Isn’t the problem more like: they are ignoring the huge number of bits of evidence that say that cells in fact exist. They aren’t comparing between hypotheses that say cells exist. They are comparing the uniform prior for cells existing to a the prior for only random proteins existing. They sound more like they are trying to argue that all our experiences cannot be enough evidence that there are cells, which seems weird.
This is a misinterpretation. The argument goes like this:
True statement: There is lots of evidence or cells. P(Evidence|Cells)/P(Evidence|~Cells)>>1.
False statement: Without intelligent design, cells could only be produced by random chance. P(Cells|~God) is very very small.
Debatable statement: P(Cells|God) is large.
Conclusion: We update massively in favor of God and against ~God, because of, not in opposition to, the massive evidence in favor of the existence of cells.
This is valid Bayesian updating, it’s just that the false statement is false.
False statement: Without intelligent design, cells could only be produced by random chance. P(Cells|~God) is very very small.
You’re absolutely right! This is one of the key mistaken beliefs that creationists hold. I’ve had the most success in convincing them otherwise (or at least making them doubt) using the argument given by Dawkins in The God Delusion:
Our likelihood heuristic is strongly tied to both our lifespans and the subjective rate at which we experience time passing. Example: if we lived hundreds of times longer, current probabilities of, say, dying in a car accident, would appear totally unacceptable, because the expected number of car accidents in our lifetime would corresponding be hundreds of times higher.
The hundreds of millions of years between the formation of the Earth and the appearance of life are simply much too large of a time-span for our likelihood heuristic to apply, and doing some simple math [omitted; if someone wants to give some approximate numbers that’d be nice] shows that the probability of replicators arising in that time-span is far from negligible.
Isn’t the problem more like: they are ignoring the huge number of bits of evidence that say that cells in fact exist. They aren’t comparing between hypotheses that say cells exist. They are comparing the uniform prior for cells existing to a the prior for only random proteins existing. They sound more like they are trying to argue that all our experiences cannot be enough evidence that there are cells, which seems weird.
This is a misinterpretation. The argument goes like this:
True statement: There is lots of evidence or cells. P(Evidence|Cells)/P(Evidence|~Cells)>>1.
False statement: Without intelligent design, cells could only be produced by random chance. P(Cells|~God) is very very small.
Debatable statement: P(Cells|God) is large.
Conclusion: We update massively in favor of God and against ~God, because of, not in opposition to, the massive evidence in favor of the existence of cells.
This is valid Bayesian updating, it’s just that the false statement is false.
You’re absolutely right! This is one of the key mistaken beliefs that creationists hold. I’ve had the most success in convincing them otherwise (or at least making them doubt) using the argument given by Dawkins in The God Delusion:
Our likelihood heuristic is strongly tied to both our lifespans and the subjective rate at which we experience time passing. Example: if we lived hundreds of times longer, current probabilities of, say, dying in a car accident, would appear totally unacceptable, because the expected number of car accidents in our lifetime would corresponding be hundreds of times higher.
The hundreds of millions of years between the formation of the Earth and the appearance of life are simply much too large of a time-span for our likelihood heuristic to apply, and doing some simple math [omitted; if someone wants to give some approximate numbers that’d be nice] shows that the probability of replicators arising in that time-span is far from negligible.
Upvoted for successfully correcting my confusion about this example and helping me get updating a little better.
Edit: wow, this was a really old comment reply. How did I just notice it...