Probabilities (long post)

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>From RICHARD IN OREGON:

>

>     Believers like to use the mathematics of probability to support

>their insistence that, for instance, biological evolution is

>highly improbable, or that the existence of the universe is

>highly improbable without assuming an outside creator, or that

>events which they claim fulfill biblical prophecies were highly

>improbable events, thus making the prophecies much more impressive.

*snip*

Having a bachelors of science degree in mathematics I will add my
two cents (for whatever they are worth).

Basically if you have event A that has a probability of x and
event B which has a probability of y, then the probability that
both A and B will occur is xy IF AND ONLY IF A and B are independent.
Since there is no way to prove that the different events of the
Bible are independent, you can not simply multiply all of the 
probabilities and expect to get an accurate result.  

That having been said, personally I would place high doubt on the
probability of each individual event.  To calculate the probability
of, let's say, the parting of the Red Sea you would have to factor
in all of the known causes that MIGHT part the Red Sea as well as
all of the unknown causes.  So calculating the probability of just
one event seems to be unreliable.  And I already gave a reason why
calculating the probability of more than one event occuring is also
unreliable.  Therefore, it seems that their conclusion is EXTREMELY
unreliable.

This is not even taking into the account that some of the events are
either made up storys or exagerated storys, which because of the
writer's bias he is assuming is 0.  But of course the writer can't 
assume it is 0 unless he can prove it is 0.  But proving that it is
0 seems to be the purpose of the book.  So it seems to me (unless I
am wrong about this) that the author is saying that the writer 
couldn't have made up these storys because the probability that they
are made up is 0.  But that is circular reasoning.

Considering all of this, I find no reason to believe that any of 
their statistics are reliable.


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