tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56508739591098948592024-03-18T03:57:48.317-05:00Theological Data MiningMatt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-2088269537897997212016-08-27T19:28:00.001-05:002016-08-29T16:46:15.639-05:00The Plant Model of MoralitySeveral years ago, I tried to determine whether the status of Oklahoma's winter wheat crop impacts near-surface air pressure during the afternoon. I found that it indeed does, but it's practically unnoticeable because it's almost entirely masked by numerous other factors that have a bigger impact on air pressure. When those other factors are subtracted out and we look at the resulting anomaly, the impact of the wheat is unmistakable.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghx8paNeufh7fqm-HGWKxF6SRv_GVcn6-Dx7RKMUkEszB4dJlvvq7iFM5opUVRkTdde3S__zA1O9Ibwc41LlEnsSPz23IO-6a74w_wCScxgoPmi6bnb-hnwca5FpafozH4TC2U3aYD-acz/s1600/wheat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghx8paNeufh7fqm-HGWKxF6SRv_GVcn6-Dx7RKMUkEszB4dJlvvq7iFM5opUVRkTdde3S__zA1O9Ibwc41LlEnsSPz23IO-6a74w_wCScxgoPmi6bnb-hnwca5FpafozH4TC2U3aYD-acz/s1600/wheat.jpg" /></a></div>
An anomaly is a difference between reality and some predetermined standard or baseline. That baseline doesn't have to be perfect and doesn't have to explain everything, but if it accounts for a lot of what you're not looking for, it makes it that much easier to see what you <i>are</i> looking for. I chose the winter wheat example because plant life is an excellent baseline for comparing human morality. Plants are, by all accounts, morally neutral. Yet, they do many of the same things humans do. They eat, sleep, adapt to their environments, respond to stimuli, defend against threats, compete and cooperate with others, and much more.<br />
<br />
The "decisions" plants make can be explained by a cost-benefit analysis, where both the cost and benefit are closely related to survival. In other words, plants do whatever has the most net benefit to their survival. A similar cost-benefit analysis also explains much of human decision-making and behavior. Humans have a strong desire to survive, and we usually act accordingly.<br />
<br />
Starting only with the reasonable assumptions that (1) plants are always morally neutral, (2) there is such a thing as moral good and bad, and (3) humans are not always morally neutral, it follows that <i><b>moral choices are part of the anomaly</b></i> -- i.e., what's left over after we subtract out morally-neutral plant-like choices & behavior.<i><b> </b></i>Thus, moral good is somehow related to the extent to which someone deviates from their optimal cost-benefit solution<i><b>. </b></i>In other words, moral good involves going against what's apparently in one's own best interests. But why would anyone do that?<br />
<br />
The other major difference between humans and plants is that humans are aware of other people's needs and can consider or neglect to consider the cost-benefit analysis from the perspectives of others. Thus, <i><b>moral good can be defined as the extent to which one chooses to sacrifice self-interests for the benefit of others</b></i>. Moral bad, then, would include anything that isn't either morally good or morally neutral (i.e., an anomaly in the opposite direction). In fact, the majority of the world's problems can be attributed to one thing -- people acting according to their own cost-benefit analysis while ignoring or going against that of others.<br />
<br />
According to this model of morality, a lot of what seems morally good may in fact be morally neutral at best. There are many social, emotional, and even financial benefits to being a good, generous, "selfless" person. We all want to be thought of by others, by ourselves, and by God (if we believe in him) as morally good, which requires doing morally "good" things and avoiding the "bad". When we act altruistically in order to maintain our "good person" status, feel good about ourselves, or score points with God, it's really a form of self-preservation and self-advancement that isn't much different from what a plant would do. And if we do it to get undeserved attention or praise, or to deceive people into thinking we're morally better than we really are, we've gone beyond what a plant would do; and that anomaly, I would argue, is on the wrong side of moral neutrality.<br />
<br />
Some of the other interesting implications of this morality model include:<br />
<ol>
<li>Morality is both relative and absolute. The morality of <i>specific actions</i> depends very much on the context (i.e., is relative), but the fundamental principle of morality is absolute, objective, and universal.</li>
<li>Intent matters a lot. The same action can be moral, immoral, or neutral, depending on the intent. And intentful thoughts can still be moral or immoral even if not acted on.</li>
<li>"Good" actions are much more likely to be truly good if done in secret and/or with no apparent benefit to oneself. <b>[Note: Moral good doesn't necessarily require complete lack of benefit to oneself. It just requires that a different choice would've had more apparent net benefit to oneself.]</b></li>
<li>Morality is a full spectrum, not binary or black & white. There are different degrees of anomalies relative to plant "morality", so there are different degrees of moral good and bad.</li>
<li>Following the "golden rule" (to treat others the way <i>you</i> would want to be treated) probably is, in most cases, morally neutral. The "platinum rule" (to treat others the way <i>they</i> would want to be treated) is better but still inadequate as a moral guide.</li>
<li>Refraining from immoral behavior doesn't necessarily mean you're being morally good, particularly in situations where the personal cost of that immoral behavior (e.g., going to jail, friends thinking worse of you, etc.) outweighs the apparent benefit. </li>
<li>Refraining from immoral behavior is more likely to be morally good if it's personally difficult to refrain from and/or easy to get away with.</li>
<li>Doing what's morally good is never "worth it" from a personal cost-benefit perspective. If it truly seems "worth it", it might be morally neutral at best.</li>
<li>Doing true moral good is very difficult and doesn't come naturally. If it seems easy or comes naturally, there's a good chance it's morally neutral at best.</li>
</ol>
It also follows that true moral goodness requires one of two things: irrationality or faith -- not necessarily religious faith, but faith in some reason to do something that doesn't make logical sense from one's own cost-benefit perspective. Most religions are pretty similar on specific moral teachings like the "golden rule", but when compared with the plant-based model of morality, their differences are magnified. Next time, I'll explore how various religions and moral philosophies interact with personal cost-benefit analyses and dramatically change the terms of the morality equation.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-17226082192950516932015-08-09T17:46:00.001-05:002015-08-09T17:46:03.178-05:00Are Beliefs About God Genetic?As a believer in both God and <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/overfitting-bible-creationevolution.html">Evolution</a>, I often wonder about the role God might've had in evolution. But as one with a strong interest in psychology, I think an even more interesting question pertains to the role evolution might've had in human perceptions and beliefs about God. Is there a strong genetic component to belief (or non-belief) in God? And if so, what are the theological implications?<br />
<br />
I believe the evidence is pretty conclusive that, like most human conditions, belief in God probably has a strong genetic component [in addition to a strong environmental component]. The following are what I consider the strongest evidence:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li> Autism, which has been shown to have a strong genetic component, is an <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0036880">excellent predictor of atheism</a>, even after controlling for other variables such as gender, IQ, education, religious attendance, and interest in math/science/engineering</li>
<li> Women are much more likely than men to believe in God, even after controlling for many other variables including lower rate of autism</li>
<li>Personality tests, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator">MBTI</a> and the <a href="http://personality-testing.info/tests/EQSQ.php">Empathizing-systematizing scale</a>, are <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/10/why-so-many-scientists-are-atheists.html">good predictors of belief in God</a>, and such personality characteristics have been shown to have a genetic component</li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CDwQFjAFahUKEwiqn67qlpvHAhXBL4gKHbudAjI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmidus.wisc.edu%2Ffindings%2Fpdfs%2F1268.pdf&ei=CtnGVaryKsHfoAS7u4qQAw&usg=AFQjCNFPuRfluAq6jgtVooYagLCh4OeAzg&sig2=StsJrf1N1ViltTdTKV2RCA&bvm=bv.99804247,d.cGU">Scientific studies</a>, especially those of twins (comparing identical vs. fraternal, adopted and non-adopted), have concluded that 30-55% (depending on the study) of the variation in belief about God was heritable.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Because there is a right and a wrong answer to the God question (i.e., God either exists or he doesn't), it follows that some people, although we don't know who, must have genetic advantages and disadvantages when it comes to correctly answering it. That has some interesting and unnerving implications.<br />
<br />
<b>For atheists/agnostics...</b><br />
You might be fooling yourself if you think your lack of belief in God is rational. There's a distinct possibility that you're like a blind person who doesn't believe the moon exists because you can't see it, hear it, or feel it. Maybe you have an innate advantage of not sensing things that aren't there, or maybe you have an innate disadvantage in detecting certain things that are. Maybe you naturally have a difficult time processing evidence that isn't concrete. Or maybe your genetics make you naturally inclined toward theism, which might help explain why you sometimes feel like you're fighting against a natural urge to embrace the spiritual.<br />
<br />
<b>For theists...</b><br />
You might be fooling yourself if you think your belief in God is rational. There's a distinct possibility that you're like a person with schizophrenia believing [non-existent] people are spying on you, because your hallucinations seem totally real. Maybe you have an innate advantage in detecting things that other people can't, or maybe you're wired to sense things that aren't actually there. Maybe you're naturally more gullible than others. Or maybe your genetics make you naturally inclined toward atheism, which might help explain why believing in God is an especially difficult struggle for you.<br />
<br />
<b>For everyone...</b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcR76gvRqhh9s7HJ6yfQulOdGBh7_GCuzoyPJ1eW73eK2yLOEeKRT8Q5pmHQXW33Fe7_b_MK3ECAiezUZZRiJQh3d4z8e2DLM0TTEkdYoo4XhwcjjgWBXXEzgRXH1nwDI8CV3IqpECCkSk/s1600/dna.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcR76gvRqhh9s7HJ6yfQulOdGBh7_GCuzoyPJ1eW73eK2yLOEeKRT8Q5pmHQXW33Fe7_b_MK3ECAiezUZZRiJQh3d4z8e2DLM0TTEkdYoo4XhwcjjgWBXXEzgRXH1nwDI8CV3IqpECCkSk/s320/dna.png" width="150" /></a>Regardless of one's beliefs about God, recognizing a strong genetic component should humble us and make us even more careful not to be dismissive of theological views we don't share. Everyone experiences the world differently, and what may seem obvious to some might be nearly impossible for others to grasp.<br />
<br />
How do you know that, if you had someone else's genetic makeup, you wouldn't believe (or lack belief in) the same things as them? And how do you know that your genetic makeup isn't one that inhibits your ability to discern the truth about God? Those are difficult questions that I think all of us should consider very seriously.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, the other side of the coin is that the evidence reveals a similarly strong non-genetic component. Thus, everyone possesses the ability to believe or not believe in God, examine the evidence and arguments for themselves, and hopefully come to the right conclusion -- even if it might seem more difficult and unnatural for some of us.<br />
<br />
Whatever weakness we might have, it's probably also someone else's strength. We can take full advantage of that, whether it's by applying the <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2015/02/the-ensemble-model-of-religion.html">Ensemble Model of Religion</a> or just by humbly and receptively listening to other people, keeping in mind that the truth isn't necessarily in the same direction as our inclinations lead us.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice." (Proverbs 12:15)</i><br />
<br />
<br />Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-52120882949083555802015-03-08T00:46:00.000-06:002015-03-08T01:05:03.859-06:00The Flying Spaghetti Monster"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in.
