Evidence Evaluation

[David Sklansky]

Many religious people believe that their specific religious beliefs are greater than 50% to be true (as opposed to other sects of their religion, other known religions, other conceivable but not espoused religions, and the belief in no religion). Fair enough. But some take it further. They go on to believe that the evidence and arguments for their particular sect are so strong that an objective and expert "bookie" (or you could call him an expert probalistic evidence evaluator) would make their sect better than even money on his preseason line. All the other contenders, they believe, would be offered at high odds.

Now even though common sense might say that someone who actually thinks that their sects beliefs should obviously be odds on favorite in the minds of expert bookies is silly, there is some basis for it. Especially if the sect in question is some of the Protestant denominations. Becuase they believe both that God is fair and that God saves only those who believe what they do. This logically forces them to believe that objective evidence evaluation must lead you to their sect. See why?

But that is not the subject of this post. Rather it is the subject of evidence evaluation. Setting lines, if you will.
Because once someone defends their beliefs soley on the basis of evidence and arguments, it is no longer a religious debate. At this point the winner is simply the better bookie. For religious people to win they must show why that means them.

If two people are both setting lines on some event there are four attributes I can see that could make A's line better than B's

1. He is smarter-more gifted at setting lines in general.

2. He is more knowledgeble-has studied more about the subject of setting lines in general.

3. He is more knowledgeable about the specific subject or event that the linemaking is addressing.

4. He is less biased about the subject.

Regardless of the subject being debated, if one linemaker is superior to another in three out of four of these things it almost always means that his line will be closer to the truth. If someone is superior in all four aspects, his line MUST be better. (That is not saying that he must be right. It just means that if I am a smarter and more knowledgeble linemaker than you, know at least as much about the subject, and am equally unbiased, there is no logical reason why an observer should think your line is the correct one rather than mine.)

Although I am not one of them, I believe there are hundreds, if not thousands of people out there who equal or surpass in all four categories, the posters who claim that their sect is obviously, logically, right. Millions who surpass them in three. And I believe that the vast majority of those expert bookies would disagree with them. Which BY ITSELF proves them wrong (not about the truth of their beliefs but about the obviousness of those truths).