Orbit Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Decision theory provides a statistical tool for weighting factors in a decision, but has nothing to do with statistical hypothesis testing. In hypothesis testing, the logic of statistics requires you to start with a "null" hypothesis, which states that there is no statistical difference between the things you are comparing. So in statistical hypothesis testing, you start from a negative position. I teach statistics so it might be easier just to ask me questions instead of wading thru Wikipedia, and judging by Neverlandrut's answer there are plenty of people here who can answer statistical questions. My idea is that the decision is the key, because a person cannot claim to "lack belief" after making a decision where the truth of that belief could be important. Like I would not say nasty things about God unless you paid me a lot of money to do it. The amount of money required would establish my level of belief that God exists and would be offended. Thanks for offering to answer questions. I need to read enough to actually know what I need to ask. I will quote something I saw in wikipedia regarding the null hypothesis that associates it with "conventional wisdom" instead of "disbelief". That matches my idea that the default is simply whatever you currently believe. In medieval Europe the default would be and should be Catholicism. Let me know what you think. (I highlighted the reference to conventional wisdom.) The phrase "test of significance" was coined by statistician Ronald Fisher.[1] These tests are used in determining what outcomes of a study would lead to a rejection of the null hypothesis for a pre-specified level of significance; this can help to decide whether results contain enough information to cast doubt on conventional wisdom, given that conventional wisdom has been used to establish the null hypothesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_hypothesis_testing This is absolutely wrong: the null hypothesis is NOT what you currently believe, nor is it conventional wisdom. This is one of the dangers of Wikipedia--it's not peer-reviewed and anyone can type anything. Statistics requires the null to be the negative condition. You're trying to force stats into being something it's not. Edit:typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neverlandrut Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Also, I can't find the post now, but Neverlandrut mentioned how the field of statistics is applicable (null hypothesis, defaults, etc.) To be honest I didn't read those posts in detail, because I'm not familiar enough with statistics to understand them. I've been browsing wikipedia slowly to try to come up to speed enough to follow Neverlandrut's points. I read "A Very Short Introduction to Statistics" a few months ago, but I forget things faster than I can learn them. Off the top of my head it seems like: - statistics is applicable to the research phase when we refine the trust we put in different hypotheses - decision theory is applicable to the phase when we apply these possible hypotheses to choose an action Decision theory provides a statistical tool for weighting factors in a decision, but has nothing to do with statistical hypothesis testing. In hypothesis testing, the logic of statistics requires you to start with a "null" hypothesis, which states that there is no statistical difference between the things you are comparing. So in statistical hypothesis testing, you start from a negative position. I teach statistics so it might be easier just to ask me questions instead of wading thru Wikipedia, and judging by Neverlandrut's answer there are plenty of people here who can answer statistical questions. Thanks Orbit! Good to know we have a resident statistician. I have a reasonably good grasp of statistics, but I'll defer to you for clarity. Please feel free to correct me if I err. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orbit Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Also, I can't find the post now, but Neverlandrut mentioned how the field of statistics is applicable (null hypothesis, defaults, etc.) To be honest I didn't read those posts in detail, because I'm not familiar enough with statistics to understand them. I've been browsing wikipedia slowly to try to come up to speed enough to follow Neverlandrut's points. I read "A Very Short Introduction to Statistics" a few months ago, but I forget things faster than I can learn them. Off the top of my head it seems like: - statistics is applicable to the research phase when we refine the trust we put in different hypotheses - decision theory is applicable to the phase when we apply these possible hypotheses to choose an action Decision theory provides a statistical tool for weighting factors in a decision, but has nothing to do with statistical hypothesis testing. In hypothesis testing, the logic of statistics requires you to start with a "null" hypothesis, which states that there is no statistical difference between the things you are comparing. So in statistical hypothesis testing, you start from a negative position. I teach statistics so it might be easier just to ask me questions instead of wading thru Wikipedia, and judging by Neverlandrut's answer there are plenty of people here who can answer statistical questions. Thanks Orbit! Good to know we have a resident statistician. I have a reasonably good grasp of statistics, but I'll defer to you for clarity. Please feel free to correct me if I err. Hi--I'm not actually a statistician per se, but I teach university level stats and research methods. I have an interdisciplinary PhD in anthropology/sociology. You sound pretty solid in stats! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
