What you’re saying here is that you use Bayes’ theorem to inform your definition of “evidence”.
Absolutely. Otherwise I can’t exclude from the domain of “evidence of X” all things which should not incline a rational person to amend their views about X, and I very much want to do that.
Note that something can be “evidence” without being “evidence of X” where X is one specific something. Someone calling in to say their watch stopped is evidence that someone called in and evidence that a watch stopped and so on, just not evidence that Uri Geller has radio-propagated psychic powers.
I agree with you to the extent that Bayes’ theorem is not a magic wand that cures all epistemological ills. You don’t have to browse this site for too long to come across people advancing silly ideas under the banner of Bayesian inference because they are using it incorrectly. However while it’s not a magic wand it’s a mathematical truth about how the universe works, and any time you deliberately deviate from Bayes’ theorem you are deliberately going wrong as a matter of mathematical fact.
As I said, we might plug the number of calls Uri Geller got into Bayes’ theorem and because of the answer believe that supernatural events did actually occur. But that would be an incorrect conclusion because we have based our conclusion on the faulty premise that more calls means supernatural events are more likely to have occurred.
What is actually going on here, assuming you are applying Bayes correctly, is that the prior probability of Uri Geller having radio-propagated psychic powers should be seen as astoundingly low. Far lower than the odds of me winning the lotto twice in a row, for example—let’s say one on ten to the fourteenth as a very generous prior probability. If Uri Geller got a lot more phone calls than a skeptic pretending to be a psychic that should tip the scales a little in his favour but nowhere near enough to get P(Uri Geller has psychic powers) up to a level we should take seriously.
The premise “more calls makes psychic powers more likely” is not flawed at all. If we lived in a bizarre universe where Uri Geller really could reach out through your radio and stop your watch then we would indeed see more calls coming in, and if we lived in that bizarre world we should want to believe we lived in that bizarre world. I’m very sure we do not live in that world but that’s because the evidence is against it, not because I would dismiss that evidence if it supported it.
Absolutely. Otherwise I can’t exclude from the domain of “evidence of X” things which should not incline a rational person to amend their views about X, and I very much want to do that.
If someone believes the Bible is central to question of whether God exists, you can challenge that without having a definition of “evidence” that is informed by Bayes’ theorem.
The premise “more calls makes psychic powers more likely” is not flawed at all.
It could be flawed if there are things that effect the number of phone calls other than Geller’s proposed psychic powers. One show might get more calls but also have more viewers, and that obviously doesn’t make Geller more likely to be psychic during that particular show.
But I am in agreement with you generally with the Uri Geller example. I don’t think phone calls to a television show would alone change my mind, but if we did live in a world where he truly did have psychic powers, I would hope that such evidence would lead me to investigate the matter further.
If someone believes the Bible is central to question of whether God exists, you can challenge that without having a definition of “evidence” that is informed by Bayes’ theorem.
Fair comment. I should have said “all things”, not “things”, and I’ve edited the grandparent appropriately.
It could be flawed if there are things that effect the number of phone calls other than Geller’s proposed psychic powers.
There’s an implicit “all else being equal” in such statements, which really shouldn’t need to be spelled out if all parties are respecting the principle of charity. Any number of things (time of day, stooges working for Uri, number of listeners, service to the telephone system) could also affect the number of calls received, but if all else is equal as far as we are aware then Uri getting more calls than the skeptic is more likely in a universe where he has psychic powers. Hence by Bayes’ theorem it’s evidence he has psychic powers—just extremely weak evidence which is alone insufficient to shift our prior probability much.
It’s also more likely in a universe where Uri has more listeners, has stooges working for him, or has some other non-psychic factor working in his favour of course, and those hypotheses have much, much higher prior probabilities.
Absolutely. Otherwise I can’t exclude from the domain of “evidence of X” all things which should not incline a rational person to amend their views about X, and I very much want to do that.
Note that something can be “evidence” without being “evidence of X” where X is one specific something. Someone calling in to say their watch stopped is evidence that someone called in and evidence that a watch stopped and so on, just not evidence that Uri Geller has radio-propagated psychic powers.
I agree with you to the extent that Bayes’ theorem is not a magic wand that cures all epistemological ills. You don’t have to browse this site for too long to come across people advancing silly ideas under the banner of Bayesian inference because they are using it incorrectly. However while it’s not a magic wand it’s a mathematical truth about how the universe works, and any time you deliberately deviate from Bayes’ theorem you are deliberately going wrong as a matter of mathematical fact.
What is actually going on here, assuming you are applying Bayes correctly, is that the prior probability of Uri Geller having radio-propagated psychic powers should be seen as astoundingly low. Far lower than the odds of me winning the lotto twice in a row, for example—let’s say one on ten to the fourteenth as a very generous prior probability. If Uri Geller got a lot more phone calls than a skeptic pretending to be a psychic that should tip the scales a little in his favour but nowhere near enough to get P(Uri Geller has psychic powers) up to a level we should take seriously.
The premise “more calls makes psychic powers more likely” is not flawed at all. If we lived in a bizarre universe where Uri Geller really could reach out through your radio and stop your watch then we would indeed see more calls coming in, and if we lived in that bizarre world we should want to believe we lived in that bizarre world. I’m very sure we do not live in that world but that’s because the evidence is against it, not because I would dismiss that evidence if it supported it.
If someone believes the Bible is central to question of whether God exists, you can challenge that without having a definition of “evidence” that is informed by Bayes’ theorem.
It could be flawed if there are things that effect the number of phone calls other than Geller’s proposed psychic powers. One show might get more calls but also have more viewers, and that obviously doesn’t make Geller more likely to be psychic during that particular show.
But I am in agreement with you generally with the Uri Geller example. I don’t think phone calls to a television show would alone change my mind, but if we did live in a world where he truly did have psychic powers, I would hope that such evidence would lead me to investigate the matter further.
Fair comment. I should have said “all things”, not “things”, and I’ve edited the grandparent appropriately.
There’s an implicit “all else being equal” in such statements, which really shouldn’t need to be spelled out if all parties are respecting the principle of charity. Any number of things (time of day, stooges working for Uri, number of listeners, service to the telephone system) could also affect the number of calls received, but if all else is equal as far as we are aware then Uri getting more calls than the skeptic is more likely in a universe where he has psychic powers. Hence by Bayes’ theorem it’s evidence he has psychic powers—just extremely weak evidence which is alone insufficient to shift our prior probability much.
It’s also more likely in a universe where Uri has more listeners, has stooges working for him, or has some other non-psychic factor working in his favour of course, and those hypotheses have much, much higher prior probabilities.