Some of us just go one god further.” That's the difference between atheists and theists, according to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins">Richard Dawkins</a>. The implication is that theists have a double-standard. They apply critical thinking and skepticism to the gods of other religions, but not to their own. If only they were consistent, they'd be atheists like him.<br />
<br />
Here's a video of Dawkins making a similar argument in response to an audience question:<br />
<br />
<center>
<iframe align="middle" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6mmskXXetcg" width="420"></iframe></center>
<br />
The premise of his response is that there's no reason to believe in one god over another. Belief in a particular God is just an accident of upbringing. If one grew up in Classical Greece, they'd
believe in Zeus. Viking-era Denmark, they'd believe in Thor, and so on. Believing in the God of the Torah is just as arbitrary as believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Is he right?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyUDVIYNSVN3xDMO5BP_KXOcb4Clt-AdCzTfV5yGZVZR4MpPyvsyZnKugQ08kY9vEEGh7ll6wMMgM1ArW6m4YHtUnL7SKgB7ZcV2O3U304Wug3sbL5ky2eIvbg0LPStR1GZF0rmPGLegsQ/s1600/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster_(yarncraft).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyUDVIYNSVN3xDMO5BP_KXOcb4Clt-AdCzTfV5yGZVZR4MpPyvsyZnKugQ08kY9vEEGh7ll6wMMgM1ArW6m4YHtUnL7SKgB7ZcV2O3U304Wug3sbL5ky2eIvbg0LPStR1GZF0rmPGLegsQ/s1600/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster_(yarncraft).jpg" height="320" width="242" /></a>
To answer that question, I'll go back through some of my previous posts and apply the same standards to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.<br />
<br />
1. <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/defining-god-via-principal-component.html">Defining God viaPrincipal Component Analysis</a><br />
<br />
Compared to the God of the Torah, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has very specific, knowable, observable characteristics. Thus, it'd have a relatively low “Prior Believability” score. If these two were the only options, the Spaghetti Monster would have a slightly lower prior probability, but more evidence would be needed in order to make a definitive choice.<br />
<br />
2. <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/04/extraordinary-claims-and-principle-of.html">Extraordinary Claims and the Principle of Indifference</a><br />
<br />
Some might disagree with my conclusions in #1, and I doubt I could prove them here. So instead of relying on that for a prior probability,
I'll start with the Principle of Indifference. Until evidence is
evaluated, I'll start by regarding the God of Abraham and the Flying Spaghetti Monster
as equally probable.<br />
<br />
3. <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/verifying-torah-model-predictions.html">Verifying Torah Model Predictions</a><br />
<br />
I'm not aware of any predictions made by written accounts about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. No evidence means no change from prior probability unless there is evidence for another mutually exclusive possibility. The verified Torah predictions move it slightly in favor of its God, which reduces the probability of the Spaghetti Monster. Maybe something like 60% for the God of the Torah and 40% for the Spaghetti Monster, if those are the only two options.<br />
<br />
4. <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/03/the-religiosity-of-bigfoot-believers.html">The Religiosity of Bigfoot Believers</a><br />
<br />
I suspect that Bigfoot-believers might be more likely to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster than non-Bigfoot-believers are, but that probably isn't relevant here.<br />
<br />
5. <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/03/the-gospel-according-to-map.html">The Gospel According to a Map</a><br />
<br />
The prophets of Israel made correct predictions that are more probable if their God exists than if he doesn't. The prophetic predictions are independent of the Torah's predictions used above, so they count as additional evidence. No such evidence exists for the Spaghetti Monster, at least not that I'm aware of. Now I'm closer to 70% for Israel's God and 30% for the Spaghetti Monster.<br />
<br />
There is a lot more data to consider, but it's futile. My above attempts at evaluating evidence also are futile, because the probabilities I assigned are [arguably] arbitrary and the strength of the evidence surely would be questioned by people who disagree. Thus, it'd be pointless to present evidence and give my evaluation of it. Fortunately, my most recent post provided a way to use everyone's evaluation of the evidence, giving mine no more weight than anyone else's.<br />
<br />
6. <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2015/02/the-ensemble-model-of-religion.html">The EnsembleModel of Religion</a><br />
<br />
The ensemble model provides a very clear answer. In the absence of unambiguous evidence or
relevant insight that others don't have, if humans have any skill at all in discerning such things, the most rational default position is that the God of Abraham probably is the true God and any other, including the Flying Spaghetti Monster, probably isn't. Virtually nobody who has
evaluated the evidence believes in the Spaghetti Monster, which suggests that the evidence for it is very weak at best. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's possible that everyone is wrong about it. But believing that would require very strong evidence, and we don't have it.<br />
<br />
If writings about the Spaghetti Monster gave accurate predictions of world-changing
future events, I'd spend a lot more time studying them. And if millions of people examined the available data and concluded that it's real, I wouldn't necessarily believe in it, but I'd take it very seriously and would be very, very careful about calling it a "delusion" or saying there's "no evidence" for it. Until that happens, or I discover compelling new evidence for it, I probably won't be joining the <a href="http://www.venganza.org/">Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster</a>, although I wouldn't mind visiting it some time.<br />
<br />Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-4334501192638332772015-02-23T00:12:00.000-06:002018-10-26T00:57:57.196-05:00The Ensemble Model of ReligionReligious beliefs are a lot like medium-range weather forecasts. They're our best educated guesses about things about which we don't know for sure and don't have much direct, indisputable evidence. The evidence we do have can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Rather than expecting to get everything perfectly right, the main goal of medium-range forecasts is to minimize the error. I think that's a good goal for religious beliefs too. And I think a similar method can help.<br />
<br />
The human mind is hopelessly biased, especially when it comes to religious beliefs. We have all kinds of [often subconscious] motivations that lead us believe what we want to believe. We think our beliefs are based on evidence and the beliefs we reject lack evidence. But our interpretations of the evidence are so infected by <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/03/confirmation-bias-bible-on-gay-marriage.html">confirmation bias</a> and other biases that we often come to opposite conclusions when evaluating the same evidence.<br />
<br />
Weather forecast models also have errors and biases. One of the best ways to minimize them is to use <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensemble_forecasting">ensembles</a>. Ensembles are collections of different forecasts based on slightly different initial conditions and/or model physics. They rely on the principle that the ensemble mean (i.e., the average of all forecast solutions) has, over a sufficiently long period of time, less error than any single ensemble member (i.e., an individual forecast). Biases of individual members tend to cancel each other out and their unique errors tend to be somewhat corrected by other members with different solutions. On any given day, a few of the members might be more accurate than the ensemble mean, but we seldom know which one will be the best until it's too late.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5af31r-ZTdWWLBSuit4elZ6Qowh4GYlFYkU00lJgsV7uedyS1v8n1DdKVylF8fOyTqq48J_AAFXt3OfC0zwHb1wONNwp9SZlvh4_HlGGkMDxz4X6s4kJtrJ1sGA1sTLINg1XfCJKzlRy/s1600/ensemble.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5af31r-ZTdWWLBSuit4elZ6Qowh4GYlFYkU00lJgsV7uedyS1v8n1DdKVylF8fOyTqq48J_AAFXt3OfC0zwHb1wONNwp9SZlvh4_HlGGkMDxz4X6s4kJtrJ1sGA1sTLINg1XfCJKzlRy/s1600/ensemble.png" /></a></div>
<br />
So it is with religion. There's a wide variety of flawed, biased beliefs, many of which contradict each other. Some believe there is one God, some believe there are many Gods, and some believe there is no God. They can't all be right, but they all might have some insight that others don't have. Attempts to determine which beliefs are most accurate are inevitably contaminated by a plethora of cognitive biases. But we don't have to give up and adopt total agnosticism. Fortunately, in situations where the evidence is ambiguous and there are multiple conflicting answers, science gives us a reliable default solution: the ensemble mean.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
The most straightforward way to define an ensemble model of religion is to consider the beliefs of each person on Earth as an ensemble member. Everyone gets one equal vote. The ensemble mean would be the “average” of everyone's beliefs. This generally would be similar to the world's most common beliefs, with moderate/centrist positions in areas of disagreement. Using this definition, here are a few beliefs that I think would represent the worldwide ensemble mean:<br />
<ul>
<li>There probably is a God.</li>
<li>There probably is only one God.</li>
<li>That God probably is the God of Abraham, as originally described in the Torah.</li>
<li>God probably created animals and humans via the process of Evolution.</li>
<li>There probably is some kind of life after death.</li>
<li>There probably is something uniquely special about Jesus of Nazareth.</li>
<li>Unique doctrines taught only by particular sects within Christianity, Islam, etc. probably aren't true.</li>
<li>Extreme fundamentalism and extreme theological liberalism probably aren't the best interpretations of holy texts.</li>
</ul>
This “ensemble mean”, based on global religious statistics, is consistent with beliefs that are largely based on biblical Judaism, influenced by Christianity, Islam, and (to a lesser extent) smaller religions, and contain a relatively small but still significant dose of secularism and atheist skepticism.<br />
<br />
To be clear, I'm NOT saying the majority is always right or that truth should be determined by popular vote. The majority has been wrong many times throughout history. The centrist position also has a long history of being wrong. As with ensemble forecast models, the mean tends to smooth out important details and minimize extremes that some members might be correct about. The point simply is that in the absence of compelling evidence, the ensemble mean is the best starting point.<br />
<br />
It's natural for humans to think there's strong evidence when there isn't, or vice-versa. It's also natural to think we have insight that other people with different beliefs don't have, perhaps because we're more intelligent, had more-relevant life experiences, or are more educated in science, philosophy, or religion. Though these may indeed be useful in evaluating certain verifiable beliefs, they don't provide consistent non-circular answers to fundamental questions such as “Is there a God?”. Much smarter, more experienced, more educated people than you or I have come to opposite conclusions about such questions.<br />
<br />
Another natural inclination is to believe other people's biases are stronger than our own – which itself is an especially pernicious bias known as the “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_blind_spot">bias blind spot</a>”. It's easy to think of reasons why others' religious beliefs are biased – e.g., growing up in a particular religious environment, indoctrination, bad experiences with religious people, not wanting to accept that one's behavior is sinful, fear of death, etc. It's much harder to recognize biases in ourselves, some of which we're not even consciously aware of.<br />
<br />
Though I believe the “ensemble mean” of religious beliefs is the best starting point in the absence of compelling evidence, I don't think we're stuck there. As I think I've shown in <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/verifying-torah-model-predictions.html">previous posts</a>, <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/03/the-gospel-according-to-map.html">evidence</a> does exist, and it should shift our position away from the mean. My beliefs deviate quite a bit from the mean sometimes [as anyone who knows me can attest]. But it's something that I think we should be very careful about. Deviating far from the ensemble mean requires strong evidence. It also requires a lot of faith in one's own ability to overcome cognitive biases. That ability, at least in my case, is inconsistent at best.<br />
<br />Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-67747941653901013232015-01-24T17:27:00.001-06:002015-01-24T18:52:00.760-06:00If God is so good, why is the world so bad?<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; line-height: 120%; }a:link { }</style>Why do bad things to happen to good people? How could a loving
God allow so much sadness and suffering? Why didn't God give us a better world? I've heard many "answers" to these questions. None of them are very compelling. They generally don't address what I believe to be the core issue: human perception.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVIQawiWQs7AH6l2Ezc-GSGO22hbJEZ4tvDdtbOJqOe3CX30cGfdMgTMr-vB-LZJTBH64HSijddDyf5OPw9RxGGD_5EU9KT0yGVlhUa9PJ8whMfZ6BjOOmdSTub4RN-6EasRu-TlKLbLwQ/s1600/bristlecone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVIQawiWQs7AH6l2Ezc-GSGO22hbJEZ4tvDdtbOJqOe3CX30cGfdMgTMr-vB-LZJTBH64HSijddDyf5OPw9RxGGD_5EU9KT0yGVlhUa9PJ8whMfZ6BjOOmdSTub4RN-6EasRu-TlKLbLwQ/s1600/bristlecone.jpg" height="320" width="195" /></a>When it comes to human circumstances, our perception of "good" and "bad" is largely relative (note: this doesn't mean morality is relative). For example, rain is considered "good" during a drought but "bad" during a flood. An American at the poverty line would be considered "rich" in Liberia. Even universally bad things, such as the death of children, which truly is a tragedy, is only considered tragic because humans generally live longer and develop more. If humans lived as long as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine">bristlecone pine</a> trees, even 200 years would seem tragically short. If our average life span was that of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayfly">mayflies</a>, a few years would be a very long life.<br />
<br />
We also tend to perceive the present relative to the recent past [or at least our distorted perception of it]. We are happy when our situation improves and unhappy when it worsens. Otherwise, we perceive the present relative to [a somewhat idealized version of] what we think our lives could or should be like. Thus, we often are not content when our situation isn't improving. In mathematical terms, human happiness is closely associated with the first <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative">derivative</a>
