At 10:02 PM 3/1/00 -0700, Allen wrote:
[...]
>In his latest book on radiometric dating (The Mythology of Radiometric
>Dating, 1999), Woodmorappe shows that two random number lists will have
>agreement (with the same kind of accuracy allowed for agreement between
>radiometric dates) with in the first 20 to 30 pairs of numbers. Thus one
>can expect a lot of agreement just between two random number lists.
>Agreement between 3 random number lists occurs within the first 100 to 200
>numbers. Agreement is not impossible even for purely random number lists.
hmm... I wonder if Woodmorappe discussed the implications of this amazing
result wrt the
argument from improbability that many creationists are fond of? :-)
Seriously, it seems obvious to me that the agreement suggested above
between supposed
random numbers would be sufficient proof that they are not random. Random
means without
pattern. If two lists agree, this establishes a pattern. What am I missing?
Could you possibly fill in
some details of Woodmorappe' analysis for those of us who do not have
access to the book?
Brian Harper | "If you don't understand
Associate Professor | something and want to
Applied Mechanics | sound profound, use the
The Ohio State University | word 'entropy'"
| -- Morrowitz
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