(June 28, 2016 at 12:07 pm)Irrational Wrote:(June 28, 2016 at 11:57 am)SteveII Wrote: What is the difference? How do we know any historical event happened? People write about it.
Well, since Bayes' theorem (or Bayesian probability) was brought up very recently in another thread, perhaps the key is in the prior probabilities. In the absence of information ascertaining or substantially improving the likelihood of supernatural events, then the probability of any supernatural event is extremely low, very close to zero.
That's simply not true. An event is not simply the probability of A in respects to B or Pr(A/B). Modern probability calculus indicates that we need to consider the background information and the probability that A would happen if not B (and other such comparisons). So the calculation is really Pr(A/B&E) where E stands for various evidences and background information.
For example, what is the probability that the crippled man would have walked when commanded to "rise, take up your bed and walk" if a miracle had not happened? Probability goes way up when you look at it properly.
