Unfortunately, we really can’t convince all creationists. We only have time for a few. However, if you pick some and manage to persuade all those who actually have the time for a discussion, at the very least it would give you personally the confidence that you’re right. And if you document it, that would give the same confidence to everyone else. Moreover, if your experiment turned out to be clear-cut enough, it would become a very strong argument to convince believers in god. If I wholeheartedly believed in something, and then found out that someone took 10 people who believed in the exact same thing I do and managed to change their minds, I’d assume he could probably convince me too—so why not save myself the time and just accept right away that I was wrong about this?
if you pick some and manage to persuade all those who actually have the time for a discussion, at the very least it would give you personally the confidence that you’re right.
How does that update work? I already suspect (say, 95% that creationism is wrong, 92% that evolution and luck explains most of current biological existence) I’m right, and they’re quite wrong. If I convince them, that’s more about them being uncertain and wishy-washy than them being able to provide evidence that I am, in fact, right?
It’s surprising that they can be convinced, so I guess I update a bit against creationists being unwilling to discuss, but that tells me nothing about the underlying question.
Social proof only goes so far, and for most topics between large groups of humans it’s not terribly precise.
Good discussions take a lot of time, so people ≈can’t discuss. Because of that, even if 90% of people believe very wrong things, the other 10% can never convince them. So you may be one of those 90% on any question, and the others can’t explain you that you are wrong, so you shouldn’t be so confident in your reflexions.
So if you know that a few believers found 20 atheists who were ready to discuss a lot, and as a result 5 of them got bored and left the discussion after 5 hours, but the other 15 were convinced, it should be an extremely powerful prior of god’s existence.
I’m fairly confident in some of my predictions for future experience. Never 100%, of course.
But that’s not my point. My point is that searching for truth is only very lightly correlated with convincing idiots that they’re wrong. Good conversations among epistemically-sane (or even intelligent but brainwashed) people are very good for discovering better models and refining your beliefs. Trying to convert the median or worse is not helpful (for knowledge/understanding; it may be helpful for actual power or outcomes).
Unfortunately, we really can’t convince all creationists. We only have time for a few. However, if you pick some and manage to persuade all those who actually have the time for a discussion, at the very least it would give you personally the confidence that you’re right. And if you document it, that would give the same confidence to everyone else. Moreover, if your experiment turned out to be clear-cut enough, it would become a very strong argument to convince believers in god. If I wholeheartedly believed in something, and then found out that someone took 10 people who believed in the exact same thing I do and managed to change their minds, I’d assume he could probably convince me too—so why not save myself the time and just accept right away that I was wrong about this?
How does that update work? I already suspect (say, 95% that creationism is wrong, 92% that evolution and luck explains most of current biological existence) I’m right, and they’re quite wrong. If I convince them, that’s more about them being uncertain and wishy-washy than them being able to provide evidence that I am, in fact, right?
It’s surprising that they can be convinced, so I guess I update a bit against creationists being unwilling to discuss, but that tells me nothing about the underlying question.
Social proof only goes so far, and for most topics between large groups of humans it’s not terribly precise.
Good discussions take a lot of time, so people ≈can’t discuss. Because of that, even if 90% of people believe very wrong things, the other 10% can never convince them. So you may be one of those 90% on any question, and the others can’t explain you that you are wrong, so you shouldn’t be so confident in your reflexions.
So if you know that a few believers found 20 atheists who were ready to discuss a lot, and as a result 5 of them got bored and left the discussion after 5 hours, but the other 15 were convinced, it should be an extremely powerful prior of god’s existence.
I’m fairly confident in some of my predictions for future experience. Never 100%, of course.
But that’s not my point. My point is that searching for truth is only very lightly correlated with convincing idiots that they’re wrong. Good conversations among epistemically-sane (or even intelligent but brainwashed) people are very good for discovering better models and refining your beliefs. Trying to convert the median or worse is not helpful (for knowledge/understanding; it may be helpful for actual power or outcomes).
Interesting model. Probably you are right and I didn’t considered this because all my friends and me are not idiots.