John Gee's FAIR Presentation

[_Darth J]

Guys, I'm telling you: the cipher key is on the missing part of the papyrus.

[Guest]

The only specific information given by Gee about our alleged error was that "It's a scalar issue. But you won't know what that means."

He's right, I don't know what that means. Maybe he could give us a clue by telling us which scalar has the "issue".

[_Equality]

I think he said it was a Skylar issue. Have the authors recently bought a car wash?

[_Cicero]

Is he cryptically referring to the unpublished arguments in Will Schryver's article that was pulled by Jerry Bradford? Will has claimed that his article definitively proves that Smith and Cook are wrong, and I think Will has also claimed that Gee has read the article.

As we've said on this board many times, it's very easy for apologists to make whatever claims they want re Will's article while it remains unpublished. If this goes on much longer, they are going to start claiming that the article contains a translation of the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon.

[_Kishkumen]

I will go on record yet again with the following:

1) It doesn't matter what Gee says.
2) Refer to #1.

[_Shulem]

I will go on record yet again with the following:

1) It doesn't matter what Gee says.
2) Refer to #1.

Gee is a goddamn lying snake. I trust him no farther than I can throw him.

Paul O

[_Stormy Waters]

Trust in JOHN GEE with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

[_J Green]

I was there.

Dr. Gee's remarks hit a number of topics, and this issue was simply one of them, and he didn't spend much time on it. He talked briefly about the formula he had used for predicting the lenght of a scroll and then contrasted it with the one that Chris and Andrew had developed. He then stated that while formulas are all well and good, there can be problems with any of them, including the one he used. So he proposed using the Toronto scroll as the control group. He stated that based on using these two methodologies against the Toronto Scroll, he felt that there were five errors in Chris and Andrew's paper: four of them had to do with errors in their formula, while the remaining error consisted of asssumptions about the Joseph Smith Papryi. (This may be the "scalar" issue, but I don't remember that he used that word, so I can't comment on it.)

Dr. Gee then showed a graph that depicted the length of the Toronto Scroll in linear fashion, with a line far below it that he said represented Chris and Andrew's formula that drastically under-predicted the length of the Toronto Scroll. The line representing his own formula was fairly close to the actual scroll length.

Gee then showed another graph where Chris and Andrew's formula line was now fairly close to the actual Toronto line. Gee stated that one of Chris and Andrew's errors in their formula was critical enough that fixing that one error alone would bring their prediction into close proximity of the actual outcome and that he was showing their "corrected" line with this one error being fixed. He then circled three spikes and depressions in this "corrected" line (which criss-crossed the actual Toronto scroll line at several points) and said that the other three errors were minor issues that caused these specific spikes and depressions. At that point he reiterated that the fifth error had to do with assumptions about the Joseph Smith Papyri rather than with the formula itself.

This was a fairly short point that was one of a baker's dozen of points he wanted to make about the Book of Abraham, and it went by fairly quickly. He did not provide any documentation or details about these errors. As the presentation is underway, those in attendance are invited to write questions for the presenter on 3x5 cards, which are then given to Scott Gordon, who presents them to the speaker. The speaker can choose to read them or not and/or answer them or not. Among many other questions presented to him on other aspects of his presentation, Dr. Gee read one that asked him to provide more detail about the errors. He stated simply that he had presented that portion as a teaser for Chris and Andrew; that these were their errors, and that they could identify these errors themselves.

I think that was it.

Regards

[_Chap]

I was there.
.... Among many other questions presented to him on other aspects of his presentation, Dr. Gee read one that asked him to provide more detail about the errors. He stated simply that he had presented that portion as a teaser for Chris and Andrew; that these were their errors, and that they could identify these errors themselves.

...

I'd like to see Gee try to get away with that kind of trick in a professional Egyptological meeting. There would be a shocked silence, followed by loud laughter. If the chairman was any good, he would then say something like 'C'mon John, you can't get away with that. Tell us what the errors are."

[_CaliforniaKid]

Thanks, J Green.

The errors, whatever they were, actually originated with Gee. As the publication of Andrew's forthcoming response in Dialogue will show, our method produces accurate predictions when applied to the Toronto scroll.