Comments on: 97% Chance Richard Swinburne is an Idiot

By: Protagoras

Protagoras — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 22:58:46 +0000

Still abusing probability theory, at his age? I read one of his early books (_The Existence of God_), and while the resurrection wasn’t the specific topic, probabilities were the tool of choice back then as well. I suppose this makes sense. There’s overwhelming evidence that people are extremely bad at probabilities, so taking this approach increases Swinburne’s likelyhood that he’ll make errors in favor of conclusions he likes without noticing, and also decreases the likelyhood of his errors being caught by others.

By: Delta

Delta — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 16:40:59 +0000

lol@I Am’s traffic solution. Brillliant!

If I were in charge at Oxford and this guy didn’t have tenure, I would want to fire him for academic dishonesty. Saying things like that is completely outrageous and reflects poorly on the university.

By: I Am

I Am — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 18:00:10 +0000

All of this reminds me of a solution I came up with once while sitting in traffic. I figured out how to increase the capacity of the highway without taking up any more room. If you start with a 3 lane road and add a lane, that’s a 33.3% increase in capacity. If you then destroy that lane, you’ve only reduced capacity by 25%. Every time you add and destroy the lane, you get an extra 8.3%. Do it 12 times and you’ve doubled capacity. Simple.

By: Aaron Kinney

Aaron Kinney — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:32:04 +0000

A mathematical Fatwa! LOL for some reason that line just cracked me up.

By: Waiting for Godnot

Waiting for Godnot — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:05:37 +0000

The volume of the observable universe: 3e85 cm^3
The volume of Dr. Swinburne (idealized to a 6-foot tall 2-foot wide bologna) is about 5.338e5 cm^3.

Therefore, even if I’m off by a few orders of magnitude on the Doctor’s volume, the ratio of Dr.Swinburne volume to visible universe volume is around 1:5.62e79.

This is also the approximate probablility that any given cubic centimeter of the universe is occupied by a cubic centimeter of Dr.Swinburne.

Those are pretty long odds. In fact, a given cm^3 of space is much more likely to contain nothing at all than a cm^3 of Dr. Swinburne, so it’s quite possible he doesn’t exist at all.