directionless Posted September 4, 2014 Author Share Posted September 4, 2014 This is absolutely wrong: the null hypothesis is NOT what you currently believe, nor is it conventional wisdom. This is one of the dangers of Wikipedia--it's not peer-reviewed and anyone can type anything. Statistics requires the null to be the negative condition. You're trying to force stats into being something it's not. I'm not trying to be argumentative (especially with my limited knowledge of statistics), but it just makes so much sense to me to equate the null hypothesis with conventional wisdom. Are you sure there aren't varying understanding of the null hypothesis? Here is a quote from some teaching material that also uses that definition of the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is variously referred to as the "hypothesis of no change" or the "status quo" hypothesis or the "conventional wisdom" hypothesis. The null hypothesis is presumed to be correct unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. ... The alternative hypothesis is also called the "research hypothesis." It is the hypothesis that the researcher is trying to gather information in favor of. In order to reject the null hypothesis in favor of the alternative, overwhelming evidence must be demonstrated. http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~asills/teach/spr06/hyptest.html In the cereal box example of that link, a manager is concerned that the equipment is not putting the correct amount of cereal in each box and might need adjustment. The null hypothesis is the prior belief that all was well with the equipment. If I start life as a Christian (through indoctrination) then Christianity is my null hypothesis. If I later switch to atheism then atheism becomes my null hypothesis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orbit Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 This is absolutely wrong: the null hypothesis is NOT what you currently believe, nor is it conventional wisdom. This is one of the dangers of Wikipedia--it's not peer-reviewed and anyone can type anything. Statistics requires the null to be the negative condition. You're trying to force stats into being something it's not. I'm not trying to be argumentative (especially with my limited knowledge of statistics), but it just makes so much sense to me to equate the null hypothesis with conventional wisdom. Are you sure there aren't varying understanding of the null hypothesis? Here is a quote from some teaching material that also uses that definition of the null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is variously referred to as the "hypothesis of no change" or the "status quo" hypothesis or the "conventional wisdom" hypothesis. The null hypothesis is presumed to be correct unless there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. ... The alternative hypothesis is also called the "research hypothesis." It is the hypothesis that the researcher is trying to gather information in favor of. In order to reject the null hypothesis in favor of the alternative, overwhelming evidence must be demonstrated. http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~asills/teach/spr06/hyptest.html I'm not trying to be argumentative either, or to give offense, but what you are doing is completely against all conventions of statistics. The null hypothesis is the negative condition, always, and has absolutely nothing to do with "conventional wisdom". Can you even imagine a scientist using the words "conventional wisdom" referring to anything in math? I can't. If you want to make up your own thought system, that's fine, but you can't call it statistics because it's not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
directionless Posted September 4, 2014 Author Share Posted September 4, 2014 I'm sure there is some brainwashing, but IMO there are some real chocolate chip cookies offered by Christianity. For example, my little town has a church on almost every street corner. Every time I drive past one of those churches on Sunday morning I am effectively saying that I have better things to do with my time on Sunday morning. So I'm expressing my opinion (IMO ) Sure churches are social clubs. But that isn't the selling point. They want to save your soul (the part of you that cannot be shown to exist) from hell (an afterlife that cannot be shown to exist) through what Jesus Christ (who cannot be shown to exist) did on the cross (which cannot be shown to have been an actual event). I agree that the afterlife claims of Christianity are a bit like Florduh's invisible unicorn cookies. However some people are willing to pay a lot of money for those cookies. The fact that you aren't buying those cookies when offered is evidence that you believe those cookies aren't worth the price (going to church, reading the bible, etc.) This is a measurement of your low level of confidence in unicorn cookies, and it is reasonable for somebody to ask you to explain your low level of confidence - especially if the majority opinion supports the existence of these invisible cookies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orbit Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 I'm sure there is some brainwashing, but IMO there are some real chocolate chip cookies offered by Christianity. For example, my little town has a church on almost every street corner. Every time I drive past one of those churches on Sunday morning I am effectively saying that I have better things to do with my time on Sunday morning. So I'm expressing my opinion (IMO ) Sure churches are social clubs. But that isn't the selling point. They want to save your soul (the part of you that cannot be shown to exist) from hell (an afterlife that cannot be shown to exist) through what Jesus Christ (who cannot be shown to exist) did on the cross (which cannot be shown to have been an actual event). I agree that the afterlife claims of Christianity are a bit like Florduh's invisible unicorn cookies. However some people are willing to pay a lot of money for those cookies. The fact that you aren't buying those cookies when offered is evidence that you believe those cookies aren't worth the price (going to church, reading the bible, etc.) This is a measurement of your low level of confidence in unicorn cookies, and it is reasonable for somebody to ask you to explain your low level of confidence - especially if the majority opinion supports the existence of these invisible cookies. And we repeatedly explain our low level of confidence by saying "there is no evidence". