A faulty argument involving probability

Critics may contend that this article only shows that each feature of the damage pattern is unlikely but not impossible. The flaw of the argument that any scenario with non-zero probability is possible, therefore cannot be dismissed, can be illustrated in the following example. According to quantum mechanics, it is technically ``possible'' that all the oxygen molecules within one mile of Washington D.C. disappear from where they were, and spontaneously appear in New York City, for a whole day. The probability of that event is not zero. We submit that, such an event has never happened in the entire history of the earth, and will not happen before the extinction of Homo sapiens. It is clearly irrational if one takes into account such a low-probability event in one's decision making.

The famous French Mathematician Emile Borel once said that an event of probability $1/10^{50}$ is a negligible on the ``cosmic scale'', and an event with probability $1/10^{15}$ is a negligible on the ``terrestrial scale''. We strongly advise against buying any lottery ticket in which your chance of winning is $1/10^{18}$, no matter how large the jack pot is, because you will not win.

If one is to argue that the 319 incident happened as purported, then the following list of low-probability events must have all occurred.

• All physicians who treated Chen's wound mistook congealed blood for burn marks, or they all lied.

• Some movement of Chen's body increased the depth of Chen's abdominal wound by more than 200%, or all physicians who treated Chen lied.

• There is some yet-to-be-discovered configuration of Chen's abdomen that will facilitate the creation of a graze wound 11 cm long.

• The area on Chen's undershirt close to the exit hole was defective or damaged at precisely the right place.

• The entrance hole on Chen's shirt was enlarged in a yet-to-be-identified event by an unidentified person.

It is difficult to assign a numerical value for the probability of each of the events above, but it is clear that the probability for all of them be true is vanishingly small, exceeding the legal standard ``beyond reasonable doubt'' by many orders of magnitude. The fact underlying features (A) and (B) in the Introduction, that bullets do not burn skin nor do they burn fibers, is well-established. The scientific evidence showing that features (C), (D), (E) cannot be reconstructed is also very strong. We challenge the CIB and Chen's defenders to reconstruct the damage, exhibiting features (C), (D), (E) in one shot. All serious reconstruction efforts for features (C), (D), (E) are welcome; we believe that will only strengthen our case.