argue like adults,
frankly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, I was not quoting New Atheists here, I was referring to what
the conservative, Bush appointed Judge Jones said <a href="http://ncse.com/files/pub/legal/kitzmiller/highlights/2005-12-20_Kitzmiller_decision.pdf">in his decision</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and
proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and
again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind
the ID Policy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I've also read a fair amount about ID, read many of the sources (Behe,
Dembski, others), read all of the Dover documents, followed Ken Miller's
seminars, etc... I do not arrive at my opinions about ID entirely
uninformed. ID is religion masquerading as science.</p>
<p>Finally, Marshall on corporal punishment and child abuse:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Though I'm a little curious about calling corporal punishment -- what,
spanking a bratty child on the behind? -- "child abuse."</p>
<p>The classics work.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was thinking of more extreme examples of corporal punishment than
"spanking on the behind". Either way, however, no matter your attitude
toward spanking, the act of simply calling a child "Christian" is even
less worthy of being labeled "abuse". I find Dawkins' language in this
example so over the top that it ceases to be useful.</p>
<p>That's it for now!</p>Model helicopter guided by power of thought....2013-06-05T23:18:00-04:002013-06-05T23:18:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-06-05:/posts/2013/Jun/05/model-helicopter-guided-by-power-of-thought/<p>I don't think I need to add anything to this one...the title and movie
speak for themselves.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSTLHBrTgD4&feature=youtu.be">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSTLHBrTgD4&feature=youtu.be</a></p>
<p>All right …</p><p>I don't think I need to add anything to this one...the title and movie
speak for themselves.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSTLHBrTgD4&feature=youtu.be">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSTLHBrTgD4&feature=youtu.be</a></p>
<p>All right, I'll add something...cool!</p>Evidence Of Other Universes2013-06-05T09:45:00-04:002013-06-05T09:45:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-06-05:/posts/2013/Jun/05/evidence-of-other-universes/<p>When I see things like this, I recall pieces of apologetics like
"everything that begins to exist has a cause", and "the existence of the
multiverse is a bigger faith …</p><p>When I see things like this, I recall pieces of apologetics like
"everything that begins to exist has a cause", and "the existence of the
multiverse is a bigger faith claim than the existence of God", and they
ring empty to me...even if these particular scenarios don't pan out,
that they exist at all is a testament to science over religion...</p>
<p><a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/421999/astronomers-find-first-evidence-of-other-universes/">http://www.technologyreview.com/view/421999/astronomers-find-first-evidence-of-other-universes/</a></p>Star Trek and Storytelling2013-05-30T18:44:00-04:002013-05-30T18:44:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-05-30:/posts/2013/May/30/star-trek-and-storytelling/<p>I'm a big fan of Star Trek. I grew up with it (on re-runs), followed the
Next Generation and Deep Space Nine with interest. I did skip Voyager
and Enterprise …</p><p>I'm a big fan of Star Trek. I grew up with it (on re-runs), followed the
Next Generation and Deep Space Nine with interest. I did skip Voyager
and Enterprise, but definitely follow the recent reboot movies.</p>
<p>Although I still enjoy the storytelling of Star Trek, I do have a
problem with it that creeps into other shows as well. I noticed it again
in the most recent movie. Because Star Trek is a franchise, almost by
definition, none of the characters can actually die or change in any
substantive way. Because of this, from a storytelling perspective,
dramatic scenes are a lot less dramatic.</p>
<p>One way to see this also is to imagine spinning out possibly story
lines, given only the pilot episode. If you did this for, say, Star Trek
the Next Generation you would probably hit a few of episodes even as
late as season 7. If, however, you tried to do it with Babylon 5 you
wouldn't even make it to late season 2. Perhaps this is the story
telling equivalent of market failures with monopolies.</p>
<p>I enjoyed the new Star Trek movie (especially in 3D!), but I sometimes
wish that this lingering constraint on the show were lifted. Imagine,
for example, a series set in the Star Trek universe where the characters
actually change? Where there isn't a technological solution to every
problem? Where the outcome wasn't really known in advance?</p>A little about miracles2013-05-21T18:35:00-04:002013-05-21T18:35:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-05-21:/posts/2013/May/21/a-little-about-miracles/<p>I listened to a <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/discussion-with-naturalist-matthew-ferguson-part-1/">recent interview</a> (<a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/discussion-with-naturalist-matthew-ferguson-part-2/)">Part 2</a>) with Matthew Ferguson
on the <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/">Don Johnson show</a>, which I found pretty impressive. Matthew
Ferguson has a <a href="http://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/">very interesting blog</a> that I …</p><p>I listened to a <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/discussion-with-naturalist-matthew-ferguson-part-1/">recent interview</a> (<a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/discussion-with-naturalist-matthew-ferguson-part-2/)">Part 2</a>) with Matthew Ferguson
on the <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/">Don Johnson show</a>, which I found pretty impressive. Matthew
Ferguson has a <a href="http://adversusapologetica.wordpress.com/">very interesting blog</a> that I just found, and have
been enjoying reading.</p>
<h2 id="pandoc-initial-comments">Initial Comments</h2>
<p>However, I did find several points in the informal debate that I thought
could be handled better (from my armchair, of course!). Just to note
that although I think that if I were there, I might have been able to
deal with some of the questions better, I also think that nearly all of
the debate was handled much better than I could have done. What struck
me at one point, in <a href="http://donjohnsonministries.org/discussion-with-naturalist-matthew-ferguson-part-2/)">Part 2</a>, was Don's zeal for the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Credibility-New-Testament-Accounts/dp/0801039525">miracles
collection by Craig Keener</a> (<a href="http://www.uncrediblehallq.net/2012/01/0shou5/review-of-craig-keeners-miracles/)">review of Keener's book here</a>). He
seemed to think that because there were hundreds of thousands of miracle
reports, that that was evidence for their truth. He was, however, quick
to dismiss any comparison with other pseudosciences. Ferguson admits on
his blog that the "debate came off as a little ambushy" on this point,
because he hadn't read this book, and clearly couldn't respond to all of
them, but I think that misses the point. I think one can address the
miracle claims without being entirely dismissive (and sounding closed
minded) but putting them in their proper context.</p>
<h2 id="pandoc-evaluating-miracle-claims---some-lessons-from-ufos">Evaluating Miracle Claims - Some Lessons from UFOs</h2>
<p>So in Keener's book, there is a <strong>huge</strong> collection of claims of
miracles. We could find an equally large collection of UFO sightings.
Now, Don and other Christians would be quick to dismiss UFO sightings as
irrelevant, but I would raise the questions:</p>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Given a set of claims, how do we determine whether they are true?</li>
<li>Are any of them true?</li>
<li>Do the number of claims contribute to their truth value?</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I believe that the methods we use to determine the veracity of UFO
claims can be used to investigate any claims, remarkable or not,
including miracle claims. To start, we clearly we can't personally
investigate every single claim, and thus cannot comment on ones we
haven't investigated except to note where it seems similar to ones that
we have. I have a friend who I managed (over several years) to break of
his UFO enthusiasm - he was convinced by all of these television shows
claiming evidence for alien spacecraft observations and visitations. He
invited me over to his house periodically to watch these shows to get my
reaction. This is the process that I would use:</p>
<ol>
<li>I would write down each specific claim - what was <em>actually</em> being
claimed, and what details were there? (names of places, time, who
saw what, etc...)</li>
<li>I would note any initial inconsistencies (for example, there was
once where, in the interview process, the different witnesses
actually described <em>different</em> things! this seemed to go unnoticed
by the reporter)</li>
<li>I would go home, and try to find out as much about the <em>original</em>
details of the events. It would take me probably at least an hour
for each case, and some I couldn't track down. However, many of them
I could. I would read the claims again, and the skeptical accounts,
and the responses to the skeptics. I would try to see what the
actual data was, how it was collected, when it was reported, etc...</li>
</ol>
<p>What I found for <em>every</em> case that I personally investigated was the
following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Most of the <em>actual</em>, original claims were mundane. Lights in the
sky, marks on the ground, etc.... No hard evidence of anything
remarkable.</li>
<li>Misinterpretation of a known object, or objects, in the sky or on
the ground.</li>
<li>The reporting of the claims grew more and more remarkable. A
particularly good example was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendlesham_Forest_incident">Rendelsham Forest</a> UFO case
where the initial reports were just lights, and the later reports
involved spacecraft, alien code-books, etc...</li>
<li>There were serious inconsistencies between reports, or anomalous
non-reports (i.e. people who <em>should</em> have seen something but
didn't). A good example of this was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_O'Hare_International_Airport_UFO_sighting">Chicago airport sighting</a>
where a small group of people, in a localized area of the airport,
saw something yet the large number of other people in the nearby
areas of the airport reported nothing.</li>
</ol>
<p>I repeat - in <em>every single case</em> that I personally investigated, these
points were in evidence. Then I look through something like the <a href="http://files.ncas.org/condon/text/contents.htm">Condon
report</a> where they go through something like 30 years of data in the
height of the UFO craze and don't come up with even a single item that
is not mundane in its nature. After that, new UFO claims I see with
suspicion even if I don't check them out. If something seems
straightforward to check out, I might do it, but I don't feel it is my
job to investigate every claim. If there had been even a single case
which pointed to something probably remarkable, I'd have a different
attitude.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Lesson: if the claims made shrink and disappear at critical and
skeptical investigation, the claim is not likely to be true.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="pandoc-miracles">Miracles</h2>
<p>The Catholic Church has a division to investigate miracles, and has
determined that some of them are genuine. However, the Catholic Church
often has significant blinders, and definitely takes a long time to
adjust to obvious mistakes (Galileo anyone?).</p>
<p>Take, for example, <a href="http://listverse.com/2008/07/14/top-10-astonishing-miracles/">this site on top 10 miracles</a>. I've personally
researched about 3 or 4 of these, and it is quite clear that those are
definitely frauds (#1, 2, 3, and 5 I've checked). Yet, do we get any
retraction from the Catholic Church? Do we get <em>any</em> hint of skepticism?
None at all.</p>
<p>Again, I follow the same steps as above. I do not take someone else's
word, necessarily, and I don't discount them out of hand. The miracles
of Fatima are a great example. First, we have "visions" from highly
impressionable children, one of whom was known to have made up fanciful
stories in the recent past. These children are the only ones who "see"
it, until the last vision where hundreds claimed to see the "Miracle of
the Sun". The problem? The initial stories did not agree, and we only
get a semi-consistent story after the various witnesses spoke with each
other and to a priest collecting the reports. Check out <a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/show/real_secrets_of_fatima/">The Real
Secrets of Fatima</a> for the details. All of the elements spoken about
above can be seen - initial mundane experiences, misinterpretation of
known objects (i.e. the sun, and clouds), the exaggeration of stories in
later recollection, serious inconsistencies in reports and notable
non-reports.</p>
<p>The same goes for every faith-healer I've read about. A little digging,
and a little skepticism, and the entire enterprise come crashing down.
Many times it doesn't take much digging!</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the truth is there, then it shouldn't retreat under investigation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is not a matter of being <em>too skeptical</em>. It is a matter of not
being credulous.</p>Creationist Math2013-05-10T18:36:00-04:002013-05-10T18:36:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-05-10:/posts/2013/May/10/creationist-math/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>So I got pointed to the <a href="Institute%20for%20Creation%20Research">http://www.icr.org</a>, which if you haven't
poked around on the site, you really should. It is quite interesting
(not really in …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>So I got pointed to the <a href="Institute%20for%20Creation%20Research">http://www.icr.org</a>, which if you haven't
poked around on the site, you really should. It is quite interesting
(not really in a good way). However, I want to look at a <a href="http://www.icr.org/article/a-7-billion-whyd-it-take-so-long/">particular
article on the young earth</a>, arguing from population growth rates. The
relevant sentences are:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Using census records from the last 400 years and a bit of algebra, and
assuming a natural logarithmic growth, eight Flood survivors 4,500
years ago produce 7 billion people almost exactly. This is powerful
evidence that biblical history is accurate, and man-made evolutionary
history is not.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then they footnote the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The formula for logarithmic human world population growth is <span class="math">\(P = Po e^{rt}\)</span>, where P = the current population, Po = the initial
population, e = the base of natural logarithms (2.718), r = the
average annual population growth rate (0.456% or 0.00456 in the
calculator), and t = the time interval from <span class="math">\(P_o\)</span> to <span class="math">\(P\)</span>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Finally, in the middle of the article, they are incredulous of the low
net birth rate in pre-agricultural human populations:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Thus, the first human couple that supposedly evolved from ape-like
ancestors would have had only 6 million descendants after 2.4 million
years. This requires a population growth rate of about
0.000000009-essentially zero. Virtually no growth for 2.4 million
years?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So, how do we respond to this sort of analysis? One could try to simply
write it off as the rantings of a person blinded, by their religious
bias, to a true understanding of science. However I prefer an
alternative approach. It may be tilting at windmills, but I prefer to
take a claim at face value, and see why it fails, and to ask followup
questions. Since the math here is so simple, it is easy to demonstrate
any errors, assumptions, etc.. and get to the bottom of it. So, someone
has made a claim, I don't agree, how do I proceed?</p>
<h2 id="did-they-do-their-arithmetic-right-yes">Did they do their arithmetic right? Yes!</h2>
<p>The first thing I like to do is, assuming they are right in all of their
numbers, do they do the calculation correctly. This eliminates a pretty
obvious error that could have caused the problem. I suspected they got
it right, but I wanted to make sure. The math is</p>
<div class="math">$$
P=P_o e^{rt}
$$</div>
<p>The code is:</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>r=0.00456
t=4500.0
Po=8.0
print Po*exp(r*t)/1e9,"billion"
</code></pre></div>
<p>Yielding</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="mf">6.52849018681</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">billion</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>The other direction is, how long ago were there only 8 people?</p>
<div class="math">\begin{eqnarray}
P(t)&=&P_o \times e^{r\cdot t} \\\\
\log P(t) &=& \log(P_o) + r\cdot t\\\\
t&=& \frac{\log(P(t))-\log(P_o)}{r}
\end{eqnarray}</div>
<p>or</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>Po=6.5e9 # current population
r=0.00456
P=8 # target population
t=(log(P)-log(Po))/r
print t, "years"
</code></pre></div>
<p>resulting in</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code>-4499.04089302 years.
</code></pre></div>
<h2 id="is-their-growth-rate-correct">Is their growth rate correct?</h2>
<p>Here I am using <a href="http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/worldpop/table_population.php">data from census.gov</a>. It is possible (in fact likely) that the original post used a slightly
different data set, but they didn't cite it so I can't confirm that. The
conclusions will not be qualitatively different, but that would be one
of the questions I'd have for the author (see below).</p>
<p>It is instructive to look at the data set both on a normal scale and a
log scale. The key thing here is that <strong>a constant growth rate
translates to a straight line on the log scale</strong>. Let's see if this is
the case (see the lower of the two plots, especially):</p>
<p><img alt="download" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/download.png?w=640"></p>
<p>Linear? Not so much.</p>
<p>I then chose a time-frame over which to calculate the average which gave
(for my data set) as close to their growth rate above - this is
essentially the growth rate consistent with the Biblical chronology. In
my data set that average is from 1300 to 2010, or 700 years (theirs,
they claim, it was 400 years so there is clearly a difference in data
sets here - however, they don't reference their actual data, and
regardless, this same analysis would work in their case too).</p>
<p><img alt="download (1)" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/download-1.png?w=640"></p>
<p>You can see from here that this average yields the Biblical number of
4500 years ago, but that it is clearly not a good assumption to think
that the growth rate, even over this time-frame, is constant. Because of
this, depending on how far back you do the averaging, you get a
<em>different</em> time of the Flood. For example, the following show cases for
1600-2010, and 1950-2010. The last one is the closest to a constant
growth rate, but gives a ridiculous -1200 years back to 8 people!</p>
<p><img alt="download (2)" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/download-2.png?w=640"></p>
<p><img alt="download (3)" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/download-3.png?w=640"></p>
<p>(As an aside, Richard Dawkins does the same calculation with rats, and
comes up with an astonishing 1900 or so for the beginning of the Earth.)</p>
<h2 id="bottom-line">Bottom Line</h2>
<p>The biggest problem with this calculation is assuming a constant growth
rate. Once it isn't constant, then the time-frame over which you
calculate the average makes a big difference. Only <em>one</em> possible
time-frame will result in something consistent with the Biblical
account, so one would have to justify:</p>
<ol>
<li>Why you can possibly assume constant growth rate in the distant past
knowing it wasn't constant in the time-frame we know about.</li>
<li>Even given a solid justification (which I don't believe actually
exists...but I'm open to suggestions), you have to further justify
why the <em>particular</em> time average you take, that is consistent with
the Biblical account, is the one you <em>should</em> take.</li>
</ol>
<p>You can't use as a reason "because it's consistent with the Biblical
account", because the entire point is to <em>justify</em> the Biblical account,
or to demonstrate that the data is consistent with it. It's not, if you
have to postulate that the Biblical account is correct, and choose the
specifics of the calculations to meet that.</p>
<h2 id="questions-for-brian-thomas-ms-at-the-icr">Questions for Brian Thomas, M.S. at the ICR.</h2>
<p>Here are the questions I'd like answered. I'm not expecting any, but I'd
be thrilled to get one!</p>
<ol>
<li>What data set did you use? I'm sure it won't make any difference,
but it is good to make sure that we all agree on the numbers. I'd
be happy to run my analysis through any data set that you provide.</li>
<li>Using your data set, and your analysis, do you confirm my
observation that your result is sensitive to the time-frame (i.e.
the 400 years in your case, 700 years in mine) over which you are
obtaining your "average" growth rate?</li>
<li>If it is, do you have a justification for using that, <strong>and only
that</strong>, time-frame?</li>
<li>Do you have a justification for using an average growth rate model
in the face of data that clearly shows that the growth rate is <em>not</em>
constant?</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="questions-for-brian-thomas-ms-at-the-icr">Comment about Growth Rates before Agriculture</h2>
<p>The original article was astounded that the growth rate, prior to
agriculture, could be so low. Essentially, they seem to believe that
exponential growth should have started once you had people, and gone at
a constant rate the entire time. However, before agriculture, there
would have been a fairly low <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity">carrying capacity</a>, and human population
would follow <a href="http://mathworld.wolfram.com/LogisticEquation.html"><em>logistic growth</em></a>, not exponential. Near the carrying
capacity, the growth rate is essentially zero, exactly as observed. A
little bit of reading on how populations <em>actually change</em> might be
helpful to these people.</p>
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the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={9B821FF8-A06D-403A-9B3F-617D7846ACDF}">origin of life</a>. The creationist made the claim that all of the
scientific attempts at a naturalistic, non-design …</p><p>I just listened to a recent <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a>, an episode about
the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={9B821FF8-A06D-403A-9B3F-617D7846ACDF}">origin of life</a>. The creationist made the claim that all of the
scientific attempts at a naturalistic, non-design method for creating
the initial life on the planet have met with dead ends. He further
added that this should make one start considering supernatural, design
methods for creating the initial life.</p>
<p>Aside from not understanding science, a question stuck in my head, and I
think the answer really shows the hand of these so-called intelligence
design "scientists" as religionists in disguise. The question is the
following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Once you rule out all of the naturalistic, non-design explanations
[which we haven't, by the way], and if design is so evident in the
biological molecules, then the next step should be to consider and
rule out naturalistic <strong><em>design</em></strong> explanations…i.e. alien life
designed life on this planet. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Why is this explanation never raised by ID proponents? They claim that
the "designer" is not, necessarily, God yet I never see them rule out
alien minds as the designers. They jump from naturalistic, non-design
right over to supernatural "explanations". I think, when pressed, they
would have to deal with alien design, and their true nature.</p>Consciousness in infants2013-04-28T00:26:00-04:002013-04-28T00:26:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-04-28:/posts/2013/Apr/28/consciousness-in-infants/<p>I've always been interested in the origin of consciousness, and am
intrigued by attempts to quantify it and to detect it. A<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6130/376.abstract?sid=a2378a8e-401f-4166-9092-53cc5cf2c621">recent article
in Science</a> seems to address part …</p><p>I've always been interested in the origin of consciousness, and am
intrigued by attempts to quantify it and to detect it. A<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6130/376.abstract?sid=a2378a8e-401f-4166-9092-53cc5cf2c621">recent article
in Science</a> seems to address part of the origin of consciousness in
infants. It makes you wonder what infant experience is like, and
perhaps the semi-conscious experience of dogs, cats, octopi, and
dolphins. The abstract is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Infants have a sophisticated behavioral and cognitive repertoire
suggestive of a capacity for conscious reflection. Yet, demonstrating
conscious access in infants remains challenging, mainly because they
cannot report their thoughts. Here, to circumvent this problem, we
studied whether an electrophysiological signature
of consciousness found in adults, corresponding to a late nonlinear
cortical response [\~300 milliseconds (ms)] to brief pictures, already
exists in infants. We recorded event-related potentials while 5-, 12-,
and 15-month-old infants (<em>N</em> = 80) viewed masked faces at various
levels of visibility. In all age groups, we found a late slow wave
showing a nonlinear profile at the expected perceptual thresholds.
However, this late component shifted from a weak and delayed response
in 5-month-olds (starting around 900 ms) to a more sustained and
faster response in older infants (around 750 ms). These results reveal
that the brain mechanisms underlying the threshold for conscious
perception are already present in infancy but undergo a slow
acceleration during development.</p>
</blockquote>Some recent presentations2013-04-24T23:54:00-04:002013-04-24T23:54:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-04-24:/posts/2013/Apr/24/some-recent-presentations/<p>For any that are interested, I've given or been part of a <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/presentations_html/presentations.html">number of
presentations recently</a>. Two of particular interest were done today
for Research and Engagement Day (REDay) at …</p><p>For any that are interested, I've given or been part of a <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/presentations_html/presentations.html">number of
presentations recently</a>. Two of particular interest were done today
for Research and Engagement Day (REDay) at Bryant University. The first
on <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/Science%20and%20Faith%20April%202013.pdf">science and faith</a>, and the other on the [mathematics of the
zombie apocalypse][] [with <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/zombies_handout_apr2013.pdf">a handout</a>]. Enjoy!</p>10 signs of intellectual honesty2013-04-20T14:51:00-04:002013-04-20T14:51:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-04-20:/posts/2013/Apr/20/10-signs-of-intellectual-honesty/<p>This post, and others like it, are things I try to communicate to my
students. Recognizing, and publicly acknowledging ones shortcomings, is
a big one in my book.</p>A funny little probability problem - some closure2013-03-25T09:48:00-04:002013-03-25T09:48:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-25:/posts/2013/Mar/25/a-funny-little-probability-problem-some-closure/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>This weekend I got hooked on a <a href="a-funny-little-probability-problem-correct.html">funny little probability puzzle</a>, and
have finally found some closure. It started with an off-hand comment by
a student, which led me …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>This weekend I got hooked on a <a href="a-funny-little-probability-problem-correct.html">funny little probability puzzle</a>, and
have finally found some closure. It started with an off-hand comment by
a student, which led me to think more deeply about the problem once I
actually worked it out. The problem was simple enough:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You draw two cards from a deck, and ask what is the probability that
the first is a black card, and the second is a jack. In math notation,
we want:</p>
<p>
<div class="math">$$
P(B1,J2)
$$</div>
</p>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I compared <em>with replacement</em> to <em>without replacement</em>, and got the same
answer, much to my surprise. After satisfying my surprise with a
numerical simulation, I thought, "there are clearly cases where it
<em>does</em> make a difference between replacement and no replacement (drawing
two jacks, for example), so where does it matter?"</p>
<h2 id="another-case">Another case</h2>
<p>So I did another case:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You draw two cards from a deck, and ask what is the probability that
the first is a <em>face</em> card, and the second is a jack. In math
notation, we want:</p>
<p>
<div class="math">$$
P(F1,J2)
$$</div>
</p>
</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="with-replacement">With replacement:</h3>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
P(F1,J2|{\rm replace}) &=& P(F1) \times P(J2) \
&=&\frac{12}{52} \times \frac{4}{52} = \frac{48}{2704}=0.0178
\end{array}
$$</div>
<p>
</p></p>
<h3 id="without-replacement">Without replacement</h3>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
P(F1,J2|{\rm no-replace}) &=& P(F1) \times P(J2|F1) \\
&=&\frac{12}{52} \times
\left(P(J2|F1,J1)P(J1|F1)+P(J2|F1,\overline{J1})P(\overline{J1}|F1)\right)\\
&=&\frac{12}{52} \times \left(\frac{3}{51} \cdot
\frac{4}{12}+\frac{4}{51} \cdot \frac{8}{12} \right)\\
&=&\frac{44}{2652}\\
&=&0.0166
\end{array}
$$</div>
<h2 id="the-general-case">The General Case</h2>
<p>It appeared to me that there was a pattern - some relationship between
the number of jacks, the number of cards, and the number of the
sub-population (color, face, etc...) such that the replacement and the
no-replacement cases would come out the same, because <em>most</em> cases
don't. So I looked at it in general, where I define:</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
N_C &=& \mbox{number of cards} \\
N_J &=& \mbox{number of jacks} \\
N_F &=& \mbox{number of the sub-population (faces, color,
etc...)}\\
N_{JF} &=& \mbox{number of jacks in the sub-population}
\end{array}
$$</div>
<h3 id="with-replacement_1">With replacement:</h3>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
P(F1,J2|{\rm replace}) &=& \frac{N_F}{N_C} \cdot
\frac{N_J}{N_C}
\end{array}
$$</div>
<h3 id="without-replacement_1">Without replacement</h3>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
P(F1,J2|{\rm no-replace}) &=& P(F1) \times P(J2|F1) \\
&=&\frac{N_F}{N_C} \times
\left(P(J2|F1,J1)P(J1|F1)+P(J2|F1,\overline{J1})P(\overline{J1}|F1)\right)\\
&=&\frac{N_F}{N_C} \times \left( \frac{N_J-1}{N_C-1}\cdot
\frac{N_{JF}}{N_F} + \frac{N_J}{N_C-1}\cdot
\frac{N_F-N_{JF}}{N_F} \right)
\end{array}
$$</div>
<h3 id="solving">Solving</h3>
<p>When these two expressions are the same, we have:</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
\frac{N_F}{N_C} \cdot \frac{N_J}{N_C}&=&\frac{N_F}{N_C}
\times \left( \frac{N_J-1}{N_C-1}\cdot \frac{N_{JF}}{N_F} +
\frac{N_J}{N_C-1}\cdot \frac{N_F-N_{JF}}{N_F} \right)
\end{array}
$$</div>
<p>which, believe it or not, simplifies to</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
N_F/N_C &=& N_{JF}/N_J
\end{array}
$$</div>
<p>or, in other words, for the replacement and non-replacement
probabilities to be the same in this simple game, the fraction of the
subpopulation to the deck has to be the same fraction as the jacks in
that subpopulation to the number of jacks. In the case of color, 1/2 the
deck is black and 1/2 the jacks are black. However, 3/13 of the deck are
face cards and 4/4 of the jacks are face cards. An interesting symmetry.</p>
<p>Essentially, when there exists this symmetry, knowledge of the first
draw gives you no information about the second. I imagine there is some
fancy math theorem to this effect, but it is still pretty cool.</p>
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<p>In a <a href="a-funny-little-probability-problem-4">previous post</a> I made a calculation error, which arrived at an
unintuitive result - a result that still stands. I got side-tracked
with, what I thought, was an …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>In a <a href="a-funny-little-probability-problem-4">previous post</a> I made a calculation error, which arrived at an
unintuitive result - a result that still stands. I got side-tracked
with, what I thought, was an arithmetic error. I wasn't satisfied,
because my intuition still thought that the without-replacement
probability should be a smidge higher, because of the reduction in the
number of cards. Because of this, I kept thinking about the problem to
see where it went wrong. I asked another faculty member the same
question, and although I didn't receive a full answer, it was enough to
figure out that I was on the right track initially, but was just a
little sloppy. So what went wrong, and why? Let me reproduce the
problem, and the <em>correct</em> calculation this time, and then go on to see
the implications of the error.</p>
<h2 id="the-problem">The problem</h2>
<p>You draw two cards from a deck, and ask what is the probability that the
first is a black card, and the second is a jack. In math notation, we
want:</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(B1,J2)
$$</div>
<h2 id="the-right-answer-and-how-i-know">The right answer, and how I know</h2>
<p>The easiest way to be absolutely sure I had the right answer is to
simply outline every possible two-hand deal, and count the number of
cards in each case.</p>
<h3 id="with-replacement">With replacement:</h3>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">Game</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="o">*</span>
<span class="n">deals</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span>
<span class="n">deck</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">makedeck</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">card1</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">deck</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">deck2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">makedeck</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">card2</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">deck2</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">deals</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="n">card1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">card2</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">found</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">x</span> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">x</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">deals</span> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="s1">'Black'</span> <span class="ow">and</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">rank</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="mi">11</span><span class="p">]</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>The length of "found" is 104, and the length of the "deals" is 2704 (52
x 52).</p>
<h3 id="without-replacement">Without replacement:</h3>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">Game</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="o">*</span>
<span class="n">deals</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span>
<span class="n">deck</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">makedeck</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">card1</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">deck</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">deck2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">makedeck</span><span class="p">()</span>
<span class="n">deck2</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">remove</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">card1</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># <------ remove the card</span>
<span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">card2</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">deck2</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">deals</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">append</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="n">card1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">card2</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="n">found</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">x</span> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">x</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="n">deals</span> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">color</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="s1">'Black'</span> <span class="ow">and</span> <span class="n">x</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">rank</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="mi">11</span><span class="p">]</span>
</code></pre></div>
<p>The length of "found" is 102, and the length of the "deals" is 2652 (52
x 51), which is the <em>same</em> fraction.</p>
<h3 id="with-replacement_1">With replacement</h3>
<p><em>This part was correct, and just repeated here.</em></p>
<p>In replacement, we replace the first card after drawing it, reshuffle,
and then draw the second. Thus the two events are independent.</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
P(B1,J2|{\rm replace}) &=& P(B1) \times P(J2) \\
&=&\frac{26}{52} \times \frac{4}{52} = \frac{104}{2704}=0.0385
\end{array}
$$</div>
<h3 id="without-replacement_1">Without replacement</h3>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
P(B1,J2|{\rm no-replace}) &=& P(B1) \times P(J2|B1) \\
&=&\frac{26}{52} \times
\left(P(J2|B1,J1)\underline{P(J1|B1)}+P(J2|B1,\overline{J1})\underline{P(\overline{J1}|B1)}\right)\\
&=&\frac{26}{52} \times \left(\frac{3}{51} \cdot
\underline{\frac{2}{26}}+\frac{4}{51} \cdot
\underline{\frac{24}{26}} \right)\\
&=&\frac{26}{52} \times \underline{\left(\frac{102}{51\cdot 26}
\right)}\\
&=&\frac{102}{2652}\\
&=&0.0385
\end{array}
$$</div>
<p>where I have put boxes, or underline, around where I differ from the
previous calculation. </p>
<h3 id="the-difference">The difference</h3>
<p>The difference comes from the term like:</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(J2|B1,J1)P(J1|B1)
$$</div>
<p>In the <em>incorrect</em> version, we had</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(J2|B1,J1)P(J1)
$$</div>
<p>Essentially, I was being sloppy, and forgot to copy the right-hand side
of the conditional, without the <em>B1</em>.</p>
<p>What I find interesting, which is why I've gone to such a detail, are
the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>how easy it is to make simple arithmetic mistakes in these sorts of
problems</li>
<li>how easy it is to have a subtle rewrite of a problem, and get a
different answer</li>
<li>how a simulation gives a lot of confidence in a result</li>
</ol>
<p>I've found, over time, that I don't tend to trust mathematical results
without a numerical result to support it. </p>
<p>Still, it is a cool result, and still somewhat unintuitive - at least at
first. Thinking in terms of information, it makes sense - knowing that
the first card is black tells you nothing about the rank of the second
card. </p>
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</script>A funny little probability problem2013-03-23T12:21:00-04:002013-03-23T12:21:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-23:/posts/2013/Mar/23/a-funny-little-probability-problem-4/<p><strong>(Note: this problem has an error...can you find it? I will post the
correction ~~soon~~ <a href="a-funny-little-probability-problem-correct">here</a>, which itself has some interesting
properties)</strong></p>
<p>We often make the important distinction between …</p><p><strong>(Note: this problem has an error...can you find it? I will post the
correction ~~soon~~ <a href="a-funny-little-probability-problem-correct">here</a>, which itself has some interesting
properties)</strong></p>
<p>We often make the important distinction between drawing cards with or
without replacement when determining the results of card games. Clearly,
if you draw a Jack, then the probability of drawing another Jack is
different whether you replace and shuffle, or you leave the drawn Jack
out. In an extreme case, imagine a deck with only one Jack.</p>
<p>After going through an example in class, and applying replacement, a
student asked about the same example without replacement. I didn't have
time to go over the example in class, but I sketched how the calculation
would be different, and would yield a different answer. After class,
going through the calculation, I was in for a surprise.</p>
<h2 id="the-problem">The problem</h2>
<p>You draw two cards from a deck, and ask what is the probability that the
first is a black card, and the second is a jack. In math notation, we
want:</p>
<div class="math">$$
P(B1,J2)
$$</div>
<h2 id="with-replacement">With replacement</h2>
<p>In replacement, we replace the first card after drawing it, reshuffle,
and then draw the second. Thus the two events are independent.</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
P(B1,J2|{\rm replace}) &=& P(B1) \times P(J2) \\
&=&\frac{26}{52} \times \frac{4}{52} = 0.0385
\end{array}
$$</div>
<h2 id="without-replacement">Without replacement</h2>
<p>Without replacement is a little trickier to set up, because the second
draw depends on the first.</p>
<div class="math">$$
\begin{array}{rcl}
P(B1,J2|{\rm no-replace}) &=& P(B1) \times P(J2|B1) \\
&=&\frac{26}{52} \times
\left(P(J2|B1,J1)P(J1)+P(J2|B1,\overline{J1})P(\overline{J1})
\right)\\
&=&\frac{26}{52} \times \left(\frac{3}{51} \cdot
\frac{4}{52}+\frac{4}{51} \cdot \frac{48}{52} \right)\\
&=&\frac{26}{52} \times \left(\frac{204}{51\cdot 52} \right)\\
&=&0.0385
\end{array}
$$</div>
<p><strong>the same answer!!</strong></p>
<p><strong>(Note: this problem has an error...can you find it? I will post the
correction ~~soon~~ <a href="a-funny-little-probability-problem-correct">here</a>, which itself has some interesting
properties)</strong></p>
<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>
<p>The only conclusions are</p>
<ol>
<li>My intuition fails me sometimes, on even simple problems</li>
<li>Drawing a black card on the first draw tells you no more information
about drawing a jack on the second (or any other number, for that
matter). </li>
</ol>
<p>Cool!</p>
<p><strong>(Note: this problem has an error...can you find it? I will post the
correction ~~soon~~ <a href="a-funny-little-probability-problem-correct">here</a>, which itself has some interesting
properties)</strong></p>
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</script>"Proof" that God exists2013-03-21T11:33:00-04:002013-03-21T11:33:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-21:/posts/2013/Mar/21/proof-that-god-exists/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>If you want some entertainment in the form of logical gymnastics, go to
<a href="http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/">this page on the proof of god</a>. If you're impatient, here is one of
the arguments …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>If you want some entertainment in the form of logical gymnastics, go to
<a href="http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/">this page on the proof of god</a>. If you're impatient, here is one of
the arguments:</p>
<p>Do you believe that Absolute Truth exists? Possible answers…</p>
<ol>
<li>yes -> you go on to the next piece</li>
<li>
<p>no -> is it absolutely true that absolute truth doesn't exist?</p>
<ol>
<li>yes -> then you actually believe that absolute truth exists!</li>
<li>no -> you get asked again if you believe that Absolute Truth
exists (with the statement "This is not a glitch (Think about
it)". - essentially implying either that you're making an
absolute truth statement, or you can't state anything.</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<p>You don't know -> Is this absolutely true?</p>
<ol>
<li>yes</li>
<li>no -> you get asked again if you believe that Absolute Truth
exists (with the statement "This is not a glitch (Think about
it)". - essentially implying either that you're making an
absolute truth statement, or you can't state anything.</li>
</ol>
</li>
<li>
<p>You don't care -> send you out of the site.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>A similar point is made about the laws of logic:</p>
<p>> "If you believe that laws of logic do not exist, how do you make
decisions about the most basic things in life? How do you decide which
side of the road to drive on? How do you choose whether to drink water
or poison for nourishment? > > One interesting aspect of denying laws
of logic, like the law of non-contradiction, is that since you DO NOT
believe in laws of logic, you actually DO believe in laws of logic. If
contradictions are allowed in your worldview then so is that one."</p>
<h2 id="why-this-is-stupid">Why this is stupid</h2>
<p>I think the first basic flaw in this line of argument is that it assumes
that all statements are yes/no statements. There is no accounting for
probability, uncertainty, etc… Does "Absolute Truth" exist? I don't
know? Is it absolutely true that I don't know? I don't know!</p>
<p>The second basic flaw is that it may not be a well-defined question.
What does "absolute" really mean? What about "truth"? We have working
definitions, which might be a bit sloppy, but perhaps if we understood
them better we'd find that they are not well defined concepts. An
analogy in physics might be the word "particle". We have a working
definition, and in most cases it is very usable, but we know that
fundamentally we just have energy and interactions - the particle is a
convenient construct.</p>
<p>Finally, I don't think I have any patience for arguments which don't
even make an attempt to be grounded in some empiricism.</p>Unbelievable Project: Miracles and healing - is it evidence for the truth of Christianity?2013-03-18T19:29:00-04:002013-03-18T19:29:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-18:/posts/2013/Mar/18/unbelievable-project-miracles-and-healing-is-it-evidence-for-the-truth-of-christianity/<h2 id="unbelievable-17-nov-2007-are-miracles-evidence-for-god-17-november-2007-miracles-and-healing-is-it-evidence-for-the-truth-of-christianity">Unbelievable? 17 Nov 2007 - Are miracles evidence for God? - 17 November 2007 -- Miracles and healing - is it evidence for the truth of Christianity?</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I …</p><h2 id="unbelievable-17-nov-2007-are-miracles-evidence-for-god-17-november-2007-miracles-and-healing-is-it-evidence-for-the-truth-of-christianity">Unbelievable? 17 Nov 2007 - Are miracles evidence for God? - 17 November 2007 -- Miracles and healing - is it evidence for the truth of Christianity?</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS Feed of the podcasts <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">see here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 17 Nov 2007 - Are miracles evidence for
God? - 17 November 2007 -- Miracles and healing - is it evidence for
the truth of Christianity?</em> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Agnostic sceptic Stephen Pilcher believes that Christian claims to
healing are tricks of the mind. Can John Ryeland of the Christian
Healing Mission persuade him differently? Also features personal
stories from people who claim to have been miraculously healed.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/ba5b6360-edf3-4218-8878-3292237289f5.mp3">Download mp3.</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>John Ryeland - Christian</li>
<li>Heather Riley - Christian</li>
<li>Stephen Pilcher - Agnostic</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Stephen - <em>"I'm a church-going, Bible-reading agnostic"</em></p>
<p><strong>Me - That's pretty funny, because it is very close to what I am. I am
a church-going, Bible-reading atheist. Although I have read the Bible at
least once cover-to-cover a few years ago, I have lost patience with
reading it now. There is so much repetitious and tedious material, both
Old and New Testament, that I find it hard to read for long without
thinking I have better things to do with my time.<br>
</strong></p>
<p>Stephen - There are a large number of <em>"miracles"</em> that aren't miracles
at all, and non-Christians can have healings as well.</p>
<p>Heather - Her story is at 24:40, in case you want to listen to the
original. Here is a quick summary. She pursued a psychology degree,
studied the paranormal. About 3 or 4 months ago, she went to a
chiropodist (aka podiatrist) who told her that one leg was longer than
another (by an inch). She then went, unplanned, to a religious
gathering. During the meeting the preacher gave her some very specific
information about he from several years ago, some comforting words, and
a moving message. And then he healed the asymmetric leg. She said she
felt like she was <em>"on show"</em> and that <em>"God's really got to do
something"</em>. She also said that she didn't feel any different, but a
friend of hers observing saw the leg lengthening. So then she went back
to the chiropodist. She determined he was Christian, told the entire
story, he repeated the measurement and then did some more <em>robust</em>
measurements, and found no difference in leg length. And since then, her
shoes are no longer asymmetric.</p>
<p>Stephen - People have done studies of faith healings and always come up
short.</p>
<p><strong>Me - When I first heard that story, a year or so ago when I first
listened to this episode, I recall being pretty impressed with the
healing. Since then, after much reading, and hearing this again I am
not. (It is interesting that I recall it being more impressive, and if I
never heard the story again, might have started to spread a more
impressive story if I told it again. This is a nice reminder of how
these stories, working with the limitations of memory, can grow in the
telling and quickly become unfactual).<br>
</strong></p>
<p><strong><br>
Anyway, why am I not impressed? There are a number of little details
that she dropped in that I find curious. Consider two models (there are
probably more!):</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><strong>There is a God, and he decides to heal this leg, but not other
ailments, and not her husbands problems. This is hard to reconcile
even on the face of it, and later in the show she talks about this
somewhat.</strong></li>
<li><strong>There is no God, these things don't happen, and there are other
mundane explanations</strong></li>
</ol>
<p><strong><br>
Turns out that leg-lengthening is a very common form of <em>"healing"</em> in
these sorts of situations (see "The Faith Healers" by James Randi),
because it looks impressive and is a straightforward trick. That's why
it is important to have magicians as well as scientists investigate such
claims, because scientists are terrible at detecting dishonesty and
trickery. The fact that she had no idea that one leg was longer, until a
few days before, that she did not feel the healing, and only went on the
word of the friend because she was expecting something to happen, that
she was impressed with the <em>"prophecy"</em> that the preacher said,
referring to things he would have no idea about. James Randi speaks
about this at length, and shows how preachers will use planted people,
microphones, and other techniques to appear to know things they wouldn't
already know. Even if they aren't being deceptive, they may hear in
conversations with the friends ahead of time about Heather's problems,
and then work it into the <em>"prophecy"</em>. When she goes back to the
chiropodist she finds out he is a Christian, and <em>before</em> he redoes the
measurement she tells the story. Now, this chiropodist has a vested
interest in confirming the healing, because it will confirm his
worldview. This is why we have double-blind measurements, because we
<em>know</em> people bias the measurement, the reporting, the memory of it
because of their worldview. In fact, she tells that the chiropodist had
to do more robust measurements to confirm the equal leg length. Perhaps
there was an error in the first measurement. Perhaps the first
measurement was overestimated. Perhaps it wasn't, and <em>she</em> reported it
rounding up (i.e. he says a bit more than 1/2 inch, she tells her
friends around an inch, and then remembers it as such, etc...). Perhaps
the equipment for the first test has a bias, which might have motivated
him to make the more robust measurements. There are many possibilities
that do not require dishonesty, deliberate deception, incompetence, and
are completely mundane.</strong></p>
<p><strong>So which model can explain each of these? It seems clear to me that
there are perfectly good mundane explanations for nearly every detail of
the story, that the story is inconsistent even with a <em>"real"</em> healing,
and that model 2 is definitely better. What about her asymmetric shoes,
and the pain that occured and went away after a while after the
<em>"healing"</em>? My shoes tend to get asymmetric over time (not with each
other, but each pushed off to the outside) and when I get new shoes, and
they are flat, I have a little pain walking and running that goes away
as I adjust. Notice that these events happened <em>3 or 4 months ago</em>.
There is no way that her new shoes would have become asymmetric in that
time <em>anyway</em>.<br>
</strong></p>
<p>John - <em>"There is an awful lot of anecdotal evidence, and I don't want
to be skeptical of it simply because it is not documented. What
else....is she not telling the truth? Of course she's telling the
truth!"</em></p>
<p><strong>Me - All we need is a slightly overzealous preacher, a slightly sloppy
chiropodist, and a small amount of congitive bias. It really is that
simple, and it doesn't require us to disparage the character of <em>anyone</em>
in the story.</strong></p>
<p>John - <em>"How high should we set the bar to know that this is a proper
healing story?"</em></p>
<p>John - <em>"For some people they want to make it so hard to call it a
miracle that nothing could ever satisfy that. I want to take Heather's
story, listen to it, and ask 'How did it change her'? If it is a story,
told with integrety, seems to have a lasting effect, of course it would
be better if it were documented, but we don't have the ability to get
the documentation."</em></p>
<p><strong>Me - I listen to this talk about documentation, and about how it's
<em>"so hard</em>", some people are <em>"so skeptical"</em> and I have to think <em>"cry
baby, cry baby, cry baby"</em>. I even hear the little whining voice in my
head.<br>
<em>"People should be more believing of my miracle claims"</em>, <em>"You're
being too skeptical"</em>, etc... Of course, when it comes to <em>other</em>
people's miracle claims, they are just as skeptical! It's only the ones
that support their worldview that they consider for special treatment.
Sorry, that's not good enough. Even Heather points this out, saying that
she feels that people are more skeptical of religious claims than claims
of the paranormal (which she saw in her studies of the paranormal).
She's noting, in others, the same thing she is doing with her worldview.
I've posted specifically about <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/naturalistic-bias-presupposing-naturalism/">this problem here</a>.</strong></p>
<p><strong><br>
In science, say you are trying to publish a paper, and the editor or
reviewer returns it saying that they are not convinced of your
conclusions, you don't go <em>"Oh, you're being too hard on me, too
skeptical. Getting the documentation for this effect I am claiming
exists is just too hard."</em> That is just ridiculous. You find a way to
document it, with careful measurements, and you convince the skeptics if
it is true, or not if it is false. Truth should convince even the
skeptics, especially if you're claiming a large effect.</strong></p>
<p><strong><br>
Take the Higgs boson, as an example of an unseen entity for which we
only can get indirect inference of its existence. It was proposed <em>50
years ago</em>, and although people may have thought it was likely to be
there, they didn't <em>believe</em> it was there until the proper measurements
were done. Measurements which took decades to set up, required hundreds
of people as a team, and has cost billions of dollars, just to get the
documentation for the existence of something which doesn't even seem to
violate physical law. Think about that next time you hear someone claim
that getting documentation for healing is hard, or that the effect seems
to disappear whenever you look into it carefully, and that is the reason
there isn't any evidence for it.</strong></p>
<p><strong>If the claimed effects of so-called faith-healings are real, they
should be <em>trivial</em> to demonstrate, document, and convince the
skeptics.</strong></p>Unbelievable Project: A "proxy" atheist explains why he can't believe2013-03-15T14:33:00-04:002013-03-15T14:33:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-15:/posts/2013/Mar/15/unbelievable-project-a-proxy-atheist-explains-why-he-cant-believe/<h2 id="unbelievable-10-nov-2007-a-proxy-atheist-explains-why-he-cant-believe-10-november-2007-radio-host-nick-pandolfi-on-being-a-proxy-atheist">Unbelievable? 10 Nov 2007 - A "proxy" atheist explains why he can't believe - 10 November 2007 -- Radio Host Nick Pandolfi on being a 'proxy atheist'</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project …</a></p><h2 id="unbelievable-10-nov-2007-a-proxy-atheist-explains-why-he-cant-believe-10-november-2007-radio-host-nick-pandolfi-on-being-a-proxy-atheist">Unbelievable? 10 Nov 2007 - A "proxy" atheist explains why he can't believe - 10 November 2007 -- Radio Host Nick Pandolfi on being a 'proxy atheist'</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS Feed of the podcasts <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">see here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 10 Nov 2007 - A "proxy" atheist explains
why he can't believe - 10 November 2007 -- Radio Host Nick Pandolfi
on being a 'proxy atheist'</em> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nick Pandolfi is a radio presenter and newspaper columnist. He
says Religion has been the cause of war and conflict, and
Christians can't agree on what they believe. Peter Williams of
the Damaris Trust speaks on behalf of faith in Jesus.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/53a398dd-4e35-4854-8f87-84ef92fc1535.mp3">Download mp3.</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Peter Williams - Christian</li>
<li>Nick Pandolfi - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Nick - (from his article, quote read by Justin) <em>"Religion can be what
you want it to be. A pick-and-mix victorious sponge God, or a full blown
hate-making factory. These religious folk don't exactly get on, do they?
How does religion explain its catastrophic failing to get on with
itself? No wonder people like me feel let down."</em></p>
<p><strong>Me - I've heard it as <em>"The Big Book of Multiple Choice"</em>. An analogy
would be with simple proverbs (not the Biblical ones, although it might
work there). For any proverb, you can almost always find an opposite.
Consider the following two pairs:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>"Haste makes waste", "A stitch in time saves nine"</strong></li>
<li><strong>"Too many cooks spoil the broth", "Many hands make light work"</strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Me - Each of these is correct, in some context, but we are are
responsible for following the correct edict in the correct context. We
do this naturally, and people who read the Bible do this too - they just
don't realize that it is they who are making the moral choices, not
simply following the moral edicts of the Bible.<br>
</strong></p>
<p>Nick - I find some atheists as ranting as some religious folks, and I
don't want to join that band. Hitting themselves all the time, moaning
about <em>"Christmas being stolen"</em>, or <em>"Christmas doesn't exist"</em>, <em>"I
don't believe in this"</em>, and <em>"I don't believe in that"</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I'm with him there. Sometimes I think it goes a bit overboard.
However, when it comes to <em>public</em> funds being spent on <em>religious</em>
iconography, I have a problem. Things like the ten commandments in
judicial halls, or official school prayers in public schools.</strong></p>
<p>Nick - There is a lot of anger there, with Dawkins and Hitchens, etc...
and that's just not where he is. He feels it is <em>unlikely</em> for there to
be a God but that he doesn't know, that he can't know, but he also
doesn't want to go the other way to claim that there is a God.</p>
<p><strong>Me - this, to me, is atheism pure and simple, and I think that he is
really missing the definitions. even Dawkins would never say he <em>knows</em>
there is no God.</strong></p>
<p>Nick - I do believe that many people perhaps misrepresent faith or
perhaps misrepresent their God, but to me behave in a way that does not
seem particularly religious.</p>
<p>Peter - The fact that people do a lot of evil highlights one of the
truths that religion claims about the world that people are sinful and
that they need some kind of help to deal with that.</p>
<p>Nick - Religious people should know better, shouldn't they?</p>
<p>Peter - One should distinguish between people who do bad things
<em>against</em> the grain of what their theology teaches them vs people who do
bad things <em>along the line</em> of the ideology they follow. What would
happen if people followed Jesus' word seriously? Killing people is
clearly against the grain of what Jesus had in mind.</p>
<p>Peter - If you <em>really</em> follow Jesus, turn the other cheek, love your
enemy then the evil things shouldn't happen.</p>
<p>Nick - that's a great <em>"Get out of jail free"</em> card - if you follow the
rule book, then it won't happen. But it <em>happens</em>, has happened for far
too long, and will continue to happen.</p>
<p><strong>Me- On the <em>"Get out of jail free"</em>, I am in full agreement. This is
the <em>"no true Christian"</em> fallacy. If you claim to be a Christian, and
are good, then you're a <em>real</em> Christian. If you're not, you're not
really a Christian.</strong></p>
<p>Peter - this is not particular to religion, people who are irreligious
have done it, etc...</p>
<p>Nick - But you're bigger than politics, you're <em>religion</em>, you're
supposed to be better, you're supposed to be the shining light example.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I think Nick might be using the word <em>"religious"</em> in a way that
his host, and discussion partner, is not seeing. I think, if I can speak
for him, he means that religion claims the moral high ground. As such,
we should perhaps hold religious people to a higher standard. For
example, the pedophilia in the Catholic Church is a horrible thing. It
is that much worse given that the people involved claim to be morally
superior to others. When Nick says that religion should <em>"know better"</em>,
I think this is referring to the self-proclaimed moral superiority of
their religion over others in contract to the actions of those making
that claim.</strong></p>
<p>Nick - if you join a club, you pay your dues, and there are a certain
set of rules for that club to remain in the club. there are certain
definite rules for religious life, but the church will gladly take your
money so you can have your wedding there. they'll take your cash,
regardless of whether you will ever go back to that church again.</p>
<p>Nick - to respect an organization, you need to believe that <em>they</em>
believe in what they are selling. If you are going to have anyone
through your doors, whether they know anything about Jesus for example,
but take their money for weddings this is hypocritical. I would respect
a church a lot more if they would test people.</p>
<p><strong>Me - Yes, I agree. There is a hypocrisy in the churches, and in the
people, who want the benefits of calling themselves Christian when it
comes to baptism, weddings, and funerals (Hatched, Matched, and
Dispatched), but do not believe in the tennets of the church.<br>
</strong></p>
<p>Back to Peter's comment - What would happen if people followed Jesus'
word seriously?</p>
<p><strong>Me - I doubt that Peter really takes Jesus' words seriously. For
example, Matt 19:20 <em>"Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go,
sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure
in heaven. Then come, follow me." "</em> and Matt 5:18 <em>"For truly I tell
you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the
least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until
everything is accomplished."</em> which pulls in all of those crazy Old
Testament <em>"kill you for this and that"</em> commands. Surely Peter will
have some rationalization for not following these, and also not
recognize the process by which he came by these rationalizations. He
probably would not admit that he is the arbiter of these choices, not
the Bible.</strong></p>Unbelievable Project: The "New Atheism" - Barry Duke and David Marshall Debate2013-03-13T15:34:00-04:002013-03-13T15:34:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-13:/posts/2013/Mar/13/unbelievable-project-the-new-atheism-barry-duke-and-david-marshall-debate/<h2 id="the-new-atheism-03-november-2007-the-new-atheism-barry-duke-and-david-marshall-debate">The New Atheism - 03 November 2007 -- The "New Atheism" - Barry Duke and David Marshall Debate</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each …</p><h2 id="the-new-atheism-03-november-2007-the-new-atheism-barry-duke-and-david-marshall-debate">The New Atheism - 03 November 2007 -- The "New Atheism" - Barry Duke and David Marshall Debate</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS Feed of the podcasts <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">see here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 3 Nov 2007 - The New Atheism - 03
November 2007 -- The "New Atheism" - Barry Duke and David Marshall
Debate</em> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Christianity is under attack as never before by a wave of militant
atheists, led by Richard Dawkins. Atheist Barry Duke is all in
favour of it, while Christian David Marshall's book "The Truth
behind the new Atheism" rejects it. They join Justin on the show
as he asks whether Christianity is really as bad as the New
Atheists are making out. </p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/a92b0e86-c5af-4740-ac40-a7d584ed8843.mp3">Download mp3.</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>David Marshall - Christian</li>
<li>Barry Duke - Atheist</li>
<li>Gordon Livesey - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Barry - There is nothing new about the atheism. What is new is the
response. This is partly because of 9/11. This event made people realize
what some people would do for their religion. And partly because of the
perception that the US was hijacked by a fundamentalist and given power
through the neo-cons.</p>
<p>David - Critical of evolution on social development of religion. Dennett
believes that if you can explain religion then you can <em>"explain it
away"</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Me - What is the difference between explaining something and
explaining it away? I'd say this is just model-comparison with different
words. When you have something, like a UFO sighting, and then someone
explains it with mundane events, like a trick of the lights, that is
typically described as explaining it away - you've replaced an
extraordinary explanation with one that is more plausible. This is what
Dennett typically does - he demonstrates a more plausible description of
how certain religious behaviors and experiences can arise from more
mundane phenomena. In this way, explaining it is explaining it "away".
It's just that people who believe the extraordinary explanation don't
like the mundane explanation, so the term "explaining away" has negative
connotations for them.<br>
</strong></p>
<p>Justin - Religion more harm than good? That attitude seems to be new.
Also, this <em>"militant atheism</em>". Is it just against fundamentalism?</p>
<p><strong>Me - When I hear the term <em>"militant atheist"</em> I can't help but think
of <a href="http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/files/2009/06/unholy_trinity3.jpg">this cartoon</a>. If you campare what you think of with the term
<em>"Miltant Islamist"</em> with <em>"Militant Atheist"</em>, it is quite clear there
is a double-standard at work. The only <em>"militant"</em> part of atheists,
even the most dogmatic ones, is that they have forceful arguments.</strong></p>
<p>Barry - No. There is a general feeling that enough is enough or we will
get railroaded by religion in government, education, etc... The new
atheists want to galvanize those people who are effectively
non-believers, bring them to the stand and we can then effect political
change.</p>
<p>David - It's ironic not to have religion in the marketplace of ideas or
in education. The university was a religious idea itself. Christianity
has informed society mostly for the good. Separation of church and state
is a Christian idea.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I believe he is referring to <em>Mark 12:17 - "Then Jesus said to
them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."
