The Interpreter; Bayes Theorem; Nephites and Mayans

[_honorentheos]

When i was looking at the comment about gold and silver, i noticed at least 9 comments where the correspondence relied upon a Mayan lowland behavior.

Comments about lowlands that were used to support the Dales hits included "hived off from the southern Lowlands," "people in the lowlands," " in the case of the lowland Maya," “The lowland Maya almost always...," " cities in the Maya lowlands," "this remote part of the Maya lowlands," etc, etc.

However, in the comment supporting a LR = 0.5 regarding refined gold, the story suddenly changed:


"Coe resists the idea that the lowland Maya had much refined gold before about AD 800, well after the Book of Mormon times.

But the Book of Mormon does not claim to be set among the lowland Maya, so this is irrelevant."


What. the. HELL?????

So that's 10 correspondences that the Dales used to support a historical Book of Mormon, that are just nonsense, because they rely on the Dales taking the exact opposite position as their final one. Again, a peer reviewer doesn't have to be a Book of Mormon expert to catch such intellectual dishonesty.

Another great find, Lemmie. Wow. It should be telling that an issue of this magnitude is practically a footnote and hasn't been brought before due to the many, many other issues.

[_honorentheos]

Thanks H, that post by Billy Shears on the calendar is epic. As I've said before, Billy Shears is a personal hero of mine. What a great intellect and communicator! No wonder the SeN commentors loathe him!

I wasn't familiar with him but he has certainly been impressive in the comments at The Interpreter. To be honest, I had wondered if it was Analytics or someone else from here posting under that name. Guess not.

[_honorentheos]

His latest post is a nice, narrative caution outlining why the Dales may want to reconsider having this publication attributable to them and easily discovered on the web. I won't quote it, but it's worth a visit to the comments to read.

Using professional credentials in an attempt to lend credibility to pseudoscience nonsense in the public domain, as the Dales have chosen to do with the Interpreter paper, is never a good idea. There can be real world consequences for scientists who are listed as authors.

Published and well respected scientific staff are a technology company asset. When these assets publicly damage their own credibility, they erode the reputation of the company they work for.

There can be problems all around if the poorly conceived and executed material they author, even as a hobby, attracts the attention of persons who may be clients, or potential clients, of the author's employer.

The longer the debate on the internet continues, and the deeper hole the authors dig for themselves defending what is an increasingly indefensible position, the more likely it is that there will be consequences in the real world.

The internet can be forever. The only rational decision for two Ph.D. authors who stumble into such an ambush, and value their careers, is to pull the publication and request that the Interpreter flush the whole sordid mess, paper, comments and all, down the memory hole. All involved on the LDS side here should simply follow the example set by their Mormon leaders, who are adept at using the memory hole whenever deemed expedient.


Having commented about to Dales' paper directly on the Interpreter site to no avail, this comment is posted here.

First, welcome to the board, Arc. It is unfortunate if the moderators at The Interpreter are stopping your sharing what can only be described as the best advice possible. While it seems Dr. Bruce Dale may be a die-hard Book of Mormon apologist who has less to lose at this stage in his career, it's a tragedy that his father's Ahab-like blind attack against Coe has trapped Brian in it's tangled netting for whom there is much more negative fallout potential. Not least of which being he is supposedly the one with the knowledge of Bayes that was abused to construct this white whale hunt.

[_Morley]

Thanks H, that post by Billy Shears on the calendar is epic. As I've said before, Billy Shears is a personal hero of mine. What a great intellect and communicator! No wonder the SeN commentors loathe him!

I wasn't familiar with him but he has certainly been impressive in the comments at The Interpreter. To be honest, I had wondered if it was Analytics or someone else from here posting under that name. Guess not.

I had the same thought.

By the way, this thread continues to be solid gold. Thank you all for keeping it alive and vibrant.

[_SteelHead]

Anybody copying the page systematically, a few times daily for when it does get flushed down the memory hole?

[Guest]

His latest post is a nice, narrative caution outlining why the Dales may want to reconsider having this publication attributable to them and easily discovered on the web. I won't quote it, but it's worth a visit to the comments to read.

Using professional credentials in an attempt to lend credibility to pseudoscience nonsense in the public domain, as the Dales have chosen to do with the Interpreter paper, is never a good idea. There can be real world consequences for scientists who are listed as authors.

Published and well respected scientific staff are a technology company asset. When these assets publicly damage their own credibility, they erode the reputation of the company they work for.

There can be problems all around if the poorly conceived and executed material they author, even as a hobby, attracts the attention of persons who may be clients, or potential clients, of the author's employer.

I read this literally ten minutes after reading this:

https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/05/22/do ... ists-14049

[_honorentheos]

Moinmoin, do you believe what Arc described is an example of doxxing or a call for the same? I read it as a common sense point that a bad paper using questionable methodology essentially contradicting the consensus view in a particular field relying on quantified results stating the diffierence between the authors findings and those of the filed at large are exponential orders of magnitude apart is probably not something someone wants on their CV or resume.

[_moinmoin]

Moinmoin, do you believe what Arc described is an example of doxxing or a call for the same? I read it as a common sense point that a bad paper using questionable methodology and including results essentially contradicting the consensus view in a particular field relying on quantified results stating the diffierence between the authors findings and those of the filed at large are exponential orders of magnitude apart is probably not someone wants on their CV.

No, I'm definitely not calling for doxxing. I just found it interesting that reading the post and the article happened at nearly the same time.

What Arc described wouldn't be doxxing, because names are attached to published papers. That's fair game, then.

[_Lemmie]

Moinmoin, do you believe what Arc described is an example of doxxing or a call for the same? I read it as a common sense point that a bad paper using questionable methodology and including results essentially contradicting the consensus view in a particular field relying on quantified results stating the diffierence between the authors findings and those of the filed at large are exponential orders of magnitude apart is probably not someone wants on their CV.

No, I'm definitely not calling for doxxing. I just found it interesting that reading the post and the article happened at nearly the same time.

Wow. What an unbelievable coincidence. Like the Dales, I give it a 1 in a billion chance of being non-fiction.

What Arc described wouldn't be doxxing, because names are attached to published papers. That's fair game, then.

Oh. So you found it interesting and wanted to mention that you read an article titled "Doxxing, the newest strategy to destroy scientists" just before you read this thread, even though it is not discussing the same concept. What was your point in mentioning the unrelated article, then?

[_moinmoin]

Oh. So you found it interesting and wanted to mention that you read an article titled "Doxxing, the newest strategy to destroy scientists" just before you read this thread, even though it is not discussing the same concept. What was your point in mentioning the unrelated article, then?

It was relevant to Arc's point about writings being used to attempt to cause "real life" consequences. They aren't a 1:1 match, because the article was talking about doxxing, and Arc was talking about blowback from having written a (name-attached) paper.