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Oscar_Cunningham comments on Rationality quotes: April 2010 - Less Wrong
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Well, clearly we can assert anything we want, so the quote becomes:
And we notice that evidence doesn't change depending on whether you're considering something for belief or dismissal, so the quote becomes:
So Hitchens is really telling us that prior probabilities tend to be small, which is true since there are almost always many possible hypotheses that the probability mass is split between.
You're assuming that probability mass tends to be split between stuff. This would be true, if all interesting statements were mutually exclusive or something. But consider the hypothesis that at least one statement in the Bible is true. This hypothesis is very complex, and yet its prior probability is very large.