What is the best way to communicate that “whatever has more evidence is more likely true” is not the way to go about navigating life?
My go-to example is always “[god buried dinosaur bones to test our faith] fits the archeological evidence just as well as evolution”, but I’m not sure how well that really gets the point across. Maybe something that avoids god, doesn’t feel artificial, and where the unlikely hypothesis is more intuitively complex.
I flip a coin 10 times and observe the sequence HTHTHHTTHH. Obviously, the coin is rigged to produce that specific sequence: the “rigged to produce HTHTHHTTHH” hypothesis predicts the observed outcome with probability 1, whereas the “fair coin” hypothesis predicts that outcome with probability 2−10≈ 0.00098.
What is the best way to communicate that “whatever has more evidence is more likely true” is not the way to go about navigating life?
My go-to example is always “[god buried dinosaur bones to test our faith] fits the archeological evidence just as well as evolution”, but I’m not sure how well that really gets the point across. Maybe something that avoids god, doesn’t feel artificial, and where the unlikely hypothesis is more intuitively complex.
I flip a coin 10 times and observe the sequence HTHTHHTTHH. Obviously, the coin is rigged to produce that specific sequence: the “rigged to produce HTHTHHTTHH” hypothesis predicts the observed outcome with probability 1, whereas the “fair coin” hypothesis predicts that outcome with probability 2−10≈ 0.00098.