Reply #8: I know the feeling

[Stunster]

Imagine there's a large barrel of straws all of different lengths in front of you. You have to pull out one. Unless you pull out the shortest one you will be killed instantly. There are 25 billion straws in the barrel. The point at which you have to draw out the straw has a camera which will instantly register the length of the straw. The length of the shortest straw is known in advance. If you fail to pull out the shortest one the camera will instantly send a signal to an electronically triggered array of machine guns, all aimed at you. If you don't pick the shortest straw, then you're a dead man.

Lo and behold, you pick out the shortest straw! You're alive! And amazed.

Now suppose this is the only straw drawing there is. The odds of you being alive after you pick the straw are 25 billion to 1.

That's too unreasonable, you think. So you hypothesize one of two alternatives.

1. There are actually 250 billion similar straw drawings taking place, all of which are intrinsically undetectable by you, except the one you're part of. This means that the odds of the shortest straw being drawn by someone in one of these 250 billion straw drawings is considerably improved, compared to the odds of your drawing the shortest if that's the only straw-drawing there is.

Or

2. An intelligent being designed the straw drawing you're part of, and 'fixed' it so you'd draw out the shortest one.

If you pick 2, you will be attacked as being unscientific. When you protest that the 250 billion minus 1 straw drawings are inherently undetectable by science, you'll still be attacked. When you say that Ockham's razor urges ontological economy, and that one intelligent straw-drawing designer, whose nature is analogous to your own, is ontologically more economical than 250 billion straw-drawings, complete with 250 billion sets of straws (none of which are intelligently designed) and 250 billion straw-drawers (none of which are intelligently designed), you're denounced as an idiot.

Still, you're amazed that you're alive.