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 I'm sure there is some brainwashing, but IMO there are some real chocolate chip cookies offered by Christianity. For example, my little town has a church on almost every street corner. Every time I drive past one of those churches on Sunday morning I am effectively saying that I have better things to do with my time on Sunday morning. So I'm expressing my opinion (IMO ) Sure churches are social clubs. But that isn't the selling point. They want to save your soul (the part of you that cannot be shown to exist) from hell (an afterlife that cannot be shown to exist) through what Jesus Christ (who cannot be shown to exist) did on the cross (which cannot be shown to have been an actual event). I agree that the afterlife claims of Christianity are a bit like Florduh's invisible unicorn cookies. However some people are willing to pay a lot of money for those cookies. The fact that you aren't buying those cookies when offered is evidence that you believe those cookies aren't worth the price (going to church, reading the bible, etc.) This is a measurement of your low level of confidence in unicorn cookies, and it is reasonable for somebody to ask you to explain your low level of confidence - especially if the majority opinion supports the existence of these invisible cookies. And I am happy to stop and explain many of the glaring problems with Christianity. However it is not reasonable for Christians to slander me in an effort to discredit atheists. And that is exactly what many of them do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted September 4, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted September 4, 2014 The fact that you aren't buying those cookies when offered is evidence that you believe those cookies aren't worth the price (going to church, reading the bible, etc.) There. Are. NO. Cookies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 The fact that you aren't buying those cookies when offered is evidence that you believe those cookies aren't worth the price (going to church, reading the bible, etc.) There. Are. NO. Cookies. I'm surprised you would say that, Florduh. Don't you realize that the cookies were made with a magical oven so that only wise people can see them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
directionless Posted September 5, 2014 Author Share Posted September 5, 2014 The fact that you aren't buying those cookies when offered is evidence that you believe those cookies aren't worth the price (going to church, reading the bible, etc.)There. Are. NO. Cookies. I'm surprised you would say that, Florduh. Don't you realize that the cookies were made with a magical oven so that only wise people can see them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neverlandrut Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 I'm sure there is some brainwashing, but IMO there are some real chocolate chip cookies offered by Christianity. For example, my little town has a church on almost every street corner. Every time I drive past one of those churches on Sunday morning I am effectively saying that I have better things to do with my time on Sunday morning. So I'm expressing my opinion (IMO ) Sure churches are social clubs. But that isn't the selling point. They want to save your soul (the part of you that cannot be shown to exist) from hell (an afterlife that cannot be shown to exist) through what Jesus Christ (who cannot be shown to exist) did on the cross (which cannot be shown to have been an actual event). I agree that the afterlife claims of Christianity are a bit like Florduh's invisible unicorn cookies. However some people are willing to pay a lot of money for those cookies. The fact that you aren't buying those cookies when offered is evidence that you believe those cookies aren't worth the price (going to church, reading the bible, etc.) This is a measurement of your low level of confidence in unicorn cookies, and it is reasonable for somebody to ask you to explain your low level of confidence - especially if the majority opinion supports the existence of these invisible cookies. And we repeatedly explain our low level of confidence by saying "there is no evidence". Bingo! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neverlandrut Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 The fact that you aren't buying those cookies when offered is evidence that you believe those cookies aren't worth the price (going to church, reading the bible, etc.) There. Are. NO. Cookies. HAHAHAH! This reminds me of something... Don't try and buy the cookie. That's impossible. Instead, only realize the truth. -What truth? There is no cookie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 This reminds me of the first Matrix movie. Not the sequels which were all about CGI and making fight scenes boring. The first Matrix movie was about being born into a lie, have that lie fed to you your whole life and then you try to unlearn it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