(i.e., rate of change with time) of the "goodness" of our circumstances. We're happy when the derivative is positive (i.e., improving with time), sad or unhappy when it's negative, and discontented when it's near-zero. The Bible includes numerous examples of this concept, especially in the books of Exodus and Numbers.<br />
<br />
The Israelites were slaves in Egypt for many years. After being miraculously freed (Exodus 14), they were elated and sang praises to God (Ex. 15). But eventually, after they started getting short on food, many started wishing they had never left Egypt. Then God gave them an endless supply of food (manna; Ex. 16). That satisfied them for a while, but they eventually grew tired of eating it. Again they started wishing they had never left Egypt, remembering the diverse food they had there (Numbers 11). The absolute "goodness" of their circumstances (C) is plotted on the time series graph below:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3gAIitv2wUqZYYIeHavnKtbwSpHHf3uipTy1yBlFpuK9lsp9WYWhUrfKvFeKuwLr5Q5S3puE6HZMxbcW9Nb9CHvGzq_4reStrJamn0MIR6syl7PpUh7IVlQN68Scy9qSqNN_bvcT9ptqi/s1600/manna.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3gAIitv2wUqZYYIeHavnKtbwSpHHf3uipTy1yBlFpuK9lsp9WYWhUrfKvFeKuwLr5Q5S3puE6HZMxbcW9Nb9CHvGzq_4reStrJamn0MIR6syl7PpUh7IVlQN68Scy9qSqNN_bvcT9ptqi/s1600/manna.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Though their circumstances were objectively better than when they were slaves in Egypt, it wasn't reflected in their levels of happiness and complaining. Those more closely followed dC/dt:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9PmF36Owr_8eZGnKkRvHtgDY1MQp8ZqNJ_RWJRja2mOAZEbRJj24aOtNJNmCTHzf42DD17Y9dUBWuS0PB9dpqKEiN964TxLRN1qbYouIwHFLeQJTiLg1ko6056QCOCz7kkXXTYRs4yXo/s1600/mannaprime.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ9PmF36Owr_8eZGnKkRvHtgDY1MQp8ZqNJ_RWJRja2mOAZEbRJj24aOtNJNmCTHzf42DD17Y9dUBWuS0PB9dpqKEiN964TxLRN1qbYouIwHFLeQJTiLg1ko6056QCOCz7kkXXTYRs4yXo/s1600/mannaprime.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
The derivative aspect of happiness explains a lot about life. It explains why drugs and other forms of instant gratification don't ultimately make us happy. It explains why people always try to acquire more money and more things despite having more than they'll ever need. It explains why it's so much more painful to have something and lose it than to have never had it. It might also explain the Bible's moral teachings, which generally encourage selfless and healthy behavior that isn't quite as enjoyable in the short-term as the things it discourages or forbids. And I believe it helps us better understand why a loving God would create a harsh, imperfect, broken world and ask us to fix it.<br />
<br />
It's natural to think a
loving God should've made the world a happy, pain-free place where
everyone lives at least 80 years. But such a utopia only seems good relative to our world. If the utopic
world was the only one we ever experienced, it wouldn't necessarily seem any better because we'd perceive "good" and "bad" relative to <i>that</i> world. In mathematical terms, the value of C would be higher but dC/dt wouldn't be any different. We'd be like the Israelites after the Exodus, finding new [and more petty] things to be unhappy about.<br />
<br />
So why do bad things happen? If "bad" is indeed relative, bad things happen simply because good things happen. The only way to eliminate the "bad" is to eliminate the "good", which implies a constant C(t) that is the same for everyone. That would make dC/dt = 0, which, as the ancient Israelites can attest, seems quite attractive when dC/dt < 0 but not so much after you have it for a while.<br />
<br />
To be clear, I'm not saying God created the world to maximize human happiness in it. If that was his goal, he didn't do a very good job with it. But I think the nature of human happiness points us to something deeper. It suggests that a truly good world is one that is always improving. That's the kind of world the Bible promises, and I believe history shows that it's the kind of world we have. An improving world means there are things that need improving, which can be uncomfortable, painful, even horrific at times. It's also the kind of world that enables innovation, compassion, justice, forgiveness, mercy, hope, and perhaps even purpose. What is your purpose in life? And what would your purpose be if the world had no room to improve? <br />
<br />Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-8982036743356719032014-10-26T19:53:00.000-05:002014-10-26T22:26:02.880-05:00Is God Supernatural?<div class="tr_bq">
Christian apologists often criticize atheists for presupposing a naturalistic worldview, thereby making the supernatural (and specifically, God) a virtual impossibility. I disagree with this argument for one of two reasons: A) because God is not necessarily supernatural, or B) atheists do believe in the supernatural. Whether it's A or B depends on the meaning of "supernatural".</div>
<br />
I'm not interested in semantic arguments, but I think Merriam-Webster's definitions of "supernatural" helpfully describe ways that people think about God. In reverse order, I'll apply them to the question: "Is God Supernatural?"<br />
<br />
<b>Definition #3</b>: <i><span class="ssens">"of, relating to, or being God" </span></i><br />
<br />
God certainly is supernatural by this definition, but I don't think it's a useful one. It says nothing about the key issue, which is the nature of God and his interactions with the world.<br />
<br />
<b>Definition #2</b><i>: </i><i><span class="ssens">"being so extraordinary or abnormal as to suggest powers which violate the laws of nature"</span></i><br />
<br />
I think this is what many people, especially atheists and fundamentalist Christians, think of when they hear "supernatural". God "miraculously" intervenes in the world such that the laws of nature are violated. After all, God is omnipotent, so he's not bound by such laws. Naturalistic explanations of miracles are seen as denying God's power or avoiding the "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronism">plain meaning</a>" of the Bible.<br />
<br />
It's problematic if not impossible to find any evidence that the laws of nature have ever been violated. Even if it existed, the prior probability would be so low that the evidence would have to be <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/04/extraordinary-claims-and-principle-of.html">extraordinarily strong</a>. We don't have such evidence. And if we did, we'd simply modify our understanding of the natural laws. Then the supernatural would still be impossible.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPh806NgBkdGNX-4sAe_mn14XtTeN65Dfw2rOYUIfPMw9RqB3_Ahy2zQU6VdFmV6dQjpaX22BPGDV9uJMt7v4budtmrNkFv7lVuE10IXunOnKStnEiBJG_ehXAI93-4UX9eERY9mzgV-h/s1600/Moses+Crossing+the+Red+Sea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPh806NgBkdGNX-4sAe_mn14XtTeN65Dfw2rOYUIfPMw9RqB3_Ahy2zQU6VdFmV6dQjpaX22BPGDV9uJMt7v4budtmrNkFv7lVuE10IXunOnKStnEiBJG_ehXAI93-4UX9eERY9mzgV-h/s1600/Moses+Crossing+the+Red+Sea.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a>Furthermore, I don't see anything in the Bible that necessarily would've violated natural laws. Wherever God's means are mentioned, it's always something that can be explained within the bounds of natural laws. The flood? Genesis says it rained. Parting of the Red Sea? Exodus says strong east wind. God speaking to prophets? They say visions and dreams. Where the means aren't mentioned (as is usually the case), there's no reason to assume violation of natural laws. Rather, in the absence of very strong evidence to the contrary, we should assume that natural laws weren't violated. To not do so would be to commit the <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/weighing-evidence.html">base rate fallacy</a>.<br />
<br />
Using Definition #2 and considering the available evidence, I conclude that God (as described in the Bible) probably isn't supernatural. Can't rule it out, but the base rate and evidence suggest a low probability.<br />
<br />
<b>Definition #1</b><i>: </i><i><span class="ssens">"</span></i><i><span class="ssens"><span class="ssens">of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe</span>"</span></i><br />
<i><span class="ssens"> </span></i>
<br />
I think this one is by far the most useful. According to this definition, God is indeed "supernatural". And so are other unobserved things like dark matter, strings (as in string theory), strangelets, preons, photinos, gravitons, life on other planets, other dimensions and universes, etc. These generally are not "gods of the gaps". They are reasonable hypotheses that explain what we can observe and aren't inconsistent with what we know about the laws of nature. I think the same is true of God.<br />
<br />
Some things that once were "supernatural" (by Definition #1; e.g., viruses, atoms, distant planets) are no longer supernatural now that we have ways to observe them. Until we find a way to observe God or disprove the God hypothesis, we should carefully and scientifically consider the possibilities. We shouldn't allow our definition of "supernatural" to dictate our understanding of God or deny his existence. Rather, we should strive to have a view of God that best explains the <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/07/data-sources-which-books-belong-in-bible.html">data</a> and is consistent with what we discover about the natural world.<br />
<blockquote>
<i>“It is evident that an acquaintance with natural laws means no less than an acquaintance with the mind of God therein expressed.”</i><br />
<i>- James Prescott Joule, father of thermodynamics</i></blockquote>
Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-17931567506219354032014-10-13T12:35:00.001-05:002014-10-13T12:35:41.030-05:00Why So Many Scientists Are AtheistsAccording to Pew Research, 17% of scientists identify as atheist, compared to only 2% of the general population. 41% of scientists say they don't believe in God or a higher power, compared to only 4% of the general population. Why are so many scientists atheists?<br />
<br />
Some say it's because science disproves God or that science and religion are somehow incompatible. Others point out that most were atheists before they ever became scientists, suggesting they pursue science because of their atheism. Both explanations assume a <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/overfitting-bible-creationevolution.html">false dichotomy</a>. The true answer probably is very complex, but two factors might explain a lot of it: demographics and personality.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCOJcGMrW_6tC6ypwPhGQwVYCF5KfyYwXVQCqTq2CTP2k_A5iyWVDgZUuIJHFVfzUHf8IF8RmH4d5Y9bfnUZr0I9By3H84UxvKKWEdJqVi_ohYLoHNP9ad9_5hkkrnWFdKj3YmCCNmzj5V/s1600/atheists.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCOJcGMrW_6tC6ypwPhGQwVYCF5KfyYwXVQCqTq2CTP2k_A5iyWVDgZUuIJHFVfzUHf8IF8RmH4d5Y9bfnUZr0I9By3H84UxvKKWEdJqVi_ohYLoHNP9ad9_5hkkrnWFdKj3YmCCNmzj5V/s1600/atheists.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Atheists are predominantly white men. According to Pew, 70% of American atheists are men and 90% are white or Asian, compared to 48% and 74% of the general population, respectively. Scientists [according to NSF] are 72% male and 87% white or Asian, almost identical to atheists. Thus, any random sample of people with the racial and gender makeup of scientists, for that reason alone, should have a higher percentage of atheists than the general population. Among sciences, chemistry and biology employ a relatively high percentage of women -- and, perhaps consequently, a relatively low percentage of atheists.<br />
<br />
Personality may explain even more. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator">Myers-Briggs Type Indicator</a> (MBTI) is probably the most common measure of personality. Though it has several major flaws, it has been used and studied enough to provide useful statistics.<br />
<br />
The MBTI type typically associated with scientists is <a href="http://www.personalitypage.com/INTJ.html">INTJ</a>, whose description closely resembles the stereotypical scientist. Hence, it often is called the "Scientist" type. INTJs generally are analytical, opinionated, and don't believe things without "cold hard facts" -- a common description of atheists as well. In a survey of 10,627 American atheists, 13.7% were classified as INTJ, compared to only 2.6% of the general population.<br />
<br />
A few other personality types are typically associated with scientists. By far the most common of these is <a href="http://www.personalitypage.com/ISTJ.html">ISTJ</a>, which tend to prefer more practical, applied science than their INTJ cousins. For example, ISTJ has been found to be the most common type among National Weather Service employees. It's also the most common type among atheists. 41.2% of atheists are ISTJ, but only 13.8% of the general
population are ISTJ. Thus, a majority (54.9%) of atheists are either ISTJ or INTJ, compared to only 16.5% of the general population.<br />
<br />
Personality type can explain the high male-to-female ratio among atheists [and perhaps scientists as well]. Male and female atheists have similar proportions of ISTJ and INTJ (40.8% and 11.7% for female atheists, 41.4% and 14.4% for male atheists). But in the general population these two types are approximately 70% male -- just like atheists and scientists!<br />
<br />
Combining demographic and personality data, we can <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/01/the-essential-equation-of-theology.html">calculate the probability</a> that a random person is an atheist, given basic demographics. For example, starting with a prior probability of 2.0% (the % of atheists in the general population), the probability that a random white male would be an atheist is 3.5%. If the random white male is an INTJ, that probability increases to 14.5%. If we consider random college graduates, it becomes 21.1%.<br />
<br />
Extending the calculations to a random group of college graduates (and post-graduates, in parentheses) with the same race and gender makeup as scientists [72% male, 69% white, 18% Asian, etc.], the following percentages are expected to identify as atheist:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>INTJ: 20.2% (23.7%)</b></li>
<li><b>ISTJ: 11.4% (13.7%)</b></li>
<li>INTP: 7.4% (9.0%)</li>
<li>ENTJ: 6.0% (7.3%)</li>
<li>INFJ: 5.5% (6.7%)</li>
<li>ISTP: 4.6% (5.6%)</li>
<li>ESTJ: 3.6% (4.4%)</li>
<li>ENTP: 2.8% (3.4%)</li>
<li>ESTP: 2.0% (2.5%)</li>
<li>INFP: 1.7% (2.1%)</li>
<li>ENFJ: 1.5% (1.9%)</li>
<li>ISFJ: 1.5% (1.8%)</li>
<li>ISFP: 0.6% (0.8%) </li>
<li>ENFP: 0.6% (0.7%)</li>
<li>ESFJ: 0.4% (0.5%)</li>
<li>ESFP: 0.3% (0.4%)</li>
</ul>
<br />
Thus, if scientists are predominantly INTJ and ISTJ, the 17% who are atheists is similar to that what would be expected from a random sample of people with those personality types and similar basic demographics.<br />
<br />
