The Scientific Method Versus Faith

Abstract

"If you toss a coin seven times, and all tosses come up heads, what is the probability of the eighth toss also turning up head?" I show that the answer depends on the level of sureness about the prior probability that the coin is fair. I extend the analysis to the probability of gender-neutrality of birth on the basis of the observed number of female and male births. I prove that updating the probability on the basis of new information is scientific, and since the criterion of falsifiability is essential to a scientific theory, that faith consists of a zero-one prior whereas the scientific method requires a non-zero-one prior.

Keywords: Uncertainty; Coin Tosses; Gender Proportions; Bayes Theorem; Non-Zero-One Prior; Zero-One Prior; Falsifiability; Scientific Method; Faith.

JEL Classification: B4; C6; D8