On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 1:23 PM, Kevin O'Malley <kevmol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jed: So you need only look at the positive results, and estimate the > likelihood that every one of them was caused by incompetent > researchers making mistakes. > ***That is what I've been saying all along. Note how Joshua Cude just > glides over it. The hallmark of a skeptopath is how disingenuous they > can be. O'Malley's calculation determines the probability of getting N hits in > N tries. It's just wrong. > ***No, no no. How many times do we need to go through this for a > skeptopath to acknowledge it? The calculation assumes N tries and N > hits, and then proceeds to calculate the probability of those N hits > were ALL by some error or errors. > > > That's what I said: you're calculating the probability for all tries to be successful at random, but it doesn't correspond to reality. Only a fraction of the tries are successful in reality. In McKubre's 1998 report, he said 20 %. Hubler reports 1/3 in 2007. So if the probability of a false positive is 1/3, and 1/3 of the tries are hits, then that is consistent with all the hits being false positives. How can you not get that? It's as if you claim that you made a dice that rolls 6, and to prove it you roll 60 dice, and 10 come up 6, and you say "See. The probability of that happening purely at random is (1/6)^10." In fact, of course, getting 10 purely at random is the most likely outcome. You know that bigfoot true believers also make the argument that so many claims can't all be wrong, as discovered by John Milstone over on wavewatching.et/fringe: "The sheer mass of reports alone should point to something of substance to the topics and it’s just as loony to believe that all the reports, trace evidence, photographs or other pieces of evidence that obviously interest these people from all walks of life is bogus, misconstrued or originating from a too many beers in the woods." You should head over there; they could use your faulty math to really secure their belief.
