bascule Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1164894,00.html Using Bayes theorem, a PhD physicist has calculated the probability of God's existence to be 67%! I see no flaws in his methodology and must accept his results! He also maintains his personal ad hoc out-of-the-blue calculation places the probability of God's existence in the 95% realm. Since the value calculated with Bayes theorem is lower, it's clear evidence that it's correct! God probably exists. QED. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 said the theory starts from the assumption that God has a 50/50 chance of existing Erm, okay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ydoaPs Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 Which god? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Realitycheck Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 This was a timely thread. Could there be a universal law that we do not know about that draws chemicals together in a way that promotes life? Or is it all just evolutionary biology - survival of the most gifted chemical compounds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insane_alien Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 if you start with an assumption of a 50% probability and then calculate the probability to be 65% then not only is your assumption wrong(hence making the rest wrong) but you done a whole calculation for nothing as you assumed the answer already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 "the theory starts from the assumption that God has a 50/50 chance of existing" GIGO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YT2095 Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 surely the Only thing 50/50 about it should be the fact that it has a Yes/No answer, ie/ 2 valid options only. but if I have 9 white balls in a bag and one black one, the Question is yes no as to what color it is, but the odds are still 10:1 I would have thought? and in this instance Science has no idea WHAT ratio of black to white balls are in the bag. I`m lousy at maths, and even I can see that *Sigh* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dak Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 "the theory starts from the assumption that God has a 50/50 chance of existing" so... if we assume that there's a 50% chance of god existing, we can deduce that there's a 67% chance of god existing? umm... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Skeptic Posted December 29, 2007 Share Posted December 29, 2007 so... if we assume that there's a 50% chance of god existing, we can deduce that there's a 67% chance of god existing? umm... I think the 50% chance is before looking at any evidence -- and yes, it is completely arbitrary, and therefore useless assumption, leading to an equally arbitrary and equally useless conclusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bascule Posted December 29, 2007 Author Share Posted December 29, 2007 I'm just wondering if this guy is really blowharding up his credentials in order to sell this as somehow being scientific... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reaper Posted December 30, 2007 Share Posted December 30, 2007 You mean that he's one of these guys: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foursixand2 Posted December 31, 2007 Share Posted December 31, 2007 where was the fomula he used? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/sciences/story/0,12243,1164894,00.html I love it. If the Guardian says so, it must be true. But wait a second now.. if he started from 50/50, doesn't that mean that he only managed to prove 17%... Nice. oh, ps - Lockheed, I think he's one of those that have the air coming from the other side. ~moo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bascule Posted January 1, 2008 Author Share Posted January 1, 2008 where was the fomula he used? He claims to have used this one: [math]P(A|B) = \frac{P(B | A)\, P(A)}{P(B)}[/math] [math] \propto L(A | B)\, P(A) [/math] Not really sure how a 50/50 starting probability figures into that, but I can't say I really understand it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foodchain Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 This was a timely thread. Could there be a universal law that we do not know about that draws chemicals together in a way that promotes life? Or is it all just evolutionary biology - survival of the most gifted chemical compounds? Last time I checked vision is a quantum thingy and general chemistry class does not consist of growing plants from scratch. I do dislike it when people say life is chemistry. The planet is also chemistry and so are stars, yet we don’t say they are living things which made survival of the fittest a reality environmentally speaking on a quantum level. Its all physical reality but really just saying life is chemistry is kind of bunk to a certain extent, being we don’t extend the definition to everything chemical. Does god exist, last time I checked that which is supernatural is exactly just that and we as a specie happen to occupy a natural level of reality in which that type of stuff exists. I also know that pirate population density is intimately involved with global climate change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chemkid Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 I think i am qualified to write a text on why god doesn't exist. I am currently attending a highly rated school for the sciences, arts, and technologies. I have found some interesting data..... Bad things that happened to me today.... stubbed my toe, dropped a pen, my computer wouldn't turn on, i didn't sleep well, i burnt the oatmeal Good things... i ate breakfast My badness statistic clearly out weights my goodness statistic and assuming god is good, he can't possibly exists because bad things happened to me. Hows that for data? Chemkid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedarkshade Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 I think i am qualified to write a text on why god doesn't exist. I am currently attending a highly rated school for the sciences, arts, and technologies. I have found some interesting data..... Bad things that happened to me today.... stubbed my toe, dropped a pen, my computer wouldn't turn on, i didn't sleep well, i burnt the oatmeal Good things... i ate breakfast My badness statistic clearly out weights my goodness statistic and assuming god is good, he can't possibly exists because bad things happened to me. Hows that for data? Chemkid Is God guilty that you have a computer problem? Irony:rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ydoaPs Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 Is God guilty that you have a computer problem? Actually, yes. "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things."-Isaiah 45:7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedarkshade Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 God has given you the freedom to make choices and has given you the mind to judge in your own way. And it's your choices and judgments that determine you and everyone as a person. You make your life the way you want to! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ydoaPs Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 God has given you the freedom to make choices and has given you the mind to judge in your own way. And it's your choices and judgments that determine you and everyone as a person. You make your life the way you want to! Assuming you're talking about the god I quoted above, you forget he is both omniscient and omnipotent. This god may have created you with free will to make your own actions, but by virtue of being omniscient, he knows what you will do before you do it. Now, since this god is omniscient, he knew of all the possible ways to create you before he did so. In each way, you use your own free will to choose different courses of action. As this god is omnipotent, he could have created you in one of the other possible ways in which you do other actions via your free will. But, he didn't. So, in effect, this god must have at least some level of responsibility for your actions. Not to mention, as I quoted above, this god SAID he created evil. This brings me back to my question in my first post of this thread: this is the probability of the existence of which god? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedarkshade Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 God didn't create evil. I don't know many things about religion, but I know the story of "evil". If by evil you mean the demon, then demon first used to be a angel (called Iblis), the most beautiful one from all and the only one who had the freedom to make his actions independently. But when God created man, Iblis felt loath toward man and decided to fight against him as long as this world lasts. I'm repeating again, I don't know many things about religion, but discussions about these subjects always contain quarrels. I think that admins should move this thread to thrash can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ydoaPs Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 God didn't create evil. I don't know many things about religion, but I know the story of "evil". If by evil you mean the demon, then demon first used to be a angel (called Iblis), the most beautiful one from all and the only one who had the freedom to make his actions independently. But when God created man, Iblis felt loath toward man and decided to fight against him as long as this world lasts. I'm repeating again, I don't know many things about religion, but discussions about these subjects always contain quarrels. I think that admins should move this thread to thrash can. A direct quote from god isn't enough to convince you? Are you calling the almighty creator of the universe a liar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Refsmmat Posted January 1, 2008 Share Posted January 1, 2008 This may not be the Politics forum, but applying these guidelines, this thread does not belong on SFN. Closed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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