Why WLCs lottery counter-example for "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is flawed

by bohm 14 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Max Divergent

  WLC would properly say: "if the odds of guessing in advance that jesus would be raised from the dead was 1:1'000'000 or even lower, that has no baring whatever on whether we can accept that he actually did, given the information we now have, because you can accept something like that in the case of the lottery!". At some point we need to argue why the two situations are different.

  As others have pointed out better than I, the answer would be that there is simply nothing in common between a game of maths (a lottery) and biological death (the precursor to resurection) regardless of how the numbers are spun. There is no analogy or statistical argument to be had and this Craig bloke is a dunce for, apparently, making one. Probabilities are one thing, fantasies are another.

  An event that was one in a million is not extraordinary?

  No, it's not. A fair and well subscribed lottery might be subject of tens or hundreds of millions of individual guesses: that one or more get the right answer is a matter of pure chance and is quite likely to occur at least once in most lotteries. Let's say two million guesses are made in the face of one million possible combinations - that one or more guesses will be correct is unsuprising (I know the numbers are diffent in real lotteries).

  But thats what need to be argued.

  That a man can be resurected is not a matter of probability or liklihood. Billions now dead were not resurected. Whether some supernatural act resulted in one being resurected is a matter of metaphysics or somthing, not statistics. Just coz someone can imagaine and/or write that somthing happened does not make a mathmatical argument of minute probabilities available (outside of navel gazing clubs).

  BOTR: Why do you need extraordinary proof?

  You need proof appropriate to the matter being proved. The proof for a lottery is things like documentaiton, witnesses and video used for anti-fraud type measures. For example, more proof should be required to prove a murder case beyond reasonable doubt than jay walking. 'Reasonable' becomes a bigger hurdle the more consequences are attached to what is being proved. To prove a man was resurected may have profound impacts on how we understand life, thus the proof required is more than some spurious rubbish about lottery odds and ancient writings.
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  bohm

  Tiktaalik: " The odds for drawing any one set of six numbers from a forty number pool are 1:3,838,380. Nothing extraordinary about it."

  Well, as i allready replied in most science results are considered sufficient extraordinary to warrent publication when its 1:20. In things like high-energy physics that number might go as high as (iirc) about 1:10^7 (5 standard deviations). I suppose a good follow-up question would be when something was then so rare it should be considered extraordinary.

  You cannot calculate the odds of a resurrection. You cannot calculate how accurate eyewitness testimonies to a resurrection are.

  Thats properly true, but it shouldnt prevent us from arguing in a structured manner. If you believe we cant argue in a structured manner i think there is nothing else than bare-faced assertions left to debunk WLCs claim; thats a pretty big win for him right there.

  If you want to believe in the resurrection of dead people, that's fine. Just don't try and prove your claims using maths. It makes you look very silly.

  was that directed at me? nobody here has tried to proove the resurrection with math.
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  bohm

  Max Divergent:

  As others have pointed out better than I, the answer would be that there is simply nothing in common between a game of maths (a lottery) and biological death (the precursor to resurection) regardless of how the numbers are spun. There is no analogy or statistical argument to be had and this Craig bloke is a dunce for, apparently, making one. Probabilities are one thing, fantasies are another.

  If you read what WLC wrote (the beginning of my post), you will notice he didnt try to proove the resurrection by analogy, but to question if "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is true. If you think the analogy do not work, you need to demonstrate why thats the case. WLC exactly has such a great success because atheists fall back to knee-jerk reactions

  No, it's not. A fair and well subscribed lottery might be subject of tens or hundreds of millions of individual guesses: that one or more get the right answer is a matter of pure chance and is quite likely to occur at least once in most lotteries.

  But thats irrelevant. WLC only talk of a single guess coming out correct, not one of all guesses made being correct. if you do the math, you will see thats not the actual flaw in his argument either.

  That a man can be resurected is not a matter of probability or liklihood. Billions now dead were not resurected. Whether some supernatural act resulted in one being resurected is a matter of metaphysics or somthing, not statistics. Just coz someone can imagaine and/or write that somthing happened does not make a mathmatical argument of minute probabilities available (outside of navel gazing clubs).

  billions of sequence combinations are also not picking in any draw from a lottery. Saying its a matter of methaphysics and not science to discuss the resurrection is exactly the type of conclusion WLC want to arrive at; he will then argue that other facts demonstrate such methaphysics (god raising people from the dead) is true.

