The Interpreter; Bayes Theorem; Nephites and Mayans

[_Philo Sofee]

DrW, that link to the Late War was absolutely incredible!!!!!

[_honorentheos]

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31734

The conversation that took place as it was being introduced is worth reading.

I also recall there being an attempt to discredit or distance The Late War from the Book of Mormon using Bayesian analysis. I'll look around later for it.

[_honorentheos]

Here you go, full circle back to The Interpreter and the use of Bayes as apologetic tool: https://interpreterfoundation.org/blog- ... of-mormon/

[_Lemmie]

Here you go, full circle back to The Interpreter and the use of Bayes as apologetic tool: https://interpreterfoundation.org/blog- ... of-mormon/

Fascinating, Honorentheos.

And WOW, look at this in the comments from a "Bruce":

1. Bruce on November 9, 2013 at 9:23 pm
There is another (but still equivalent) form of Bayes rule that might make this point more clearly and less controversially than the form in the blog above:

odds(H|E)/odds(H) = prob(E|H)/prob(E|H*)

We don’t need to guess individual values for any of the quantities here to show how Bayes’ rule can help us in thinking about The Late War and Book of Mormon authorship and influence questions.

This equation says that the ratio of (posterior odds of H to prior odds of H) is equal to the ratio of the [probability of a true positive (sensitivity) to the probability of a false positive (specificity)].

If a true positive is much more likely than a false positive, the posterior odds increases relative to the prior odds. If a true positive is about as likely as a false positive, the posterior odds stays about the same as the prior odds.

...In my opinion, sensitivity is decreased and specificity is increased by at least two features of the Johnsons’ study:

1. the massive search model tends to produce false positives.

2. the dependence of weights on a randomly selected corpus (from books of many genres between 1500 and 1830) tends to affect sensitivity and specificity in unpredictable ways; I can conceive of ways in which sensitivity is decreased and specificity is increased.

...If Bayes’ rule can focus our attention on aspects of the procedure that need to be assessed and improved, we are the better for it.

Interesting. Bruce can "conceive of ways" to increase and decrease the probabilities? It's never a good sign when the earliest discussions are of how to spin the data to get a desired result.

It seems Bruce Dale has realized quite well for many years that if the hypothesis H is that the Book of Mormon is fictional, then the assumption that all false positives = 1 and all true positives are less than 1, combined with a situation where the absolute number of false positives exceeds the number of true negatives, will ALWAYS result in the probability of the Book of Mormon being exceedingly large, if independence is assumed. Talk about fixing the outcome.

[_Philo Sofee]

Here you go, full circle back to The Interpreter and the use of Bayes as apologetic tool: https://interpreterfoundation.org/blog- ... of-mormon/

Fascinating, Honorentheos.

And WOW, look at this in the comments from a "Bruce":

1. Bruce on November 9, 2013 at 9:23 pm
There is another (but still equivalent) form of Bayes rule that might make this point more clearly and less controversially than the form in the blog above:

odds(H|E)/odds(H) = prob(E|H)/prob(E|H*)

We don’t need to guess individual values for any of the quantities here to show how Bayes’ rule can help us in thinking about The Late War and Book of Mormon authorship and influence questions.

This equation says that the ratio of (posterior odds of H to prior odds of H) is equal to the ratio of the [probability of a true positive (sensitivity) to the probability of a false positive (specificity)].

If a true positive is much more likely than a false positive, the posterior odds increases relative to the prior odds. If a true positive is about as likely as a false positive, the posterior odds stays about the same as the prior odds.

...In my opinion, sensitivity is decreased and specificity is increased by at least two features of the Johnsons’ study:

1. the massive search model tends to produce false positives.

2. the dependence of weights on a randomly selected corpus (from books of many genres between 1500 and 1830) tends to affect sensitivity and specificity in unpredictable ways; I can conceive of ways in which sensitivity is decreased and specificity is increased.

...If Bayes’ rule can focus our attention on aspects of the procedure that need to be assessed and improved, we are the better for it.

Interesting. Bruce can "conceive of ways" to increase and decrease the probabilities? It's never a good sign when the earliest discussions are of how to spin the data to get a desired result.

It seems Bruce Dale has realized quite well for many years that if the hypothesis H is that the Book of Mormon is fictional, then the assumption that all false positives = 1 and all true positives are less than 1, combined with a situation where the absolute number of false positives exceeds the number of true negatives, will ALWAYS result in the probability of the Book of Mormon being exceedingly large, if independence is assumed. Talk about fixing the outcome.

HOWLING LAUGHTER OF DELIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have never seen such clowning before in Mormon apologetics, and there has been plenty, even earlier with my own contributions, but this has absolutely taken the gold medal! Lemmie, you and everyone else in this thread are just pure fabulous. THANK YOU sincerely for all you do..........

