Nassim Taleb vs Richard Dawkins - Faith, Stock Market and 'incompetence of philosophers'

[AsifAmeer]

His point is KEEP YOUR MIND OPEN and dont be an 'expert'.... or a consultant, or a scholar.. or an economist - i.e. fragalistas

I understand what he is trying to say. And for the most part I agree with him. However I still do feel that any extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. The problem with Taleb's analogy is that EVERYTHING 'possibly' exists. Mother Goose, Snow white, The big bad wolf, tinker bell, Santa Claus, boogeyman, Superman. You name it.

 

[guest]

according to taleb himself, and also what I understand of fat tailed distributions, there are something which are modelled well by them and there are something which are not. The fat tail does not allow for the possibility that the moon split into 2. it just aint gonno happen. Let me also say that all these discussion about fat tails makes sense in phenomena that we are modeling as statistical or stochastic. So maybe when we discuss the ensemble behavior of a large number of particles. But most theories of physics are not statistical in nature. They are deterministic. Einstenian relativity is a deterministic theory. Quantum mechanics in many ways is deterministic, though one of its interpretations is statistical, but which is completely been rejected. so taleb is right, but thats not the entire story anyways.

Yes. I have heard of God of Gaps. And I get the point you are making. And I agree with it. Lekin there is a point I am trying to make.

In statistical terms, miracles are FAT TAILS. See where I am coming from?

 

[lurker]

This is a hard discussion and not for those faint of faith. Another such discussion is the aspect of "Free Will" within most religion. That's another discussion that really dissects most religion.