Yesterday’s post inspired someone to point me to another gem in the same category: the ongoing work of Jeffery Jay Lowder at The Secular Outpost on Bayesian Arguments for Atheism and theism. He has a long archive on that topic there and continues to post on debates in religion analyzing them in Bayesian terms. Though …
Category Archive: Bayes’ Theorem
Jan 08 2013
Bayesian Atheism
James Lindsay has been doing some great blogging on how to apply Bayesian reasoning to model John Loftus’ Outsider Test for Faith (or OTF). A while ago I asked for recommendations of bloggers that often write about Bayes’ Theorem for a general audience (see Bayesian Blogging), and a few came up there. This is another. …
Dec 04 2012
Miracles & Historical Method
Video of my talk for this year’s Skepticon is now available on YouTube. See Miracles and Historical Method. Description: Carrier talks about how to think critically about history generally, using miracles as an entertaining example. Builds on his talk last year on Bayes’ Theorem, but this time it’s more about method than math, and surveys …
Oct 09 2012
Understanding Bayesian History
So far I know of only two critiques of my argument in Proving History that actually exhibit signs of having read the book (all other critiques can be rebutted with three words: read the book; although in all honesty, even the two critiques that engage the book can be refuted with five words: read the …
Sep 10 2012
McGrath on Proving History
James McGrath has reviewed my book Proving History. We’ve argued before (e.g. over claims Bart Ehrman made), so there is backstory. But his review is unexpectedly kind and praising at points, and he likes the overall project of explaining the underlying logic of history as fundamentally Bayesian and making productive use of that fact. He …
Aug 30 2012
Bayesian Blogging
This is a request to all fans of Bayes’ Theorem out there: I’m looking for the best blogs and websites substantially devoted to discussing all things Bayesian. Of course I know about Less Wrong, the brainchild of Eliezer Yudkowsky, which often discusses Bayesian reasoning and is a fabulous website for learning about human reason, and …
Aug 06 2012
New Bayesian Calculator
Thanks to Cam Spiers (who has produced an interesting selection of free javascript Bayesian Calculators), I have updated my own Bayesian Calculator page using the most basic of those. This might be updated again in coming months. Right now it only allows running calculations with two-digit probabilities from .01 to .99 (or 1% and 99%), …
Jun 29 2012
The Jesus Tomb and Bayes’ Theorem
Finally, a mathematician actually gets the math right on the Jesus Tomb hypothesis. Conclusion? We have not found the tomb of Jesus. For those who already know the backstory and want to jump right to it, read Bayes’ Theorem and the “Jesus Family Tomb” by physicist Randy Ingermanson. He approached the problem like a physicist …
Feb 22 2012
The Lame That Would Not Die!
What is The Lame? Unfortunately no one can be told what The Lame is. You have to see it for yourself. No, just kidding. It’s the claim that “Science Requires a Christian Worldview.” JT just blogged that, responding reasonably enough to a repeat of a standard Christian apologetic shibboleth (and, as he callously and shamelessly …
Feb 08 2012
Proving History!
My new book is finally done and available for pre-order at Amazon: titled Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus. Yes, that’s the one (or one of the two) that everyone has been asking me about. It’s been years in the making, and in the waiting, but we completed its academic …
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