And they were amazed at him."</em>. There is a long way from that to
<em>"separation of church and state"</em>. If the separation was truly was a
Christian idea, then I'd expect a totally different European history
from 0 AD to 1700 AD! What a ridiculous claim.</strong></p>
<p>Barry - Slavery was supported by Christians and then brought down by
some Christians.</p>
<p>David - Slavery is a natural idea and has been part of nearly all
civilizations. Christians have undermined slavery from early on, not
directly but indirectly. Beginning in the fourth century slaves were set
free so that by the eleventh century there were areas of western Europe
free of slaves. This was not imposed on the rest of society. Sixty
percent of anti-slave organizers were Christian pastors.</p>
<p><strong>Me - It is faint praise indeed that the best you can say about the
Christian stance on slavery, historically, is that some slaves were
freed so that <em>700 years later (!!!)</em> some small areas in the world,
that didn't feel that they needed slaves anymore, didn't have slaves.
Again, the Bible is quite clear on its perspective with respect to
slavery - it either commands it or condones it, both Old and New
Testament. There is never even a hint of condemnation for the
practice.</strong></p>
<p>Gordon - Concerns about Intelligent Design (ID) in the classroom</p>
<p>David - The ID people just want to have an open forum to discuss their
ideas and that it is legitimate to question scientific ideas, even parts
of evolution. That ID isn't a problem most of the time, the issues often
exaggerated. I don't see it as standing in the way of any science or
progress currently.</p>
<p><strong>Me- David's view of ID is completely at odds with the facts on the
ground about the movement. The clearest description of this was <a href="http://www.pamd.uscourts.gov/kitzmiller/kitzmiller_342.pdf">the
Judges ruling in the Dover PA case</a>. Here ID had a chance to present
its best arguments to a jury, and was found wanting at every level. From
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District">the Wikipedia page</a>: <em>"The ruling concluded that intelligent design
is not science, and permanently barred the board from "maintaining the
ID Policy in any school within the Dover Area School District, from
requiring teachers to denigrate or disparage the scientific theory of
evolution, and from requiring teachers to refer to a religious,
alternative theory known as ID.""</em> The full ruling showed the ID
proponents for what they are: a group of people who do not shirk from
lying and distortions to achieve their religious-motivated goals.</strong></p>
<p>Justin. Do you believe that raising a child as religious is child abuse?</p>
<p>Barry. There are rare cases where this is definitely a problem. In my
own case I was beaten in South Africa for not participating in Christian
rituals.</p>
<p>Gordon. My daughteer is six years old, and was upset one day when she
was told off by a teacher. She said <em>"We all have to say grace, and I
didn't say it."</em> Then the lady in the lunch room pushed her head down
and said <em>"Say your prayers!"</em></p>
<p>David. Entirely on Barry and Gordon's side. However, in the US it has
been shown that going to church makes people in ghettos less likely in
crime. Yes, there are people who use Christianity to abuse people, but
this goes against what the gospels say.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I certainly would not call all religious education <em>"child
abuse"</em>. Corporal punishment (Biblically motivated, or otherwise), yes.
Psychological torture (Biblically motivated, or otherwise), yes. Raising
a child to call themselves Christian, not. As for the benefits, I am
interested in the truth. I imagine that the reduced-crime benefits
described would come from any kind of group membership, regardless of
its religious or secular affiliation. It does not speak to the specific
truth of Christianity.</strong></p>Unbelievable Project: John Lennox debates science and God - Has science buried God?2013-03-11T14:33:00-04:002013-03-11T14:33:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-11:/posts/2013/Mar/11/unbelievable-project-john-lennox-debates-science-and-god-has-science-buried-god/<h2 id="101307-john-lennox-debates-science-and-god-has-science-buried-god">10/13/07 - John Lennox debates science and God - Has science buried God?</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the …</p><h2 id="101307-john-lennox-debates-science-and-god-has-science-buried-god">10/13/07 - John Lennox debates science and God - Has science buried God?</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS Feed of the podcasts <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">see here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 13 Oct 2007 - John Lennox debates science
& God - 13 October 2007 -- Has science buried God?</em> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fresh from a US TV debate with Richard Dawkins, Oxford Professor
Dr. John Lennox engages with atheist scientist Robert Stovold.
Lennox, who is a Christian, asserts in his book "God's Undertaker
- Has science buried God?" that science and philosophy show
evidence of a divine designer. Robert Stovold says the
methodology of science is incompatible with such belief.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/8547ae5c-d48e-4221-b3a5-68d0df27df2a.mp3">Download mp3.</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>John Lennox - Christian</li>
<li>Robert Stovold - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p><strong>Me - this episode was a lot of work, because both debaters were very
strong and the density of information in this episode is very high - a
lot of information per minute. I had to go back and listen to parts many
times. I particularly like Robert's style - he is very calm and
straightforward, never sounding angry or aggressive. I highly recommend
you listen to the entire debate, because I won't be able to cover
everything here.</strong></p>
<p>Robert - A common theistic line of argument refers to the appearance of
design, and states things like "the eye cannot occur by chance". If you
think evolution is about randomness, then you don't understand
evolution. If you drop a fish and a lion and drop them on the ground, it
is not random which one will survive, and it doesn't require design to
explain this.</p>
<p>Robert - In the Bible "Love" is defined, both in the Old and New
Testament, in such a way that it always prevails, and always helps.
Then, with 99% of the species that ever existed being extinct, this is
not consistent with a loving God. All of this suffering happened well
before any humans, and Fall, or Noah's flood.</p>
<p>John - This is the problem of theodicy. What I would be curious about is
where you even get the idea of right and wrong, because under atheism,
there can be no objective moral standard.</p>
<p><strong>Me - at this point I was jumping up a screaming. Dodge! Dodge! I'd
heard this dodge before, and essentially it ignores the force of the
argument. Robert followed up well, but then added some comments about
where an atheistic morality (as a social construct) comes from. This
derailed the conversation and John never addressed the point. The point
is that, <em>if</em> we assume the Bible is true, then the problem of
suffering, as evidenced by the inefficient and wasteful methods of
evolution, leads to a conflict with a loving God. I don't have to even
believe that evil and good exist to make this argument - it is a <em>"spin
out the consequences"</em> of a worldview and show a conflict. Robert
describes very well how evolution gives the appearance of design -
instead of nudging things in the right direction, evolution nudges
things in <em>"all"</em> directions and the kills off the directions that don't
work.</strong> </p>
<p>Robert - the war is between naturalism and supernaturalism not between
atheism and God. science ascribes natural causes to natural effects
(methodological naturalism). It isn't that science assumes God doesn't
exist, it simply doesn't include supernatural explanations.</p>
<p>John - methodological naturalism is the same as methodological theism.
Dawkins says the world is apparently designed, I say it is designed. It
is only in certain areas, not 99.5% of science, that it makes any
difference. there are good gaps and bad gaps. bad gaps are gaps that
science can close. methodological naturalism is ok but it stops you when
the evidence points beyond naturalism. Two <em>"good gaps"</em> I would say are
the origin of the universe and the origin of life.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I'd bet real money that the origin of life is a "bad gap", from
John's perspective. In every case where we had a thorny science problem
that seemed insoluble, and we had to resort to "magic" (i.e. <a href="http://www.evaluationtoolkit.org/illustrations/4/original/miracle_cartoon.jpg?1231530108">this
lovely cartoon</a>), eventually we have solved it. The origin of life
seems exactly that sort of thing that is amenable to solution. As a
problem, it doesn't suffer from the infinite regress issues from which
origin of the universe solutions can suffer.</strong></p>
<p>John - in science it is often very difficult to prove a negative,
although there are cases where (within a reasonable doubt) we can do
that. when I receive a paper outlining in 100 pages a design for a
perpetual motion machine, I don't need to read it. Not because I'm being
an abscurantist, but because the conservation of energy (a
<em>"pro-scriptive law"</em>) is a principle that has been demonstrated to be
true in all cases, within a reasonably doubt. Now, Sir Peter Meadower
has proposed a conservation of information. nature is very good at
transmitting information, processing and optimizing as is done in
microevolution. where I have difficulty is with the creative process -
those natural processes cannot create information. </p>
<p><strong>Me - This is one of the cases where John makes a fundamental science
mistake [see comment below for correction/clarification on this], and
tips his hand to his agenda. In a line, perpetual motion machines do not
violate conservation of energy. They violate the second law of
thermodynamics. Such a basic science error, in my view, disqualifies his
entire scientific credibility - I can't trust that his other scientific
claims, even if I may not have time to track them all down.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Also, in a fit of irony, he then goes on to talk about information
which is intricately linked to the second law. It is absolutely not true
that natural processes produce no new information. For example, the
natural development of nylonase is a good example within our lifetime -
bacteria evolved a new enzyme to specifically break down the completely
artificial substance known as nylon.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Just as a the formation of ice moves water from a disordered to a more
ordered state, the process of natural selection moves species to a
ordered state -- more in-line with the environment. Information
production, i.e. entropy reduction, happens all of the time in the
natural world.</strong></p>
<p>John - I believe that the fact that the universe is rationally
intelligible is evidence for God. Atheism has no explanation for it, but
theism does. Thus, support for God comes from the bits of science that
we <em>do</em> know and not the bits we don't. He is amazed that scientists
stop short of the most important question, simply calling it a brute
fact.</p>
<p><em><em>Me - What is the alternative? Any universe with sustained structures
should be intelligible. A non-intelligible universe would be one with no
patterns - completely random, and thus no structure would ever form.
There is no way we could be thinking beings in an unintelligible
universe. It is also possible that one could not even have an object
that one could label a </em>"universe"</em> without it being intelligible. </p>
<p>**</p>
<p>John - Reductionism undermines the notion of inteligibility.
Intelligibility demands an explanation. <em>"I don't bring god into
science, [...] science points to god in its very existence"</em></p>
<p>John - On the fine tuning argument, the constants of nature have to be
within <em>very</em> close tolerances to get carbon based life. An easier
example is more local. Taking the Earth, if the Earth were spinning
faster we'd all fly off, if slower then we'd all bake to death. If we
were too close to the Sun, it'd be too hot, too far and it's too cold.
These things have to be in very close tolerances. The standard Find
Tuning observation takes this to the Nth degree. This is not an argument
from gaps, its from our knowledge. </p>
<p>Robert. Theists are trying to have it both ways. On the one hand God's
goal is to create life and on the other hand if it had been slightly
different then life wouldn't be possible. Life's very rare. Imagine a
patio with weeds in the cracks. The weeds would say that the cracks were
put there to support them, ignoring the rest of the patio.</p>
<p>Robert. As for fine tuning, we don't know if the constants are
twiddle-able. Theists will have an explanation either way. If they are
twiddle-able then God was so good to twiddle them correctly. If not,
then the argument would be that God knew what he wanted and dint need to
make a university with changeable constants. Most theistic arguments are
like this - you can explain anything, and thus explain nothing.</p>
<p>Lennox. Most scientists respond that the fine tuning does require an
explanation, and often put forward the multiverse explanation even
though there is not a shred of evidence for it. The theistic explanation
is the obvious one that everyone admits, but then they try to come up
with another explanation.</p>
<p>Robert - once you abandon the law of cause and effect, you can't do
science.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I agree with Robert the whole way here. I would add, however,
that it may be the case that these constants are in fact <em>not
independent</em>. Many physicists will state that they are independent,
because in current theory they are, but they may not be in some future
theory. Thus, it might be that not only are they not twiddle-able but
they might not be <em>separately</em> twiddle-able, and thus life may be
possible in all possible universes. Finally, as an analogy, if we look
at pre-Copernican astronomy with all of the epicycles on epicycles, a
scientist at that time would find it very difficult to fathom that all
of that independent detail could be derived from two equations (Newton's
3rd Law, and the theory of gravitation). Another analogy would be the
independent spectral lines of each type of material, used in the 1800's
for spectroscopy, being explained by the single Schoedinger equation! We
have many examples of so-called independent observations not actually
being independent when we have a full understanding.</strong></p>Unbelievable Project: God Delusion debate - Deluded by Dawkins?2013-03-08T12:17:00-05:002013-03-08T12:17:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-08:/posts/2013/Mar/08/unbelievable-project-god-delusion-debate-deluded-by-dawkins/<h2 id="82407-god-delusion-debate-deluded-by-dawkins">8/24/07 - God Delusion debate - Deluded by Dawkins?</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying …</p><h2 id="82407-god-delusion-debate-deluded-by-dawkins">8/24/07 - God Delusion debate - Deluded by Dawkins?</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS Feed of the podcasts <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">see here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 25 Aug 2007 - God Delusion debate - 25
August 2007 -- Deluded by Dawkins?</em> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Andrew Wilson's new book claims to have debunked Richard Dawkins'
arguments against God. He goes head to head with atheist Gordon
Livesey as they discuss The God Delusion and whether people are
really being deluded by Dawkins' arguments.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/d8d19c39-5ea7-4ac9-8746-8b7c000c8f5a.mp3">Download mp3.</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Andrew Wilson - Christian</li>
<li>Gordon Livesey - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Andrew - many things I agree with Dawkins. Religions should debate their
points, and not be immune from criticism. I agree with his criticisms of
extreme versions of Christianity, although it seems as if Dawkins goes
out of his way to find the most extreme and illiterate unconvincing
examples of religious conviction.</p>
<p>Andrew- problems,<br>
1. implied trajectory of religiosity<br>
2. stridency of the book</p>
<p><strong>Me - 35 minutes into the show so far, and there hasn't been an actual
challenge to a claim of Dawkins. Only criticisms of tone, and perceived
insinuation. I find this is typical of many of the criticisms of the
<em>"New Atheists"</em> - people complain about the tone, and not the actual
content of the arguments. I find it helpful to focus on the actual
claims, and not the tone. Everything else is a distraction.</strong></p>
<p>Gordon - one of the strong statements of Dawkins is on the subject of
theology, which he says really isn't a subject at all. it is not based
on science, and is simply based on old texts. Dawkins relates a story
where the physics professor, when asked about what started the Big Bang,
threw a sop to the theologian and suggested that the chaplain would be
better able to answer. Dawkins' response was like, <em>"Why would the
chaplain know anything about this? Surely a physics professor should
know more. "</em></p>
<p>Andrew - that explains a lot. if you don't have any respect for a field,
then you will be much less likely to read the actual work, and will make
errors (Dawkins mistakes Matthew for Luke when relaying the wise men
story, mistaken on a contradiction of the birthplace stated in Matthew
and Luke, mistaken on Thomas Jefferson referring to the Dead Sea
Scrolls, etc...)</p>
<p>Andrew - We can ask questions like, why did the jews of the first
century which didn't believe in the two stage resurrection start
referring to Jesus' resurrection? There might be secular responses to
questions like that, but we have to take them seriously and not simply
dismiss them.</p>
<p><strong>Me - That's history, not theology.</strong></p>
<p>Gordon - theology just doesn't stand up when compared to physics,
chemistry, history, etc...</p>
<p>Andrew - anti-supernaturalism perspectives, by definition, cannot have
any miracles. origins, infinite improbability of god.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I don't think that Andrew understands Dawkins' argument for the
improbability of God. Essentially, any probability that you assign for
the the universe because of its complexity must be greater than the
probability you assign for the <em>necessarily more complex</em> creator of the
universe.</strong></p>
<p>Gordon - I do believe that miracles could not happen, and they never
have. Much that was attributed to miracles is explained by science.</p>
<p>Andrew - Lack of belief in miracles is not new. Some say in the New
Testament, that the people who believed in the Resurrection were mad.
Dawkins implies that Hume put the death nail in.</p>
<p>Andrew - an atheist friend said <em>"If I accepted that miracles occur,
then I'd have to change the entire way I view the physical world"</em> (this
is in response to a story of a miraculous healing of a women's hearing
at a prayer meeting). Dawkins is the same way - he is just unwilling to
believe.</p>
<p>Gordon - No, Dawkins doesn't say this - he always insists that if you
can show him good evidence, then he'd believe.</p>
<p>Justin - but whatever evidence you bring forward, that looks just like a
miracle, Dawkins will write off that there must be an alternative
explanation.</p>
<p>Gordon - he's going on previous evidence, making further miracle claims
unlikely.</p>
<p>Andrew - Some people made some wrong claims about X, therefore X cannot
be true. (Gordon - unlikely to be true) Some people made up a ridiculous
story of a <em>"miracle"</em> of an elephant drinking milk, therefore miracles
cannot happen, therefore the Resurrection didn't happen, therefore there
is no God - shaky foundation. We should look at at the historical
evidence, without prohibition against miracles.</p>
<p>Andrew - I don't assume the Resurrection. I don't assume miracles, but I
have seen healings, so I believe based on the evidence. We should be
open to miracles as an explanation, and not dismiss them entirely <em>"by
definition"</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Me - I think that we have to separate the idea of an observed
phenomenon and the cause of that phenomenon, to be clear. When saying
<em>"miracle"</em> we conflate the two. We can possibly test an effect, even if
we can't test a supernatural cause.</strong></p>
<p><strong>A number of examples were discussed, mostly faith healings. Now, I
believe that Andrew would agree that not all miracle claims are true,
and not all faith healings are legitimate. The question then becomes,
how can we tell the difference between true and false claims? How are
false claims produced? The way we can tell is if we can repeat them, or
have some independent verification. Every attempt I have ever seen to
carefully study faith healings has come up empty. Now, some diseases can
disappear on their own or have completely subjective symptoms. Other
diseases cannot - missing limbs, removed/damaged organs, etc... There is
not a single case of a regrown limb or organ in all of the faith healing
literature. Every case is indistinguishable from no effect. Take, for
example, the story of the suddenly hearing woman. How do we know that
her hearing didn't come back the previous week, and she only pointed it
out at the healing mass? How do we know that she had actually lost her
hearing? This could easily be the case of a pious fraud - she interprets
an increase in hearing around the time of a prayer meeting to being
caused by the prayer meeting. It could easily have been fabricated too.
How could we distinguish these explanations? The only way is through
objectively obtained evidence, the exact kind that we do not have in any
of these cases.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Here's a suggestion - I'd be convinced of a miracle if it can pass the
<a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-faq.html">JREF test</a>. Since none have, I am well within my rational grounds to
immediately dismiss any such claims as miraculous until such time as
they pony up the evidence.<br>
</strong></p>Unbelievable Project: Atheist and Christian bloggers discuss2013-03-06T12:13:00-05:002013-03-06T12:13:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-06:/posts/2013/Mar/06/unbelievable-project-atheist-and-christian-bloggers-discuss/<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS …</p><p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS Feed of the podcasts <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">see here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 18 Aug 2007 - Atheist and Christian
bloggers discuss - 18 August 2007 -- Two bloggers discuss God, faith
& Church - Ian Thorpe & Jenni Hutchinson</em> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ian Thorpe is an atheist and Jenni Hutchinson a Christian. They
got chatting about faith after bumping into each other on the
internet. They discuss whether the church is having a beneficial
effect on society, Ian's concerns over "fundamentalism" and
whether you need to believe in God to be good.<br>
See Ian's blog athttp://machiavelli.blog.co.uk/See Jenni's blog
athttp://vieira.blog.co.uk/</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/a3be722a-8fcb-4df8-b5e4-77f7785eec41.mp3">Download mp3.</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Jenni Hutchinson - Christian</li>
<li>Ian Thorpe - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Ian - He's concerned about the rise of Fundamentalism, and feels that
you don't have to be a theist to be good.</p>
<p>Jenni - Jesus as an icon (like clicking Excel - it leads to you to
Excel). It is easier to be good when one is in a community , get
support, etc... Also one should take the lesson from Jesus, and not act
superior or shun those that are sinful but engage them in dialog and
offer help.</p>
<p><strong>Me - religions have had hundreds of years of constructing communities
and support structures that just aren't there for atheists. humans need
community, and you get a lot of those benefits from being in a religious
community.</strong></p>
<p>Justin - I believe that we have an innate selfishness. Theologically we
attribute this to the Fall, and it comes out very early on. Hopefully
society helps to inculcate us with some values, but it does seem as if
this selfishness is getting worse. What's the solution to that? Can we
help ourselves, or do we need someone else? I would say that as a
Christian that Jesus Christ is what makes the difference, that's where
you have a hope of seeing change.</p>
<p><strong>Me - It might turn out that, for some people, they need to
believe that there is someone there even when the isn't anyone there.
This, however, does not speak to the truth of it. I'd ask, would a
Christian have the same positive attitude if you replace Jesus Christ in
the above with Allah - would you be supportive of more Islam in your
community, because of the positive influence it has on youth, turning
them around, because they come to recognize the power of Allah? It seems
to me that this is another case of <em>"if you agree with me, I want more
of you, otherwise, no thanks."</em></p>
<p>Perhaps, knowing this about human psychology, we could figure out a way
of getting the benefits without all of the superstitious
nonsense.</strong></p>Unbelievable Project: God's existence, free will and faith - The Big Questions2013-03-04T14:15:00-05:002013-03-04T14:15:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-04:/posts/2013/Mar/04/unbelievable-project-gods-existence-free-will-and-faith-the-big-questions/<h2 id="62207-gods-existence-free-will-and-faith-the-big-questions">6/22/07 - God's existence, free will and faith - The Big Questions</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable …</a></p><h2 id="62207-gods-existence-free-will-and-faith-the-big-questions">6/22/07 - God's existence, free will and faith - The Big Questions</h2>
<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a set of <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS Feed of the podcasts <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">see here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 23 Jun 2007 - God's existence, free will
& faith - 23 June 2007 -- The Big Questions</em> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Justin Brierley is joined by Jonathan Hill, author of "The Big
Questions". The book tackles some of the biggest philosophical
questions to do with the existence of God, free-will and faith.
What can we learn from the way Christians down the ages have
attempted to answer these questions? With guests Tim Mawson of
Oxford University and Jim Paul of the L'Abri fellowship in
Hampshire.</p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/4c521f28-91a5-42d0-a330-8294d27d11b3.mp3">Download mp3.</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Jonathan Hill, Jonathan, Tim Mawson, Jim Paul - Christian</li>
<li>(none) - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<p>Tim - personal experience can be evidence for God's existence, like the
perception of a table is evidence of a table. it's a phenomenon,
although it can be tricky to map it to reality.</p>
<p><strong>Me - the idea is one of verifiability, which distinguishes these sorts
of things. Tim points out that many have had personal experiences to
verify other religions. This, in a single stroke, eliminates it as a
reasonable form of evidence.</strong></p>
<p>Jonathan - three biggies historically. cosmological - God must exist
because the Universe must have a cause. , God is by definition uncaused,
a necessary being. the universe could have not existed (nothing), or a
different one, so it is contingent. this must come from a necessary
being. - I'm not very convinced of arguments of this kind - it doesn't
really prove God, but some <em>"first thing"</em></p>
<p><strong>Me - I agree! however, I am not convinced with this contingent,
necessary distinction. can we demonstrate it? Can we find an example? Is
it a meaningful distinction?</strong></p>
<p>Jonathan - teleological - argument from design. quotes from Marcus
Minucius Felix late 2nd century<br>
<em>"hold up your eyes to starry heavens, behold the planets wheeling in
their pre-ordained course. look at the turning of the seasons, the rain
and the snow, the sun, the planets, everything works together."</em> how
could you look at that say that there is no God.</p>
<p><strong>Me - each of these is described <em>better</em> by physics and biology. this
argument from incredulity is not a solid argument. and we easily
recognize this now.<br>
</strong></p>
<p>Jonathan - ontological. there is a God based on a definition of God. God
is defined as perfection. one of the perfections is necessary existence.</p>
<p><strong>Me (and Justin) - just saying it doesn't make it so. this point was
responded to, by asserting that <em>"we are simply exploring the concept"</em>.
However, the objection still holds even in this case.</strong></p>Unbelievable Project: Does Christianity enslave? - Are we better off without belief in God?2013-03-01T10:51:00-05:002013-03-01T10:51:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-03-01:/posts/2013/Mar/01/unbelievable-project-does-christianity-enslave-are-we-better-off-without-belief-in-god/<p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">set of simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS …</p><p>As part of the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">Unbelievable Project</a>, I am taking notes and
"arm-chair" responding to each of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a> episodes
satisfying a <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/">set of simple rules</a>.</p>
<p>For a full RSS Feed of the podcasts see <a href="http://ondemand.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/AudioFeed.aspx">here</a>.</p>
<h3 id="description-of-episode">Description of Episode</h3>
<ul>
<li>Full Title: <em>Unbelievable? 2 Jun 2007 - Does Christianity enslave? -
02 June 2007 -- Are we better off without belief in God?</em></li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<p>Duncan Rossiter runs an atheist website. He says that Christinaity
enslaves people. Find out why he has a problem with the idea of God
and whether Christian evangelist Paul Clarke can persuade him that
faith in Christ sets people free.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/cbdfc018-f5ea-42cf-bdc9-297f25162ff5.mp3">Download mp3.</a></p>
<ul>
<li>Justin Brierley - Christian Moderator</li>
<li>Paul Clarke - Christian</li>
<li>Duncan Rossiter - Atheist</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="notes">Notes</h3>
<ul>
<li>My responses in <strong>bold</strong>, quotes in <em>italic</em>, and the rest is a
paraphrase. I may change this formatting convention as I go through
the project in the future.</li>
</ul>
<p>Duncan - <em>"hard to be an atheist - people are shocked when they hear"</em>.
<em>"Primarily belief based on indoctrination at an early age rather than
at an age when you can make decisions for yourself."</em></p>
<p>Paul - <em>"saying you're a Christian, as opposed to Muslim or Hindu, you
get the same sort of reaction."</em></p>
<p>Question to Duncan - <em>"why would we be better off without belief in
God?"</em></p>
<p>Justin - <em>"Do you feel that you've lost something? Does it make one sad
that this is all we have?"</em></p>
<p>Duncan - As a race, why are we better off? Middle East, Ireland, obvious
issues. Asking people to pray when they could be doing something
themselves. You can, as an atheist, investigate any other truth claims.</p>
<p>Paul - the Christian is allowed to investigate anything. <em>"atheism is an
absolute truth claim just as the faith claims."</em> Stalin and Mao
connected to their atheism?</p>
<p><strong>Me - What is clear is that dogmatic thinking, whether religious or
atheistic, leads to suffering. however, religion by its very structure
celebrates dogmatism, whereas modern scientific (i.e. skeptical)
thinking abhors it wherever it is seen.</strong></p>
<p>Paul - <em>"what hitler did was not in accord of Christian beliefs"</em></p>
<p><strong>Me - The bible is a multiple-choice text. You can find anything in it,
so it can be used to justify the worst behavior and the best behavior.</strong></p>
<p>Paul - <em>"the 20th century was an experiment in secularism, and the
result was secular evil more virulent than what came before."</em></p>
<p>Paul - people take belief systems and use them for evil. Christianity is
not inherently evil. there is evil in the human heart. the problem is
with selfish people who might come along and use christianity or any
other belief systems for there end.</p>
<p>Duncan - human beings will do evil.</p>
<p>Paul - why haven't we evolved out of that?</p>
<p><strong>Me - even asking this question shows a remarkable ignorance about how
evolution works. first, we are effectively the same humans now (from an
evolution standpoint) as we were when we left africa. so why would we
expect to have <em>"evolved out of that?"</em> second, it is clear that a
<em>balance</em> of selfish tendencies and societal, non-selfish, tendencies
leads to success in social creatures like us. therefore, we are still
stuck with those selfish tendencies. I am not convinced that if we were
able to eliminate this, that this would necessarily be a good thing
overall. it could be that this selfish, competitive, aspect gives us the
motivation to find creative solutions to problems about which we might
otherwise be complacent.</strong></p>
<p>Paul - second hand belief and disbelief, from parents, community, needs
to be scrutinized and figured out yourself.</p>
<p>Paul - atheism has no objective way of determining right from wrong.</p>
<p>Duncan - God supposedly created everything, absolutely everything, knows
us, and what we are going to do and yet there are people starving that
he could have saved. He must be in control of these things but I have
not seen any answers out there from Christianity for <em>"why the evil, why
at all?"</em></p>
<p>Paul - agrees that God knows these things, and that the evil is allowed
to happen for a reason. In man-made evil, is not directly caused by God
(because of free will). on natural evil, he asks <em>"do you think there is
enough food in the world to feed everyone in the world?"</em></p>
<p><strong>Me - absolutely yes. it's just not distributed properly. and that
doesn't get God off the hook, because he could easily make the soil more
fertile, etc... in the places without enough food currently.</strong></p>
<p>Duncan - if people prayed a little less and do a little more, then
things would be improved.</p>
<p>Paul - you can pray and do, as well.</p>
<p>Duncan - prayer is a waste of time.</p>
<p>Paul - prayer is the sort of activity that makes yourself more into the
type of person that could help. if prayer is a waste of time, do you do
anything that wastes time? Certainly you could do more.</p>
<p>Paul - is there ever a justification for allowing suffering? yes, like a
nurse giving a shot, to allow for a higher goal. so, is there a higher
goal, to justify the suffering? if there were one, then it would have to
be pretty big and pretty important. the christian answer to it is the
higher goal in question is the glory of god. somehow, all of these
things work together for the glory of god.</p>
<p>Duncan - maybe my brain is not wired right, but I don't see how people
dying people for the glory of god, even if they do not believe or ever
heard of <em>"your god"</em>.</p>
<p>Paul - we are seeing the back of the tapestry, not the front. the messy
side.</p>
<p>Paul - to strictly be an atheist and to make the absolute truth claim
that there is nowhere anywhere in the universe a god you need complete
knowledge and ethical perfection.</p>
<p><strong>Me - what a ridiculous straw man. replace <em>"God"</em> in this sentence
with <em>"Fairy"</em> or <em>"Unicorn"</em> or <em>"Zeus"</em> and you'll immediately see
why.</strong></p>
<p>Justin - what about the positive impact, when they found christ.</p>
<p>Duncan - what about the positive impact of atheism?</p>
<p><strong>Me - is there anything that you believe in, strongly, for which the
<em>only</em> evidence you have are stories in ancient texts?</strong></p>Unbelievable Project: A Non-Believer's Armchair Perspective on Six Years of Christian Debates2013-02-27T14:30:00-05:002013-02-27T14:30:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-02-27:/posts/2013/Feb/27/unbelievable-project-a-non-believers-armchair-perspective-on-six-years-of-christian-debates/<p>So I've decided to start a project which will be posted here as I go
along. Essentially, it is based off of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a>,
which for those who don't …</p><p>So I've decided to start a project which will be posted here as I go
along. Essentially, it is based off of the <a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/shows/saturday/unbelievable.aspx">Unbelievable podcast</a>,
which for those who don't know is a British podcast/radio show featuring
debates between Christians and non-Christians. My plan is to respond to
every episode from the archive, with some small constraints. I expect
this will take at least a year, possibly a bit more, but structure many
of my ideas as I go through it.</p>
<p>The rules are quite simple for which episodes I will address, and which
parts of the episodes I'll addresss:</p>
<ol>
<li>I will listen to just the debate, not the emails or the call-ins</li>
<li>I will only listen to atheist vs Christian debates, not Christian vs
Christian debates</li>
<li>I will only listen to Christian topics, not Islam, Hindu, Paganism,
or other religious topics</li>
</ol>
<p>These rules are set for my own personal interest, and also to play to my
strengths. I am not as informed of the intricacies of Hinduism, for
example. I am also not interested in hearing a discussion between
Christians about the particular implications of the Trinity.</p>Resurrection, Linear Regression, and the Art of Harmonization2013-02-15T21:41:00-05:002013-02-15T21:41:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-02-15:/posts/2013/Feb/15/resurrection-linear-regression-and-the-art-of-harmonization/<p>Dan Barker has an <a href="http://ffrf.org/legacy/books/lfif/?t=stone">Easter Challenge</a> to any Christian to come up with
a seamless account of what happened on the day of the Resurrection.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The conditions of the challenge …</p></blockquote><p>Dan Barker has an <a href="http://ffrf.org/legacy/books/lfif/?t=stone">Easter Challenge</a> to any Christian to come up with
a seamless account of what happened on the day of the Resurrection.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The conditions of the challenge are simple and reasonable. In each of
the four Gospels, begin at Easter morning and read to the end of the
book: Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21. Also read Acts
1:3-12 and Paul's tiny version of the story in I Corinthians 15:3-8.
These 165 verses can be read in a few moments. Then, without omitting
a single detail from these separate accounts, write a simple,
chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the
ascension: what happened first, second, and so on; who said what,
when; and where these things happened.</p>
<p>Since the gospels do not always give precise times of day, it is
permissible to make educated guesses. The narrative does not have to
pretend to present a perfect picture--it only needs to give at least
one plausible account of all of the facts. Additional explanation of
the narrative may be set apart in parentheses. <em>The important
condition to the challenge, however, is that not one single biblical
detail be omitted.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Andy Bannister <a href="http://www.answering-islam.org/Andy/Resurrection/harmony.html#presuppositions">has this description</a>, which really is consistent with
every detail, and supposed contradiction.</p>
<p>What is the problem with this method that Andy uses? It is helpful to
consider a similar situation that arrises in mathematics, in the process
of regression.</p>
<h2 id="regression">Regression</h2>
<p>In linear regression, I might have, say, a handful of data points:</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>X</strong> <strong>Y</strong>
0.0 -12.5
1.0 17.9
2.0 -3.2
3.0 11.4
4.0 10.8
5.0 28.8
6.0 31.8
7.0 28.3
8.0 23.4
9.0 21.9
10.0 32.7</p>
<hr>
<p>Which is plotted as</p>
<p><img alt="Fig1" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/fig1.png" title="fig1.png"></p>
<p>When we do a linear regression, we fit to a standard "y=mx+b" form. For
this data, the best fit is</p>
<p>y=3.4 x + 0.27,</p>
<p>with a mean squared error of 77.9.</p>
<p><img alt="Fig2" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/fig2.png" title="fig2.png"></p>
<p>Overall, not a bad looking fit. However, if we fit to a 10-th power
polynomial, we can get even better!</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code> 10 9 8 7 6 5
-0.0007039 x + 0.0363 x - 0.8051 x + 10.04 x - 77.13 x + 376.5 x
4 3 2
- 1159 x + 2152 x - 2163 x + 891.8 x - 12.54
</code></pre></div>
<p>with a Mean Squared Error of Zero!!!</p>
<p><img alt="Fig4" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/fig4.png" title="fig4.png"></p>
<p>In the field of statistics, this is referred to as over-fitting, and is
the result of fitting the noise. In other words, it is fitting the
meaningless differences from one point to another by adding a tunable
parameter for each detail in the data. With each new parameter we get a
"better" fit, by the criterion of mean squared error, but we lose sight
of the meaning. This is the mathematical equivalent of losing sight of
the forest for the trees.</p>
<h2 id="back-to-the-resurrection">Back to the Resurrection</h2>
<p>If we look at Andy Bannister's very clever solution, we notice something
quite interesting: for every single difference between the Gospel
accounts, he adds a detail not found in the story to explain it. One can
pretty much do this for any two accounts that don't say logically
contradictory things, and can be seen as an example of over-fitting. I
think it highlights two things:</p>
<p>1) The challenge is probably not a very good one. One can Rube-Goldberg
a story together to fit any amount of details</p>
<p>2) People will go to great lengths harmonizing something that they have
a vested interest in believing.</p>There is no population2013-02-13T01:07:00-05:002013-02-13T01:07:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2013-02-13:/posts/2013/Feb/13/there-is-no-population/<p>So I've been following and intro stats class for a project of mine, and
came across this curious definition:</p>
<ul>
<li>A statistic is number that describes a sample</li>
<li>A parameter is …</li></ul><p>So I've been following and intro stats class for a project of mine, and
came across this curious definition:</p>
<ul>
<li>A statistic is number that describes a sample</li>
<li>A parameter is number that describes a population</li>
</ul>
<p>I got to wondering what a population really is, and couldn't find the
dividing line between the sample and the population. If you polled
everyone in a state, would that data represent population data or sample
data? It becomes clear that the population is a theoretical concept
only, made-up to make a sampling distribution make sense.</p>
<p>More and more I find the Bayesian perspective demonstrably clearer.
Sure, a statistic is a property of a sample of data. A parameter is
always, however, a property of the model. There is never a dividing
line here, and the limits of inference come down to the limits of the
model, and the limits of the data in constraining the parameters of the
model. There is no population.</p>"Science Refutes God" Debate2012-12-11T13:49:00-05:002012-12-11T13:49:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-12-11:/posts/2012/Dec/11/science-refutes-god-debate/<p>I just finished watching the "Science Refutes God" debate. Although I
am not a huge fan of Krauss and Shermer, I thought they did a decent
job. As I was …</p><p>I just finished watching the "Science Refutes God" debate. Although I
am not a huge fan of Krauss and Shermer, I thought they did a decent
job. As I was watching, I nearly jumped out of my seat with some
arm-chair quaterbacking..."ask this next!!!". D'Sousa claimed that the
Bible predicted the Big Bang (i.e. universe from nothing) thousands of
years before science. He also admitted that the day and night before
the Sun was not true (around 1 hr and 20 minutes in), was refuted by
science, and was really the product of a fundamentalist reading of the
bible. The next question out of Krauss' mouth should have been, "by
what criterea do you decide what is true in the Bible?" What D'Sousa
was doing was saying that, where we have learned things from science and
one can plausibly read the Bible in the same way, then that is true in
the Bible. Otherwise, it is false in the Bible. In this case, the
Bible is making <strong>no</strong> predictions, because it has many claims which
cannot be demonstrated to be true except through science. It's like you
rattle off a whole series of random digits, like (and I did this by
computer):</p>
<p>3, 6, 4, 3, 1, 0, 2, 9, 7, 8, 6, 4, 1, 1, 6, 8, 9, 5, 3, 4, 0, 6, 9, 9,
4, 6, 4, 9, 6, 9, 3, 8, 6, 8, 3, 9, 6, 9, 8, 1, 4, 0, 9, ...</p>
<p>and then noting, hey, this starts with a "3", and look at some of the
other digits (in bold):</p>
<p><strong>3</strong>, 6, 4, 3, <strong>1</strong>, 0, 2, 9, 7, 8, 6, <strong>4</strong>, <strong>1</strong>, 1, 6, 8, 9,
<strong>5</strong>, 3, 4, 0, 6, <strong>9</strong>, 9, 4, <strong>6</strong>, 4, 9, 6, 9, 3, 8, 6, 8, 3, 9, 6,
9, 8, 1, 4, 0, 9, ...</p>
<p>you see the digits of pi! (a small note - I was planning on running the
random number generator many times, to make sure that this example
started with 3, to make my point about the starting value, and lo! it
came up the first time anyway!)</p>
<p>[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKNd_S3iXfs&w=560&h=315]</p>Logical vs Reasonable2012-12-07T13:54:00-05:002012-12-07T13:54:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-12-07:/posts/2012/Dec/07/logical-vs-reasonable/<p>I was listening to an episode of the <a href="http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/">Rationally Speaking</a> podcast,
which overall is quite good, but from time to time I disagree. In this
case they were talking about …</p><p>I was listening to an episode of the <a href="http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/">Rationally Speaking</a> podcast,
which overall is quite good, but from time to time I disagree. In this
case they were talking about the technical use of terms versus the
colloquial use. We see that in physics a lot, with terms like energy,
force, and heat, and one has to be very careful when using these terms.
In the podcast, they used the example of people using the word
"logical", as in "that is the logical thing to do". The host thought
this should really mean "that is the <em>reasonable</em> thing to do", given
that they aren't generally doing a deductive proof to make the decision.
The tone he used was that this should be obvious...however it is
not...it is wrong. Why should the word "logical" be restricted to
<em>deductive</em> logic? Why should it not include inductive logic? Pretty
much that pulls in all of <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/prob/book.pdf">probability theory</a>, and it then becomes
(nearly) synonymous with "reasonable".</p>
<p>When I say the two phrases in my head, I do sense a subtle differerence,
with "logical" being more definititive than "reasonable". Perhaps it is
more of a difference like "probable" and "plausible" - still not a
deductive distinction, but a distinction of magnitude in inductive
reasoning. </p>
<p>Still, it is an interesting thing to think about how we use language in
science and society.</p>God does Not Exist, Clearly2012-11-26T10:34:00-05:002012-11-26T10:34:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-11-26:/posts/2012/Nov/26/god-does-not-exist-clearly/<p>In <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/a-longish-discussion-on-facebook-about-god-science-and-philosophy/">a facebook conversation</a>, Matthew Bell claimed that "the evidence
for the existence of God has been made so clear that any who do not
believe in it are without …</p><p>In <a href="http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/a-longish-discussion-on-facebook-about-god-science-and-philosophy/">a facebook conversation</a>, Matthew Bell claimed that "the evidence
for the existence of God has been made so clear that any who do not
believe in it are without excuse before him and are in denial of the
evidence." He then <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KbbE8ZLzcRk">pointed me to a lecture by William Lane
Craig</a> (WLC), where this evidence is laid out. Let's look at this
supposedly clear evidence. </p>
<h2 id="the-argument">The Argument</h2>
<p>WLC starts by looking at 7 things that point to something more than
naturalism. I interject a few criticisms, but many more can be found
online. My main point is stated at the bottom of this post.</p>
<p>1. "Why is there something rather than nothing?"</p>
<p><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>"Everything that exists has an
explanation, either in the necessity of its own being, or in a cause."
He claims that this point is plausible, at least more than its
contradiction, and then proceeds to give a straightforward,
everyday-sort of analogy. I think we have learned in the last 100 years
that these analogies are completely useless once you move a little bit
away from everyday experience - really big, really small, really fast,
really old, etc...</p>
<p>He continues with "Some things exist necessarily (say, numbers) without
any cause. All other things have an external cause (say, mountains,
planets, etc...)." He then says that it seems plausible that the
explanation of the universe is an external cause. Why? No reason is
given. He then goes on to state that that cause must be transcendent
and personal. The cause must be greater than the uiniverse, and thus
cannot be physical or material. Only two kinds of things are
non-physical: an abstract object and an intelligent mind (i.e. an
unbodied consciousness). Why only these two? No attempt to expand this
list is given. Can you claim that the mind could even exist without
material? No support for is given. These are simply asserted.</p>
<p>2. Origin of the universe. Does the universe have a beginning? Here
he uses his standard rant against the actual infinite (transfinite
arithmetic), then introduces the Big Bang evidence, and then the Borde,
Guth, and Vilenkin theorem. A nice treatment of this can be found
<a href="http://debunkingwlc.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/borde-guth-vilenkin/">here</a>, but there are many others online.</p>
<p>An appeal is made to the "out of nothing, nothing comes" as very
successful in science - again, ignoring the uncaused events in quantum
physics, to which Vilinkin himself references in his original paper. </p>
<p><span style="white-space:pre;">He continues with, "the cause must be
c</span>hangeless, timeless, spaceless, and personal". Again, he says
that it is "plausibly" personal. "How else could a timeless cause give
rise to a temporal effect like a beginning?" A theme is happening - at
each stage of his argument he is appealing to our ordinary sense of
things, our incredulity, and our lack of any curiousity. </p>
<p>3. Fine tuning argument. His only response to the physical necessity
of these constants being what they are is "the physical necessity of the
constants being fine tuned is implausible because 'these constants are
independent in the theory'". This is entirely unconvicing, given that
the theory is known to be incomplete! True, right now, the constants
are indendent but that is simply because they are not derived in any way
from a more fundamental understanding. </p>
<p>4. Argument from objective moral values and duties. I think <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CEIQtwIwAQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Fsam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html&ei=qJy0UM-vM-Xw0gG90oD4BQ&usg=AFQjCNEj9tFXYKdx8uZ_XVjOYruVQUB1RA">Sam
Harris' arguments for objective morality</a>, based on science, are more
convincing than Craig's here.</p>
<p>5. Argument from the "greatest possible conceivable being". This
argument is essentially "If I can imagine it, it must exist" (yes, I
know that's an oversimplification) He claims that this entire argument,
except the first point "God could possible exist", is uncontentious.
He then says that the atheist must demonstrate that the concept of God
is incoherent (like a married bachelor) to demonstrate that God could
not possibly exist. He then argues from incredulity (again) - "what do
you think?" "It seems to me that an all-good, all powerful being is
coherent.", etc... I can't imagine anyone is ever convinced by such
wordplay.</p>
<p>6. Historical details of Jesus. WLC claims that most historials agree
with the following three historical points:</p>
<p><span style="white-space:pre;"><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>
</span>a) empty tomb</p>
<p><span style="white-space:pre;"><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>
</span>b) postmortem appearances</p>
<p><span style="white-space:pre;"><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>
</span>c) transformation of the desciples (i.e they
were<span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>willing to die for them.)</p>
<p>My first response, as I was listening to this was, whoa! We just jumped
about 13 billion years! Up to this point we were talking about the
origins of matter and the universe, and now we jump to a mere 2000 years
ago. I really like the response by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVMgvw4QV4g&feature=relmfu">Robert M Price here</a>, where he
deals quite well with the development of legendary material. </p>
<p>7. Personal experience of God. WLC admits this isn't evidence. </p>
<h2 id="the-point">The Point</h2>
<p>It is not my point to criticize WLC arguments for their content. I've
sketched some criticisms here, as they appear to me, but my main
contention is that this evidence is <em>not clear evidence for God</em>.
Matthew Bell claimed that "the evidence for the existence of God has
been made so clear that any who do not believe in it are without excuse
before him and are in denial of the evidence.", and yet this evidence is
not at all clear. It relates either to the edge of our understanding on
cosmology, 2000 year old texts written decades after the events by
people who do not claim to be eyewitnesses, or "feel-good" feelings when
you do something nice for someone or pray. In each case the evidence
is either at our ignorance or our subjectivity, and not clear. </p>
<p>So, what would I want? For example, before Darwin, there was clear
evidence for design. Any person could easily see it with their eyes, it
was demonstrable in, literally, millions of ways. Watching a beaver
build a dam, or a parsitic wasp infect a caterpillar, the match of
function and form was truly obvious. Of course, once Darwin
demonstrated that this could be explained without a designer, it ceased
to be evidence for a designer - but it was clear evidence at the time.
So-called faith-healings would also provide clear evidence, if they
could be repeated and not easily explained with human psychology and the
science of placebo, etc... It would be evidence that anyone could
approach and deal with, and would point beyond the natural world
(perhaps). However, this evidence seems to retreat under the slightest
skeptical scrutiny. </p>
<p>How about evidence for something else, perhaps not an everyday
phenomenon? What about the Big Bang? Is there clear evidence for it?
Yes! Of course, it's a little more work to see it, but I can get
middle-school students to be able to do the math, measuring red-shifts,
and calculate the age of the universe - from real data! This is clear
evidence - the very thing that is lacking when we are talking about the
supposed creator of the universe who supposedly still acts in the world.</p>A few things about Carl Sagan2012-11-09T16:29:00-05:002012-11-09T16:29:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-11-09:/posts/2012/Nov/09/a-few-things-about-carl-sagan/<p>It's Carl Sagan day, so it is worth to pause for a moment to remember
his contributions. I remember being motivated by him, and his Cosmos
series. He always had …</p><p>It's Carl Sagan day, so it is worth to pause for a moment to remember
his contributions. I remember being motivated by him, and his Cosmos
series. He always had a way with words, describing the essence of
science, apart from all of the details that distract us. In some ways I
wish I were more like him, and able to make such a contribution to the
world. </p>
<p>So, in memory of Carl, here are a few links to enjoy:</p>
<p>On Humanity: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLkC7ralR30">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLkC7ralR30</a></p>
<p>Pale Blue Dot: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g</a></p>
<p>Symphony of Science - We are all
Connected: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g</a></p>Bayesian thinking2012-10-16T16:12:00-04:002012-10-16T16:12:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-10-16:/posts/2012/Oct/16/bayesian-thinking/<p>I'm a big fan of Bayesian reasoning, and I like the idea of applying it
to human intelligence. Usually it is in terms of failures of reasoning,
compared with the …</p><p>I'm a big fan of Bayesian reasoning, and I like the idea of applying it
to human intelligence. Usually it is in terms of failures of reasoning,
compared with the gold-standard of Bayes. That's why I like <a href="http://andrewgelman.com/2012/10/i-notice-a-slightly-garbled-version-of-bayesian-inference-which-provokes-some-thoughts-on-the-applicability-of-bayesian-models-of-human-reasoning/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StatisticalModelingCausalInferenceAndSocialScience+%28Statistical+Modeling%2C+Causal+Inference%2C+and+Social+Science%29">this post
from Andrew Gelman's blog</a> about <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/10/how_do_children_learn_so_quickly_bayesian_statistics_and_probabilities_help.single.html">this post from Slate</a> where they
present evidence that even very young children think in a Bayesian way.
The discussion centers around contrasting children and adults in terms
of the priors they have when approaching a new problem. Gelman makes
the point that the failures in adults can also occur because out
internal models tend to be discrete and the real-world is continious.
It is very interesting to see how these sorts of mappings from theory
to reality are made. In general, how do we infer what internal
representations of models we are actually employing? </p>Great Science Ads!2012-10-16T12:44:00-04:002012-10-16T12:44:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-10-16:/posts/2012/Oct/16/great-science-ads/<p>Check out the pictures at the bottom of <a href="http://www.scienceworld.ca/ads">this science museum's site</a>.
And they have some nice 30 second videos!</p>
<p>I particularly like:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijOru9mRkAM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijOru9mRkAM …</a></li></ul><p>Check out the pictures at the bottom of <a href="http://www.scienceworld.ca/ads">this science museum's site</a>.
And they have some nice 30 second videos!</p>
<p>I particularly like:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijOru9mRkAM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijOru9mRkAM</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Rn4MVlCEc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3Rn4MVlCEc</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-VTrUfsCPc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-VTrUfsCPc</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvhaTPt-P7c">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvhaTPt-P7c</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xopGkG7r7L8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xopGkG7r7L8</a></li>
</ul>
<p>and a must see:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLKnoD1YTto">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLKnoD1YTto</a></li>
</ul>Breaking news: Doctor hallucinates and is convinced that science is wrong2012-10-12T23:42:00-04:002012-10-12T23:42:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-10-12:/posts/2012/Oct/12/breaking-news-doctor-hallucinates-and-is-convinced-that-science-is-wrong/<p>This <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html">article in Newsweek</a> about a neurosurgeon named Eben Alexander
who had a near-death experience, states that he is convinced that heaven
actually exists, and that science is wrong about …</p><p>This <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html">article in Newsweek</a> about a neurosurgeon named Eben Alexander
who had a near-death experience, states that he is convinced that heaven
actually exists, and that science is wrong about the origin of
consciousness and what happens after death. His argument: "But as far
as I know, no one before me has ever traveled to this dimension (a)
while their cortex was completely shut down, and (b) while their body
was under minute medical observation, as mine was for the full seven
days of my coma."</p>
<p>Nowhere, however, does he seem to consider that, perhaps, his
hallucination could have happened in the brief interval of the cortex
shutting down or the interval of him waking up. Even if he
<em>experienced</em> days away in paradise doesn't mean that the actual
experience lasted at all during the time that his cortex was confirmed
to be inactive. Since this possibility took me a whole 10 seconds to
think of (and there could be others) it is clear he is not being
critical about, what is most likely, a very moving experience for him.
I do not begrudge him this experience, and would love to have one
myself (if it didn't involved the significant risk of actually dying in
the process), but I would be loathe to make universal metaphysical
claims from this experience. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/this-must-be-heaven">nice response</a> to this, as always, comes from Sam Harris. Here Sam
Harris says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Alexander asserts that the cessation of cortical activity was “clear
from the severity and duration of my meningitis, and from the global
cortical involvement documented by CT scans and neurological
examinations....The problem, however, is that “CT scans and
neurological examinations” can’t determine neuronal inactivity—in the
cortex or anywhere else. And Alexander makes no reference to
functional data that might have been acquired by fMRI, PET, or EEG—nor
does he seem to realize that only this sort of evidence could support
his case....whatever structural damage appeared on CT could not have
been “global.”...Coma is not associated with the complete cessation of
cortical activity, in any case. And to my knowledge, almost no one
thinks that consciousness is purely a matter of cortical activity. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>That about sums it up!</p>Critical Thinking2012-10-11T17:25:00-04:002012-10-11T17:25:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-10-11:/posts/2012/Oct/11/critical-thinking/<p>A <a href="http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/11/what-exactly-is-critical-thinking/">recent post on critical thinking</a> from one of my favorite climate
blogs. In a nutshell there is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Constantly check one’s views against evidence from the real world.</li>
<li>Think …</li></ul><p>A <a href="http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/11/what-exactly-is-critical-thinking/">recent post on critical thinking</a> from one of my favorite climate
blogs. In a nutshell there is:</p>
<ul>
<li>Constantly check one’s views against evidence from the real world.</li>
<li>Think in terms of multiple, rather than single, causes.</li>
<li>Think in terms of the sizes of things, rather than only in terms of
their direction.</li>
<li>Know many small things and pragmatically apply a “grab bag” of
knowledge to make modest predictions about the world (as opposed to
knowing one big thing and applying that to everything around)</li>
<li>Understand one’s own biases.</li>
</ul>
<p>From a <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CDcQtwIwAw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F36676883&ei=wAB3UJyKK-Xo0QGuzIHABA&usg=AFQjCNEHaolhWdIDPhYv2QrghOJFcx-xJA">total different talk on a totally different topic,</a> critical
thinking is partly a skill-set and partly an attitude. </p>
<p>What is interesting here is that this list conforms to most of the
<a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/lessons-from-bayes-rule/">lessons that one draws from Bayes theorem</a>.</p>Naturalistic Bias? Presupposing Naturalism?2012-09-25T11:11:00-04:002012-09-25T11:11:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-09-25:/posts/2012/Sep/25/naturalistic-bias-presupposing-naturalism/<p>I've heard in a number of debates, especially on the historicity of the
Resurrection (like the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/christianity-vs.-other-worldviews/id118011801">very interesting 6-parter between Robert M Price
and Don Johnson</a>), that the reason a …</p><p>I've heard in a number of debates, especially on the historicity of the
Resurrection (like the <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/christianity-vs.-other-worldviews/id118011801">very interesting 6-parter between Robert M Price
and Don Johnson</a>), that the reason a skeptic doesn't believe the
Resurrection of Jesus is that they have a presupposition against
miracles, or the supernatural, and simply discount it on principle.
There are two mistakes with this idea, which I find illustrative of
ignorance of proper scientific thinking.</p>
<ol>
<li>Most of these biases against miracles are <em>learned from evidence</em>,
as most miracle claims come up empty. So it is not an <em>irrational</em>
bias, but a <em>rational</em> one, based on life experience. </li>
<li>It shouldn't matter anyway - if something is true, then one should
be able to convince even a skeptic. And it is perfectly natural to
distrust extraordinary claims, and it is the job of the claimant to
make the case.</li>
</ol>
<p>I thought of two examples from my life where I was skeptical of an
extraordinary claim, one where it turned out my perspective was correct
and the other not.</p>
<ol>
<li>In the 1990's, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_universe">first evidence for the acclerating universe</a>
came out. I remember thinking, "No way this is true." At the time,
I thought their calibration of the supernovae used as standard
candles was somehow incorrect. Did the researchers approach this
skepticism with "oh, you just are biased against theories that
propose unknown external forces, or violations of known laws"? No.
Other groups repeated it, they confirmed any calibration, and came
up with a theoretical structure (using the Cosmological Constant) to
describe it. Then I was convinced. Was I wrong in my skepticism?
Absolutely not. The response to skeptics is to bring the evidence
to bear on it. If the evidence is not enough to convince a
reasonable skeptic, then we can't be particularly confident in it.</li>
<li>Recently, there was some data indicating possibly faster-than-light
neutrinos. <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/faster-than-light-why-the-lawyer-is-wrong/">I had a response to this here</a>, where I was skeptical
of the result. Again, it was a group of careful scientists who had
done the measurments, and had taken into account everything they
could think of. I still didn't believe it. Did the researchers
approach this skepticism with "oh, you just are biased against
theories that propose unknown external forces, or violations of
known laws"? No. Others tried to analyze the same data and the set
up, and the scientists explored other explanations. <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/breaking-news-error-undoes-faster.html">Turned out to
be a loose cable</a>. Here again, my skepticism was well placed.</li>
</ol>
<p>It's not bias to be skeptical. It isn't irrational to demand a
higher-than-average standard for extraordinary claims, no matter what.
