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Talk:Mystery:Does God Have a Sense of Humor? (view source)
Revision as of 20:25, March 11, 2012
, 20:25, March 11, 2012→Seriously?
:::::The problem with using this sort of probability computation for this sort of coincidence to determine whether it arose due to chance is that you are doing it ''ex post''. To borrow an example from John Allen Paulos's ''Innumeracy'', it would be nonsense to look at a bridge hand of 13 cards from a deck of 52, conclude that the probability of that particular hand's having been dealt is less than 1 over 600 billion, and therefore conclude that it must not have arisen due to chance. Seeing a coincidence and then trying to examine after the fact what the probability would have been for such a coincidence to occur to illustrate miraculous behavior is a classic example of the [[sharpshooter fallacy]]. [[User:GregG|GregG]] 16:00, 11 March 2012 (EDT)
:::::The problem with using this sort of probability computation for this sort of coincidence to determine whether it arose due to chance is that you are doing it ''ex post''. To borrow an example from John Allen Paulos's ''Innumeracy'', it would be nonsense to look at a bridge hand of 13 cards from a deck of 52, conclude that the probability of that particular hand's having been dealt is less than 1 over 600 billion, and therefore conclude that it must not have arisen due to chance. Seeing a coincidence and then trying to examine after the fact what the probability would have been for such a coincidence to occur to illustrate miraculous behavior is a classic example of the [[sharpshooter fallacy]]. [[User:GregG|GregG]] 16:00, 11 March 2012 (EDT)
:Andy, I just want to make sure I understand correctly: The duck-billed platypus was designed to amuse us, red autumn foliage was designed to impress us with its breath-taking beauty, Tebow's 316 yard pass was guided to promote John 3:16. Fine. On the other hand, last year's tsunami was entirely due to entropy, right? No humorous message there? --[[User:FrederickT3|FrederickT3]] 16:25, 11 March 2012 (EDT)