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Post by Amaranth on Feb 14, 2010 2:10:25 GMT -5
That's a good way of putting it. I might try that phrasing next time colleagues explode at a Daily Mail story of how they're teaching our children sex. Yeah, the way it's usually put, you'd think we had "anal sex: A how to" scheduled in between "recess and "math." Mostly, we learned the biology element. Male and female reproductive organs and the less sexy side of how pregnancy occurs. They barely mentioned intercourse at all, which always sort of amused me because they cover basically everything but why the sperm is in the woman to begin with. Not that I didn't know, but with all the full grown adults who still don't quite know how things work.... We talked erections, but only in a clinical sense. You know, they left out the part of getting horny. In fact, sexual stimulation was off the table. We were told about the clitoris, for example, but not what it did. Or even the fact that it itself was erectile tissue. And given enough time, I could probably remember more details on what they didn't teach us. By the time they got to sex and sexuality, we were in tenth grade and a good chunk of the folks there were no longer virgins, and most of the rest had at least fooled around. It'd be like if every kid got a car at ten, but didn't get Driver's Ed until they were sixteen. only you can't really take the keys away. Though I don't want to be completely off topic, so I'll throw this in, too.... The inability to accurately handicap the probability of life evolving on its own alone, we're talking about something improbable over the course of billi...Sorry, thousands of years. I wouldn't say that there's a chance, I'd say it only takes the one. I mean, when you look at the odds of any given planet, it would seem extraordinary. When you consider how many planets there might actually be, how many "chances" in this lottery there are, well, it's not quite the same. Then again, I'm a gamer, and surrounded by people who despite knowledge of probability and statistics continue to have superstitions about pre-rolled dice. Hell, some people in my gaming groups are considered "unlucky," because they've managed to roll significantly below average over time (or just at critical moments, seeing as how nobody actively tracks every die roll ever made). But yeah. Probability does not imply equal distribution. Just flipping a coin is enough to demonstrate that. On a side note, anyone want to calculate the probability of God existing? ...For science, of course.
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Post by Vene on Feb 14, 2010 2:21:52 GMT -5
The inability to accurately handicap the probability of life evolving on its own alone, we're talking about something improbable over the course of billi...Sorry, thousands of years. I wouldn't say that there's a chance, I'd say it only takes the one. I mean, when you look at the odds of any given planet, it would seem extraordinary. When you consider how many planets there might actually be, how many "chances" in this lottery there are, well, it's not quite the same. It's like with the lottery, the odds of any one person winning it is quite low, but the odds of somebody winning are quite high.
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Post by cagnazzo on Feb 14, 2010 3:33:11 GMT -5
It'd be like if every kid got a car at ten, but didn't get Driver's Ed until they were sixteen. only you can't really take the keys away. That's because you're thinking inside the box. Though, you'd probably have trouble passing a bill allowing for preemptive wangchoppery.
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apedant
Full Member
Over himself, over his body and soul, the individual is sovereign--J S Mill.
Posts: 139
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Post by apedant on Feb 14, 2010 4:34:48 GMT -5
...right...the topic...I remember that...soooo...ahem... I think these 3 quotes pretty effectively deal with the whole probability issue, although strictly speaking they refer to the origins of the universe rather than life. Edward P Tryon: "In answer to the question of why it happened, I offer the modest proposal that our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time.Alan Guth (explaining more of Tryon's work): Although the creation of a universe may be very unlikely, Tryon emphasized that no one had counted the failed attempts."Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal) (responding to the tailored suit variant of the watchmaker argument): If there is a large stock of clothing, you're not surprised to find a suit that fits. If there are many universes, each governed by a differing set of numbers, there will be one where there is a particular set of numbers suitable to life.
