From: Peter Ruest (pruest@pop.mysunrise.ch)
Date: Wed Feb 26 2003 - 14:04:05 EST
Sorry, I'm tired of always editing out all that html stuff. Maybe I'll
do it again some other time...
Wayne, I am not a numerology buff. But I was intrigued by a question of
probability. Everybody just _assumes_ that these results with pi and e
etc. are made up artificially. My question was whether there is any
_evidence_ that this is possible. This question should be answerable by
a mathematician doing the appropriate probability calculations. But
since Vernon brought this up more than one and a half years ago, no one
has even tried to answer this question (apart from Iain, whom I
mentioned, and who seems to be similarly intrigued by the
probabilities), although there were probably dozens of posts condemning
such "number games" as nonsense - which is not very congenial if they
don't even try to answer the probability question. A solid demonstration
that the probabilities involved may be higher than, say, 0.001 could put
to rest the numerology claims once for all. But just assuming such
results can be made up, without any evidence, will not.
Peter
Wayne Dawson wrote:
Subject:
=?iso-2022-jp?B?GyhCUmU6IG51bWJlcnMgKGZyb20gUmU6IHBlcnNvbmFsIHJldmVsYXRpb25zKQ==?=
(JPeter Ruest wrote: (B
(J>Now, with respect to the actual discussion, I would assume that the
(B
(J>writer of Gen.1:1 might have known pi, but certainly not to this (B
(J>precision. However, I doubt that Euler's e was known at all to John.
So (B
(J>how could they just make it up, as Grattann-Guinness believes? It
would (B
(J>certainly be even much harder to do than making up patterns of
integers. (B
(J>And how could these transcendental numbers serve as "decorations" if
(B
(J>they were not known at all, or not to the precision produced by the
(B
(J>text? (Wayne, of course, I agree that it is the _content_ that makes
the (B
(J>Bible meaningful.) (B
(JIt doesn't seem like this was answered and I am really (B
(Jnot the best person to answer it. However, (B
(JIt seems like the gist of the argument is that there is (B
(Jno way to predict before hand which numbers to expect, (B
(Jand there is a vast set of numbers to select from that (B
(Jone can fit to a particular passage. (B
(JPerhaps the most famous of them are pi and e, so it (B
(Jis interesting in that respect. (B
(JMy own concern is that it is easy to fall prey to a lot (B
(Jof skulduggery in this business. It has earned a bad (B
(Jreputation because it's a gimmick used too much by (B
(Jcranks in all religions to claim the superiority of (B
(Jtheir special brand of poison over the rest. (B
(JThey cannot all be right, so I think it is better to look for
substance
in the message than look for hidden codes (B
(Jin the writing. (B
(JI know that all this sounds really incredulous of me. (B
(JWhat I am saying is that this kind of resistence (B
(Jis what one should expect seeing how easily it has (B
(Jbeen badly abused. (B
(JProbably Vernon's observations would get more of a (B
(Jhearing if it didn't come with a similar package (B
(Jlike the rest of the cranks. (B
(JI suspect the intelligent design approach (B
(Jthat Dembski outlined could be applied to these codes: (B
(JBible, Koran etc. It is probably more useful there (B
(Jthan in all this wrangling over evolution. (B
(JBy Grace alone we proceed, (B
(JWayne (B
-- Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland <pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution "..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)
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