Josh Morgan

October 30, 2006I was watching a documentary on the bible code the other day, and I was struck by how deceptive they were with the statistics. The had a particular code and said that the chances of that happening by chance are 1 in 10^324. The fact that something is unlikely to happen a certain way by chance doesn't mean it's necessarily significant. Pretend I flipped a coin 10 times and got the following: HTTHTTHTTH. Now, that's a neat pattern. And what's the chance I'd get that? Well 1 in 2^10. That is very large, so it must be supernatural! ???? Look, no matter what I flipped, I'd have only a 2^10 chance of flipping that. No matter what 3 cards you draw from a deck, you have only 1 in 22,100 to draw those cards. It's easy to look back and say that what happened was statistically improbable, but that doesn't make it special or supernatural.

Here's the point: when people tell you that what just happened was improbable and therefore important, take it with a grain of salt. No matter what happens, it probably would have been unlikely for it to unfold exactly that way. Things have to occur somehow, don't they?

1 remark

October 31, 2006
Karissa Krapf said

totally agree..interesting that is the argument a lot of people make for why we are made by god and not through a process of evolution because the "odds are so small" or it's "so unlikely it must be supernatural!"