The Interpreter; Bayes Theorem; Nephites and Mayans

[_honorentheos]

Thanks for pointing those out Lemmie. I think it's one of the arguments that keeps getting lost in the bigger scurfuffle. But one of Bruce's comments this weekend clarified that the only reason the two so called controls were even performed was due to a peer review request. Apparently a couple of months were given to reading both VotH and MF. And a narrow reading of the comment suggests the reading and assessing was done by Bruce without Brian. Anyway, this in combination with the comments Billy made a while back showing the methodology used with the controls meqns the VotH should be considered a remarkable hit even if the Dales' insist this is offset by a high skeptical prior suggests the controls are exploitable as exposing the glaring weaknesses in the paper outside of the emotional attachment some may feel towards the Book of Mormon.

Note that Bruce recognizes in his answer that pearls should be counted as a "negative" correspondence because they appear in the Book of Mormon but not The Mayans. But their stated methodology says that they disregarded all statements in the Book of Mormon that weren't addressed in The Maya. He can't keep his own methodology straight.

Also a great point. They did this with their comparisons with MF and VotH too. There are a few places they said something mentioned in one of the texts wasn't a match for something in The Maya and used it to bump the negative scoring. The earthen box example, say.

[_Gadianton]

Another good catch. I wouldn't have thought of it but in retrospect I think we should have been suspicious. It makes little to no sense that a book is going to specifically mention things that aren't in Mesoamerica like, they didn't speak Japanese or fly helicopters, unless there is some reason beyond any context that necessarily makes it any more or less a valid point of comparison than something not mentioned. I think we've discussed that before. But if we were wondering what actually came from Coe's book directly for the negative correspondence and if he had to look elsewhere, it should have been a sign that you can't really do the analysis with "controls" according to the stated method (which is beneath stupid).

It is telling that this was an additional two months of work. It adds credibility to the shocking statement by Book of Mormon Central that Interpreter really has been considering this one for a year.

[_Physics Guy]

I think Gadianton's bike lock interpretation of my alternate Books of Mormon scenario is correct. Many books could all correspond with the Maya just as well as the Dales find the Book of Mormon to do, just as many multi-ringed bike locks could all share a few combination digits.

For me the point of the alternate books scenario is not to illustrate any one particular flaw in the Dales' analysis, though, but just to show that there has to be something big wrong with the Dales' argument somewhere. If the Dales' methodology is sound, then the Book of Mormon isn't the only book that is virtually guaranteed to be authentic. A whole library of completely different stories about Mesoamerican Israelites would have to be historically authentic as well. But that's absurd. So there has to be something badly wrong with the methodology.

I don't expect to convince the Dales themselves, but there might be readers who are uncertain about all the math and logic but who could get my idea about the alternate books. If they then became prepared to look seriously for major flaws in the methodology, they would be able to see them, because indeed once you actually look they're so big you can't miss them.

[_Lemmie]

Thanks for pointing those out Lemmie. I think it's one of the arguments that keeps getting lost in the bigger scurfuffle. But one of Bruce's comments this weekend clarified that the only reason the two so called controls were even performed was due to a peer review request. Apparently a couple of months were given to reading both VotH and MF. And a narrow reading of the comment suggests the reading and assessing was done by Bruce without Brian. Anyway, this in combination with the comments Billy made a while back showing the methodology used with the controls meqns the VotH should be considered a remarkable hit even if the Dales' insist this is offset by a high skeptical prior suggests the controls are exploitable as exposing the glaring weaknesses in the paper outside of the emotional attachment some may feel towards the Book of Mormon.

You're right, I had forgotten it was brought up earlier, the admission that a peer review request added them somewhat explains the ad hoc quality, although one would think a second peer review would at least have pointed out that the methodology should remain the same. I'm being generous, though, maintaining the same methodology is just basic statistics.

So in the end, what we see is that the Dales maintained their Book of Mormon 131 positive correspondences by arguing it would be dishonest to add missing and conflicting data as negative correspondences, even though their peer review apparently insisted they add the missing and conflicting data as negative correspondences in their control studies?

Maybe peer review tried, but the Dales refused to listen, and rather than insist on quality work, the Interpreter published it anyway.

[_I have a question]

Hi Scott:
You are welcome to ask for a retraction if you wish. However, neither my son nor I will retract the article voluntarily and Interpreter has already said that the article will not be retracted.
Bruce Dale

Intransigence when you are shown to be in error is the hallmark of good scholarship. No, wait, I might have that wrong...

[_Lemmie]

Another poster summarizes some issues quite well. I'm only posting their summary, but they went through numerous examples as well:

Canopy on June 12, 2019 at 12:51 am said:

First, I sincerely applaud the authors for publishing this with their names attached, likely knowing that they would receive significant pushback. They’re the ones showing courage, while anonymous critics like me are playing the coward.

Having said that, I see several problems in the paper. I think all of them have been mentioned by other commenters, but I’m going to restate them in a way that’s helpful to me, even if it’s useless for everyone else.

