The president of the New York Scientific Society once gave eight reasons why he believed there was a God. The first was this: Take 10 identical coins and mark them 1 to 10. Place them in your pocket. Now take one out. There is 1 chance in 10 that you will get number one. Now replace it, and the overall chance that number two follows number one is not 1 in 10, but 1 in 100. With each new coin taken out, the risk will be multiplied by 10, so that the chance of ten following nine, is 1 in 10 000 000 000 or 10 billion. It seemed so unbelievable to me that I immediately took pencil and paper and very quickly discovered he was right. Try it yourself
2006-11-11 21:54:11 · 4 answers · asked by Barabas 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
I do not believe that it is true. I think it is totally fabricated. No such organization as the one mentioned seems to have ever existed.
2006-11-11 21:55:51 · update #1
Still no source, all the addition of "Readers' Digest," does is give me the whythelord page. I am even more convinced it is bogus
2006-11-11 22:25:08 · update #2
The math is wrong too. That is not how probabilities are calculated.
2006-11-11 22:43:28 · update #3
Readers Digest has no reference to any such society or quote either. Apparently it was not published by them.
2006-11-11 22:45:09 · update #4
Adding "Reader's Digest" to the quote now means that there are 2 separate quotes claiming to be accurate as well.
2006-11-12 05:11:33 · update #5
Haha, I never would have even thought to check that. Searching "New York Scientific Society" on Google turns up nothing but that quote -- no outside references, no other sites, nothing. And there's no mention of it on Wikipedia either. That's a little suspicious.
2006-11-11 22:04:01 · answer #1 · answered by . 7 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Readers Digest
http://www.whythelord.com/
quote:
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The President of the New York Scientific Society, as recorded in the "Readers' Digest," gave eight reasons why he believed there was a God. The first one was this. Take ten identical coins and mark them one to ten, place them in your pocket, and take one out, there is one chance in ten that you will get number one. Now replace it, and the chances that number two will follow number one are not one in ten, but one in one hundred, and so on, counting ten each time, so that the chances of number ten following number nine are one chance in 10,000,000,000 (ten thousand million).
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2006-11-11 22:13:21 · answer #2 · answered by DREAMER 3 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Well if Readers Digest published it, you KNOW it must be true. *grin*
2006-11-11 22:16:24 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
"I do not believe that it is true. I think it is totally fabricated."
I agree, I can't find any information about the 'New York Scientific Society'.
2006-11-11 21:59:12 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