If you make such a claim, and that higher-than-average standard is not
met, then you cannot be confident in that claim. It doesn't matter
whether the claim is religious or scientific, the same rules apply.</p>Aliens!2012-09-07T09:57:00-04:002012-09-07T09:57:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-09-07:/posts/2012/Sep/07/aliens/<p>Here is an interesting attempt to make the Drake equation more
accessible:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120821-how-many-alien-worlds-exist">http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120821-how-many-alien-worlds-exist</a></p>
<p>I like the fact that they have the various standard assumptions …</p><p>Here is an interesting attempt to make the Drake equation more
accessible:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120821-how-many-alien-worlds-exist">http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120821-how-many-alien-worlds-exist</a></p>
<p>I like the fact that they have the various standard assumptions, from
optimistic to skeptical. I've always erred on the side of the
optimistic on this one. It just strikes me as just one more example of
human arrogance to conclude that we are special in this galaxy. One
thing I've always liked about the Drake Equation is that it focusses the
discussion. It takes a totally impossible question ("how many
intelligent civilizations are there in the galaxy") and breaks it up
into a number of smaller questions, many of which are answerable. Of
course, near the end of the calculation it gets a little dicey, but so
are all such problems. </p>Statistics vs Probability2012-08-31T09:27:00-04:002012-08-31T09:27:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-08-31:/posts/2012/Aug/31/statistics-vs-probability/<p>It's been a while since my last post, and I hope to get back into
regularly posting, now that the semester is starting. I'm also testing
out new posting tools …</p><p>It's been a while since my last post, and I hope to get back into
regularly posting, now that the semester is starting. I'm also testing
out new posting tools.</p>
<p>So, as a beginning, I start with an extract from an introductory
statistics class:</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/pastedgraphic-1-1.png"></p>
<p>I had a strong feeling that this was a job for probability, not for
statistics, so I thought, how would one do this problem:</p>
<p><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>We observe h1=4, N1=10</p>
<p><span style="white-space:pre;"> </span>What is the probability of h2,
N2=100?</p>
<p>It seems that the "probability" approach would be more fruitful, so I
threw together this little calculation, where I simply marginalize over
the single "random coin" parameter, given data 1 (our initial data) and
look at the probability of various h2's:</p>
<p></p>
<img alt="1" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/untitled11.png"></p>
<p>since</p>
<p><img alt="2" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/untitled-2.png"></p>
<p>which also arises in the normalization condition for the beta
distribution. This leads to our final solution:</p>
<p><img alt="3" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/untitled-3.png"></p>
<p>which leads to the following plot, for h1=4, N1=10, and N2=100:</p>
<p><img alt="4" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/untitled-4.png"></p>
<p>I can't help but think there is a simplification of the equation, but I
don't see anything obvious that cancels. Certainly, for large N's I
could approximate it. </p>
<p>Anyway, it is clearly a problem for probability not statistics...</p>
</p>Presuppositionalist arguments2012-08-19T16:01:00-04:002012-08-19T16:01:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-08-19:/posts/2012/Aug/19/presuppositionalist-arguments/<p><strong>Introduction</strong></p>
<p>If you want some entertainment in the form of logical gymnastics, go to
this page on the proof of god. If you're impatient, here is one of the
arguments …</p><p><strong>Introduction</strong></p>
<p>If you want some entertainment in the form of logical gymnastics, go to
this page on the proof of god. If you're impatient, here is one of the
arguments:</p>
<p>Do you believe that Absolute Truth exists? Possible answers…</p>
<p>1. yes -> you go on to the next piece 2. no -> is it absolutely true
that absolute truth doesn't exist? 1. yes -> then you actually believe
that absolute truth exists! 2. no -> you get asked again if you believe
that Absolute Truth exists (with the statement "This is not a glitch
(Think about it)". - essentially implying either that you're making an
absolute truth statement, or you can't state anything.</p>
<p>A similar point is made about the laws of logic:</p>
<p>"If you believe that laws of logic do not exist, how do you make
decisions about the most basic things in life? How do you decide which
side of the road to drive on? How do you choose whether to drink water
or poison for nourishment?</p>
<p>One interesting aspect of denying laws of logic, like the law of
non-contradiction, is that since you DO NOT believe in laws of logic,
you actually DO believe in laws of logic. If contradictions are allowed
in your worldview then so is that one."</p>
<p>This form of presuppositionalist argument pretty much says that without
God there can not be laws of logic, and thus to even have a worldview
presupposes the existence of God. </p>
<p><strong>Why this is stupid</strong></p>
<p>One thing that comes to mind in this type of argument is that there is a
serious fallacy of the excluded middle. Do you believe that absolute
truth exists? How about "I don't know" or "you haven't defined absolute
or truth, so the question doesn't make sense". I'm not convinced that
they can be defined in such a way that I'd be confident in them. What
we have at bottom are sensory experiences , and what model of the
universe is most consistent with that sensory experience. I have little
patience for purely philosophical arguments that aren't tied to what we
know from science.</p>
<p>Another thing that comes to mind is that this argument, at best, gets
you to a deism. The only part that even attempts to get to a Christian
god is the moral argument, and that has its own problems. </p>
<p>Just a few thoughts on this, mostly silly, line of arguments. Any
takers to defend it?</p>Lessons From Bayes' Rule2012-06-03T23:25:00-04:002012-06-03T23:25:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-06-03:/posts/2012/Jun/03/lessons-from-bayes-rule/<div>
I was thinking of some of the not-so-mathematical lessons we learn from
Bayes' Rule. I'd like to include actual examples for each, and how it
maps onto the various pieces …</div><div>
I was thinking of some of the not-so-mathematical lessons we learn from
Bayes' Rule. I'd like to include actual examples for each, and how it
maps onto the various pieces of Bayes' Rule, but I figured I'd put up my
list here and add to it as I think of it.
</div>
<ul>
<li>Confidence in a claim should scale with the evidence for that claim</li>
<li>Ockham's razor - simpler theories are preferred (i.e. you pay a
marginalization penalty for each parameter, across its prior)</li>
<li>Simpler means fewer adjustable parameters</li>
<li>Simpler means that the predictions are both <em>specific</em> and not
<em>overly plastic</em>. For example, a hypothesis which is consistent with
the observed data, and also be consistent if the data were the
opposite as well would be overly plastic. Arguing for the God
hypothesis, saying that a universe fine tuned for life is evidence
for design is a hypothesis which is overly plastic. If our universe
were not fine tuned for life, and life is exceptional, then that too
would be evidence for design - thus the data, and its opposite, are
covered by the hypothesis.</li>
<li>Your inference is only as good as the hypotheses that you consider.
If you consider only randomness and psychic, then nearly every
octopus will be psychic.</li>
<li>Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.</li>
<li>It is better to explicitly display your assumptions rather than
implicitly hold them.</li>
<li>It is a <em>good thing</em> to update your beliefs when you receive new
information, and not a sign of waffling.</li>
<li>Not all uncertainties are the same.</li>
</ul>
<p>Any other lessons we learn?</p>Suppression of Ideas in Science2012-05-14T09:42:00-04:002012-05-14T09:42:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-05-14:/posts/2012/May/14/suppression-of-ideas-in-science/<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htgV7fNO-2k&feature=related">Video About Cold Fusion</a></p>
<p>This is very typical of "science" that doesn't work. You get a group of
devout people supporting it who claim that the scientific establishment
is unfair …</p><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htgV7fNO-2k&feature=related">Video About Cold Fusion</a></p>
<p>This is very typical of "science" that doesn't work. You get a group of
devout people supporting it who claim that the scientific establishment
is unfair, is shunning their research, is not allowing them to present
at conferences, is suppressing their ideas and they want a level playing
field. I've seen the same whining and crying from people supporting
Intelligent Design and people supporting UFOs and people supporting
psychics. It is true, that the scientific establishment will not publish
papers for these people, given the (lack of) evidence they show. It is
biased against ideas with little supporting evidence. It is, however,
not <em>unfairly</em> biased, and least not typically. Scientists are humans,
and so you do get the occasional overzealous skepticism. That's actually
not a bad thing. As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence. It is incumbent on these people to support their
claims with the proper amount of evidence.</p>
<p>If, for example, it was absolutely clear that cold fusion worked then it
would be trivial to convert even the most hardened skeptic. If one had
convincing evidence for psychic phenomena or ufos or intelligent design,
it would become mainstream science and be very easy to convince people.
The problem is that these topics are on the fringe, their claims
extraordinary, are physical implausible, and the evidence for their
existence is terrible.</p>
<p>When you hear about ideas suppressed by the scientific you should
immediately think "unlikely, unsupported claim", despite what the
claimants are saying. If the evidence is strong enough, it will convince
the skeptics. Both quantum mechanics and relativity are totally weird,
and those went from nothing to the dominant idea within a decade because
of the strength of the evidence.</p>Free Will and Entropy2012-05-07T10:04:00-04:002012-05-07T10:04:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-05-07:/posts/2012/May/07/free-will-and-entropy/<p>In Sam Harris’ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pCofmZlC72g">talk on free will</a>, we have the following comment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“if we caught a serial killer, we’d assume his responsibility because
of his ability to have chosen …</p></blockquote><p>In Sam Harris’ <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pCofmZlC72g">talk on free will</a>, we have the following comment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“if we caught a serial killer, we’d assume his responsibility because
of his ability to have chosen otherwise. if we then discovered that he
had a brain tumor which we could determine resulted in homicidal
behavior, we’d determine that he was not responsible - that he was a
victim of biology. this, however, is just a special case of any
biological brain state - if we could know for certain how brain states
generated behavior, we would just as certainly determine that he was
not responsible for his actions and is just a victim of biology”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We have two parts of knowledge needed here: know for certain the current
state and how (in detail) that state progresses to the macroscopic
outcomes. From this we have a sort of determinism that is inconsistent
with a simple notion of “free will”.</p>
<p>Now, I happened to be teaching the concept of entropy in my physics
class at the same time I watched this, and I was struck by the parallel.
I had thought of this before, last year, but never wrote about it. The
concept of entropy arises when we don’t know the details of every single
molecule in a system, knowing only some gross average features like the
average energy or pressure. If we knew the current state of the system
perfectly, and knew the laws of physics to forecast from that state,
then we’d be able to reverse any process. However, given our lack of
knowledge, the system moves in the single direction of increasing
entropy, where the the energy is spread out the most, and the system has
access to the most number of micro states consistent with the macro
states we actually measure. The system is described in a
non-deterministic way, even if all of the laws of physics underlying the
motion of the molecules is entirely deterministic.</p>
<p>Perhaps our feeling of “free will” is real, in the same sense that
entropy is real - it’s a non-deterministic description despite the
underlying deterministic processes, arising from our practical lack of
knowledge of the perfect details of those underlying processes. This
idea needs more fleshing out, but it seems to be an interesting
perspective to me.</p>On Being Wrong2012-03-20T00:38:00-04:002012-03-20T00:38:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-03-20:/posts/2012/Mar/20/on-being-wrong/<p>I tell my students that I supremely hope that they have the experience
of one of their cherished ideas shown to be wrong. I was recently
confronted with a perception …</p><p>I tell my students that I supremely hope that they have the experience
of one of their cherished ideas shown to be wrong. I was recently
confronted with a perception mistake on my part which I found to be
pretty interesting, even if the consequences are pretty mundane. So, I'm
learning how to swim, and I take lessons at the local YMCA. I have
recently started practicing a little at the university pool. When I
first started swimming at the university pool I noticed that it was
significantly longer than the one at the YMCA…at least that is what I
thought. I had told a number of people this, particularly how much
longer it looked and how much longer it felt swimming to the other side.</p>
<p>I was told this past weekend that they are the same length, which I
totally didn't believe. The swim instructor insisted that they are both
25 yards long, and that she has swim meets in both pools. Still
skeptical, I did some digging. The university pool seemed, to me, to be
1.5 to 2 times longer! No way I could make a mistake of that magnitude!
It felt much longer! It took longer to swim across!</p>
<p>*sigh*</p>
<p>They are the same length.</p>
<p>What I find very interesting is how certain I was of a completely
physical measurement, that later turned out to be incorrect. There is
something about how the pool had very few people at the university or
had glass on each end, compared to the crowded YMCA pool which is walled
in by cinderblock, combined with my inexperience with swimming which
probably gives rise to the illusion. Or perhaps the fact that the YMCA
pool is narrower adds to the illusion. Whatever it is, it was a
completely obvious, visceral estimate of the length of an object that
turned out to be completely wrong.</p>
<p>It reminds me of the sort of arguments that people make like "Air Force
pilots will not make mistakes in observing things in the sky, which
bolsters the UFO claim" or "Doctors will not make mistakes in observing
medical effects, which bolsters this miracle claim." Arguments from
authority fail because authorities can be mistaken, even on basic
things.</p>Evolution and Rationality2012-03-06T01:23:00-05:002012-03-06T01:23:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-03-06:/posts/2012/Mar/06/evolution-and-rationality/<p><a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={1002DC66-006D-420D-B690-47B876182579}">Stephen Law vs Alvin Plantinga on the Unbelievable podcast</a> on the
topic of the "The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism".</p>
<p>Basic argument, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism">Wikipedia on Evolutionary argument against
naturalism</a></p>
<p>I haven't …</p><p><a href="http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={1002DC66-006D-420D-B690-47B876182579}">Stephen Law vs Alvin Plantinga on the Unbelievable podcast</a> on the
topic of the "The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism".</p>
<p>Basic argument, from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism">Wikipedia on Evolutionary argument against
naturalism</a></p>
<p>I haven't read the responses, so that my response will be fresh and
untainted.</p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p>Plantinga defined:</p>
<ul>
<li>N as naturalism, which he defined as "the idea that there is no
such person as God or anything like God; we might think of it as
high-octane atheism or perhaps atheism-plus."[12]</li>
<li>E as the belief that human beings have evolved in conformity with
current evolutionary theory</li>
<li>R as the proposition that our faculties are "reliable", where,
roughly, a cognitive faculty is "reliable" if the great bulk of
its deliverances are true. He specifically cited the example of a
thermometer stuck at 72 °F (22 °C) degrees placed in an
environment which happened to be at 72 °F as an example of
something that is not "reliable" in this sense[9]</li>
</ul>
<p>and suggested that the conditional probability of R given N and E, or
P(R|N&E), is low or inscrutable.[19]</p>
<p>Plantinga's argument began with the observation that our beliefs can
only have evolutionary consequences if they affect behaviour. To put
this another way, natural selection does not directly select for true
beliefs, but rather for advantageous behaviours. Plantinga
distinguished the various theories of mind-body interaction into four
jointly exhaustive categories:</p>
<ol>
<li>epiphenomenalism, where behaviour is not caused by beliefs. "if
this way of thinking is right, beliefs would be invisible to
evolution" so P(R/N&E) would be low or inscrutable[20]</li>
<li>Semantic epiphenomenalism, where beliefs have a causative link to
behaviour but not by virtue of their semantic content. Under this
theory, a belief would be some form of long-term neuronal
event.[21] However, on this view P(R|N&E) would be low because the
semantic content of beliefs would be invisible to natural
selection, and it is semantic content that determines truth-value.</li>
<li>Beliefs are causally efficacious with respect to behaviour, but
maladaptive, in which case P(R|N&E) would be low, as R would be
selected against.</li>
<li>Beliefs are causally efficacious with respect to behaviour and
also adaptive, but they may still be false. Since behaviour is
caused by both belief and desire, and desire can lead to false
belief, natural selection would have no reason for selecting true
but non-adaptive beliefs over false but adaptive beliefs. Thus
P(R|N&E) in this case would also be low.[22] Plantinga pointed out
that innumerable belief-desire pairs could account for a given
behaviour; for example, that of a prehistoric hominid fleeing a
tiger:</li>
</ol>
<p>Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees
a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he
thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his
body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without
involving much by way of true belief. ... Or perhaps he thinks the
tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but
he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it.
... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that
equally fit a given bit of behaviour.</p>
<p>Thus, Plantinga argued, the probability that our minds are reliable
under a conjunction of philosophical naturalism and naturalistic
evolution is low or inscrutable. Therefore, to assert that
naturalistic evolution is true also asserts that one has a low or
unknown probability of being right. This, Plantinga argued,
epistemically defeats the belief that naturalistic evolution is true
and that ascribing truth to naturalism and evolution is internally
dubious or inconsistent.[24]</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>There are certainly several things in this argument that need to be
thought out. Point (1) is certainly true: any beliefs that do not affect
behavior <em>in any way</em> would be invisible to evolution. I doubt there are
many beliefs in this category. Even something vague, like the belief in
a deist god, would at some point affect behavior in some way. Point (3)
is also uncontroversial. Point (2) I'm not sure I understand entirely,
so I'll focus on point (4).</p>
<p>There are two parts - "behaviour is caused by both belief and desire,"
and "innumerable belief-desire pairs could account for a given
behaviour" with the example of running from tigers because of various
false beliefs. The final piece of this, however, is the limited
resources of the brain. Our brain takes many computational short-cuts,
because of efficiency and limited resources. If you have a number of
different belief/desire pairs that lead to behavior, the brain will
settle on those belief/desire pairs that generalize to the largest
number of things. This will certainly be in cases where the result is
closer to reality than not. We run away not only from tigers, but also
bears, snakes, and spiders. The desire to pet or the mistaken belief
that running away is the best way to get towards an animal would not
generalize quite so well to these other creatures.</p>
<p>Plantinga uses this argument from rationality to bolster his theism - if
rationality is unlikely given naturalism and evolution, then theism is
more likely. However, he fails to notice that rationality isn't truly
the norm. Yes, we can make some astounding feats of rationality as a
collection, but it takes serious work to overcome the natural biases,
and failures of reasoning inherent in the human condition. The cognitive
short-cuts leads us to make many errors of observation, deduction, and
induction. He also fails to point out the many beliefs that people have
that are irrational but have a benefit, or the beliefs that people have
which are irrational and have no effect and thus can get carried along
without being selected against. In fact, the situation is very much like
what you'd expect from evolution - some wrong beliefs with adaptive
benefits, some wrong beliefs with no penalty, some correct beliefs by
accident, etc… Finally, even if our beliefs were 90% wrong, we'd still
be able to trust rationality <em>as a collection</em> - which is exactly what
science does. It forces fallible people to not believe things until it
can be replicated, it downplays anecdotal evidence, arguments from
authority, and recognizes the cognitive failures of humans in order to
overcome them.</p>What is good in religion2012-03-05T13:53:00-05:002012-03-05T13:53:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-03-05:/posts/2012/Mar/05/what-is-good-in-religion/<p>I was asked recently if I thought there was anything good about
religion. I felt it was an important enough question to give it a fair
amount of thought. Coincidentally …</p><p>I was asked recently if I thought there was anything good about
religion. I felt it was an important enough question to give it a fair
amount of thought. Coincidentally, I listened to a podcast that dealt
with some of these issues. The podcast is called <a href="http://www.premier.org.uk/unbelievable">Unbelievable</a>, and
the particular episode is called <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/unbelievable/id267142101#">Should atheists be more religious?
Alain de Botton and James Orr</a>. I like this podcast in general,
because they pit the religious against the non-religious in an informal
discussion for about an hour and a half. This particular episode raised
the issue of religions' usefulness, and what can be borrowed by
atheists.</p>
<p>One of the points was the contrast between the Christian view of
humanity and the view of humanity as is often suggested by secularists.
In the Christian view, humans are essentially fallen creatures, are
naturally evil and need the grace of God to save them from this. The
main secular view, which seemingly has been espoused since around the
1960s, asserts that people are naturally good and that culture is the
dominant force which turns them bad, and further that through rational
analysis one can overcome this cultural influence as science transcends
all cultural barriers. This just doesn't gel with basic observations, I
feel, and thus there is a benefit to the Christian view as a metaphor.
If you've ever been to a daycare, it is quite obvious that children are
naturally bad, or at least have more bad than good, and need to be saved
from this.</p>
<p>Now, we don't need to believe in a magic garden and a talking snake, or
assert that this observation of humanity has as a consequence that the
Earth is 6000 years old, in order to draw value from it. In the same way
that we draw value from Shakespeare, we can draw some value from the
Genesis story (although I think there have to be better stories, which
place women in a more favorable light!). Honestly, I think one can make
a reasonable argument from evolution that reflects the ``fallen
being'' idea. Essentially, we have a balance between selfish desires
(clearly advantageous) and social desires (also advantageous, in social
animals). A proper balance needs to be made, and there is a spectrum of
selfish impulses, and the desire to suppress them in various ways. I
think some of the rituals of religion help to remind us of this. Even
gathering as a group on Sundays is an example of this - one is more
likely to reflect on helping others when one is regularly together in a
group.</p>
<p>It is true that there are things of benefit which, in the past, have
only been the purview of religions. Getting together regularly,
meditative rituals, ritual individual sacrifice (not human or animal
sacrifice! think Lent here...), and traditions of giving (think
Christmas) are examples of this sort of thing. Notice, however, that
none of these <em>requires</em> the inclusion of superstitious claims, or
claims about the cosmos or our role in it.</p>
<p>In addition to the benefits, there are a number of costs associated with
these same examples that get dragged along with the religion. The blind
following of authorities, the dogmatic adherence to invisible
``realities'', and the divisive nature of the practices are a few of
these.</p>
<p>I believe that there are ways of getting the benefits with minimizing
the costs. I also believe that the <em>truth</em> of claims is intricately
related to their <em>usefulness</em>. What I mean is if you have a system of
belief that does not reflect reality, then reality has a habit of making
itself known, even if it might take a while. Finally, I think there is a
lot to learn about what is beneficial to human mental well-being and
societal well-being, and that some of these benefits currently are most
clearly demonstrated in a religious context. I don't think that they
need to be exclusively achieved in a religious context.</p>Best quote in a while about global warming...2012-01-27T18:48:00-05:002012-01-27T18:48:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-01-27:/posts/2012/Jan/27/best-quote-in-a-while-about-global-warming/<p>In the article <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html">Sixteen Concerned Scientists: No Need to Panic About
Global Warming</a>, physicist Ivar Giaever is quotes the American
Physical Society policy on global warming: 'The evidence is
incontrovertible …</p><p>In the article <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html">Sixteen Concerned Scientists: No Need to Panic About
Global Warming</a>, physicist Ivar Giaever is quotes the American
Physical Society policy on global warming: 'The evidence is
incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions
are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and
ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely
to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.'</p>
<p>His next quote is priceless and dead on:</p>
<p>"In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes
over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global
warming is incontrovertible?"</p>Bayes and Hiccups: Practical working solutions that no one seems to know2012-01-14T23:51:00-05:002012-01-14T23:51:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-01-14:/posts/2012/Jan/14/bayes-and-hiccups-practical-working-solutions-that-no-one-seems-to-know/<p>So I've been interested in Bayesian analysis <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/bryant_pres.pdf">for some time</a>. It has a
fascinating history, described in detail in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Theory-That-Would-Not-Die/dp/0300169698">"The theory that would not
die" by McGrayne</a> - a truly wonderful …</p><p>So I've been interested in Bayesian analysis <a href="http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/pdf/bryant_pres.pdf">for some time</a>. It has a
fascinating history, described in detail in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Theory-That-Would-Not-Die/dp/0300169698">"The theory that would not
die" by McGrayne</a> - a truly wonderful read. A nice summary can be
<a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/774/a_history_of_bayes_theorem/">found here</a>. The funny thing is that, upon looking into Bayesian
analysis, it all seemed so obvious to me...not trivial, but obvious.
It's just a mathematical way of writing:</p>
<p>Initial Belief + New Data -> Improved Belief</p>
<p>It is a straightforward application of probability theory, has many
intuitive examples, and the only competition (so-called orthodox or
frequentist stats) can be shown to have serious, obvious flaws. Although
in some fields Bayesian analysis is the standard, introductory classes
in statistics are still dominated by the frequentist culture. This is an
example of a practical working solution being upstaged by something
else, something inferior. I often wonder, why isn't everyone a Bayesian?</p>
<p>So, then we come to hiccups. One thing about hiccups is that it is
likely to be a behavior <a href="http://richarddawkins.net/articles/2125">inherited by our fish ancestors</a>! How cool is
that? Anyway, you ask 10 people and they will give you 10 different
solutions to getting rid of hiccups. Usually this involves imbibing a
large quantity of liquid, or doing something either annoying or
uncomfortable. When I was young, my mother taught be that if you drink a
small amount (no more than 2 swallows) of a carbonated beverage it gets
rid of the hiccups...instantly. It has worked every time I've tried, but
I don't have carbonated beverages at home much, and when I do I don't
want to waste a whole can for 2 or 3 swallows. Then, one of our
children's preschool teachers taught me this one, which has worked every
time, and in every person I've told it to. I have yet to see a counter
example. It's bizarrely simple, and I wonder how it works. Here are the
steps:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>take a sip of water</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>say, out loud, the word "one"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>take another sip</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>say, out loud, the word "two"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>...</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>By the time you're at 9, they're gone. You may not even need to get up
to nine, but still, 9 small sips of water is not bad. This is a
practical solution, which seems to have no counter example, and is
superior to every other solution I've found...just like Bayesian
analysis!</p>
<p>Well, perhaps the link is a little weak, but it's worth considering. Are
there other examples of clearly superior practices that just aren't the
ones that are known?</p>Santa and other delusions2012-01-04T10:58:00-05:002012-01-04T10:58:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2012-01-04:/posts/2012/Jan/04/santa-and-other-delusions/<p>Given how I seem to support no delusions, how can I justify perpetuating
the myth of Santa Claus with my kids (oldest nearing 10)? First, I have
to say I …</p><p>Given how I seem to support no delusions, how can I justify perpetuating
the myth of Santa Claus with my kids (oldest nearing 10)? First, I have
to say I am not entirely convinced it is a good idea. I'd be open to
evidence (not just opinion!) of the harm, but I haven't actually seen
any. Further, there seems to be a need for fantasy play with children
below a certain age (somewhere around 10). I am not sure of the
developmental role, but the behavior (even without adult help) is
ubiquitous. Finally, it is fun and interesting. Here's a little sample
story that happened this year, that made me understand that I have no
idea how kids are actually perceiving the world.</p>
<p>We had gotten an <a href="http://www.elfontheshelf.com/AboutUs/TheTradition.aspx">Elf-on-the-Shelf</a> this year for the first time. Our
kids had seen them before, at school and at friends houses, so they were
familiar with the rules: no touching the elf (or he loses his powers);
the elf can't touch the ground at all; you can talk to him all you want
(but he won't talk back to you); he goes off each night, and returns in
a new place in the house where you need to find him. Now, one morning we
hadn't secured our little elf too well...he was sitting on a stuffed
Santa, hanging on a door. At one point the kids started shouting because
the Elf was leaning way over about to fall. After a little bit of
concern, all the kids had something in another room to do, and I managed
to adjust him back up, secure him, and go into another room myself. When
they returned, they were all abuzz with how he had leaned down all by
himself, and gotten up all by himself, etc... I suggested perhaps the
Santa had helped him up. Very seriously, they looked at me and said
"Dad, that's just a stuffed Santa".</p>
<p>Now I realize that people see agency in non-living things, but it was
amazing to see the same done on such a selective basis. Now sure what it
means, except that I have no idea how they perceive the world.</p>Einstein and the Motives of Scientists2011-12-27T20:52:00-05:002011-12-27T20:52:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-12-27:/posts/2011/Dec/27/einstein-and-the-motives-of-scientists/<p>I just got a [shout out from The Legal Watchdog, Michael Cicchini][] for
a post I did on [dark matter and the speed of light][]. His response to
my criticism …</p><p>I just got a [shout out from The Legal Watchdog, Michael Cicchini][] for
a post I did on [dark matter and the speed of light][]. His response to
my criticism of his original posts [here][] and [here][1] shows that he
missed the point of my criticism. I'll grant him that I may have come
off as "condescending", and that my "stick to law" comment could be
interpreted as more than the strategically exaggerated tone used in a
blog. So what about his original post and his reply do I find
problematic?</p>
<p>In his reply Mr Cicchini directs me to address the specific issues with
the authors, and in his original post he says that he's "only begun
exploring the relevant issues", and that he's "delving into matters that
are way over [his] head". Then, he makes claims like:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>we create the concept of dark matter "to allow us to cling to
Einstein's theory of general relativity"</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>"physicists seem to try and substantiate, rather than question, his
[Einstein's] work."</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>physicists should "abandon Einstein's quest of unifying the quantum
with the cosmic"</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The problem is at least twofold:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Although Mr Cicchini <em>claims</em> to be in over his head, he <em>writes</em> as
if he is an authority, or that he understands the authorities when
in reality he doesn't</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>He is making many claims about <em>motive</em> with no evidence whatsoever</p>
</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="the-motives">The Motives</h3>
<p>These are both mixed up with a profound lack of understanding of the
methods of science. Let's put it this way:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Is it true that physicists will first look for ways in which the
anomalous mass measurements of galaxies and the current best theory
of gravity, Einstein's general theory of relativity (GR), can be
made to be consistent even if it means proposing a
never-before-observed quantity "dark matter"? Yes!</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Does this imply that they are are unwilling to question GR, in
deference to Einstein or for some other reason? No!</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>If you had a theory that has yet to have an exception, in over 100
years, and has made predictions accurate to many <em>many</em> decimal points,
and has been shown to predict other unforeseen objects (such as black
holes), then it is entirely rational to proceed as the cosmologists
have. It is not dogmatic to assert your confidence in something that has
a dedicated track record. It is also never the case in science that we
"start from scratch" when we have an anomalous observation...we only
abandon a theory when we have something better in its place...and we
don't in this case.</p>
<p>In addition, the "dark matter" problem is not just a problem for
100-year-old-Einstein's theory but for 300-year-old-Newton's theory! So,
if your advice is for scientists to "start from scratch", then you're
essentially suggesting that we ignore almost everything we've learned in
physics for the past 300 years. I have a big problem with that.</p>
<h3 id="the-science">The Science</h3>
<p>So, the motive is wrong, but is the science correct? I'd say, "no" to
that as well. In the second post, there is a reference to the latest
faster than light measurements. Mr Cicchini directs me to writer [Brian
Vastag][] concerning the experiment. In that article, there is this:</p>
<p>
> The physicist, Dario Auterio, made no sweeping claims.
>
> He did not try to explain what the results might mean for the laws of
> physics, let alone the broader world.
>
> After an hour of technical talk, he simply said, "Therefore, we
> present to you today this discrepancy, this anomaly."
Notice how the *physicists in this experiment* are not making the claims
that Mr Cicchini is making, and they show a humility that is the
hallmark of true science. Sure, scientists will put down clearly wrong
ideas with a harshness that is not common in regular speech. But when
they are dealing with events beyond their understanding the humility
exhibited by scientists is far greater than in any other human endeavor.
Even Christopher Hitchens, who was not known for his humility, would
[demonstrate it][] whenever he dealt with science topics on the
outskirts of his understanding.
On the authorities Mr Cicchini chooses to represent his case, we have
the following problems:
- Brian Vastag is a science writer, and makes the correct claim that,
*if true*, the faster-than-light measurements *could possibly*
overturn relativity. It could also be that *if true*, the
measurements would cause only a small modification of relativity, as
I outlined in the [previous post][dark matter and the speed of
light]. It could also be the case that the experiments, or the
analysis, are wrong in some way. That's where my money is. Is that
dogmatic? No! It is based on the many preliminary violations of
relativity over the last century that were shown to be erroneous
either in measurement or in analysis. Could I be wrong? Of course!
And that would be pretty cool. But I'm not going to be convinced
until the dust settles for a while. Extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence.
- Lee Smolin, who wrote a book [The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of
String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next][]. I have
not read this book, but his claims about string theory (from the
quotes) don't seem too bad...he essentially is pointing out that
string theory is currently lacking any predictions which differ from
quantum chromodynamics and general relativity. Mr Cicchini quotes
Smolin "The dark matter hypothesis is preferred mostly because the
only other possibility - that we are wrong about Newton's laws, and
by extension general relativity - is too scary to contemplate." I
would guess that this is exaggerated language, referring to the fact
that any theory to replace Newton's laws and Einstein's theory would
be formidable indeed! It does not, however, immediately imply a
dogmatic "clinging" to Einstein's theory, although I'll admit I need
to read the book to tell for sure.
- Peter Lynds is the third reference from Mr Cicchini. After noting
the reference, I read Lynds' paper, ["Time and Classical and Quantum
Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity"][]. First of all, I
wasn't impressed. It certainly lacks the clarity of [Einstein's 1905
paper][], to which it has been compared. It also makes no
predictions, as far as I can tell, and certainly hasn't moved more
than a small minority of physicists to even consider it. Is this
because of a dogmatic loyalty to Einstein? Not at all. It is due to
the usual, and rational, mode of scientific discourse in which new
ideas purporting to replace established theories need to demonstrate
that they are in fact superior to those theories with actual
verifiable predictions before they are considered seriously.
Further, Mr Cicchini's advice to "abandon Einstein's quest of unifying
the quantum with the cosmic" is ill-informed. He continues that "there
is no reason to believe that things on a tiny, subatomic scale would
obey the same laws as things on a grand, universal scale." Let's put it
this way: we have two amazing approximate theories: quantum
chromodynamics and general relativity. Each working in their own domains
(the really small and the really big, respectively). They look *nothing*
like each other. One is probabilistic and discrete while the other is
deterministic and continuous. In some limiting cases, it can be shown
that medium-sized events (i.e. events on the scale of humans up to
planets) can be seen as limiting case of quantum events. In addition,
relativity can be shown to work for gravitational effects on
medium-sized objects (i.e. the size of planets). What we don't have is a
good, unified, set of ideas that link the two domains well.
Historically, there is a strong precedent for expecting there to be
unifying set of laws. The development of thermodynamics and the
connection to atomic theory is one example, the development of
electrodynamics and its connection to the microscopic effects of
currents and magnets is another. So there is *every reason* to expect
that there is a unifying principle. To say "give up, you'll never find
it" is reminiscent of people saying the same thing for the search for
extraterrestrial life, given that we've never found any.
### Silencing the Layperson
Finally, I want to address the charge that I am trying to silence
laypeople who speak about science, and that this is bad for science. Mr
Cicchini writes:
<p>
> And shutting laypeople out of science, or urging them "not to speak
> about physics"-which, conveniently, precludes any external
> challenges-causes science to take on an even greater dogmatic quality,
> which science cannot afford.
> </p>
For me, this has nothing to do with "laypeople" (a phrase I associate
more with non-clergy as opposed to non-academic), but with people
speaking confidently when their confidence is completely unwarranted. I
don't believe you need a PhD to speak about science in a productive way,
but you do have to do your homework. The motive claims described above
demonstrate a clear ignorance of the true motivations of scientists. If
I were trying to confidently tell lawyers what to do or to impugn their
motives, I'd be out of line because I know very little about law...and
someone would be absolutely correct to call me out on that. Scientists
face this all the time, and thus their tone is almost always very
conservative, especially when speaking with other scientists. Just look
at the language of the scientists doing the faster-than-light
experiments. This doesn't mean that scientists are above this kind of
misplaced confidence...I could still list many examples of scientists
speaking out of their area of expertise, but it is considered a real
liability in science.
So, the bottom line is that where Mr Cicchini sees a conspiracy, the
facts support a rational scientific discourse. Where Mr Cicchini sees an
elite academic silencing the criticism by a layperson, the reality is
that it is rational to critique *anyone* speaking confidently of things
they cannot be confident of. Where Mr Cicchini sees a dogmatic,
unswerving, scientific establishment, the facts support the confidence
scientists have in centuries old models of the universe that have
withstood the hammer blows of criticism during those centuries, all
without buckling. It doesn't mean that the new ideas are necessarily
*wrong*, but it does mean that we are a lot less confident of them *for
good reason*.
[shout out from The Legal Watchdog, Michael Cicchini]: http://thelegalwatchdog.blogspot.com/2011/12/is-it-science-or-pseudoscience.html
[dark matter and the speed of light]: http://brianblais.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/faster-than-light-why-the-lawyer-is-wrong/
[here]: http://thelegalwatchdog.blogspot.com/2011/05/times-up-einstein-legal-watchdog.html
[1]: http://thelegalwatchdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/legal-watchdog-faster-than-speed-of.html
[Brian Vastag]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/particles-faster-than-light-revolution-or-mistake/2011/09/23/gIQArpJzqK_story.html
[demonstrate it]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gQ829OTtI4
[The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a
Science, and What Comes Next]: http://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Physics-String-Theory-Science/dp/061891868X
["Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs.
Discontinuity"]: http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0310055
[Einstein's 1905 paper]: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einstein/specrel/www/The Bible Foreshadows Scientific Discoveries?2011-12-22T15:08:00-05:002011-12-22T15:08:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-12-22:/posts/2011/Dec/22/the-bible-foreshadows-scientific-discoveries/<p>Here is an interesting site ["The Bible Foreshadows Scientific
Discoveries"][] where there are quotes from the Bible that supposedly
pre-dated the actual scientific discoveries. It is interesting for the
number …</p><p>Here is an interesting site ["The Bible Foreshadows Scientific
Discoveries"][] where there are quotes from the Bible that supposedly
pre-dated the actual scientific discoveries. It is interesting for the
number of science errors, and also the failure of any kind of critical
scientific thinking. I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to
determine the worst occurrences of these, but I do want to point out two
main issues that I see.</p>
<h2 id="metaphorical-or-literal">Metaphorical or Literal?</h2>
<p>We start with this claim from the page:</p>
<p>
> Today we take the shape of the earth for granted, but remember that
> primitive man had no way to actually know that the earth is spherical.
> In fact, without access to exploration and distant observation, the
> world most certainly seemed flat, and that is exactly how primitive
> men and cultures described it. But the Bible describes it differently:
>
> <p>
> > *Isaiah 40:22* He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and
> > its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like
> > a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
> > </p>
>
> <p>
> > *Proverbs 8:27* When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He
> > set a compass upon the face of the depth
> > </p>
>
> [...]But even before this explorative discovery, the round earth was
> recorded in the Judeo-Christian Bible!
[Earlier, on a different page,][] the following issue is raised:
<p>
> > *Isaiah 11:12* He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the
> > exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
> > from the four quarters of the earth.
> > </p>
>
> Does this scripture teach that the earth is actually flat? That's what
> critics would have you believe. But this is simply a cultural
> expression (and one that we still use today), and it has little to say
> about the truth of the shape of the earth.
A similar argument holds for the "days" used in Genesis not being
literal, 24-hour, days but rather epochs spanning billions of years. The
bottom line is:
**If it contradicts science, then it is metaphor. If it is consistent
with science, then it is prescient.**
Or, in other words,
**Heads I win. Tails you lose.**
Prediction versus Postdiction
-----------------------------
The other example I want to look at is one that I hadn't heard before
(I've omitted a fair amount of explanatory text, to try to distill it
down to the essentials...go read the original if you feel I've done a
disservice to the points):
<p>
> If you've ever read the story of Job in the Bible, [...] he eventually
> accused the Lord of being unjust. God didn't answer Job's accusation
> directly. Instead, He began to ask Job a series of questions and one
> of these questions demonstrates perhaps the most amazing scientific
> truth in all of scripture:
>
> <p>
> > *Job 38:31-32* Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or
> > loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his
> > season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
> > </p>
>
> Now God makes a statement about three stellar constellations [...].
> First let's take a look at what God says about Orion: 'Canst thou . .
> . loose the bands of Orion?' [...] Today, this band consists of an
> almost perfectly straight line of second-magnitude stars that are
> equally spaced and very beautiful. In the course of time, however, the
> two right-hand stars, Mintaka and Alnilam, will approach each other
> and form a naked-eye double; but the third, Alnitak, will drift away
> eastward so that the band will no longer exist. [...] As time passes,
> this band of stars will indeed be loosened, just as God told Job.
>
> But now let's take a look at the Pleiades Constellation. Look at what
> God says: 'Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades . . .
> ?' [...] astronomers have identified 250 stars as actual members of
> this group, all sharing a common motion and drifting through space in
> the same direction. [...] Sounds a lot like what God described in the
> Book of Job! "Hey Job, can you bind Pleiades together? I did!"
>
> Finally, let's take a look at Arcturus. Remember what God said about
> this constellation: 'Canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?' [...]
> Arcturus may look like it is fixed in the sky, but Garrett P. Serviss
> wrote that [...] it is a runaway star whose speed of flight is about
> 257 miles per second. [...]Arcturus is a runaway. [...]
>
> These scientific facts recorded in the book of Job concerning the
> Pleiades, Orion and Arcturus constellations anticipated scientific
> discovery by nearly 3,000 years. Scientists only discovered these
> startling facts in the Twentieth Century, yet they were recorded in
> the book of Job nearly 3000 years ago. Twentieth Century science has
> proven God's Word, the Bible, is true.
### What if it is the opposite?
One of the ways that you can figure out the issues with claims like this
is to play the hypothetical game of "what if the opposite occurred?".
What would happen to the prescient nature of the quotation? So, say that
Pleiades is flying apart, the belt of Orion is fixed, and Arcturus is a
star with a more traditional path. What would the quotation mean? All
you have to do is reinterpret the *tone* of God's statement, for example
God to Job: "Pleiades is flying apart, could you, Job, bring it
together?" All of the rest of the argument then holds together.
Bottom line:
**If your statement is consistent with one result, *and its opposite*,
then it is meaningless.**
But it's worse than that...
### What if it is both?
Well, you might claim that the critical thing in the statement which
makes it more believable is that God is claiming one effect for Pleiades
and the opposite effect for Orion (and a pretty neutral effect for
Arcturus). Even if this were flipped, it would still have that contrast.
Now, what happens if, for some reason, one could argue that Pleiades was
both bound and flying apart, or that the bands of Orion are both
loosening and tightening? Pretty much, any statement about them could be
made to seem "prescient". That's the nature of a post-diction. It is
also the reason why pre-dictions are so hard, and why activities like
science that make good pre-dictions regularly have the authoritative
status that everyone else craves.
Pleiades is a young star cluster so, it is a bound system. However, over
the course of a couple of orbits around the galaxy, the galactic tidal
forces will pull the cluster apart. The Sun was born in such a cluster
(as all stars are), and her siblings are far flung by now. So it is easy
to see that the Pleiades is currently bound, but not permanently bound.
The stars in Orion are moving in various directions. By their own
admission, these authors point out that two of the stars are moving
closer to each other (in the sky, not in reality) and the other moving
away. Thus, part of the belt is tightening.
Bottom line:
**If your statement is consistent with *any* result, then it is
content-free.**
or in other words,
**Shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target.**
Entropy
-------
Sorry, I couldn't help but include this example. These Bible quotes are
supposedly prescient of the development of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics:
<p>
> *Psalm 102:22-26* In the beginning you laid the foundations of the
> earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish,
> but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing
> you will change them and they will be discarded
> </p>
<p>
> *Hebrews 1:10-11* In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations
> of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will
> perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment.
> </p>
Enough said.
["The Bible Foreshadows Scientific Discoveries"]: http://www.pleaseconvinceme.com/index/The_Bible_Foreshadows_Scientific_Discoveries
[Earlier, on a different page,]: http://www.PleaseConvinceMe.com/index/pg79638Closed to the supernatural?2011-12-20T15:41:00-05:002011-12-20T15:41:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-12-20:/posts/2011/Dec/20/closed-to-the-supernatural/<p>I have often heard the charge that critics of the concept of God are
simply closed to the possibility of a transcendent being, or of
miracles, or of the supernatural …</p><p>I have often heard the charge that critics of the concept of God are
simply closed to the possibility of a transcendent being, or of
miracles, or of the supernatural in general. If you closed to these
concepts from the beginning, then no amount of evidence will sway you. I
was thinking about this, and what my perspective is, and I came up with
a few thoughts.</p>
<p>My first reaction is that I don't know what the terms mean. For example,
someone says that I am closed to the idea of a "trogglet". What does it
mean? I am not closed, nor open, to the idea of a "trogglet" simply
because it is not defined. Ok, so define it!</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Definition of a transcendent being:</p>
<p>
<blockquote>
<p>Transcendence refers to the aspect of God's nature which is wholly
independent of (and removed from) the physical universe.
[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendence_(religion)">wikipedia</a>]
</p></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>definition of supernatural:</p>
<p>
<blockquote>
<p>The supernatural is that which is not subject to the laws of
nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above
and beyond nature. [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural">wikipedia</a>]
</p></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>definition of miracle</p>
<p>
<blockquote>
<p>A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine
intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a
miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes
thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature.
Others suggest that a god may work with the laws of nature to
perform what people perceive as miracles.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural">1</a> Theologians say that,
with divine providence, God regularly works through created nature
yet is free to work without, above, or against it as well.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle">2</a>
[[wikipedia][2]]
</p></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
<p>I would content that these definitions aren't particularly specific, but
let's raise another issue: how would you know that something
supernatural exists, or a supernatural event has happened? Since we can
only be aware of physical effects, we have three choices:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>supernatural events occur only supernaturally (i.e. no impact on
physical reality)</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>supernatural events have some impact on physical reality and the
impact works <em>within</em> physical law</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>supernatural events have some impact on physical reality and the
impact goes beyond physical law</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>If you want to claim choice 1, then there is no difference between a
supernatural event and no event at all (i.e. it is content-free). If you
want to claim choice 2, then there is no way (even in principle!) to
tell whether the cause is supernatural, and thus is also content-free.
That leaves the final choices, which perhaps is testable (in theory) but
you then must rule out <em>any and all possible natural interpretations of
those events</em>. Essentially it boils down to a God-of-the-Gaps arguments,
because you're simply left with "I can't think of any way that this
event could have happened naturally".</p>
<p>The interesting thing about this is not that we have come to the
conclusion that the existence of supernatural events is either
content-free or God-of-the-Gaps, but that the purported "Gaps" that are
often claimed are so trivial, and already filled, that it undermines the
entire endeavor. Design in biology is solved by evolution, regardless of
the protestations of the creationists. The origin of the universe is
systematically being solved by the cosmologists, with no help from the
theists. I'd love to see something that really rises to the level of a
miracle, like the 10 commandments etched in Pluto or something. Although
technically a God-of-the-Gaps argument, it would be very interesting
indeed! However, we are given no such evidence.</p>
<p>It is reminiscent of the UFO enthusiasts. We'd love to see actual
objects from aliens, or actual communication from aliens, or convincing
video. Instead, we're given bad evidence after bad evidence.</p>Presuppositionalism vs evidentialism2011-12-19T16:29:00-05:002011-12-19T16:29:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-12-19:/posts/2011/Dec/19/presuppositionalism-vs-evidentialism/<p>These two terms that I had never heard before came up when listening to
some Christian apologetic podcasts (specifically <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pleaseconvinceme-apologetics/id259695657">Please Convince Me</a>
and <a href="http://www.str.org/podcast/weekly/rss.xml">Stand to Reason</a>). There seems to be …</p><p>These two terms that I had never heard before came up when listening to
some Christian apologetic podcasts (specifically <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pleaseconvinceme-apologetics/id259695657">Please Convince Me</a>
and <a href="http://www.str.org/podcast/weekly/rss.xml">Stand to Reason</a>). There seems to be some split between Christian
apologists on these two approaches to apology. What is interesting is
that the normal course of science uses both, so there really shouldn't
be any split for any rational approach to justification of the ideas.
Evidentialists argue for the exists of the Christian God through
outlining of the evidence of the Christian God, and then follow the
logical arguments that come from that. Presuppositionalists seem to
assume the existence of the Christian God, but then try demonstrate that
the world only makes sense if you do so.</p>
<p>In other words, they are "X is true and here is the evidence or logical
argument for X" and "if we assume X, then W, Y, and Z that we observe
make sense...otherwise W, Y, and Z do not make sense". Both of these are
done in science all the time. Take, Newton's law of gravitation for
example. When he proposed the form of the gravitational force, <span class="math">\(
F \sim 1/r^2\)</span>, Newton did not provide direct evidence for this
form...that was first done only <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_experiment">100 years later by Cavendish</a>. What
he did is say was "<em>if</em> the form of the force is <span class="math">\(
F \sim 1/r^2\)</span>, then many other things make sense (i.e. motion of the
planets, the tides, the falling of objects near the surface of the
Earth, etc...)". In a way, this is a presuppositionalist argument: if we
take X to be true, then our observations of W, Y, and Z make sense. This
type of argument is considered evidence in science, and is done all the
time. Really, the two ways that scientific theories can be justified
are:</p>
<ol>
<li>directly test the assumptions of the theory</li>
<li>spin out the consequences, and compare with observation</li>
</ol>
<p>The former is, what the apologists would call, evidentialist while the
latter is presuppositionalist. In a fit of irony, I have heard many
so-called refutations of atheists on the topic of morality of the form
"atheists claim there is no objective morality, so they can't even state
that the actions of the God in the Old Testament are evil". However, all
these atheists are doing are using a preuppositionalist argument: "If we
assume that God is good, and that the 'good' is defined by the
statements of Jesus and the ten commandments, then we can demonstrate
that the other acts of God in the Bible are evil."</p>
<p>Personally, I just like to lump both terms into "rational argument" and
leave it at that. They do little to shed light on the issues, and to me
they are a distinction without a difference.</p>
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</script>More fine tuning...NOT2011-12-15T17:34:00-05:002011-12-15T17:34:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-12-15:/posts/2011/Dec/15/more-fine-tuning-not/<p>One of the so-called fine-tuned parameters in our solar system
(fine-tuned specifically for the development of complex life) is that we
have a planet with a large moon (compared to …</p><p>One of the so-called fine-tuned parameters in our solar system
(fine-tuned specifically for the development of complex life) is that we
have a planet with a large moon (compared to the planet). In his long
list of supposed fine tunings, Hugh Ross mentions that <a href="//">we even need a
big moon to have life on this planet.</a> Much of the fine tuning
argument is a thinly veiled God-of-the-Gaps argument: we can't explain
it, therefore God must have done it. One of the things that happens to
such arguments is that people finally explain it. So, in that vein, we
have the following idea that <a href="//">we may not need such a large moon after
all</a>. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>According to Darren Williams of Pennsylvania State University, “Large
moons are not required for a stable tilt and climate. In some
circumstances, large moons can even be detrimental, depending on the
arrangement of planets in a given system. Every system is going to be
different.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is one example of lack of imagination leading to erroneous
arguments. The problem is not the mistake itself, it's that once you
attribute a theological "solution" to your problem, then you cease to
look for the truth.</p>Things science can't explain2011-12-09T12:08:00-05:002011-12-09T12:08:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-12-09:/posts/2011/Dec/09/things-science-cant-explain/<p>During a <a href="http://richarddawkins.net/audio/721-1986-oxford-union-debate">debate on evolution and design</a>, Professor Edgar Andrews
from Queen Mary College London stated that there were four things that
science could never explain. He pointed out that …</p><p>During a <a href="http://richarddawkins.net/audio/721-1986-oxford-union-debate">debate on evolution and design</a>, Professor Edgar Andrews
from Queen Mary College London stated that there were four things that
science could never explain. He pointed out that these were not simply
gaps, that could possibly be explained in the future, but were
<em>logically impossible for science to explain</em>. Here they are:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Science can't explain ultimate origins</p>
<p>
<blockquote>
<p>"If the laws that control the universe started with the universe,
then they could not have caused the universe. If not, then the
laws would have to have been "written" before the universe.
Science cannot explain how those laws exist, prior to the
universe."
</p></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>Science can't justify itself</p>
<p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Science must be silent on why natural laws take the form that
they do. For example, why is the gravitational law of the form
<span class="math">\(F \sim 1/r^2\)</span>, and not some other form, like inverse
cube? It is precisely, exactly, and eternally an inverse square.
Why should that be? Science can never give an answer, because it
is only descriptive, not pre-scriptive of nature.
</p></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>Science can't explain the origin of life</p>
<p>
<blockquote>
<p>"Life depends on code, and information. It is impossible for
information to be generated from random chemical combination, or
random chance events"
</p></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>
<p>Science can't explain the phenomenon of mind</p>
<p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is something different about man, a biological uniqueness.
This includes the capacity of self knowledge, thought, reason, and
intelligence. Science is unable to account for mind except as a
byproduct of the brain. Evolution acts upon physical organs and
organisms. Claiming that the mind is the chance product of the
evolution of the brain is without meaning or significance. In
addition, the mind matches the universe: the universe is rational,
accessible to the mind, and describable by mathematics.
</p></p>
</blockquote>
</li>
</ol>
<p>I intend to write in more detail about each of these, but I think as a
list they are interesting. In general, I am always wary about saying
that there will be things that science will never explain. I am reminded
of a quote from French positivist, Auguste Compte from 1835. In his
Cours de la Philosophie Positive he wrote the following:</p>
<p>
> On the subject of stars, all investigations which are not ultimately
> reducible to simple visual observations are ... necessarily denied to
> us. While we can conceive of the possibility of determining their
> shapes, their sizes, and their motions, we shall never be able by any
> means to study their chemical composition or their mineralogical
> structure ... Our knowledge concerning their gaseous envelopes is
> necessarily limited to their existence, size ... and refractive power,
> we shall not at all be able to determine their chemical composition or
> even their density... I regard any notion concerning the true mean
> temperature of the various stars as forever denied to us.
> </p>
<p>He was clearly stating that those objects that were <em>physically</em>
inaccessible were inaccessible to our <em>knowledge</em>, at least in detail.
It wasn't much after that quote when <a href="http://astronomyonline.org/Science/Spectroscopy.asp">spectroscopy was first used to
determine the contents of stars</a>, from the pattern of spectral lines,
and the temperature was determined from the <a href="http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/kdeedu/kstars/ai-colorandtemp.html">peak in the "rainbow" of
light emitted from the stars</a>. Further, we can determine the <a href="http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/binaries/mass.html">mass of
stars from Kepler's laws</a> and thus its density from the mass and the
size. Perhaps Compte just didn't have enough imagination! It's a lesson
we can all learn when dealing with challenging problems.</p>
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</script>Conversation with Steve Winsor2011-12-06T15:32:00-05:002011-12-06T15:32:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-12-06:/posts/2011/Dec/06/conversation-with-steve-winsor/<p>
From: Steven Winsor
Subject: FW: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: November 30, 2011 10:20:43 AM EST
To: Brian Blais
</p>
<p>See last Reagan comment..is he right? J</p>
<p>Not …</p><p>
From: Steven Winsor
Subject: FW: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: November 30, 2011 10:20:43 AM EST
To: Brian Blais
</p>
<p>See last Reagan comment..is he right? J</p>
<p>Not claiming there is a God or not...some days I think there could be
and other days I think there just can't be (especially after some awful
tragedy involving children, for example). I mentioned in an e-mail the
other day that I believe, on balance, religion has more good associated
with it than bad...and that the bad exists because humans are involved
in managing it. But, on balance, I think a country that, while
recognizing separation of government of religion, needs the 'moral
anchor' that religion provides (i.e., be good, go to Heaven; be bad, off
to Hell with you). A purely secular society, in my humble opinion, would
eventually lead to a society without an innate sense of good or
bad...'moral relativism' is what it is called these days. We're already
seeing moral relativism at play in the rampant 'political correctness'
abounding in this country.</p>
<p>In other words, while I have little use personally for organized
religion, I think it's good for other people (i.e. "do as I say, don't
do as I do"...yes, a bit hypocritical J). And I do think Reagan is right
in the last comment...on balance.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/reagan1.png"></p>
<p>
From: Brian Blais
Subject: Re: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: November 30, 2011 11:13:55 AM EST
To: Steven Winsor
</p>
<p>On Nov 30, 2011, at 10:20 AM, Steven Winsor wrote:</p>
<p>
> *
> See last Reagan comment..is he right? J
> *
> </p>
<p>no.</p>
<p>
> *
> needs the 'moral anchor' that religion provides (i.e., be good, go to
> Heaven; be bad, off to Hell with you).
> *
> </p>
<p>actually, I think religion provides a pretty poor moral system, divorced
from the true suffering of individuals on this planet.</p>
<p>
> *
> A purely secular society, in my humble opinion, would eventually lead
> to a society without an innate sense of good or bad...'moral
> relativism' is what it is called these days. We're already seeing
> moral relativism at play in the rampant 'political correctness'
> abounding in this country.
> *
> </p>
<p>just because one doesn't believe in God, doesn't make you a moral
relativist. I think moral relativism is ridiculous and unsustainable.
For a very good treatment of this, see</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html">Sam Harris Ted Talk</a></p>
<p>or (longer)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt7AGv-RNGM">Moral Landscape Tour</a></p>
<p>bb</p>
<p>
From: Steven Winsor
Subject: Re: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: November 30, 2011 11:28:38 AM EST
To: Brian Blais
</p>
<p>
> <em>
>
> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>><br>
See last Reagan comment..is he right? J</p>
<p>no.</p>
<p></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'll venture a 'maybe he is'</p>
<p>
> <em>
>
> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>><br>
needs the 'moral anchor' that religion provides (i.e., be good, go to
Heaven; be bad, off to Hell with you).</p>
<p>actually, I think religion provides a pretty poor moral system,
divorced from the true suffering of individuals on this planet.</p>
<p></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think the 'moral system' is there and it's
good/beneficial...unfortunately, it often fails due to human corruption.