[Guest]

Here you go, full circle back to The Interpreter and the use of Bayes as apologetic tool: https://interpreterfoundation.org/blog- ... of-mormon/

Fascinating, Honorentheos.

And WOW, look at this in the comments from a "Bruce":

1. Bruce on November 9, 2013 at 9:23 pm
There is another (but still equivalent) form of Bayes rule that might make this point more clearly and less controversially than the form in the blog above:

odds(H|E)/odds(H) = prob(E|H)/prob(E|H*)

We don’t need to guess individual values for any of the quantities here to show how Bayes’ rule can help us in thinking about The Late War and Book of Mormon authorship and influence questions.

This equation says that the ratio of (posterior odds of H to prior odds of H) is equal to the ratio of the [probability of a true positive (sensitivity) to the probability of a false positive (specificity)].

If a true positive is much more likely than a false positive, the posterior odds increases relative to the prior odds. If a true positive is about as likely as a false positive, the posterior odds stays about the same as the prior odds.

...In my opinion, sensitivity is decreased and specificity is increased by at least two features of the Johnsons’ study:

1. the massive search model tends to produce false positives.

2. the dependence of weights on a randomly selected corpus (from books of many genres between 1500 and 1830) tends to affect sensitivity and specificity in unpredictable ways; I can conceive of ways in which sensitivity is decreased and specificity is increased.

...If Bayes’ rule can focus our attention on aspects of the procedure that need to be assessed and improved, we are the better for it.

Interesting. Bruce can "conceive of ways" to increase and decrease the probabilities? It's never a good sign when the earliest discussions are of how to spin the data to get a desired result.

It seems Bruce Dale has realized quite well for many years that if the hypothesis H is that the Book of Mormon is fictional, then the assumption that all false positives = 1 and all true positives are less than 1, combined with a situation where the absolute number of false positives exceeds the number of true negatives, will ALWAYS result in the probability of the Book of Mormon being exceedingly large, if independence is assumed. Talk about fixing the outcome.

Wow is right. Great find, Lemmie. That's quite damning at so many levels. It seems he is not only aware of the most common complaints against their paper but intentionally set up the model to ensure the outcome with full knowledge of the effects it would cause. Never mind using the available expansive dataset isn't just an option when seeking to apply Bayes, or that creating predictability (i.e. cherry picking) makes it an exercise in fitting the results to the predetermined "conclusions". Absolutely wow.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

Professor Lemmie,

GREAT detective work!

What do you think the Interpreter will ultimately do with this paper? The Dales' paper has been thoroughly and soundly debunked and exposed as junk science. It's a huge black eye for the reputation of the Interpreter.

What academic standards or protocol should be followed? Would the academically honest course of action be to immediately pull the article, have the Dales revise it and have it peer reviewed?

[_honorentheos]

The comments from The Late War post at The Interpreter seem complicated by having the author with the given name Bruce as well as a commentor named Bruce.

The author, Bruce Schaalje, posts in the comments under his full name. There are also comments under the first name only "Bruce" that appear to be in the voice of the author. But the post quoted by Lemmie as well as another post appear to be by a different Bruce than Bruce Schaalje, and include indications his background with Bayes comes from weeding out false positives in plant genomics testing which would fit Bruce Dale's biofuels background. But it's a bit tangled up as to when and if the author is responding or it's a different Bruce, who appears likely to be Bruce Dale.

[_Arc]

Professor Lemmie,

GREAT detective work!

What do you think the Interpreter will ultimately do with this paper? The Dales' paper has been thoroughly and soundly debunked and exposed as junk science. It's a huge black eye for the reputation of the Interpreter.

What academic standards or protocol should be followed? Would the academically honest course of action be to immediately pull the article, have the Dales revise it and have it peer reviewed?

As suggested to Dr. Bruce Dale in a PM via Brant Gardner, the paper should be formally retracted, in writing, and taken down from the Interpreter site. The Interpreter could take the extraordinary step of also removing the comments. The URL should be left with the retraction alone.

The paper cannot be salvaged as a scholarly work any more than a paper describing a flat Earth or a perpetual motion machine could be salvaged.

[_Everybody Wang Chung]

As suggested to Dr. Bruce Dale in a PM via Brant Gardner, the paper should be formally retracted, in writing, and taken down from the Interpreter site. The Interpreter could take the extraordinary step of also removing the comments. The URL should be left with the retraction alone.

The paper cannot be salvaged as a scholarly work any more than a paper describing a flat Earth or a perpetual motion machine could be salvaged.

WOW!

Brant Gardner sent a PM to Dr. Bruce Dale requesting the paper should be formally retracted in writing and taken down from the Interpreter site?!

My respect for Brant Gardner was already high, but now it is through the roof! It's reassuring to know there are still apologists out there like Brant who place some value on academic honesty and integrity.

This will not sit well with Priestcraft Peter$on.