  You need proof appropriate to the matter being proved. The proof for a lottery is things like documentaiton, witnesses and video used for anti-fraud type measures. For example, more proof should be required to prove a murder case beyond reasonable doubt than jay walking. 'Reasonable' becomes a bigger hurdle the more consequences are attached to what is being proved. To prove a man was resurected may have profound impacts on how we understand life, thus the proof required is more than some spurious rubbish about lottery odds and ancient writings.

  okay, but thats just affirming the consequent: in effect, you are now arguing that the reason why WLCs objection to the claim "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is flawed is that extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence. its not an argument.

  The reason why WLC has such an easy time with many atheists and is held in high regard by christians is exactly because his argument are very often met by name calling and knee-jerk reactions that are easily dismantled. your intuition is correct, but that dosnt mean any argument is too.
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  Max Divergent

  If you read what WLC wrote (the beginning of my post), you will notice he didnt try to proove the resurrection by analogy, but to question if "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is true

  I did read and understand the extract. The author uses a lottery analogy to question the ECREE rule of thumb and the apparent purpose of that analogy / quesiton was, I infer in part from your commentary, to set himslef up to make some other analogy to make the resurection, or anything else extraordinary he might advocate, seem plausible to his audience.

  WLC only talk of a single guess coming out correct, not one of all guesses made being correct.

  Not quite, he seeks to apply the rule of thumb to ANY and EVERY lottery result since, he says, all specific lottery results are 1:x,000,000 events. He said nothing (in the extract) about advance guessing. Thus he says the ECREE rule of thumb requires the viewer's skepticism in all lottery results since x,000,000 other combinations could have been drawn.

  As you rightly said in the OP, ECREE is an inadequate rule to be applied at the standard of rigour required to actually establish anything - eg: what is 'extraordinary'?. It wasn't formulated for application to contemporary reports on a recent event. It was put to set a rough guide for the level of skepticism required when confronted with claims odd events are explained by demons, aliens, witchcraft, conspiracies etc.

  One flaw is that the newsreader and lottery officials are not making a claim. They are making a report on a recent past event based in multiple lines of verifiable evidence such as independent eye witnesses, documentation, video tape and whatever other measures a properly conducted lottery takes to ensure the integrity of their process. That is, it is a verifiable report and not a claim or an assertion: Sagan cited this rule of thumb to address claims and assertions, not such factual reports. (This goes to the application of the rule of thumb, not the lottery or resurection examples.)

  Thus Craig makes a mischevious, spurious and plain silly argument picking fault in a rule of thumb he missapplied. A strawman I think.

  In any case, if one gets over all that and says a factual report is equivilent to a 'claim', one can say that an announcement of the results to a well conducted and fair lottery result is:

  1) not an extraordinary claim since the fact of six numbers being drawn is a near certainty and all results are equally likley; and

  2) subject of extraordinary evidence (ie: all the integrity measures in place for a fair lottery are more than are in place for ordinary events, whatever ordinary is).

  Well, as i allready replied in most science results are considered sufficient extraordinary to warrent publication when its 1:20.

  I know you're being devil's advocate, but I'd really like to see a peer reveiwed journal article published saying a lottery resulting in numbers beig drawn is suprising. In my joy and mirth I'd be looking out the window for flapping swine.

  but thats just affirming the consequent: in effect, you are now arguing that the reason why WLCs objection to the claim "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" is flawed is that extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence. its not an argument.

  Quite right it's not a direct argument on the author's misapplication of ECREE or anything to do with the author's spurious objection: it was a response to a lawyer's musings on evidence. Of course ECREE is a good general guide, but it does not suplant any more rigerous standard like the rules of evidence for a court or scientific standards.

  Saying its a matter of methaphysics and not science to discuss the resurrection is exactly the type of conclusion WLC want to arrive at

  Maybe. But that dosn't deminish the burden of proof required to establish Jesus was resurected. And meth does results in delusions, I'm told.

  The reason why WLC has such an easy time with many atheists and is held in high regard by christians is exactly because his argument are very often met by name calling and knee-jerk reactions that are easily dismantled. your intuition is correct, but that dosnt mean any argument is too.

  Whatever.

  I think we're all in sufficently furious agreement.
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  bohm

  Max Divergent: wow.