QFT emphasis mine.
So much more than this, but that's a good start.Analytics wrote: Whether you are a Texas sharpshooter depends upon your assumptions. When Kyler says there is a 0.0001% chance that a fictional book would be written in 65 days but a 100% chance that a historical book would be, the second half of that is the Texas sharpshooting. If somebody else were to reply that the chances are 0.00001% for a fictional book to be written in 65 days and the chances are 0.00001% for a historical book to be written in 65 days, he is not Texas sharpshooting.
(1) What are the chances that a practiced fictional story-teller (treasure digs) turned Biblical story teller (Methodist exhorter) will spend XX number of years concocting, plus YY days to dictate Bible fan fiction, for which there is virtually no comparable product, and subsequently not bother with careful editing? Is it really 0.00001% or is the better answer that "For this prior, we have no idea because we have insufficient data to construct a control group and the book itself is a singular work of art by a singular artist.
(2) What are the chances that a historical book could be transcribed in 65 days by miraculous means? Well, ok then. It should be 100% - right? Let's go with that, but this assumption also exposes the evidence point to a separate qualifying Bayesian test. If words are read from a stone, written, read back and then verified, what is the "penalty" to the miraculous claim if 1 mistake is made? What is the "penalty" to the miraculous claim if 1.5 mistakes per 150 words are made? And if anachronisms appear, what is the "penalty" for 1 anachronism? What is the penalty for 16th or 19th century anachronistic phraseology appearing? And yes, every anachronism must be evaluated separately. And moreover, what is the penalty for having *both* transcription errors AND anachronisms?
So for (2) above, one option is amateur sharpshooter hour, assuming chances at 100% for dictation of a truly ancient text. But to be serious, the Mopologists have to apply rigor on that assumption, which means they have to do something they don't want to do -- as Doctor Scratch suggested earlier. Which is to properly consider evidence of tight and loose translation theories on their merits and as mutually exclusive criteria.
As Analytics points out here, the net outcome is that the gap between authenticity and forgery will close. Instead of 1% vs 0.00001%, we may end up with two equally remote scenarios, which means Kyler's study, if done seriously, would have to conclude that the dictation process is indistinguishable from fraud.