midniterider Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 I will not discuss theism vs atheism vs soft atheism vs agnosticism et al as if God's existence is axiomatic and I need to build a case to support my minority position. Theists, you have failed for thousands of years to convince rational, logical, thinking people that your proposition for an invisible and undetectable deity is tenable. Sorry, it's not my problem, you have simply failed to make the case and it is proper that I reject your proposition. I do not hold an opposing belief, I hold no belief. Atheist is not the opposite of theist. Atheist shouldn't even be a word any more than Asasquatchist should be a word. Imagine a world where everywhere you turn there is somebody offering you a chocolate chip cookie. You are forced to say "no thank you" over and over again. How can you claim to have no opinion about chocolate chip cookies? You obviously don't like chocolate chip cookies for some reason. It is reasonable to ask what you have against chocolate chip cookies, don't you think? Nobody can claim to simply lack an opinion about chocolate chip cookies under those circumstances. I think someone can have no opinion about something. Until they give it a lot of thought. Then they will choose a point of view that suits them. It makes them feel good so they value that particular concept or way of thinking. They emotionally bond to it. It could be faith, science, or chocolate chip cookies...or the Green Bay Packers or the liberal platform. We love and hate anything and everything. I will call your evidence about your thing baloney while my evidence about my thing is rock solid! And then time goes by and some of us switch sides. :-) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
directionless Posted September 5, 2014 Author Share Posted September 5, 2014 I will not discuss theism vs atheism vs soft atheism vs agnosticism et al as if God's existence is axiomatic and I need to build a case to support my minority position. Theists, you have failed for thousands of years to convince rational, logical, thinking people that your proposition for an invisible and undetectable deity is tenable. Sorry, it's not my problem, you have simply failed to make the case and it is proper that I reject your proposition. I do not hold an opposing belief, I hold no belief. Atheist is not the opposite of theist. Atheist shouldn't even be a word any more than Asasquatchist should be a word. Imagine a world where everywhere you turn there is somebody offering you a chocolate chip cookie. You are forced to say "no thank you" over and over again. How can you claim to have no opinion about chocolate chip cookies? You obviously don't like chocolate chip cookies for some reason. It is reasonable to ask what you have against chocolate chip cookies, don't you think? Nobody can claim to simply lack an opinion about chocolate chip cookies under those circumstances. I think someone can have no opinion about something. Until they give it a lot of thought. Then they will choose a point of view that suits them. It makes them feel good so they value that particular concept or way of thinking. They emotionally bond to it. It could be faith, science, or chocolate chip cookies...or the Green Bay Packers or the liberal platform. We love and hate anything and everything. I will call your evidence about your thing baloney while my evidence about my thing is rock solid! And then time goes by and some of us switch sides. :-) I agree with what you are saying except that I think decisions force people to have an opinion - even if they don't feel ready to have an opinion. In an atheistic society like Norway or Japan, I suppose a person could have no opinion about Christianity, but in the US a person is forced to have an opinion. I turn am flipping channels on the TV and there is a Christian channel. I flip to the next channel as quickly as possible. That says something about my opinion of Christianity. Using the Green Bay Packers as an example, what if somebody offers to bet you on the outcome of one of their games? If you bet - or even if you refuse to bet - your decision says something about your opinion of the Green Bay Packers prospects in that game IMO. You might be constantly researching and refining your opinion of the Green Bay Packers, but you must temporarily suspend that research to decide about this opportunity to bet on their game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted September 5, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted September 5, 2014 Using the Green Bay Packers as an example... NO! The Packers are known to exist and you can like them, support them, bet on them or ignore them. Rather than using the Packers as an example, it would be more appropriate to use another team - the Invisible Xanadu Honkers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 Using the Green Bay Packers as an example... NO! The Packers are known to exist and you can like them, support them, bet on them or ignore them. Rather than using the Packers as an example, it would be more appropriate to use another team - the Invisible Xanadu Honkers. I've been looking for a good name for my band. Invisible Xanadu Honkers is a good candidate... IXH Rules! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted September 5, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted September 5, 2014 I've been looking for a good name for my band. Invisible Xanadu Honkers is a good candidate... IXH Rules! I want the shirt. XL, please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 I agree with what you are saying except that I think decisions force people to have an opinion - even if they don't feel ready to have an opinion. In an atheistic society like Norway or Japan, I suppose a person could have no opinion about Christianity, but in the US a person is forced to have an opinion. I turn am flipping channels on the TV and there is a Christian channel. I flip to the next channel as quickly as possible. That says something about my opinion of Christianity. Plenty of people don't form opinions regarding many things. Often I will hear people say a TV show is great. Then I will wait a while and the show is off the air. It did it's full run and I never even saw one episode. What was my opinion of the show except that I do not watch much television? It might have been a great show. It might have been over hyped. That I never bothered to watch an episode doesn't mean I love it or hate it. I keep calling it the show because there were hundreds of TV shows that got good reviews but I have never watched. I can't remember the names of any of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
