DiscussMormonism.com

Interesting. They had accepted my last comment this afternoon but now it's gone. There appears to have been another comment removed as well given total dropped by two.

They apparently didn't want the last comment to be a question why John Wesley's beliefs about covenants that were fundamental to Methodism branching off from the Church of England aren't considered a more probable match to the content of the Book of Mormon than ritual bloodletting. Given Joseph Smith was familiar enough to have sought membership among them before the authoring the Book of Mormon it makes for stronger evidence for the 19th c. authorship theory. Given which, perhaps his time and effort would be best spent addressing those issues lest he come back in a year and find his 131 correspondences have evaporated to none, making his second paper irrelevant?

Don't know why that wouldn't have been seen as a fitting final note.

They also dropped my question to Allen Wyatt.

He said that the CO2 explanation was possible - I asked him if would agree that it was improbable. We'll never know his answer.

I find that amusing - since this whole paper is about probabilities.

CO2 is heavier than air, true. It is still a fluid. It does not coat the landscape in an even layer like peanut butter spread onto hillsides. It flows downhill like water.

So this scenario of a knee-deep CO2 layer that would stop fires from being lit but not suffocate anyone could only happen on a perfectly flat plain. Otherwise the CO2 would slip away from high ground, allowing fires to be lit there with no trouble, and fill valleys to well above human height, causing mass suffocation.

Someone recently referred to the greatest guesser article by the Dales’, in looking back over the comments I noted this by the authors:

Bruce E. Dale on July 22, 2019 at 11:57 am said:
July 22, 2019
...In the two different scientific communities to which Brian and I belong, if you want your own opinions to be taken seriously, you must competently address the findings of those who may disagree with you. Apparently, this is not a requirement among critics of the Book of Mormon, or that of many of the critics of this article.

I find this to be a most unprofessional and petty statement. For a person who presents themselves as an “academic,” making this statement in the non-peer-reviewed venue of the interpreter is just laughable. The Dales did NOT address the many, many concerns brought up in the 800+ comment section, and their final, 10 part response discusses math and statistics in such an embarrassing, amateur way that I don’t think the interpreter will ever recover from the association with this article. Not that the interpreter was ever considered an actual journal prior to this, but in my opinion, the publication of this utter joke of a paper sealed the deal.

Physics Guy wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 29, 2019 3:21 am

So this scenario of a knee-deep CO2 layer that would stop fires from being lit but not suffocate anyone could only happen on a perfectly flat plane. Otherwise, the CO2 would slip away from high ground, allowing fires to be lit there with no trouble, and fill valleys to well above human height, causing mass suffocation.

Apologetics do not need to be true, it just needs to be offered. That way someone in the ward can always say that the Men in Black down in Provo have the answers for all questions covered.

Lemmie wrote: ↑

Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:07 am

Someone recently referred to the greatest guesser article by the Dales’, in looking back over the comments I noted this by the authors:

Bruce E. Dale on July 22, 2019 at 11:57 am said:
July 22, 2019
...In the two different scientific communities to which Brian and I belong, if you want your own opinions to be taken seriously, you must competently address the findings of those who may disagree with you. Apparently, this is not a requirement among critics of the Book of Mormon, or that of many of the critics of this article.

I find this to be a most unprofessional and petty statement. For a person who presents themselves as an “academic,” making this statement in the non-peer-reviewed venue of the interpreter is just laughable. The Dales did NOT address the many, many concerns brought up in the 800+ comment section, and their final, 10 part response discusses math and statistics in such an embarrassing, amateur way that I don’t think the interpreter will ever recover from the association with this article. Not that the interpreter was ever considered an actual journal prior to this, but in my opinion, the publication of this utter joke of a paper sealed the deal.

One of the best and most succinct observations about the fundamental problem with the Dale's embarrassment of an academic study.

By the way, Kirk Magleby put me in stitches with this comment, made in the middle of his FairMormon 2019 presentation. What is the assertion here, that More Comments == More Truth?

Magleby wrote:Now I really like this article, and hats off to Dan Peterson and his team there at Interpreter that had the guts to publish this. We’ve got a couple of engineers here who said, you know what? Let’s go take a look at statistical analysis and see if the Book of Mormon really fits in ancient Mesoamerica context. And they came up with a probability number that was off the charts. The probability is extraordinarily high that this book fits in this ancient context. Well, the naysayers, and the critics, and so forth had a field day. And I have it on good authority that this is the most heavily commented article Interpreter has ever published.

https://www.fairmormon.org/conference/a ... he-prophet

Why shouldn't the opposite be true, that More Comments == More Problematic Scholarship?

Dr. Moore
Why shouldn't the opposite be true, that More Comments == More Problematic Scholarship?

This reminds me of Boyd Packers comment that Jesus is mentioned more times in the Book of Mormon than any other book, and therefore it is evidence that its true! I mean with such silly thinkless words, who couldn't get a testimony?

They aren't taught how to think, but what to think. Their myopia is visible for all to see, except among themselves. They are truly blind to actual logic.

Bump, just because this thread is so rockin hot to shot the silliness of Mopologetics misuse and misunderstanding of Bayes Theorem.