Will_Sawin comments on Yes, Virginia, You Can Be 99.99% (Or More!) Certain That 53 Is Prime - Less Wrong

38 Post author: ChrisHallquist 07 November 2013 07:45AM

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Comment author: Will_Sawin 09 November 2013 10:39:15PM 6 points [-]

Even if true announcments are just 9 times more likely than false announcements, then a true announcment should raise your confidence that the lottery numbers were 4 2 9 7 9 3 to 90%. This is because the probability P (429783 announced | 429783 is the number) is just the probability of a true announcement, but the probability P( 429783 announced | 429783 is not the number) is the probability of a false announcement, divided by a million.

A false announcer would have little reason to fake the number 429793. This already completely annihilates the prior probability.