50/50

[thehedglin]

I have heard the argument intimated a couple of times, but not very seriously, and it takes little to no effort to convince the person using it that there is no normal distribution on which to calculate such a probability. You need data to predict the probability of something, and in a lack of it, you could not possibly calculate a probability that would bear up, even under the lightest of scrutiny.

We have no more empirical data points for god than we do pixies, so neither are really able to be assessed by probability, as they are unfalsifiable propositions supported by precisely no direct empirical evidence.

The entire argument stems from a complete misunderstanding of probabilities in the first place, as most people find the field unintuitive. Most people can't work out the likelihood of a true positive in medicine, given a disease with a 1% prevalence and a test with 95% accuracy, but it is approximately 16%...