gelisam comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: gelisam 20 March 2010 02:52:33PM 7 points [-]

Thanks! I had only heard about the accidental discovery by two Bell employees of an excess measurement which they could not explain, but now that you mention that it was in fact predicted, it's totally reasonable that the Bell employees simply did not know about the scientific prediction at the moment of their measurement. I should have read Wikipedia.

The probability of predicting something as strange as the background radiation given that the theory on which the prediction is based is fundamentally flawed seems rather low. Accordingly, I should update my belief in the Big Bang substantially. But actually updating on evidence is hard, so I don't feel convinced yet, even though I know I should. For this reason, I will read the book you recommended, in the hope that its contents will manage to shift my unofficial beliefs too. Thanks again!