By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
JWeinCom on 24 August 2018
Edit Thread
GhaudePhaede010 said:
JWeinCom said:

Bayesian analysis is kind of wonky.  It has its uses, but existential claims are not one of them.  Basically you are allowed to plug in whatever variables you want into the premises and assign whatever likelyhood you want to them.  (For example I could say the existence of smores is 1,000 times more likely if god exists).  

There's no real hard data behind it, so whatever answer you get is subjective.  Everyone will get a different outcome.

Well of course it is a little, "wonky" because it is statistics. I mean, no statistic is proven fact, just a chance against odds. So, I am not preaching there is a God based on my last research. I am explaining why I believe there is a God and using statistics is one of those reasons. It may be the main one, but still, I have a belief and I have a reason to believe. However, we are on a video game website speaking about a Creator and the, "irony"  that people would deny a Creator on a site based around the exact way a Creator works is not lost on me. Sometimes we deny even though the reasoning and logic may be literally right in front of our face.

I mean it's wonky compared to other forms of statistics.

For example, if I have a deck of cards that we've examined and determined to be a standard deck of cards, we can accurately say, my chance of getting a spade is 1 in 4.

With Bayesian analysis, we don't have to parameters.  There is no deck of cards, so your criteria is subjective.  For example, I believe one of the premises in the article is that recognition of goodness is 10 times more likely if a god exists.  I have no idea how the author determined that.  Unlike probabilistic statistics there's no hard fact of reality this is referring to. 

To try and sum it up, if we were to calculate the odds of getting a royal flush in a game of poker, we will always get the same answer, assuming we know the math.   So we can state the probability with confidence.  If 100 people did a bayesian analysis on the existence of god, we'd likely get 100 different answers. It's not a reliable way to determine this sort of thing.