Re:January 2020 warmest on record: EU climate service
by 1propionyl on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @06:45AM
(#22245940)
A vanishingly small probability on a finite sample still implies nothing beyond a vanishingly small probability over an infinite population.
To analogize: the vanishingly unlikely probability of landing a dart precisely in the center of the bullseye on a finitely sized dartboard implies nothing more than the same for an infinitely large dartboard.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely (in particular the mathematical concept of "almost never")
Re:January 2020 warmest on record: EU climate service
by ramblerman on Wednesday February 05, 2020 @06:54AM
(#22245974)
> See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely (in particular the mathematical concept of "almost never")
You're confused here, did you read the mathematical definition of your own article?
It has nothing to do with what you think, it starts with the presumption of P(E) = 1 or P(E) = 0 for almost never.
That's not what we are talking about with small probabilities.
The drake equation and fermi account for that, using something like "The universe has 10 million, million, million suns".
Most of these ideas are probabilistic based on sizes that are just immense beyond comprehension. But I still find them more grounded than the pre-Copernican hubris that we are somehow central to all this.
> And also: low probability in finite domain doesn't magically imply high probability in an infinite domain. That's not how math works
How do you figure that?