most of us have a turning point in our
lives a pivotal moment where you
wondered how did this happen
mine was 1989 I made three films lean on
me
Driving Miss Daisy and Gloria did I make
it happen was someone up there calling
the shots or was i lucky to try to
understand this I’ve arranged to meet a
psychology professor who thinks we often
mistake random chance for miracles danny
Oppenheimer it’s nice to see you how are
you today I’m good you I’m good
hey what are you doing I’m flipping
coins why I’m looking for streaks
streaks yeah if you flip a coin enough
times you’re gonna get a streak really
that’s a lot of tails well if I flip a
coin twice and I get heads both time is
that miraculous uh no to do it 50 times
and you get 60 that’s the miracle well
yeah if you get more than you flip
certainly but how rare does an event
have to be before we would call it
miraculous one in a million one in a
billion
I’ll choose billion all right one in a
million well let’s try something
all right Jack of Diamonds six of spades
King of Spades two of hearts seven of
diamonds and Ace of Spades is it
miraculous to have gotten this sequence
no I mean it’s just just random select
new cards off of the day well right but
this particular sequence starting with
the jack and then getting the six of
spades and then king of spades it only
happens one in about fourteen billion
times you draw 6 cards so it’s pretty
miraculous by your one-in-a-billion
standard so you telling me that this is
miraculous
well no as you said before it’s just a
random set of cards what if it was first
six digits of your social security
number what if it were the last six
digits of your social security number
the first six digits of your phone
number sometimes it’s not actually
miraculous sometimes it’s just
probability playing its tricks on you
all right so how do we include the
divine because there are people who
really do think that there is divine
intervention in these kinds of inter
plays absolutely and nothing I’m saying
here rules out the possibility of the
divine the fact that probability
predicts certain things doesn’t mean
that there can’t be divine intervention
but miraculous things that are so
unlikely that you think it can’t happen
by chance alone they do happen and they
have to happen it would be odd if they
didn’t because with six billion people
in the world there are so many
opportunities for something really
unusual to happen we would expect it to
happen to some of them
lives a pivotal moment where you
wondered how did this happen
mine was 1989 I made three films lean on
me
Driving Miss Daisy and Gloria did I make
it happen was someone up there calling
the shots or was i lucky to try to
understand this I’ve arranged to meet a
psychology professor who thinks we often
mistake random chance for miracles danny
Oppenheimer it’s nice to see you how are
you today I’m good you I’m good
hey what are you doing I’m flipping
coins why I’m looking for streaks
streaks yeah if you flip a coin enough
times you’re gonna get a streak really
that’s a lot of tails well if I flip a
coin twice and I get heads both time is
that miraculous uh no to do it 50 times
and you get 60 that’s the miracle well
yeah if you get more than you flip
certainly but how rare does an event
have to be before we would call it
miraculous one in a million one in a
billion
I’ll choose billion all right one in a
million well let’s try something
all right Jack of Diamonds six of spades
King of Spades two of hearts seven of
diamonds and Ace of Spades is it
miraculous to have gotten this sequence
no I mean it’s just just random select
new cards off of the day well right but
this particular sequence starting with
the jack and then getting the six of
spades and then king of spades it only
happens one in about fourteen billion
times you draw 6 cards so it’s pretty
miraculous by your one-in-a-billion
standard so you telling me that this is
miraculous
well no as you said before it’s just a
random set of cards what if it was first
six digits of your social security
number what if it were the last six
digits of your social security number
the first six digits of your phone
number sometimes it’s not actually
miraculous sometimes it’s just
probability playing its tricks on you
all right so how do we include the
divine because there are people who
really do think that there is divine
intervention in these kinds of inter
plays absolutely and nothing I’m saying
here rules out the possibility of the
divine the fact that probability
predicts certain things doesn’t mean
that there can’t be divine intervention
but miraculous things that are so
unlikely that you think it can’t happen
by chance alone they do happen and they
have to happen it would be odd if they
didn’t because with six billion people
in the world there are so many
opportunities for something really
unusual to happen we would expect it to
happen to some of them
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