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Post by Amaranth on Feb 14, 2010 10:58:03 GMT -5
It's like with the lottery, the odds of any one person winning it is quite low, but the odds of somebody winning are quite high. I was gonna run with the coin flip example last night, but I was tired and rambling and forgot. I mean, the odds of a fair coin coming up heads is 50-50. If you're looking for one heads result, though, flipping four different coins at once yields a pretty good chance of getting at least one. Maybe more. Your lottery example works better. Individual odds are bad at the lottery. I think the posted odds on the back of a Tri-State (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) Megabucks ticket are something like 1 in 400 million. Among other things, it means that every person in the US could buy a ticket with a different, random number and still have only around a 3/4 probability of someone getting it. On any given draw. And a lot of times, people don't get the jackpot. That's why the amount goes up in the first place. The Jackpot is based on the amount people have spent. Eventually, though, someone gets it. And let's face it, the population of those three states is pretty low compared to the whole of the US. Yeah, my dad used to play the lottery when a significant jackpot came up. He figured a dollar was a trivial amount to blow on the possibility of a large windfall, even if the odds were slim. Someone out there won those jackpots. Sometimes they'd go for weeks or more without a winner, but.... And we're talking about billions of years, and space is big. Really big. But hey, if you're looking for God, it's not going to stop you. Statistical improbability can be used to "prove" God, so long as you're willing to repeat it enough times. That's because you're thinking inside the box. Though, you'd probably have trouble passing a bill allowing for preemptive wangchoppery. I dunno. If we sold it the way we sell all the other sex laws....>.> I kid. Plus, it's hard to "unchop" a penis. Or any other genital bit. I don't think they should (though the concept is amusing), just that maybe we let kids check the owner's manual, knowing they'll be taking their "cars" out for a test drive well before we want them to. And if there's an accident, we want them wearing safety belts. Especially if they get rear ended.... Too much innuendo?
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Post by MaybeNever on Feb 14, 2010 16:38:25 GMT -5
I love Tryon's quote.
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Post by davedan on Feb 14, 2010 18:13:33 GMT -5
That's a good way of putting it. I might try that phrasing next time colleagues explode at a Daily Mail story of how they're teaching our children sex. Yeah, the way it's usually put, you'd think we had "anal sex: A how to" scheduled in between "recess and "math." See and it's such a shame we didn't have this lesson would have saved a lot of blood sweat tears and other bodily fluids
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Post by rookie on Feb 15, 2010 8:59:35 GMT -5
The inability to accurately handicap the probability of life evolving on its own alone, we're talking about something improbable over the course of billi...Sorry, thousands of years. I wouldn't say that there's a chance, I'd say it only takes the one. I mean, when you look at the odds of any given planet, it would seem extraordinary. When you consider how many planets there might actually be, how many "chances" in this lottery there are, well, it's not quite the same. Then again, I'm a gamer, and surrounded by people who despite knowledge of probability and statistics continue to have superstitions about pre-rolled dice. Hell, some people in my gaming groups are considered "unlucky," because they've managed to roll significantly below average over time (or just at critical moments, seeing as how nobody actively tracks every die roll ever made). Remind me to kidnap you to Pimlico this spring.
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Post by Amaranth on Feb 16, 2010 9:37:45 GMT -5
See and it's such a shame we didn't have this lesson would have saved a lot of blood sweat tears and other bodily fluids Just pick it up on the streets like the rest of is. >.> <.<
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Post by davidh72000 on Feb 16, 2010 12:52:17 GMT -5
Individual odds are bad at the lottery. I think the posted odds on the back of a Tri-State (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine) Megabucks ticket are something like 1 in 400 million. Among other things, it means that every person in the US could buy a ticket with a different, random number and still have only around a 3/4 probability of someone getting it. It is actually lower than that. I am assuming you got 3/4 from multiplying the US population by 1/400,000,000. 308,692,000/400,000,000 = 0.77173. However this is not the way to calculate this probability. The probability of an individual not winning it is 399,999,999/400,000,000. So the probability of everyone in the US buying a ticket and no one getting it is (399,999,999/400,000,000)^308,692,000. So the probability of at least one person winning is 1 - (399,999,999/400,000,000)^308,692,000 or about 0.537787252. Edit: I just noticed that the 1 in 400 million is the odds and I treated it like a probability. However the effect this has on the probability being calculated is completely negligible.
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Post by Amaranth on Feb 16, 2010 22:40:52 GMT -5
I didn't have a brain cramp on the math. Just the numbers.
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Post by erictheblue on Feb 17, 2010 13:35:53 GMT -5
I don't think they should (though the concept is amusing), just that maybe we let kids check the owner's manual, knowing they'll be taking their "cars" out for a test drive well before we want them to. And if there's an accident, we want them wearing safety belts. Especially if they get rear ended.... No, not at all... ;D (snicker)
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