Greetings, Neil
Happy New Year.
Just to clarify something that may confuse some readers. Although the tag on your recent post shows a quote from me:
Those are not the only rules, however. An "expert witness" can testify to their opinion (in a United States courtroom anyway), and the engineers, applied mathematicians, ... etc. who are both academics and uncertainty managers have their senior common rooms, too. And uncertainty is also managed outside the sheltered workshop of the academy. For those people and those situations, I recommend Bayes (albeit a heterodox Bayes more often than not).
Happy New Year.
Just to clarify something that may confuse some readers. Although the tag on your recent post shows a quote from me:
In fact, both of the interior quote boxes are Gakusei Don's.On two points arising:
...
With respect to the summary of your position:......I agree, and that's what I think Godfrey is getting wrong. If I understand what is being argued on Vridar correctly: the Pearl Harbor attack occurred, no doubt about it. That's 100%. But if we use Bayes analysis (noting that there is no reason why we would for this particular case), then we aren't going to get a result of 100%. It's very very close, but as Bayes always allows for the addition of further information, it will never be 100%. Godfrey seems to see this as a failure of Bayes for doing history, whereas his interlocutors are simply pointing out that it is just how Bayes works....IMO he is correct that in order to seriously doubt the historicity of Jesus one must regard as plausible at least one non-historical account of Christian origins. I am not convinced that one must express this in (approximate) numerical probabilities.
I have no problem with anyone saying "I don't know," if that is the extent to which they care to comment on an uncertain matter, or that is the rule in the forum where the statement is being made (e.g., if the speaker is a "fact witness" in a judicial proceeding) ... and if you say that that is also the rule in the academic historians' senior common room, then I am unqualified to dispute you.All I have ever said is that if there is insufficient evidence to establish a figure we can identify as a "historical Jesus" then there is insufficient evidence to establish that proposition. There is nothing wrong with humbly accepting the inevitability of ignorance. We simply don't know. Carrier seemed to see some fault, if I understood him correctly (I don't believe he read any of my posts nor even the contexts of some of my comments on which he commented -- shades of the Bart Ehrman MO with respect to books on mythicism he claimed to have read but clearly didn't) ... he seemed to see some fault with the position that one says, "no comment, can't comment" when one has "insufficient evidence". I don't know if there was a real King Arthur, either. Can't comment as to his historicity. Ditto for Apollonius of Tyana. If we don't know, we don't know. That's more defensible than blaming someone for not having another opinion of some kind.
Those are not the only rules, however. An "expert witness" can testify to their opinion (in a United States courtroom anyway), and the engineers, applied mathematicians, ... etc. who are both academics and uncertainty managers have their senior common rooms, too. And uncertainty is also managed outside the sheltered workshop of the academy. For those people and those situations, I recommend Bayes (albeit a heterodox Bayes more often than not).
Statistics: Posted by Paul the Uncertain — Sat Jan 11, 2025 4:05 am