Of course, there are much deeper factors than what these crude statistics represent. Scientists are quite diverse in ways that aren't accounted for here. Not all are INTJ or ISTJ, including myself (an INFJ), and I couldn't find any statistics about that. Correlation doesn't imply causation, and these variables probably aren't completely independent as the equations assume. However, unlike the "science and religion are incompatible" explanation, this one at least has some science to support it.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com250tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-18410678802818213562014-07-05T16:22:00.000-05:002018-10-26T01:16:16.835-05:00Data Sources: Which Books Belong in the Bible?Last weekend I saw the <a href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng">Book of Mormon</a> <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bookofmormonbroadway.com%2F&ei=5mG4U83dK42ZyASlo4LYBw&usg=AFQjCNE-F-URSa7Fk2JrvfzgMpcCJ1VppA&sig2=xj4D6JMsje9FDud9BIP0ZQ&bvm=bv.70138588,d.aWw">musical</a> and it reminded me of a joke I heard on a Jewish radio show: "Why did God create Mormons?" ... "So that Christians could understand how Jews feel." The joke implies that the New Testament is analogous to the Book of Mormon, which most Christians reject. Ironically, modern Judaism has its own "new testament", the Talmud, which also is analogous in some ways. In fact, many of the differences between various religions can be attributed to differences in the holy books they consider authoritative (i.e., their "bible" <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon">canon</a>).<br />
<br />
So which books belong in the Bible?<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOISP7KguM-d0DHLTx-R2WJz4PO8hUsKig5HGyjpEeh7OEPvUo90FteRSnPQWumRPOpcr-sWc1Rgvg-pBtSQkte_X8t5khLodqrwB0-VSITkA1VHISbj3BBKiO4x4Wg_50B5pXZa65FVBr/s1600/which_to_believe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOISP7KguM-d0DHLTx-R2WJz4PO8hUsKig5HGyjpEeh7OEPvUo90FteRSnPQWumRPOpcr-sWc1Rgvg-pBtSQkte_X8t5khLodqrwB0-VSITkA1VHISbj3BBKiO4x4Wg_50B5pXZa65FVBr/s1600/which_to_believe.jpg" width="320" /></a>I think that is the wrong question to ask, and I think it comes from the natural (but often irrational) human desire for certainty, facilitated by concrete, black-and-white category distinctions. The problem is that even if the writings themselves are divinely inspired, inerrant, and infallible, our ability to recognize and classify them as such is not. Thus, instead of regarding particular books as part of an authoritative canon, I think it's more useful to regard all of them as data sources and treat them as such.<br />
<br />
Treating them like any other data sources, my answer to "Which books belong in the Bible?" is "as many as can practically fit". That could include the Tanach ("Old Testament"), Apocrypha, New Testament, Talmud, Gnostic writings, Qur'an, Book of Mormon, Bhagavad Gita, Tripitaka, and many others. It includes some that are very accurate and useful, some that are spurious and useless, and some that are largely unreliable yet contain a few useful data points. In other words, it's a lot like the data sources used by scientists (e.g., for things like weather prediction).<br />
<br />
Data doesn't have to be perfect to be useful, especially for <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/05/faith-and-overconfidence-effect.html">probabilistic beliefs</a>. Even
datasets
that partially contradict each other can have value. For example, the New Testament, Talmud, and Qur'an all agree on some things and disagree on others. Thus, we can have a relatively high level of confidence in beliefs & doctrines on which they all agree, and lower confidence in beliefs where they contradict each other. Of course, that in no way implies that they are equally true or should be given equal weight. Not at all.<br />
<br />
It's impossible to read every book ever written about God, many of which contain mostly noise. My solution, as with other types of data, is to start with those that are the most accurate (according to history & archaeology), ancient, widely accepted, and relevant, then add more. Using my estimations, that usually means starting with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah">Torah</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neviim">Nevi'im</a> ("Law and Prophets" -- which also apparently were Jesus' primary written data sources). They are the most widely accepted and ancient, and they make <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/03/the-gospel-according-to-map.html">claims of divine inspiration</a> that can be <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/verifying-torah-model-predictions.html">scientifically tested</a>. If there's room for more data, I then add the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketuvim">Ketuvim</a> ("Writings"), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha">Apocrypha</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_testament">New Testament</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mishnah">Mishnah</a>. Then the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls">Essene writings</a>, Jewish <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha">Pseudepigrapha</a>, early Jewish writers (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo">Philo</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus">Josephus</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targum">Targumim</a>, etc.), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ante-Nicene_Fathers">Ante-Nicene Fathers</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemara">Gemara</a>. Beyond those, I think the data gets very noisy but still has value in some cases.<br />
<br />
This methodology is much different from that of many Christians, Jews, and Muslims, who derive much of their theology from the more recent and less widely accepted books, then interpret (and sometimes translate!!) the Torah and Prophets through the lens of those. That method may still lead to correct theology, but I find it less justifiable from a scientific perspective, and it has a tendency toward circular reasoning.<br />
<br />
Thinking of the "Bible" as a collection of data sources also illustrates how unreasonable and unscientific some of the objections to it are. For example, many arguments against belief in God focus on alleged errors and contradictions in the Bible, usually
about very insigificant details. Others make a big deal about the rejection of certain non-canonical books and the fact that some canonical books weren't accepted until long after they were supposedly written. Assuming those objections are valid (which is debatable), they're basically equivalent to "a few data points aren't perfect, some of the data contains noise, and you threw out a few data points that maybe you should've kept". In other words, it's like practically every other dataset that scientists rely on.<br />
<br />Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-52848541200143516792014-05-17T16:24:00.001-05:002018-10-26T00:48:44.776-05:00Faith and the Overconfidence EffectI once heard that if you're not 100% sure (about God), you're 100% lost. I couldn't disagree more. I would rephrase it like this: If you are 100% sure, you don't have faith.<br />
<br />
Faith does not mean "belief without evidence", but it does imply uncertainty. A good definition of faith is "confident trust despite uncertainty". If you're 100% sure because you have absolute knowledge, you have no need for faith. If you're 100% sure but don't have absolute knowledge, you're self-deluded. If you're just a little less than 100% sure, you're probably under the influence of a pernicious cognitive bias: underestimation of uncertainty, also known as the Overconfidence Effect.<br />
<br />
The Overconfidence Effect is a pervasive and well-documented human bias where the level of certainty in one's beliefs is usually much higher than the accuracy of those beliefs. It has been studied by asking people to answer questions (e.g., the spelling of difficult words) and then asking how sure they are that each answer is correct. Those studies found that when people were "100% sure", they were wrong approximately 20% of the time. When 99% sure, they were wrong 40% of the time, and when 90% sure, they were wrong approximately 50% of the time. That should put human certainty into perspective!<br />
<br />
I think even 90% is unreasonable for theological beliefs, despite the high certainty that so many believers and atheists seem to have. 90% certainty implies 90% probability. Starting with the <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/04/extraordinary-claims-and-principle-of.html">principle of indifference</a>, a 90% probability that God exists (or doesn't exist) would require very strong evidence. Though I think there is <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/03/the-gospel-according-to-map.html">solid evidence</a> for the God of the Bible, I haven't seen enough for 90% certainty either way. Certainty that a particular religion or systematic theology is the "correct one" would require that plus a lot more. I haven't seen it yet, but that's no reason not to have faith in whichever of the available possibilities is most probable according to the evidence we do have.<br />
<br />
I've heard many times, "If God wants us to believe in him, why didn't he give us more evidence?" I think the question totally misunderstands faith and the Bible's message about it. Faith does not mean believing God exists. The God of the Bible really didn't seem to care that people believed he existed. What mattered was whether they trusted his promises and lived in a way that reflected confidence (despite uncertainty) that he would be faithful to those promises. That's very different from the alternatives, such as the faith of atheism (i.e., living in a way that reflects confidence that there is no God and thus no divine promises to be fulfilled). If there was sufficient evidence (or philosophical arguments) to know without any doubt, such choices would mean very little.<br />
<br />
Whether we admit it or not, we all have faith because we all make decisions amid uncertainty. Uncertainty isn't such a bad thing. It makes us more humble about our beliefs and more respectful of the beliefs of others, which makes us more open to the truth, in the (very likely) case that we aren't totally correct about everything we believe. Uncertainty also makes faith a lot more meaningful.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-53176018132028714082014-04-27T17:41:00.003-05:002014-04-27T17:47:59.585-05:00Extraordinary Claims and the Principle of Indifference<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
You've probably heard the saying "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence." It's the starting point for perhaps the most common argument by atheists: "The existence of God is an extraordinary claim that lacks extraordinary evidence." Seems logical, right? The only problem is, how can we determine whether the evidence (or the claim) really is extraordinary?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3GDKIYnw8hFqTWx0q2zqyNIBbw7b8ThWRF3sfOsP2n40DYq8hHXv41im0Tnl7IT65Ju7gYaB7BFJul2fnmQwfJo1vEix53zvbhDPG0I1pCn_7tCZmnWtGOjTgZZ3WVticLNze4-dpg6IV/s1600/photo.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3GDKIYnw8hFqTWx0q2zqyNIBbw7b8ThWRF3sfOsP2n40DYq8hHXv41im0Tnl7IT65Ju7gYaB7BFJul2fnmQwfJo1vEix53zvbhDPG0I1pCn_7tCZmnWtGOjTgZZ3WVticLNze4-dpg6IV/s1600/photo.JPG" /></a></div>
One common
definition of extraordinary is "very unusual". But the claim that God exists isn't unusual. By that definition, "There is no God" would be a more extraordinary claim. But that standard doesn't always make sense. For example, someone could make the very unusual claim that I'm currently wearing three socks, but most people wouldn't require extraordinary evidence to be convinced. Another common
meaning of "extraordinary" is "very remarkable or amazing". That one brings us right back to the original problem: How can we determine how remarkable or amazing a claim is? There are other definitions of "extraordinary" but all are similarly problematic.<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A much more scientific
way to formulate "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary
evidence" is via <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/01/the-essential-equation-of-theology.html">Bayes' theorem</a>. In Bayesian terms, an extraordinary claim is a hypothesis with a very low prior probability (e.g., “a coin flipped 5 times will land on tails every time”, which has a prior probability of around 3%). It follows that very strong evidence is required to move the
probability high enough to believe the claim. Thus, it can be shown mathematically that extraordinary claims (defined this way) do in fact require extraordinary evidence. In the above example, that evidence could be a measurement that the coin's weight is very unbalanced or an observation that it has tails on both sides.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Applying that
framework to the God claim, the strength of evidence required depends on a priori assumptions about the prior probability that God exists. Theists who start with a relatively high prior probability require less evidence. Atheists who start with a low prior require more evidence. Arguments about the sufficiency of the evidence for God become circular on both sides. Thus, it's imperative that we have a good, objective way to determine the prior probability.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Because we don't have specific, definite probabilistic information about the God question, we must use
an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior_probability#Uninformative_priors">uninformative prior</a>. The simplest and probably most common of these is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_indifference">principle of indifference</a>, which says the prior probabilities of
all hypotheses are equal. In the binary case of “Does God exist?”, the prior is 50%. Starting with a 50% probability may seem crazy if the claim seems ridiculous, but it makes good sense
mathematically. The evidence (or lack thereof) is probably what makes such claims seem ridiculous in the first place, and the other terms in Bayes' rule account for that. Also, if the claim seems ridiculous to most people, that fact alone is evidence that would reduce the
probability.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Using the principle
of indifference, presuppositions about the probability of God's existence are eliminated as determining factors. The estimate of the probability that God exists now depends entirely on the evidence. In this case, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is a meaningless argument. It doesn't matter how extraordinary the claim is because the evidence will tell us whether to believe it. We'll still argue about the evidence and how to assign probabilities to it, but that's a lot more useful than debating a theist's circular argument vs. an atheist's circular argument.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
There are other ways to determine uninformative priors, including some that let us use the “extraordinary claims” standard. But when applied to the God claim, they generally require arbitrary assumptions that lead to self-fulfilling conclusions. That might be good enough for testing the claim that I'm wearing three socks right now, but whether or not to believe in God is a much more important question – one that I don't think should be decided (either way) by arbitrary assumptions made before examining the evidence.</div>
Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-21461674957478832992014-04-12T16:17:00.000-05:002014-04-12T16:25:20.037-05:00Free Will in the Bible: Overfitting + Confirmation BiasA major theme of this blog is that we shouldn't force data to answer questions it doesn't actually answer. <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/overfitting-bible-creationevolution.html">Overfitting</a> and <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/03/confirmation-bias-bible-on-gay-marriage.html">confirmation bias</a> can have an insidious synergy. I believe the debate over free will in the Bible is one such example. Before I discuss it, I need to define it, because there are two types of free will that people often confuse:<br>
