Q&A: The Relationship Between Probabilistic Evidence
The Relationship Between Probabilistic Evidence
Question
(In my opinion this is an important and fundamental question that could have implications for other issues.)
The relationship between strong factual evidence and probability:
Suppose we walked into a person’s house and saw on his table a bank statement
saying that he has a billion dollars in his account.
Then afterward we peeked into his diary and saw that over the last thousand days he describes how he won the lottery for a million dollars each day.
One might think to interpret this by saying that since the probability is so tiny, he only means it metaphorically—that each day he made a good deal and earned a million dollars.
What do you think should be the correct interpretation?
Answer
I don’t understand the question. Each case has to be judged on its own merits. In your case, I would suspect that there is some kind of fraud there, or that he made business deals (though that too is unlikely). Maybe the bank form is forged, and so on.
Discussion on Answer
Evolution is an astonishingly plausible thing. That is precisely the secret of its appeal.
I don’t see any point in this discussion. If you want to raise a specific case or argument, we can discuss it. What we have here are just general declarations. I have nothing to say about them.
In your book you argue that it is actually very improbable (a substantial part of the book is based on that),
but that it happened because of the evidence.
I showed earlier in the billionaire parable that evidence has to be weighed relative to probability, and you agreed.
I’m trying to argue that the evidence for the existence of evolution can be interpreted differently, and earlier I gave an example.
I’m sure there are other ways to interpret the evidence differently too, seemingly.
The question is in the philosophy of science:
Are we supposed to try to strive for other interpretations?
(If we don’t succeed, we’ll believe in evolution… but the feeling is that people don’t even try at all.)
?
?
The question is a fundamental one, because as I understand it, in science people rely on this kind of evidence when analyzing the past.
For example, evolution, which is something that is obviously highly improbable.
The greater the improbability, seemingly the more one should interpret the evidence differently.
It’s all a matter of interpretation.
Just as an example, one could interpret the evidence that there were once many inferior species that went extinct, and afterward more developed creatures replaced them, by saying that the more developed ones had always also existed, just in much smaller numbers, because inferior creatures reproduce much more, and therefore in excavations those are the only ones found.
Do you agree?