But effectively assigning a 100% probability to big questions (there’s no chance I’m wrong, so there’s nothing that will change my mind) is a huge red flag for me. Bill Nye isn’t 100% certain that creationism is wrong. Richard Dawkins isn’t 100% certain that God doesn’t exist.
That’s not what “assigning 100% probability” looks like. Look at anticipated behaviors, rather than what people claim to believe in.
Imagine, if instead of talking about a (seemingly, to you) difficult question like “Does ivermectin work?”, it was a painfully obvious one like “Do you have a nose?”. If she had been asked “What would convince you that you don’t have a nose?” and she responded “I have a nose”, would not the subtext obviously be “and I’m not going to entertain your motivated attempts to gaslight me into questioning what I can see clear as day”? Would not that “Fuck you, you need to show me something surprising before I even take you seriously enough to engage with your (seemingly) nonsense hypotheticals” response seem fitting?
It’s not “assigning 100% probability” just because they don’t take your ideas seriously. It’s “assigning 100% probability” when no matter the evidence, the needle on their belief doesn’t move. If you were to say “What if I gave you a mirror and it showed you to have no nose?”, would she say “It wouldn’t show that”, or would she say “I would believe it’s fancy CGI on a screen disguised as a mirror”? Because only the latter is claiming to ignore the evidence; the former is just predicting that the test won’t show that. If you were actually hand her a mirror so that she could see her missing nose and the bleeding wound where it was, would stick to that rationalization or would she exclaim “OMG what happened to my nose!”? Because only the latter is actually ignoring the evidence, and the state of mind that produces “I have a nose” in almost everyone when asked that question would also give “OMG!” if it manages to be shown to be wrong.
She still might be overconfident, but you can’t jump from “She thinks the chance of being wrong is too small to continue thinking about” to “She’s *over* confident” until you can demonstrate what her proper level of confidence should be. And while you might not buy her arguments, I do expect that she has thought about it and would be ready to argue the case that the proper level of confidence is high.
Absent evidence that she hasn’t actually thought things through, it strikes me more as “Not significant evidence”, or rather “Evidence that either the question is overdetermined OR that she’s crazy” than “red flag”. It really looks like a failure of communication on both sides here.
She should have explained herself better: The equivalent of “Well, the thing is that all of the things which could prove to me that I have no nose are already tests I’ve done and they’ve all come back showing that I have a nose. I looked in the mirror right before I came here, for example. I’m feeling it with my fingers right now, as you can see. Theoretically it’s possible to be wrong about anything, but it’d have to somehow be in a way that causes my nose to consistently show up where I expect it to be, and I can’t imagine any realistic way for that to happen, can you?”
On the other side, they could have understood that this is what she (most likely) meant, and responded to “I have a nose” with “So you would then expect to see it if I handed you a mirror, right?” and try to do the work themselves to find a possibility that she hasn’t already though through, and help clarify what her model actually is, what it’s based on, and what predictions it makes.
It’s also worth noting that Dawkins claiming he “doesn’t absolutely know” and is “a six out of seven” isn’t really demonstrative of the virtue of humility either. “Nothing is 100% certain” is what you’re supposed to say when you’re on team science, but it doesn’t mean you’re actively tracking that remaining uncertainty or doing anything other than giving lip service to the right ideas for that crowd. Watch any Dawkins debate and ask yourself whether he’s really acting the way you’d expect him to act if he thought the betting odds on him being wrong were really as bad as 1 in 7. If *I* thought there was anywhere near a 1 in 7 chance of Christianity being more right than I was, I’d sure as hell be a little more respectful of it than Dawkins is!
Not a 1 in 7 chance that Christianity is right, a 1 in 7 chance that there is a God.
That’s not what “assigning 100% probability” looks like.
Okay…
Imagine, if instead of talking about a (seemingly, to you) difficult question like “Does ivermectin work?”, it was a painfully obvious one like “Do you have a nose?”. If she had been asked “What would convince you that you don’t have a nose?” and she responded “I have a nose”, would not the subtext obviously be “and I’m not going to entertain your motivated attempts to gaslight me into questioning what I can see clear as day”? Would not that “Fuck you, you need to show me something surprising before I even take you seriously enough to engage with your (seemingly) nonsense hypotheticals” response seem fitting?
I’m not sure in what way this is intended to be a counter-argument?
The assumption here is that someone should have 100% certainty that they have a nose on their face (unless they’re Tyrion Lannister) and if they were questioned in such a way about it evidence to this it would be reasonable to say “I have a nose.”
So my problem is that she’s treating something that’s still being researched with this same level of certainty.
Not a 1 in 7 chance that Christianity is right, a 1 in 7 chance that there is a God.
If there is a god and we’re simplifying complex things to the point of “Christianity is right” or “Christianity is wrong”, then Christianity is right and Dawkins is wrong. The point stands that Dawkins has not been acting consistently with the idea that there’s a 1 in 7 chance that he’s wrong about the big one.
The assumption here is that someone should have 100% certainty that they have a nose on their face
No, the point is the opposite.
Not only should people not have 100% certainty that they have a nose, they also don’t have that certainty—even when they make unqualified statements like “I have a nose” in response to “What could convince you that you don’t?”
That’s why they’ll say things like “A mirror would show me to have a nose” rather than “Even if a mirror shows no now, I’ll still know I have one”.
So my problem is that she’s treating something that’s still being researched with this same level of certainty.
Yes, I see that. And you could be right that she’s overconfident here.
