"Tim Streater" wrote in message
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In article , michael
adams wrote:

"Tim Streater" wrote in message
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I'm prepared to accept that it *may* exist, in the apocalyptic sense
that the warmists warn about. The OP says that what we have seen so far
isn't it, and I agree with him.

That would probably depend on what counts as "apocalyptic" nowadays.
As compared with say the Black Death. No more heated towel rails
perhaps?

Why are you asking me? I'm not the one making apocalyptic
pronouncements.

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Because you're the one who's prepared to accept that global warming
may exist in the "apocolyptic" sense." Not me. I never mentioned
apocalypses. That was you.

And so its incumbent on you to explain exactly what you mean by apocalyptic
in this context.

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[snip]

Getting 10 heads out of 10 is no more or less implausible than getting
any other sequence of heads and tails. The probability being 1 in 1024.
Quite where "intuition" comes into this I'm not sure, as any inuition
in people's minds has no influence on the actual probability

In the example, that of tossing a coin 10 times, we're not talking
about the likelihood of one sequence over another.

Oh yes we are.

We're talking about
the likelihood of getting 10 heads rather than approx 512 heads and
approx 512 tails. Which latter is *much* more likely.

You appear to be confusing two things.

Getting a sequence of 10 heads out of ten in ten tosses has a probability of 1 in
1024.

And as you say, the probability of getting a sequence which is not 10 heads
out of ten, has a much higher probability 1023 out of 1024 in fact.

However, the probability of getting any other particular sequence say
HTHHTTHTHT is again 1 in 1024.

The fact that ten heads in a row is memorable, and thus can assume an undue
significance in the minds of the unthinking, unlike say HTHHTTHTHT, in
no way affects its probability as against any other sequence, contrary to what
Keen, your quoted authority, appears to believe

a) "Intuitively, getting heads 10 out of 10 times is very implausible"

Basically this stuff is "Roulette for Dummies" page 1.



michael adams

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