Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Here Than and I talk about two pieces of mathematical malpractice in Blais and Paulogia's video on Bayes' Theorem and the resurrection.
Blais tried to give the impression that Than made a mistake by his in-principle argument that testimony can (in principle) overcome even a very low prior. Blais implied that Than somehow neglected to admit that this "only holds when" the number of testimonies "approaches infinity." This is total baloney. The use of "goes to infinity" in what Than gives in his blog post is just a way of saying that there is no upper bound on how strong the evidence can get (in principle). It's a theorem. It is completely incorrect to say that somehow this "only holds if the number of testimonies approaches infinity."
Second, Blais used a completely inapplicable type of statistical context to say that one would have to have at least 30 independent testimonies in order for Than's point to "kick in."
Part of the reason that Than and I did these six hours of video together is because these sorts of misleading statements by someone with Blais's credentials can throw people. Therefore, they need to be addressed.
Here once again is Than's blog post:
inspiringphilosophy.com/blog/paulogiaits-time-to-stop
Here is the Blais/Paulogia video that we are responding to:
youtube.com/watch?v=v6QenX4Oo78
Professional articles by Lydia McGrew on dependence and independence.
“Evidential Diversity and the Negation of H: A Probabilistic Account of the Value of Varied Evidence,” Ergo 3:10 (2016), available here: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ergo/12405314.0003.010?view=text;rgn=main
“Bayes Factors All the Way: Toward a New View of Coherence and Truth,” Theoria (2016) 82:329-350. DOI 10.1111/theo.12102. Accepted manuscript version archived here. lydiamcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/BayesFactorsAlltheWayaccepted.pdf
“Accounting for Dependence: Relative Consilience as a Correction Factor in Cumulative Case Arguments,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 95:3 (2017), 560-572, DOI 10.1080/00048402.2016.1219753. Accepted manuscript version archived here. lydiamcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/Correctionfactoraccepted.pdf
“The World, the Deceiver, and The Face in the Frost,” Quaestiones Disputatae, 7:2 (2017, volume appeared in print fall, 2018), 112-146. Draft version archived by permission here. lydiamcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Problemoftheexternalworldrevised.pdf
“Confirmation, Coincidence, and Contradiction,” Synthese, 2021, Online First 3/14/21, DOI doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03102-x. Author’s Accepted Manuscript archived by permission here. lydiamcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ConfirmationCoincidenceandContradiction.pdf
Thumbnail "Malpractice" by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images, used under Creative Commons
Thanks to @TestifyApologetics for helping to get these videos with Than edited and up.
Here Than and I talk about two pieces of mathematical malpractice in Blais and Paulogia's video on Bayes' Theorem and the resurrection.
Blais tried to give the impression that Than made a mistake by his in-principle argument that testimony can (in principle) overcome even a very low prior. Blais implied that Than somehow neglected to admit that this "only holds when" the number of testimonies "approaches infinity." This is total baloney. The use of "goes to infinity" in what Than gives in his blog post is just a way of saying that there is no upper bound on how strong the evidence can get (in principle). It's a theorem. It is completely incorrect to say that somehow this "only holds if the number of testimonies approaches infinity."
Second, Blais used a completely inapplicable type of statistical context to say that one would have to have at least 30 independent testimonies in order for Than's point to "kick in."
Part of the reason that Than and I did these six hours of video together is because these sorts of misleading statements by someone with Blais's credentials can throw people. Therefore, they need to be addressed.
Here once again is Than's blog post:
inspiringphilosophy.com/blog/paulogiaits-time-to-stop
Here is the Blais/Paulogia video that we are responding to:
youtube.com/watch?v=v6QenX4Oo78
Professional articles by Lydia McGrew on dependence and independence.
“Evidential Diversity and the Negation of H: A Probabilistic Account of the Value of Varied Evidence,” Ergo 3:10 (2016), available here: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/ergo/12405314.0003.010?view=text;rgn=main
“Bayes Factors All the Way: Toward a New View of Coherence and Truth,” Theoria (2016) 82:329-350. DOI 10.1111/theo.12102. Accepted manuscript version archived here. lydiamcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/BayesFactorsAlltheWayaccepted.pdf
“Accounting for Dependence: Relative Consilience as a Correction Factor in Cumulative Case Arguments,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 95:3 (2017), 560-572, DOI 10.1080/00048402.2016.1219753. Accepted manuscript version archived here. lydiamcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/Correctionfactoraccepted.pdf
“The World, the Deceiver, and The Face in the Frost,” Quaestiones Disputatae, 7:2 (2017, volume appeared in print fall, 2018), 112-146. Draft version archived by permission here. lydiamcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Problemoftheexternalworldrevised.pdf
“Confirmation, Coincidence, and Contradiction,” Synthese, 2021, Online First 3/14/21, DOI doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03102-x. Author’s Accepted Manuscript archived by permission here. lydiamcgrew.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ConfirmationCoincidenceandContradiction.pdf
Thumbnail "Malpractice" by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Alpha Stock Images, used under Creative Commons
Thanks to @TestifyApologetics for helping to get these videos with Than edited and up.