But unless angels magically come down from Heaven to help us operate the
mechanism known as 'religion', it will be far less than perfect...and
often less than we desire.</p>
<p>
> <em>
>
> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>><br>
A purely secular society, in my humble opinion, would eventually lead
to a society without an innate sense of good or bad...'moral
relativism' is what it is called these days. We're already seeing
moral relativism at play in the rampant 'political correctness'
abounding in this country.</p>
<p>just because one doesn't believe in God, doesn't make you a moral
relativist. I think moral relativism is ridiculous and unsustainable.</p>
<p></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Correct...one thing doesn't automatically mean another...but it leads,
in my opinion, eventually to a society where judgments themselves are
considered to be undesirable<br>
i.e. politically incorrect<br>
... because there is no moral anchor available.</p>
<p>Or...it leads to Avatar J...where creatures live in harmony with nature<br>
and humans aren't like that in any significant numbers<br>
.</p>
<p>
From: Brian Blais
Subject: Re: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: November 30, 2011 11:34:48 AM EST
To: Steven Winsor
</p>
<p>On Nov 30, 2011, at 11:28 AM, Steven Winsor wrote:</p>
<p>
> <em>
>
> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Correct...one thing doesn't automatically mean another...but it leads,
in my opinion, eventually to a society where judgments themselves are
considered to be undesirable<br>
i.e. politically incorrect<br>
... because there is no moral anchor available.</p>
<p></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>I'd like to see some evidence for this. I think, for right now, Sweden
is a good example of a secular nation.</p>
<p>
From: Steven Winsor
Subject: RE: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: November 30, 2011 12:12:19 PM EST
To: Brian Blais
</p>
<p>I think Sweden is an exception. Being 1/4 Swedish myself, I am pleased
of course that they handle their affairs well. And I wonder how secular
they really are...there is no significant number of churches in Sweden?
Or are they pagans? J And is it possible they use a moral compass based
on a Western European culture that has, as its underpinning, a moral
structure based on the Christian church?..after all, it's not like they
are in East Asia.</p>
<p>
From: Steven Winsor
Subject: RE: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: November 30, 2011 12:42:17 PM EST
To: Brian Blais
</p>
<p>Brian, got this from Wikipedia (below in bold): a mixed bag it
seems...there was state church until 2000...as of 2010, 70% of Swedes
are members of the Church of Sweden...but religion is not a big part of
their life (17%). On balance, I'd say Sweden is not secular. The
Lutheran Church has surely brought a moral code/compass of some sort to
Swedish society over the centuries. And no...I didn't write up the
Wikipedia passage.J</p>
<p>
> <em>
>
> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Religion in Sweden (Wikipedia):</p>
<p>Sweden was Christianized from Norse paganism in the 11th century.
Since the 16th century, Sweden has been predominantly Lutheran. From
the Protestant Reformation in the 1530s until 2000, the Lutheran
Church of Sweden (Swedish: Svenska kyrkan) was the state church. As of
2010, about 70% of Swedes are members of the Church of Sweden,
compared to over 95% in 1970, and 83% in 2000.[1] Religiosity in
Sweden plays a limited role compared to the European average. In a
2009 Gallup poll, 17% answered yes to the question "Is religion an
important part of your daily life?".[2] Less than 4% of the Church of
Sweden membership attends public worship during an average week; about
2% are regular attendees.[3]</p>
<p></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>
From: Brian Blais
Subject: Re: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: December 1, 2011 7:19:02 AM EST
To: Steven Winsor
</p>
<p>On Nov 30, 2011, at 12:42 PM, Steven Winsor wrote:</p>
<p>
> *
> Brian, got this from Wikipedia (below in bold): a mixed bag it
> seems...there was state church until 2000...as of 2010, 70% of Swedes
> are members of the Church of Sweden...but religion is not a big part
> of their life (17%). On balance, I'd say Sweden is not secular. The
> Lutheran Church has surely brought a moral code/compass of some sort
> to Swedish society over the centuries. And no...I didn't write up the
> Wikipedia passage.J
> *
> </p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Europe">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Europe</a></p>
<p>"2005 eurobarometer poll only 23%[4] of the Swedish population said they
believed in a personal God."</p>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<td>
"I believe there is a God"
</td>
<td>
"I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force"
</td>
<td>
"I don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force"
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
23%
</td>
<td>
53%
</td>
<td>
23%
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p>vague deists, mostly, and about 1/4 atheists...seems reasonably secular
to me, because the morality arguments stem not from deism but from
theism, of which only about 1/4 are.</p>
<p>clearly not perfectly secular, but way more secular than the US, and
most measures of societal health (lifespan, infant mortality, per capita
charity, crime rate, etc...) are better in Sweden. Now, of course there
are other issues (homogeneity of the population, population size,
etc...) but this trend exists pretty much across Europe, and at minimum
proves that more religiosity doesn't necessarily improve a society.</p>
<p>bb</p>
<p>
From: Steven Winsor
Subject: RE: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: December 1, 2011 10:36:50 AM EST
To: Brian Blais
</p>
<p>Another interesting view of it by astrophysicist Bernard Haisch. He
mentions 'exceptional human experiences' below (ex. My Royal Flush
Ace-high scenario?).</p>
<p>The one thing that seems to stand out for me re: 'is there a God?' is
the organized structure of the Universe...and the ability for it to
allow organic 'life' (which may be reasonably spread throughout this
galaxies and most others). Was there some type of over-arching
intelligence that created the Universe? That's what nags at me...and
suggests that to declare there is no 'god' (or vastly superior
intelligence capable of affecting the enormous structure of the
Universe) because there is no direct proof (and there never can be
presumably) is not the end of the story. Think I'll keep hedging my bet.
J</p>
<p>One other matter bears looking at. Is 'good vs. evil' simply a
human-created phenomenon?...or is it circumstantial evidence that there
may be that over-arching intelligence somewhere in existence?</p>
<p>
> <em>
>
> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is there an intelligence behind the origin of the Universe?
Bestsellers by Christopher Hitchins,Richard Dawkins and, Sam
Harrishave denounced the evils of religion and proclaimed that science
has shown that there is no God. Their angry accusations are partially
correct. Religions have been used to justify crimes against humanity:
witness the Inquisition of centuries past or the sectarian slaughter
in the Mideast today. But the human misuse of religions and the
existence of God are very different matters.</p>
<p>A remarkable discovery has emerged in astrophysics: that key
properties of the Universe have just the right values to make life
possible. Most scientists prefer to explain away this uniqueness,
insisting that a huge, perhaps infinite, number of unseen universes
must therefore exist, each randomly different from the other. That way
ours only appears special because we could not exist in any of the
other hypothetical universes.</p>
<p>I propose the alternative that the special properties of our universe
reflect an underlying intelligence, one that is consistent with the
Big Bang and Darwinian evolution. Both views are equally logical and
beyond proof. However exceptional human experiences and accounts of
mystics throughout the ages do suggest that we live in a purposeful
universe. In The God Theory and The Purpose-Guided Universe: Believing
In Einstein, Darwin, and GodI speculate on what that purpose might
be... what that purpose means for our lives... how it might explain
the riddle of evil.</p>
<p>Other Books on God - Pro and Con</p>
<p>Advances are made by answering questions. Discoveries are made by
questioning answers. - Bernard Haisch</p>
<p>Bernard Haisch, Ph.D., is an astrophysicist and author of over 130
scientific publications. He served as a scientific editor of the
Astrophysical Journal for ten years, and was Principal Investigator on
several NASA research projects. After earning his Ph.D. from the
University of Wisconsin in Madison, Haisch did postdoctoral research
at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, University of
Colorado at Boulder and the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands.
His professional positions include Staff Scientist at the Lockheed
Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory; Deputy Director of the
Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics at the University of
California, Berkeley; and Visiting Scientist at the
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Extraterrestrische Physik in Garching,
Germany. He was also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Scientific
Exploration. Prior to his career in astrophysics, Haisch attended the
Latin School of Indianapolis and the St. Meinrad Seminary as a student
for the Catholic priesthood.The God Theoryis his first solo book. He
is married, with three children, and lives in the San Francisco Bay
Area with his wife, Marsha Sims.</p>
<p></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Brian, regarding your statistics below: I would add the 23% to the 53%
of 'I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force' and you get
76%. I think Sweden flunks the 'secular test'. The existence of 'spirit
or life force' (53%) is the driver for human desire to seek guidance for
behavior/justice from someone/something above Man. I think it's an
innate need...and comes from the very thing you are interested in...the
human mind. The question is...does it really exist?...and, if so, does
it inhabit the subconscious mind...or conscious?</p>
<p>
From: Brian Blais
Subject: Re: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: December 1, 2011 11:08:17 AM EST
To: Steven Winsor
</p>
<p>On Dec 1, 2011, at 10:36 AM, Steven Winsor wrote:</p>
<p>
> *
> Another interesting view of it by astrophysicist Bernard Haisch. He
> mentions 'exceptional human experiences' below (ex. My Royal Flush
> Ace-high scenario?).
> *
> </p>
<p>actually, he doesn't actually say what the "exceptional human
experiences" are. if they are something like what is claimed by mystics,
then these sorts of experiences have been had by Christians, Muslims,
and atheists which demonstrates that these experience do not present any
evidence for any particular doctrine. Further, we can elicit these
experiences with chemical and electrical stimulation, which is strong
evidence that they are the product of the functioning of the brain. I am
the first to say that our knowledge of the brain is at its infancy, but
we know enough that we don't need to resort to metaphysical
interpretations of the nature of the cosmos from changes in someone
conscious experience. Sam Harris speaks to this a great deal.</p>
<p>
> *
> The one thing that seems to stand out for me re: 'is there a God?' is
> the organized structure of the Universe...and the ability for it to
> allow organic 'life' (which may be reasonably spread throughout this
> galaxies and most others).
> *
> </p>
<p>first, nearly all of the universe is hostile to life, so it is hardly
"tuned" for the flourishing of life. second, organization is the result
of the natural laws. where do these laws come from? we don't know for
sure, yet, but some of them we can already see become unified at large
energies so there need not be as much "tuning" as one might think at
first glance.</p>
<p>
> *
> there is no direct proof (and there never can be presumably) is not
> the end of the story.
> *
> </p>
<p>sorry, you can't use that dodge either. never can be any proof? Are you
suggesting that God couldn't provide it if he wanted? Are you suggesting
that if God left an imprint into the universe, that it would not be
directly observable? if you are, then pretty much you're conceding that
there is no difference between an intelligence guiding events and
natural laws guiding events, in which case there is no point to the
intelligence. also, proof doesn't exist in science (only in math and
philosophy). all I'm looking for is evidence, and there sure isn't any,
or it's all really terrible.</p>
<p>
> *
> One other matter bears looking at. Is 'good vs. evil' simply a
> human-created phenomenon?
> *
> </p>
<p>again, look at the links I pointed to earlier from Sam Harris. this is
the issue he deals with. it's an argument, that I happen to agree with,
for an absolute morality completely divorced from any religion.</p>
<p>
> *
> Think I'll keep hedging my bet. J
> *
> </p>
<p>so you should be concerned that you're not a Muslim then, because the
Koran clearly states that those who do not follow Mohammad will be
doomed. Or you should be concerned that you're not a Buddhist... perhaps
you should hedge your bet around santa claus, or chiropracting, or
homeopathy, or the easter bunny? or the flying spaghetti monster?</p>
<p>It's a very strange god indeed that wants people to believe in him on
bad evidence.</p>
<p>
> *
> Brian, regarding your statistics below: I would add the 23% to the
> 53% of 'I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force' and you
> get 76%.
> *
> </p>
<p>I wouldn't, because spirit or life force is pretty much the vague
notions of stuff people don't understand. it doesn't guide their
actions, and certainly is not the basis of any morality. practically
speaking, Sweden (and much of Scandinavia) are *mostly* secular, and
trending more so.</p>
<p>
> *
> I think Sweden flunks the 'secular test'. The existence of 'spirit or
> life force' (53%) is the driver for human desire to seek guidance for
> behavior/justice from someone/something above Man.
> *
> </p>
<p>sorry, that's not correct. it doesn't say something "above" man. those
people who believe in a life force or spirit simply believe that there
is more to man than the physical. usually they are thinking of the mind,
and their understanding of neurobiology is weak.</p>
<p>
> *
> I think it's an innate need...and comes from the very thing you are
> interested in...the human mind. The question is...does it really
> exist?...and, if so, does it inhabit the subconscious mind...or
> conscious?
> *
> </p>
<p>what is the "it" here? are you speaking of consciousness separate from
the brain? our understanding of consciousness is not at the point where
we can conclusively state that. there is certainly no evidence for it,
and everything so far points to consciousness arising from the
functioning of the brain.</p>
<p>One thing that is clear, historically, is that people tend to think they
are special, and build descriptions and stories around this specialness.
What is also clear historically, in every case where we have been able
to determine it, we are not special. Life molecules can arise from
non-life - the chemistry is the same. We are on a tiny planet, not in
the center of any universe, galaxy or solar system. We are one of many
solar systems, probably many with life. "heavenly matter" is no
different than "earthly matter" - the laws of physics are the same here
as across the universe and across time. humans are primates, and are
directly descended from animals that gave rise to chimps too. Our moral
sense is shared, to some extent, in other animals as well. Our brains
work like monkey brains and cat brains, and the parts work just like the
parts of worm brains.</p>
<p>To some, this is discouraging. I, however, find some comfort in the
notion that we are all connected.</p>
<p>See: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk">We are all connected</a></p>
<p>
From: Steven Winsor
Subject: RE: Remember This Guy? - Genius!
Date: December 1, 2011 13:41:24 PM EST
To: Brian Blais
</p>
<p>What is cooler than seeing film of Richard Feynman (my favorite
physicist<br>
sorry, Brian<br>
) at the bongos. Ever read his book 'Surely You're Joking, Mr.
Feynman'? I even have a DVD of his 'The Missing Lectures of Richard
Feynman'...if you'd like to hear the DVD, I'd be happy to provide it.</p>
<p>I had not read your responses to my e-mail (below) when I saw you around
noon. Looks like I am making no headway. Perhaps we should have placed
these on your blog for others to view and comment?</p>
<p>When I get a chance, I'll see what kind of responses are appropriate.
Hmm...wonder if God created the Multi-verse? :-)</p>What's wrong with this?2011-12-06T14:03:00-05:002011-12-06T14:03:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-12-06:/posts/2011/Dec/06/whats-wrong-with-this/<p>So I was asked recently "what was wrong with someone who, because of
their religious convictions, chooses not to participate in scientific
research (the example used was nuclear bomb research …</p><p>So I was asked recently "what was wrong with someone who, because of
their religious convictions, chooses not to participate in scientific
research (the example used was nuclear bomb research) because of the
harm it would give?". When they asked it, it was clear that they thought
it was a significant argument for the benefits of religion. At the time,
I didn't have the time to go into a lengthy response, so I wanted to put
it here.</p>
<p>If someone, out of a genuine concern for the suffering of other
individuals, chooses to forgo research which they felt would lead to the
needless suffering of those individuals, then I would support it. I
could possibly criticize their assessment of the harm (i.e. would this
research definitely cause harm, or at least, more harm than good? what
is the cost of <strong>not</strong> pursuing the research? etc...) This is a
perfectly <strong>secular</strong> rationale for the ethical decision, and we could
have a discussion, but as long as their motivation was for the genuine
well-being of humans (or even animals), then I don't have a problem.</p>
<p>However, if you make the <strong>same decision</strong> because you felt that the
creator of the universe wants you to do it, or you will be punished by
the creator if you don't do it, or you will be rewarded by the creator
for doing it then I do not support it...it may be the right decision but
for the wrong reasons. The problem with making the right decision for
the wrong reasons is that you would, next week, make wrong decisions for
the same reasons. If you're not held to a legitimate ethical argument,
grounded in the well-being of individuals and societies, then you can
justify blocking stem cell research and gay marriage for the same
"reasons" that you use to direct your own "moral" choices. Further, if
you are allowed to simply say "my religion tells me this is true", then
that ends all discussion.</p>
<p>Too many people assume that just because it comes from someone's
religion then is it correct, or moral, or ethical...it doesn't. We
establish the evidence supporting arguments for moral actions through
discussion, critical thinking, and the application of reason...towards
the betterment of the conditions for all conscious creatures. When faith
stands in for a reasoned ethical argument, then the result will at some
point lead to seriously unethical decisions.</p>Best evidence for...2011-11-29T12:12:00-05:002011-11-29T12:12:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-11-29:/posts/2011/Nov/29/best-evidence-for/<p>In preparing for a talk on Science and Religion, I came upon this
somewhat amusing example. I did a google search for "Best evidence
for..." and filled in one of …</p><p>In preparing for a talk on Science and Religion, I came upon this
somewhat amusing example. I did a google search for "Best evidence
for..." and filled in one of the following 3 things:</p>
<ol>
<li>the Big Bang</li>
<li>Evolution</li>
<li>God</li>
</ol>
<p>I then took the very first link to compare. The results were:</p>
<ol>
<li>the Big Bang
- <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html</a></li>
<li>Evolution
- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence_of_common_descent</a></li>
<li>God
- <a href="http://www.gradresources.org/worldview_articles/evidence_for_god.shtml">http://www.gradresources.org/worldview_articles/evidence_for_god.shtml</a></li>
</ol>
<p>What is interesting is that in the first two cases there is a very long
list of evidence, direct observations, measurements, etc... In the last
case there are philosophical arguments. The differences in the amount,
quality, and type of evidence shown in these sources I think is
particularly telling. When you ask for evidence for the existence of
something, and you get philosophical arguments, then I think you can
immediately dismiss the claim. I would also claim (and someone tell me
if there is a counter example please!) that there is not a single
example of the existence of an actual thing being first or best
established from a philosophical argument. </p>A sensible post on climate change...for a change2011-11-09T12:21:00-05:002011-11-09T12:21:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-11-09:/posts/2011/Nov/09/a-sensible-post-on-climate-change-for-a-change/<p><a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/thank-you-matt-ridley/">A very reasoned addition</a> to the climate change discussion. Well
done!</p>Language of Science2011-11-07T15:47:00-05:002011-11-07T15:47:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-11-07:/posts/2011/Nov/07/language-of-science/<p>One of the things that I noticed, starting as an undergraduate and
moving into graduate school, is that scientists have a peculiar sort of
conservative language. They'll say things like …</p><p>One of the things that I noticed, starting as an undergraduate and
moving into graduate school, is that scientists have a peculiar sort of
conservative language. They'll say things like, "it's possible that such
and such", or "it's likely that such and such" but rarely (if ever) say
"such and such is true". <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/faster-than-light-a-likely-solution/">In a previous post</a>I said that a proposed
solution to the faster than light neutrinos was likely to be true, but
left open the possibility that the error will probably be found
elsewhere. As solid as relativity is, scientists will still never say
that relativity is "true", only that is it very well established,
confirmed, supported, etc... In any other context, something with as
much support as, say, the theory of relativity or the theory of
evolution or the germ theory of disease would simple be called "fact".
In science, calling something like that a fact is both wrong (it can
still be modified!) and dangerous (it stops all inquiry!).</p>
<p>Paraphrasing the words of Sam Harris, pretending to know things that you
do not know, or claiming certainty for things for which there is not
evidence to support it, is a huge liability in science...and should be a
liability in other contexts as well (think religion, politics, etc...)</p>Offended by prayer on a mural2011-11-07T15:46:00-05:002011-11-07T15:46:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-11-07:/posts/2011/Nov/07/offended-by-prayer-on-a-mural/<p>In Cranston, RI there is a lawsuit about a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/13/rhode-island-atheist-student-school-clash-over-prayer-mural-lawsuit/">mural depicting a
school-sanctioned prayer</a>. The image of the mural is here:</p>
<p><img alt="Mural of School Prayer" src="http://a57.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/U.S./396/223/School%20Prayer%20Banner_Kade.jpg"></p>
<p>The student was offended by having this prayer here …</p><p>In Cranston, RI there is a lawsuit about a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/13/rhode-island-atheist-student-school-clash-over-prayer-mural-lawsuit/">mural depicting a
school-sanctioned prayer</a>. The image of the mural is here:</p>
<p><img alt="Mural of School Prayer" src="http://a57.foxnews.com/static/managed/img/U.S./396/223/School%20Prayer%20Banner_Kade.jpg"></p>
<p>The student was offended by having this prayer here, and some Christians
I have spoken to say it's not a big deal, it's a historical object, it's
message is a nice academic one, etc... Further, they claim that a
student being offended by it isn't enough reason to remove it. Some
students are offended by evolution in biology class, and we don't remove
that, for example. However, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause">Establishment Clause</a> of the
<a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html">Constitution</a> clearly states "Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion". Christians will point to this mural and
state that it is generically religious, and thus is not the
establishment of any particular religion.</p>
<p>When I first read this mural, I was immediately offended by it, as a
message in a public institution educating children. It establishes a
clear bias towards the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam) by referring to "Heavenly Father". Buddhism doesn't have this,
neither does Hinduism, or Paganism, or etc.... not to mention atheists.
The message itself is actually very nice, so why not do the easiest
thing: Block out, in as unobtrusive way possible, the "Heavenly father"
and the "Amen", and simply call it the School Doctrine, or School
Message, or some other innocuous phrase. Even calling it a prayer is not
so bad in my book, as long as there isn't a clear bias towards a
particular religion. I wonder if the student tried to do that. It would
seem to be a straightforward solution, that a school system might
consider, in order to keep itself out of a lawsuit on the issue.</p>The Florida problem - a new intuition2011-10-30T13:35:00-04:002011-10-30T13:35:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-10-30:/posts/2011/Oct/30/the-florida-problem-a-new-intuition/<p><strong>1. Introduction</strong></p>
<p>In a prior couple of posts <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/there-once-was-a-girl-named-florida-a-k-a-evil-problems-in-probability/">here</a> and <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/coin-flips-and-names-evil-problems-in-probability-continued/">here</a> I look into the
"evil" probability problem of the girl-named-Florida. This problem
compares the following two situations:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Say you …</p></blockquote><p><strong>1. Introduction</strong></p>
<p>In a prior couple of posts <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/there-once-was-a-girl-named-florida-a-k-a-evil-problems-in-probability/">here</a> and <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/coin-flips-and-names-evil-problems-in-probability-continued/">here</a> I look into the
"evil" probability problem of the girl-named-Florida. This problem
compares the following two situations:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Say you know a family has two children, and further that at least one
of them is a girl. What is the probability that they have two girls?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Say you know a family has two children, and further that at least one
of them is a girl named Florida. What is the probability that they
have two girls?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The former is easy to show is \<span class="math">\(latex {p(2g|\\{L1g\\})=1/3}&fg=000000\\)</span>.
The latter is shown to be \<span class="math">\(latex {p(2g|\\{L1g\\},F)=1/2}&fg=000000\\)</span>.
Intuition firmly insists that knowing the name shouldn't change the
probability, but the math and simulations insist otherwise. Thus, it is
our duty, to try to get our intuition around the problem. I was
motivated to look at this again when a commenter asked</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can someone tell me what the relevance of the comparative
rarity/commonness of the girl's name is? Suppose instead we knew that
the girl's name was "Mary". The possibilities would still work out the
same:</p>
<p>B GM</p>
<p>GM b</p>
<p>GM GNM</p>
<p>GM GM</p>
<p>GNM GM</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After much pondering, I think I have come up with another way to recast
the problem that adds to the intuition. I can't say that it makes it
completely obvious to me, like the <a href="https://brianblais.wordpress.com/2009/09/16/probability-problems-and-simulation/">Monty Hall problem</a> is for me now,
so I think there still is something missing in my understanding of <em>why
the problem is so unintuitive</em>. However, it does seem to push the idea a
bit farther forward. In the next section I introduce another problem,
with similar properties but is possibly more intuitive. I then describe
how it can be used to gain an intuition on the Florida problem, and why
the frequency of the name can make a difference.</p>
<p><strong>2. A Card Game</strong></p>
<p>Say I play a game with a very small deck (just so that we can work the
numbers well). The deck has 8 cards: Ace, two, three, and four of hearts
and the five, six, seven, and eight of spades. Two cards are dealt, and
you are given some modest information about the two cards, and asked to
determine the probability that the two cards are both hearts. Let's look
at three types of information given:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p><em>You're only told that there are two cards.</em> Thus, there the
probability for two hearts is simply</p>
<p>\<span class="math">\(latex \\displaystyle p(2H) = \\frac{4}{8} \\times {3}{7} =
\\frac{12}{56} \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ (1)&fg=000000\\)</span></p>
<p>This can be seen pictorially by listing every possible two-card hand
and looking at those with two hearts, yielding 12 hands out of 56.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/fig1.png"></p>
<p><p>
2. <em>You're told that at least one of the cards is a heart</em>. Now we need
to look at the first and second cards, and eliminate the possibility
of two spades</p>
<p>\<span class="math">\(latex \\displaystyle p(2H|\\{L1H\\}) =
\\frac{p(H\_1,H\_2)}{p(H\_1,S\_2)+p(S\_1,H\_2)+p(H\_1,H\_2)} \\ \
\\ \\ \\ (2)&fg=000000\\)</span></p>
<p>where \<span class="math">\(latex {p(H\_1,S\_2)}&fg=000000\\)</span> is that we drew a heart
then a spade. We then have</p>
<p>\<span class="math">\(latex \\displaystyle \<div class="math">\begin{array}{rcl} p(2H|\\{L1H\\}) &=&
\\frac{\\frac{4}{8}\\times\\frac{3}{7}}{\\frac{4}{8}\\times\\frac{4}{7}+\\frac{4}{8}\\times\\frac{4}{7}+\\frac{4}{8}\\times\\frac{3}{7}}\\\
&=&\\frac{12}{44} \\end{array}</div> &fg=000000\\)</span></p>
<p>This can be seen pictorially by listing every possible two-card hand
<em>with at least one heart</em> and looking at those with two hearts,
yielding 12 hands out of 44.</p>
<p><img alt="2" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/fig2.png"></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><em>You're told that at least one of the cards is an ace of hearts</em>.
Notice how this changes things. Now, when we outline the
possibilities, we get</p>
<p>\<span class="math">\(latex \\displaystyle p(2H|\\{L1H\\},A) =
\\frac{p(H\_{1a},H\_{2n})+p(H\_{1n},H\_{2a})}{p(H\_{1a},H\_{2n})+p(H\_{1n},H\_{2a})+p(S\_{1},H\_{2a})+p(H\_{1a},S\_2)}
\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ (3)&fg=000000\\)</span></p>
<p>Let's look at the numerator first.</p>
<p>\<span class="math">\(latex \\displaystyle p(H\_{1a},H\_{2n}) =
p(H\_{2n}|H\_{1a})p(H\_{1a}) \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ (4)&fg=000000\\)</span></p>
<p>Written like this, it is like turning over card one, seeing it's an
ace of hearts, and then turning over card 2. \<span class="math">\(latex
{p(H\_{1a})=1/8}&fg=000000\\)</span>, and seeing a heart that is not an ace
is really the same as seeing any ol' heart, so it is \<span class="math">\(latex
{p(H\_{2n}|H\_{1a})=3/7}&fg=000000\\)</span>. This is not any different than
the previous situation. However, the next term in the numerator</p>
<p>\<span class="math">\(latex \\displaystyle p(H\_{1n},H\_{2a}) =
p(H\_{2a}|H\_{1n})p(H\_{1n}) \\ \\ \\ \\ \\ (5)&fg=000000\\)</span></p>
<p><em>is</em> really different, because we are told that there is at least
one ace. The probability of drawing a heart that is not an ace on
the first card is still \<span class="math">\(latex {p(H\_{1n})=3/8}&fg=000000\\)</span>.
However, drawing an ace of hearts on the second card when we drew a
non-ace of hearts on the first is <em>certain</em>, because we have
knowledge that at least one is an ace. Thus, \<span class="math">\(latex
{p(H\_{2a}|H\_{1n})=1}&fg=000000\\)</span>. This gives, for the numerator,</p>
<p>\<span class="math">\(latex \\displaystyle
p(H\_{1a},H\_{2n})+p(H\_{1n},H\_{2a})=\\frac{3}{7}\\cdot\\frac{1}{8}
+ 1\\cdot \\frac{3}{8} = \\frac{24}{56} \\ \\ \\ \\ \
(6)&fg=000000\\)</span></p>
<p>Notice that if \<span class="math">\(latex {H\_{2a}}&fg=000000\\)</span> had been independent of
\<span class="math">\(latex {H\_{1n}}&fg=000000\\)</span> then we would have gotten the same
12/56 term in the numerator as in the previous situation.
Essentially, by giving the information that there is at least one
ace, you are really making the value of one card dependent on the
other, and thus knowledge of one gives you knowledge of the other
and the probability for two hearts goes up. The same thing happens
with \<span class="math">\(latex {p(H\_{2a}|S\_1)}&fg=000000\\)</span>, but since we compare to
the case where we know there is one heart anyway, this is not a
difference.</p>
<p>Following through with the rest gives us</p>
<p>\<span class="math">\(latex \\displaystyle \<div class="math">\begin{array}{rcl} p(2H|\\{L1H\\},A) &=&
\\frac{p(H\_{1a},H\_{2n})+p(H\_{1n},H\_{2a})}{p(H\_{1a},H\_{2n})+p(H\_{1n},H\_{2a})+p(S\_{1},H\_{2a})+p(H\_{1a},S\_2)}
\\\\ &=&\\frac{\\frac{3}{7}\\cdot\\frac{1}{8}+ 1 \\cdot
\\frac{3}{8}}{\\frac{4}{7}\\cdot\\frac{1}{8}+1\\cdot
\\frac{4}{8}+\\frac{24}{56}}\\\\ &=&\\frac{24}{56} = \\frac{6}{14}
\\end{array}</div> &fg=000000\\)</span></p>
<p>This can be seen pictorially by listing every possible two-card hand
with an ace of hearts and looking at those with two hearts, yielding
6 hands out of 14.</p>
<p><img alt="3" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/fig3.png"></p>
</li>
</ol>
<p><strong>3. Back to the Florida problem</strong></p>
<p>The ace-of-hearts problem is exactly like the Florida problem, if you
make the deck big enough. The key issue here seems to be that by giving
a rare name to one of the girl children, it correlates the two children
in a way that the independence assumptions in both the simpler problem
and one's intuition break down. If you were to ``draw'' a girl first
and not a Florida, then we <em>must</em> have a girl second named Florida. In
the same way, the game show host in Monty Hall is forced to give
information to the contestant through the rules of the game: 2/3 of the
time he is forced to give the contestant the door with the prize.</p>
<p>Another thing to notice is that the frequency of the ``aces'' (or
Floridas) in the problem definitely has an effect. You can confirm this
by changing the information in the card game to <em>You're told that at
least one of the cards has a rank less than three</em>. It is easy to see
how this would change the probabilities.</p>
<p><strong>3.1. Intuition</strong></p>
<p>So why is this problem so unintuitive? I think a lot of it is related to
the issues that Jeff J states in the comments.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But suppose you learned what you know about this family because you
meet the mother walking with her daughter, and asked her how many
children she has. When she said “two,” this scenario fits the problem
statement just as well as what Brian assumed. You know the family has
two children, and that at least one is a girl. But, the probability is
1/2 that she has two daughters, not 1/3 (reference: Bar-Hillel and
Falk, or look at Grinstead and Snell's on-line textbook).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is a certain ``omniscience'' assumed in the card game (not so
unrealistically) and in the Florida problem (probably unrealistically)
that changes the scope of the problem. Most people's intuitions are
shaped by the cases like Jeff J, where we know of a specific child named
Florida, and asked about the chances of having another girl which is
1/2, or even know only that there is at least one girl, but a specific
one, so you get the 1/3 when thinking about it. The name, therefore,
doesn't affect anything...in most realistic situations. However, in this
card game it does affect the chances of having two hearts when you are
restricted to the hands with at least one ace of hearts. I find that it
doesn't seem to violate my intuition as badly in the card game as it
does in the Florida , and much more clearly and it doesn't seem to
violate our intuitions quite so badly.</p>
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</script>Faster than light...a likely solution2011-10-16T12:11:00-04:002011-10-16T12:11:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-10-16:/posts/2011/Oct/16/faster-than-light-a-likely-solution/<p>A <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27260/">solution to the "faster-than-light" neutrinos</a> is likely to have
been found. In the words of the article,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If it stands up, this episode will be laden with irony. Far …</p></blockquote><p>A <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27260/">solution to the "faster-than-light" neutrinos</a> is likely to have
been found. In the words of the article,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If it stands up, this episode will be laden with irony. Far from
breaking Einstein's theory of relatively, the faster-than-light
measurement will turn out to be another confirmation of it.</p>
</blockquote>Faster than light...why the lawyer is wrong2011-10-14T15:11:00-04:002011-10-14T15:11:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-10-14:/posts/2011/Oct/14/faster-than-light-why-the-lawyer-is-wrong/<p>In a post <a href="http://thelegalwatchdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/legal-watchdog-faster-than-speed-of.html">well outside of his expertise</a>, lawyer Michael D. Cicchini
weighs in on the recent observation that some neutrinos have been
observed <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/09/neutrinos-travel-faster-than-lig.html">traveling faster than the speed of …</a></p><p>In a post <a href="http://thelegalwatchdog.blogspot.com/2011/09/legal-watchdog-faster-than-speed-of.html">well outside of his expertise</a>, lawyer Michael D. Cicchini
weighs in on the recent observation that some neutrinos have been
observed <a href="http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/09/neutrinos-travel-faster-than-lig.html">traveling faster than the speed of light</a>. In his own words
"I try to stick to law-related topics, but every once in a while I'll
delve into matters that are way over my head, like college sports and
even physics." He should stick to law.</p>
<p>His post makes the following two claims:</p>
<ol>
<li>physicists created the concept of "dark matter" simply to keep
Einstein's theory of general relativity alive</li>
<li>The speed of light, Einstein had said, was the fastest speed at
which anything could move. If an object could move faster than that,
then Einstein's theories would be proved incorrect.</li>
</ol>
<p>He concludes with</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Hopefully scientists won't continue to cling to Einstein's theories if
it's not warranted. The hallmark of science has always been its
willingness to discard what no longer works when new evidence comes
along. And toward that end, here's an admittedly uneducated
suggestion: abandon Einstein's quest of unifying the quantum with the
cosmic. [...] it appears that such an attempt is doomed to failure
because one of the theories they're attempting to unify is wrong.</p>
<p>Back to the drawing board.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This post is ill-informed for many reasons. Let me try to address a few.</p>
<p><strong>Dark Matter</strong></p>
<p>The concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter">dark matter</a> was not invented to keep Einstein's
theory alive, it was invented to keep <em>Newton's</em> theory alive (which
Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is consistent with, and extends
to new areas). Essentially, given the form of Newton's law, we can
estimate the mass of a galaxy from its spinning. It turns out that this
method of measuring the mass yields 10 times the mass that we get by
estimating it from the directly observed mass (i.e. from counting up the
the light emitted by the mass). We then have several choices:</p>
<ol>
<li>the counting up the light method underestimates mass by a factor of
10...this is highly unlikely, because the method has been consistent
with many other measurements, and is a direct consequence of
fundamental laws of physics</li>
<li>Newton's laws are wrong</li>
<li>there is more mass than we can actually see...we give it a name,
"dark matter", just as a place-holder until we could determine what
it is.</li>
</ol>
<p>Guess what? Scientists have explored all these possibilities! The most
relevant ones to this post have to do with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics">MOND (Modified Newtonian
Dynamics)</a>. For example, Newton's law of gravity is of the form</p>
<div class="math">$$
F=\frac{GMm}{r^2} = ma
$$</div>
<p>The consequences of this have been checked out many decimal places, and
explains things as diverse as the tides, the formation of planetary
rings, and the development of galaxies. What would it take to displace
this? You'd have to modify it in such a way as to be consistent with all
of the things that it predicts well, as accurately as it currently
predicts, and have your modifications be consistent with some other set
of observations which are inconsistent with the current theory. This is
why it took 200 years to significantly modify Newton's Theory of
Gravity, with Einsteins General Theory of Relativity. An example of MOND
could be something like</p>
<div class="math">$$
F=\frac{GMm}{r^2}\times \mu\left(\frac{a}{a_o}\right)
$$</div>
<p>where <span class="math">\(\mu(a/a_o)\)</span> is a function that needs to be
close to 1 for normal situations (and thus look like Newton's laws), but
be different for the case of spinning galaxies. In this case there is a
single parameter, <span class="math">\(a_o\)</span>, which is a critical
acceleration far above which the situation is "normal". Typical values
are around <span class="math">\( 10^{-10} {\rm m/s^2}\)</span>, and one
possible form for <span class="math">\(\mu()\)</span> is</p>
<div class="math">$$ \mu(x) = 1-e^{-x}
$$</div>
<p>Near the Earth, this translates to</p>
<div class="math">$$ \mu(x) =0.\underbrace{99999999\cdots}_{10^{10} {\rm nines!}}
$$</div>
<p>On the big scale, on the outskirts of galaxies, the accelerations are
comparable to <span class="math">\(a_o\)</span> and the predictions can lead to
consistent mass curves without introducing more mass.</p>
<p>The dark matter postulate has also been, and continues to be, explored.
There are some theoretical reasons to suggest that dark matter exists in
the form of new fundamental particles, and there are attempts now to
directly measure them.</p>
<p>The point here is that the original post was <em>completely wrong</em> about
the motivation to include dark matter. Further, it was wrong in implying
that scientists don't examine and try to replace well-established ideas.
I tell my students that it is a good day if you can demonstrate that one
of your colleagues is wrong. It is an even better day if you can
overturn a well-established idea (you get phone calls from Sweden for
this). However, the burden is on the scientist trying to overturn a
well-established idea to put forward something that is both consistent
with all of the observations of the previous theory, and to demonstrate
consistency on new tests that yield a different (and thus wrong) result
from the old theory. Thus, it gets harder and harder to overturn an idea
that is well established in science.</p>
<p><strong>The Speed of Light</strong></p>
<p>First, let me point out that Einstein doesn't say in his 1905 paper on
Special Relativity that the speed of light is the maximum speed (note,
this is different than General Relativity, which handles gravity...a
distinction that Michael Cicchini doesn't seem to grasp). He merely
asserts that the speed of light is measured to be constant in all
inertial reference frames (i.e. measurements made in situations of
constant speed). The derivation of the maximum speed is a consequence of
this, and results in the Lorentz transformation. What we see in these
equations is a factor entering in throughout of the form</p>
<div class="math">$$
\gamma = \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2}}
$$</div>
<p>where <span class="math">\(c\)</span> is the speed of light, and <span class="math">\(v\)</span> is the speed of an object. This factor goes to infinity
as <span class="math">\(v\rightarrow c\)</span>, which places the speed limit.
However, in certain circumstances, it might be that the factor takes a
different form and, say, looks like</p>
<div class="math">$$
\gamma = \frac{1}{\sqrt{1-v^2/c^2 +10^{-20}}}
$$</div>
<p>which would allow speeds greater than the speed of light. This
simplistic hack will break other parts of the theory, and so a more
subtle modification would be needed, but it could certainly be
done...and it wouldn't require overturning Einstein's theory. We must be
particularly observant of the following two facts:</p>
<ol>
<li>relativistic quantum mechanics (QED) makes predictions so accurate,
it would be like predicting the width of North America to the width
of a human hair...<em>any</em> replacement theory would need to do as well</li>
<li>one other significant observation of neutrinos comes from supernova
explosions, many light years away. It is observed that the neutrinos
reaches us at the time, or very slightly below the time that the
light from the explosion reaches us. Thus, over far longer spans of
space there is no observed violation of the speed of light limit.</li>
</ol>
<p>Although the neutrino story is intriguing, it does not entail the
overthrow of Einstein even if it turns out to be true. More likely it
will not be true, however. The biggest lesson of this is that lawyers
should not speak about physics (although to be fair, Edwin Hubble, the
discoverer of the expansion of the universe, was a lawyer before he
became an astronomer). My bet is still on Einstein, no matter what the
result of the experiment is. This isn't because I am dogmatically
attached to Einstein's ideas, but that his ideas have been tested to an
astonishing degree, and any replacement will have to do just as well.</p>
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</script>Mystery, Knowledge, Science and Television2011-08-03T12:44:00-04:002011-08-03T12:44:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-08-03:/posts/2011/Aug/03/mystery-knowledge-science-and-television/<p>J J Abrams, the creator of the television show “Lost”, gives a <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html">Ted
talk</a> where he suggests that sometimes mystery is more important than
knowledge. His “mystery box” represents infinite …</p><p>J J Abrams, the creator of the television show “Lost”, gives a <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html">Ted
talk</a> where he suggests that sometimes mystery is more important than
knowledge. His “mystery box” represents infinite possibilities and hope
and that mystery is the catalyst for imagination. He sees the “Lost”
television show as a mystery box, always with the sense of possibility.</p>
<p>Now, to be fair, I have not actually seen Lost, so perhaps my comments
are unwarranted, but I decided not to watch Lost for the following
reason. When Lost was first beginning, several friends said that I would
like it. I told them that I would watch it if, and only if, at the end
of the series they could tell me that the “plan” for the series actually
existed. It was claimed that the series was planned from start to
finish, but my friends told me afterward that it was clear it wasn’t,
after watching the finale. Too many loose ends, too many mysteries.</p>
<p>I think that J J Abrams learned the wrong lesson about mystery, as
represented by his television show “Lost”. It’s not just the mystery,
for the sake of mystery, it is the solving of the mystery that yields
more mysteries. Scientists are comfortable with not knowing...we are
constantly at the edge of what is known and not known. However, what
motivates the scientist isn’t the mystery, it is the solution to the
mystery knowing that will open up more. There is nothing more
dissatisfying than a book, movie, or television show that just opens up
more and more “mysteries” and never resolves them...it seems artificial
and disorganized. Most people assume that the mysteries will be solved
by the end, so they allow themselves to be taken in by the mysteries.
However, once it becomes clear that the mysteries are not going to be
solved, most lose their attention and become disenchanted.</p>
<p>What made Babylon 5 so engaging was that there was a plan, and you could
count on it. You knew that if there was a mystery, that you’d see the
resolution of it. I’ll admit that the resolution of the main conflict
(the Shadow War) was a bit disappointing, once it happened, but I think
part of that feeling had to do with pace and not with the resolution
itself. Mystery for the sake of mystery is enough to motivate,
temporarily, but not forever. In the real world, solving mysteries opens
up more...that’s the real motivator!</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
![]
</div>Climate and the Moon2011-07-28T09:45:00-04:002011-07-28T09:45:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-07-28:/posts/2011/Jul/28/climate-and-the-moon/<p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/02/not-so-hidden-flaw-in-this-climate.html">prior post</a> I criticize an article on climate which states that
current climate models ignore the effect of conduction (i.e. direct
contact) and convection, and focus exclusively …</p><p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/02/not-so-hidden-flaw-in-this-climate.html">prior post</a> I criticize an article on climate which states that
current climate models ignore the effect of conduction (i.e. direct
contact) and convection, and focus exclusively on the greenhouse gas
radiative effect. A comment to that post needs a full response. The
comment in full is here:</p>
<p>“I almost bought your discussion until you provided the diagram from
Kiehl and Trenberth which is ludicrous. The whole construct here is to
create the illusion that the sun cannot heat the earth above minus 18
which is absolute nonsense based on assuming it is valid on geometric
grounds to reduce the solar insolation by a factor of 4 then again by
the albedo.</p>
<p>If this is valid how then does the surface temperature of the moon reach
\~123 C - quoted by NASA.</p>
<p>And how do you explain daytime temperatures on Earth in excess of 50 C
as has been recorded ?”</p>
<p>I will focus on the Moon part, just because it is the easiest, but it
will be natural to see how to approach this for the Earth as well.
First, I must point out the irony of the comment. In trying to defend
the claim that the climate models ignore conduction and convection, and
focus exclusively on radiation, the comment refers to a system (the
Moon) where there is no atmosphere and thus no conduction (except within
the ground itself) or convection! Second I have to wonder about how
stupid the commenter thinks NASA is. Do they really think that
scientists would consider models that are flagrantly in conflict with
the most basic observation about the Moon’s surface (i.e. its
temperature extremes)? Do they really think that scientists would come
up with a calculation that Moon can’t achieve temperatures above, say,
-18 C and then stare at 100 C temperature measurements and just leave
the calculation as is for decades? Let’s consider how one would develop
a model of the surface temperature of the Moon, and it will answer the
objections raised in the comment, as well as outline how real science
actually progresses.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:15pt;"><strong>The Average Blackbody Model</strong></span></p>
<p>We start with a very simple model of a spherical body out in space
receiving input from the Sun to the tune of 1400
W/m<span style="vertical-align:super;">2</span>. At the same time, the
spherical body emits radiation with a power per square meter dependent
on T<span style="vertical-align:super;">4</span> (i.e. the blackbody
law).</p>
<p><img alt="Untitled-2011-07-28-05-45.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-vYTzgPcRcyo/TjHqHeo8lTI/AAAAAAAAJWk/YWfC7X_Xmuc/Untitled-2011-07-28-05-45.png"></p>
<p>Notice that in this very simple model we are assuming several things:</p>
<ol>
<li>that the conduction <em>within</em> the body is instantaneous, thus the
temperature of the body is uniform, and the output energy is
uniform.</li>
<li>the body is not rotating, so the radiation it is receiving is
constant</li>
<li>there is no atmosphere, thus no conduction or convection outside of
the solid body</li>
<li>the albedo is the <em>average</em> albedo of the Moon, or a=0.14. Thus this
object absorbs 86% of the radiation coming in</li>
</ol>
<p>I’m not saying this is a <em>good</em> model, but it is a simple one that helps
one understand <em>some</em> of the concepts at hand. We will see shortly that
it has a number of shortcomings, but for now we’ll see how far we can
push it. This is a traditional procedure in science. You start with the
simplest model you can write down, push out all the consequences you can
until the model breaks, and then introduce the needed complexities to
address those consequences (and no more!). Thus, you always have the
simplest model that is consistent with as many of the observations that
you can.</p>
<p>The total energy out of the body would be the blackbody term shown,
multiplied by the total surface area of the sphere: the radiation is
outward in all directions. The incoming radiation, however, strikes only
one side. Further, it strikes at different angles. Applying calculus one
finds that the effective area is simply the cross-sectional area of the
sphere, or the area of a circle the same size as the sphere.</p>
<p><img alt="PastedGraphic-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-DFpwP3AbRBY/TjHqHva9NgI/AAAAAAAAJWo/9WZzozkdfrI/PastedGraphic-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg"></p>
<p>We can then write down the change in the temperature, which depends on
the material (the mass and specific heat), given the net energy input to
the body. I’ll call this dependency K...its exact value, although
calculable, will not be important in the model except qualitatively. We
then have</p>
<p><img alt="PastedGraphic1-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-SouO2yBsJMI/TjHqHr0RCiI/AAAAAAAAJWs/Wan5GRey3ik/PastedGraphic1-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg"></p>
<p>When the “energy in” is greater than “energy out”, the temperature
increases. When “energy in” is <em>less than</em> “energy out” the temperature
<em>decreases</em>. Once it reaches equilibrium, temperature remains constant.
What constant? That would be when dT/dt=0, or...</p>
<p><img alt="PastedGraphic2-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-gL6eKMccMXk/TjHqH95v6YI/AAAAAAAAJWw/mFUatrZWc3g/PastedGraphic2-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg"></p>
<p>If we look up the values for the actual Moon we get the following:</p>
<p><img alt="PastedGraphic3-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Ploy44ZPyrw/TjHqIBOaI0I/AAAAAAAAJW0/orpTzEhRZmM/PastedGraphic3-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg"></p>
<p>So our model is not too bad, for the average value, but it could
probably be improved. So, now back to the comment which motivated this
all:</p>
<p>“If this is valid how then does the surface temperature of the moon
reach \~123 C - quoted by NASA.”</p>
<p>The bottom line here is that, if there is an observation that is in
conflict with a model, one of the assumptions of the model is probably
incorrect, or perhaps you’re comparing the wrong observations to the
model. We assumed that the object has a uniform temperature but we
<em>know</em> from the 3 data points above (the min, max and mean temperatures)
that this is not true! Essentially our model didn’t even <em>attempt</em> to
describe temperature variations on the surface, so it comes as no
surprise that it is not consistent with them. Many times theorists will
use a model, with known deficiencies, because they are interested in
different questions: perhaps we are only interested in the average
value, and what happens from that average value? In that case, it
doesn’t make a lot of sense to include complexities that will be
averaged out anyway when we want to answer our question.</p>
<p>To miss this point is to miss the entire process of comparing theory
with experiment. It turns out, however, in this case we can make a few
simple modifications to explore some of the temperature variation.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:15pt;"><strong>The Infinitely Slow Surface-Conduction
Model</strong></span></p>
<p>We use the same assumptions as before, with one modification (in bold):</p>
<ol>
<li>that the conduction <em>within</em> the body <strong>takes an infinite amount of
time (i.e. no surface conduction at all)</strong>. Thus, each patch of
surface acts as its own independent object</li>
<li>the body is not rotating, so the radiation it is receiving is
constant</li>
<li>there is no atmosphere, thus no conduction or convection outside of
the solid body</li>
<li>the albedo is the <em>average</em> albedo of the Moon, or a=0.14. Thus this
object absorbs 86% of the radiation coming in</li>
</ol>
<p>We consider two types of patches: one on the near side and one on the
far side.</p>
<p><strong>Near-side patch</strong></p>
<p>Imagine a patch of surface 1 square meter, with the same albedo as the
Moon (i.e. absorbing 86%), and a combined mass and specific heat
summarized by a constant K’. The energy equation then becomes</p>
<p><img alt="PastedGraphic4-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ETELFjeOiIc/TjHqIUstGGI/AAAAAAAAJW4/cee8InVHVaw/PastedGraphic4-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg"></p>
<p>at equilibrium we thus have</p>
<p><img alt="PastedGraphic5-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-msH1r34w0D0/TjHqIpGWduI/AAAAAAAAJW8/JjfihtD0trA/PastedGraphic5-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg"></p>
<p><img alt="PastedGraphic6-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-jMOJzKfly3Q/TjHqIsVVMSI/AAAAAAAAJXA/bDAj3wEuM04/PastedGraphic6-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg"></p>
<p>which again, is reasonably close to the real value. Notice that all we
had to do is change the conduction assumption to get surface temperature
variation. If you’re concerned that the maximum temperature predicted is
lower than the observed, notice that I am using the <em>average</em> albedo of
the Moon. There are parts of the Moon’s surface with a lower albedo, and
will thus get hotter as a result.</p>
<p><strong>Far-side patch</strong></p>
<p>Now imagine a patch of surface 1 square meter, with the same albedo as
the Moon (i.e. absorbing 86%), and a combined mass and specific heat
summarized by a constant K’ but with <em>no sunlight at all coming in</em>. The
energy equation then becomes</p>
<p><img alt="PastedGraphic7-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-_e7zevzi8B0/TjHqI63DYqI/AAAAAAAAJXE/8eisv6XbIZ0/PastedGraphic7-2011-07-28-05-45.jpg"></p>
<p>The only equilibrium value for this is T=0. If no energy is coming in,
and we have energy going out, the object will keep cooling. So in this
model we have the near side T=380 K and the far side T=0 K, at
equilibrium.</p>
<p>Although the model is clearly wrong, it demonstrates one thing: you can
easily get temperatures above and below the average-model calculation
simply by having not all parts of the surface heated equally, and some
non-zero time of energy “communication” (i.e. surface conduction or, if
you have an atmosphere, conduction and convection with the atmosphere)
between the parts. The extreme version calculated here simply
demonstrates the effect and is not meant to be realistic.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:15pt;"><strong>Adding a Few More Complexities -
Qualitative Discussion</strong></span></p>
<p>We now modify the assumptions as follows</p>
<ol>
<li>that the conduction <em>within</em> the body <strong>takes a finite, non-zero,
amount of time</strong></li>
<li>the body <strong>rotates once every 28 days, like the Moon</strong></li>
<li>there is no atmosphere, thus no conduction or convection outside of
the solid body</li>
<li>the albedo is the <em>average</em> albedo of the Moon, or a=0.14. Thus this
object absorbs 86% of the radiation coming in</li>
</ol>
<p>Although one could set up a simple calculation, or numerical model, to
handle this case I am not going to go through the exercise. However,
there are two effects that will happen when adding these two changes:</p>
<ol>
<li>the maximum temperature predicted will be a bit lower than the
no-conduction model. This is primarily because the moon rotates the
near-side patch out of the the most direct sunlight relatively
quickly. If the surface conduction is on the order of minutes, this
will make little or no difference. If it is around hours to days
then it will. In fact, one could use this difference to help
determine the time constant (related to the constant K’) for the
surface of the Moon</li>
<li>the minimum temperature predicted will be higher than the T=0
predicted from the no-conduction model. This is both because the
moon rotates the far-side patch out of the dark, and that energy
from the previously warmed surface will conduct to the far-side
patch.</li>
</ol>
<p>It is fairly straightforward to get a model that is nearly consistent
with the observed temperature range, and is consistent with the thermal
properties of the surface of the Moon. One can get even more careful by
modifying assumption (4), and use the local albedo of the various
patches. In addition, one would need to look at all patches on the
near-side, taking into account the varying angle of inclination of the
radiation. This will not modify the qualitative results.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:15pt;"><strong>Conclusions</strong></span></p>
<p>This all started when I criticized someone’s commentary on climate
models, where they claimed that the models exclude thermal conduction
and convection, and thus the focus on greenhouse gasses was entirely
inappropriate. A further comment claimed that these models put an
explicit maximum temperature achievable when they calculate the surface
temperature of an object from blackbody equations. The comment further
criticized my use of the <em>average model</em> summary for the Earth for this
reason.</p>
<p>Notice the procedure we employed to model the system, and address these
concerns. We started with a very simple globally averaged model, and got
an interesting temperature value similar to the data. We then added a
few complexities, such a differential heating, and noticed how this
gives a range of temperatures on the surface. We also noticed that the
range was half right (half wrong?): the maximum was good, but the
minimum was terrible. Adding rotation and non-zero conduction time gives
some dynamics and can achieve reasonably close agreement. A more
detailed implementation of the local albedo fixes the small errors,
especially on the top end. By using this procedure, we can see exactly
which parts of our model give which parts of the result. It also shows
which parts of the model give the biggest effect, and which are there
for small adjustments.</p>
<p>All that is needed to go beyond the average model, and achieve
temperature well above the average, is to include differential heating
of the surface and some non-zero time of energy “communication”. Once
you heat different parts in different ways, and add rotations and
time-delays of conductions, you get some interesting dynamics <em>around
the average</em>, going both above and below the average. The average
calculation is still useful, if you’re not interested in short-term
dynamics. It is further useful as a pedagogical tool, because it is a
lot simpler. Thus it is not “ludicrous” to use the diagram from Kiehl
and Trenberth, as long as one is aware that this is a <em>globally averaged
model</em>. If you attempt to infer things well beyond the point of the
model, then do not criticize the model - criticize your comparison, and
look for a more detailed model that addresses the questions that you’re
interested in.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
!<>
</div>Knowledge and Belief2011-07-27T09:52:00-04:002011-07-27T09:52:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-07-27:/posts/2011/Jul/27/knowledge-and-belief/<p>I was just directed to <a href="http://blogs.bryant.edu/newsroom/?p=894">this announcement</a> concerning an NSF survey on
science literacy. The bottom line is that the NSF is deciding to change
the wording of two questions …</p><p>I was just directed to <a href="http://blogs.bryant.edu/newsroom/?p=894">this announcement</a> concerning an NSF survey on
science literacy. The bottom line is that the NSF is deciding to change
the wording of two questions in the survey. The original wording is
“Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of
animals,” and “The universe began with a huge explosion.” . The new
wording is “<em>According to evolutionary theory,</em> human beings, as we know
them today, developed from earlier species of animals” and “<em>According
to astronomers,</em> the universe began with a huge explosion.” (emphasis
mine). It is noted that there will be a transition period with the
questions, with half of the surveys containing the new questions and
half the old, to determine its effect.</p>
<p>The stated goal for this change, from the NSF, is to separate knowledge
from belief. You might <em>believe</em> that humans are created in their
present form, 6000 years ago, but the new questions try to ascertain
whether you know that “evolutionary theory” says something different. Is
this an important distinction? Is this what we really want to measure?
