"> And I have no idea why you believe that the alleged pedophiles had almost certainly done it before
Then you know nothing about child sexual abuse. Perpetrators who are not caught are extremely likely to keep doing it. Even among those who are caught and prosecuted, recidivism is extremely high."
The initial statement was that "because (A) they are attempting it now, (B) they had probably done it before".
That is, a high P(B|A).
You are asserting that a high P(A|B) (which is well established, I believe) implies a high P(B|A). I'm not certain that's true even as a generality, much less as a strong logical implication. Certainly, there could still be a high P(B) in this case, but I don't think it's well demonstrated.
I think there is good reason to believe that the population divides into a large majority who have never done this and a very small minority who have done it repeatedly. You would be right in general, but with such a bimodal distribution the correlation goes both ways. If most of the people who have ever done it have done it several times, and hardly anyone else has done it at all, then the odds are small that anyone you catch is doing it for the first time.
I think you also need an assumption that the criminal population is not growing (or is growing sufficiently slowly). Of course, that also seems plausible.
Then you know nothing about child sexual abuse. Perpetrators who are not caught are extremely likely to keep doing it. Even among those who are caught and prosecuted, recidivism is extremely high."
The initial statement was that "because (A) they are attempting it now, (B) they had probably done it before".
That is, a high P(B|A).
You are asserting that a high P(A|B) (which is well established, I believe) implies a high P(B|A). I'm not certain that's true even as a generality, much less as a strong logical implication. Certainly, there could still be a high P(B) in this case, but I don't think it's well demonstrated.