Lies, damn lies and misapplications of probability theory
I received some spam this afternoon. It happens frequently in my Gmail account, since I have a fairly common first and last name, and had the mixed blessing of scoring my name soon after Gmail launched. It's nice not having to append numbers or strange punctuation, but it means a lot of people trying to send mail to my namesake end up misdirecting it to me
Now, normally such things aren't of much interest, aside from the mild amusement at having folks ask if I'm coming to their barbecues or what my weekend plans entail.
Today, however, I was forwarded this month's edition of "Gentle Conquest," a newsletter from some evangelical ministry. And this particular newsletter explains -- mathematically, no less! -- why intelligent design is infallible and evolution is a load of anti-Christian bunk (typos in original):
Whether we are theologians or scientists, we can still prove by unwavering mathematical law that our universe--and life in it-- were designed by a transcendent engineering Intelligence. For example, take ten pennies and number each of them one to ten. Put them in your pocket and shuffle them. Mathematically, your chance of drawing out number one on the first draw is one in ten; numbers one and two in succession is one in 100. To draw out one, two, and three, in perfect order, your chance is one in one thousand. By fixed, mathematical law, your chance of drawing out all ten in uninterrupted order is one in ten billion. These are the odds of chance. Simply stated, it can't be done. Yet with such evidence before us, some still persist in arguing defensively for accidental evolution. You could more easily argue that your automobile--everything from cruise control to axles--resulted from a factory explosion in which all the parts coincidentally joined togeth! er in mid-air.
Amazing, isn't it? Simple probability revealed decades of science to be promoting fallacies.
Except that it doesn't.
For one, the numbers here don't add up. The minister (or whoever wrote this) failed to check his math. That is, he failed to grasp the concept of dependent variables. If the pennies are numbered one to 10, the odds that the first one drawn comes up with No. 1 is, of course, one in 10 (1/10). But the odds of drawing No. 2 on the second one are only one in nine (1/9), assuming we didn't put the first penny back, which seems to be the case in this example. And that means calculating the correct probability is thus 1/10 * 1/9 * 1/8, etc., or 1/10!. And that yields odds of 1 in 3,628,800. Not great odds, but almost three times likelier than one our minister-mathematician would have us believe.
Of course, what this problem has to do with evolution is a mystery, though it speaks to the larger issue of this person not grasping fundamental tenets of evolution theory. Or refusing to believe them. I assume this person rejects carbon dating and believes the earth is actually only 6600 years old, or whatever it's supposed to be according to the Bible.
Now, normally such things aren't of much interest, aside from the mild amusement at having folks ask if I'm coming to their barbecues or what my weekend plans entail.
Today, however, I was forwarded this month's edition of "Gentle Conquest," a newsletter from some evangelical ministry. And this particular newsletter explains -- mathematically, no less! -- why intelligent design is infallible and evolution is a load of anti-Christian bunk (typos in original):
Whether we are theologians or scientists, we can still prove by unwavering mathematical law that our universe--and life in it-- were designed by a transcendent engineering Intelligence. For example, take ten pennies and number each of them one to ten. Put them in your pocket and shuffle them. Mathematically, your chance of drawing out number one on the first draw is one in ten; numbers one and two in succession is one in 100. To draw out one, two, and three, in perfect order, your chance is one in one thousand. By fixed, mathematical law, your chance of drawing out all ten in uninterrupted order is one in ten billion. These are the odds of chance. Simply stated, it can't be done. Yet with such evidence before us, some still persist in arguing defensively for accidental evolution. You could more easily argue that your automobile--everything from cruise control to axles--resulted from a factory explosion in which all the parts coincidentally joined togeth! er in mid-air.
Amazing, isn't it? Simple probability revealed decades of science to be promoting fallacies.
Except that it doesn't.
For one, the numbers here don't add up. The minister (or whoever wrote this) failed to check his math. That is, he failed to grasp the concept of dependent variables. If the pennies are numbered one to 10, the odds that the first one drawn comes up with No. 1 is, of course, one in 10 (1/10). But the odds of drawing No. 2 on the second one are only one in nine (1/9), assuming we didn't put the first penny back, which seems to be the case in this example. And that means calculating the correct probability is thus 1/10 * 1/9 * 1/8, etc., or 1/10!. And that yields odds of 1 in 3,628,800. Not great odds, but almost three times likelier than one our minister-mathematician would have us believe.
Of course, what this problem has to do with evolution is a mystery, though it speaks to the larger issue of this person not grasping fundamental tenets of evolution theory. Or refusing to believe them. I assume this person rejects carbon dating and believes the earth is actually only 6600 years old, or whatever it's supposed to be according to the Bible.
posted by Alexander Dubcek | 13:16
1 Comments:
and he does statistics, too!
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