Which is more important for a society? What is the difference between
knowledge and belief?</p>
<p>It is quite clear that there will be at least one effect for this
rewording: given that the US falls way behind other countries on science
literacy, especially with these particular questions, the rewording will
most likely increase these numbers with no other work done.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:15pt;"><strong>Definitions and Concepts</strong></span></p>
<p>Beliefs are representations of the world. Specifically, they are
representations that we hold to be correct for the real world...as
opposed to hopes, which are also representations of the world by not
ones that we hold to be necessarily correct. Along with beliefs we
always have a confidence in the belief, specified as a probability
(either explicitly or implicitly). Knowledge is simply that collection
of beliefs that we hold with such high probability or, in other words,
with such confidence that we do not significantly doubt them. The belief
that the sun rises in the east each morning is considered knowledge for
the reason that we hold it with an extremely high probability. This is
not just as a result of an inductive reasoning process (i.e. it always
has, in our experience, risen in the east each morning) but because it
is part of a larger body of knowledge (i.e. astrophysics) for which it
is just one consequence within a whole host of other well-established
predictions.</p>
<p>Now, on to scientific literacy. The NSF defines scientific literacy as
[“knowing basic facts and concepts about science and having an
understanding of how science works.”]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6965073194684424505-6166489707810895333?l=bblais.blogspot.com"></a> Why is it important? Again, [the
NSF][“knowing basic facts and concepts about science and having an
understanding of how science works.”]: “It is valuable not only in
keeping up with important science-related issues, but also in evaluating
and assessing the validity of any type of information and participating
meaningfully in the political process.” The question we must ask is,
does the new wording measure scientific literacy better than the old
wording? To do this, we need to outline the four possible types of
people answering the two forms of the questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>people who answer “yes” to the old and “yes” to the new</li>
<li>people who answer “no” to the old and “no” to the new</li>
<li>people who answer “no” to the old and “yes” to the new</li>
<li>people who answer “yes” to the old and “no” to the new</li>
</ol>
<p>The wording change doesn’t change cases 1 and 2, adds case 3 to the
“yes” category and it introduces the erroneous case 4. The cases can be
summarized in another way, like</p>
<ol>
<li>people who know both that, say, the universe began with a big
explosion and that astronomers claim that this is true. This is
indicative of scientific literacy.</li>
<li>people who don’t know, or do not believe, that the universe began
with a big explosion and that don’t know that astronomers claim that
this is true. This is indicative of scientific <em>illiteracy</em>.</li>
<li>people who don’t <em>believe</em> that the universe began with a big
explosion but know that astronomers claim that this is true. (more
on this below)</li>
<li>people who know that the universe began with a big explosion, but do
not believe that astronomers claim that this is true. This might at
first seem to be a totally unreasonable and marginal case, but I
think it is more significant than perhaps is generally appreciated.
These people might think that the new wording is a trick question
(e.g. they might think that <em>physicists</em>, as opposed to astronomers,
claim that it is true). I’ve had students answer questions in this
way, so it is not quite as uncommon as one might think. These
students overthink the problem: they know the fact, but are
distracted by the extra complexity of the question, thinking that
the test is trying to trick them.</li>
</ol>
<p><span style="font-size:15pt;"><strong>Case 3: The Religious Believer</strong></span></p>
<p>The only reason these particular questions were modified was because of
the prevalence of religious belief. How do we know this? We don’t see a
proposal to change “The Earth orbits around the Sun and takes a year to
do it” to “According to astronomers, the Earth orbits around the Sun and
takes a year to do it.” Why? Because no religion (now) has a stake in
the answer to that question, and thus have no objection to the claim. Of
course, if you go back to the days of Copernicus this was a different
story and people were severely punished for too strongly making such a
claim. The two questions that are proposed to be changed in this way are
precisely the two concepts that crop up in every creationist tract, and
are clearly the two major stumbling blocks for a literalist reading of
the Bible or the Quran.</p>
<p>Aside from the motivation for the change, we can ask the question
whether it is accomplishing something important anyway. Are these Case 3
people, who would answer “no” to the old question but “yes” to the new
question, demonstrating scientific literacy? I don’t think so. What
they’ve confirmed is that they know that some scientists <em>claim</em> that
the universe began with an explosion, but they don’t believe it. This
means that they don’t accept the data, or the methods, or both. If the
question were about something on the fringes of science, then perhaps
this is fine, but it isn’t the case with these two questions. Evolution
theory, for example, is as well established as the Round Earth theory
and the Germ theory of disease. To deny it is to deny all of the
<em>independent</em> work in molecular biology, embryology, ecology, etc...
which support it. Even though they may know that fact that biologists
support Evolution theory, they have not demonstrated any scientific
literacy in terms of “evaluating and assessing the validity of any type
of information and participating meaningfully in the political process.”
The same can be said of the Big Bang theory, to a slightly lesser degree
(i.e. there isn’t <em>quite</em> the volume of completely independent <em>fields</em>
of study supporting it, as there is for Evolution, but the data is
nearly incontrovertible anyway). To deny either idea is akin to denying
the Germ theory of disease.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:15pt;"><strong>Bottom line</strong></span></p>
<p>Imagine someone answering “no” to the question “The world is round” but
answers “yes” to “According to geographers, the world is round”. Would
they be demonstrating scientific literacy? I don’t think so. Do we want
to pander to the religious-motivated ignorance in this country, for the
sake of increasing the <em>appearance</em> of scientific literacy? I don’t
think so.</p>
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</div>Science and Attitudes Toward Criticism2011-07-26T16:36:00-04:002011-07-26T16:36:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-07-26:/posts/2011/Jul/26/science-and-attitudes-toward-criticism/<p>So this morning I got a strong criticism of my post, <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/02/not-so-hidden-flaw-in-this-climate.html">“The Not-so-Hidden
Flaw in this Climate Argument”</a>, which itself is a criticism of
someone else’s criticism of a …</p><p>So this morning I got a strong criticism of my post, <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/02/not-so-hidden-flaw-in-this-climate.html">“The Not-so-Hidden
Flaw in this Climate Argument”</a>, which itself is a criticism of
someone else’s criticism of a climate model (got all that?). I only had
a very brief moment to look at the comment, but it put me in a good
mood...a mood that I don’t think would be held by a similar-type
criticism in a non-science arena. I think there is a very big difference
between the way a scientist, through training, perceives and handles
criticism which was exemplified with my mood this morning. Let me try to
explain.</p>
<ol>
<li>It is a very good day for a scientist to go in to work, and to
demonstrate that one of his colleagues is wrong. It’s even better if
the wrong idea/theory/model is one that is popular! For those
scientists to adequately demonstrate that a popular idea is wrong,
we have for them the Nobel Prize. Of course, it is very hard to
demonstrate that a well-established idea is wrong because, by
definition, a well-established idea in science is one where many
many smart people have tried to show it is wrong and have failed.
For those people who claim that scientists have a conspiracy to
uphold popular scientific ideas (a criticism creationists level
against the support of evolution), they completely miss the goals of
every scientist.</li>
<li>It is also a good day when someone criticizes your idea. In the
comment on my post, the criticism took the form of “if your idea is
correct, how do you explain the following observation...”. Awesome!
Why? First, someone bothered to read my post, and found it
important/interesting enough to comment...that always makes me
happy. Secondly, I’m now in a win-win situation. There are 3
possibilities:<ul>
<li>the criticism is flat out wrong, and I get a chance to both
teach something, and to bolster my idea...I can be a bit more
confident in my idea.</li>
<li>the criticism is partly correct, and I get a chance to add a bit
of nuance, or explore a part of my idea that I hadn’t fully
considered</li>
<li>the criticism is correct, and I have learned something about the
world and have to modify my thinking (at the expense of
scrapping my idea).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Each of these 3 possibilities is wonderful, and it put me in a good
mood! In contrast, most people when criticized (think politics, sports,
religion, etc...) get defensive. They don’t look forward to the
possibility that they might be wrong, and may need to modify their
thinking. I prefer the scientific perspective!</p>
<p>Now I need to go and address the criticism.</p>
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</div>Reaping the benefits of science while hostile to science2011-06-02T00:15:00-04:002011-06-02T00:15:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-06-02:/posts/2011/Jun/02/reaping-the-benefits-of-science-while-hostile-to-science/<p>So I read with some interest an <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/05/31/136817357/science-deniers-hand-over-your-cellphones?sc=fb&cc=fp">article by Adam Frank</a> espousing the
idea of removing the benefits of science from those who deny science. He
starts with examples like …</p><p>So I read with some interest an <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/05/31/136817357/science-deniers-hand-over-your-cellphones?sc=fb&cc=fp">article by Adam Frank</a> espousing the
idea of removing the benefits of science from those who deny science. He
starts with examples like “alien visitations to the healing power of
eskimo rituals”, and states that there is “no price for them to pay for
believing” in these ridiculous things. “They still enjoy the fruits of
science, from iPads to modern medicine, even as they profess belief in
ideas without any sound basis.” Further, “Science is not a lunch buffet.
Yes, the individual results on small, focused issues like the
coffee-bad/coffee-good debate may flip back and forth. When research
domains mature into overarching paradigms, however, its time to take
notice.” Finally, “Don't pick and choose between the science you like
and the ones you deny. Chose between science and no science at all.</p>
<p>Hand in your cell phones, please.”</p>
<p>I’ve stated this before, in the form of removing medical treatment for
those who refuse vaccines. I am never completely serious, but it is
frustrating to see the dichotomy.</p>
<p>The issue I have with this article is one that I’ve written on before
<a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-i-can-support-darwin-day-resolution.html">here</a> and <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2009/12/climate-change-denial-is-not-same-as.html">more here</a>: he focusses on the comparison between
evolution denial and climate denial. It really drives me nuts! I am not
entirely convinced by the climate data that the situation is as dire as
is claimed. I am not sure whether the climate scientists have provided a
clear enough picture, without distortion, cherry-picking, and
exaggeration. I don’t have to deny all of physics, chemistry, and
biology to hold this position as creationists have to do. Perhaps I’m
what is sometimes called a luke-warmist, but even on its best days
climate science is nowhere close to as well supported as evolution.</p>
<p>Enough! Stop comparing global warming deniers to evolution deniers. It’s
a bad comparison, and extremely misleading.</p>
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</div>"Frivolous" research in science2011-05-28T11:43:00-04:002011-05-28T11:43:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-05-28:/posts/2011/May/28/frivolous-research-in-science/<p>My blog has been languishing for a bit, so I hope to bring it back and
be a bit more active.</p>
<p>Someone recently made a comment that they thought that …</p><p>My blog has been languishing for a bit, so I hope to bring it back and
be a bit more active.</p>
<p>Someone recently made a comment that they thought that there was a lot
of “frivolous” research in science. They said “I don't really care how
big the universe is. I am not happier because of that knowledge. My life
is no better, nor my parents or my future children.[...] For me, in the
end I don't see how it benefits humanity. I would much rather see that
time and intellect spent on pursuing ways to improve global living
standards, protect the environment, create a better education system,
etc...”</p>
<p>My response:</p>
<p>There are several things I could say about this. People are notoriously
horrible at predicting which lines of intellectual pursuits will yield
real practical results (i.e. direct benefits to humanity). For example,
in the late 1800's there was some work done on some pretty obscure
mathematical concepts in wave mechanics. At the time there were very few
practical results foreseen from this work, if any. However, it later
became the foundation for telecommunications, which arguably makes up
the bulk of the global economy today. There are many examples like this.
That's why it's always good to have basic research funded well, even if
it seems frivolous at the time.</p>
<p>Knowledge matters, no matter what it is. Your example about how you
don't care how big the universe is, for instance. Let's look at a couple
of contrasting beliefs, and their consequences to things like protecting
the environment, something you state is important. Person A believes
that the world was created specifically for humans, 6000 years ago, and
that this creator is making sure things are going along well for his
followers (i.e. granting miracles, giving guidance, etc...) Person B
believes that the Jesus is going to come again in this lifetime, and the
world will end in glory. Person C knows how big the universe really is.
This means that person C realizes that 1) the Earth is a relatively
small place and 2) there isn't anywhere else we can go if things get
messed up here. Which person do you think would be most willing to make
difficult decisions to protect the environment for the next, say,
200-300 years?</p>
<p>There are benefits to "frivolous" science. One benefit is in critical
thinking, no matter what the topic. Another benefit is the philosophical
placement of humans in the grander scheme of things. This can have
direct *practical* effects on humanity, and its future. On any topic,
truth beats untruth.</p>
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</div>Energy Bracelet Experience2011-03-09T17:01:00-05:002011-03-09T17:01:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-03-09:/posts/2011/Mar/09/energy-bracelet-experience/<p>I’ve spoken before about the energy balance bracelets and how they don’t
work. I just had an experience at a local flower show where I ran into a …</p><p>I’ve spoken before about the energy balance bracelets and how they don’t
work. I just had an experience at a local flower show where I ran into a
vendor of the bracelets. He enthusiastically invited me to a
demonstration, exactly like the demos I’d seen before. He was even
cooperative when I asked to do the demonstration on him. When I
proceeded to knock him over while he was wearing the bracelet (he
claimed that I was pushing outward) and failed to knock him over when he
wasn’t (he claimed I was pushing inward), he didn’t look too happy. When
I pointed out that that was how it worked, he started trying to quote
studies, and I amiably walked away.</p>
<p>I am not sure what the best thing to do with these people. I thought
about doing what Richard Saunders does, and wear 10 of them (buying them
in bulk) and handing them out with a demonstration. That might get me
thrown out. Someone suggested I contact the media, a month or so ahead
of time for the flower show, and get them to do an investigative piece.
Another thing I may do is, if they are willing, is to suggest a very
simple blinded experiments. The nice thing about the balance bracelets
is that they claim some very simple, reproducible effects. As a result,
it is pretty easy to test it in the confines of a vendor booth at a
flower show. I will need to come prepared with two identical little
bags, and a fake bracelet, in order to do the test. Also, if they claim
improved balance, it’d be nice to have a balance test where the the
seller is not involved...something like a balance beam, perhaps. I feel
confident that I can be a real pain, yet not involve lawyers, in a case
like this.</p>
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</div>Religion, Scripture, and the Source of Morality2011-03-08T15:32:00-05:002011-03-08T15:32:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-03-08:/posts/2011/Mar/08/religion-scripture-and-the-source-of-morality/<p>It is a common argument now from the so-called new atheists that we
don’t get our morality from scripture. I am not sure that many religious
people, even biblical …</p><p>It is a common argument now from the so-called new atheists that we
don’t get our morality from scripture. I am not sure that many religious
people, even biblical literalists, would defend such a claim...so in a
way it really is a strawman. Francis Collins, following CS Lewis, place
morality front and center in their justification for their belief in
God, but at no time do they say that it comes <em>from scripture</em>. They
claim that morality is, in essence, programmed into us as a gift from
the divine creator. The universality of altruism is used in an argument
from Collins for a behavior that cannot be selected for, and is thus an
indication of a supernatural, moral creator. He never once says that the
morality comes from scripture. Seen in this way, then scripture forms a
guide which may need to be interpreted for the changing times, even if
you are a literalist. I think it would be wiser for the new atheists to
ask if scripture can even be a good <em>guide</em> for behavior, without
hammering the (strawman) point that scripture is not the <em>source</em> of
morality.</p>
<p>Perhaps they should poll their audience on the question of where they
believe morality comes from. If a significant fraction states that it
comes from scripture, then it no longer is a strawman. I just don’t
think it would come out that way.</p>
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</div>Wonders in Science2011-02-25T10:49:00-05:002011-02-25T10:49:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-25:/posts/2011/Feb/25/wonders-in-science/<p>This is one of the <a href="http://www.google.com/images?q=hubble+deep+field">Hubble deep field images</a>:<br>
<img alt="hud-757183-2011-02-25-05-49.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TWeNYP5RqJI/AAAAAAAAIcE/SJvB8tEMEN4/hud-757183-2011-02-25-05-49.jpg"></p>
<p>It is important to note that every little bright smudge on this image is
a <strong>galaxy</strong> with <em>billions of stars</em>. This …</p><p>This is one of the <a href="http://www.google.com/images?q=hubble+deep+field">Hubble deep field images</a>:<br>
<img alt="hud-757183-2011-02-25-05-49.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TWeNYP5RqJI/AAAAAAAAIcE/SJvB8tEMEN4/hud-757183-2011-02-25-05-49.jpg"></p>
<p>It is important to note that every little bright smudge on this image is
a <strong>galaxy</strong> with <em>billions of stars</em>. This image is a very small piece
of the sky, around 1 out of 150 million, making estimates of galaxies in
the visible universe around 100 billion. It is worth pausing and
thinking about that. When I think about the majesty of the universe I
find it infinitely more inspiring than the parochial, one-world God, of
the major religions. Just trying to <em>imagine</em> our place in this
vastness, and to imagine that there are other beings out there doing the
same thing, wondering if they are alone, there is a sense of awe and
wonder that is difficult to describe. Try it sometime: try to grasp,
even for a few seconds, what billions of billions of worlds would be
like, spread across a space that takes millions of years for light to
cross when light can circle the earth in (literally) the snap of a
finger.</p>
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</div>A Reasonable Perspective on Global Warming2011-02-24T13:27:00-05:002011-02-24T13:27:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-24:/posts/2011/Feb/24/a-reasonable-perspective-on-global-warming/<p>I’ve read a lot about global warming, taught issues about climate in my
classes, and have a decent (but not expert) understanding of the physics
involved. Among my colleagues …</p><p>I’ve read a lot about global warming, taught issues about climate in my
classes, and have a decent (but not expert) understanding of the physics
involved. Among my colleagues I’m the only one who even entertains the
notion that the problem may not be as serious as the media suggests, and
I’m the only one who criticizes the IPCC and the “hide the decline” and
the extinct polar bears claims.</p>
<p>So it was refreshing to hear <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbR0EPWgkEI">this talk</a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Muller">Prof Richard Muller</a> at
Berkeley, and to see the <a href="http://www.berkeleyearth.org/">Berkeley Earth Project</a> start up. It’s seems
to be a reasonable look at what we know confidently, what we really
don’t know, and many of the communications failures in the recent years
between the climate experts and the public. I was pointed to this talk
by <a href="http://judithcurry.com/">Dr Judith Curry’s website</a>, which also seems to be a breath of
fresh air on this whole topic. It seems serious and scientific. It
doesn’t resort to the hysteria of Al Gore or of Sarah Palin.</p>
<p>I’m looking forward to following these groups more closely in the
future.</p>
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</div>Does Watson Think?2011-02-23T11:36:00-05:002011-02-23T11:36:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-23:/posts/2011/Feb/23/does-watson-think/<p>There has been a lot in the news about Watson. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/17/watson.silverman/index.html">One article on CNN</a>
says “Watson doesn't really ‘think’ anything, and it struggles with
simple questions that most humans can …</p><p>There has been a lot in the news about Watson. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/innovation/02/17/watson.silverman/index.html">One article on CNN</a>
says “Watson doesn't really ‘think’ anything, and it struggles with
simple questions that most humans can answer without a second thought.”
They continue, “a question like ‘If a snowman melts and later refreezes,
does it turn back into a snowman?’ would be nearly impossible for a
statistical reasoning program to tackle.”</p>
<p>Another <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/02/18/133853619/ibm-s-watson-a-hard-case">article on NPR</a> compares Watson to a plant. “Watson,
biologically speaking, if you get my drift, is a plant. Watson is big
and it is rooted. Like all plants, it is deaf, blind, and immobile; it
is basically incapable of directing action of any kind on the world
around it.” Continuing, “Giving a plant a camera won't make it see, and
giving it language won't let it think. Which is just a way of reminding
us that Watson understands no language. Unlike the ant, who acts as
though it has reasons for its actions, Watson acts like a plant that
talks.”</p>
<p>I think both authors are pretty glib at stating that Watson doesn’t
think like us. I am not entirely convinced. When Deep Blue defeated
Kasparov in chess, it was stated that Deep Blue doesn’t play chess like
a person plays chess. This is true. Deep Blue simply tries all of the
possibilities, good, bad, and stupid. Chess masters don’t even <em>see</em> bad
moves. Watson is another matter. Sure it compares the words in the
question to a big database, but it is doing probabilistic reasoning at
its core. This is exactly what people do. So Watson can’t handle very
abstract questions, like the concept of melting snowmen, but could a
child who has never experienced snow make this leap? We make this leap
because we’ve been presented, throughout our life, with a regular
universe and our brain has made an internal model of that universe.
Watson, too, has an internal model for its universe but the difference
is that Watson’s universe is sensory impoverished and conceptually
limited.</p>
<p>Watson certainly cannot think as well as we humans, but that is a
limitation more of its hardware and the training environment that it is
in. But in many ways, Watson thinks just like us.</p>
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</div>Creationism and Strawmen2011-02-22T06:42:00-05:002011-02-22T06:42:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-22:/posts/2011/Feb/22/creationism-and-strawmen/<p>I can’t tell you how much I cringe when I hear people say, “I just can’t
imagine how we developed our complexity through random chance” and
similar things …</p><p>I can’t tell you how much I cringe when I hear people say, “I just can’t
imagine how we developed our complexity through random chance” and
similar things, referring (incorrectly) to the “random” process of
evolution. This is a strawman argument that is put forward: either total
random chance or God. Creationists often do this, but it is also done on
the other side.</p>
<p>Take, for example, a recent post I saw on Facebook from one of my
friends:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>...poses a direct challenge to all creationists. Provide an
explanation for vestigial features of living organisms without
inadvertently proving evolution.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He was surprised to learn that Answers in Genesis, the go-to place for
all things creationist, had a position on <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/setting-record-straight-vestigial">vestigial features</a>. That
description made use of arguments from molecular biology, and so-called
microevolution. It seems as if it is a common misunderstanding that
creationists reject all of the apparatus of evolution and microbiology,
and a simple, strawman statements like “creationists reject evolution”
don’t hold.</p>
<p>It really does help to look at the <em>best</em>arguments from each side, to
really see the limits of the analysis. Going back and forth between
<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/">Talk Origins</a> and <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/">Answers in Genesis</a> is a good way to explore the
arguments. For example, in transitional fossils we <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers#/topic/fossils">look in Answers in
Genesis</a> and find articles like <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v14/i4/fossils.asp">this one</a> and <a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v15/i3/missinglink.asp">this one</a> which
steep of arguments from authority, claims without evidence, and
cherry-picking. Many of the arguments rest on criticizing small details
on a small number of fossils. In the <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html">talk origins article on
transitional fossils</a>, we get a very detailed, and seemingly complete,
list of transitions from all major animal types. It comes in many parts,
and details the characteristics on each transition.</p>
<p>Try it yourself! Pick a topic, go through and find the best arguments
each has. It’s a very good exercise. Throw in a good dash of the
<a href="http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/saganbd.htm">baloney detection kit</a>, and you’re on your way.</p>
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</div>Wonders in Science2011-02-18T15:17:00-05:002011-02-18T15:17:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-18:/posts/2011/Feb/18/wonders-in-science-2/<p>There is a tendency for scientists to be killjoys, raining on everyone
parade, poo-pooing cherished beliefs and activities from acupuncture,
religion, ufo’s, and homeopathy. Where is the wonder, the …</p><p>There is a tendency for scientists to be killjoys, raining on everyone
parade, poo-pooing cherished beliefs and activities from acupuncture,
religion, ufo’s, and homeopathy. Where is the wonder, the joy? I’ve had
someone, after a particular session debunking UFO shows on the history
channel, say “But wouldn’t it be great if they were true?” Yes! But I
don’t want to give up intellectual honesty for wishful thinking. If it’s
true, that’s great, but I won’t reduce my efforts to debunk it just
because I’d love it to be true. In fact, wanting it to be true motivates
me even more to be skeptical, knowing that I’ll be less critical of
something I want to be true (as most humans are).</p>
<p>Here’s at least one piece of wonder in the Universe. See the Earth in
this picture?</p>
<p>![newrings_cassini-2011-02-18-10-17.jpg][]</p>
<p>This is a picture of Saturn, with the Sun behind it, taken from the
Cassini spacecraft. See that little white speck in the rings, in the
upper left? That’s the Earth! There are two responses I have when seeing
this picture.</p>
<p>1) We’re really small and insignificant in this Universe<br>
2) What an amazing thing that we can create something on the Earth, send
it a billion miles, and be able to take a picture of ourselves. That’s
amazing!</p>
<p>The universe is amazing, both in its magnitude and complexity, and we
should feel a sense of awe. All this, without introducing unnecessary
constructs such as deities. Although science is often accused of
arrogance, I can think of no humbler activity than that which brought us
the picture above.</p>
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</div>20 Years of Being an Atheist Ends Today2011-02-17T10:15:00-05:002011-02-17T10:15:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-17:/posts/2011/Feb/17/20-years-of-being-an-atheist-ends-today/<p>It was 20 years ago when I made the conscious decision to be an atheist.
I had been agnostic before, and then made a decision that it was no
longer …</p><p>It was 20 years ago when I made the conscious decision to be an atheist.
I had been agnostic before, and then made a decision that it was no
longer a tenable position to hold, and that the atheist label was the
one that matched my mindset best. Since I became an atheist 20 years
ago, I never once regretted the decision. There hasn’t been anything at
all that has moved me from that perspective, until this week.</p>
<p>I’ve seen the light, and I’ve realized that in some ways it was the
wrong decision to become an atheist. I think it was what I needed at the
time, and now it is not. I even changed my Facebook profile!</p>
<p>So, what changed my mind? Sam Harris did, in his <a href="http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/aai-lecture-the-problem-with-atheism/">lecture on the
“Problem with Atheism”.</a> Essentially, it boils down to the fact that
we don’t need a word for not believing in something, and that to attach
a charged word to it undermines the position. We don’t need, as he says,
a name for “non-astrologer”. We just need to espouse the positive
virtues of believing with sufficient evidence, for the quantification of
uncertainty, of intellectual honesty and consistency.</p>
<p>So, in an effort to be more positive about my beliefs in evidence,
rationality, and science, from now on I am not going to consider myself
an atheist. If someone asks me if I believe in God, I will say I don’t
believe in Zeus, Thor or Yahweh (or any of the other gods we’ve heaped
on that pile we call mythology). If asked what religion I am, I’ll just
say “None”.</p>
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</div>The Role of Humanity into the Future2011-02-16T13:36:00-05:002011-02-16T13:36:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-16:/posts/2011/Feb/16/the-role-of-humanity-into-the-future/<p>Yet again, IBM is creating AI to best humans in a task that has been,
perhaps, a symbol of uniquely human activity: Jeopardy! The system,
Watson, is <a href="http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3576">doing quite well …</a></p><p>Yet again, IBM is creating AI to best humans in a task that has been,
perhaps, a symbol of uniquely human activity: Jeopardy! The system,
Watson, is <a href="http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=3576">doing quite well</a> against the humans. The number of
applications for this technology is nearly endless.</p>
<p>I’d wonder how this success will play into the broader discourse on the
human intellect, and our view of ourselves on the universe. When <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/home/html/b.shtml">Deep
Blue defeated Kasparov</a>, and the computer became (unofficially) the
world chess champion, I remember having mixed feelings. We like our
icons, I suppose, and hate to get rid of them. It’s like growing up, and
losing Santa Claus, perhaps. The history of science has been to deflate
human arrogance, and yet successes like Deep Blue and Watson are not
quite the same because it is our own ingenuity which created them.</p>
<p>On some level, Watson <em>feels</em> like a different accomplishment than Deep
Blue. Chess is deterministic, well formulated, and complex. It’s
complexity is the only thing that challenges an easy computer solution,
which was accomplished finally by brute force: get enough fast hardware
attacking a well-described problem and you win....always. Watson isn’t
nearly as well defined as chess, or at least it doesn’t <em>appear</em> to be
as well defined.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXH7jn2AHAw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL">Watching Watson</a>, there is a creepy sort of feeling, probably due to
too many evil AI movies (2001, Terminator, Matrix, etc...). Kids growing
up today will have this sort of technology as the norm. All-in-all, an
interesting series of events to keep watching!</p>
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</div>Bill O'Reilly, Tides, and the God of the Gaps2011-02-15T10:50:00-05:002011-02-15T10:50:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-15:/posts/2011/Feb/15/bill-oreilly-tides-and-the-god-of-the-gaps/<p>The following link is a Bill O’Reilly interview with David Silverman,
President of American Atheists:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XEgkViLbTk&t=1m40s">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XEgkViLbTk&t=1m40s</a></p>
<p>I love the look of …</p><p>The following link is a Bill O’Reilly interview with David Silverman,
President of American Atheists:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XEgkViLbTk&t=1m40s">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XEgkViLbTk&t=1m40s</a></p>
<p>I love the look of shock on David’s face right after the “tides go in,
tides go out, never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that.”. I
think, however, David is completely ineffectual at conveying his point
and looks like a jerk. As a followup, Bill responds to a letter in this
video:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyHzhtARf8M">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyHzhtARf8M</a></p>
<p>Here he concedes that the Moon causes the tides, but then adds a number
of other questions:</p>
<ol>
<li>Where did the Moon come from?</li>
<li>Where did the Sun come from?</li>
<li>There is order in the universe. Where did we, in all of our
intricacies come from?</li>
<li>Why life on this planet and not on the other planets?</li>
</ol>
<p>He states that, given this observed order in the universe, that it takes
more faith to believe this was all luck, rather than in God.</p>
<p>Although many scientists would laugh at these questions, that is the
wrong response. <strong><em>These are reasonable questions!</em></strong> They are ignorant
and (because Bill should have done a bit of research before asking
them), uninformed questions but they are reasonable first-questions one
asks. If one is honest about getting answers (which I don’t think Bill
is), there are ready answers to these direct questions but it seems to
me that the intent of the questions is a bit different.</p>
<p>First he says we can’t explain the tides. So we explain the tides, with
gravity and the Moon. Then he asks “where did the Moon come from?” He
could have just as easily asked “where did gravity come from?”. It is
clear from this line of questioning that there will never be a final
answer to satisfy him. Each time we answer one, there will be concepts
that that one builds on, etc...</p>
<p>This is classic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps">God-of-the-Gaps</a>, but it is something that I think
needs to be dealt with in a more subtle way than David Silverman and
many other atheists seem to do. I think most people, rightly, have a
sense of wonder about the amazing order in the universe. I think most
people immediately attach this order to a creator, the nearest cultural
deity, because they don’t have any alternative: they are not informed.
In order to dissuade them, I don’t think that insulting their deity is
effective because they take that as insulting their sense of wonder, and
then science seems like a sterile, arrogant, unimaginative bully.</p>
<p>We need to find a way to enhance their sense of wonder, and yet
dismantle the notion that this requires some external deity. We need to
keep the spirituality, as a secular notion espoused by Carl Sagan, Sam
Harris and others, because that is what is really driving the issues for
most people and we need to push the use of the deity farther and farther
away from daily life. Science has to be seen as a creative endeavor, one
which fully respects the wonder and awe we all see and feel as we ponder
the universe.</p>
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</div>Why I Can't Support the Darwin Day Resolution2011-02-12T17:12:00-05:002011-02-12T17:12:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-12:/posts/2011/Feb/12/why-i-cant-support-the-darwin-day-resolution/<p>So I received a <a href="http://www.project-reason.org/newsfeed/item/support_the_darwin_day_resolution_in_congress">tweet asking for support for the Darwin Day
Resolution</a>.</p>
<p>The full text of the resolution is here:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Expressing support for designation of February 12, 2011, as …</p></blockquote><p>So I received a <a href="http://www.project-reason.org/newsfeed/item/support_the_darwin_day_resolution_in_congress">tweet asking for support for the Darwin Day
Resolution</a>.</p>
<p>The full text of the resolution is here:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Expressing support for designation of February 12, 2011, as Darwin Day
and recognizing the importance of science in the betterment of
humanity.<br>
Whereas Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by the mechanism of
natural selection, together with the monumental amount of scientific
evidence he compiled to support it, provides humanity with a logical
and intellectually compelling explanation for the diversity of life on
Earth;<br>
Whereas the validity of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural
selection is further strongly supported by the modern understanding of
the science of genetics;<br>
Whereas it has been the human curiosity and ingenuity exemplified by
Darwin that has promoted new scientific discoveries that have helped
humanity solve many problems and improve living conditions;<br>
Whereas the advancement of science must be protected from those
unconcerned with the adverse impacts of global warming and climate
change;<br>
Whereas the teaching of creationism in some public schools compromises
the scientific and academic integrity of the United States’ education
systems;<br>
Whereas Charles Darwin is a worthy symbol of scientific advancement on
which to focus and around which to build a global celebration of
science and humanity intended to promote a common bond among all of
Earth’s peoples; and<br>
Whereas, February 12, 2011, is the anniversary of the birth of Charles
Darwin in 1809 and would be an appropriate date to designate as Darwin
Day: Now, therefore, be it<br>
Resolved, That the House of Representatives—<br>
(1) supports the designation of Darwin Day; and<br>
(2) recognizes Charles Darwin as a worthy symbol on which to celebrate
the achievements of reason, science, and the advancement of human
knowledge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was reading it with some interest, but then I get to the part about
“the adverse impacts of global warming and climate change”. Why is
climate change in there? There are so many obvious, uncontroversial
topics directly related to evolution in medicine, pharmaceuticals,
ecology, physiology, etc... that it seems to be both irrelevant and
counterproductive to include it. Sure, the climate change folks think
that denying it is like denying the holocaust or denying evolution, but
it really isn’t nearly at that level. There are not the number of
independent investigations and data supporting man-influenced climate
change as there are for either evolution or the holocaust, even if the
science were completely unambiguous on the topic (which it isn’t). To
conflate the two is a serious tactical mistake, and a serious scientific
mistake.</p>
<p>Although I support Darwin Day, I can’t support this resolution because
of this ridiculous add-on.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>The world is flat!2011-02-11T16:52:00-05:002011-02-11T16:52:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-02-11:/posts/2011/Feb/11/the-world-is-flat/<p>So, I was listening to a Cosmos episode when <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8cbIWMv0rI">Carl Sagan described the
method that Eratosthenes</a> used to calculate the circumference of the
Earth. He stated that, on a flat …</p><p>So, I was listening to a Cosmos episode when <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8cbIWMv0rI">Carl Sagan described the
method that Eratosthenes</a> used to calculate the circumference of the
Earth. He stated that, on a flat Earth, with the light from a far-away
object like the Sun all shadows would be the same length. Seeing
different-length shadows, as Eratosthenes did in his famous Summer
Solstice observation, allows you to infer curvature. But the big
assumption here is that the light is coming from very far away. If we
had a flat Earth, it is easy to set up a situation where the Sun,
directly overhead in some place, casts a 7 degree angle 800 km away as
Eratosthenes observed.</p>
<p><img alt="Untitled-2011-02-11-11-52.png" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TVVuG09A25I/AAAAAAAAIbE/SdwPrven2eQ/Untitled-2011-02-11-11-52.png"></p>
<p>This simple arrangement results in a distance to the Sun of about 6500
km. The world is flat!</p>
<p>So, we have two different explanations of the observations. How do we
distinguish between them? Answer: the way it is always done in science -
spin out the consequences of each, and make predictions where they
disagree.</p>
<p>It is easy to show that continuing this calculation would result in some
striking predictions. First, given this distance, and the fact that
shadows change over the day, the apparent size of the Sun would be very
different from one location and another...and it is never observed to be
different, even across years. This suggests a very distant Sun. Further,
you’d have to make sure that the Moon was closer than the Sun (inferred
from eclipses) in both models. Once you do this, then you have <em>two</em>
objects with the apparent size problem in the flat-Earth model, again
not supported by observation. There are probably many other predictions
this model makes which could easily have been verified by the ancients,
so it is no surprise that they did not consider it in their
calculations.</p>
<p>It is useful, however, to think about the consequences of models beyond
the data they agree with.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>A modest proposal about uncertainty2011-01-29T16:35:00-05:002011-01-29T16:35:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-01-29:/posts/2011/Jan/29/a-modest-proposal-about-uncertainty/<p>Joan Roughgarden in <a href="http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival">Beyond Belief</a> made a very astute observation of
a problem, and then proposed a lousy solution to it. The problem she was
addressing had to do with …</p><p>Joan Roughgarden in <a href="http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival">Beyond Belief</a> made a very astute observation of
a problem, and then proposed a lousy solution to it. The problem she was
addressing had to do with the public perception of evolution as
something quite uncertain scientifically (“theory vs fact”). She
observed that the public sees science changing its stance on many
things, especially in medicine. One day, you should eat bran. The next,
bran is bad for you. The next, bran is good for you again. As a result
the public observes that <em>some</em> sciences are uncertain, and can’t
distinguish one field from another or one type of claim from another, so
they apply doubt to <em>all</em> of science even when it is not warranted by
the science. Her solution involves using religious analogies,
interpreting phrases in the Bible to explain things like natural
selection and mutations, in order to communicate it to a group of people
who share and value that vocabulary. Dawkins rightly chews her out for
this approach, pointing out how far she is stretching the meaning of the
phrases just to fit her philosophy.</p>
<p>The problem she is stating, however, is quite real. How can we expect
the public to make decisions about medicine, global warming, evolution,
the big bang, etc... when they (somewhat rightly, somewhat wrongly)
observe that the scientists themselves are arguing about it? The
Intelligent Design folks are currently using this observation to sow
doubt with the public in their efforts to “teach the controversy” of
evolution to inject creationism into the schools. It is a failure of the
scientists, and the media that covers them, to communicate with the
public. Can we do better?</p>
<p>I have a proposal, which I’ll sketch out in a toy example. The problem
is not the communication of facts, or even of the procedures of science.
The problem is with the communication of <em>uncertainties</em>. In day to day
life, we easily handle claims with different levels of uncertainties.
The sun rises in the east each morning has low uncertainty. The claims
of the auto salesman or the politician have higher uncertainty.
Quantifying it is, of course, more challenging but the qualitative
features of uncertainty are known to nearly everyone. So scientists and
journalists really need to take efforts to communicate the uncertainty
of every claim, not just the fact of the claim or how the new
observations differ from the old observations. How could this be done? I
think, at least roughly, one should include a plot of the probability
distribution with any claim. One doesn’t need to know advanced math to
see the picture. If every claim is accompanied by a plot of the
uncertainties, the public will get used to reading them. Let me
demonstrate with a toy example.</p>
<p>Say, I am trying to determine the origin year of homo sapiens. I realize
there isn’t just one year, and there is a process, but it is not much
harder to include those in this simple analysis. I have several homo
sapiens fossils where I’ve measured the age, which allows me to
calculate my best guess of the age, and the distribution of my
uncertainty shown here.</p>
<p><img alt="blah2-2011-01-29-11-35.png" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TURPTliAviI/AAAAAAAAIa4/CfFYIxijoUw/blah2-2011-01-29-11-35.png"></p>
<p>I’ve used a normal, Gaussian, distribution here although in fact it
probably should be something skewed left and probably a lot flatter to
reflect our greater uncertainty with age, and that we have other
observations that put confident lower limits on the origin of homo
sapiens. Again, the details aren’t important because all attempts at
clarifying the distribution only further help with communicating the
uncertainty to the public. A few observations are in order here:</p>
<ol>
<li>there are many possible values for the origin that lie well outside
of our data yet have non-zero probability</li>
<li>Our “best guess” is around the middle of this distribution, but it
really can’t be interpreted as “homo sapiens originated 250,000
years ago” as it might read in a newspaper</li>
</ol>
<p>Now, we have a new paper that adds another fossil much older than than
the previous ones, around 340000 years ago. Newspapers may claim “origin
of homo sapiens 150% older than originally thought”, or “estimates of
the origin of humans overthrown by new data”. How might it look with the
uncertainties plotted?</p>
<p><img alt="blah3-2011-01-29-11-35.png" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TURPUQuuLWI/AAAAAAAAIa8/Aw9Zwx60JR4/blah3-2011-01-29-11-35.png"></p>
<p>There are a number of lessons that can be read from this.</p>
<ol>
<li>the new data updates our “best estimate” by only a little - the old
data, combined with the new data, are used for the estimate</li>
<li>our uncertainties have widened - by having a larger range of data,
our uncertainties may have increased with new data.</li>
</ol>
<p>In reality, estimating an origin (first event) will update a bit
differently than this example shows. For example, the uncertainties in
the right-half of the distribution may not be affected at all by an
older observation. If this data were in medicine, however, and we were
estimating the effect of some new treatment, then the update would be
very similar. A single result of a strong effect may not increase our
best estimate for that effect by a huge amount. The uncertainties in
many medical treatments, or dietary recommendations, straddle the
origin: there is significant probability for <em>no effect</em>. It would be
fruitful to see the plot of uncertainties, pushed a little this way and
that, updated in perhaps a wiki style by scientists as new data come in.
There would be many lessons, all of which would help the public
understanding of science.</p>
<ol>
<li>observations rarely overturn well-supported scientific understanding</li>
<li>not all topics have equal uncertainties - doubting everything the
same amount is not rational</li>
<li>certainty is never an option, but sometimes the uncertainty is so
low that there is a practical certainty</li>
<li>nature itself, not authority, determines our best guess and some of
our uncertainty</li>
<li>if the thing you are measuring has a small effect, then you should
expect a series of measurements of the effect to change sign: bran
is good, bran is bad, bran is good, etc.... This doesn’t mean that
the scientists are waffling, it only means that the effect is small
and difficult to detect - and probably meaningless.</li>
</ol>
<p>I think the public could learn to, at least qualitatively, understand
and use plots like these. Perhaps there is a better way to display it
that does not do violence to the truth, and I’d be open to that. I think
getting in the habit of making plots like this would be good for the
scientist as well, forcing them to address and communicate the actual
uncertainties in their claims.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>The Economics of Religion: More good than harm?2011-01-29T14:14:00-05:002011-01-29T14:14:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-01-29:/posts/2011/Jan/29/the-economics-of-religion-more-good-than-harm/<p>There are some that argue that religion should be eliminated because of
all of the harm it does, such as the suicide bombings, honor killings,
the Inquisition, etc... This includes …</p><p>There are some that argue that religion should be eliminated because of
all of the harm it does, such as the suicide bombings, honor killings,
the Inquisition, etc... This includes the “New Atheists”, like Sam
Harris and Richard Dawkins. Others counter that this one-sided
perspective ignores all of the good that religion does, such as support
for people when they are ill, the donations to natural disaster funds,
etc... They argue that religion does more good than harm. This sort of
argument is used in economics, and is similar (although not identical
to) a cost-benefit analysis. One can focus on, for example, the harm
that cars bring in pollution and pavement like environmentalists do or
one can focus on the benefits of cars like the access to better health
care, the allowance of critical population densities to support
significant industries like the industry reps would do. An economist
would then weigh both sides, benefits minus costs, and see which to
prefer.</p>
<p>In order to do this with religion one cannot simply take the good of
religion subtract the bad, come up with a positive number, and say that
religion is a benefit to society. It’s like saying that the treatment
for the measles is two aspirin and some juice resulting in more cases of
recovery than death and saying that we shouldn’t replace this treatment
with something else. As is turns out, for the measles, a vaccine will
prevent nearly all contractions of the disease, and virtually all
deaths.</p>
<p>If we replace religion with a rational perspective (as Sam Harris
proposes), which includes a respect for spiritual experiences but not
the supernatural explanations of them, then it may be that we
essentially vaccinate people against such behavior as suicide bombings,
honor killings and inquisitions.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Rounds in Australian Open2011-01-19T14:00:00-05:002011-01-19T14:00:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-01-19:/posts/2011/Jan/19/rounds-in-australian-open/<p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2011/01/predictions-for-australian-open.html">previous post</a>, I included predictions for Round 1 of the
Australian Open. I am posting the next Rounds' predictions here.</p>
<h2 id="round-2">Round 2</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
Upper
</td>
<td>
Lower
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
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[![]][]
</div>
</td>
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[![1]][]
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h2 id="round-3-given-jan-20-2011">Round 3 - Given …</h2><p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2011/01/predictions-for-australian-open.html">previous post</a>, I included predictions for Round 1 of the
Australian Open. I am posting the next Rounds' predictions here.</p>
<h2 id="round-2">Round 2</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
Upper
</td>
<td>
Lower
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;">
[![]][]
</div>
</td>
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[![1]][]
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h2 id="round-3-given-jan-20-2011">Round 3 - Given Jan 20, 2011</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
Upper
</td>
<td>
Lower
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;">
[![2]][]
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</div>
<p>[<img alt="" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/upper3.png?w=73">]: http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/upper3.png</p>
<p>[<img alt="1" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/lower1.png?w=70">]: http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/lower1.png</p>
<p>[<img alt="2" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/upper.png?w=73">]: http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/upper.png</p>
<p>[<img alt="3" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/lower2.png?w=67">]: http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/lower2.png</p>Predictions for the Australian Open2011-01-18T23:53:00-05:002011-01-18T23:53:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-01-18:/posts/2011/Jan/18/predictions-for-the-australian-open/<p>I am not really into sports, but a student of mine is doing a project on
developing an automated system for predicting professional tennis
matches. We are posting his system's …</p><p>I am not really into sports, but a student of mine is doing a project on
developing an automated system for predicting professional tennis
matches. We are posting his system's predictions for the <a href="http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/index.html">Australian
Open</a>. I'll post more, before each round as the results come in. I
just want the predictions to come before the events! (I'm a bit late for
that, but I did receive the file two days ago. :) ). How well does it
do? You'll have to stay tuned!</p>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
Upper
</td>
<td>
Lower
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
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[![]][]
</div>
<p>
</td>
<td>
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</td>
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</table>
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</div>
<p>[<img alt="" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/upper31.png?w=78">]: http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/upper31.png</p>
<p>[<img alt="1" src="http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/lower.png?w=72">]: http://brianblais.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/lower.png</p>Religion, Science, and Humility2011-01-14T17:23:00-05:002011-01-14T17:23:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-01-14:/posts/2011/Jan/14/religion-science-and-humility/<p>I've been listening to the <a href="http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival">"Beyond Belief"</a> workshop, where many very
bright people discuss the role of science and religion in society. I
need to go back and re-listen to …</p><p>I've been listening to the <a href="http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival">"Beyond Belief"</a> workshop, where many very
bright people discuss the role of science and religion in society. I
need to go back and re-listen to some of them, but I was struck by the
attached clip from the very end of <a href="http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/beyond-belief-science-religion-reason-and-survival/session-4-1">Session 4</a>.</p>
<p>In this 5-minute audio clip, <a href="http://dmschreiber.ucsd.edu/">Darren Schreiber</a>, UCSD Political
Science, make the point that science shows little humility. He
continues to claim that his religion is what motivates him for humility,
to face the unknown with a humble, searching perspective.</p>
<p>His comments are followed up by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Druyan">Ann Druyan</a>, the wife of the late
Carl Sagan, in which she essentially says that science and its methods
promote the utmost humility. We are not afforded absolute truths, and
if whatever knowledge that we are most confident in gets disproved then
science will give its highest honor to the person disproving it. She
points out that science brings us out of a childish narcissism, a key
part of nearly all religions, which demands that we are central to the
universe.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=https://sites.google.com/site/bblais/AnnDruyanResponds.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1">http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=https://sites.google.com/site/bblais/AnnDruyanResponds.mp3?attredirects=0&d=1</a></p>
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</div>Francis Collins, Science and Religion: How Religion Halts Science2011-01-10T13:50:00-05:002011-01-10T13:50:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2011-01-10:/posts/2011/Jan/10/francis-collins-science-and-religion-how-religion-halts-science/<p>In reading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins">Francis Collins</a>' book, "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=zEi09x2AX9sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=francis+collins&source=bl&ots=5MUrbs9j10&sig=Q23pHhZF99OyAivC2x82zY_Qaco&hl=en&ei=ZQorTYO6IIH7lwem-NTjAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Language of God</a>", I was
struck by the way in which the religious claims enter into the
scientific discussion. There were three main arguments …</p><p>In reading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins">Francis Collins</a>' book, "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=zEi09x2AX9sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=francis+collins&source=bl&ots=5MUrbs9j10&sig=Q23pHhZF99OyAivC2x82zY_Qaco&hl=en&ei=ZQorTYO6IIH7lwem-NTjAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Language of God</a>", I was
struck by the way in which the religious claims enter into the
scientific discussion. There were three main arguments that he used:</p>
<ol>
<li>The parameters of the universe (e.g. speed of light, gravitational
constant, etc...) are extremely finely tuned for the support of
living beings, and is unexplainable through science</li>
<li>Our sense of morality (especially pure altruism) is unexplainable
from the perspective of evolution</li>
<li>Our universal longing for God is unexplainable from the perspective
of evolution and rational thought</li>
</ol>
<p>Each of the arguments has the same form: "I don't know how to currently
explain something, therefore it is unexplainable in principle, therefore
there must be a God." Taken to its extreme, we can find Colbert's
summary<a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/370183/january-06-2011/bill-o-reilly-proves-god-s-existence---neil-degrasse-tyson">"There must be a God, because I don't know how things work."</a>
particularly appropriate.</p>
<p>It's really a bold religious statement, ironically full of the arrogance
that religious people often attribute to scientists. By saying that our
current knowledge cannot explain something, therefore it can never be
explained, is stating that you know better than all other future
generations of people.</p>
<p>The problem with the statements, however, is not the arrogance. It is
that they are show-stoppers: once you make the claim that something is
unexplainable, then you stop looking. So-called Intelligence Design
suffers from the same problem: by saying that a designer is needed to
create the stated irreducibly complex mechanisms, then there is no use
in searching for an explanation. It stops science, stops curiosity,
stops investigation.</p>
<p>These types of arguments, then, are not just wrong they are dangerous
because they stop the types of inquiry that could possibly show that
they are wrong. In this way, they have a tendency to protect themselves
in the world of memes.</p>
<p>I am not saying that we have answers to points 1-3 above (although I
think we have some very good ideas at least for 2 and 3), but to go from
ignorance to "God must have done it" is extremely sloppy logic, if it
can be called logic at all.</p>
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</div>A Moral Argument for God2010-12-30T15:53:00-05:002010-12-30T15:53:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-12-30:/posts/2010/Dec/30/a-moral-argument-for-god/<p>I recently listened to an <a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/dr_francis_collins_the_language_of_god/">interview with Francis Collins</a> on Point of
Inquiry, concerning his book <em>The Language of God: A Scientist Presents
Evidence for Belief</em>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins">Francis Collins</a> is an …</p><p>I recently listened to an <a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/dr_francis_collins_the_language_of_god/">interview with Francis Collins</a> on Point of
Inquiry, concerning his book <em>The Language of God: A Scientist Presents
Evidence for Belief</em>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins">Francis Collins</a> is an icon of the "scientist
who is also Christian" (along with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_R._Miller">Ken Miller</a>). He's a converted
atheist, now evangelical Christian, but is pro-evolution, director of
the NIH, and the former director of the Human Genome Project. I was
immediately struck by two things:</p>
<ol>
<li>he was converted to Christianity primarily by the arguments in <em>Mere
Christianity</em>, by C.S.Lewis. In this book, one of the main
arguments centers around the Moral Law, it's universality and
internal (to the human) nature of it. I'll go into that more later.</li>
<li>he is obviously a very smart guy, so his opinions (especially on
evolution) need to be taken seriously (at least once). So when he
claims that the Moral Law cannot be the product of evolution, one
had to at least not write that comment off immediately.</li>
</ol>
<p>So, I went back and read Mere Christianity, which I had done in college
some years back. I had an immediate visceral reaction against it, as he
laid out these philosophical arguments that seemed much more like word
games and bald assertions than anything approaching truth. I admit that
I am steeped in the methods of science, and find arguments that claim
surety yet are not testable to be empty. In reading Francis Collins'
book, I have found that his arguments are essentially identical to
Lewis', but couched in more modern scientific language. (As a footnote,
I was, pleasantly surprised to see that Lewis lumped evolution with
gravitation in describing laws of nature.)</p>
<h2 id="moral-law-and-the-argument-for-god">Moral Law and the Argument for God</h2>
<p>The definition of Moral Law here is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"denunciations of oppression, murder, treachery and falsehood; the
same injunctions of kindness to the aged, the young, and the weak, of
almsgiving and impartiality and honesty" [pg 24, Collins quoting from
Lewis)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The argument for God based on the Moral Law takes on three components.
The three components of the argument are the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Moral Law is <em>universal</em> to all human cultures.</li>
<li>Moral Law includes <em>pure altruistic</em> behavior (think Mother Theresa
or Oskar Shindler here), which cannot be explained by evolution</li>
<li>Moral Law is <em>internal</em> to humans.</li>
</ol>
<p>(There is a fourth point, which Lewis ties specifically to Christianity,
which is that we often choose not to obey this Moral Law. This sets up
the idea of free will, and the idea of sin.)</p>
<p>Why is altruism a problem for evolution? Collins writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Agape, or selfless altruism, presents a major challenge for the
evolutionist. It is quite frankly a scandal to reductionist reasoning.
It cannot be accounted for by the drive of individual selfish genes to
perpetuate themselves. Quite the contrary: it may lead humans to make
sacrifices that lead to great personal suffering, injury, or death,
without any evidence of benefit. And yet, if we carefully examine that
inner voice we sometimes call conscience, the motivation to practice
this kind of love exists within all of us, despite our frequent
efforts to ignore it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He outlines three common evolutionary arguments for the origin of Moral
Law:</p>
<blockquote>
<ol>
<li>One proposal is that repeated altruistic behavior of the
individual is recognized as a positive attribute in mate
selection. But this hypothesis is in direct conflict with
observations in nonhuman primates that often reveal just the
opposite—such as the practice of infanticide by a newly dominant
male monkey, in order to clear the way for his own future
offspring.</li>
<li>Another argument is that there are indirect reciprocal benefits
from altruism that have provided advantages to the practitioner
over evolutionary time; but this explanation cannot account for
human motivation to practice small acts of con- science that no
one else knows about.</li>
<li>A third argument is that altruistic behavior by members of a group
provides benefits to the whole group. Examples are offered of ant
colonies, where sterile workers toil incessantly to create an
environment where their mothers can have more children. But this
kind of "ant altruism" is readily explained in evolutionary terms
by the fact that the genes motivating the sterile worker ants are
exactlythe same ones that will be passed on by their mother to the
siblings they are helping to create. [pg 27-28]</li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
<p>So, if you accept these points, then Collins writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the Law of Human Nature cannot be explained away as cultural
artifact or evolutionary by-product, then how can we account for its
presence? There is truly something unusual going on here. To quote
Lewis, “If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it
could not show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe—no
more than the architect of a house could actually be a wall or
staircase or fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could
expect it to show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or
a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is
just what we do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our
suspicions?”</p>
<p>Encountering this argument at age twenty-six, I was stunned by its
logic. Here, hiding in my own heart as familiar as anything in daily
experience, but now emerging for the first time as a clarifying
principle, this Moral Law shone its bright white light into the
recesses of my childish atheism, and de- manded a serious
consideration of its origin. Was this God looking back at me? [pg 29]</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="an-analogy">An Analogy</h2>
<p>When I read arguments of this sort, especially the last quote from
Lewis, I am offended by the confidence of the language from a totally
flimsy and untestable statement: "The <strong>only</strong> way in which we could
expect [a controlling power] to show itself would be inside ourselves as
an influence or a command trying to get us to behave in a certain way"
[emphasis mine]. Really? How do you get that? How can you test that
claim? How do you know what options are open for a controlling power?
Aren't you already assuming that there is something inside us, beyond
natural law (i.e. dualism), in order for this to be true?</p>
<p>I'd like to propose an analogy. I am not sure how far this will go, and
where it will break down (as all analogies do), but I think it makes a
point. There is a universal law, which I will call the Eating Law.
According to this law we as humans have an internal voice telling us
that we want to eat fatty foods.</p>
<ol>
<li>The Eating Law is <em>universal</em> to all human cultures. We differ on
the specifics, but we all have the voice telling us what we <em>want</em>
to eat (i.e. pringles, Big Macs, etc...)</li>
<li>Eating Law includes <em>pure gluttony as a</em> behavior (think people who
eat themselves to obesity and death) which cannot be explained by
evolution. how could behavior that reduces life expectancy, mating
probability, and health possibly be selected for? There are people
who eat so much they can't even move!</li>
<li>Eating Law is <em>internal</em> to humans. We can look at the eating
behavior, but we'll never be able to observe the actual urge to eat
fatty foods.</li>
<li>We often choose not to follow this law (i.e. we choose to eat salad
instead of Big Macs)</li>
</ol>
<p>This is not simply hunger, which we can see in other animals. It is an
urge to eat, even when you're not hungry, fatty foods. Now, re-read
Lewis:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If there was a controlling power outside the universe, it could not
show itself to us as one of the facts inside the universe—no more than
the architect of a house could actually be a wall or staircase or
fireplace in that house. The only way in which we could expect it to
show itself would be inside ourselves as an influence or a command
trying to get us to behave in a certain way. And that is just what we
do find inside ourselves. Surely this ought to arouse our suspicions?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now, we have <strong><em>two</em></strong> such laws, the Eating Law and the Morality Law.
Which one is the message from the creator? How could we test this? I
could probably come up with more examples of universal tendencies which
take the form of internal messages to humans, but I don't need to.
Coming up with just one is enough to show how this argument is
completely empty.</p>
<p>I am perplexed that someone as smart as Francis Collins can't see this.