<ol>
<li>Free will in the <b><u>legal sense</u></b>: freedom to make voluntary choices without coercion. In other words, freedom to choose what we <i>want</i> to choose.</li>
<li>Free will in the <b><u>philosophical sense</u></b>: the ability to make choices that aren't determined by prior causes. In other words, what we <i>want</i> to choose might be influenced by God, genetics, environment, etc. but aren't completely determined by them.</li>
</ol>
Another important term is "<b>determinism</b>", which is the idea that all events are caused by prior events or conditions.<br>
<br>
Despite some caricatures I've heard, practically everyone agrees that we have free will in the legal sense, so when I say "free will" without a qualifier I'm referring to the philosophical sense. There are 4 main philosophical views of free will:<br>
<br>
<ul>
<li><u><b>Hard Determinism</b></u>: everything happens as a result of what happened before it. Free will is impossible because what we <i>want</i> to choose is determined by prior events & conditions.</li>
<li><u><b>Libertarianism</b></u>: the universe is not deterministic. If it was, we wouldn't have free will. It is possible to make choices that are not determined by prior events & conditions.</li>
<li><u><b>Compatibilism</b></u>: the universe is deterministic but we have free will. Free will only makes sense using the legal definition and it's pointless to talk about philosophical free will.</li>
<li><u><b>Hard Incompatibilism</b></u>: whether the universe is deterministic or not, we wouldn't have free will either way.</li>
</ul>
<br>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNfJJZGYYq_Mzm5rq9Tl4S2CE9KZKsd3tQtFzAZu6y8JO1ykUEh_VstADUqTcWHRYHcRY5ACIW2hVFI617XsxVt7Xx4CfkWZJX_HWPfOXH3stBT3V0AwkXSAcM_bsrNZKOSuhJ6vcUpAIB/s1600/freewill3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNfJJZGYYq_Mzm5rq9Tl4S2CE9KZKsd3tQtFzAZu6y8JO1ykUEh_VstADUqTcWHRYHcRY5ACIW2hVFI617XsxVt7Xx4CfkWZJX_HWPfOXH3stBT3V0AwkXSAcM_bsrNZKOSuhJ6vcUpAIB/s1600/freewill3.png"></a></div>
<br>
People have debated free will for millennia and Bible-believers are no exception. According to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus">Josephus</a>, first century Jews were divided about it. The Essenes were hard determinists who believed that everything was determined by divine fate. The Sadducees were libertarians who denied divine fate and affirmed free will. The Pharisees' view was most similar to Compatibilism. They believed in divine fate for world events but also affirmed free will, particularly in spiritual matters, and their definition of it was more like the legal sense.<br>
<br>
Many Christians today are either compatibilist (i.e., <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinism">Calvinists</a>) or libertarian (i.e., <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminianism">Arminians</a>). Thanks to confirmation bias, it's not surprising that both believe the Bible clearly teaches their view. As readers of this blog might've guessed, I don't believe the Bible writers tried to settle this philosophical debate, so any such interpretation is overfitting. What the Bible does clearly teach is that at least some events are pre-ordained by God and that we make free choices (i.e., we have free will in the legal sense). Those teachings are consistent with all 4 views. Attempts at Bible interpretation on the topic of philosophical free will quickly abandon the original context and inevitably enter the realm of philosophy.<br>
<br>
My biases make Hard Determinism (and Compatibilism, which I think is Hard Determinism but afraid to admit it) very attractive to me. Weather is deterministic, and I like to think everything behaves similarly to weather -- maybe because it makes me feel like I have expertise in areas in which I really don't. I see a lot of beauty in deterministic systems, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory">Chaos Theory</a> provides an excellent answer for why some things <i><b>appear</b></i> random or "free". Hard Determinism also is an attractive solution to the problem of evil. If God causes evil, it means evil has a purpose -- a greater good. God doesn't helplessly watch, wishing things were different. Hard Determinism allows for truly divine miracles that don't violate the fundamental laws of nature, demonstrating harmonious consistency in God's interaction with the world. Biological evolution also fits very nicely. And I can feel good when reading the many Bible passages that clearly imply determinism.<br>
<br>
I do believe it's the view that is most consistent with the Bible (sorry, Arminian friends), but I must admit that my view is totally based on philosophy, science, and personal bias, not the Bible (sorry, Calvinist friends). What makes me doubt my view is not Libertarian proof texts in the Bible (I have answers for all of them, though not without confirmation bias). What really gives me doubt is quantum mechanics. The more I learn about it, the more I see Hard Incompatibilism and Libertarianism as interesting possibilities.<br>
<br>
It's fun to talk about the free will debate as it relates to the God of the Bible. I think the debate would be a better one if we all could admit that it is in fact a philosophical (and perhaps scientific) debate -- one in which the writers of the Bible were not participating.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-49683070691341575392014-03-30T18:08:00.001-05:002014-03-30T19:25:51.719-05:00The Religiosity of Bigfoot Believers<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimSI8no6WahFQCN73mv9rFAcKhUXGET5aTnT2yImwaAoP_nrihNoPIKxTD1YOL91O6bbISgjrLtykBpUDo1Yxhu9BN49j-idljIKapji6_ClgQmjVo-Q8RCdONS6AWB2tLjzbLcPfll1UG/s1600/Smalfut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimSI8no6WahFQCN73mv9rFAcKhUXGET5aTnT2yImwaAoP_nrihNoPIKxTD1YOL91O6bbISgjrLtykBpUDo1Yxhu9BN49j-idljIKapji6_ClgQmjVo-Q8RCdONS6AWB2tLjzbLcPfll1UG/s1600/Smalfut.jpg" /></a>According to a Gallup survey of over 1700 random people, approximately 17% of the U.S. population believes that creatures such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster will eventually be discovered by science. Belief in Bigfoot is an interesting way to look at religion, because it is essentially independent of any religious teachings. Bigfoot isn't supernatural. People generally don't believe in Bigfoot because of their religion, and they don't choose their religion according to their belief in Bigfoot.<br />
<br />
Compared to people who don't believe in Bigfoot (who I'll call "non-believers"), Bigfoot believers tend to have slightly lower income,
slightly less education, and slightly more liberal political ideology, but the differences are fairly small. As one would expect, people who believe in Bigfoot <span style="color: #0b5394;">(blue bars)</span> are much more likely than Bigfoot non-believers <span style="color: #bf9000;">(tan bars)</span> to believe in a wide variety of things, including some that are supernatural.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxtEQv8RurWWdUPXv5OjYu-B4D0mVIgGL_q-GKl-dWjgja2bI6DZvL-pLQNDuODYPbD-pnkCtPfWYpbZ7CffZNMv00FQn4nHEdoXzX9sh3ImhCvfzE1NveSAH0qrRrZV-fYXGpmGQ1D5Xf/s1600/believe_in_other.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxtEQv8RurWWdUPXv5OjYu-B4D0mVIgGL_q-GKl-dWjgja2bI6DZvL-pLQNDuODYPbD-pnkCtPfWYpbZ7CffZNMv00FQn4nHEdoXzX9sh3ImhCvfzE1NveSAH0qrRrZV-fYXGpmGQ1D5Xf/s1600/believe_in_other.png" /></a></div>
<br />
Thus, one might also expect that Bigfoot believers would be more likely to believe in God and to be more religious in general. That's partly true. <b>91%</b> of Bigfoot believers believe in God, compared to <b>87%</b> of Bigfoot non-believers. They also are slightly more likely to believe in Heaven, Hell, angels, demons, and that Jesus is the Son of God. However, according to a wide variety of metrics, Bigfoot believers are substantially less religiously devout than Bigfoot non-believers.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieComg9giSUr03f_88W1NrLRAoEQmjZky5yCHQyS0UtG-TUYIo6aFkmR4LaUjbRps7CQEHOmk6emLhL0YV4zgpR7-iGbfS-owO8Bv-cgOz4iVp957do7iQHAOiXDCHBwhsK9XMAajX4aTi/s1600/religiosity.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieComg9giSUr03f_88W1NrLRAoEQmjZky5yCHQyS0UtG-TUYIo6aFkmR4LaUjbRps7CQEHOmk6emLhL0YV4zgpR7-iGbfS-owO8Bv-cgOz4iVp957do7iQHAOiXDCHBwhsK9XMAajX4aTi/s1600/religiosity.png" /></a></div>
<br />
Despite being slightly more likely to believe that God exists and that Jesus is his son, Bigfoot believers are substantially less likely to identify as Bible believing, born again, evangelical, and fundamentalist than people who don't believe in Bigfoot. They attend religious services, religious education, and prayer meetings less often. They also pray and read religious texts substantially less often than people who don't believe in Bigfoot.<br />
<br />
Some people say that religious people are religious because they are gullible and willing to believe things for which there is no compelling scientific evidence. Whether that's true or not may depend on whether Bigfoot is real.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-875175424480470112014-03-16T15:19:00.000-05:002018-10-26T00:56:57.902-05:00The Gospel According to a MapHas the messiah come? Christians say yes, and they usually use the gospels to "prove" it, showing that Jesus fulfilled messianic prophecies. But many of those were about relatively minor details (e.g., where he'd be born) that could've been fabricated by the gospel writers. There were, however, much bigger messianic prophecies, and we can verify them without using holy books of any religion.<br />
<br />
Back around 730 BC,
God's people were divided: Israel in the north, Judah in the
south. Israel was recently conquered and exiled by Assyria, and
Judah was headed toward a similar fate via Babylon.
Only a few people in Judah believed in God, even fewer in Israel, and
practically nobody in the rest of the world. Other nations didn't care about Israel's God, because each one had its own gods. Israel and Judah were reviled and were essentially
irrelevant in the world.<br />
<br />
The prophet Isaiah offered hope to his people by telling them a king ("messiah") would come and establish a "kingdom" of unprecedented size and strength. Other nations would become followers of Israel's messiah and he would be a moral authority to them (Isa. 2:3). Through him, "the earth would be filled with the knowledge of Israel's God, as the waters cover the sea" (Isa. 11:9). Similar predictions were echoed by other prophets over the next couple centuries, but to no avail. Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC and its people exiled. The region was later conquered by Cyrus (Persians) in 539, Alexander the Great (Greeks) in 332, and finally by Pompey (Romans) in 63 BC. It probably seemed like the biblical prophecies would never be fulfilled.<br />
<br />
Over 2000 years later, the world looks a lot different. Most of the popular gods of the ancient world (e.g., Baal, Dagon, El, Molech, Asherah, Osiris, Isis, Chemosh, Hadad, Artemis, Zeus, and Caesar) are no longer worshipped. Others are mostly confined to particular regions. But there is one glaring exception. According to polls by <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/">Pew Research</a>, the majority of people in the world (55%, including 81% outside of China & India) are, at least nominally, followers of the God of Israel. The following map shows countries (in blue) where the majority of the adult population professes Judaism, Christianity, or Islam as their religion.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghNw4TzyDIecnRlLPQHWkIQAbR1iZLHKzToW1vpQB-zr4fAcs6GDhFGGDIsp09tN9uWezYtd7DFlEP5mf2N_CWS9LBG06C2Rimfgnb3tpKAxLi2mBMRNqymNT_XbqBZ9vc1njXiorFDLtQ/s1600/world_map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghNw4TzyDIecnRlLPQHWkIQAbR1iZLHKzToW1vpQB-zr4fAcs6GDhFGGDIsp09tN9uWezYtd7DFlEP5mf2N_CWS9LBG06C2Rimfgnb3tpKAxLi2mBMRNqymNT_XbqBZ9vc1njXiorFDLtQ/s1600/world_map.png" /></a></div>
<br />
As someone who makes over 600,000 weather predictions every day, I know well that correct predictions aren't necessarily evidence of divine revelation. But I also know that consistently accurate predictions always are based on analysis of past data, accurate assessment of current conditions and/or recent trends, a correct understanding of how the universe works, or some combination thereof. These explain how meteorologists can make (somewhat) accurate predictions of future weather, futurists and science fiction writers can predict future inventions, and political analysts can (sometimes) predict the next president. But they don't explain the messianic prophecies.<br />
<br />
There is nothing to suggest that the unprecedented events that were prophesied were logical inferences from the available data at the time. Quite the contrary! The data pointed much more toward Israel and Judah being destroyed like most of their neighbors and their God ending up like Baal, Chemosh, Asherah, and the others, as minor footnotes in history.<br />
<br />
We don't need to take the Bible's word for it. These are well-attested historical facts, as is the fact that the prophetic books were written long before Jesus was born. It's possible that the messianic prophecies were extremely lucky guesses. Verification of them is not proof of messiahship or divine revelation, and parts of them have not yet been completely fulfilled. But if "evidence" means a body of facts that is more probable if the hypothesis is true than if it is not true, I consider it strong evidence.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-34303748059364161732014-03-08T18:14:00.000-06:002014-03-08T18:14:35.237-06:00Interpreting the Hebrew Bible with Artificial IntelligenceI often hear the question "Do you interpret the Bible literally or figuratively?" The answer is "both" and "neither", mostly "neither". The Bible contains different genres of writing, which should be interpreted accordingly. They include history, prophecy, poetry/songs, stories, and wisdom literature, to name just a few. Identifying the genre is important, but it can be very subjective. It's also difficult without understanding the original language. Those problems can be solved with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning">machine learning</a>.<br />
<br />
I developed an algorithm to interpret the Bible in its original language. I started by writing a Perl script that parses the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblia_Hebraica_Stuttgartensia">BHS</a> Hebrew text, removes vowel points, and identifies every word used at least 50 times in the Bible. I also removed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_words">stop words</a> (i.e., common irrelevant words such as ani [I], at/atah [you], mah [what], etc.). Keep in mind that in Hebrew some articles & prepositions are prefixes rather than distinct words (e.g., "land" = aretz, "the land" = haaretz, "in the land" = bearetz). The final list included 560 Hebrew words. I calculated the relative frequency of each word (i.e., how often the word is used compared to the other 559 words), then <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_score#Standardizing_in_mathematical_statistics">standardized</a> the values. The result was 560 numeric variables, each representing a sufficiently common and sufficiently relevant Hebrew word.<br />
<br />
