Conservapedia:Probability
From RationalWiki
Many of the editors of Conservapedia and their related ilk, nut jobs creation scientists, love to mention how so many of the things we observe around us have a probability of occurring of nearly zero. They love that "nearly zero" thing. They seem to believe that if the odds are low enough, then what we see couldn't have randomly happened. However, since we do observe the "whatever improbable thing", then it must have made it despite the odds.
Again, they always mention the "nearly zero" thing. Actually, they mean zero. They pretend to give the observation the however low probability that it might have, but they truly believe that it had zero probability. That is perfectly reasonable given that their solution is that the observed effect was created supernaturally. Since a supernatural occurrence does have a zero chance of probability, they are perfectly consistent in their beliefs.
[edit] A hypothetical example
As an example of the fallacy of looking at results and conjecturing backwards on what the probability of such occurring was, roll a die 200,000 times. (Don't really do this, you have better things to do with your time.) The results don't matter, but your probability of rolling whatever sequence of numbers were rolled is so small as to be practically zero. (Even rolling any specific sequence in ten rolls is something like 60 million to one). Yet you managed to do something that had a "nearly zero" probability of happening. Congratulations, you're magic - just like Jesus![1]
[edit] Past, present, and future
One thing that needs to be understood by the editors of Conservapedia is that improbability is only of concern to future events. The improbability of an event is of no concern if the event has happened. In other words, applying probability to something that has already happened (i.e. the past) is meaningless. It IS, its probability of happening no longer matters.[2] The probability of the event occuring again is, however, valid.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ With apologies to Sarah Silverman.
- ↑ Unless, of course, an alternative theory has a higher probability given all available data - which, of course, the supernatural certainly does not
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