I am further perplexed that someone would be "shocked by the logic of
this argument".</p>
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</div>Are Science and Religion Incompatible?2010-12-01T10:59:00-05:002010-12-01T10:59:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-12-01:/posts/2010/Dec/01/are-science-and-religion-incompatible/<p>I've recently found <a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org">pointofinquiry.org</a>, which has a lot of very
interesting talks about science and religion, so it got me thinking
again. Some of the more interesting talks are …</p><p>I've recently found <a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org">pointofinquiry.org</a>, which has a lot of very
interesting talks about science and religion, so it got me thinking
again. Some of the more interesting talks are:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/richard_dawkins_science_and_the_new_atheism/">http://www.pointofinquiry.org/richard_dawkins_science_and_the_new_atheism/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/ann_druyan_carl_sagan_and_the_varieties_of_scientific_experience/">http://www.pointofinquiry.org/ann_druyan_carl_sagan_and_the_varieties_of_scientific_experience/</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.pointofinquiry.org/pz_myers_jennifer_michael_hecht_chris_mooney_new_atheism_or_accommodation/">http://www.pointofinquiry.org/pz_myers_jennifer_michael_hecht_chris_mooney_new_atheism_or_accommodation/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>First off, I need to point out that I am an atheist as well as a
scientist. Did my learning of science undermine my religion (I was
raised Roman Catholic)? Was I jaded about religion before learning
science? Does science promote atheism? These are some of the questions
one needs to consider with respect to these ideas. Given my one data
point, I can only state a correlation, not a cause-and-effect: that as I
got older, and learned more science, I got less religious. However, I
can point out several observations I've made about the interplay between
religion and science. I think some of the hard-line atheists, in their
own personal zeal, make claims about science that are overreaching and
not entirely correct. I also think that the accommodationist
perspective, stating that science is perfectly compatible with religion
is also not correct. Here are my main thoughts.</p>
<h3 id="science-is-in-conflict-with-some-religions">Science <em>is</em> in conflict with some religions</h3>
<p>If you believe that the world is 8000 years old, then you are wrong.
Almost all branches of science, from physics, chemistry, biology and
geology, agree that the Earth is billions of years old. There really is
extremely little wiggle room there. Of course, one can always say that
God made the world <em>appear</em> billions of years old, but in fact it really
is only 8000 years old. If you do that, then you could just as easily
state that the world was made yesterday. Further, it is a challenge to
think of a reason why this deception would be need to be done. Finally,
from a scientific point of view, it is content-free (CF): it makes no
measurable predictions, does not suggest the next measurements to be
done, nor is it testable in any way. Science has demonstrated,
historically, that CF statements have always turned out to be the
equivalent of nothing.</p>
<p>If your religion depends on insisting that the world is 8000 years old,
then science is in direct conflict with it. Those religions that have
put themselves in the cross-hairs of science, by making specific
statements about the universe, are making the error of making the
religion able to be falsified. Historically speaking, this is exactly
what has always happened with testable religious claims: science shows
them to be wrong. The religion then has two choices</p>
<ol>
<li>reject science (usually hypocritically at the same time reaping all
the benefits of science, such as longer life, better health, and
increased technology)</li>
<li>call those statements metaphorical, and remove the testable part of
the religion that was rejected by science</li>
</ol>
<p>Most liberal religious faiths have tended to choose (2). The Catholic
Church, for instance, has a pro-evolutiuon stance and is in-line with
science on many things (a departure from historical behavior). In
choice (2), the Genesis creation story is allegorical and not literal,
and thus not in conflict with modern biology, especially evolution.
They merely state that God had a hand in the process, perhaps, for
example, injecting souls into humans some million years ago. The
conservative religious faiths which believe in the literal Genesis
story, with creation in 7 days about 8000 years ago, try to replace
evolution with creationism (in the form of, so-called, intelligent
design). They are just plain wrong. Further, because they've stated
that their religions depend on evolution being false, they have thus
made it possible for science to demonstrate they are wrong. They have
then created the conflict between their religion and science.</p>
<p>Other religious claims that are testable, and shown to be false,
include:</p>
<ul>
<li>faith healing</li>
<li>intercessory prayer</li>
<li>special creation</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="science-is-not-in-conflict-with-some-other-religionsbut-with-a-caveat" style="font-size:1.17em;">Science <em>is not</em> in conflict with some other religions...but with a caveat</h3>
<p>There are many scientists who are religious. Some relatively famous
modern ones include <a href="http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/">Ken Miller</a>, a Catholic biologist from Brown
University who testified in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District">Dover Evolution vs Intelligent
Design</a> trial, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins_(geneticist)">Francis Collins</a>, the geneticist, and the physicist
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson">Freeman Dyson</a>. In each of these cases, we have to be careful in
defining their belief. Conservative Christians will often point to
highly prominent scientists (such as Albert Einsten) who are religious
as evidence of no conflict between science and religion. However
<strong><em>none</em></strong> of these people support the anti-science agenda of the
conservative Christians, and most believe in a vague, impersonal "God",
such as "God" representing the mystery in the universe. A far cry from
the person-like entity described in the Bible, but by using the same
word (God), these scientists have inadvertently played into the hands of
people who would like to misuse the belief for their own purposes.</p>
<p>What is comes down to, as you look at religious scientists <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/06/religion-and-scientists.html">(which
represent a very small minority)</a>, there are two types:</p>
<ol>
<li>scientists that are in fields far away from the "big-picture"
questions (like, say, material science) and can thus maintain two
opposite viewpoints at the same time. People are very good at
compartmentalizing their thinking.</li>
<li>scientists who have scientifically untestable religious beliefs.
this includes the "God=universe" belief, or some vague spiritual
belief. Ken Miller falls into this category too...when asked
whether Jesus had a Y chromosome (which could test for the virgin
birth, for example), he says that he just doesn't have any data on
that. Even though some of his tests are, in theory, testable they
aren't testable right now and perhaps, practically, never.</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="but-shouldnt-science-stay-out-of-religious-issues-dont-they-speak-about-different-things" style="font-size:1.17em;">But shouldn't science stay out of religious issues? Don't they speak about different things?</h3>
<p>Stephen J. Gould (the great) used to refer to "non-overlapping
magisteria" when speaking about science and religion. Freeman Dyson
refers to science and religion as "two windows that people look through,
trying to understand the big universe outside, trying to understand why
we are here." I have already touched on part of the problem with this:
where religion is <strong>testable</strong>, it has been shown to be <strong>false</strong>. All
that is left are the untestable parts. To me, this content-free
religion is the same as not believing in anything. Perhaps it gives
someone comfort to believe in a vague, impersonal spirit "out there",
but I dislike using the word "God" when referring to the mystery and
wonder of the universe itself. Using this word communicates something
very different to different people, and implies something that I believe
is unwarranted.</p>
<p>Richard Dawkins, in one of the point of inquiry interviews, shows that
this non-overlapping magisteria is really a farce. He puts it this
way...imagine if, at some point, we uncover archeological evidence with
some molecular biology that gave you evidence for, say, the virgin birth
of Jesus. Do you think that the Christian religions in the world would
say, "Oh no! Non-overlaping magisteria! We can't use science to speak
about religious issues!". Of course not! They'd be screaming it from
every church. It's only because there <strong><em>is no evidence for any
religious claims</em></strong>that we posit the non-overlap of religion and
science.</p>
<p>So, in a nut-shell, where religion and science meet, religion either
directly agrees with science (in which case it is redundant) or it is
wrong. Most of the testable religious claims have been shown to be
wrong. Where they don't meet, religion is content-free. If someone
decides to find comfort in that, then that is their issue, and science
can't really speak to it. I just don't find any value in it.</p>
<h3 id="religious-vs-scientific-thinking" style="font-size:1.17em;">Religious vs Scientific Thinking</h3>
<p>At its core, however, religious thinking and scientific thinking are
nearly opposites. Religious thinking relies on anecdotes, statements
from authority, faith without evidence, and mistakes of causation from
correlation. Each of these mistakes arise from common human failings of
reason and perception, for which the scientific methods have been
developed to avoid. To do proper science one does not rely on anecdotes
or authority, other than nature as the final arbiter. Evidence is
everything, and certain knowledge is never achieved in science (as
opposed to religion). So it is no wonder that the more scientific you
are, the less appeal religion tends to have. But it also makes you less
susceptible to the various guises of pseudoscience and less susceptible
to being hoodwinked by cranks and quacks.</p>
<p>It is my opinion, then, that the best remedy for religion is simply to
teach as much science as possible and let the religion problem work
itself out as a result. I don't think that the in-your-face strategies
of the new atheists, such as Dawkins, are particularly effective at
reducing religion. It has a purpose for rallying the troops, bringing
closeted atheists out, so I wouldn't dissuade him from this approach if
he feels that that is the primary outcome he wants. I also don't think
we should compromise and say there is no conflict between science and
religion, which leads to pandering for political reasons with the truth
as a casualty. There <em>are</em> fundamental conflicts between many religions
and science, and those should be pointed out even if it is uncomfortable
for those believers. Science isn't in the business of making people
feel comfortable with their beliefs. Thats the role of religion.</p>
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</div>Is -x^2 positive or negative?2010-11-22T01:29:00-05:002010-11-22T01:29:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-11-22:/posts/2010/Nov/22/is-x2-positive-or-negative/<p>So, is -x^2^ a positive, negative, or undefined quantity for real-valued
x? Ask any physicist or mathematician and they will say that it is a
negative number for real …</p><p>So, is -x^2^ a positive, negative, or undefined quantity for real-valued
x? Ask any physicist or mathematician and they will say that it is a
negative number for real valued x making things like: exp(-x^2^) between
0 and 1. That is why it came as a <strong>BIG</strong> surprise to me that computer
scientists don't think that, and a program like Excel will interpret:</p>
<p>=-5\^2</p>
<p>as <strong><em>positive</em></strong> 25! After taking quite a while debugging a student
problem calculating the normal distribution in Excel, it got me on a
quest (and an argument with a colleague) to figure out who else thought
this way. I checked Matlab, Mathematica, Python, and Google as well as
a calculator on the computer. All interpreted -5\^2 (properly) as -25.
To do otherwise, I believe, is perverse for any application that is
doing mathematical applications. I was directed to <a href="http://www.macnauchtan.com/pub/precedence.html">this page</a>, which
outlines many languages. Pretty much just Excel, COBOL, Chipmunk BASIC
and a few small scripting languages take the "unary minus" approach,
which makes "unary minus" have precedence over exponentiation.</p>
<p>I am not sure why anyone would consider this a good idea, for working
with actual math equations. Of course one could add parentheses, but
which is clearer:</p>
<p>y=exp(-x\^2)</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>y=exp(-(x\^2))</p>
<p>The second is obviously not ambiguous, but less clear. Anyway, that is
the entire reason why we have order of operations, so we don't have to
do:</p>
<p>5+(3*4)-(2*3)+(2*(3\^3))</p>
<p>So, Excel, come into at least the 20th century and figure out that
exponentiation trumps "minus", whatever you want to call it.</p>
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</div>Glenn Beck on Science2010-11-22T01:00:00-05:002010-11-22T01:00:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-11-22:/posts/2010/Nov/22/glenn-beck-on-science/<p>The following audio from a Glenn Beck show is illustrative of many
things. Although he demonstrates incredible ignonance of evolution in
this clip, he makes some good points...they just …</p><p>The following audio from a Glenn Beck show is illustrative of many
things. Although he demonstrates incredible ignonance of evolution in
this clip, he makes some good points...they just aren't the points he
thinks he's making.</p>
<p><a href="http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf">http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/player.swf</a></p>
<p>His main points are the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>"I don't know why it is unreasonable to say this...I'm not God, so I
don't know how God creates...I don't think we came from monkeys...I
think that's ridiculous...I haven't seen a half-monkey-half-person
yet...did evolution just stop?"</li>
<li>"They have to force [the idea of evolution] down your throat...when
anybody has to force it, it's a problem...you didn't have to force
that the world is round...[...]...you don't have to force the
truth..you just keep adding evidence and evidence until it becomes
self-evident."</li>
</ol>
<p>Now, point (1) demonstrates a profound ignorance, willful or otherwise,
of the claims of evolution. First, no biologist says we came from
monkeys...monkeys and people are just as "evolved" as each other, and
that they share a common ancestor which would have both features of
monkey and human. We have many of these transitional fossils (for a
very nice summary see the <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html">Transitional Fossil FAQ</a>). It's really
such an elementary error, that he should be thrown off the air just for
spreading such ignorance.</p>
<p>However, I would like to focus on point (2) which perhaps seems
reasonable: that truth should be self evident, and not have to be
forced. In a way, one might think that science works this way because
everything should be repeatable, and we don't take arguments from
authority. However, there is a problem. Although it is true that the
fact that the world is round did not have to be forced (in contrast to
the bogus propaganda story about Columbus demonstrating it), one does
need to actually <strong>look</strong> at the facts in order to be able to
judge...truth can be self evident but it requires one to actually look
at the evidence. Take evolution, for example. If you look at the
genetic data showing the differences in base-pair counts between
animals, this single number mapped out for all animals demonstrates a
tree structure (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_descent">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_descent</a>
and <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html</a>). Now
recall that Darwin did not know anything about genetics, so this is a
prediction made 50+ years before the measurements. When you actually
look at the evidence for evolution it is absolutely self evident. The
problem is several-fold:</p>
<ol>
<li>people refuse to even look at the evidence, choosing instead to
willfully remain ignorant thinking they understand it.</li>
<li>There is a certain amount of technical information necessary to
understand any science, and that takes work. If you don't want to
do that work then you'll remain ignorant of it. As an extreme
example, quantum mechanics is definitely true, but it neither self
evident nor intuitive (and I don't see conservative talking heads
railing against it)</li>
</ol>
<p>What's the solution? I'm not sure, but challenging people to learn is a
start.</p>
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</div>A walk down memory lane2010-10-16T15:06:00-04:002010-10-16T15:06:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-10-16:/posts/2010/Oct/16/a-walk-down-memory-lane/<p>I just found a page on <a href="http://www.johansens.us/sane/technotes/formula.htm">"How to Find a Formula for a Set of Numbers"</a>.
It's a cool little procedure for taking a series, like:</p>
<p>2, 8, 9, 11 …</p><p>I just found a page on <a href="http://www.johansens.us/sane/technotes/formula.htm">"How to Find a Formula for a Set of Numbers"</a>.
It's a cool little procedure for taking a series, like:</p>
<p>2, 8, 9, 11, 20</p>
<p>and producing a polynomial to give you the next ones in the series,
like:</p>
<p><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span><em>n</em></span><span>^<em>3</em>^</span><span></span><span><em>-
17/2 n</em></span><span>^<em>2</em>^</span><span></span><span><em>+ 49/2 n -
15</em></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span style="font-family:mceinline;">where
n is the term number, starting from n=1. Try it out! Anyway, it was a
method I learned in high school math league, and thought it was so cool
I wrote a BASIC program on the old TRS-80 computers to do it. I had
forgotten how to do it, and it was fun to see it again. I particularly
liked the comment on the page:</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:Helvetica;"><span style="font-family:mceinline;"></p>
<p>"""If someone gives you the sequence, say, "1, 4, 9, 16", you could run
them through the above process and get the answer that the person is
probably looking for: the rule is n^2^ so the next value is 25. But you
could also invent <em>any</em> number as the next number in the sequence, say
42, and come up with a rule for "1, 4, 9, 16, 42". Feel free to work it
out. It comes out to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>17/24 n^4^ - 85/12 n^3^ + 619/24 n^2^ - 425/12 n + 17</p>
</blockquote>
<p><span style="font-family:Times;">and the next term is then 121.</span></p>
<p>So if you want to be obnoxious, the next time you are given a quiz of
"find the next number in the series" problems, just pick any number you
like and fill it in, and you'll be completely correct. You'll probably
get a failing grade on the test, but you can enjoy the smug satisfaction
of knowing you were right."""</p>
<p>I knew a kid who, because of a ridiculous fluke, had to redo some of his
middle-school competency tests in high school. So, when presented with
a series like 2,4,6,8,... he did this on a test (and yes he did fail the
test and have to redo it). He was also shown a number of clocks, and
asked what time does this show, and for all of the answers put "analog
time".</p>
<p></span></span></p>
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</div>Power UnBalance2010-10-08T12:56:00-04:002010-10-08T12:56:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-10-08:/posts/2010/Oct/08/power-unbalance/<p>I love watching infomercials, but always wonder how much the sellers are
exaggerating. Take this infomercial for the "Power Balance" bracelet,
which is claimed to increase balance and coordination:</p>
<p>[http …</p><p>I love watching infomercials, but always wonder how much the sellers are
exaggerating. Take this infomercial for the "Power Balance" bracelet,
which is claimed to increase balance and coordination:</p>
<p>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Ow-ZGMy5o]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6965073194684424505-4694891311959802483?l=bblais.blogspot.com"></a></p>
<p>Now, go to this link which shows you how it <strong>actually</strong> works:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piu75P8sxTo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Piu75P8sxTo</a></p>
<p>Make sure to watch the whole thing, because they give away the "trick"
near the middle. It is useful to go back afterward and watch the first
one, now that you know the trick.</p>
<p>The real question, then, is: what should you do if you know a friend is
considering buying this, or worse, has already bought it? When I showed
these videos in my class, I was told that the football team had
purchased them already. When some of my students presented them with
the evidence, their response was that they didn't care whether it worked
or not.</p>
<p>Astounding!</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>About2010-09-27T13:31:00-04:002010-09-27T13:31:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-09-27:/posts/2010/Sep/27/about/<p>I am a professor of Science and Technology at Bryant University in
Smithfield, RI, and a research professor in the Institute for Brain and
Neural Systems, Brown University. My research …</p><p>I am a professor of Science and Technology at Bryant University in
Smithfield, RI, and a research professor in the Institute for Brain and
Neural Systems, Brown University. My research is in computational
neuroscience and statistics. I teach physics, meteorology, astonomy,
theoretical neuroscience, systems dynamics, artificial intelligence and
robotics. My book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Cortical-Plasticity-Leon-Cooper/dp/9812387919">"Theory of Cortical Plasticity" (World Scientific,
2004)</a>, details a theory of learning and memory in the cortex, and
presents the consequences and predictions of the theory. I am an avid
enthusiast of <a href="http://www.python.org">Python (the programming language)</a> , a <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/">Bayesian</a> (a
la <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/etj.html">E. T. Jaynes</a>), and love music.</p>Multiple Model Comparisons Revisited2010-09-25T17:51:00-04:002010-09-25T17:51:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-09-25:/posts/2010/Sep/25/multiple-model-comparisons-revisited/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/08/non-psychic-octopus.html">previous post</a>, I hinted at how to do multiple hypotheses
testing, using the ψ-measure. It turns out to be much clearer just using
the posterior probabilities. The …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/08/non-psychic-octopus.html">previous post</a>, I hinted at how to do multiple hypotheses
testing, using the ψ-measure. It turns out to be much clearer just using
the posterior probabilities. The ψ-measure has a nice intuitive feel for
the two-hypothesis case, but becomes convoluted in the multiple
hyptheses case. Further, when introducing the application of Bayes
theorem for students, I have found it to be clearer to follow the
following procedure. We first look at Bayes theorem directly, for N
hypotheses:</p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ5YNmoEK4I/AAAAAAAAHfo/gKieBjr683c/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p>We then calculate the numerator only, for every possible hypothesis:</p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ5YOPUek-I/AAAAAAAAHfs/wSasTJWi2Bg/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p>calculate the sum of all of these values,</p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ5YOoIiclI/AAAAAAAAHfw/HQG0j1F485s/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p>and then normalize</p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ5YPYViTVI/AAAAAAAAHf0/6nw8HOnTST0/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<h2 id="the-octopus-again" style="font-size:1.5em;">The Octopus, Again</h2>
<p>From the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus">Wikipedia article</a>, we have the following data:, which gave
us correct=12 out of N=14:</p>
<p>  <img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ6HJQDMLoI/AAAAAAAAHgU/7s7pJo6yOLM/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ6HKXtkmxI/AAAAAAAAHgY/eUYF0y0zaPg/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ6HK6T5AAI/AAAAAAAAHgc/IL4X8FZuPME/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p>The hypotheses that we consider are the following:</p>
<p>H = “Octopus is psychic, and can predict future (sports) events with 90%
accuracy” R = “Octopus makes random choices” Y = “chooses flags with big
yellow stripes 90% of the time” G = “chooses Germany 90% of the time”</p>
<p>Notice that both models Y and G, give us correct=12 for N=14 (if the
“choosing Germany” chooses Spain in the Netherlands match, because of
the similarity). The prior for the psychic octopus is, again, the very
generous p(H) = 1/100. The two other non-random models should be more
likely, before any data, so I take them to be p(Y)=p(G)=1/20. The random
model, being the most likely, has the rest of the prior probability,
p(R)=0.89.</p>
<p>Now we calculate the numerators:</p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ6IJdKKCZI/AAAAAAAAHgo/SByKieJwf64/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p>Sum the values,</p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ6IKDPTUxI/AAAAAAAAHgs/_waIBc1-gQQ/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p>and divide. achieving</p>
<p><img alt="NewImage.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TJ6IKtoEjnI/AAAAAAAAHgw/DACIjf9GoiI/NewImage.jpg?imgmax=800" title="NewImage.jpg"></p>
<p>Thus, the two flag models went from being rare compared to random to
being much more likely than random, and certainly much more likely than
psychic. Bayes theorem, properly applied, is a quantitative embodiment
of Carl Sagan’s famous quote “extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence”. It is not just that the evidence must be extraordinary (like
999 correct out of 1000), but the evidence must be extraordinary to
address all of the, somewhat rare but possible, hypotheses that would
come up as much more likely given the initial result. The process of
science is to perform experiments to address these alternative
hypotheses.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>God and Hawking2010-09-12T16:44:00-04:002010-09-12T16:44:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-09-12:/posts/2010/Sep/12/god-and-hawking/<p><span style="color:rgb(7,31,155);">From the book “The Grand Design” By
STEPHEN HAWKING And LEONARD MLODINOW<br>
</span><br>
....<br>
<span style="color:rgb(7,31,155);">Newton believed that our strangely
habitable solar system did not "arise out of chaos by the mere laws …</span></p><p><span style="color:rgb(7,31,155);">From the book “The Grand Design” By
STEPHEN HAWKING And LEONARD MLODINOW<br>
</span><br>
....<br>
<span style="color:rgb(7,31,155);">Newton believed that our strangely
habitable solar system did not "arise out of chaos by the mere laws of
nature." Instead, he maintained that the order in the universe was
"created by God at first and conserved by him to this Day in the same
state and condition."</p>
<p></span>....</p>
<p>The press is pitching this book as a denial of God, claiming that
Hawking has said that God does not exist. The media never seem to get
the nuances of logical thinking, and its consequences.</p>
<p>What Hawking and Mlodinow are doing is a modernization of an approach
used by Laplace (1749-1827).
He worked on many things, including the dynamics of the solar system.
When Newton published his laws of dynamics 100 years earlier, he demonstrated that
the speeds of the planets could be derived from a simple law of gravity.
In this way, Newton connected the Earthly things with the "Heavenly"
things. However, it was unclear to Newton whether the orbits of the
planets would remain constant (as his religious philosophy would state),
or if they would be unstable, change, and possibly fly apart given
enough time. He posited that one of the roles of God would be to nudge
the planets, here and there, to keep their orbits stable.</p>
<p>Laplace, performing his calculations more precisely than his
predecessors, was able to determine that the orbits would in fact be
stable, without any extra tinkering. Napoleon, when presented with the
work of Laplace, asked him: "M. Laplace, they tell me you have written
this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even
mentioned its Creator." Laplace replied, "I had no need of that
hypothesis."</p>
<p>He did not say that there was no God (although that is what he
believed), but that the concept of God was not necessary to explain the
things that he was explaining using physics. This included the
formation of the solar system from a compressing ball of gas (due to
gravity), which then forms the Sun in the center and the planets
orbiting around. This is essentially the model still in use today!</p>
<p>What Hawking is doing is basically the same thing, but with the origin
of the universe. Essentially the current model allows for the
possibility of many universes to simultaneously exist and that, like a
lottery winner, our universe supports life. It may seem that the
universe is "fine-tuned" to support human life, and that this would
support the notion of an intelligent designer, Hawking is making the
argument that a designer is not needed with our current understanding.
Like a lottery winner stating that the odds of winning are
astronomical, and yet they won, and then reasoning that there was some
design in this choice even when there wasn't. As long as you have
enough people playing (or enough universes) you'll eventually observe
the unlikely, and that unlikely winner will feel singled out. Hawking
argues that the lottery winner (the life on Earth), is arguing the same
way when it invokes a designer when it doesn't need to. Hawking doesn't
state "God doesn't exist", because that statement cannot be proven, but
he simply states that it is an unnecessary hypothesis for the
understanding of the origin of the universe.</p>
<p>Of course, *specific* Gods can be disproven. For example, it is clear
from many lines of evidence that the Earth is more the 6000 years old
and that there never was a global flood. However, you cannot disprove
the notion of a God that creates the universe and is then hands-off,
like deists commonly believe. It is completely untestable. It is also
unnecessary, according to Hawking. This doesn't make it wrong, it is
just unnecessary in the same way that we don't need to invoke the divine
when understanding how an apple falls from a tree.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Why pseudoscientists like the chi-square test (and why it shouldn't be taught)2010-09-01T17:10:00-04:002010-09-01T17:10:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-09-01:/posts/2010/Sep/01/why-pseudoscientists-like-the-chi-square-test-and-why-it-shouldnt-be-taught/<p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/08/orthodox-statistics-conducive-to-pseudo.html">prior post</a> I outlined how orthodox statistics can lead to the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma">either-or logical fallacies</a> common in pseudoscience, like astrology
and ufo-ology.</p>
<p>In this post I focus on the …</p><p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/08/orthodox-statistics-conducive-to-pseudo.html">prior post</a> I outlined how orthodox statistics can lead to the
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma">either-or logical fallacies</a> common in pseudoscience, like astrology
and ufo-ology.</p>
<p>In this post I focus on the &chi^2^ test, it's pathologies, and why it
is so useful for a pseudoscientist. The example is lifted from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Probability-Theory-Logic-Science-Vol/dp/0521592712/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1283295597&sr=8-1">E. T.
Jaynes' book "Probability Theory"</a></p>
<p>The two problems with &chi^2^ are:</p>
<ol>
<li>it violates your strong intuition in some simple cases</li>
<li>it can lead to different results with the exact same data, binned in
a different way</li>
</ol>
<p>Both of these properties are useful to the pseudoscientist.</p>
<h2 id="intuition-and-chi-square-the-three-sided-coin">Intuition and Chi-square: The Three-sided coin</h2>
<p>In each of this case we will have some data, and two models to compare
which try to explain the data. Intuition strongly favors one, and
&chi^2^ favors the other. One of my favorite problems is the
<a href="http://pubs.amstat.org/doi/abs/10.1198/000313007X222497">three-sided coin</a>: where the coin can fall heads, tails, or on the
edge. Imagine we have two models for a relatively thick coin:</p>
<ul>
<li>Model A: p~heads~=p~tails~=0.499, p~edge~=0.002</li>
<li>Model B: p~heads~=p~tails~=p~edge~=1/3</li>
</ul>
<p>And we have the following data:</p>
<ul>
<li>N=29: n~heads~=14, n~tails~=14, n~edge~=1</li>
</ul>
<p>Which model are you more confident in? Model A of course! If we use the
&psi-measure for goodness of fit with these two models, as defined in
<a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/08/orthodox-statistics-conducive-to-pseudo.html">my prior post</a>, then we have (remember: smaller &psi means
more confident in the fit, just like smaller &chi^2^):</p>
<p><img alt="E7E94805-9E10-451E-9B95-C8EB2BA875C7.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH2VC6WKxkI/AAAAAAAAGiQ/YjW0NbJ0SsI/E7E94805-9E10-451E-9B95-C8EB2BA875C7.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p><img alt="7AFD29D5-C801-416E-82AC-F9B363147B22.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH4gCkRSb0I/AAAAAAAAGiY/8M8QyPr1vlM/7AFD29D5-C801-416E-82AC-F9B363147B22.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>with &psi~B~-&psi~A~=26.85 which makes model A more then 100 times more
likely than model B (a &psi difference of 20 would be exactly 100
times). Perfectly reasonable. What about &chi^2^?</p>
<p><img alt="31844A12-1F3E-4D51-B2D0-EFAE00BE66A7.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH2QNPSVmjI/AAAAAAAAGiI/CP3fa-MJ7Vc/31844A12-1F3E-4D51-B2D0-EFAE00BE66A7.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>which makes model B slightly preferable to model A! Amazing! Where is
this coming from? Apparently it is coming from the somewhat rare event
of an edge-landing. If our data had been instead</p>
<ul>
<li>N=29: n~heads~=15, n~tails~=14, n~edge~=0</li>
</ul>
<p>then we'd have</p>
<ul>
<li>&psi~A~=0.3</li>
<li>&psi~B~=51.2</li>
</ul>
<p>and</p>
<ul>
<li>&chi^2^~A~=0.093</li>
<li>&chi^2^~B~=14.55</li>
</ul>
<p>where now both measures agree that model A is superior.</p>
<table align="center" width="50%">
<tr>
<td>
**Why do pseudoscientists love the &chi^2^ test?**
</td>
</tr>
<p>
<tr>
<td>
*Answer 1: Because all they need to do is wait for that inevitable,
somewhat rare but still possible, data point and &chi^2^ yields a
pathologically high value*
</td>
</tr>
<p>
</table>
<h2 id="the-psi-measure-and-log-likelihood">The &psi-measure and log-likelihood</h2>
<p>To understand the other problem with the &chi^2^ test we need to
understand what the &psi-measure is doing. As above, imagine we have a
set of observations O~i~. We define the total number of observed points
and the relative frequency of each observation,</p>
<p><img alt="23229268-8820-42F8-BF8C-C984679DCB51.jpg" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH58MuJZOPI/AAAAAAAAGig/FET0c4rhfxg/23229268-8820-42F8-BF8C-C984679DCB51.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>The maximum likelihood solution for the probabilities of observing O~i~
for each class, i, is just the relative frequency of each observation.
This is the "just-so" solution, where we estimate the probability of
seeing 14 heads in 29 flips as p=14/29. This "just-so" solution will
have the closest match, and the highest likelihood (by definition). If
we have a model which specifies a different set of probabilities for
each class, then it's likelihood is simply</p>
<p><img alt="71272C22-E8B6-4497-82DF-FBDD89729630.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH59WfaMs4I/AAAAAAAAGio/YErvCX24kpc/71272C22-E8B6-4497-82DF-FBDD89729630.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>The &psi measure can be rewritten as</p>
<p><img alt="B363F3D7-1964-421A-A8E2-B19020D0117A.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH6KOVWBbAI/AAAAAAAAGi4/nM4i1qXTzHM/B363F3D7-1964-421A-A8E2-B19020D0117A.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>So you can think of the &psi-measure as comparing a model with the
"just-so" solution (which has maximum likelihood). Further, subtracting
one value of &psi with another (for different models) performs the
log-likelihood ratio between the models. A proper analysis should
include prior information, which can be <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/08/non-psychic-octopus.html">done almost as easily</a>.</p>
<h2 id="an-almost-equivalent-problem">An almost equivalent problem</h2>
<p>Imagine that we have a coin with 6 faces, and we are comparing the
following models:</p>
<ul>
<li>Model A: p = [0.499/2, 0.499/2, 0.499/2, 0.499/2, 0.002/2,0.002/2]</li>
<li>Model B: p = [1/6,1/6,1/6,1/6,1/6,1/6]</li>
</ul>
<p>And we have the following data:</p>
<ul>
<li>N=29: O=[7,7,7,7,0,1]</li>
</ul>
<p>where I have listed the probabilities and the outcomes for each face.
Notice that, grouping them together in pairs we retrieve the same as the
first example. Thus when comparing the two models, with this equivalent
problem, we should get the same value. Because the size of the problem
changed, the individual &psi values will be different (larger) because
there are more terms in the "just-so" solution. However, the difference
between the models should be the same. The results are:</p>
<ul>
<li>&psi~A~=11.35 (old value 8.34)</li>
<li>&psi~B~=38.2 (old value 35.19)</li>
</ul>
<p>with &psi~B~-&psi~A~=26.85 (old value 26.85...the same!), and</p>
<ul>
<li>&chi^2^~A~=32.6 (old value 15.33)</li>
<li>&chi^2^~B~=11.76 (old value 11.66)</li>
</ul>
<p>The &chi^2^ for one of the models (Model A) has been inflated quite a
lot relative to the other model. This means that, depending on how you
bin the data, you can make whichever model that you are looking at more
or less significantly different, without changing the data at all.</p>
<table align="center" width="50%">
<tr>
<td>
**Why do pseudoscientists love the &chi^2^ test?**
</td>
</tr>
<p>
<tr>
<td>
*Answer 2: Because all they need to do is bin their data in different
ways to affect the level of significance of their model over the model
to which they are comparing*
</td>
</tr>
<p>
</table>
<h2 id="still-taught">Still taught?</h2>
<p>So, why is the &chi^2^ test still taught? I don't know. It has
pathological behavior in simple systems, where somewhat rare events
artificially inflate its value, and it can be easily used to prop up an
unreasonable model simply by rearranging the data. Why not teach
something, like the &psi-measure, which is grounded theoretically in the
likelihood principle and does not have such pathological behavior? If
you prefer to use the log-likelihood instead, then that would be fine
(and equivalent).</p>
<p>I think it is about time to purge the &chi^2^ test from our textbooks,
and replace it with something correct.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Orthodox Statistics Conducive to Pseudo-Science2010-08-31T16:28:00-04:002010-08-31T16:28:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-08-31:/posts/2010/Aug/31/orthodox-statistics-conducive-to-pseudo-science/<p>I have just realized that the thought process used in orthodox
statistics is conducive to pseudo-science. It adds, in my opinion, to
the long list of reasons why <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/confidence.pdf">Bayesian inference …</a></p><p>I have just realized that the thought process used in orthodox
statistics is conducive to pseudo-science. It adds, in my opinion, to
the long list of reasons why <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/confidence.pdf">Bayesian inference is demonstrably
superior</a> (also <a href="http://www.astro.cornell.edu/staff/loredo/bayes/tjl.html">see here</a>). Let me show with a couple of simple
examples.</p>
<h2 id="astrology">Astrology</h2>
<p>From this <a href="http://www.childrens-mercy.org/stats/weblog2004/goodness.asp">skeptical analysis of some astrology data</a>, listing the
numbers of famous rich people in each sign, we see the use of the
chi-squared goodness of fit test. The data are:</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Sign</strong> <strong>Number of People</strong>
Aries 95
Taurus 104
Gemini 110
Cancer 80
Leo 84
Virgo 88
Libra 87
Scorpio 79
Sagittarius 84
Capricorn 92
Aquarius 91
Pisces 73
<strong>Total</strong> <strong>1067</strong></p>
<hr>
<p>To apply the chi-squared test, we simply compare the above numbers to
the expected numbers if completely random, which is 1067 people/12=88.9
people according to:</p>
<p><img alt="7660DA25-CEEC-4B31-A199-76CEA69E5015.jpg" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH0i10rpPMI/AAAAAAAAGhg/QR2NMX7gf_c/7660DA25-CEEC-4B31-A199-76CEA69E5015.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>where O are the observed data and E are the expected counts. Once we
have the chi-square value and the degrees of freedom (11 in this case),
we can look up in tables to get the p-value:</p>
<p><img alt="5785E00F-983A-4B86-AF40-5F141440DD5A.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH0jVfLlNyI/AAAAAAAAGhk/ycliK6-hwCM/5785E00F-983A-4B86-AF40-5F141440DD5A.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>Normally, this might be the end of the story, given that there is not
even close to a significant value (usual cut-off around p=0.05).</p>
<h3 id="subset-of-the-data">Subset of the Data</h3>
<p>So, if we only take the extreme values, say:</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Sign</strong> <strong>Number of People</strong>
Gemini 110
Pisces 73
<strong>Total</strong> <strong>183</strong></p>
<hr>
<p>then we calculate a different chi-squared, with 1 degree of freedom, and
get</p>
<p><img alt="83387956-03D9-4DB0-810E-4BD2E7D836F1.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH0kCpCFMeI/AAAAAAAAGho/khJmyev9JWs/83387956-03D9-4DB0-810E-4BD2E7D836F1.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>Now this is pretty silly: of course, if you take the extreme values of
12 numbers, and pretend that they came from a 2-category situation, then
it'll appear more significant. What about lumping 6 points together, say
Capricorn to Gemini (the first part of the year) and the second part. In
this case we aren't cherry picking, and the sums should be less
significant than the individual data. We then have:</p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Sign</strong> <strong>Number of People</strong>
Capricorn-Gemini 565
Cancer-Sagittarius 502
<strong>Total</strong> <strong>1067</strong></p>
<hr>
<p>And we expect 533.5 people in each category. Notice that we went from
(the most extreme) 20 person difference from expected in about 100 to a
30 person difference in 500...closer to the expected. What do we get
from our chi-squared test?</p>
<p><img alt="D9E69A77-09CD-43A1-88CF-256EB300D492.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH0mcSz2LNI/AAAAAAAAGhw/B9jo2JL_tpE/D9E69A77-09CD-43A1-88CF-256EB300D492.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>The test says that this is significantly different from random, more
than the individual data! At least the goodness of fit measure,
chi-squared value, went down to denote a closer fit to expected but the
reduction in the number of data points changes the test quite a lot.</p>
<h3 id="a-different-measure">A different measure</h3>
<p>E.T. Jaynes suggests in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Probability-Theory-Logic-Science-Vol/dp/0521592712/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1">his book</a> to use a different measure of
goodness of fit, the &psi measure closely related to the log-likelihood</p>
<p><img alt="A210014E-5B3B-4DB4-AE14-63D0EB367E3D.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/TH0oDaRYKyI/AAAAAAAAGh4/NdsF1jNypIY/A210014E-5B3B-4DB4-AE14-63D0EB367E3D.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>Using this measure on the above examples, we get</p>
<ul>
<li>All data: &psi = 28.9</li>
<li>Extreme data: &psi = 39.1</li>
<li>Lumped data: &psi = 8.1</li>
</ul>
<p>which is completely in agreement with our intuition. The chi-squared
test does not match our intuition, and seems to give significance to
things that we know shouldn't be.But what about the test with the
&psi-measure? How can we tell whether it is a significant difference?
One could, in theory, give an arbitrary threshold but that would not be
particularly useful, and would not be what a Bayesian would do. What a
Bayesian would do is <strong>compare values of the goodness-of-fit measure to
different models on the same data</strong>. It makes no sense, if you have only
one model, to reject it by a statistical test...reject it in favor of
what? If you have only one model, say Newton's Laws, and you have data
that are extremely unlikely given that model, say the odd orbit of
Mercury, you don't simply reject Newton's Laws until you have something
else to put on the table.The either-or thinking of orthodox statistical
tests is very similar to the either-or thinking of the pseudoscientist:
either it is random, or it is due to some spiritual, metaphysical,
astrological effect. You reject random, and thus you are forced to
accept the only alternative put forward. I am not implying that all
statisticians are supportive of pseudo-science, and they are often the
first to say that you can only reject hypotheses not confirm them.
However, since the method of using statistical tests does not stress the
searching for alternatives, or better, the <em>necessity</em> for alternatives,
it is conducive to these kinds of either-or logical fallacies.An example
of a model comparison, from a Bayesian perspective, on a problem
suffering from either-or fallacies can be found in the <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/08/non-psychic-octopus.html">non-psychic
octopus post I did earlier</a>.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>The Non-Psychic Octopus2010-08-28T01:29:00-04:002010-08-28T01:29:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-08-28:/posts/2010/Aug/28/the-non-psychic-octopus/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>I saw in the newspaper an article about a supposedly <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-10/octopus-oracle-paul-swims-clear-of-euro-gets-tentacles-on-book-film-deal.html">psychic
octopus</a>, which predicts world cup matches by making a choice between
two different foods labeled by the team …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>I saw in the newspaper an article about a supposedly <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-10/octopus-oracle-paul-swims-clear-of-euro-gets-tentacles-on-book-film-deal.html">psychic
octopus</a>, which predicts world cup matches by making a choice between
two different foods labeled by the team flags. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus">Paul the Octopus</a> has
an impressive record of 12 correct out of 14. Or is it impressive? How
can we determine whether this performance is evidence for psychic
behavior, or something else. A typical statistical analysis might start
with the null hypothesis that the octopus was random, so was choosing
the teams with probability p=0.5. The likelihood of getting 12 right in
14 is</p>
<p><img alt="217E3119-BC22-4A09-B534-D62BAA0BF53C.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/THhaNtjI1-I/AAAAAAAAGgk/vAAgbtrpBvo/217E3119-BC22-4A09-B534-D62BAA0BF53C.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>which is fantastically strong against the null! Even if you do the
p-value test for the the correct data being more extreme, you get
p-val=0.00646.</p>
<p><strong>So, we reject the null, and the octopus must be psychic!...(or not)</strong></p>
<h2 id="bayesian-analysis-against-random">Bayesian Analysis Against Random</h2>
<p>Let's look at this another way, and perhaps we can gain some insight. It
will be convenient to talk about odds, rather then probability, and
further to use the log of the odds so that this becomes an arithmetic
problem. The odds is defined as the ratio of the probability for a
hypothesis, H, and the probability for the inverse, not H.</p>
<p><img alt="E5899678-9897-42AF-8CBB-5D687A02A731.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/THhdxnGITTI/AAAAAAAAGg8/ACbEZMN0tMU/E5899678-9897-42AF-8CBB-5D687A02A731.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>We define the log-odds, or evidence as defined by E. T. Jayes,</p>
<p><img alt="BAAC0566-3B79-4B44-8F0D-C5046788B491.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/THhc1Q9LrLI/AAAAAAAAGg0/cudVDoIadh0/BAAC0566-3B79-4B44-8F0D-C5046788B491.jpg?imgmax=800"> </p>
<p>A few comments before we commence with more calculation. The prior
evidence reflects our state of knowledge before we see the data. How
likely is it that an octopus is psychic? Most reasonable people would
say highly unlikely. Generous odds would be 100:1 against, although
personally I'd probably put it at least a million to 1 against. Let's be
generous. That gives us a prior evidence of</p>
<p><img alt="94E23FDD-36D3-4B6A-B72C-7C759FAAE1B1.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/THhel_nxQGI/AAAAAAAAGhE/2rmhiNW5cCQ/94E23FDD-36D3-4B6A-B72C-7C759FAAE1B1.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>If we had been naive, and set equal odds, then this evidence would be
e=0. So we start with evidence e=-20 for a psychic octopus (which is
strong evidence against it, because e\<0), and then we observe the data.
If we assume that a psychic octopus is right 90% of the time, and that
the only alternative is a random octopus correct 50% of the time, then
we have added evidence for each correct answer:</p>
<p><img alt="85F4C7A1-EFC7-4E8C-88B0-E98B846B1F97.jpg" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/THhflza23EI/AAAAAAAAGhM/p9tsgV_ze1A/85F4C7A1-EFC7-4E8C-88B0-E98B846B1F97.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>Each incorrect answer gives:</p>
<p><img alt="D48A7B4A-112D-4BC6-A267-95B797A15F9C.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/THhfwRzFycI/AAAAAAAAGhQ/FxOt7RabBAs/D48A7B4A-112D-4BC6-A267-95B797A15F9C.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>The evidence gets pushed up from the prior with each correct answer, and
down for each wrong answer. Notice how wrong answers are penalized more
than right answers. This is because the psychic octopus is pretty good
(p=0.9). We get a final (posterior) evidence for 12 correct and 2 wrong:</p>
<p><img alt="5BC4EE45-59BD-4A67-A2FF-779E7EC92145.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/THhgmdqDC1I/AAAAAAAAGhU/WMImRm_gzlY/5BC4EE45-59BD-4A67-A2FF-779E7EC92145.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>which is about 2:1 odds against the psychic octopus.</p>
<h2 id="more-to-the-story">More to the Story</h2>
<p>Most pseudoscience gets propagated by people who reason naively. They
will say that there are two possibilities, say random and psychic, and
they they must both be equally likely before the data. So, when rare
data is found, they reject random and claim this is evidence for psychic
phenomena. This line of reasoning is incorrect for two reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>random and psychic are not equally probable a priori - random is
much more likely in cases like this</li>
<li>there are more possibilities</li>
</ol>
<p>We already saw how point (1) can be handled by proper prior information.
Point (2), with multiple hypotheses gets mathematically a bit trickier
(there are more terms to carry around) and is thus messier, but
conceptually is fairly straightforward.</p>
<p>We have two hypotheses so far:</p>
<p><em>H</em>="Octopus sees the correct future 90% of the time, and is psychic"</p>
<p><em>R</em>="Octopus chooses randomly."</p>
<p>Let me introduce two more hypotheses.</p>
<p><em>Y</em>="Octopus chooses flags with big yellow stripes 90% of the time"</p>
<p><em>G</em>="Octopus chooses Germany 90% of the time"</p>
<p>How would you choose the prior probabilities for these hypotheses?
Personally, as I said before, I'd have p(H) way below p(R) by about a
factor of a million, but being generous, let's put it about a factor of
100. What about p(Y) and p(G)? I'd say that these might be comparable to
random or, if I knew something about the vision of octopi or how the
person feeding the octopus might rig the food in the direction of his
favorite team, I might even have p(Y)>p(R) or p(G)>p(R). Certainly
p(Y)>p(H) and p(G)>p(H). So what happens with the data?</p>
<p>For hypothesis Y, there are N=14 games of which the octopus chooses 12
with bright yellow stripes (there is one where it chose Germany over
Ghana and should have chosen Ghana which has a bigger strips, and
another with Germany and Spain where Spain should have been chosen). For
hypothesis G there are N=14 games and the octopus chooses 12 for Germany
(2 teams are chosen that are not Germany, and one match where Germany
wasn't a choice and it chose Spain, which has the closest flag). <strong>Thus,
the data support both of these hypotheses exactly as much as the p=0.9
psychic hypothesis.</strong> Therefore, the evidence will push these hypotheses
up by as much as the psychic, over the random, and will make the psychic
octopus even less likely.</p>
<p>So, when you hear fantastic claims supported with a comparison to
random, the two things you must do are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Ask yourself what the prior probability of the fantastic claim is.
Even if a random explanation is very rare, it will probably still be
favored against the fantastic claim.</li>
<li>Ask yourself what other possibilities, even if unlikely, could
explain the data. Since the fantastic claim is exceedingly unlikely,
even somewhat unlikely explanations may be supported by the data
more than the original fantastic claim.</li>
</ol>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
!<>
</div>A new and content-free model2010-07-11T00:18:00-04:002010-07-11T00:18:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-07-11:/posts/2010/Jul/11/a-new-and-content-free-model/<p>In his article <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/a-new-and-effective-climate-model/">"A New and Effective Climate Model"</a>, Stephen Wilde
(guest posting on Anthony Watts' blog) states his dissatisfaction with
current climate models, and proposes another "model" for climate …</p><p>In his article <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/a-new-and-effective-climate-model/">"A New and Effective Climate Model"</a>, Stephen Wilde
(guest posting on Anthony Watts' blog) states his dissatisfaction with
current climate models, and proposes another "model" for climate which
he hopes will improve the state of climate modeling in general. In the
article he has items like:</p>
<ol>
<li>Solar surface turbulence increases causing an expansion of the
Earth’s atmosphere.</li>
<li>Resistance to outgoing longwave radiation reduces, energy is lost to
space faster.</li>
<li>The stratosphere cools. Possibly also the number of chemical
reactions in the upper atmosphere increases due to the increased
solar effects with faster destruction of ozone.</li>
<li>The tropopause rises.</li>
<li>etc...</li>
</ol>
<p>This list continues for 26 points, not an equation in the mix. So why am
I so hooked on equations? Take the first item, and call "Solar surface
turbulence" T, and the size of the atmosphere, A. Saying T goes up, so A
goes up, could be like:</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![A2673E80-F8DF-4075-9854-7A956B9CE989.jpg][]
</div>
<p>which would predict a nice linear response. What about this:</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![F7B70424-1CA7-4D17-9A93-B57938360DA8.jpg][]
</div>
<p>or this?</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![D11EAF1C-6B62-446A-90CD-A77E4C6D597E.jpg][]
</div>
<p>Each of these is a translation of "when T goes up, A goes up", but they
have radically different forms, and they have radically different
effects. You can't build a proper scientific model in words alone. Words
are not precise, and there are many different ways to translate them
into something that is precise, that can actually make meaningful
predictions.</p>
<p>A model of just words is not really a model, in the scientific sense.
Lord Kelvin said it best:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"In physical science the first essential step in the direction of
learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and
practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I
often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and
express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you
cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your
knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the
beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts
advanced to the state of Science, whatever the matter may be."</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
!<>
</div>Pascal's Global Warming2010-06-25T01:40:00-04:002010-06-25T01:40:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-06-25:/posts/2010/Jun/25/pascals-global-warming/<p>I was just alerted to the following video supporting strong action for
climate change:</p>
<p>[![ssp_temp_capture.png][]]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6965073194684424505-30814405432299300?l=bblais.blogspot.com"></a></p>
<p>The argument is a little dated, actually, most famously <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager">presented in
the 1600's</a> well …</p><p>I was just alerted to the following video supporting strong action for
climate change:</p>
<p>[![ssp_temp_capture.png][]]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6965073194684424505-30814405432299300?l=bblais.blogspot.com"></a></p>
<p>The argument is a little dated, actually, most famously <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager">presented in
the 1600's</a> well before global warming was a concern. The video uses a
rehash of Pascal's wager, replacing personal salvation with policy to
deal with climate change. Essentially it states that, if the worst case
scenario is very bad, then it is better to deal with that worst case
scenario with the possibility of it being a waste of resources, because
the alternative (not doing anything and being wrong) is much worse. In
Pascal's case, he was arguing for a belief in God. If you believe in God
and he doesn't exist, then things aren't that bad (some wasted time and
effort). If you don't believe in God and he does exist, then you're in
big trouble. The expected value of your reward definitely is maximized
by avoiding the worst-case scenario.</p>
<p>There are several problems with this argument, as it applies to global
warming, many of which apply to the original argument as well. First,
one has to look at the probabilities of the events, and not just their
existence. It is true that one of the following two statements is
correct:</p>
<ol>
<li>there is global warming, and humans are causing it</li>
<li>there is not global warming or humans are not causing it</li>
</ol>
<p>If we assign probabilities to the individual events, then the correct
policy may not be to address point (1), if it is sufficiently unlikely.
Further, even if we assume there is global warming, and humans are
causing it, both the <strong>amount</strong> of the warming and <strong>impact</strong> of the
warming are needed for making policy. So, if the warming is most likely
0.5 deg in 100 years, versus 2 deg in 100 years, then the policy choices
should be modified accordingly. Even though there may be a slight chance
of a catastrophic warming, we do not need to plan for it if the chance
is slight enough. Finally, dumping resources into a non-problem is not
just a "waste of money", but of lives. The amount of money being
discussed here is in the trillions, which can go a long way to fighting
problems that we <strong>know</strong> are here and are a problem (hunger,
corruption, extreme poverty, religious extremism, etc...). We have to
look at where we need to place resources in the most efficient way to
address the many, and serious, problems that we know exist in the world.</p>
<p>Now a similar, but more persuasive motivation for climate change
regulation is simple: we are dependent on unstable governments for our
energy and our energy sources have serious environmental impacts. These
facts are currently costing us two unwinnable wars and an oil spill that
will take decades to clean up. If we could divert the costs that go into
those wars and industries, and put them into non-fossil fuel
alternatives (i.e. nuclear fission and fusion), then we have a chance of
significantly improving our national security, environment, and future.
So, in dealing with a known, significant problem we can solve another
(possible) problem (i.e. global warming) as a bonus.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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<p>[![ssp_temp_capture.png][]]: http://www.break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html</p>Religion and Scientists2010-06-08T15:11:00-04:002010-06-08T15:11:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-06-08:/posts/2010/Jun/08/religion-and-scientists/<p>A friend of mine posted <a href="http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/05/29/178208/What-Scientists-Really-Think-About-Religion">this Slashdot brief</a> on Facebook, which also
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052801856.html">links to this summary</a>. The articles both imply a much stronger
religiosity among scientists than is traditionally assumed …</p><p>A friend of mine posted <a href="http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/05/29/178208/What-Scientists-Really-Think-About-Religion">this Slashdot brief</a> on Facebook, which also
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052801856.html">links to this summary</a>. The articles both imply a much stronger
religiosity among scientists than is traditionally assumed, quoting the
work of Elaine Ecklund. Some key quotes from these two short summaries
are:</p>
<ul>
<li>"Fully half of these top scientists are religious. Only five of the
275 interviewees actively oppose religion"</li>
<li>Even among the third who are atheists, many consider themselves
"spiritual."</li>
<li>The study reveals that scientists often practice a closeted faith,
worrying about how their peers would react to learning about their
religious views.</li>
<li>The '"insurmountable hostility" between science and religion is a
caricature, a thought-cliche, perhaps useful as a satire on
groupthink, but hardly representative of reality,' writes Ecklund.</li>
</ul>
<p>So, when I read this, I thought "Wow! Half of these scientists are
religious? Spiritual atheists? Closeted faith? That's amazing stuff!".
So, as a scientist myself, I decided to <a href="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122420237/abstract">look at the study itself</a>. I
confirmed what <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2010/05/scientists_and_religion.php">another blogger stated</a>: essentially the conclusions
come from some "new math", and vague statements.</p>
<p>The study included these results:</p>
<ul>
<li>34% chose “I don't believe in God,”</li>
<li>30% chose “I do not know if there is a God, and there is no way to
find out.”</li>
</ul>
<p>which equals 64%. So "fully half" must mean "less than 36%". That's some
good arithmetic! Oh, and</p>
<ul>
<li>8% chose “I believe in a higher power, but it is not God.”</li>
</ul>
<p>So I guess religious doesn't imply belief in God, so it goes in the very
vague category. If religious includes a belief in God (and I guess in
her book she uses "traditionally religious"), then "fully half" must
mean "less than 28%".</p>
<p>So about 25% of all scientists profess a belief in God, compared to a
public of about 80%. That's a pretty stark contrast! I'd wager that
there must be something (or somethings) that makes this negative
correlation between science and religion. I think it is difficult to
argue that there is not some inherent conflict between the two given
this contrast. What about the closeted religious scientists? Those
shouldn't appear in these anonymous polls, and thus do not affect any of
these numbers. If a scientist doesn't want to bring up their religion
with their peers, then 1) what does that say about the strength of their
beliefs and 2) perhaps the religious aspects of their life are
irrelevant to their scientific work. The closeted religious were not
mentioned at all in the study, by the way.</p>
<h2 id="spirituality">Spirituality</h2>
<p><a href="http://religion.ssrc.org/reforum/Ecklund.pdf">In another monograph</a>, Ecklund discusses her work. In it she states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><p>
For many of the natural scientists, in particular, <br>
knowledge of the spiritual comes directly from their work. For
example, according to one physicist, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I travel to observatories...and when I finally just have enough
time to try to <br>
think of my place in the world and the universe and its vastness,
it’s then that I feel <br>
the connection to the world more than I do, say, sitting here in my
office. And so that <br>
for me, that’s the closest I can come to a spiritual experience.
</p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This excerpt and the many others like it show that, for some
scientists, rather than science <br>
replacing religion, spirituality may be replacing religion.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this way, it is possible for atheists to be "spiritual". To me, I
think this is really bad terminology and easily misused. For most
people, "spiritual" implies some some "spirit", or an existence separate
from the body. These scientists are making no claim like that, they
simply mean a feeling still bound to the biology of our bodies.
Unfortunately, by using the term "spiritual" it can be used (as here) to
enhance the notion that these scientists are religious, or leaning
toward religion, which is misleading at best. A religious friend of mine
once recently said that she thought I was spiritual. I thought the term
was basically meaningless and ill-defined, and still do.</p>
<h2 id="religious-scientists">Religious Scientists</h2>
<p>Is it surprising that there are religious scientists? Not at all.
