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What's the Chance?

Entry 848, on 2008-09-09 at 19:45:16 (Rating 3, Philosophy)

Do I believe in this and do I believe in that? These "belief" questions are what I often get from people I debate and discuss with on discussion forums, blogs, and by email. But does the question have any real meaning? To many of them it probably does because they see things in terms of absolute ideas: they know Genesis is true (even though by any reasonable appraisal it obviously isn't) or they know that scientists are just inventing global warming to give themselves extra funding (I never did figure out how that would work) or they know for sure that UFOs exist and there is a vast conspiracy hiding that fact (there are so many conspiracies out there its hard to keep track of them all).

So when I'm not prepared to say I believe in something I'm not I just being deliberately awkward. I have opinions on what is probably true, what is almost definitely true, and what is probably not true, but these can all change when the evidence changes and none of them are so absolute that they should be called a belief. I prefer to assign a probability to different ideas which indicates the chance I think they have of being true. So let's have a look at some numbers...

Let's start with something I am almost totally certain about: the theory of evolution. I would say that I am 99% confident this theory is true. Of course, we then get onto the issue of which version of the theory and all that but what I really mean is that I'm that certain that life on Earth arose through the usual natural mechanisms, such as natural selection, normally associated with the theory. So what about the last 1% left over? What possibilities does that cover. Well, supernatural ones, I guess. I suppose intelligent design isn't totally impossible but I would have to ask where did that intelligence come from. It couldn't be intelligently designed could it, or maybe it arose through evolution!

How about something I'm very certain about. I'm 95% certain that the Big Bang theory is essentially true. If we "look" out into the sky we "see" the radiation left over from it happening (as the cosmic microwave background) so that does seem to lead to some certainty. But what about the 5% left over here? Maybe something happened which looks like the origin of the Universe but is really something else. Maybe the Big Bang is just a local phenomenon in an infinitely bigger Universe, for example.

Now onto something I'm still fairly confident about but I'm still seriously looking at contrary evidence. Global warming! Yes, that old political/scientific issue seems to have a lot of detractors but I'm still 75% sure that the world is undergoing climate change (which simplistically is referred to as warming) and that humans have had a significant impact on that phenomenon happening. Although the deniers keep saying there are many scientists opposed to the theory that isn't really true. The fact is the vast majority believe its real. And the deniers tend to be either non-specialists or have a political agenda. But I still think there is a 25% chance it isn't true so why do I say that? Well the information on climate from the past has a lot of noise and it might be possible to misinterpret the trend. Its also possible that changes just coincided with high human use of fossil fuels and that there's no real link. Its also possible there really is a global conspiracy amongst climate scientists but I don't take that one too seriously!

So what about something I'm uncertain about? Well these tend to fall into more social, political and moralistic areas instead of science. Abortion is one thing I can't make my mind up about, for example. I can see both sides of the story and I think its something which isn't easily answered. Maybe I would be pro-abortion about 50% (and I guess that means anti about 50% too).

What about left versus right wing politics? Well it partly depends on how far left or right of center something has to be for it to be labelled that way, but I can see merit in both sides of that debate. I think maybe a mixture of different political views in government is the best option. I would probably favour left over right but only by about 60% to 40% so I'm not that fanatical about it - although some of my detractors might say I am!

And finally we come to the issues I am quite certain have little merit. The big one is god. I think the chance of any of the traditional religions being true is very low. Maybe 5% at best. But the idea of god in the more generic sense isn't quite so easily dismissed - but maybe this is because we don't really know what a generic god is that it makes it hard to contradict its existence! I can't realistically give a number on this unless a definition of god is given, but let's just say 15% for completeness.

Well it will be interesting to re-visit this idea in a year or two and see if my percentages have changed much. I think the global warming number will have changed quite a lot - most likely becoming more certain but possibly less. The rest, I think, will have stayed about the same. But what's the chance of a big new discovery in physics changing our ideas on everything? Maybe 25% After all, the Large Hadron Collider is being powered up tomorrow!

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