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MyOdds – Is the Talpiot tomb the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth?
Purpose: Turn your opinions about the Lines of Argument (click here) presented on this site into an overall
estimate of the probability that the proposition of interest is true or false. That is, what are your personal
estimate of the probability that the Talpiot tomb is or is not the family tomb of Jesus of Nazareth.
Those of you who are less mathematically inclined may benefit from a brief review regarding probability
and odds:
Many readers have considered probabilities in light of the classic example of a bag containing white balls
and black balls. If the bag is filled with 20 balls, 19 of which are white and 1 of which is black, one
understands that the probability of drawing a black ball on any single trial is 0.05 or 5% (0.05 = 1/20),
while the probability of drawing a white ball on a single trial is 0.95 or 95% (0.95 = 19/20).
You may download an Excel worksheet (click here) that computes your personal probability that the proposition
is true or false. The worksheet starts by asking you to convert your opinions about the Lines of Argument into
probability estimates.
You will see that the seven Lines of Arguments have been converted into eight “Truth Statements” (note: one of
the Lines of Argument – "Are some of the names wrong?” has been converted into two statements). You will
notice that the eight statements have been divided into two groups, the statements in the first group are stated
in a direction that affirms that the proposition is “True”, while the second group affirms that the proposition is
“False”.
Each of these Truth Statements is constructed such that if one knew with absolute certainty whether the
statement was true of false, then we would know with absolute certainty that the proposition was true or false.
However, most readers will find that they do not have absolute certainty about any of the truth statements. So,
for each statement you should convert the strength of you opinion about that statement into a probability level
between 0.0 and 1.0. Use a number near 1.0 if you are certain you agree with the truth statement and
approaching zero if you completely disagree with the statement. Enter a number around 0.5 if you are
essentially ambivalent about a statement. You will notice that the default value entered into the worksheet is 0.5.
How does the worksheet convert these opinion based probabilities into an overall proabability estimate?
First it treats each truth statement like it is an independent probability experiment, also called a trial. This is
somewhat like converting your opinion about the outcome of a sporting event into odds for the purposes of a
wager.
Second, for each group of statements it combines the probabilities into a single probability estimate for the
whole group. It does this by asking; what is the probability that at least one of the Truth Statements in each
group is correct?
Finally, the worksheet computes the distribution of outcomes that would occur if our “trial” could be conducted a
large number of times using your probabilities. Many readers will be surprised to learn that given their pattern of
opinions, that rather than “True” or “False” being the most common outcome for their pattern of opinions, it will
actually be “Tie”. A tie can occur when our opinions affirm both the “True” and the “False” position or your
opinions affirm neither of these positions. The larger the value of “Tie” the greater the suggestion that one is
not certain about the proposition in either direction.
This section of the site is new and the editor would be very interested in hearing about your experience with the
worksheet. So, if you are interested in sharing, you could email your completed worksheet to the editor along
with your comments. See the About Us section (click here) for the editor’s email address.
Download the spreadsheet (click here)
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