Because most of the public is religious, most scientists are raised with
some religion. It is also human nature to separate different,
conflicting, modes of thinking in different contexts. It is very easy
for someone to study superconductivity and not have it interfere or
conflict with any of their views of the divine. I've <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/search?q=religion">written about
religion in other posts</a>, and will only add that I believe that much
of religion comes from the skills we have to help our survival: it is
better to see a tiger when there isn't one than to not see a tiger when
there is one. From there, combine with cultural structures, it is easy
to see how religious ideas propagate. The great thing about science is
that its methods allow us to transcend these false-positives, and arrive
at ways to discern truth from fiction. Because we're human, it doesn't
work 100% of the time, but in the long run it has been our most
successful human creation.</p>
<p>It is no surprise to me that <em>some</em> scientists are religious. It would
have been a surprise to me to hear that "fully half" are religious, and
as it turns out that isn't true.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>One last TV post, about Battlestar Galactica2010-06-08T12:06:00-04:002010-06-08T12:06:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-06-08:/posts/2010/Jun/08/one-last-tv-post-about-battlestar-galactica/<p>No TV posts for a while after this one...just trying to clear my desk.</p>
<p>There are a number of things that bother me about BSG. This list is here …</p><p>No TV posts for a while after this one...just trying to clear my desk.</p>
<p>There are a number of things that bother me about BSG. This list is here
for anyone who<br>
wants to challenge me on any of this, comment please! It's in the form
of loose-fitting<br>
notes, written over the course of watching the series. There are
spoilers, etc...</p>
<p>1) <br>
Once they find out that Cylons look like us, and they consider a Cylon<br>
detector, they seem to hand the entire problem over to Dr. Baltar. <br>
There seems to be no consideration about whether he is a Cylon, or<br>
in league with the Cylons. What could they do differently? Have the <br>
Dr make something that is independently testable, perhaps by Gaita or<br>
others. They don't even consider it.</p>
<p>2) <br>
I find it straining in the extreme to believe that there is no <br>
straightforward test to tell a Cylon from non-Cylon, given the actions<br>
and words of the various people. Cylons:<br>
1) are stronger than people<br>
2) do not tire<br>
3) are able to be uploaded, at least at death<br>
4) have backs that glow under certain conditions<br>
5) have fiber optic interfaces in their arms!</p>
<p>points 1 and 2 would almost certainly leave indicators in the muscle<br>
cells, as well as brain waves. point 3 on brain waves, and point<br>
4 certainly should be detectable. point 5 should be obvious!</p>
<p>At other points, they say that they are basically indistiguishable,<br>
which to my mind means that they have organic processes (even if<br>
artificially made), and even their brain activity is the same, to the <br>
point of being indistinguishable from a person. If that is the case,<br>
then it seems weird to talk about them having "software, not emotions".</p>
<p>It's a looks like a duck, acts like a duck, every possible measurement<br>
confirms it's a duck, but it's not a duck? Sorry, that's just too hard<br>
to swallow.</p>
<p>So you have the problem that, either, they are very different in which<br>
case they should be detectable, or they are identical, in which case<br>
they are no different than humans. The writers seem to want it <br>
both ways.</p>
<p>What would my solution be? If these models were designed for the
express<br>
purpose of infiltratration into the fleet, then there would have been <br>
a lot of work to make them undetectable. I would say that the innards<br>
would be clearly mechanical/organic, with an organic outside. The
inside<br>
would broadcast signals to fool scans, like MRI and CAT scans, while<br>
the outside would have blood, sweat, etc... to fool observation there.<br>
It wouldn't be too hard to imagine that the only way to test for such<br>
a thing would entail tests that would be lethal to a person, which <br>
might solve some of the writers' problems.</p>
<p>Whenever someone said "they aren't human, they are machines" I cringed,
and wanted<br>
to reply: what do you mean by machines? In which ways are they machines
and humans<br>
aren't? throughout the series, the cylons were humans when convenient,
and <br>
machines when convenient. I don't think the writers had a consistent
vision of <br>
what the cylons were, or wanted.</p>
<p>3) WTF is the cylon plan. They want all humanity destroyed, but then<br>
they seem to want humans for procreation and love. They say they want<br>
to protect Sharon's baby, and then the next episode (!) they launch<br>
an all-out attack on the fleet. They have well hidden spies in the<br>
Galactica who could have done damage to the ship, that was going to <br>
be a museum anyway, and they were unable to destroy it? How hard would<br>
it have been to put one of those Cylon viruses in the computer,
dormant,<br>
and then when the fleet was assembled have it relay random jump points<br>
to all of the fleet, and then send the Galactica into a star?</p>
<p>The writers seem to use Cylon attacks, and then Cylon pleasantness or<br>
incompleteness, for convenience. It's back to the "not like us, just<br>
like us" problem above which leads to inconsistent behavior. I think<br>
there was no plan, so these inconsistencies keep compounding over time.</p>
<p>4) In flight of the Phoenix, when they disabled a huge number of cylon</p>
<p>raiders, why didn't they capture some of them for use later? Seems<br>
like a major tactical failure.</p>
<p>5) In the 1st season episode when they were looking for Starbuck, who
had<br>
crashed on a planet with a cylon, Com. Adama said to his son that if it<br>
were his son that was lost, that he'd never stop searching. That family<br>
was most important. Why, then, in the last episode, is Com. Adama quick<br>
to leave his son, knowing that Roslin was only going to be around for<br>
a short while, and that both would now be alone.</p>
<p>6) In Pegasus, why is Baltar's angel surprised at seeing a beat-up <br>
number 6? Why does she say "it's me", when it really isn't?</p>
<p>7) if ressurection ships are so important, why not guard them better?<br>
why not have 2 ressurection hubs? why not a more distributed system?</p>
<p>8) how far away really is the Cylon homeworld?</p>
<p>9) in E16 2nd season, Sacrifice, we have people who claim the fleet are</p>
<p>cylon sympathizers and hold hostages. Not 2 episodes before, it was all<br>
about cylon sympathizer groups trying to force gallactica to try to get<br>
peace with the cylons. Each lasts 1 episode, and no more. so much<br>
of this would have been better with a plan, built up over several <br>
episodes.</p>
<p>10) at the beginning of each episode they have a 1-minute "what has <br>
gone before", and then after the credits they have a 30-second flash<br>
of images from the episode. it is as if they don't trust the extended<br>
storyline structure, and they feel that a gimic is needed to entise <br>
viewers to stay.</p>
<p>11) in Season 3 episode 8, Bulldog returns in a cylon raider after <br>
being gone for 3 years. Doc Cottle does a quick DNA test to match it <br>
against his military record, and concludes he's not a cylon. Wow! They<br>
couldn't do that in Season 1? It certainly would have made a huge <br>
difference. As plot holes go, that one is pretty darn big.</p>
<p>12) I find it mindboggling that a race that has mastered organic <br>
technology cannot<br>
a) do a proper quarrantine<br>
b) diagnose a simple virus, that Doc Cottle can in a short while</p>
<p>13) why do the cylons want a new home? why Earth?</p>
<p>14) the incessant use of flashbacks I think is because there isn't a <br>
plan, and this makes it look like there is a consistent backstory</p>
<p>15) the episodes with the coup, ending in the execution of Zarek and<br>
Gaeta...some of the best that the show has had. I'd say, that the best<br>
episodes have been:</p>
<p>Miniseries<br>
Pegasus - Resurrection<br>
New Caprica rescue<br>
Coup (S4ep 13-14)</p>
<p>Notice that these are all the human stories. the cylon stories are not<br>
nearly as good.</p>
<p>16) Episode 15, when Tyrol tells Adama that the ship is slowly breaking</p>
<p>up, and there is cylon tech that can help suddenly Adama is anti-cylon<br>
tech? he changes his mind later, but still, this is inconsistent with<br>
the previous episodes when he was immediately fine upgrading jump
drives. <br>
why the sudden change of heart?</p>
<p>17) when the BG makes it's final jump, Adama says: "whereever we are,
that's where we're going to stay"</p>
<p>...of course, until the rest of the fleet gets there, and we continue
with the <br>
original plan. Why did Adama say this?</p>
<p>18) don't build a city at the end? don't use the technology? that <br>
seems like an idea from an idealist but not very practical - a sure way<br>
to reduce life expectancy in your new home</p>
<p>19) Adama is a cylon. Kara is the harbinger of death. Baltar and Six
will be the mother<br>
and father of the human race. prophecies that don't pan out.</p>
<p>20) from someone else, but exactly what I was thinking:<br>
"""<br>
When the season 1 [of Babylon 5] was aired JMS knew why Babylon 4 had <br>
appeared and what<br>
meant the visions saw there... when the first Shadow cruiser appeared <br>
in season 1 he fully knew what it was and who was behind it.. when in <br>
season 1 they talked about why Sinclair was so important and what <br>
secret he had..</p>
<p>All was shorted out in advance.. he even writed "scape doors" in case <br>
some actor stepped out of the series.. like happened with Michael <br>
O'Haire (Sinclair) left at the end of season 1.. he used a scape <br>
door introducing Sheridan..JMS has said he had scape doors for Delen, <br>
Garibaldi, etc..</p>
<p>You think BSG writers knew there was going to be 2 earths? <br>
Or who the remaining 8 models were going to be? Or even that Tigh <br>
and Tyrol were Cylons?... you think they really knew<br>
what the Opera house visions really meant? Or what the plan was?<br>
"""</p>
<p>21) It seems to me that there would be a fool-proof way of killing a
cylon <br>
without it able to download: instantly drop it in the engine. unless the</p>
<p>download is able to be done in nanoseconds, there wouldn't be anything
left <br>
to download from.</p>
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</div>Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and Babylon 5: To Plan or not to Plan2010-06-08T10:59:00-04:002010-06-08T10:59:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-06-08:/posts/2010/Jun/08/battlestar-galactica-lost-and-babylon-5-to-plan-or-not-to-plan/<p>I'll get back to more academic things shortly, but I wanted to get this
one off my chest. I just finished watching the entire series of
Battlestar Galactica, which I …</p><p>I'll get back to more academic things shortly, but I wanted to get this
one off my chest. I just finished watching the entire series of
Battlestar Galactica, which I did in little bits over the course of a
year or so (I don't watch much TV, so I catch it when I exercise, and an
occasional lunch time). I've always liked science fiction, was a big
Trek fan, and followed Star Trek Next Generation from the beginning
through all 7 years. I am a huge fan of Babylon 5, which I still believe
to be the best Sci Fi ever to be on television (<a href="http://www.thewb.com/shows/babylon-5">see full episodes
here</a>). Battlestar Galactica could have been that, but failed in one
very particular way which I'll get to. Other people said that I'd like
Lost, but I refused to watch it until it was done, so I could be told
whether it failed as well, which I've been told it did in the same way
as Battlestar Galactica (BG). How did it fail?</p>
<p>BG failed, not because of budget (which was probably 10 times that of
Babylon 5 (B5)), or acting, cast changes, director problems, or writing
(which is some of the best I've ever seen), but because they <strong>didn't
have a plan</strong>. BG and Lost <em>claimed</em> they had a plan, but didn't. On the
other hand, the creator of B5 shorted out all of the episodes for 5
years, so he knew where things were going from day 1. B5 is the only
show that I know of that has done that, and it is (in my opinion) the
only way to do long-running shows like these. Why does this make such a
difference?</p>
<ol>
<li>Inconsistencies. When you have a plan, you don't have nearly as many
inconsistencies. You're not trying to hack together a concluding
episode, trying to make all of the lose ends tie together in some
haphazard way, because you knew how they tied together at the
beginning. Star Trek Next Generation solved this problem, mostly, by
not having any long-running plot lines. Each episode ends with the
characters in exactly the same condition as they started. BG had
some good ideas, but its resolution seemed like a hack.</li>
<li>Foreshadowing. When you have a plan, you can have foreshadowing. Not
just vague, unexplained claims, but real references to future
events. In the first episode of B5, a character refers to a
prophetic dream they have about their death 20 years from then. At
the time the viewer thinks they understand the dream, or think that
it is a toss-off comment, but late 3rd season we see some of the
details, and late 5th (and last) season we see the lead-up to those
events. The flashback method is the poor-man's (or poor planners)
way of doing this, basically saying "we need these events to have
happened in the past, to make sense of what we want to show now, but
we didn't think of it before so we'll show it now". BG used this a
lot.</li>
<li>Larger Story Arc. Even at its weakest points, B5 benefited from its
plan. A weak single episode was lifted up if it contributed to the
larger story arc. In this way, weak episodes were improved because
there was a plan, and the entire series seemed more consistent.</li>
<li>Rewatchability. From a marketing point of view, this seems to me to
be a no-brainer, although it is almost never done. Once B5 finished,
I wanted to go back and watch it again to pick up on all of those
things that were planned, but I missed. How much foreshadowing did I
miss? How many little details in the background were there that
became important, but I didn't realize? How many decisions of the
characters contributed to their final roles? How many seemingly
throw-away lines were really important? Now that I've finished
watching BG, I don't have any urge to watch it ever again. There's
nothing new to see. Finding out in season 3 that Tigh is a Cylon
doesn't modify your perspective on any of his actions in season 1.
None of the fates of the characters can be seen in the early parts
of the series. The so-called prophecies are each stated and resolved
in a couple episodes, or so vague as to be meaningless.</li>
</ol>
<p>I've heard that Lost suffers from this same problem: no plan leads to
inconsistent storylines, convenient flashbacks, and an unsatisfying
conclusion with loose ends.</p>
<p>Now, B5 wasn't perfect. It could have used more money, better actors,
better dialog. It's writing can be corny at times, and there was a
studio snafu that condensed some of the plot in Season 4, and made
Season 5 a bit thinner than one would like. However, the universe is
entirely original, and the 5-year plan was just amazing and makes the
series hold up well over time.</p>
<p>I now won't watch much of anything without a plan...it's just not worth
the ride.</p>
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</div>Lord of the Rings2010-06-07T18:23:00-04:002010-06-07T18:23:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-06-07:/posts/2010/Jun/07/lord-of-the-rings/<p>I have a backlog of blog posts that I wanted to get caught up on. This
blog has been pretty academic lately, so I figured a change of pace
would …</p><p>I have a backlog of blog posts that I wanted to get caught up on. This
blog has been pretty academic lately, so I figured a change of pace
would be nice. I figured I'd post some of my thoughts on the Lord of the
Rings. To set the record straight, I really like the books and the
movies, but I noticed something about the movies which disturbs me
somewhat: in nearly every case where the movie deviates from the books,
it is in the direction of <em>weakening</em> the characters. The more I thought
about it, the more I realized that the pattern is held. Here I give a
summary list of the changes to the characters. Perhaps there are more
examples. Are there any counter examples?</p>
<table border="2">
<tr>
<td>
**Character**
</td>
<p>
<td>
**Comment ([M]=movie, [B]=book)**
</td>
<p>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Gandalf
</td>
<p>
<td>
1. hits his head in Bilbo's home [M]
2. staff is broken by the Nazgul [M]
</td>
<p>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Frodo
</td>
<p>
<td>
1. falls down, defenseless, when approached on Weathertop [M]
2. strikes back bravely (although ineffectually) at Weathertop [B]
3. ditches Sam in the middle of Mordor! [M]
</td>
<p>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Aragorn
</td>
<p>
<td>
1. nearly gets killed by an orc, and needs to be revived [M]
2. is not strong enough when looking in the Palantir, to counter Sauron
(drops it) [M]
</td>
<p>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Sauron!
</td>
<p>
<td>
1. information about the attack on Minas Tirith is leaked to Pippin's
mind during the contact with the Palantir [M]
2. Everyone knew where the next attack would be, and the attack is
rushed due to Aragorn's confrontation in the Palantir [B]
</td>
<p>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Eowyn
</td>
<p>
<td>
1. Eowyn is clearly afraid up to and including the battle [M]
</td>
<p>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Faramir
</td>
<p>
<td>
1. Faramir is seduced by the ring, and takes Frodo to Osgiliath [M]
2. Faramir is only momentarily seduced by the ring, but quickly comes
to his senses and lets Frodo go [B]
</td>
<p>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Eomer + Minas Tirith
</td>
<p>
<td>
1. Rohan and Minas Tirith are not enough to combat the first army of
Sauron, and need the dead (called by Aragorn) to clear them out. [M]
2. Only the back-up armies and navies of Sauron are cleared out by the
dead called by Aragorn, and the Rohan is enough to fend off the
armies at Minas Tirith itself. [B]
</td>
<p>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
King Theoden
</td>
<p>
<td>
1. Theoden needs Aragorn's prompting to help Minas Tirith. [M]
</td>
<p>
</tr>
</table>
<p>Any more?</p>
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</div>Nice talk about science and vaccination2010-04-19T16:40:00-04:002010-04-19T16:40:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-04-19:/posts/2010/Apr/19/nice-talk-about-science-and-vaccination/<p>The site <a href="http://www.ted.com/">http://www.ted.com/</a> is a really great site to find talks on
lots of different topics. The one I recently listened to is
<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial.html">http://www.ted.com …</a></p><p>The site <a href="http://www.ted.com/">http://www.ted.com/</a> is a really great site to find talks on
lots of different topics. The one I recently listened to is
<a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial.html">http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_specter_the_danger_of_science_denial.html</a>,
which highlights some of the dangers of the recent anti-vax movement.
Lots of other great links at
<a href="http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?cat=36">http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?cat=36</a>.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>The Not-so-Hidden Flaw in this Climate Argument2010-02-26T14:12:00-05:002010-02-26T14:12:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-02-26:/posts/2010/Feb/26/the-not-so-hidden-flaw-in-this-climate-argument/<p>There are sometimes people think that I am a global warming denier (I'm
not), but I am not entirely convinced that the dire predictions from the
global warming camp are …</p><p>There are sometimes people think that I am a global warming denier (I'm
not), but I am not entirely convinced that the dire predictions from the
global warming camp are supported by the evidence. I am skeptical of
conclusions based entirely on models, and I am <em>really</em> skeptical of
anything where I perceive less-than-open information exchange combined
with vested interests and a lot of money. Given all of that, I feel free
to rip apart anyone's argument regardless of which side they happen to
be on. :) That's how science works!</p>
<p>So I was pointed to an article called <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/the_hidden_flaw_in_greenhouse.html">"The Hidden Flaw in Greenhouse
Theory"</a> which has such flawed logic itself that I am surprised
someone wrote it.</p>
<h4 id="introduction">Introduction</h4>
<p>
To summarize the article, I quote the last paragraph:
> An idea has been drummed into our heads for decades: that roughly 1%
> of the atmosphere's content is responsible for shifting the earth's
> surface temperature from inimical to benign. This conjecture has
> mistakenly focused on specifically light-absorbing gases, however,
> ignoring heat-absorbing gases altogether. Any heated atmospheric gas
> radiates infrared energy back toward the earth, meaning that the
> dreadful power we've attributed to light-absorbing molecules up to now
> has been wildly exaggerated and must be radically adjusted -- indeed,
> pared down perhaps a hundred times. Because all gases radiate the heat
> they acquire, trace-gas heating theory is an untenable concept, a
> long-held illusion we'd be wise to abandon.
> </p>
<p>How does he come to such a grand conclusion? He starts with a quote of a
NASA elementary school guide, which has:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Question: Do all gases absorb heat? <br>
• Answer: No. Only some gases have the unique property of being able
to absorb heat.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
Then he (correctly) criticizes this guide saying
> So how does NASA go wrong? By consistently confusing light and heat,
> as you see in the illustration below, where infrared light is depicted
> as heat.
> </p>
<p>Clearly NASA should have said that greenhouse gases absorb infrared
light, or radiation.</p>
<p>
Then the author continues with this:
> Why does NASA go wrong? Because it has a flimsy yet lucrative theory
> to foist on the taxpaying public, that's why. As the space agency
> explains in the Main Lesson Concept, the core idea of greenhouse
> theory is that downward radiation from greenhouse gases raises the
> earth's surface temperature higher than solar heating can.
> </p>
<p>This is amazing. Regardless of ones stance on global warming, the
greenhouse effect (badly named) is a well known, well established
consequence of the basic laws of thermodynamics. Without it, Earth would
be far less habitable!</p>
<h4 id="conduction-convection-radiation-oh-my">Conduction, Convection, Radiation, Oh My!</h4>
<p>
He continues:
> To make this idea seem plausible, therefore, it's crucial to fix
> people's attention on the 1% of the atmosphere that can be heated by
> radiant transfer instead of the 99% and more that is heated by direct
> contact with the earth's surface and then by convection.
> </p>
<p>As a nitpick, it would actually be more like 5 percent or so, because
water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas. Even so, his argument
is fallacious, that a trace gas cannot cause significant warming. Let's
take another example of a trace gas that increases atmospheric warming:
ozone. In the stratosphere, at the "ozone layer", the concentration of
ozone is about 2 to 8 parts per million. That is 0.0002%! Despite this
trace amount, we get significant warming of the stratosphere <a href="http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter1/vert_temp_all.html">as shown
here</a>.</p>
<p>
His reasoning on this issue is
> Consider too that since most air molecules are infrared-transparent,
> they can't be heated by the infrared that CO2 and water vapor emit.
> This means that downward radiation from "greenhouse gases" can only
> explain how the earth's surface might get warmer, not the rest of the
> atmosphere.
> </p>
<p>No one is suggesting that the non-greenhouse gases are being heated by
the re-radiation of the greenhouse gasses. <strong>They are heated by the
collisions with greenhouse gasses, thus raising the overall atmospheric
temperature.</strong> This feedback loop continues until the new balance, with
the surface, is established. It's strictly conservation of energy. Some
is radiated, some is lost in collisions, and the gasses in the
atmosphere as well as the surface adjust until an equilibrium
temperature is reached. A simple process, really.</p>
<p>At the crux of his argument is this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For meteorologists acknowledge that our atmosphere is principally
heated by surface contact and convective circulation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is just wrong. What physicist do is follow the money, or the energy
in this case. A very simple balance can be shown, quantified, and
verified by numerous types of measurements. A very simple picture of it
is here.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![5ADD81CC-8005-4BA1-915D-5294F80A36C5.jpg][]
</div>
<p>(From
<a href="http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/radiationbalance.htm">http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/oceanography-book/radiationbalance.htm</a>,
which cites Houghton et al., (1996: 58), which using data from Kiehl and
Trenberth (1996).)</p>
<p>As a fraction of the 342 units of solar energy coming in, about 168 is
absorbed directly but about 324 is absorbed from the atmospheric
radiation! The fraction of conduction and convection comes only to about
30%. It is true that the atmosphere gets some energy from conduction,
but not most of its energy.</p>
<h4 id="scientific-sounding-junk">Scientific-sounding Junk</h4>
<p>It is a real challenge for people without science background to sift
through things like this. It sounds like science, but it is incredibly
wrong. One way to help tell the difference is to observe how the author
responds to criticism. Concerning the errors, do they offer an errata or
do they ignore them, or worse, inject ad-hominem attacks on the critic?
Saying that NASA "has a flimsy yet lucrative theory to foist on the
taxpaying public" is playing into people's distrust of government, and
trying to use that to bolster an argument, without actually
strengthening the argument itself. It is implying motive without
substantiation. I could do that too by suggesting that the author is
starting with an anti-global warming position, and wants to prop it up
with whatever emotional verbiage he can get away with to hide spurious
arguments. Instead, I simply show how elementary and spurious his
arguments are, and predict that he will not submit any corrections. I
can point out the ad-hominem attacks on NASA as unbecoming of a
scientific argument, and is useful only in a propaganda piece.</p>
<p>Another way that someone might tell if the argument is sound, is what
sorts of errors are being raised. If the errors are of a technical
nature, like the benefits of particular statistical tests, then it can
be hard for a non-expert to tell. However, if the arguments have basic
errors that can be confirmed in encyclopedias then it is much easier to
tell. If the arguments include non-scientific, emotional, exaggerated
language then it is much easier to tell that it is a propaganda piece
and not a scientific piece.</p>
<p>Are there other ways that non-experts in a field can decide the merits
of arguments? Perhaps someone will comment and add some more, and
perhaps I'll think of some more. Mostly, being able to skeptically think
like a scientist, regardless of your personal belief in something, is
the most important skill to use in cases like this. I think it is an
important thing to consider, in order to better win over the public to
science.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
![]
</div>A bit of must-read economics2010-02-23T00:53:00-05:002010-02-23T00:53:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-02-23:/posts/2010/Feb/23/a-bit-of-must-read-economics/<p>In the face of Obama's new healthcare initiative, which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/health/policy/22health.html">includes
provisions to cap the increases in insurance costs</a>, you can [read
here a nice description of the problems of fixing …</p><p>In the face of Obama's new healthcare initiative, which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/health/policy/22health.html">includes
provisions to cap the increases in insurance costs</a>, you can [read
here a nice description of the problems of fixing maximum prices]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6965073194684424505-4087468143784495537?l=bblais.blogspot.com"></a>.
When the Government caps prices to help people, it is a policy which
goes in the category of "really simple, intuitive, well-intentioned, and
wrong."</p>
<p>More people need to understand the proper functioning of the free
market. This is true of people on "Main Street" as well as those on Wall
Street. I think I may be becoming more Libertarian in my old age. :)</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Coin flips and names (Evil problems in probability continued)2010-02-22T12:22:00-05:002010-02-22T12:22:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-02-22:/posts/2010/Feb/22/coin-flips-and-names-evil-problems-in-probability-continued/<p>In my <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/01/there-once-was-girl-named-florida-aka.html">post about the girl-named-Florida problem</a>, there is a factor
in the analysis looking at the probability of having a girl named
Florida given that you have two girls …</p><p>In my <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/01/there-once-was-girl-named-florida-aka.html">post about the girl-named-Florida problem</a>, there is a factor
in the analysis looking at the probability of having a girl named
Florida given that you have two girls: <em>P(F|2g)</em>.</p>
<p>This term is easily calculated as</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![97AB81E4-08B6-4C53-8129-5432094EE211.jpg][]
</div>
<p>which I used in the analysis.</p>
<p>Someone raised the question, "What would happen if (as we know) people
don't tend to name two children the same (unless you're George
Foreman)?" At first, this seems exactly like a coin flip problem: what
is the probability of, in two coin flips, flipping heads on the first
flip or flipping heads on the second but not both? It turns out that
this is a different problem, and the result is surprising (at least to
me). We have to be very careful what information we condition on,
knowing that the English language is a little more fluid than we like
when dealing with such problems. In the coin flip case we define</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![5AA78167-FEF6-4DBE-BA47-8CE19D8CC0F4.jpg][]
</div>
<p>:</p>
<p>and it follows, given the probability of flipping heads is <em>h</em>,</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![B305BC0D-48EB-4BCB-929F-0C7BE8F53B21.jpg][]
</div>
<p></p>
which is just the standard result, subtracting off the possibility of
having both heads. For h=0.5, this yields the standard result of P(h) =
0.5. As h gets close to 1, the probability of a heads goes way up, and
thus the <em>probability of both being heads goes way up</em>. As a result, the
probability of just having 1 heads goes to zero.</p>
<p>The situation with names is nearly the opposite: as the frequency of a
name increases, the name is much more common. This makes it more and
more likely that you will have someone with that name. The difference is
in the conditioning information:</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![EBA08560-A8CA-4B0A-94FB-3279139A9848.jpg][]
</div>
<p>The analysis then goes:</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![B10C9CE9-BECE-42D9-A17E-5214D5134406.jpg][]
</div>
<p>which is exactly the same result as the case where one can name both of
the children Florida! I was a little surprised by this result, but a
quick simulation confirmed it as well.</p>
<h3 id="simulation">Simulation</h3>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">pylab</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="o">*</span><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">numpy</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="o">*</span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mf">0.1</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">10000</span><span class="n">r1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">rand</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="n">r2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">rand</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="n">N1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">list</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">r1</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">lt</span> <span class="n">f</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="n">N2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">list</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">r2</span><span class="o">&</span><span class="n">lt</span> <span class="n">f</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="n">case1</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">n1</span> <span class="ow">or</span> <span class="n">n2</span> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">n1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n2</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">zip</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">N2</span><span class="p">)]</span><span class="nb">print</span> <span class="s2">"Fraction allowing duplicate names: "</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">case1</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">count</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="nb">float</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">case1</span><span class="p">))</span><span class="nb">print</span> <span class="s2">"Theoretical Value: "</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">+</span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="n">f</span><span class="o">**</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="n">nn</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[]</span><span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">n1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n2</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">zip</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">N2</span><span class="p">):</span> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">n1</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">nn</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="kp">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="kc">False</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">nn</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="kp">append</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">n2</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="n">N2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">nncase2</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="n">n1</span> <span class="ow">or</span> <span class="n">n2</span> <span class="k">for</span> <span class="n">n1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">n2</span> <span class="ow">in</span> <span class="nb">zip</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">N1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">N2</span><span class="p">)]</span><span class="nb">print</span> <span class="s2">"Fraction not allowing duplicate names: "</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">case2</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">count</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="kc">True</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="nb">float</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">len</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">case2</span><span class="p">))</span>
</code></pre></div>
<h3 id="simulation-result">Simulation Result</h3>
<p>Fraction allowing duplicate names: 0.1853<br>
Theoretical Value: 0.19<br>
Fraction not allowing duplicate names: 0.1853</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Magnetic therapy getting under my skin2010-02-21T23:06:00-05:002010-02-21T23:06:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-02-21:/posts/2010/Feb/21/magnetic-therapy-getting-under-my-skin/<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>Every year my family goes to the flower show in Providence. It's a nice
time, seeing flowers in the middle of February, snacking on the pretzel
and dip samples …</p><h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>Every year my family goes to the flower show in Providence. It's a nice
time, seeing flowers in the middle of February, snacking on the pretzel
and dip samples, and seeing all of the house and garden related vendors.
It's tainted, however, by a particular vendor selling magnetic therapy
items, such as bracelets, braces, and necklaces. The company is called
Palmer's Global Magnetic Therapy, and I am bothered even writing their
name here, giving them more exposure.</p>
<h2 id="the-science">The Science</h2>
<p>Their pamphlet has more science errors per square inch than any text I
have ever read. For example,</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![screen-capture.png][]
</div>
<p>Given that light is electromagnetic radiation, and I believe that light
has been around a bit longer than people (even by creationist
standards!), this definition is flat-out wrong. Saying that low-levels
are "fought off" by the body, yet "higher levels are proving to cause
gradual break down in health" is at best misleading: high levels of
radiation, such as high-energy x-rays, break down organic molecules, but
you aren't generally exposed to this in such high dosages. Either way,
it is irrelevant to magnetic therapy where the magnets used are of such
low intensity that no significant effect would be expected anyway.</p>
<p>On the medical side, this pamphlet is just as bad.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![screen-capture-1.png][]
</div>
<p>Let's take the last point first: "cancer cannot exist in a strong
magnetic field". This is a true statement. What they left out is that,
at that strength of magnetic field, non-cancerous cells also can't
survive. It'd be like the statement: "cancer cells cannot exist is
molten lava", which would be true...but useless and misleading.</p>
<p>The previous points, about the medical effectiveness of magnets, is also
not correct. Although it seems to be challenging to have a blinded study
of magnetic therapy, because people can easily test to see if the
magnetics attract keys or other household items, careful studies have
not found any effect of magnetic therapy. You can see some of them
<a href="http://beta.medicinescomplete.com/journals/fact/current/fact1301a05t01.htm">here</a>, <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/10October/Pages/Copper-bracelets-and-arthritis.aspx">here</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_therapy">a nice wikipedia summary</a>, and [another very
good summary of some other arguments against magnetic therapy]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6965073194684424505-5542245669080889297?l=bblais.blogspot.com"></a>.</p>
<p>I could go on and on with this, but I want to highlight a few things
directly related to pseudo-scientific thinking. The following statement
is indicative of the sort of thing, not limited just to magnetic therapy
but to all forms of sham-medical treatments and much of pseudo-science
as well.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![screen-capture-2.png][]
</div>
<p>Rephrased, a bit bluntly, this reads: "if you do our treatment for your
ailment, and your ailment improves, then that is proof of the
effectiveness of our treatment. if it doesn't improve, then you did
something wrong, and it says nothing about our treatment". It's like the
psychics who complain that the room isn't right, or their abilities are
hampered by skeptical treatment, but otherwise they are perfect. Heads,
I win. Tails, you lose. <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/">James Randi</a> has pointed this out many times,
with the people trying for his <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html">million dollar challenge</a>. It is the
type of thinking that protects you from ever being wrong, and thus
places your statements outside of the realm of science. Unfortunately,
it also generally means you're wrong, and are simply trying to avoid
critique to keep the comfort of your misguided ideas.</p>
<h2 id="avoiding-the-fda">Avoiding the FDA</h2>
<p>In order to avoid the FDA, they have to put a disclaimer in, which
reads:</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![screen-capture-4.png][]
</div>
<p>However, does this disclaimer allow them to state the things above
(about cancer), or these claims:</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![screen-capture-3.png][]
</div>
<p>or these?</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![screen-capture-5.png][]
</div>
<p>or these?</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![screen-capture-6.png][]
</div>
<p>I'm no legal expert, but it seems to me that this is filled with medical
claims, and simply stating "we are not making medical claims" should not
be enough.</p>
<h2 id="what-to-do">What to do?</h2>
<p>I see these people every year, and every year I wonder what should I do.
What is my moral obligation, what are my legal limits, what are my
options? Sometimes I ignore them, but always feel bad afterward. I have
a gut feeling that I have a responsibility to help save as many people
from this scam as I can, especially since it is right in my backyard. I
see people at the booth, and it drives me nuts. I try to educate my
students, and anyone around me who will listen, but that doesn't feel
like enough.</p>
<p>One suggestion that someone had was to set up a booth of my own, an
anti-magenetic therapy booth. I'm not sure if this would either be
allowed, or might be taken as libelous or something else that involves
lawyers. There is the distinct possibility that it would simply make me
look like a jerk, and work against the message that I would want to
achieve.</p>
<p>A few years ago, I did approach them, and as gently as I could asked if
they ever thought to consult a physicist concerning some of the claims
in the pamphlet. It's a husband and wife team, and the wife was
reasonably conversational. The husband was immediately aggressive and
hostile. He questioned the need for such a thing, and when I pointed out
a couple of straight-forward errors (not even the efficacy errors) he
did not take it well. He even admitted to me, to my amazement, that he
didn't care whether the claims were correct!</p>
<p>Another year I gave them a folder I'd prepared about magnetism, and some
of the magnetic therapy studies. I even created an email address
(brianthephysicist) for any questions they had...I never heard from
them.</p>
<p>This year I submitted their website to the FDA website on <a href="http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/email/oc/buyonline/buyonlineform.cfm">"Reporting
Unlawful Sales of Medical Products on the Internet"</a>. I have to admit
that that felt good, but I doubt that in reality it will affect very
much, if anything at all.</p>
<p>So I am still left with the questions: what should I do with this case?
What is my moral obligation, what are my legal limits, what are my
options?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don't really know.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Economics2010-01-31T16:36:00-05:002010-01-31T16:36:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-31:/posts/2010/Jan/31/economics/<p>In a post about <a href="http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2010/01/economics.html">Ten Principles of Economics</a>, Harvard Professor <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/18161221774770492266">Greg
Mankiw</a> writes a little <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrostic">acrostic</a> device about economics. In
addition to things like "<strong>E</strong>verything has a cost. There …</p><p>In a post about <a href="http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2010/01/economics.html">Ten Principles of Economics</a>, Harvard Professor <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/18161221774770492266">Greg
Mankiw</a> writes a little <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrostic">acrostic</a> device about economics. In
addition to things like "<strong>E</strong>verything has a cost. There is no free
lunch. There is always a trade-off." for the "E" in economics, I found
this one caught my eye: "<strong>O</strong>ne More. Rational people make decisions on
the basis of the cost of one more unit (of consumption, of investment,
of labor hour, etc.)."</p>
<p>My first thought was, is this really true? Perhaps a real economist will
correct me, but I disagree with this statement. From my limited
economics knowledge, a rational person makes a decision to maximize the
net benefit resulting from that decision, given the information that the
person has. This is maximizing the benefits minus the costs, or</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![0F362209-06FA-46F3-9B58-0EE7A9BD0F98.jpg][]
</div>
<p>Where <em>B(q)</em> is the benefit and <em>C(q)</em> is the cost, and <em>q</em> is a label
for the different possible decisions, usually representing the quantity
of a particular good that is purchased. To find the maximum (or minimum)
we take the derivative and set it to zero:</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![962BDC01-F9A1-4FF8-A7FD-694A1D810921.jpg][]
</div>
<p>The decision on the "basis of the cost of one more unit" is referring to
<em>dC(q)/dq</em>, or the marginal cost. When the marginal cost equals the
marginal benefit, then we are at an optimum (which could be a minimum of
the net benefit!).</p>
<p>What I disagree with is that I don't think that people make a decision
based on <em>dC(q)/dq</em>, but rather that they make decisions on <em>B(q)-C(q)</em>.
You might say, "But, hey, those are the same thing!". The distinction I
think is found in the correspondence between a model and the real-world.
Quantities like the cost of a good, or the benefit of the good, are
directly observable and measurable. The marginals, or derivatives, of
those same quantities are not directly observable but are inferred from
the values of the non-marginal quantities at various values of <em>q</em>.</p>
<p>To make an analogy with physics, think of position and speed. Speed is
change of position with time, or the "marginal position" if you will.
You measure speed by taking different positions and different times of
some object, and calculating speed. You don't measure speed directly.
The analogy breaks a bit, because there are ways of inferring speed
without position, using the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_effect">doppler effect</a>, which is how we can
<a href="http://astro.wku.edu/astr106/Hubble_intro.html">measure the speeds of very distant objects</a> without knowing their
position.</p>
<p>The question I have is, "Is there a similar way to directly measure the
marginal cost, without first knowing the cost of the good?" I don't
think that this is possible. First, I think it quite likely that there
are cases where <em>B(q)-C(q)</em> is not differentiable, so it makes no sense
to think of "just one more" but you can still maximize the quantity. The
differentiation is a simplification, a model. Second, the equality of
<em>dC(q)/dq</em> to <em>dB(q)/dq</em> occurs at both a minimum and a maximum, and
needs to be confirmed if it is truly a maximum by going back to the
values of <em>B(q)</em> and <em>C(q)</em>. Thus knowledge of "one more" is incomplete.
Finally, as stated above, I don't think that the marginals are directly
observable, whereas the direct quantities are.</p>
<p>Hopefully an economist will comment and correct, or confirm, what I am
saying!</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Faith and Science2010-01-31T15:18:00-05:002010-01-31T15:18:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-31:/posts/2010/Jan/31/faith-and-science/<p>I was listening to a very nice <a href="http://www.jamesgregory.org/ken_miller.php">talk by Ken Miller</a>, from Brown
University. He's the Biology professor who testified in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District">Dover
Evolution Trial</a>. The reason that he is …</p><p>I was listening to a very nice <a href="http://www.jamesgregory.org/ken_miller.php">talk by Ken Miller</a>, from Brown
University. He's the Biology professor who testified in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District">Dover
Evolution Trial</a>. The reason that he is involved in cases involving
the attack on evolution from the religious right is several-fold,
including his knowledge of evolution (even though that is not his main
area of expertise) and his widely-used textbook (which was the target of
the warning labels in Georgia). Ken Miller keeps a <a href="http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/">page on evolution</a>
and <a href="http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/index.html">his own webpage</a> with many links, presentation slides, and talk
videos. I think the most important reason for his involvement is that he
is a self-acknowledged Christian (a Catholic, to be specific). Rather
than inviting an expert like Richard Dawkins (who is decidedly
anti-religious) to testify, it is much better to invite someone who
claims there is no conflict between religion and science. Thus the case
can't be cast as a battle between science and religion, and can be seen
only as what is appropriate science education.</p>
<p>So in his talk, Ken Miller makes the point that science should inform
faith and faith should inform science. He cites Paul Davies, a physicist
who has an interest in theism, and whose article <a href="http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/davies07/davies07_index.html">"Taking Science on
Faith"</a> takes the position that science itself is a faith-based
activity. Ken Miller points out, and you can confirm in Paul Davies'
article, that there are two tenets in science that are taken on faith:</p>
<ol>
<li>the universe is ultimately knowable and understandable</li>
<li>knowledge is better than ignorance</li>
</ol>
<p>At first I thought that one perhaps should call these axioms, more like
mathematics, and not "faith" because something in me felt that these two
ideas were different somehow than the belief in God. Then, I realized,
that they <strong>are</strong> different fundamentally and faith, or even axioms, is
entirely wrong.</p>
<p>The first idea, that the universe is knowable, needs to be a bit more
specific: what does it mean to be knowable? Prior to 1900, it was
believed that the pieces of a physical model, such as the force of
gravity, or the electric and magnetic fields of Maxwell were "real":
there was one-to-one correspondence between the model components and
things in the real world. Thus, it was believed, that knowing the model
you would know nature. After 1900, with the advent of quantum mechanics,
physical models were evaluated based on their predictive value: those
models that predicted well were good models. It was not believed that
there was necessarily a correspondence between the model components and
the real components in nature. Aspects of the model, such as the wave
function, were not believed to be real but simply useful in making
predictions. To know the world is to be able to predict what would
happen.</p>
<p>Let's say we replace "understandable" with "predictable", a replacement
which I think makes practical sense (how else would you determine that
you understand something?), and is directly in line with modern physical
thinking. Doing this, then tenet (1) ceases to be an axiom, or something
we take on faith, but is observable. If the universe is unpredictable,
then all attempts at making prediction will fail. This is not what we
observe at all. Surely there are still things that are unpredictable,
such as the simultaneous value of the position and momentum of the
electron, or the positions of every molecule of air in this room, but
even there we can make specific predictions about average quantities or
the values of other variables of interest. Practically, the universe has
demonstrated itself to be understandable, on the whole. This is not a
matter of faith!</p>
<p>The second tenet (2) I would wager is too vague. What does "better"
mean? Better for whom, or for what? Psychologically, one might argue
something akin to "ignorance is bliss", and there might be something to
that. If we define, however, "better" to be higher standard of living
(longer, healthier, more free life) then knowledge can be argued to have
a demonstrable benefit over ignorance. The results of science has
doubled the life expectancy in the past 100 years, and has allowed us to
live more free and healthy lives. The thousands of years of faith before
that cannot say as much. As Carl Sagan says, science delivers the goods.
Is there any convincing argument that ignorance is better, or that we
really can't decide which is better? Is there a preferable definition of
"better"?</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>A couple of interesting videos2010-01-12T15:22:00-05:002010-01-12T15:22:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-12:/posts/2010/Jan/12/a-couple-of-interesting-videos/<p>With the advent of computer technology, it can be challenging to
distinguish fact from fiction. Both of the videos below are, in my
opinion, strikingly real but are both fake …</p><p>With the advent of computer technology, it can be challenging to
distinguish fact from fiction. Both of the videos below are, in my
opinion, strikingly real but are both fake (and funny!). Critical
thinking skills are a must!</p>
<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrxmpihCjqw</p>Creativity, Science, and the Brain2010-01-12T14:08:00-05:002010-01-12T14:08:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-12:/posts/2010/Jan/12/creativity-science-and-the-brain/<p>In my <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/01/believing-unbelieveable.html">post about Bruce Hood's interview</a> I said there wasn't anything
I disagreed with. After re-listening to it, I find my position is a bit
more nuanced. I'd still …</p><p>In my <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2010/01/believing-unbelieveable.html">post about Bruce Hood's interview</a> I said there wasn't anything
I disagreed with. After re-listening to it, I find my position is a bit
more nuanced. I'd still like to look more closely at the experiments he
cites to see if there is anything there that addresses my concerns, like
the difference between believing in an external essence of an object
versus experiencing the memories that an object elicits. In this post I
want to address something that both Bruce and Tom dance around during
the interview: the positive aspects of superstition.</p>
<p>Tom tries to tie Bruce down concerning the bad aspects of superstition,
citing witch burning and crusades. Bruce refuses to acknowledge
superstition as a bad thing, and simply states that superstitious
thinking, combined with economic factors and political motivation, can
lead to such bad consequences. He further states that intuitive thinking
is essential for science. Science doesn't just creep forward in small
steps, but is also driven by the intuitive leaps of the scientists. Our
ability to see patterns leads us to the patterns we have accumulated in
scientific knowledge, and this ability is a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2009/12/universality-of-religion.html">consequence of natural
selection</a>.</p>
<p>Bruce Hood further talks about unconscious reasoning, such as the dream
of<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene">Friedrich Kekulé and the structure of benzene</a>, and solving
problems while you sleep or are taking a break. I myself have solved
some problems this way, and many of the interesting physics problems
that I have used in my teaching have come, seemingly randomly, while
doing mundane things like raking leaves or taking a shower. Although he
states that he is an atheist, and is a scientist, I don't think he goes
far enough in supporting science. In this way, his omission leads to the
sense that he is a bit too supportive of the poor thinking associated
with superstition. He points out that much of it is not factually
correct, but I think he misses a big point in his exposition (one that I
am quite confident he'd agree with).</p>
<p>
Carl Sagan put it this way:
> At the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly
> contradictory attitudes—an openness to new ideas, no matter how
> bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless
> skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths
> are winnowed from deep nonsense.
> </p>
<p>It is this sentiment that is missing from the interview, and would have
cleared up many of the questions. Yes, we are all programmed (via
natural selection) to be superstitious, to see patterns that may or may
not really exist, to attribute properties to objects that may or may not
be real. Science works by starting with that, and skeptically testing
every pattern to see if it is real. It is only the ones that can stand
up to skeptical scrutiny that we can trust.</p>
<p>Thus, Bruce's "super-sense" is the starting point, the intuition which
leads to "crazy" ideas, out-of-the-box solutions. Skepticism, open
information, and honesty reduce the many possible ideas down to the ones
that are true. In some way, this is like the process of natural
selection: the "random" element in evolution (mutation, crossover,
etc...) leads to variation, and natural selection works on that
variation to produce the (far fewer) solutions that are optimal for the
various ecological niches. In science, intuition gives us the variation,
and skepticism and careful observation work on that variation to produce
the (far fewer) solutions that are true.</p>
<p>Finally, in the fine words of Carl Sagan from his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469">"A Demon Haunted
World"</a> (the best science book for the public I have ever read!):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A physicist has an idea. The more he thinks it through, the more sense
it seems to make. He consults the scientific literature. The more he
reads, the more promising the idea becomes. Thus prepared, he goes to
the laboratory and devises an experiment to test it. The experiment is
painstaking. Many possibilities are checked. The accuracy of the
measurement is refined, the error bars reduced. He lets the chips fall
where they may. He is devoted only to what the experiment teaches. At
the end of all this work, through careful experimentation, the idea is
found to be worthless. So the physicist discards it, frees his mind
from the clutter of error, and moves on to something else.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Believing the unbelieveable2010-01-08T00:42:00-05:002010-01-08T00:42:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-08:/posts/2010/Jan/08/believing-the-unbelieveable/<p>Have a listen to <a href="http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/12/believing-the-unbelievable">this excellent interview of neuroscientist Bruce
Hood</a>. I can't think of a single thing I disagreed with this guy on. I
may have more specific to …</p><p>Have a listen to <a href="http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/12/believing-the-unbelievable">this excellent interview of neuroscientist Bruce
Hood</a>. I can't think of a single thing I disagreed with this guy on. I
may have more specific to say later, and perhaps I will <a href="http://www.amazon.com/SuperSense-Why-We-Believe-Unbelievable/dp/B002VPE7GK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262911323&sr=8-1">buy his
book</a>.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
![]
</div>A teachable moment...lost2010-01-07T19:47:00-05:002010-01-07T19:47:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-07:/posts/2010/Jan/07/a-teachable-moment-lost/<p>So I just watched the Mythbusters episode where they recreate the bus
jump from the movie Speed. They do two things: a miniature version and
full-scale recreation. In their miniature …</p><p>So I just watched the Mythbusters episode where they recreate the bus
jump from the movie Speed. They do two things: a miniature version and
full-scale recreation. In their miniature version they scale down the
bus by a factor of 12, very carefully building the model bus as closely
as possible. Then they scale down the bridge by the same factor. They
then point out that they can't scale down gravity without going to the
moon. Technically, that would scale gravity by 1/6, not the required
1/12. You wouldn't even have to go nearly as far as the Moon to achieve
this. Since force gravity decreases as the square of the distance away
from the Earth (starting at 4000mi, the radius of the Earth), you would
only have to go up this high:</p>
<p><img alt="7F25868D-9B38-47E5-904A-596DBCCE6242.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/S0Yv5WDsY3I/AAAAAAAAGEc/T7BuskACZ1s/7F25868D-9B38-47E5-904A-596DBCCE6242.jpg?imgmax=800"> </p>
<p>compared to the 240,000 mi, that's a real bargain! But this is about
10,000 mi above the Earth, whereas the Hubble is less than 600 mi above
the Earth, just to give some perspective.</p>
<p>So, without leaving the Earth, the NASA experts say that one can
compensate by going faster. Mythbusters <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3All56NYdqI">scrawls the analysis on the
side of the buss</a> and says "basically, what these hieroglyphics mean
is to compensate for the physical impossibility of scaling gravity, the
speed of our 1/12 scale bus has to be just over 20 miles per hour". What
bothers me most about this is not that they don't really go through the
analysis, but that they refer to basic math as hieroglyphics and they
give no sense for <strong>why</strong> going a bit faster would compensate for
gravity. I am going to include the full analysis here, but below I will
also give a simpler explanation that they could have used, which only
includes a small amount of math that would have easily fit on the side
of the bus.</p>
<h4 id="analysis">Analysis</h4>
<p>Their analysis is equivalent to the following: the components of the
speed off of a ramped angle are</p>
<p><img alt="9C04C024-2B71-4C35-9D45-12DD1CA648A6.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/S0YxvGpWsRI/AAAAAAAAGEg/OIp1MHQivjg/9C04C024-2B71-4C35-9D45-12DD1CA648A6.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>and the <em>x</em> and <em>y</em> positions versus time are given by the standard
motion equations</p>
<p><img alt="66BFBCE5-2574-4BB8-86F0-5D9DAC42F4E9.jpg" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/S0YyMqywgYI/AAAAAAAAGEk/g15DfQWzwLs/66BFBCE5-2574-4BB8-86F0-5D9DAC42F4E9.jpg?imgmax=800"> </p>
<p>Here is the critical step. We solve for time, <em>t</em>, and get rid of it in
the second equation. This way we have the shape of the entire trajectory
in space, without any dependance on time.</p>
<p><img alt="E389C058-CB1F-4053-8BD4-CC077BA5F404.jpg" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/S0YzSkcnH7I/AAAAAAAAGEo/E3DauhFjYts/E389C058-CB1F-4053-8BD4-CC077BA5F404.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>or:</p>
<p><img alt="AC84A6F7-B5B8-4E18-8B38-988972FF279A.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/S0YzdCSM0TI/AAAAAAAAGEs/dVsAvPisvGg/AC84A6F7-B5B8-4E18-8B38-988972FF279A.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>Now, what happens to this equation when we scale the distances down by a
certain amount?</p>
<p><img alt="9C7D59E1-F0B8-4368-8B5A-317F7CB87CEE.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/S0Y0XAxIcKI/AAAAAAAAGEw/0xqHYgQa_ko/9C7D59E1-F0B8-4368-8B5A-317F7CB87CEE.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>which is <em>almost</em> the same, except for one factor of gamma over the
<em>v</em>^2^ term. Thus, if we replace the speed with</p>
<p><img alt="AAECC237-7155-49A9-B8C3-66778D0955F2.jpg" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/S0Y00Bzw7QI/AAAAAAAAGE0/nmmhbz3PBQU/AAECC237-7155-49A9-B8C3-66778D0955F2.jpg?imgmax=800"></p>
<p>the trajectory of the new version is identical to the old version. Now,
remember, that this doesn't include time: the scaled version, going a
faster, will reach the destination sooner.</p>
<h4 id="a-clearer-way">A Clearer Way</h4>
<p>I certainly wouldn't expect the television audience to follow that
analysis, although I wouldn't mind them showing it anyway (but more
explicitly). It's the sort of thing where many would ignore it, but the
ones who could understand it would get more out of the show. So let's
see if we can put it a bit more clearly. I'd start, first, by scaling
down the sizes by a factor of 16 not 12. That way I can take the square
root more easily. Then there'd be two more facts about gravity that I
would mention</p>
<ol>
<li>gravity doesn't affect motion horizontally</li>
<li>vertically, if I throw something up at three times the speed, it
will go up nine times the height (the square of the speed increase)</li>
</ol>
<p>Scaling down just the size, but not the speed, by a factor of 16 would
decrease the time by the same factor of 16. If we scale the speed down
by a factor of 4, then three things happen: the height of the trajectory
reduces by 16 (item 2 above), the time of flight reduces by a factor of
4, and thus the horizontal distance covered (speed times time) is
reduced by a factor of 4x4=16. Notice that in doing so, the object
trajectory is scaled in both the vertical and horizontal directions by
16, which is the goal of the scaling.</p>
<p>I think that this is clearer than the way presented by Mythbusters, and
should have been covered in this way, or some similar way. It could have
have been a good teaching moment!</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
!<>
</div>There once was a girl named Florida (a.k.a Evil problems in probability)2010-01-05T16:22:00-05:002010-01-05T16:22:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-05:/posts/2010/Jan/05/there-once-was-a-girl-named-florida-a-k-a-evil-problems-in-probability/<p>In a [previous post][] I described the Monty Hall problem, and noted
that a simulation can often lead to clarity of thinking on tough
probability problems. I take another example …</p><p>In a [previous post][] I described the Monty Hall problem, and noted
that a simulation can often lead to clarity of thinking on tough
probability problems. I take another example here, in two steps, and
throw analysis and simulation at it and possibly a bit of intuition.</p>
<p>I was first introduced to this problem from Leonard Mlodinow's "The
Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives" and immediately "fell
for the trap". The problem exists in two parts, the first (easy) part
followed by the second (hard) part. The easy part is as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Say you know a family has two children, and further that at least one
of them is a girl. What is the probability that they have two girls?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>An easy way to do this is to list out the possibilities:</p>
<ul>
<li>Boy-Girl</li>
<li>Girl-Boy</li>
<li>Girl-Girl</li>
</ul>
<p>
so you end up with 1 chance out of 3, or p=0.33. The hard part is the
following:
> Say you know a family has two children, and further that at least one
> of them is a girl named Florida. What is the probability that they
> have two girls?
> </p>
<p>At first I didn't think it would make any difference. <em>How could knowing
the name of the child change the chances for two girls?</em> So I didn't
believe the author (at first) that the chances were even, p=0.5, for the
family to have two girls. Again we can list off the possibilities:</p>
<ul>
<li>Boy-Girl (Florida)</li>
<li>Girl (Florida)-Boy</li>
<li>Girl (Not Florida)-Girl (Florida)</li>
<li>Girl (Florida)-Girl (Not Florida)</li>
<li>Girl (Florida)-Girl (Florida)</li>
</ul>
<p>Since the last point is very rare (two girls named the same rare name?)
we can ignore it, and we can also see that there are now two Girl-Girl
possibilities with one named Florida, rather than just one, so it
essentially gets two votes. Thus, we get p=0.5. Now, when I see
something like this I worry. Yes, it's intuitive (once you see it) but
I've seen slight-of-hand counting of the possibilities before. I don't
trust it unless I can do two things:</p>
<ol>
<li>write a simulation which reproduces it</li>
<li>show that a formal analysis works for the problem</li>
</ol>
<p>
As for the simulation (I post the code below) I get:
Probability for a girl to be named Florida: 0.01Total number of families with two children: 1000000999862 girls (0.499931 of children)249745 both girls (0.249745)750117 families with girls (0.750117)249745 both girls (0.332941) given families with girls10084 families with a girls named florida4997 both girls (0.495537) given families with girl named florida
The formal analysis gets interesting, because I want to understand how
the frequency, *f*, of the name affects the probability of having two
girls. If it is a rare name (*f* \~ 0) then I should get p=0.5. For a
common name (*f* \~ 1) then I should get p=1/3. Not that with *f*=1 then
the word "name" is a little odd because all girls have it, so one might
think of it as a label (like "has a nose"). First some notation:
![8C429ED4-C97A-42F4-B427-4FCE878E249D.jpg][]
Applying Bayes theorem to the easy problem, we get:
![EA082732-B226-4D70-B9B0-5B88943EA579.jpg][]
The hard problem is set up like:
![D99FFC2B-0B77-4F3A-8B6D-C8640CA94738.jpg][]
It is clear that *p({L1g}|2g)=1* whereas *p({L1g},F|2g)=1* is not: given
that we have 2 girls, we definitely have at least one girl, but we need
not have at least one girl named Florida. Breaking the second term up we
get
![5B40FEDB-02C8-4803-93E3-E05B4D8E42A5.jpg][]
Now we have
![BB5BFD58-9E43-44C4-B3F1-B075AC680225.jpg][]
It is easy to check that it has the right limits:
![A4B10902-407C-4BDE-9AC4-A565F17E0FB6.jpg][]
I'm not sure if there is a better way to address this problem, but the
analysis and simulation agree, and further we have a very simple form
for how the probability depends on the frequency of the known label
(e.g. Florida).