However, ironically, you’re being overconfident here. The fact that it’s still being researched is not enough to prove a thing to be unknowable to those who have looked at the data and know how to properly analyze it. Read That Alien Message for an intuition pump about how far things can be taken in principle.
Her confidence being higher than you think should be possible means one of two things (or some combination). Either she’s irrationally confident, or she’s calibrated and better at discerning the truth than you realize can even be done. If you jump straight from “(S)he is more confident than I’d expect someone to be” to concluding “They’re being irrational” without first examining and ruling out “They know things I don’t”, you are going to systematically throw away the perspectives that matter most.
That’s not what “assigning 100% probability” looks like. Look at anticipated behaviors, rather than what people claim to believe in.
Imagine, if instead of talking about a (seemingly, to you) difficult question like “Does ivermectin work?”, it was a painfully obvious one like “Do you have a nose?”. If she had been asked “What would convince you that you don’t have a nose?” and she responded “I have a nose”, would not the subtext obviously be “and I’m not going to entertain your motivated attempts to gaslight me into questioning what I can see clear as day”? Would not that “Fuck you, you need to show me something surprising before I even take you seriously enough to engage with your (seemingly) nonsense hypotheticals” response seem fitting?
It’s not “assigning 100% probability” just because they don’t take your ideas seriously. It’s “assigning 100% probability” when no matter the evidence, the needle on their belief doesn’t move. If you were to say “What if I gave you a mirror and it showed you to have no nose?”, would she say “It wouldn’t show that”, or would she say “I would believe it’s fancy CGI on a screen disguised as a mirror”? Because only the latter is claiming to ignore the evidence; the former is just predicting that the test won’t show that. If you were actually hand her a mirror so that she could see her missing nose and the bleeding wound where it was, would stick to that rationalization or would she exclaim “OMG what happened to my nose!”? Because only the latter is actually ignoring the evidence, and the state of mind that produces “I have a nose” in almost everyone when asked that question would also give “OMG!” if it manages to be shown to be wrong.
She still might be overconfident, but you can’t jump from “She thinks the chance of being wrong is too small to continue thinking about” to “She’s *over* confident” until you can demonstrate what her proper level of confidence should be. And while you might not buy her arguments, I do expect that she has thought about it and would be ready to argue the case that the proper level of confidence is high.
Absent evidence that she hasn’t actually thought things through, it strikes me more as “Not significant evidence”, or rather “Evidence that either the question is overdetermined OR that she’s crazy” than “red flag”. It really looks like a failure of communication on both sides here.
She should have explained herself better: The equivalent of “Well, the thing is that all of the things which could prove to me that I have no nose are already tests I’ve done and they’ve all come back showing that I have a nose. I looked in the mirror right before I came here, for example. I’m feeling it with my fingers right now, as you can see. Theoretically it’s possible to be wrong about anything, but it’d have to somehow be in a way that causes my nose to consistently show up where I expect it to be, and I can’t imagine any realistic way for that to happen, can you?”
On the other side, they could have understood that this is what she (most likely) meant, and responded to “I have a nose” with “So you would then expect to see it if I handed you a mirror, right?” and try to do the work themselves to find a possibility that she hasn’t already though through, and help clarify what her model actually is, what it’s based on, and what predictions it makes.
It’s also worth noting that Dawkins claiming he “doesn’t absolutely know” and is “a six out of seven” isn’t really demonstrative of the virtue of humility either. “Nothing is 100% certain” is what you’re supposed to say when you’re on team science, but it doesn’t mean you’re actively tracking that remaining uncertainty or doing anything other than giving lip service to the right ideas for that crowd. Watch any Dawkins debate and ask yourself whether he’s really acting the way you’d expect him to act if he thought the betting odds on him being wrong were really as bad as 1 in 7. If *I* thought there was anywhere near a 1 in 7 chance of Christianity being more right than I was, I’d sure as hell be a little more respectful of it than Dawkins is!
Not a 1 in 7 chance that Christianity is right, a 1 in 7 chance that there is a God.
Okay…
I’m not sure in what way this is intended to be a counter-argument?
The assumption here is that someone should have 100% certainty that they have a nose on their face (unless they’re Tyrion Lannister) and if they were questioned in such a way about it evidence to this it would be reasonable to say “I have a nose.”
So my problem is that she’s treating something that’s still being researched with this same level of certainty.
If there is a god and we’re simplifying complex things to the point of “Christianity is right” or “Christianity is wrong”, then Christianity is right and Dawkins is wrong. The point stands that Dawkins has not been acting consistently with the idea that there’s a 1 in 7 chance that he’s wrong about the big one.
No, the point is the opposite.
Not only should people not have 100% certainty that they have a nose, they also don’t have that certainty—even when they make unqualified statements like “I have a nose” in response to “What could convince you that you don’t?”
That’s why they’ll say things like “A mirror would show me to have a nose” rather than “Even if a mirror shows no now, I’ll still know I have one”.
Yes, I see that. And you could be right that she’s overconfident here.
However, ironically, you’re being overconfident here. The fact that it’s still being researched is not enough to prove a thing to be unknowable to those who have looked at the data and know how to properly analyze it. Read That Alien Message for an intuition pump about how far things can be taken in principle.
Her confidence being higher than you think should be possible means one of two things (or some combination). Either she’s irrationally confident, or she’s calibrated and better at discerning the truth than you realize can even be done. If you jump straight from “(S)he is more confident than I’d expect someone to be” to concluding “They’re being irrational” without first examining and ruling out “They know things I don’t”, you are going to systematically throw away the perspectives that matter most.
You don’t need a mirror to see your nose.