Q&A: The Law of Small Numbers in Relation to Wonder-Workers
The Law of Small Numbers in Relation to Wonder-Workers
Question
Hello Rabbi,
You gave examples about various "babas" who give blessings, and if I understood correctly, you linked this to the law of small numbers. With your permission, I think your approach is not rational, and I’ll explain why. I’d be glad to hear your response.
The fact is that there are many "babas" that people wait in line to receive blessings from. People wait for a particular baba, and not necessarily for others. That is an existing reality. Who says this has no real connection to the blessings he gives?
Is the fact that people from all over the world came to the Lubavitcher Rebbe not some kind of indication? You can call it strong intuition, a kind of prophecy, or any other definition you want.
The same goes for the Baba Sali. It seems that you tried too hard to force the phenomenon into the category of the law of small numbers, but how do you know that is the correct explanation?
It seems that your approach, you rationalists, ignores reality. When there is a broad social phenomenon, like the blessings of the Baba Sali or the Lubavitcher Rebbe, maybe there is a need to investigate and understand why so many people say they were saved in especially unusual events.
Who determined that everything can be explained using the scientific tools that currently exist? Who determined that healing must take place דווקא through "classical" medicine? In your lectures you tried to compare a baba’s blessing to classical medicine, but someone who goes to a baba does so precisely because he has despaired or found no solution within conventional medicine.
There are many people who visited the Baba Sali and told their story. These are facts — unusual cases that happened. Why did you conclude that this is only the "law of small numbers" and not something that has not yet been explained? As a rationalist, you need to prove that, not just assume it.
Best regards,
Shalom
I really am trying to come from an objective place, but just to keep things honest and transparent: I’m Moroccan lol, but in any case I’d be happy to understand your position more deeply.
Answer
There are lots of such facts. There are also many people who go to Oren Zarif to be blessed by his holy mouth. There are also masses who vote for Goldknopf and Aryeh Deri. There are millions who use alternative medicine. So if you take your strange but supposedly "objective" and transparent criterion, you won’t get very far.
Since I am not familiar with reliable testimony about a mystical occurrence, any report of one is received by me with skepticism, and therefore as far as I’m concerned the burden of proof is on the one making the report. My claims that this is the law of small numbers are not a positive explanation of the phenomenon, but rather a more reasonable alternative proposal, which shows that the person reporting it has not met the burden of proof.
I have no difficulty with the assumption that not everything needs to have a scientific explanation. Even physics still does not know how to explain various phenomena. That doesn’t make me disbelieve in their existence. My problem is not the lack of explanation but the lack of trust in these reports.
It’s nice that despite your being Moroccan, you’re trying to understand my position more deeply. Surprising. 🙂
Discussion on Answer
*Should read:
Facts don’t confuse fools.
Not the police either…
To speak, in the context of babas, about the law of small numbers — that’s the irony of the millennium… when it comes to babas, we’re talking about big numbers, very big indeed (not "gedoylim")…. See, for example, the X-ray Rabbi’s tax settlement arrangement with the Income Tax Authority…
Shalom again, Rabbi,
You said, "as far as I’m concerned the burden of proof is on the one making the report." About that I’d say: I’m not talking about how "they" look at it; I’m trying to understand your position, not what my "family" says about these reports lol 🙂 — I know exactly what they say, and it’s also very easy to make fun of them 🙂
And you also said, "but rather a more reasonable alternative proposal" — I’d say, uhhhh, judging by the tone in the Spotify episode — Doubt and Statistics 22/23 — it sounded like an explanation, and even a pretty convincing explanation lol, so what difference does it make to me whether you call it a "proposal" or an "explanation"?
In any case, you prefer to explain/propose the "reported" phenomena via the law of small numbers — which is equivalent to saying that there is nothing special in the reported case. I hope I summarized your position correctly — even though there is no proof of it. I’m trying to understand why you tend to propose/explain so clearly that it’s connected to the law of small numbers rather than saying: maybe it’s unusual and there is something not understood in this randomness, or maybe there is nothing unusual.
I assumed that a rational explanation is the product of a clear inference, and that you offer only such positions, but according to what you’re saying there is no such clear inference here; it seems like, at most, a hypothesis — maybe a good hypothesis, but still a hypothesis.
So if that’s the case, why is it more correct than any other "explanation," any explanation that isn’t absurd?
In short: why not leave the "reported phenomena" as needing further investigation?
And another thing: when you bring the example of the case of the thousands of envelopes with numbers that a person guessed and then receives $100,000, the case itself falls under the law of small numbers, and therefore, logically, you cannot use that case to refute my "family’s" explanation to me.
Best regards,
Shalom
I have a neighbor, a newly religious returnee, who is getting more extreme by the day — may God send him a complete recovery soon.
All in all he’s a family man… pity on him…
Recently he discovered some baba/rebbe/grand rabbi/sorcerer.
He claims that everything the guy says happens, and that he knows everything, etc.
I looked into it a bit and proved beyond any doubt, from several different and varied cases, that this neighbor was wrong — it didn’t work, the guy babbled and misled people.
And I’m not talking about doubts but proven facts.
So, did it help at all?
Not a bit.
Facts don’t confuse fools.
What it did help with is that he finally decided I’m a total heretic, understood there’s no commandment to bring me back to the right path, and left me alone…
By the way,
I’m not Moroccan
and neither is the neighbor.
Two full-blooded Ashkenazis.