Here’s from Jaynes’ preface to his book (http://omega.albany.edu:8008/JaynesBook.html)

“For many years there has been controversy over frequentist versus Bayesian
methods of inference in which the writer has been an outspoken partisan on the Bayesian side
The record of this up to ô€€€ô€€€ is given in an earlier book Jaynes ô€€€ In these old works there
was a strong tendency on both sides to argue on the level of philosophy or ideology We can
now hold ourselves somewhat aloof from this because thanks to recent work there is no longer
any need to appeal to such arguments We are now in possession of proven theorems and masses
of workedout numerical examples demonstrating the facts of actual performance As a result
the superiority of Bayesian methods is now a thoroughly demonstrated fact in a hundred dierent
areas We point this out in some detail whenever it makes a substantial dierence in the nal
results Thus we continue to argue vigorously for the Bayesian methods but we ask the reader to
note that our arguments now proceed by citing facts rather than proclaiming a philosophical or
ideological position”

“Does anyone know of any ID or antiDarwinian publications, books or articles, available in the Russian language”

John Davison raves about a Russian called Leo Berg who wrote a book called Nomogenesis that is probably very anti-Darwinian.

I’ve read something recently and am curious if the math people here can answer. Math Professor at Tulane, Frank J. Tippler; sent a letter concerning hard sciences and political inroads of correctness.

I’m curious how it bears on the discussions here regarding probability theory, Shannon Information, Kolmogorov, CSI, etc and the fine tuning of the universe, or probability of life.

He makes some observations of political nature, but then makes a bold statement re: current teaching of probability in our universities.

He makes the following statements,
“Most university mathematics departments teach a theory of probability and statistics that was created in the early 20th century by psychologists and sociologists instead of a more sophisticated theory created around 1800 by the great physicists Simon de Laplace and Karl F. Gauss.

Using the physicists’ probability theory, it is possible to show that the social scientists’ probability theory is designed to tend to confirm whatever the experimenter wishes to be true. To the best of my knowledge, the physicists’ theory of probability is taught only at four universities: Cambridge, Stanford, Washington St. Louis, and North Carolina State University.

See Edward Jaynes’ Probability Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2002) for a history of this nonsense, together with a description of the correct theory of probability.

Unfortunately, the incorrect theory of probability is required by the FDA in tests of drugs. Fortunately, DNA typing uses the correct theory of probability.”

hattip:
http://www.democracy-project.c.....02639.html

My question is 1) is this true? 2) If so, how does it relate to CSI? and 3) life as we know it?

3. Off topic question: Does anyone know of any ID or antiDarwinian publications, books or articles, available in the Russian language, either here, abroad, or on the net?

It’s more creation science than ID, but you might try this as a starting point…

http://www.scienceandapologetics.org/

“Mathematician Gregory Chaitin, however, has shown that biology is irreducibly complex in a more fundamental way: Physical and chemical laws contain hugely less information than biological phenomena. Chaitin’s algorithmic information theory demonstrates not that particular biological devices are irreducibly complex but that all biology as a field is irreducibly complex. It is above physics and chemistry on the epistemological ladder and cannot be subsumed under chemical and physical rules.

. . .

And the irreducibility of mathematical axioms translates directly into a similar irreducibility of physics. As Caltech physicist and engineer Carver Mead, a guiding force in three generations of Silicon Valley technology, put it: “The simplest model of the galaxy is the galaxy.””

The Universe appears irreducibly complex (or “rigged” as Gil says) from top to bottom.

In order to rule out chance, don’t we have to rule out the chance of any possible kind of life?

Well, you’ve received a number of responses to this, all of them good. But unless I’ve missed something they have all overlooked the obvious. In order to rule out chance with regard to what? What is the referent? What you seem to be proposing is that to rule out chance as an explanation for some event X, that we must rule out chance as an explanation for all events.

What is more likely I guess, considering the context, is that you have taken Salvador’s post as supporting the claim that chance fails as an explanation for life of any kind whatosever. So, the simple answer is that the question is ill-formed or misplaced, unless Salvador really means that. But I thought Salvador was pretty specific about what sort of life he had in mind.

Water has all kinds of unusual and life-essential properties…

So does Iced Tea, at least if you are living in Texas, as I am at the moment.

…given enough time, the impossible becomes probable, the probable possible, and the possible certain.

It is certainly possible that some event may never occur. But, given enough time, the possibility that some event may never occur becomes a certainty. It, in fact, becomes impossible that that event should occur. Given enough time, that is.

I see. Extending that thought, given enough time someone will invent a time machine and go back in time to undo everything that ever happened. So at the end of infinitely long period of time, nothing ever happened. -ds