Jack comments on Rationality Quotes July 2012 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: RobertLumley 04 July 2012 12:29AM

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Comment author: Ezekiel 03 July 2012 12:57:58PM *  10 points [-]

Sure. But if I handle snakes to prove they won't bite me because God is real, and they don't bite me -- you do the math.

More seriously, though: the sentiment expressed in the quote is flawed, IMHO. Evidence isn't always symmetrical. Any particular transitional fossil is reasonable evidence for evolution; not finding a particular transitional fossil isn't strong evidence against it. A person perjuring themselves once is strong evidence against their honesty; a person once declining to perjure themselves is not strong evidence in favour of their honesty; et cetera.

I think this might have something to do with the prior, actually: The stronger your prior probability, the less evidence it should take to drastically reduce it.

Edit: Nope, that last conclusion is wrong. Never mind.

Comment author: Jack 04 July 2012 07:34:00PM 4 points [-]

Right. Sensitivity does not equal specificity. Maher makes the mistake of assuming the rate of false positives and false negatives for the 'snakebite test for god' are equal. The transitional fossil test for evolution and the perjury test for honesty both have high false negative rates and low false positive rates.