rdecal comments on Expecting Short Inferential Distances - Less Wrong

107 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 October 2007 11:42PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (91)

Sort By: Old

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Psychohistorian2 23 October 2007 06:29:54AM 1 point [-]

This is certainly an insightful post. I'm not sure the example is that compelling though.

If you argue with a young earth creationist, they could full well understand what you mean, but simply disagree and claim "God did it," is a simpler explanation still. In fact, if we were to presuppose an intelligent being of infinite power existed and created things, it seems it would actually be a simpler explanation.

Most people, though perhaps not all, who have no belief in an omnipotent designer will pretty quickly accept evolution. So that might not be the cognitive problem in that situation.

I'm sure there are examples out there (opposition to free trade, perhaps?), but the rejection of evolution in favor of creationism is rather more complex and deep rooted.

Comment author: Arandur 31 July 2011 07:30:58PM 1 point [-]

Not necessarily. The introduction of God into the story actually makes the theory quite a bit more complex, as far as amount of information stored goes. The length of time it takes to explain your theory does not necessarily correlate to how simple it is. "God did it" is monumentally more complex than "The random process of natural selection ensures that those organisms which have mutations that lend them a better chance of survival will, on average, be more likely to survive and pass those mutated genes on to the next generation than an organism without beneficial mutations, etc etc etc."

Though actually, if you look closely at the two arguments above, they don't necessarily contradict each other. :3 I personally feel that "God did it" is a simpler explanation than "Amino acids magically combined via processes we don't understand and haven't been able to duplicate, creating life essentially ex nihilo"... but that doesn't at all mean taht either of these explanations are objectively simple!

Comment author: rdecal 09 November 2011 12:46:15AM 2 points [-]

There is no scientist who claims amino acids magically appeared on earth. We have been able to simulate amino acid synthesis using conditions and simple inorganic molecules present on the young earth. Read the Wikipedia article for abiogenesis for a primer if you want to educate yourself.