560 variables is too many to easily work with, so I used <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/defining-god-via-principal-component.html">Principal Component Analysis</a> to reduce it to a few manageable variables, each of which was a linear combination of the standardized relative frequencies of all 560 words. To understand what the principal components mean, I plotted chapters of books of the Bible with obvious/known genres: History (e.g., 1 & 2 Chronicles), Prophesy (e.g., Isaiah), and Wisdom Literature (e.g., Proverbs). Each dot on the graph represents a chapter where the genre of the book (though not necessarily of the chapter) is known.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC0Ko8vdSslkSaZxQlpDcAbep8jF7bEOxBaO-RN169JQPPgOEo1Xv0fwQbFPEYwbR6Nc1xUyhwW9O6YuOfJ5mS8TmTgUd2OFHoNN6SRAtdBIi6SkSYO7Y2e9g3x4624B4WDc6OMasLv3IE/s1600/genres_plot.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC0Ko8vdSslkSaZxQlpDcAbep8jF7bEOxBaO-RN169JQPPgOEo1Xv0fwQbFPEYwbR6Nc1xUyhwW9O6YuOfJ5mS8TmTgUd2OFHoNN6SRAtdBIi6SkSYO7Y2e9g3x4624B4WDc6OMasLv3IE/s1600/genres_plot.png" /> </a> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The first two principal components do an excellent job of separating the books of different genres! The first (PC1) seems to indicate how historical vs. poetic it is. The lowest value (-14.8) is for 2 Chronicles 27, a very historical chapter detailing the reign of king Jotham. The highest value (4.5) is for Psalm 21, a very poetic song. PC2 measures another dimension that (at least in theory) is not related to how historical/poetic a book is. It does a great job of distinguishing between prophecy and wisdom literature. The big outlier among the prophetic books (red triangle on the left side of the blue cluster, at PC1=-9.3, PC2=0.9) happens to be Jeremiah 52, which is a very historical chapter despite being in a prophetic book.</div>
<br />
PC1 and PC2 also were calculated for entire books and for chapters/books of unknown genres. Those can be plotted on the same graph to visualize how similar they are to the known genres. For example:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUkfbQJ_vpt8Vf1rYXqDV-1BEfxodkE4EtU6Bq2WMrmpToxwCV1VvPYxainXJlTx4GwNX4Hj_2d51NAPEbE5tMZt7KIUQeB8cutOEj2-9inHxfwPO3irkrJJT4Cuj5TpjBXkpIMGjZEFje/s1600/random_books.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUkfbQJ_vpt8Vf1rYXqDV-1BEfxodkE4EtU6Bq2WMrmpToxwCV1VvPYxainXJlTx4GwNX4Hj_2d51NAPEbE5tMZt7KIUQeB8cutOEj2-9inHxfwPO3irkrJJT4Cuj5TpjBXkpIMGjZEFje/s1600/random_books.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
For a more quantitative genre classification, I built a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_regression">Logistic Regression</a> model using the first 6 principal components. The model estimates the probability that a writing belongs to one of the three broad genres, assuming those are the only three options. As an example, I applied it to each chapter of Genesis and plotted the output below:</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxpVDFivBx6j26scUk3X3os281eL5LpvaM9tXOJ32pJB1QH1JfbMjouVl4hgMz93BrrA_ocg9IjI7nIZkSLR8nk12TTKzNjRzsJnkSAnfAexGzIz3Tr3dd80Ac7MGtITNkCBnqCoAl-oN/s1600/genesis_chapters.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBxpVDFivBx6j26scUk3X3os281eL5LpvaM9tXOJ32pJB1QH1JfbMjouVl4hgMz93BrrA_ocg9IjI7nIZkSLR8nk12TTKzNjRzsJnkSAnfAexGzIz3Tr3dd80Ac7MGtITNkCBnqCoAl-oN/s1600/genesis_chapters.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
According to the model, the first, 3rd, and 15th chapters are by far the least historical, which might disappoint some who interpret Genesis 1 as a scientific or historical narrative. The biggest outlier, however, is chapter 15, which the model thought was very likely prophetic. Indeed, Chapter 15 is about God's covenant with Abram and includes several prophecies about the future.</div>
<br />
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvTaK00pn-EhfTvTuOE6uWcngmlNAMNtxkx_6mPYXwTMp9kgfVY0GT6hNhTtaCM74ftSyRYsWDGVQ-ONeHW2XTp7vkQRD2Mp1HN0m2ik0__GauRWrLL1jdVnC9uoJ-wYtitWeI2DhSFS4H/s1600/clusters.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvTaK00pn-EhfTvTuOE6uWcngmlNAMNtxkx_6mPYXwTMp9kgfVY0GT6hNhTtaCM74ftSyRYsWDGVQ-ONeHW2XTp7vkQRD2Mp1HN0m2ik0__GauRWrLL1jdVnC9uoJ-wYtitWeI2DhSFS4H/s1600/clusters.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666;">K-Means Clusters</span>, <span style="color: #666666;">Hebrew Bible</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Classification into these broad genres is only the beginning. If other genres, writing styles, authors, topics, etc. can be identified, another model could easily be built to classify writings according to those, using the same principal components calculated here. If none of those things are known, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_analysis">Cluster analysis</a> can be used to identify writings that have various features in common (see example on the right).<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
My plan (if I ever get enough free time) is to set up a web page where anyone can easily get the classification values for each chapter of each book. We may never get to a point where computers and algorithms can accurately interpret the Bible for us, but they certainly can be helpful.</div>
Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-46234655864560655822014-03-01T16:26:00.002-06:002014-03-01T16:29:47.301-06:00Confirmation Bias: The Bible on Gay Marriage<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzUiV9KHTdxw6NYmk8eBocWpsphvIuL0hbd5xYWh7CiyHiKeU0syTZC6_yvJpotQqT37x7qoxQcCw3inJ8cVpV2dpWCZ_JtqjX5bbmvoESfQ2ZdiaYY8AP8AmUSMMYvEOmVLZmDVt-8NbS/s1600/africamap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzUiV9KHTdxw6NYmk8eBocWpsphvIuL0hbd5xYWh7CiyHiKeU0syTZC6_yvJpotQqT37x7qoxQcCw3inJ8cVpV2dpWCZ_JtqjX5bbmvoESfQ2ZdiaYY8AP8AmUSMMYvEOmVLZmDVt-8NbS/s1600/africamap.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My favorite desert was the Sahara</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
When I was about 7 years old I loved deserts. I loved them so much that I wanted to make my own. I found a patch of dirt in the front yard, planted a cactus there, and called it my desert. I wanted to prove that it was a real desert. I knew deserts were hot, so I took a little key chain thermometer, put it in my desert, and left it there for a while in direct sunlight. The thermometer said 120 degrees (F), which would've been a new all-time record high for San Jose, California. I was so excited! I knew it felt more like 80 degrees, and I kinda knew that thermometers aren't supposed to be placed in direct sunlight, but it didn't matter. I had proof that my desert was a real desert!<br />
<br />
As a child, I had already mastered <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias">confirmation bias</a>. Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out and accept evidence that confirms what we already believe or want to believe, and reject evidence that contradicts those beliefs. It's so powerful that when participants in controlled experiments are given fabricated evidence (unknown to them that it's fake) specifically designed to disprove their beliefs, they interpret it as actually supporting their beliefs. Bible interpretation is rife with confirmation bias. One example is the debate over same-sex marriage.<br />
<br />
Many opponents of gay marriage point to commandments like Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13, which say a man should not "lie" with a man as one would with a woman, as proof that homosexuality is wrong and thus gay marriage should be illegal. Some mention the fact that God created humans male and female and suggest that God defines marriage as between one man and one woman.<br />
<br />
Bible-believing proponents of gay marriage have found convenient
ways around biblical commandments, such as pointing out commandments against wearing clothes of different fabrics and planting fields with different seeds (both in Leviticus 19) or about eating certain foods like shellfish. <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/06/12/ready-singer-carrie-underwood-cites-her-christian-faith-in-gay-marriage-endorsement/">Others</a> find support for gay marriage in the words of Jesus. Some even suggest the close relationship between David and Jonathan was more than just friendship.<br />
<br />
All of these are examples of <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/overfitting-bible-creationevolution.html">overfitting</a> and confirmation bias, which often reinforce each other. People have strong opinions about homosexuality and gay marriage for cultural reasons. That was true before the Bible was written. Currently, the best predictor of one's opinion about gay marriage is age. According to recent polls, 70% of Americans aged 18-29 support it, compared to only 41% who are 65 and older. Even the majority of Republicans aged 18-29 support gay marriage, a higher percentage than Democrats aged 65+. At least half of young evangelical Christians also support same-sex marriage, similar to older non-religious people.<br />
<br />
As a strong supporter of gay marriage, I'll inevitably be accused of confirmation bias here, which I can't deny. Nevertheless, I'll try my best to avoid it while answering some common questions.<br />
<br />
<b>What does the Bible say about gay marriage?</b><br />
Nothing. Gay marriage wasn't an issue when/where the Bible was written, so it wasn't directly addressed.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>What does the Bible say about homosexuality?</b><br />
Specifically, nothing. The prohibitions in Leviticus are of a very specific act, one that should not be equated with homosexuality or even practicing homosexuality. Those prohibitions had a very practical purpose at the time (i.e., longevity in the new land), as stated in the same chapters. Whether they still apply is debatable, but it's a different debate. Other mentions of same-sex activity in the Bible involve rape or prostitution, which are similarly condemned for heterosexuals. Even if the Bible did teach that homosexuality is wrong, that has never been the standard for legislation. Idolatry and blasphemy, for example, are clearly wrong according to the Bible, but almost nobody sees the First Amendment as an attack on biblical morality.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>What about fabrics, seeds, and shellfish?</b><br />
In my opinion, this is a bad and unnecessary argument for same-sex marriage. There's
a major difference between these and the commandments given in
Leviticus 18 & 20. Leviticus 18 was directed at both Israelites and
foreigners (Lev. 18:26), but the next chapter (the one that prohibits different fabrics and seeds) was directed only at
Israelites (Lev. 19:1), as were the dietary laws. This is an important
distinction to Jews, who generally believe that non-Jews are only
required to follow the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah">7 Laws of Noah</a>,
which include sexual immorality (Lev. 18) because it also applied to "foreigners", but not the ceremonial and dietary laws or those in
Lev. 19. A similar belief was evident among early Christians (see Acts 15).<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Does the Bible define marriage exclusively as one man and one woman?</b><br />
No. Biblical marriage often was between one man and multiple women. Among the many examples are Abraham, Jacob, David, and probably even Moses. Rather than condemning it, the Bible gives provisions for how to treat multiple wives (e.g., do not neglect your first wife after you get another one; Ex. 21:10). Ironically, some Bible-believers argue that gay marriage is a slippery slope that could lead to legalization of polygamy, perhaps forgetting that the Bible allowed it.<br />
<br />
Gay marriage is a controversial political and cultural issue. As much as we'd like the Bible to settle all of our political and cultural debates, its authors had a different purpose. That doesn't mean the Bible is irrelevant or that everything is morally neutral unless there's a specific commandment against it. But we need to be very careful to allow the text to speak for itself rather than using it to confirm our own beliefs. The Bible doesn't give direct commandments about everything, but it does give one (also in Leviticus) that summarizes all of them: "love your neighbor has yourself." That one sometimes is forgotten by people on <i>both</i> sides of the gay marriage debate.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-62005297593662523612014-02-23T15:26:00.001-06:002014-02-23T15:26:24.240-06:00Verifying Torah Model PredictionsBad models can match the data very well, but good models make accurate predictions. A model's accuracy can be tested by comparing its predictions to an independent set of observations. Some of the Bible's predictions are testable.<br />
<br />
The main theme of the Torah is the covenant between God and Israel. Israel is given 10 Commandments and other statutes & ordinances, mostly civil and ceremonial laws. They were told that if they (as a nation) followed them, God would make them thrive in their new land. "Keep his statutes and commandments ... so that it may go well with you and your descendents and that you may enjoy longevity in the land..." (Deut 4:40). If they didn't follow them, the opposite would happen.<br />
<br />
Contrary to popular belief, they were not moral rules that one had to follow in order to go to heaven. In fact, an afterlife is never mentioned. Most were practical moral teachings, health and safety regulations, and criminal laws conducive to a successful nation. If the promise of the Torah was true, we should expect that on a large scale (not necessarily each individual person), nations that follow the Torah will thrive.<br />
<br />
Much of the rest of the Bible is about how things went well for Israel when they followed the Torah and went badly for them when they didn't. But the Bible is not an appropriate source of verification for predictions in the Bible. Instead, I'll turn to much more current and independent data.<br />
<br />
Gallup recently measured subjective well-being (i.e., how people feel about their lives) with the <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/122453/understanding-gallup-uses-cantril-scale.aspx">Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale</a>. People were rated as thriving, struggling, or suffering, based on their answers to various questions. I combined Gallup's results with <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/">religion data from Pew Research</a>. Each religion was analyzed according to its number of adherents in each country and that country's respective well-being statistics. For example, 62% of Canadians were considered "thriving", so 62% of the 350,000 Jews and 62% of the 710,000 Muslims in Canada were counted as "thriving". The totals for each religion were then divided by their respective number of adherents, so each person counted equally.<br />
<br />
This method assumes that the overall moral/religious values of each country are consistent with the proportions of each religion there, which is appropriate given the national (rather than individual) scope of the prediction.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinj0U4wfFM-7w6VVeboWSmEb2ug7wvuc3DpJdsDNBraNq58UedvngVkUwmUsCoHei4NlDObLvl8vI0pSz2N_jbukVLMgZI7DJXeie_btBv1N_5BWs7d27btF68ahEeot6QGIJcbiwNUhq5/s1600/thriving_graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinj0U4wfFM-7w6VVeboWSmEb2ug7wvuc3DpJdsDNBraNq58UedvngVkUwmUsCoHei4NlDObLvl8vI0pSz2N_jbukVLMgZI7DJXeie_btBv1N_5BWs7d27btF68ahEeot6QGIJcbiwNUhq5/s1600/thriving_graph.png" /> </a> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
