Atheism and the Paranormal

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

If belief in ESP is from scientific illiteracy, is playing the lottery statistical or mathematical illiteracy?

Is shopping at WalMart economic illiteracy?

Straw men Pip.

But,to answer questions;

Applied statistics is a branch of mathematics. Playing the lottery with any expectation of winning probably indicates ignorance as well as magical thinking.EG a belief in 'luck',or perhaps a sense special worth or entitlement.

Another misconception is how odds actually work. EG Here the odds of winning the major prize in the state lottery is 1 in 30 MILLION. Buying two tickets doe0s NOT reduce the odds to 1 in 15 million and so on. Buying 10,000 tickets means you have 10,000 chances,but the odds of any one ticket winning remain at 1 in 30 million.

Shopping at Wallmart is just dandy, so long as you don't implicitly believe you will always get the best price and good quality. We have Kmart. I only shop there only for brand items during advertised sales. That's because their normal prices are not especially cheap and the quality is only fair




-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

[Pippy]

Please don't post the stupid wiki link to straw man argument, I know the concept. It makes you appear less able than we know you are.

It is not a straw man, but a jest.

Illiteracy of science.

[Eilonnwy]

Pippy, often times we post links to logical fallacies because many people here don't know about them and we hit them time and time again. Wikipedia is an easy way to explain something we often repeatedly have to point out.

Anyway, I wouldn't say your argument is a strawman, but more of a false comparison, even if it was in jest.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Please don't post the stupid wiki link to straw man argument, I know the concept. It makes you appear less able than we know you are.

It is not a straw man, but a jest.

Illiteracy of science.

Sorry Pip, I can never tell with you. (Poe's law)


Oh, for your info; I think the strawman explanation on Wiki is perfectly OK. OF course I may be wrong and will be thrilled if you would explain why it's stupid.

PS thank you for the backhanded compliment.

[Pippy]

We of the northern isles can appreciate a good backhanded compliment. We invented the satire too.

It is not at all that the wiki explanation for the common fallacy is flawed, just that posting wiki links discredits your ability to provide cogent rebuttal yourself.

90% of what I say is a joke, unless specifically referenced otherwise. It is just as hard in person, you should have seen the poor Nigerian I have to train at work. Silliness is next to godliness in my book.

[Tiberius]

Another misconception is how odds actually work. EG Here the odds of winning the major prize in the state lottery is 1 in 30 MILLION. Buying two tickets doe0s NOT reduce the odds to 1 in 15 million and so on. Buying 10,000 tickets means you have 10,000 chances,but the odds of any one ticket winning remain at 1 in 30 million.

Actually, that depends on what you mean.

If, for instance, there are 30 million different combinations of the lottery numbers, and you have 1 ticket (with one possible combination) then your odds of winning by chance are 1 in 30 million. If you buy 2 tickets, as long as they have different combinations on them, your odds are now 2 in 30 million, which is the same as 1 in 15 million.

You have doubled your chances, because you've doubled the number of tickets. Do it again and you'll get odds of 1 in 7.5 million. Yes, every winning ticket still has the odds of winning of 1 in 30 million, but you are combining the odds when you buy more.

In statistics, if one event is dependent on the previous, you multiply odds to get the result. For instance, if you wanted to pick out 4 Aces from a pack of cards, the odds are:

4/52 (for the first Ace) * 3/51 (for the second) * 2/50 (for the third) * 1/49 (for the fourth)

Picking out an Ace is one event, and since you want to do it 4 times in a row, you need to multiply the odds of each pick. The same goes for the actual lottery numbers (i.e. 1/49 * 1/48 * 1/47...)

However, if you want to find the odds of picking out an Ace OR a King, the calculation involves addition:

4/52 (for the Ace) + 4/52 (for the King)

Another way of looking at it is to create a hypothetical scenario where a man buys all possible combinations of numbers (i.e. 30 million). Are his chances still only 1 in 30 million? Well, for each individual ticket, yes, but for all tickets combined, his chance of winning is 1 (i.e. absolute certainty). If you have all the tickets in a raffle, you are going to win everything...same logic.

Of course, the reason why people don't buy 2 tickets (or at least shouldn't) is that 1 in 15 million odds aren't really much better. If you want to get 50% odds (which isn't that good either...) then you need to buy 15 million tickets. If you've got £15 million, you don't need to play the lottery.

[Eilonnwy]

Pippy, if most of what you say is a joke you never give any indication that it is. It is extremely hard to suss out a tone with plain text to judge if it's a joke or not. Maybe you should read my netiquette guide about internet tone. http://atheistforums.org/thread-3469.html -_^

[Pippy]

wasn't that the post about netiquette that I made an inappropriate joke... about lady gaga... within?

[Watson]

It's too late and I'm too tired to skim this whole thread, but I've found some interesting links between atheists and certain 'paranormal' beliefs, or superstitious ones at the least, in my experience.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@adrian

I'll accede to your superior knowledge. I was quoting from memory of a statistics course I took as part of a business diploma,in 1973. Good chance I've gone and gotten confused again.

My point was that few people understand how odds work. One should avoid playing poker with a statistician.

I simply do not gamble,not even raffle tickets .I will donate directly to any charity I want to support. Here the best popular gambling game is scratch tickets,with odds of 8:1 of getting your money back.

Australia has arguably the world's fairest gambling game; 'Two up',with even odds.

Two-up is a traditional Australian gambling game, involving a designated 'Spinner' throwing two or three coins into the air. Traditionally, these coins are pennies. Incidentally, their weight size and surface design make them ideal for the game. Weight and size make them stable on the 'kip' and easy to spin in the air. Decimal coins are generally considered to be too small and light and they don't 'fly' so well. The design of pennies that date pre 1939 had the sovereign's head on the obverse (front) and the reverse was totally covered in writing making the result very easy and quick to see. Pennies can often be observed being used at games on Anzac Day, as they are brought out specifically for this purpose each year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-up

---

It is not at all that the wiki explanation for the common fallacy is flawed, just that posting wiki links discredits your ability to provide cogent rebuttal yourself.

What?

Pippy your opinion about credibility and about $5 will get you a half decent cup of coffee