On 25/09/2018 22:51, Paul Schlyter wrote:
On Tue, 25 Sep 2018 09:24:54 +0100, Martin Brown
wrote:
Why is it mandatory to "choose side" here?

Because that is what the majority of people do when faced with a
binary
yes or no question (and what polarises US political debate too).

Why is it mandatory to do what the majority does?

It isn't, but it is very rare for anyone to be burnt at the stake for
believing that the probability of there being a God is exactly 1/2.

Much like with your odd or even numbers bet. Most people will plump for
one or the other a very few will sit on the fence at 1/2 but what is
surprising is that all the values in between are more popular than 1/2.

A majority of the people don't watch the skies. Does that mean we all
must stop stargazing?

No. But the behaviour of a multitude of people asked to make a binary
decision in the absence of any evidence can be computed. That is what
the maximally uninformative priors do for Bayesian statistics.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown