Originally Posted by
Blind Squirrel
As I say, it's a long time since I was in school. But when I was there, they taught me that 92 > 8. More than ten times as great, in fact. I believe they mentioned it in the context of a discussion of...ah yes, probabilities.
Uhh, yeah, obviously 8 percent is less probable than 92 percent. Nobody claimed anything different. However, what you have claimed is that the possibility that she is lying is too improbable to consider, which is horsecrap. 1 in 12 is not too improbable to consider.
Let me use your identical reasoning to construct "proof" the accused guy is innocent. This will help illustrate just how inane your reasoning is. The incidence of rape in the US is about 30 per 100,000. That's 0.0003% In other words, really "improbable", far less probable than 8%. For the sake of the example, if we assume that each rape is committed by a single perpetrator and each perpetrator commits only one, and half of population is men, that means that there's a 0.0006% probability that any one man is a rapist, which is still *very* improbable. So, according to your defective reasoning, we must assume that the accused is actually innocent, because there is only a 0.0006% probability that he is a rapist, far too improbable to consider. Nonsense? Yes, of course it is. Absurd? Yes, beyond Absurd. Completely devoid of logic? Yes. All that it true, it's absurd, illogical nonsense. But it also the *identical* rationale you have used to claim that we know the Flight Attendant is not fabricating her accusations.