directionless Posted September 5, 2014 Author Share Posted September 5, 2014 Using the Green Bay Packers as an example...NO! The Packers are known to exist and you can like them, support them, bet on them or ignore them. Rather than using the Packers as an example, it would be more appropriate to use another team - the Invisible Xanadu Honkers. O.k. So let's go with the Invisible Xanadu Honkers. Let's say there are 2 billion Honkers fans that meet-up every Sunday. Maybe we even have a discussion forum where almost everybody is an ex-Honkers fan. Can the ex-Honkers fans really say: "I simply lack belief in the Honkers. I need no reason to disbelieve in the Honkers. Disbelief is the default. It is your job to convince me that the Honkers exist. I don't need to explain why I don't believe in the Honkers anymore. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence..." ? I think a more reasonable view is that there is no universal default. Each person's default is whatever he/she currently believes. The Christian's default is Christianity. The Buddhist's default is Buddhism. The hard-atheist's default is hard-atheism. Everybody involved in the discussion should try to be skeptical of their default view, present arguments, listen to arguments, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted September 5, 2014 Super Moderator Share Posted September 5, 2014 We are all born with a clean slate. That is the true default. Everything else is taught to us, including the various gods and Santa Claus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 We are all born with a clean slate. That is the true default. Everything else is taught to us, including the various gods and Santa Claus. Or we create it based on our perception of the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Posted September 5, 2014 Share Posted September 5, 2014 Directionless: I have not read all of your posts, only a few pages. But I have an illustration that may work for you here. I live in Oregon, the Pacific Northwest, where belief in Bigfoot is pretty rampant. It's still alternative, but an undercurrent which has been with us for quite a long while. I've always been skeptical of Bigfoot. atheistic, if you will, if bigfoot were claimed to be a god. Now, the bigfooters also say things like, "Leo, if you don't believe, that's because you're supporting the scientific, military, industrial establishment." Now why is that? And does that actually make any sense? Believe it or not, the Bigfoot "apologists" actually make claims and correlations similar to your religious apologists be they Christian, Muslim, etc. They claim, and accurately so, that scientists were skeptical about native oral traditions claiming there were mountain people in parts of Africa, hairy people who would come in and steal things from them occasionally. I'm being brief, and don't have the full story here. But anyway, a species of mountain gorilla was discovered, which meant we found out what it was they were talking about. That doesn't make their myth true: it makes their myth believable as an explanation for something they could not understand, and now the light of scientific discovery showed us just what that was. The Bigfotters out here say that we will discover the same thing in the Pacific Northwest, if only we would allocate resources to Bigfoot research. They leave out the fact that there are no native simian species on the North American continent. Now the people who are skeptical of Bigfoot, many of these skeptics being Christians, Jews, Muslims and others, are all practicing skepticism. Towards Bigfoot. And it's easy: Bigfoot is alternative. But on the contrary, God is trendy and cool and popular. All the cool kids with the biggest guns are doing it. The Christian blogosphere is full of Christianities that often display radical and extreme behaviors. And the extreme in Christianity is the mainstream. So when someone practices skepticism RE: the Christian God, they are practicing skepticism against the ideas of Johnny Football hero, Zoey cheerleader, and all those who follow them. When people say God in the U.S., they mean the Christian God. And even more specifically, the god as interpreted by evangelical Christians. These are the supermajority. Is atheism on the rise? Sure. But atheism in the U.S. is still the field mouse, and Christianity still the elephant. But that doesn't mean Christianity is right. And, if you were right about the belief or nonbelief in the god concept, you would have to account for the thousands of gods who have been worshipped over history and prehistory. After all, just because it isn't worshipped now isn't in and of itself enough evidence that it is not the right one. You and I and everybody are "atheistic" to a whole series of claims made by other people. Many Protestants haven't even given transubstantiation a second thought. It's a default "non" position. Maybe if told to do so, they parrot the beliefs hidden in the fine print of a statement of faith somewhere. But most people read those like they read software license agreements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
directionless Posted September 5, 2014 Author Share Posted September 5, 2014 ... Leo, I see the parallel with people who believe in Bigfoot. Imagine you are trying to write software to simulate human reasoning and behavior in regards to belief systems: atheism vs theism, Bigfootism vs Abigfootism, etc. How would you do that? So that's what I've been trying to explore in this thread. This whole idea that "not believing" is the default makes no sense to me, because the question can be negated to turn "not believing" into "believing the negation". So I think the default is simply believing with the majority or alternatively believing what you already believe. I don't seem to be persuading anybody else though. I'm hungry for some invisible unicorn cookies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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