For quantitative metrics, the <a href="http://www.li.com/">Legatum Institute</a> has done extensive studies on global wealth and well-being. The <a href="http://www.prosperity.com/">Legatum Prosperity Index</a> uses a large number of variables and breaks the results down into several categories (see <a href="http://www.prosperity.com/">www.prosperity.com</a> for details). I <a href="http://www.dataminingblog.com/standardization-vs-normalization/">standardized</a> the scores for each category.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGSmtUHxfXcN4s4z9QjyxG1qqgrMejXmVzxgpd2yis5lnxOF01rEtePWSXqQpDODrm89XDcI6U-16LdE4_T3jAoPZNcYI8rO5zNDzkO3IuK_if5ID8KqAU-8PTRe3cs4k6fhN6iONkiG79/s1600/legatum_relative.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGSmtUHxfXcN4s4z9QjyxG1qqgrMejXmVzxgpd2yis5lnxOF01rEtePWSXqQpDODrm89XDcI6U-16LdE4_T3jAoPZNcYI8rO5zNDzkO3IuK_if5ID8KqAU-8PTRe3cs4k6fhN6iONkiG79/s1600/legatum_relative.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The results are consistent with the Torah's prediction. The Jewish population had the highest scores in every category except Economy. Christians, who affirm (but somewhat disregard) the Torah, had high scores despite relatively weak economies (mostly in Africa and Latin America), and had a high percentage that were "thriving". Muslims, who accept most of the Torah but reject some of the specifics,
had low scores overall but relatively high scores compared to their
economies. Populations that reject the Torah (Other and Unaffiliated) had low "thriving" percentages and low scores relative to their economies, though Unaffiliated had high scores overall on the quantitative indicators.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
We must be very careful not to read too much into these results. There are many possible explanations for them, and a causal relationship has not been established. Nothing has been proven. However, we can reasonably conclude that these results are more probable if the Torah promise is true than if it is false, which means it is positive evidence. If you start with a <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/01/the-essential-equation-of-theology.html">prior probability</a> near 0% or 100%, evidence probably doesn't matter to you. But if you have a less extreme prior probability, I think this should move it a little in the positive direction.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-23969344680757719722014-02-17T00:22:00.000-06:002014-02-17T00:22:23.217-06:00Weighing Evidence<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }A:link { }</style>How good are you at weighing evidence? Here is a simple test: <br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Suppose random people are tested for a
rare (1 in 50,000) disease and one tests positive. The test is 99%
accurate, meaning it gives the correct result 99 times out of 100. To be extra sure, he is tested again with the same 99% accurate test. Its result also is positive. Does
he have the disease? How sure are you?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If you're thinking “yes” or that
it's very likely, you are interpreting the data irrationally. But you're not alone. Psychologists have found that people generally give too much weight to specific, individuating information and not enough weight to general, less-specific information that we perceive as less relevant. The phenomenon is known as the <a href="http://psychologydictionary.org/base-rate-fallacy/">base rate fallacy</a> or base rate neglect. In the above example, there's actually only a 17% chance that he has the disease, but most people are fooled by the 99% accurate tests.<br />
<br />
Base rate neglect is common in theology because there is a universe full of data with apparently little relevance, along with religious books that contain very specific individuating data. Though the Bible says God is revealed through nature, evidence from nature is often neglected in theological discussions.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSo1fnwSlyYJp25ZmAG1Vbe6Czmxq-N66qLG1ZrPa2LwzfKfJJN8Z83JfP9gWG2VuYbTAe41fq_a-n7cq35hEm0BkECMwRo5uES2h11qIucicBxu5a38Tq_08O4YyxxZSBlXH1xE6n4WTu/s1600/scale.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSo1fnwSlyYJp25ZmAG1Vbe6Czmxq-N66qLG1ZrPa2LwzfKfJJN8Z83JfP9gWG2VuYbTAe41fq_a-n7cq35hEm0BkECMwRo5uES2h11qIucicBxu5a38Tq_08O4YyxxZSBlXH1xE6n4WTu/s1600/scale.gif" height="251" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Many theologically conservative Christians focus entirely on the Bible to answer theological questions. They start with their interpretation of the Bible, then interpret the rest of the universe according to what they believe the Bible says. That method is prone to <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/overfitting-bible-creationevolution.html">overfitting</a>, which can make it an insidious form of base rate neglect, even if the Bible is 100% true. On the other hand, many theological liberals start with their interpretation of the universe (i.e., worldview), then force the Bible to conform to it and/or reject the parts that don't. That's the extreme opposite of base rate neglect, which is equally irrational. Both use a heavy dose of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning">circular reasoning</a>.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Ironically, many atheists are on the theological conservatives' side here. They start with an interpretation of the Bible (usually a very conservative fundamentalist one that neglects data from outside the Bible), then compare it to their understanding of the universe and conclude that the Bible is morally objectionable and/or contradicted by science. This approach leads to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man">straw man</a> arguments against religion.<br />
<br />
My <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/02/overfitting-bible-creationevolution.html">last post</a> discussed the problem of matching beliefs to irrelevant data. This post says we don't give enough weight to data that seems irrelevant. It's not a contradiction, but it's a fine line -- one that's easy to cross in both directions. I cross it all the time. It's a reason why tools like <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/01/the-essential-equation-of-theology.html">Bayes' rule</a> are so useful. It's also a reason for all of us to be humble about what we believe and don't believe. Our beliefs may seem to perfectly match the most relevant data, but some of them are probably wrong.</div>
Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-28099743850816001552014-02-08T10:57:00.001-06:002014-02-08T10:57:52.339-06:00Overfitting the Bible (the Creation/Evolution Debate)A few years ago I built a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_learning">machine learning</a> model to predict changes (up, down, or neutral) in <a href="http://www.apple.com/">Apple</a>'s stock price up to 3 hours in advance. When testing it against a past dataset, the model was correct 80% of the time. Cautiously optimistic that I would soon be a billionaire, I tested it with real-time data. The result: it was correct 50% of the time, no better than flipping a coin. So what went wrong?<br />
<br />
My model was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfitting">overfitting</a> the data. Overfitting is when a model models noise (i.e., irrelevant data) rather than the signal (i.e., the true relationship between the input data and the output). Overfit models can superficially match the data very closely but usually don't make accurate predictions. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnds-OYz-gULhyphenhyphensM6J4PDKK72IC1qOkvtJud9KpnQtCo-DmBFDycjCzenboLH_UDUl7iMIYcxvTojn0BEoM7XF7Et9h-RGu0fzWhqV7uA1LSf7fLgxD0N1oneZwhhDK-UtkbQD3YUag3Bt/s1600/sooners-windgust.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnds-OYz-gULhyphenhyphensM6J4PDKK72IC1qOkvtJud9KpnQtCo-DmBFDycjCzenboLH_UDUl7iMIYcxvTojn0BEoM7XF7Et9h-RGu0fzWhqV7uA1LSf7fLgxD0N1oneZwhhDK-UtkbQD3YUag3Bt/s1600/sooners-windgust.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption">The above example of overfitting relates the maximum wind gust
in Norman, Oklahoma to the number of points given up by the Oklahoma Sooners
football team during 2013. The red curve fits the data points (red dots) very well but is not an accurate interpretation of them (keep in mind that some of these
games were played hundreds of miles away from Norman). Applying it to the 2014 Sugar Bowl gives a 20 point error. [Wind data courtesy of the <a href="http://www.mesonet.org/">Oklahoma Mesonet</a>]</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Overfitting is common in Bible-based theology. The Bible contains a lot of data, but the issues people debated 3000 years ago were not necessarily the same as those debated today. For example, Tuesday night I watched a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI">debate</a> between <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nye">Bill Nye</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Ham">Ken Ham</a>. Ham used the Bible to argue against the theory of Evolution and for a 6,000 year age of the Earth. But was the book of Genesis written to teach biology and geology to scientists 3000 years later? Is the data relevant or was Mr. Ham overfitting it?<br />
<br />
Ken Ham never presented an alternative to evolution because the Bible doesn't contain one. Genesis says God created animals and humans but doesn't explain how. It says the first human ultimately came from the soil, which sounds vaguely like evolution to me, but how soil became man is not explained. The entire process is covered in one sentence with no details. Even less is written about how animals were created. The author clearly wasn't trying to answer the same questions that evolution answers. Thus, using Genesis to deny evolution is overfitting the data. Likewise, using the vast evidence for evolution to deny the truthfulness of the Bible also is overfitting it.<br />
<br />
The age of the Earth isn't mentioned in Genesis either. Ham infers it from genealogies and an assumption that the first human was created 5 days after the Earth was created. But does the Bible actually teach that?<br />
<br />
Much of the argument is about the word "day". The Hebrew word "yom" usually is translated into English as "day", but it also is translated as age, period, time, lifetime, years, always, forever, eternity, and several other words. Hebrew has far fewer words than English, so they tend to have a broader meaning, very dependent on the context. So what does "yom" mean in the context of Genesis 1?<br />
<br />
I think it probably means "day", but there's a catch. According to most sources, a "day" was understood by ancient near-eastern people as a cycle of lightness and darkness that the sun happened to follow. It was not, as we think of it now, an abstract measure of time equivalent to 24 hours or one rotation of Earth. Genesis 1 mentions three "days" that have "evening and morning", but before the sun was created on day 4. With the sun not yet existing, there's no reason to assume that a "day" had anything to do with the sun or that it was 24 hours long. There's also nothing to suggest that the meaning of "day" changes halfway through the chapter. I'm assuming here that Genesis is a literal description of creation. If it's anything else, there's even less reason to believe it's 24-hour days.<br />
<br />
The Young Earth model closely fits a superficial, anachronistic, English reading of the text. In other words, it fits noise. The true test of a model is how well it makes predictions. Like my Apple stock price model and wind gust football model, the Young Earth model doesn't make accurate predictions. As Bill Nye pointed out, what we observe in nature is very different from what the Young Earth model would predict. But as with evolution, using evidence for an old earth as evidence against the Bible is to make the same mistake as Ken Ham.<br />
<br />
Many Bible believers use the Bible to answer questions that the Bible doesn't actually address. Many non-believers find in the Bible absurd and immoral teachings that it doesn't actually teach. Both feel confident because their models fit the data, but both are overfitting it. Always remember that fitting the data is far different from accurately interpreting it.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-39732963382550648842014-02-01T18:44:00.000-06:002014-02-01T22:55:58.248-06:00Defining God via Principal Component AnalysisDiscussing God can be difficult because "God" can mean very different things to different people. It would be nice to define God in a simple way that covers all possibilities, and even better if we could do so mathematically.<br />
<br />
I'll start with a few examples. This list is very incomplete but represents data points that have a large variance: <br />
<ul>
<li><u><b>New Age</b></u>: God is an impersonal life force, the incorporeal formless cosmic order personified within all people and matter.</li>
<li><u><b>Fundamentalist</b></u>: God is a personal, supernatural being who
has directly interacted with humanity. Many of his characteristics and desires were known to ancient people and described literally and in detail by ancient texts. He created humans supernaturally and not through evolution.</li>
<li><u><b>Impersonal First Cause</b></u>: Whatever caused the Big Bang is God. </li>
<li><u><b>Highly Evolved</b></u>: God is a result of evolution via
natural processes, but for a much longer period of
time than humans, reaching a technically finite but practically infinite level of knowledge and ability.</li>
<li><u><b>Natural Eternal</b></u>: God is a personal being who has always existed but does not (or cannot) violate the known laws of nature. He created humans via a natural process of evolution.</li>
<li><u><b>Supernatural Omnipotent</b></u>: God is an omnipotent personal being who is not bound by the known laws of nature. He only interacts with humanity on rare occasions or in indirect ways. He created humans by supernaturally guiding a natural process of evolution.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Now I'll get more quantitative. I rated the example definitions of God on a 0-10 scale for a variety of attributes:<br />
<ul>
<li><u><b>Specificity</b></u>: how specifically God is defined. 0 = God can be described only in vague generalities at best. 10 = God can be described in very specific detail.</li>
<li><u><b>Impact</b></u>: how much God affects us. 0 = It makes no practical difference whether God exists or not. 10 = God interacts with us and can directly affect many aspects of our lives.</li>
<li><u><b>Ability</b></u>: how powerful and knowledgeable God is. 0 = no ability or knowledge. 10 = omnipotent and omniscient.</li>
<li><u><b>Supernaturality</b></u>: how supernatural God is. 0 = completely bound by natural laws. 10 = often violates known natural laws.</li>
<li><u><b>Knowability</b></u>: how well we can know God. 0 = completely mysterious and distant. 10 = We can have a close personal relationship with God.</li>
</ul>
<br />
It's possible to represent all of these attributes with a single variable by applying <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_component_analysis">Principal Component Analysis</a> (PCA). PCA is a statistical method for reducing the dimensionality of a dataset (i.e., reducing the number of variables needed to represent most of the variance in the data). It combines multiple variables into new variables that are linear combinations of the original variables.<br />
<br />
The first principal component is the new (combined) variable that explains the most variance in the data. In this case, it is equal to 0.38*Specificity + 0.46*Impact + 0.48*Ability + 0.42*Supernaturality + 0.49*Knowability. Some variables have lower coefficients (e.g., Specificity), not because they're less important but because they're not as strongly correlated with the other variables. To convert the first principal component to a 0-10 scale, divide by 2.23. I'll call the resulting value the "God Index".<br />
