Humbled by Statistics (A Somewhat Nerdy Post)

I'm working towards my Master's at the moment, and one of the classes I'm taking (actually, the only class I'm taking) is biostatistics. Trust me, it's not nearly as daunting as it sounds, and it's actually pretty interesting. Biostatistics is the field that's helped us to determine what are the risk factors for heart disease (Framingham Heart Study), whether medications work, and that led to Gottlieb's discovery of AIDS in 1981. It's pretty cool to be able to use statistics to help to change the world.

Another thing that fascinates me about it is how the fields of statistics and probability can help us to make more informed, and therefore, better decisions. Decisions can be hard to make, but if you know that the probability that your car will break down 20% quicker with a particular mechanic, the decision automatically becomes a lot easier. It makes life a little bit easier knowing.

However, how sure can we be that we are right when calculating probability? My professor brought this up last night, and I've been thinking about it ever since. In probability, you can never be 100% sure that your prediction will be correct. This makes sense. Things happen. An unaccounted for factor comes into play, and completely destroys any chance that you originally thought would happen happens. The other team wins the game with a cross-court shot at the buzzer. An unknown fungus kills your apple crop. Your sale flops due to the manager having to leave suddenly because he has diarrhea. I don't know. You get my point. Stuff happens.

Anyway, in statistics we have something called a confidence interval to account for this. A confidence interval shows how certain you are that something could happen. For example, a lot of times we'll use a confidence interval of 95%, meaning that we are 95% sure that this is going to happen. The highest confidence interval we can get is 99.99%, which all but guarantees that something is going to happen, but what about that last .01%? We can never be 100% sure that something is going to happen.

But God can. God doesn't need confidence intervals. When He says something is going to happen, it happens. He's not 90%, 95%, or even 99.99% sure. He's 100% sure. He knows for certain. He is not limited to probability. He doesn't even need it. Probability is useless to God, as He never has to wonder if something is going to happen or not. Why? Because He knows. He already knows. It's just another indicator pointing to how God is waaaaaaay above us. And though it might be nerdy, I still find it pretty cool.