Code for simulation
-------------------
from pylab import *
from numpy import *
# 2 daughter problem
num_families=1000000
num_children_per_family=2
f_girls=0.5
f_florida=0.01
print "Probability for a girl to be named Florida: ",f_florida
print "Total number of families with two children: ",num_families
child_types=['boy','girl']
families=[ (child_types[randint(2)],child_types[randint(2)]) for x in range(num_families)]
names=[]
for f in families:
if f[0]=='boy':
name1='Bob'
else:
name1='Florida' if rand()<f_florida else 'Sarah'
if f[1]=='boy':
name2='Bob'
else:
name2='Florida' if rand()<f_florida and name1!='Florida' else 'Sarah'
names.append( (name1,name2) )
# total fraction of children as girls
girls=0
children=0
for f in families:
for c in f:
children+=1
if c=='girl':
girls+=1
print "%d girls (%f of children)" % (girls,float(girls)/children)
# total fraction of families with both girls
both_girls=0
for f in families:
if f[0]=='girl' and f[1]=='girl':
both_girls+=1
print "%d both girls (%f)" % (both_girls,float(both_girls)/num_families)
# total fraction of families with both girls GIVEN that the family has a girl
families_with_girls=[]
for f in families:
if f[0]=='girl' or f[1]=='girl':
families_with_girls.append(f)
num_families_with_girls=len(families_with_girls)
print "%d families with girls (%f)" % (num_families_with_girls,
float(num_families_with_girls)/num_families)
both_girls=0
for f in families_with_girls:
if f[0]=='girl' and f[1]=='girl':
both_girls+=1
print "%d both girls (%f) given families with girls" % (both_girls,
float(both_girls)/num_families_with_girls)
# total fraction of families with both girls GIVEN that the family has a girl named florida
families_with_florida=[]
for n,f in zip(names,families):
if f[0]=='girl' and n[0]=='Florida' or f[1]=='girl' and n[1]=='Florida':
families_with_florida.append(f)
num_families_with_florida=len(families_with_florida)
print "%d families with a girls named florida" % num_families_with_florida
both_girls=0
for f in families_with_florida:
if f[0]=='girl' and f[1]=='girl':
both_girls+=1
print "%d both girls (%f) given families with girl named florida" % (both_girls,
float(both_girls)/num_families_with_florida)
[previous post]: http://web.bryant.edu/~bblais/probability-problems-and-simulation.htmlWeird associations and the brain2010-01-05T14:56:00-05:002010-01-05T14:56:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-05:/posts/2010/Jan/05/weird-associations-and-the-brain/<p>You ever have deja vu? The brain associates many things together, and
can often give you the visceral feeling that you've been there before.
For several years I have had …</p><p>You ever have deja vu? The brain associates many things together, and
can often give you the visceral feeling that you've been there before.
For several years I have had a very specific deja vu that I have finally
tracked down. I found for some reason that when I watched the movie
<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0217869/">Unbreakable</a> (great movie!) that later in the day I would recall a
video game in my distant past called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda">Legend of Zelda</a>, that I
played on our Nintendo game machine. This happened a couple of times, so
I felt there was some association that I couldn't quite pick up.</p>
<p>Then I noticed that each time, I was humming the theme song to Zelda
during the day, and I finally figured out the association: the musical
transitions in the themes are close enough that hearing one, I would
continue with the other. The clips are below. If you listen to about 30
seconds of the Unbreakable music, you'll get the theme, and then go back
to the Zelda clip. How random! But now I have the satisfaction of a
puzzle solved!</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27FosuOUv3I#t=5m5s">Unbreakable clip</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNGS4yZcYeM#t=33s">Zelda clip</a></li>
</ul>
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</div>Cool little fact of the day...2010-01-04T15:17:00-05:002010-01-04T15:17:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2010-01-04:/posts/2010/Jan/04/cool-little-fact-of-the-day/<p>Did you know that if you interleave the pages of two phone books, that
it is nearly impossible to separate?</p>
<p>For those <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/mythbusters.html">Mythbusters</a> aficionados this won't be news, but since …</p><p>Did you know that if you interleave the pages of two phone books, that
it is nearly impossible to separate?</p>
<p>For those <a href="http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/mythbusters.html">Mythbusters</a> aficionados this won't be news, but since I
don't watch TV I missed this one. I just heard about it yesterday, and
didn't believe it. So I did a quick test myself and confirmed it! Very
cool!</p>
<p>You can see what mythbusters does with it here (note: it involves
tanks):</p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOt-D_ee-JE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOt-D_ee-JE</a></p>
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</div>Polar Bears, Data, Opinions, and Global Warming2009-12-22T16:16:00-05:002009-12-22T16:16:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-12-22:/posts/2009/Dec/22/polar-bears-data-opinions-and-global-warming/<p>So I had a nice discussion with a student, who was confused after
receiving some opposing viewpoints on Global Warming from different
professors in a relatively short time period. In …</p><p>So I had a nice discussion with a student, who was confused after
receiving some opposing viewpoints on Global Warming from different
professors in a relatively short time period. In one of the statements,
I had claimed that there were more polar bears now than there were 20-30
years ago. In another statement, another professor claimed that the
polar bears were dying off due to arctic ice retreat due to global
warming. This is actually a nice case of "follow the data", where the
problem is defined in a relatively concrete way. Another example of this
is the question "is it warmer now than 1000 years ago?". On the second
question, <a href="http://www.realclimate.org">www.realclimate.org</a> would say "yes, it is warmer than 1000
years ago" and cite the proxy data, etc... w<a href="http://ww.climateaudit.org">ww.climateaudit.org</a>
would say (I believe) "maybe, maybe not" and cite the issues with the
analysis of the proxy data.</p>
<p>Now, back to the polar bears. From the <a href="http://www.polarbearsinternational.org/ask-the-experts/population/">polarbearsinternational</a> it is
confirmed that the population of polar bears from the 1960's was very
low, in the few thousands, and in the early 2000s was up to between
22000-25000. These are also reflected in the <a href="http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special/polar_bears/">usgs site on polar
bears</a> where you can actually get some of the data.</p>
<p>If you go to the polar bear specialist group which advises for the IPCC,
you can find a <a href="http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html">table of the status of the polar bear in various
regions</a>. The problem with this table is that there is a column titled
"Observed or predicted trend". Hello? Why would you mix observed trends
and predicted trends in a table? Just show me the data. Anyway, there is
a document <a href="http://pbsg.npolar.no/export/sites/pbsg/en/docs/PBSG14proc.pdf">here</a> which has an explanation of the projections, and
possibly some data, although I haven't read the 200 pages of the
document to see if it is buried in the text (there is no figure with the
data...just model predictions). I'd love to find a straightforward
presentation of the estimates of the current numbers of polar bears,
complete with error-bars to denote uncertainty.</p>
<p>It seems reasonable that with the decline of the arctic ice that the
polar bear populations can be affected, some more than others, but the
role of hunting (the regulation of which caused the surge in the bear
numbers from the 1970s) still plays a role can is difficult to
disentangle...I've seen unsubstantiated claims that the areas with the
decrease are primarily hunting areas. I haven't confirmed this, but this
could also be the fact that ice retreat will be more substantial in the
more habitable areas, where there would be more people. Correlation does
not equal cause and effect.</p>
<p>So, it is a fact that there are many more polar bears now than, say
30-40 years ago. It can also be true, although I have difficulty
tracking the data down in a readable form, that arctic ice retreat could
impact polar bear numbers adversely.</p>
<p>One question that I have now is, if it was warmer 1000 years ago, is
there evidence that there was a significant retreat of the ice back
then? If that is the case, then the polar bear scare is just that...a
scare. Again, many of global warming consequences that are being
reported are tied to the question of the size, extent, and effects of
the Medieval Warming Period. That's why, in my opinion, that is the most
important question of all.</p>
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</div>Open Information, Reproducible Research, and Climategate2009-12-15T15:42:00-05:002009-12-15T15:42:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-12-15:/posts/2009/Dec/15/open-information-reproducible-research-and-climategate/<p><a href="http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~donoho/">David Donoho</a>, the creator of Wavelab is featured in an article about
[reproducible research in the journal CISE (Computing in Science and
Engineering)]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6965073194684424505-5123728428564256835?l=bblais.blogspot.com"></a>. I am struck by the resonance of …</p><p><a href="http://www-stat.stanford.edu/~donoho/">David Donoho</a>, the creator of Wavelab is featured in an article about
[reproducible research in the journal CISE (Computing in Science and
Engineering)]<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6965073194684424505-5123728428564256835?l=bblais.blogspot.com"></a>. I am struck by the resonance of a couple quotes, as
they apply to Climategate and Climate Modeling:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The scientific method's central motivation is the ubiquity of
error--the awareness that mistakes and self-delusion can creep in
absolutely anywhere and that the scientist's effort is primarily
expended in recognizing and rooting out error.</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>In stark contrast to the sciences relying on deduction and empiricism,
computational science is far less visibly concerned with the ubiquity
of error. At conferences and in publications, it's now completely
acceptable for a researcher to simply say "here is what I did, and
here are my results." Presenters devote almost no time to explaining
why the audience should believe that they found and corrected errors
in their computations. The presenter's core isn't about the struggle
to root out error--as it would be in mature fields--but is instead a
sales pitch...</p>
<p>[...]</p>
<p>Many users of scientific computing aren't even trying to follow a
systematic, rigorous discipline that would in principle allow others
to verify the claims they make. How dare we imagine that computational
science, as routinely practiced, is reliable!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On ClimateAudit, there is an older article (2005) about the <a href="http://climateaudit.org/2005/04/08/mckitrick-what-the-hockey-stick-debate-is-about/">Hockey
Stick</a> plot. Ross McKitrick makes the suggestion of an audit panel,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A group of experts fully independent of the IPCC should<br>
be assembled immediately after the release of any future IPCC Reports
to<br>
prepare an audit report which will be released under the imprimatur of
the IPCC itself. The audit will<br>
identify the key studies on which the Report’s conclusions have been<br>
based, and scrutinize those studies, with a view to verifying that, at
a<br>
minimum:</p>
<ul>
<li>data are publicly available, </li>
<li>The statistical methods were fully described, correctly <br>
implemented and the computer code is published </li>
<li>If the findings given maximum prominence are<br>
at odds with other published evidence, good reason is provided in
the<br>
text as to why these findings have been given prominence.</li>
</ul>
<p>Any competent scientist can assess these things. My strong <br>
recommendation is that such a panel be <br>
drawn from the ranks of competent mathematicians, statisticians, <br>
physicists and computer scientists <br>
outside the climatology profession, to prevent the conflict of <br>
interest that arises because <br>
climatologists face career repercussions from <br>
publicly criticizing the IPCC. Also, participation should <br>
exclude officials from environment ministries, <br>
because of the conflict of interest entailed in the fact <br>
that environment ministries are the main financial <br>
beneficiaries of the promotion of global warming fears.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The second recommendation is for a "counter-weight panel", whose job
would be to actively try to find holes in the analysis, assumptions,
etc...</p>
<p>I'm not sure how I feel about the second one (I'll have to think about
it), but the audit panel to me makes total sense. Why don't the
scientific journals do this as a matter of policy?</p>
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</div>Word of the Day: Micromort2009-12-12T13:08:00-05:002009-12-12T13:08:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-12-12:/posts/2009/Dec/12/word-of-the-day-micromort/<p>I'm not starting a new "word of the day" series, but I did learn this
work today from the following video on risk analysis:<br>
youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch …</p><p>I'm not starting a new "word of the day" series, but I did learn this
work today from the following video on risk analysis:<br>
youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1PtQ67urG4</p>
<p>It's an entertaining introduction to risk analysis, and they use the
word micromort, referring to a measurement of the quantity of an action
which gives you a 1 in a million chance of dying. The website is
<a href="http://www.understandinguncertainty.org">www.understandinguncertainty.org</a>.</p>
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</div>Climate Change Denial is not the same as Evolution Denial2009-12-11T01:00:00-05:002009-12-11T01:00:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-12-11:/posts/2009/Dec/11/climate-change-denial-is-not-the-same-as-evolution-denial/<p>Articles like <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/climate-psychology/">this one</a> and <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/12/climategate_how.html">this one</a> and others make the
comparison between, what they call, global warming deniers and evolution
deniers (aka Intelligent Design (ID) proponents), and even holocaust …</p><p>Articles like <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/climate-psychology/">this one</a> and <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/12/climategate_how.html">this one</a> and others make the
comparison between, what they call, global warming deniers and evolution
deniers (aka Intelligent Design (ID) proponents), and even holocaust
deniers. Personally, I find these comparisons misleading and dangerous.
It is true that there are some who believe that climate is not changing
at all, and that flies in the face of all of our knowledge of climate,
weather, and the Earth system. Then there are those, like in
<a href="http://climateaudit.org">climateaudit.org</a>, that criticize the statistics of the data, and the
possible false conclusions that can arise from that, and the lack of
transparency on such an important topic. Lumping them in with the ID
crowd is just ridiculous.</p>
<p>Why is the scientific consensus on Anthropomorphic Global Warming (AGW)
different than the scientific consensus on Evolution? Let me list some
of the ways:</p>
<ol>
<li>Evolution has many independent, very different, lines of evidence
(fossils, embryology, immunology, molecular biology, paleontology,
etc...). AGW has at best 50-100 different data sets, from the dozen
or so tree rings, to the dozen or so ice cores, satellite and
surface temperature records. Much of our inference comes from
computer simulations, that a very few completely understand. Much of
global warming consensus comes from a small minority that are
directly involved with the data or the simulations.</li>
<li>We can control aspects of evolution. With knowledge of DNA, we can
make genetically modified foods, we can change the course of
diseases, and breed bacteria to eat nylon. Our understanding of AGW
is at such a low level that we can only possibly control the climate
at the grossest level. Our lack of understanding of feedback loops
prevents even the most basic possible control of the system.</li>
<li>Although evolution occurs on long time scales, we can see its action
on the small scale. AGW also occurs on longish time scales, but
there is no short-term equivalent. This adds to our level of control
(with evolution), or lack of it with AGW.</li>
<li>Those that are denying evolution want to replace it with something
that violates not just evolution, but all of physics, chemistry,
astronomy...pretty much all of science. Although the extremists in
the anti-global warming camp can seem pretty anti-science, they
aren't trying to replace global warming with something that violates
all of science (they still might be wrong!). There is also a much
more nuanced camp that admits that the planet is warmer, but perhaps
it is not as special as the AGW theory would suggest, and that
draconian CO2 policies are unwarranted given the uncertainties. This
puts it on a very different scale than the anti-evolution group.</li>
</ol>
<p>It is dangerous to make the comparison. One is partly the demonizing of
your opponent and, at the same time, angelizing (is that a word? :) )
ones own perspective: by saying that the AGW deniers are just like the
evolution deniers, both makes the deniers seem unreasonable, but by
association, implies that AGW is as solid as evolution. This latter
claim, despite the claims of its proponents, is definitely hyperbole.</p>
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</div>Climategate, oh my!2009-12-09T10:54:00-05:002009-12-09T10:54:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-12-09:/posts/2009/Dec/09/climategate-oh-my/<p>I've been reading a lot about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident">Climategate</a>, and have a few comments
now, and hopefully more to come. What sparked this current thread of
thinking for me was <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/12/climategate_how.html">this post …</a></p><p>I've been reading a lot about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_e-mail_hacking_incident">Climategate</a>, and have a few comments
now, and hopefully more to come. What sparked this current thread of
thinking for me was <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/12/climategate_how.html">this post</a> over in the <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/mlm/">Statistical Modeling
blog</a>. He summarized the physicists perspective on the "settled
science" in a nice way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The evidence for anthropogenic (that is, human-caused) global warming
is strong, comes from many sources, and has been subject to much
scientific scrutiny. Plenty of data are freely available. The basic
principles can be understood by just about anyone, and first- and
second-order calculations can be perfomed by any physics grad student.
Given these facts, questioning the occurrence of anthropogenic global
warming seems crazy. (Predicting the details is much, much more
complicated). And yet, I have seen discussions, articles, and blog
posts from smart, educated people who seem to think that anthropogenic
climate change is somehow called into question by the facts that (1)
some scientists really, deeply believe that global warming skeptics
are wrong in their analyses and should be shut out of the scientific
discussion of global warming, and (2) one scientist may have fiddled
with some of the numbers in making one of his plots. This is enough to
make you skeptical of the whole scientific basis of global warming?
Really?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would love to go point by point in this quote and show the
calculations, and I'd imagine that it would get stymied once I tried to
put in the water vapor feedback. I need to read more about this, because
from what I've read we <strong>don't</strong> understand the magnitude, or sign, of
the cloud feedback and that it could <strong>easily</strong> wipe out any warming
caused by CO~2~ increases.</p>
<p>Some of the comments are very good too, like:</p>
<p>
> A. zarkov: I'm really disappointed to see you engage in the usual
> group think about global warming. Have you read the Wegman report? How
> come you don't refer people to ClimateAudit for the other side of the
> debate? Did you know that Michael Mann had to be forced by Congress to
> provide the data and codes behind the hockey stick calculation?
> ClimateAudit give you everything, the data and the R code they use.
> The other side stonewalls, and no wonder-- their results are a fraud.
> </p>
<p>The blog he refers to, <a href="http://climateaudit.org/">climateaudit.org</a>, is very interesting and is
exactly the way the commenter says: they are all for open information.
They post the data, the code, everything right up front and simply ask
everyone else to do the same. Why this isn't required for all scientific
publications, I don't know. Why it is not required for all high-stakes
publications (ones that could result in very high-stakes policy) I don't
know either. It's a travesty.</p>
<p>If everyone were as open about the data and the code, Climategate
couldn't have happened.</p>
<p>One final comment on this thread:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Radford, Neal: Few people ever disputed that the current temperatures
are higher than those of earlier times back to four hundred years ago.
The big issue has always been whether the Medieval Warm Period
(usually seen as occuring around a thousand years ago) was warmer than
at present, since if it was, that makes the present warming seem not
so unusal and perhaps due to natural causes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is my point too: if it was warmer 1000 years ago, then the
hysterical language of the global warming media is completely
unjustified.</p>
<p>
From [RealClimate.org][]:
> Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature
> reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick
> of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie
> from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The
> paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper
> on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’
> is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so
> that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use
> the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”,
> rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing
> problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known
> that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges
> from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known
> as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this
> paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in
> Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always
> recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so
> while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is
> ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely
> appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.
> </p>
<p>A <em>must read</em> is the <a href="http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Holland/Bias_and_Concealment.pdf">article by David Holland</a>, <br>
which outlines the problems with the hockey-stick analysis. He explains
the divergence problem, and the <br>
history of all this far better than I can summarize here.</p>
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</div>Universality of Religion2009-12-06T14:32:00-05:002009-12-06T14:32:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-12-06:/posts/2009/Dec/06/universality-of-religion/<p>On the <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/">Effect Measure blog</a>, there is post about <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/12/freethinker_sunday_sermonette_181.php#commentsArea">"Freethinker Sunday
Sermonette: Dawkins on evolution and religion"</a>, with the following
video:</p>
<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czMU4-vNkiE</p>
<p>I am …</p><p>On the <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/">Effect Measure blog</a>, there is post about <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/12/freethinker_sunday_sermonette_181.php#commentsArea">"Freethinker Sunday
Sermonette: Dawkins on evolution and religion"</a>, with the following
video:</p>
<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czMU4-vNkiE</p>
<p>I am struck by a few things.</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>First, in the blog post he mentions: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It assumes that all things we call religion or religious impulses
are essentially the same or have some common core. This faces the
philosophical problem of properties and propositions in general.
For example, take the property of redness. Is there something that
all objects we call red have in common? And if there is, is this
the same kind of thing we call religious belief?
</p></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In fact there <em>is</em> something common to all things red: the
wavelengths of light that are absorbed. I think what he is asking is
whether we <em>experience</em> red in the same way as our friend. In fact,
it is quite likely, and it is not a philosophical idea at all. It
seems to me more and more that philosophy tries to handle questions
that are out of reach for science (for the moment) but the solutions
found in philosophy evaporate or are insubstantial once we really
understand what is going on. <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/">Tom Mitchell</a> has done some very
interesting work with looking at fMRI data in his <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbTf2nE3Lbw">"Brains, Meaning,
and Corpus Statistics" talk</a> (talk slides on his <a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/">home page</a>).</p>
<p><p>
In the work, he compares fMRI data from different individuals, and
finds that he can correctly identify images and words from brain
activity of one person, using the associations between the images
and words derived from the brain activity <strong>of other people</strong>. This
strongly suggests that the internal representations of words and
concepts may be very similar between individuals. Not only that, but
that we have the possibility of determining what those are and not
just leave it up to philosophical ruminations.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Dawkins mentions belief in authorities as a psychological tendency
that may lead to religious thinking under the right circumstances. I
would further add the brain's tendency for seeing patterns where
there are none as the other piece of the religious-thinking puzzle.
It is evolutionary advantageous to see tigers where there are none
as opposed to not seeing tigers where there are some. Not all errors
are equally costly. Religious interpretation of experience seems to
me to easily follow from these sorts of errors.</p>
</li>
</ol>
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</div>A great observation2009-12-01T01:13:00-05:002009-12-01T01:13:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-12-01:/posts/2009/Dec/01/a-great-observation/<p>
So [this post][] from Laura Wattenberg's "Baby Name Wizard" blog has a
wonderful observation:
> Here's a little pet peeve of mine: nothing rhymes with orange. You've
> heard that before, right …</p><p>
So [this post][] from Laura Wattenberg's "Baby Name Wizard" blog has a
wonderful observation:
> Here's a little pet peeve of mine: nothing rhymes with orange. You've
> heard that before, right? Orange is famous for its rhymelessness.
> There's even a comic strip called "Rhymes with Orange." Fine then, let
> me ask you something. What the heck rhymes with purple?
>
> </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you stop and think about it, you'll find that English is jam-packed
with rhymeless common words. What rhymes with empty, or olive, or
silver, or circle? You can even find plenty of one-syllable words like
wolf, bulb, and beige. Yet orange somehow became notorious for its
rhymelessness, with the curious result that people now assume its
status is unique.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was directed to the quote by Andrew Gelman's <a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/mlm/">Statistical Modeling
blog</a>, and he has<a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/MT/mt-search.fcgi?search=laura+wattenberg&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20">other posts about names and sounds</a>.</p>
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</div>Information2009-11-30T18:52:00-05:002009-11-30T18:52:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-11-30:/posts/2009/Nov/30/information/<p>It all started with "information is beautiful", with this <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/2012-the-end-of-the-world/">post about
the 2012 non-issue</a>, and then it went to <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/interesting-easy-beautiful-true/">this interesting figure
which I am pondering</a>...not sure if the …</p><p>It all started with "information is beautiful", with this <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/2012-the-end-of-the-world/">post about
the 2012 non-issue</a>, and then it went to <a href="http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2009/interesting-easy-beautiful-true/">this interesting figure
which I am pondering</a>...not sure if the labels are correct. Finally I
was pointed to infochimps, <a href="http://infochimps.org/">a collection of data which I need to look at
more closely</a>.</p>
<p>We are in the information age, and I'd love the way the information in
the first two links is portrayed, and I plan on playing in the
infochimps site more.</p>
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</div>Autotune, Science, and Creativity2009-11-18T10:47:00-05:002009-11-18T10:47:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-11-18:/posts/2009/Nov/18/autotune-science-and-creativity/<p>I was just introduced to a very creative project called the <a href="http://www.symphonyofscience.com/">Symphony of
Science</a>. It uses a technology called <a href="http://www.antarestech.com/">Autotune</a>, traditionally used
to keep lousy pop singers in key. In …</p><p>I was just introduced to a very creative project called the <a href="http://www.symphonyofscience.com/">Symphony of
Science</a>. It uses a technology called <a href="http://www.antarestech.com/">Autotune</a>, traditionally used
to keep lousy pop singers in key. In real-time it adjusts the pitch of
the singer, so what comes out of the speakers is the correct frequency.
Technically, it's very challenging to modify the waveform consistently,
and in real-time.</p>
<p>Anyway, this particular project takes famous scientists, and puts their
speech to music. The music is catchy, and really captures well the
philosophies of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk">Carl Sagan and others</a>. It just makes me realize how
much I miss Carl Sagan, which then makes me miss <a href="http://www.stephenjaygould.org/">Stephen Jay Gould</a>
and <a href="http://bayes.wustl.edu/">E.T. Jaynes</a>.</p>
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</div>Yet another reason to leave Iraq...dowsing for bombs2009-11-14T12:13:00-05:002009-11-14T12:13:00-05:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-11-14:/posts/2009/Nov/14/yet-another-reason-to-leave-iraq-dowsing-for-bombs/<p>So it seems as if the Iraqi police are <a href="http://www.badscience.net/2009/11/wtf/">dowsing for bombs and
firearms</a>, as covered in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html?_r=4&hp">New York Times</a> and <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/231-a-direct-specific-challenge-from-james-randi-and-the-jref.html">James Randi</a>.
They are doing this using a …</p><p>So it seems as if the Iraqi police are <a href="http://www.badscience.net/2009/11/wtf/">dowsing for bombs and
firearms</a>, as covered in the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/middleeast/04sensors.html?_r=4&hp">New York Times</a> and <a href="http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/231-a-direct-specific-challenge-from-james-randi-and-the-jref.html">James Randi</a>.
They are doing this using a device they've purchased to the tune of \$80
million, and it works no better <a href="http://www.ehow.com/how_2085876_dowse-water.html">using a coat hanger</a>!</p>
<p>I think the best quote which summarizes the danger and the bad thinking
is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Major General Jehad al-Jabiri is head of the Ministry of the
Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives. “I don’t care
about Sandia or the Department of Justice or any of them,” he says.
“Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects
bombs.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, if it hasn't been shown to detect bombs by science, the other
option is irrelevant.</p>
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</div>Netflix prize2009-10-12T12:21:00-04:002009-10-12T12:21:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-10-12:/posts/2009/Oct/12/netflix-prize/<p>Fortune magazine had a <a href="http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/21/box-office-boffo-for-brainiacs-the-netflix-prize/">recent article</a> on the Netflix prize. A very
interesting competition to increase their correct recommendation
percentage by 10%. I was struck by a comment at the …</p><p>Fortune magazine had a <a href="http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/21/box-office-boffo-for-brainiacs-the-netflix-prize/">recent article</a> on the Netflix prize. A very
interesting competition to increase their correct recommendation
percentage by 10%. I was struck by a comment at the bottom by a reader
of the article:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If it is true what the article says, that the BellKor team’s
algorithms used information such as "genre" and "actors", then they
plainly cheated!<br>
This information was not available in the contest. The contest data
had only 4 pieces of information: people ID, movie, date, and the
rating values.<br>
If BellKor managed to get extra information about the people and
movies, it is hard to understand how NetFlix overlooked it. Therefore
I'm quite sure that the article got the story wrong – it is too
extreme to be believable. But if the article is right, then the
winning team used crooked means to get the prize and its 'solution'
does not worth much. Hope it is the first option…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I remember looking at the data, and if I recall correctly, I remember a
script to add to the database from IMDB. I assume this was allowed,
because otherwise there would have been no way to get 10%.</p>
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</div>Disturbing video misusing Einstein's name2009-10-11T02:01:00-04:002009-10-11T02:01:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-10-11:/posts/2009/Oct/11/disturbing-video-misusing-einsteins-name/<p>I saw this video posted on facebook The link to one rebuttal, which
links to the original, is here:</p>
<p><a href="http://filipinofreethinkers.org/2009/10/08/does-god-exist-video-campaign-refuted/">http://filipinofreethinkers.org/2009/10/08/does-god-exist-video-campaign-refuted/</a></p>
<p>I wrote as a …</p><p>I saw this video posted on facebook The link to one rebuttal, which
links to the original, is here:</p>
<p><a href="http://filipinofreethinkers.org/2009/10/08/does-god-exist-video-campaign-refuted/">http://filipinofreethinkers.org/2009/10/08/does-god-exist-video-campaign-refuted/</a></p>
<p>I wrote as a comment to the person posting it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Actually, this is not a true story, nor does it capture even in the
slightest way the views of Einstein on religion (see
http://www.einsteinandreligion.com/).</p>
<p>Although it is a cute video, there are logical flaws such as the fact
that neither "hot" nor "cold" exists except as labels on
"temperature", neither label with any special role.</p>
<p>I'm mostly disturbed by the fact that this Christian organization is
trying to legitimize a flawed argument, by falsely attributing it to a
very famous non-Christian, and nearly non-religious, scientist.</p>
</blockquote>
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</div>Recovery from Vision2009-09-16T21:54:00-04:002009-09-16T21:54:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-09-16:/posts/2009/Sep/16/recovery-from-vision/<p>The <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/blindness-091609.html">following article</a> talks about recovery of vision from people who
were blind from birth. A couple of things really jumped out at me.</p>
<p>1.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![7316DF11-C08C-474C-81E3-786ECED034AF.jpg][]
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>S.K. could …</p></blockquote><p>The <a href="http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/blindness-091609.html">following article</a> talks about recovery of vision from people who
were blind from birth. A couple of things really jumped out at me.</p>
<p>1.</p>
<div style="text-align:center;">
![7316DF11-C08C-474C-81E3-786ECED034AF.jpg][]
</div>
<blockquote>
<p>S.K. could identify some shapes (triangles, squares, etc.) when they
were side-by-side, but not when they overlapped. His brain was unable
to distinguish the outlines of a whole shape; instead, he believed
that each fragment of a shape was its own whole. For S.K. and other
patients like him, "it seems like the world has been broken into many
different pieces," says Sinha.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>2.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>However, if a square or triangle was put into motion, S.K. (and the
other two patients) could much more easily identify it. (With motion,
their success rates improved from close to zero to around 75 percent.)
Furthermore, motility of objects greatly influenced the patients'
ability to recognize them in images.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is very easily interpreted using the HTM framework. It's very
interesting!</p>
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</div>Probability Problems and Simulation2009-09-16T12:36:00-04:002009-09-16T12:36:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-09-16:/posts/2009/Sep/16/probability-problems-and-simulation/<p>There are a number of classic probability problems that challenge the
intuition, both for students and for teachers. I have found that one way
to overcome this intuition block is …</p><p>There are a number of classic probability problems that challenge the
intuition, both for students and for teachers. I have found that one way
to overcome this intuition block is to write a quick simulation. A good
example is the classic evil probability <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem">problem of the Monty Hall</a>.
The derivation of the solution is straightforward, but it is easy to
convince yourself of the wrong answer. A quick simulation, like the one
below, makes it clear: 1/3 of the time the host gets a choice with which
door to open, and 2/3 of the time the host has no choice - with the
other door having the prize. I find a numerical simulation helps to
bolster my confidence in a mathematical analysis, especially when it is
particularly unintuitive.</p>
<div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><code><span class="kn">from</span> <span class="nn">random</span> <span class="kn">import</span> <span class="n">randint</span>
<span class="kn">import</span> <span class="nn">random</span>
<span class="n">turn</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">win</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">0</span>
<span class="n">human</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="kc">False</span>
<span class="k">while</span> <span class="n">turn</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="mi">500</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">prize</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">randint</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">2</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="mi">3</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">human</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">your_first_answer</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">input</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Which door </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1">? '</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="c1"># automatic</span>
<span class="n">your_first_answer</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">choice</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="p">)</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">prize</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="n">your_first_answer</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="c1"># happens 1/3 of the time</span>
<span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">remove</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">your_first_answer</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="c1"># get the other two</span>
<span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">sorted</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="n">your_first_answer</span><span class="p">,</span>
<span class="n">random</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">choice</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="p">)])</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">sorted</span><span class="p">([</span><span class="n">prize</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="n">your_first_answer</span><span class="p">])</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">human</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">your_second_answer</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">input</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">'Which door </span><span class="si">%s</span><span class="s1">? '</span> <span class="o">%</span> <span class="nb">str</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="p">))</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="c1"># automatic</span>
<span class="c1"># always switch</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="n">your_first_answer</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">your_second_answer</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">1</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="n">your_second_answer</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="n">door_choices</span><span class="p">[</span><span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">]</span>
<span class="k">if</span> <span class="n">your_second_answer</span><span class="o">==</span><span class="n">prize</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="nb">print</span> <span class="s2">"You win!"</span>
<span class="n">win</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="k">else</span><span class="p">:</span>
<span class="nb">print</span> <span class="s2">"You Lose!"</span>
<span class="n">turn</span><span class="o">+=</span><span class="mi">1</span>
<span class="nb">print</span> <span class="s2">"Winning percentage: "</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="nb">float</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">win</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="n">turn</span><span class="o">*</span><span class="mi">100</span>
</code></pre></div>Frequentist thinking, or just bad math?2009-09-10T01:25:00-04:002009-09-10T01:25:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-09-10:/posts/2009/Sep/10/frequentist-thinking-or-just-bad-math/<p>In Steven Pinker's excellent book "How the Mind Works", he describes how
people are bad at probability assessments, but are much better at
frequency assessments (pg 348). It almost comes …</p><p>In Steven Pinker's excellent book "How the Mind Works", he describes how
people are bad at probability assessments, but are much better at
frequency assessments (pg 348). It almost comes out and says that the
brain is frequentist and not Bayesian, and it certainly implies it. He
outlines how badly people do on the classic rare disease problem:
"frequency of a disease is 0.01%, you take a test that is 99.99%
accurate (false positives at 0.01%), you test positive. What is your
chance of having the disease". People, even educated people (even in the
medical fields) get this one wrong a lot.</p>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Pinker contrasts this with "Think of 10,000 people, so we expect 1 to be
infected and 9,999 to be not infected. You take the test, and the 1
person infected will almost certainly test positive, and we expect 1
person out of the 9,999 to test positive as well. We know that you
tested positive, so what is your chance of having the disease?"
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
He claims that people are much better at getting the answer right. In my
view, this is less about being good at calculating frequencies, and more
about being bad at math. The second way of describing the problem pretty
much sets up and carries out all of the "difficult" math, and then
rounds so that all you have are small integer values. People do much
better with that. If you want an example, not in probability, you can
read my paper on["Teaching Energy Balance using Round Numbers: A
Quantitative Approach to the Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming"][],
which was motivated by the Weight Watchers system.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
In the weight watchers system, counting calories (215+340+...) is
replaced by dividing by 50 and rounding (4+7+...). Same result, but
small numbers are easier to work with.
</div>
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</div>A nice series to look at2009-09-02T16:36:00-04:002009-09-02T16:36:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-09-02:/posts/2009/Sep/02/a-nice-series-to-look-at/<p>Bill Harris has a <a href="http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/2009/06/making-more-sense-with-numbers-part-8.html">nice blog entry</a> about Bayesian versus Classical
stats. I'd like to go through the rest of these posts, because I think
there is some great stuff …</p><p>Bill Harris has a <a href="http://facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/2009/06/making-more-sense-with-numbers-part-8.html">nice blog entry</a> about Bayesian versus Classical
stats. I'd like to go through the rest of these posts, because I think
there is some great stuff in there.</p>
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</div>230 miles per gallon!2009-08-12T16:52:00-04:002009-08-12T16:52:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-08-12:/posts/2009/Aug/12/230-miles-per-gallon/<p>So <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10307239-54.html">this story</a> today about the new GM Volt to come out that
supposedly gets 230 mpg. My first thought when reading it is that they
are touting it as …</p><p>So <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10307239-54.html">this story</a> today about the new GM Volt to come out that
supposedly gets 230 mpg. My first thought when reading it is that they
are touting it as fossil fuel saver, and I'm skeptical. Essentially you
are replacing one fossil fuel with another (whatever the electric
company uses versus gasoline). There is no guarantee that the electric
company will use less fossil fuel than you would use, say, per mile of
driving. And there is no guarantee that the electric company will use
*cleaner* fuel than gasoline. Plus, batteries tend to be notoriously
difficult to dispose of, and are an environmental hazard themselves when
thrown out.</p>
<p>One advantage to replacing mobile power (e.g. gasoline) with stationary
power (e.g. electric company) is that one can replace the stationary
power with nuclear, which you just can't do with cars.</p>
<p>It is claimed that it will be cheaper for end users, "In Detroit, where
off-peak electricity rates are 5 cents a kilowatt hours, it will cost
about 40 cents to recharge batteries overnight." One does have to factor
in the maintenance costs, battery replacement, and battery disposal
costs into the cost of owning this new car.</p>
<p>Now, I am not against this development, as such, but it is important (as
always) to be aware of both the benefits and the costs of the new
technology. It is far too easy to read one side of the equation, pat
oneself on the back, while ignoring the hidden costs.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Free will2009-07-30T12:06:00-04:002009-07-30T12:06:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-30:/posts/2009/Jul/30/free-will/<p>After a discussion with a friend about Nostradamus, I realized that the
existence of prophets conflicts with the idea of free will: if the
future is written in such a …</p><p>After a discussion with a friend about Nostradamus, I realized that the
existence of prophets conflicts with the idea of free will: if the
future is written in such a way that we can make definite predictions
years ahead of time, then the choices of people can mean nothing...they
are thus not free. Perhaps this is true, but I find it interesting that
Christianity (and probably other religions) has free will as a basic
axiom, and yet prophets are a common and fill an important component of
the faith!</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>neat way to introduce programming2009-07-24T17:28:00-04:002009-07-24T17:28:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-24:/posts/2009/Jul/24/neat-way-to-introduce-programming/<p>Just came upon <a href="http://jackcoughonsoftware.blogspot.com/2009/05/teaching-functional-programming-to-kids.html">this post</a> which describes a nice analogy between
programming and Dr Seuss' Sneetch star-on and star-off machines. A
modified version might be useful even for older students …</p><p>Just came upon <a href="http://jackcoughonsoftware.blogspot.com/2009/05/teaching-functional-programming-to-kids.html">this post</a> which describes a nice analogy between
programming and Dr Seuss' Sneetch star-on and star-off machines. A
modified version might be useful even for older students.</p>
<p>another <a href="http://neoparaiso.com/logo/ejercicios-de-geometria.html">post here</a>, although written in spanish, has a number of
interesting LOGO (or python turtle) example exercises.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Silly challenge to silly statement2009-07-24T14:18:00-04:002009-07-24T14:18:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-24:/posts/2009/Jul/24/silly-challenge-to-silly-statement/<p>There is a new <a href="http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/challenge-to-climate-change-skeptics.html">Challenge to Global Warming Skeptics</a> by the
FiveThirtyEight statisticians, who did such a good job with the
Obama-McCain forecasts. The challenge is summed up by:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"For …</p></blockquote><p>There is a new <a href="http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/challenge-to-climate-change-skeptics.html">Challenge to Global Warming Skeptics</a> by the
FiveThirtyEight statisticians, who did such a good job with the
Obama-McCain forecasts. The challenge is summed up by:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"For each day that the high temperature in your hometown is at least 1
degree Fahrenheit above average, as listed by Weather Underground, you
owe me \<span class="math">\(25. For each day that it is at least 1 degree Fahrenheit
below average, I owe you \\)</span>25."</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He's trying to address recent statements by some conservatives,
paraphrased as "It's cold this summer here in Minneapolis, so global
warming must be wrong." That's a bit of a strawman, but from the <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/07/024075.php">Power
Line blog post</a>, there really is this sense of local vs global
perspective.</p>
<p>Well, it's actually a pretty silly challenge to a pretty silly
statement. No serious GW skeptic I've heard contests that their <strong>is</strong>
warming on a global scale, but argues against the magnitude or, more
commonly, the cause of the warming (human vs not). The statistical
challenge here only addresses whether there is warming, and even there
is rigged to win <strong>even if there were no real global warming</strong>, because
of the urban heat island effect. Most of the thermometers started out in
rural areas, or in fields outside of towns, and cities were built around
them. Areas around pavement are warmer than the surrounding areas, so
there would be a measured warming trend due to development, not due to
atmospherics.</p>
<p>A better bet would involve predicting the global temperature for, say, 5
years from now (along with the uncertainty). Each side puts in their
prediction, and pays \$1 times the ratio of the posterior probabilities
for the two models, P(M~1~)/P(M~2~). Would anyone take a bet like that?</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>
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</script>A quick comment on error2009-07-20T14:05:00-04:002009-07-20T14:05:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-20:/posts/2009/Jul/20/a-quick-comment-on-error/<p>I read <a href="http://www.theweek.com/article/index/98607/Census_Bureau_The_counting_of_America">this article</a> in the Week magazine, concerning the upcoming
census. I plan to look at statistical sampling later, but I was struck
by the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because supporters and …</p></blockquote><p>I read <a href="http://www.theweek.com/article/index/98607/Census_Bureau_The_counting_of_America">this article</a> in the Week magazine, concerning the upcoming
census. I plan to look at statistical sampling later, but I was struck
by the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because supporters and opponents tend to break down along partisan
lines. Democrats favor sampling because the people who are
traditionally hardest to count are the urban poor, minorities, and
immigrants, all of whom tend to live in Democratic strongholds and
vote Democratic. These groups are often undercounted because they move
so frequently and do not trust government employees asking questions.
Republicans, by contrast, stress that the Constitution specifies an
“actual enumeration” of the population, not an estimate. They also
argue that statistical sampling is inferior to counting. “Anyone
familiar with public opinion polling can tell you that statistical
sampling carries a margin of error,” Republican Reps. Darrell Issa and
Patrick McHenry recently wrote. “And error is the enemy of a full and
accurate census.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The notion that a national count is completely error free is ridiculous.
I think everyone would agree that if you do a count, that you will not
get everyone. It is known that mistakes are made, omissions occur, and
that some people actively avoid the census. Because the census avoidance
is not random, the omissions are biased in some way. One can argue in
which ways the bias points, but the bias is there.</p>
<p>So what is the best plan of action in this case? You want to make an
estimate of the number of people in the country. "Estimate" is the
correct word, even for an enumeration, given the fact that the
enumeration is known to be incomplete. The best thing to do, then, is to
have a public and open statistical model of the process of sampling,
with independent ways to confirm the validity of the model. If the model
is simple, and open, it would be difficult to argue against. Without
this approach, a "strict enumeration" is really an unstated statistical
model where the assumptions are very difficult to see.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Laplace and the Divine2009-07-19T12:04:00-04:002009-07-19T12:04:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-19:/posts/2009/Jul/19/laplace-and-the-divine/<p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2009/07/misunderstanding-laplace.html">previous post</a> I used the word "God" in quotes, when referring
to Laplace's view of determinism. This was done because Laplace himself
did not believe in God, and …</p><p>In a <a href="http://bblais.blogspot.com/2009/07/misunderstanding-laplace.html">previous post</a> I used the word "God" in quotes, when referring
to Laplace's view of determinism. This was done because Laplace himself
did not believe in God, and I used the term as a convenience to
represent a hypothetical all-knowing being. The clearest view of
Laplace's perspective comes from an interaction with Napoleon. After
reading Laplace's Mécanique céleste, Napoleon asked him about the lack
of the reference to God anywhere in the work. Laplace responded that he
had no need for that hypothesis.</p>
<p>In a strict way, this is an agnostic perspective. The description of the
universe, as described by Laplace, does not need to use the concept of
God in any way. This does not disprove the existence of God, or even
deny God's existence. It merely states that the concept of God is not
needed. This is the pure vision of science, and why science does not
necessarily conflict with religion. However, there could be certain
claims from specific religions that conflict with science. The 6000 year
old Earth, part of some fundamentalist Christian beliefs, is one
example. The God as the mystery in the Universe is not something that
can conflict with science.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>Misunderstanding Laplace2009-07-19T00:58:00-04:002009-07-19T00:58:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-19:/posts/2009/Jul/19/misunderstanding-laplace/<p>I finished Leonard Mlodinow's "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules
Our Lives" this past week, and have a couple of thoughts related to it.</p>
<p>
In Chapter 10 he quotes Laplace …</p><p>I finished Leonard Mlodinow's "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules
Our Lives" this past week, and have a couple of thoughts related to it.</p>
<p>
In Chapter 10 he quotes Laplace:
> "We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its
> past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain
> moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all
> positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect
> were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would
> embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of
> the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect
> nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be
> present before its eyes."
> </p>
<p>
and Mlodinow states that this is an expression of determinism. He then
further states
> But for Laplace's dream to hold true, several conditions must be met.
> First, the laws of nature must dictate a definite future, and we must
> know those laws. Second, we must have access to data that completely
> describe the system of interest, allowing no unforeseen influences.
> Finally, we must have sufficient intelligence or computing power to be
> able to decide what, given the data about the present, the laws say
> the future will hold.
> </p>
<p>He then criticizes it with the following three problems:</p>
<ol>
<li>society is not governed (as far as we know) by definite and
fundamental laws in the way physics is</li>
<li>like Lorenz, we cannot obtain the precise data necessary for making
predictions</li>
<li>human affairs are so complex that it is doubtful we'd be able to
make the calculations anyway</li>
</ol>
<p>He concludes "as a result, determinism is a poor model for the human
experience." His point seems to be, in some ways, obvious and in other
ways irrelevant.</p>
<p>Laplace was simply saying that "God" would not find anything random,
because of complete knowledge. The connection between knowledge and
inference, which probability theory affords, was worked out by Laplace
in great detail and it known to use today as Bayesian inference. The
structure of Bayesian inference describes randomness simply as the
product of our ignorance of the model, the parameters, the initial
conditions, the measurement details, etc... Laplace was simply saying
that with perfect knowledge, there is no randomness. E.T. Jaynes would
describe the "random process" as a mind-projection fallacy: you have
ignorance of the system, so you attribute its unpredictable behavior as
a product of the system itself. A rolled die is following Newton's Laws,
deterministically, and detailed knowledge of the die and the roll and
the surface should allow you to predict 100% of the time what it will
do. We lack that knowledge, thus the behavior becomes unpredictable. We
often then attribute that unpredictable behavior as a "random die", as
if it were the die that contains the randomness and not our own
ignorance.</p>
<p>Bringing in Lorenz, and chaos theory, is irrelevant here. Lorenz's
systems were completely deterministic, and it is theoretically possible
for a being to know the state of the system out to a sufficient number
of decimal places to provide any particularly set level of uncertainty
in the system. With the quantization of states, it then becomes possible
to know *exactly* what state something is in. Of course, quantum
mechanics is a two-edged sword in this example: it solves the chaos
problem, but adds an inherent, physical, randomness to the system which
is very peculiar.</p>
<p>The problem with Mlodinow, it seems, is that he hold human activity to
be a bit too special. We are, after all, made up of atoms and would thus
be governed by the laws of physics. Certainly it would be too complex to
handle, for us, but Laplace was not talking about us in his quote, or at
least not us right now or in the near future.</p>
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</div>Homeopathic "Medicine"2009-07-10T10:17:00-04:002009-07-10T10:17:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-10:/posts/2009/Jul/10/homeopathic-medicine/<p>Homeopathic medicine "is a form of alternative medicine, first expounded
by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that treats patients with
heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects …</p><p>Homeopathic medicine "is a form of alternative medicine, first expounded
by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, that treats patients with
heavily diluted preparations which are thought to cause effects similar
to the symptoms presented." (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy</a>).
I saw the mock video below on the skeptics blog,
<a href="http://skepticblog.org/">http://skepticblog.org/</a>, and thought it was so amusing I had to post
it here. I've known people who swear by this stuff, which is
unfortunate. Treatments like these, that don't work, are dangerous and
can actually kill people by diverting them from legitimate treatment. A
good analysis of this is at <a href="http://www.csicop.org/si/9709/park.html">http://www.csicop.org/si/9709/park.html</a>.</p>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The video, however, is quite amusing.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
[youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player\_embedded&fs=1]
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>"Erroneous" Probabilistic Reasoning2009-07-08T22:10:00-04:002009-07-08T22:10:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-08:/posts/2009/Jul/08/erroneous-probabilistic-reasoning/<p>I've been reading Leonard Mlodinow's "The Drunkard's Walk: How
Randomness Rules Our Lives", and he describes a set of experiments which
I had heard of before but never gave too …</p><p>I've been reading Leonard Mlodinow's "The Drunkard's Walk: How
Randomness Rules Our Lives", and he describes a set of experiments which
I had heard of before but never gave too much thought to. The
experiments deal with people making probability assessments about a
series of statements. The experiments were done by Daniel Kahneman and
Amos Tversky[cite here]. It starts with a description:</p>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><div>
Imagine a woman named Linda, thirty-two years old, single, out-spoken,
and very bright. In college she majored in philosophy. While a student
she was deeply concerned with discrimination and social justice and
participated in antinuclear demonstrations.
</div>
<div>
</div></p>
</blockquote>
<div>
They then ask for a ranking of most (1) to least (8) probable for a
number of statements. The interesting three statements are:
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<blockquote>
<p><div>
Linda is active in the feminist movement: 2.1
</div>
<div>
Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement: 4.1
</div>
<div>
Linda is a bank teller: 6.2
</div>
<div>
</div></p>
</blockquote>
<div>
This is then used to say that people do not figure probabilities
correctly because *"the probability that two events will both occur can
never be greater than the probability that each will occur individually"
(italics in original).*
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
The book reports that "even highly trained doctors make this error",
with the following example.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
> They presented a group of internists with a serious medical problem: a
> pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in the lung). If you have that
> ailment, you might display one or more of a set of symptoms. Some of
> those symptoms, such as partial paralysis, are uncommon; others, such
> as shortness of breath, are probable. Which is more likely: that the
> victim of an embolism will experience partial paralysis or that the
> victim will experience both partial paralysis and shortness of breath?
> Kahneman and Tversky found that 91 percent of the doctors believed a
> clot was less likely to cause just a rare symptom than it was to cause
> a combination of the rare symptom and a common one. (In the doctor's
> defense, patients don't walk into their offices and say things like "I
> have a blood clot in my lungs. Guess my symptoms."
> </p>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Now, I haven't read past this point, or the original study, so take what
I say here with a grain of salt. I wanted to put down my thoughts on
these observations before going on to read the study's conclusions.
Perhaps what I say now will be inconsistent with other aspects of the
studies, or further data.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
**I do not think that one should conclude poor reasoning in these
examples.**
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
I believe there are two things going on here. One is a property of the
English language, and the other is a property of human reasoning. In
English, if I were to say "Do you want steak for dinner, or steak and
potatoes?" one would immediately parse this as choice between
</div>
<div>
1. steak with no potatoes
2. steak with potatoes
</div>
<div>
Although strict logic would have it otherwise, it is common in English
to have the implied negative when given a choice like this. If we
interpret the doctor's choice, we have:
</div>
<div>
1. clot with paralysis and shortness of breath
2. clot with paralysis and no shortness of breath
<div>
the second one is much less likely, because it would be odd to have a
clot and not have a very common symptom associated with it. It is less
clear in Linda's case, but I think the same reasoning applies there.
What is interesting is that the error is not seen in ranking statements
which have nothing to do with the given knowledge about Linda, such as:
</div>
<div>
</div>
> <div>
> Linda owns an IHOP franchise
> </div>
> <div>
> Linda had a sex-change and is now Larry
> </div>
> <div>
> Linda had a sex-change and is now Larry and owns an IHOP franchise
> </div>
> <div>
> </div>
<div>
There might be something to being completely unrelated that changes the
interpretation of the English sentence, and makes it a bit more formal,
closer to the mathematical reasoning. I am not sure what types of
statements would do this, but it is a bit challenging to disentangle
subtle language interpretations I think.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
When reading these experiments, I recalled a description from E.T.
Jaynes about people receiving the same new information, but updating
their knowledge in a diverging way, due to differences in their prior
information. I think something like that could be going on here. What I
mean is, when doctors are asked: "Which is more likely: that the victim
of an embolism will experience partial paralysis or that the victim will
experience both partial paralysis and shortness of breath?" it is
interpreted as:
</div>
<div>
1. someone is *claiming* that the patient has an embolism
2. the patient is *claiming,*or someone has measured, that she has
partial paralysis
3. the patient is *claiming,*or someone has measured, that she has
shortness of breath
<div>
I don't believe the doctors are separating the analysis of the claim of
the clot, which is given information, from the other claims. As Mlodinow
admits, the situation where one knows the diagnosis is practically never
encountered, so the doctors are really assessing the truthfulness of the
existence of the clot. Because of this, the implied negative in (2)
above (i.e. paralysis with no shortness of breath) is even stronger.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Another way of looking at it is to include the knowledge of the method
of reporting. Someone who is reporting information about an ailment will
report all of the information accessible to them. By reporting only the
paralysis, there are two possibilities concerning the person measuring
the symptoms of the patient:
</div>
<div>
1. they had the means to measure shortness breath in the patient, but
there was none
2. they did not have the means to measure shortness of breath
<div>
In the first case, the doctor's probability assessment is absolutely
correct: both symptoms together are more likely than just one. In the
second case, the doctors are also correct: one of the sets of diagnostic
results (i.e. just paralysis) is less dependable than the other set
(i.e. both symptoms), thus the second one is more likely to indicate a
clot or is consistent with the known clot.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
It isn't that the doctors are reasoning incorrectly. They are including
more information, and doing a more sophisticated inference than the
strict, formal, minimalistic interpretation of the statements would lead
one to do.
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
This analysis works well for other examples stated in the book, like "Is
it more probable that the president will increase federal aid to
education or that he or she will increase federal aid to education with
function freed by cutting other aid to states?".
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
Now I have to continue reading the book, and track down the study, to
see if any of these thoughts pan out.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>A Little Geometry2009-07-08T01:13:00-04:002009-07-08T01:13:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-08:/posts/2009/Jul/08/a-little-geometry/<p>I've just finished the book "Euclid's Window" by Leonard Mlodinow, and
really enjoyed it. The book describe the history of geometry from
Euclid, Descartes, Gauss, and Einsten. During his coverage …</p><p>I've just finished the book "Euclid's Window" by Leonard Mlodinow, and
really enjoyed it. The book describe the history of geometry from
Euclid, Descartes, Gauss, and Einsten. During his coverage of Euclid he
presents a simple proof of the Pythagorean Theorem that really resonated
with me. I don't recall ever seeing a proof of it, or at least no
memorable proof. This one uses a minimum of jargon and formality...you
just draw the picture, discuss it for a bit, and you see it!</p>
<p>You start with a right triangle, like:</p>
<p>[<img alt="" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/SlockDiaqAI/AAAAAAAADEg/SXQE-41joWc/s800/tri1-thumb.png">]<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/SlockDiaqAI/AAAAAAAADEg/SXQE-41joWc/s800/tri1-thumb.png"></a>and you make two constructions, from a square with sides a+b.
The first construction looks like:</p>
<p>[<img alt="1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/Sloclbzm09I/AAAAAAAADEo/U_2qVV8pgVQ/s800/tri2-thumb.png">]<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/SlockDiaqAI/AAAAAAAADEg/SXQE-41joWc/s800/tri1-thumb.png"></a>which, by eye, you can see that the total area of the square
is the area of 4 triangles (just like our original) plus the area of the
inner square, which is c*c (which reminds me that I have to figure out
how to do superscripts and subscripts in this blog. :) )</p>
<p>The second construction is nearly the same as the first, and looks like:</p>
<p>[<img alt="2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/SlocmMI0nqI/AAAAAAAADEw/CfwaSSVlFyA/s800/tri3-thumb.png">]<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/SlockDiaqAI/AAAAAAAADEg/SXQE-41joWc/s800/tri1-thumb.png"></a>which, again by eye (with a little shading to make it a bit
more obvious), the total area of the square is the area of 4 triangles
(just like our original) plus the area of the two inner squares, which
are a*a and b*b. Therefore:</p>
<p>a*a+b*b=c*c</p>
<p>for any triangle for which you can make this construction, which are
right triangles.</p>
<p>Really neat!</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>
<p>[<img alt="" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/SlockDiaqAI/AAAAAAAADEg/SXQE-41joWc/s800/tri1-thumb.png">]: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/Slock0TZoGI/AAAAAAAADEk/CAlOz_RpWPA/s800/tri1.png</p>
<p>[<img alt="1" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/Sloclbzm09I/AAAAAAAADEo/U_2qVV8pgVQ/s800/tri2-thumb.png">]: http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/Sloclsh2feI/AAAAAAAADEs/2TXbrQNXZeM/s800/tri2.png</p>
<p>[<img alt="2" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/SlocmMI0nqI/AAAAAAAADEw/CfwaSSVlFyA/s800/tri3-thumb.png">]: http://lh5.ggpht.com/_VLTJPGH7Stw/Slocmf5Z70I/AAAAAAAADE0/QzcdMUmWHG4/s800/tri3.png</p>Beginnings2009-07-07T23:01:00-04:002009-07-07T23:01:00-04:00brianblaistag:bblais.github.io,2009-07-07:/posts/2009/Jul/07/beginnings/<p>Although I seem to have missed the big blog burst, I am starting one now
to include my musings on various topics of my interest, from statistics
and probability to …</p><p>Although I seem to have missed the big blog burst, I am starting one now
to include my musings on various topics of my interest, from statistics
and probability to physics and history.</p>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
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</div>