<br />
To demonstrate the meaning and usefulness of the God Index, I defined a new variable, also on a 0-10 scale:<br />
<ul>
<li><u><b>Prior Believability</b></u>: how easy it is to believe in God without a lot of evidence (analogous to the <a href="http://theology.matthaugland.com/2014/01/the-essential-equation-of-theology.html">Bayesian prior probability</a>). 0 = It's impossible that God exists. 10 = It's a known fact that God exists. 1 = God
seems very implausible. Belief in him is possible but would require extraordinary
evidence. 9 = It is obvious that God exists and difficult to believe
otherwise.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Here is a plot of Prior Believability as a function of God Index:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-z-9i_oLW3_YcQpPbeubA4RKGqm6dtDOvCgsOOkb3Ayv90rJhN_dPQTffRtQC3nvX3O7cZc75FEEaHtcaS-K6Note2rGKrrYN1tTb-FPI2o-U25gICp2AaN0ggKbsumgbEWuNexR6NJt/s1600/GI_believability.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-z-9i_oLW3_YcQpPbeubA4RKGqm6dtDOvCgsOOkb3Ayv90rJhN_dPQTffRtQC3nvX3O7cZc75FEEaHtcaS-K6Note2rGKrrYN1tTb-FPI2o-U25gICp2AaN0ggKbsumgbEWuNexR6NJt/s1600/GI_believability.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
The New Age God I defined is an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier">outlier</a>, but keep in mind that a God Index of 2.7 does not in any way imply New Age. It only means a God with somewhat low values of the attributes I defined, of which my New Age God is merely one example. With the outlier removed, I fit a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function">logistic curve</a> (the dotted line) to the data. The formula is (where G = God Index):<span style="color: #666666;"></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1aKwSKVI0t22sugGh-zC8-ZXUkvMtRgLXyrhR8tkTSpVWsYSsbPzX-hq_p7Ro6GPWwAkrBmHjAaaiHGOZevTYRnYgpngMnMVSpdxijcwCBOUUogCy7VLzCi0EDbRvoHJQO3252u8n6St-/s1600/logistic_curve.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1aKwSKVI0t22sugGh-zC8-ZXUkvMtRgLXyrhR8tkTSpVWsYSsbPzX-hq_p7Ro6GPWwAkrBmHjAaaiHGOZevTYRnYgpngMnMVSpdxijcwCBOUUogCy7VLzCi0EDbRvoHJQO3252u8n6St-/s1600/logistic_curve.png" height="36" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
The formula can be used to derive a probability density function
that allows us to apply Bayes' theorem with a continuous prior
probability that covers all possible definitions of God. <br />
<br />
Because Prior Believability is analogous to Bayesian prior probability, the above equation (and graph) helps explain the futility of most debates between atheists and theists. Atheists usually define God with a very high God Index (in the 9-10 range), while most theist arguments apply to a God in the 1-3 range (even though they may be arguing for a specific Christian God with a value around 8). It follows mathematically that their thresholds for what would constitute sufficient evidence for a God are vastly different!<br />
<br />
Personally, I'm not very interested in a God in the 0-3 God Index range, because such a God would be practically irrelevant. What interests me most is the God of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple_Judaism">First Century Judaism</a>. The reason is simple: all three major monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are rooted in First Century Judaism, and all three affirm that the true God lies within it.<br />
<br />
There was a wide range of beliefs among First Century Jews, but all affirmed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah">Torah</a> (first 5 books of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh">Tanach</a>/"Old Testament") as foundational, so that's where I'll begin. Before considering specific evidence, I'd estimate that the God of the Torah is probably in the 5-9 God Index range, perhaps with a peak (of the probability distribution) around 7. Applying my 5% rule (i.e., don't assign probabilities outside the 0.05-0.95 [5%-95%] range without bulletproof reasons), I get the following probability distribution (which should change as new evidence is considered):<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigK5C7DRua_LzdrfHutLmkPZVBljR663twWeGB5xIgRZdQITHch2fFPuPobHN7McxXsHSwLgReyIQn0ULhFJJp6GRksKPwOhsQ7Sl9251rnRdKudKd_cGYkS7SY3HiYR78-e2JIVqPywde/s1600/godinded_judaism.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigK5C7DRua_LzdrfHutLmkPZVBljR663twWeGB5xIgRZdQITHch2fFPuPobHN7McxXsHSwLgReyIQn0ULhFJJp6GRksKPwOhsQ7Sl9251rnRdKudKd_cGYkS7SY3HiYR78-e2JIVqPywde/s1600/godinded_judaism.png" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Of course, there are other dimensions of God definitions that are not captured by the God Index, and I'll eventually get to those; but I think the God Index adequately represents the most essential differences between most concepts of God. It's imperfect but useful. It's a good alternative to single definitions that almost nobody can agree on, and it works very well with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem">Bayes' theorem</a>. Instead of investigating single concepts of God, now we can investigate all of them at the same time.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-39520779289110680832014-01-25T16:03:00.003-06:002014-01-25T16:14:19.789-06:00The Essential Equation of Theology<style type="text/css">P { margin-bottom: 0.08in; }</style>Most theological questions cannot be answered by direct observation. Some might be unknowable. Many require understanding an ancient language and culture that nobody fully understands. Nearly all involve uncertainty. They are matters of belief rather than knowledge. In other words, most theological questions require probabilistic answers. Unfortunately, the human brain is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Judgment-under-Uncertainty-Heuristics-Biases/dp/0521284147">not very good at processing probability and uncertainty</a>.<br />
<br />
Fortunately, there is a practical solution: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem">Bayes' theorem</a>. It is a mathematically valid method to calculate probability when there is uncertainty in the data. The formula (color-coded to help you keep track of the terms) is:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHUMRYRI3CEsO1He7H8Yb1MRkPAsOptJQFv9vgiYMPQea36GCDGzmOdN3cNqaa3jwr1R9sOrhRkO1i35tkJGaaHRX3Gx3wkeMooAUJ0al8JpOhMB2ujDUk8tlPhBWbhCvOYDuXxHvik7h5/s1600/bayes2c.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHUMRYRI3CEsO1He7H8Yb1MRkPAsOptJQFv9vgiYMPQea36GCDGzmOdN3cNqaa3jwr1R9sOrhRkO1i35tkJGaaHRX3Gx3wkeMooAUJ0al8JpOhMB2ujDUk8tlPhBWbhCvOYDuXxHvik7h5/s1600/bayes2c.png" /></a></div>
Where:<br />
<ul>
<li>P(H|E) is the probability that hypothesis H is true, given evidence E </li>
<li><span style="color: #38761d;">P(E|H) is the probability that E would be observed if H is true</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #0b5394;">P(H) is the prior probability that H is true, without considering E</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #990000;">P(E|¬H) is the probability that E would be observed if H is not true</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
Bayes' theorem has important implications for theology. It suggests we should adjust our beliefs whenever we learn new evidence. It also implies that the way many of us interpret the data is wrong. Instead of asking "What (if anything) does the evidence prove?", which does not account for uncertainty and can lead to erroneous conclusions, Bayes' theorem implies that we should instead ask 3 questions:</div>
<ol>
<li><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">P(H): </span>What is the probability that our belief is true without considering the new evidence? </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #38761d;">P(E|H): </span>What is the probability that the new evidence would be what it is if our belief is true?</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;">P(E|¬H): </span>What is the probability that the new evidence would be what it is if our belief is not true?</span></li>
</ol>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The probability that the belief is true is adjusted whenever new evidence is considered. It increases if the answer to <span style="color: #38761d;">#2</span> is larger than the answer to <span style="color: #990000;">#3<span style="color: black;"> and</span></span> decreases if <span style="color: #990000;">#3</span> is larger than <span style="color: #38761d;">#2<span style="color: black;">.</span> </span>If <span style="color: #38761d;">#2</span> and <span style="color: #990000;">#3</span> are the same, the data (not really "evidence" in that case) does not move the original probability (<span style="color: #0b5394;">#1</span>).</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
Let's apply Bayes' theorem to a basic theological belief: "God exists". For this example, I'll define "God" only as a personal being who created the universe. <br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span>
<br />
The first evidence to consider is that all relevant observations indicate that our universe had a beginning (which is the scientific consensus). To answer the 3 Bayesian questions:<span style="color: #999999;"></span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="color: #0b5394;">P(H): A prior probability of 0% or 100% would be circular and would neglect uncertainty. 50% seems too high when no specific evidence has been considered yet, so I'll use 10%. It's somewhat arbitrary, but if enough evidence is considered, what we use for P(H) shouldn't matter.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #38761d;">P(E|H): If God is the creator of the universe, the probability is very high that the observations would indicate the universe had a beginning. I don't trust my mind enough to use probabilities above 95%, so I'll call it 95%.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #990000;">P(E|</span><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="color: #990000;">¬H</span>): If there is no God, this is a more difficult question with a high level of uncertainty. I can't go too high because it would seem to defy the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics">First Law of Thermodynamics</a>. However, I've heard some <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/1451624468">interesting theories</a> that don't seem entirely implausible. I'll go with 25%. </span></li>
</ol>
Plugging into the equation, P(H|E) = <span style="color: #38761d;">0.95</span>*<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.10</span>/(<span style="color: #38761d;">0.95</span>*<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.10</span> + <span style="color: #990000;">0.25</span>*(1-<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.10</span>)) = 0.297, the probability that God exists becomes approximately 29.7%.<br />
<br />
Now let's consider negative evidence: the current lack of any direct observations of a God. <span style="color: #0b5394;">The prior probability is now the previous result: 29.7%</span>. <span style="color: #38761d;">If there is a God, a lack of any direct observations of him may or may not be probable, depending on what kind of God it is. I'll say 50%</span>. <span style="color: #990000;"> If God does not exist, a lack of direct observation is almost certain. I'll again use my 95% rule</span>. The result, P(H|E) = <span style="color: #38761d;">0.50</span>*<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.297</span>/(<span style="color: #38761d;">0.50</span>*<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.297</span> + <span style="color: #990000;">0.95</span>*(1-<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.297</span>)) = 0.182, is an updated probability of 18.2%.<br />
<br />
Finally, let's consider neutral evidence: religious writings contain <i>apparent</i> errors and contradictions. <span style="color: #38761d;">If God exists, it's still highly probable that religious writings would contain <i>apparent</i> errors and contradictions, whether real or perceived. P(E|H) = 90%</span>. <span style="color: #990000;">The same would be true if there is no God. P(E|¬H) = 90%</span>. The result, P(H|E) = <span style="color: #38761d;">0.90</span>*<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.182</span>/(<span style="color: #38761d;">0.90</span>*<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.182</span> + <span style="color: #990000;">0.90</span>*(1-<span style="color: #0b5394;">0.182</span>)) = 0.182, 18.2%, no change.<br />
<br />
This process should be repeated until all data is considered.<br />
<br />
There is much more (and in my opinion, much better) evidence to consider, but my point here is the thought process, not the numbers. We can disagree about what the numbers should be, but if that's what we're debating, we've come a long way. It would mean we're asking the right questions and analyzing the data in a way that properly accounts for uncertainty.Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5650873959109894859.post-36613338039539528432014-01-19T13:28:00.003-06:002018-10-26T00:48:25.015-05:00Introduction<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Why are some people so sure there is a
God and others so sure there isn't? How can a particular
interpretation of the Bible seem so obvious and logical to one person
but so obviously wrong to another?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwblES1Ect4vIFhfP_udgB3MmWXCvHq89E2r6YSIYeEihRJ_E6NSJ7Vs742S-9oWtBicMUFkuWscbeBpEUWsFNLLFf3haCRRcCWRw0vwkoSii7HzHNLBSpJlBkl9OKIw7H1EorXkeaCA3m/s1600/marytoast.gif" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwblES1Ect4vIFhfP_udgB3MmWXCvHq89E2r6YSIYeEihRJ_E6NSJ7Vs742S-9oWtBicMUFkuWscbeBpEUWsFNLLFf3haCRRcCWRw0vwkoSii7HzHNLBSpJlBkl9OKIw7H1EorXkeaCA3m/s1600/marytoast.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seeing Patterns in Noise:<br />
The Virgin Mary on grilled cheese</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Humans have an amazing ability to
recognize patterns in data. We have an equally amazing ability to
recognize patterns in meaningless, random noise. We also are very
good at making generalizations from insufficient data, jumping to facile
"black or white" conclusions, and filtering out data that
conflicts with what we already believe or want to believe. These
represent only a few of the many <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases">cognitive biases</a> that impair our
ability to interpret data.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We are especially bad at interpreting
data in the context of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology">theology</a>. If you need proof, look
carefully at <b><i>both</i></b> sides of almost any “Atheism vs. Christianity”
debate on the Internet. The problem is not lack of data. Quite the
opposite! There is so much relevant data that it's impossible for
anyone to adequately grasp it. Thus, we tend to focus on a narrow
subset of data and let our cognitive biases take care of the rest.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I am no less prone to these errors than
anyone else. But I do know some tools from my line of work that are
helpful in minimizing our biases and extracting useful information
from large, complex datasets. This blog will apply <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining">data mining</a>
concepts (along with some psychology, meteorology, and personal
opinion) to challenge people of all faiths (or lack thereof) to look at
theological “data” in a new way.<br />
<br />
Thanks for reading!<br />
<br /></div>
Matt Hauglandhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16426124926123999587noreply@blogger.com2