What I see as systemic problems, which I’ll discuss below:

#1 The authors don’t take into account the bias introduced by their selection criterion.
#2 The problem in #1 isn’t replicated in the control studies (Manuscript Found and A View of the Hebrews) because the authors seem to apply different standards in those cases. This flexibility in standards is described in #3-#6.
#3 The protocol doesn’t specify which details to include or exclude when identifying a statement of fact.
#4 The protocol isn’t clear on what constitutes a correspondence.
#5 The protocol doesn’t specify how to determine whether a correspondence is positive or negative.
#6 The protocol doesn’t clearly specify how to determine a correspondence’s magnitude.

And some problems that I’ll just mention:

#7 The authors often point out differences between the relatively advanced Nephites/Maya and the more primitive American Indians. Are they tacitly assuming that if Joseph Smith invented the Nephites, he would be likely to pattern them after the American Indians?
#8 Through logic I don’t understand, the authors claim that the magnitude of a negative correspondence “must be the reciprocal” of what it would be if it were positive.
#9 The authors are inconsistent in describing the scope of the analysis and results.
#10 Other miscellaneous problems specific to various data points (“seating”, north, whoredoms, etc).

Explanations and examples problems #1-#6...

[_Lemmie]

Honorentheos, you do have a way of getting right to the heart of things:

Honorentheos
on June 18, 2019 at 7:57 am said:

Also, you have all but made the claim that the Book of Mormon is factual, and that it overlaps the Mayan culture with such unbelievable correspondence there should be nothing on Earth a person should be more sure of than that. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say you aren’t making a claim regarding the BoMs origins.

And may I add my congratulations re: your comments over there! I love to read your contributions, and it's frustrating, but quite telling, that the authors can't figure out how to adequately respond to your points. Thank you.

[_Lemmie]

I think Gadianton's bike lock interpretation of my alternate Books of Mormon scenario is correct. Many books could all correspond with the Maya just as well as the Dales find the Book of Mormon to do, just as many multi-ringed bike locks could all share a few combination digits.

For me the point of the alternate books scenario is not to illustrate any one particular flaw in the Dales' analysis, though, but just to show that there has to be something big wrong with the Dales' argument somewhere. If the Dales' methodology is sound, then the Book of Mormon isn't the only book that is virtually guaranteed to be authentic. A whole library of completely different stories about Mesoamerican Israelites would have to be historically authentic as well. But that's absurd. So there has to be something badly wrong with the methodology.

I don't expect to convince the Dales themselves, but there might be readers who are uncertain about all the math and logic but who could get my idea about the alternate books. If they then became prepared to look seriously for major flaws in the methodology, they would be able to see them, because indeed once you actually look they're so big you can't miss them.

Excellent points, physics guy.

It's as though the authors have decided that every single positive parallel and coincidence (of course defined by them, after the fact, and only drawn from their source) gets the utmost, independent weight in proving something true. How gullible would a person have to be to really think that? Literally everything can be mined for coincidences, which, as you pointed out, requires that literally everything and anything could be proven true, using their methodology.

[_honorentheos]

Honorentheos, you do have a way of getting right to the heart of things:

Honorentheos
on June 18, 2019 at 7:57 am said:

Also, you have all but made the claim that the Book of Mormon is factual, and that it overlaps the Mayan culture with such unbelievable correspondence there should be nothing on Earth a person should be more sure of than that. I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say you aren’t making a claim regarding the BoMs origins.

And may I add my congratulations re: your comments over there! I love to read your contributions, and it's frustrating, but quite telling, that the authors can't figure out how to adequately respond to your points. Thank you.

Thanks, Lemmie, that means a lot coming from you. I know I'm more of a tourist sight seeing than an expert on any particular topic, and much of my commentary there comes from being able to digest what's been said here by yourself, physics guy, Res, Gad etc. but it's entertaining being a tourist nonetheless.

[_Lemmie]

i know kirk magleby's blog entry was already posted, but i think it bears a second look:

Posted by Captain Kirk at 3:18 PM , Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Las Vegas Odds

The father/son team of Bruce and Brian Dale, both PhD engineers, published a sensational 110 page article in Interpreter on May 3, 2019 that uses Bayesian statistical analysis to demonstrate a) the Book of Mormon is historical and b) it is set in ancient Mesoamerica.

So, no matter how often the authors of the paper and the editors at the Interpreter assert that this paper is NOT asserting that "a) the Book of Mormon is historical and b) it is set in ancient Mesoamerica," the audience clearly sees it otherwise.

The smart folks at Interpreter (Dan Peterson, Allen Wyatt, Brant Gardner) anticipated a blockbuster, so they kept this article in peer review for over a year where it was polished by both Mesoamericanists and statisticians.

When the provocative piece was finally published a month ago, reactions were fast and furious. Anti-Mormons masquerading behind pen names went ballistic trying to do damage control.

Well. That pretty much sums up the academic side of why I left the Mormon church. Rather than address the critiques or explain the statistical reasoning, the LDS contingent defines objections to the paper as "...Anti-Mormons masquerading behind pen names..."

That's just bad academics. Very, very, BAD academics.