A response from Billy to the Rasmussen post I quoted in the OP, and then a response from Bruce Dale to Billy:
Billy Shears on October 10, 2021 at 9:39 am
[Rasmussen:] “This feels like an odd bet to make. His paper’s been published for all to see. You, as a credentialed expert, have made your views thoroughly known where anyone reading the paper can see. I’m sure you could find people who’d agree with you, but I’m not sure why you’d need to certify that fact.”
I was selected as an expert witness in a legal dispute involving several billion dollars. The two parties were under contract to have their dispute settled by arbitration. The arbitration was to be settled by a panel of three arbitrators, and the method for selecting the panel was clearly laid out in the contract.
Despite the fact the contract said disputes will be settled by arbitration, for over a year the case was tied up in court. The two parties were suing each other over who the three arbitrators will be.
I bring this up because it illustrates that in a real-world dispute, people have different views, philosophies, and biases. If your position is the least bit reasonable, it’s relatively easy to find people who will agree with your side or are likely to agree with your side.
The point of my proposed bet is not for me to find people who agree with me. Doing so would be beyond easy. The point is this: can Bruce find a single qualified expert who agrees with him and is willing to say so publicly? For purposes of my bet, the arbitration panel is one person hand-picked by Bruce. As long as the individual is in fact qualified to state an opinion, it can be *anybody* Bruce chooses. Can he find one expert–just one–who agrees with him? The scope here is just one narrow question: is his methodology (i.e. “the existence (or not) of those correspondences is the critical issue here”) valid?
[Rasmussen:] “In my estimation, the best way to move the conversation forward would be to contribute to it, officially and publically. Instead of a 2-3 pager, why don’t you put together a full paper? I’m sure Dialogue would be happy to publish it.”
I won’t put together a full paper because there is no need to. Bruce’s basic methodology (i.e. counting specific, detailed, and unusual correspondences) is so fundamentally flawed it is self-refuting. Just as it is beneath the dignity of, say, the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology to respond, it is beneath the dignity of Dialogue to respond. Outside of the Interpreter’s bubble, nobody takes this seriously.
I’m genuinely interested in seeing if Bruce could find a single expert who thinks his methodology isn’t fundamentally flawed. Just one. I’m betting he can’t, am willing to pay money to get the question answered.
Bruce Dale on October 10, 2021 at 1:17 pm
No thanks, Billy.
You want to focus on a methodology you think is flawed. But I don’t see why you are concerned about how to analyze evidence that you obviously don’t believe exists in the first place. If you are thinking we made up those 131 correspondences we cited in our Interpreter paper, then just say so and have done with it. If the evidence doesn’t exist, we are wasting time here.
I agree that almost any analytical methodology has limitations. The Bayesian method my son Brian and I applied in our Interpreter paper may indeed be the best choice among set of bad options. It may be the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry. But before it was published, that paper went through one of the most rigorous and demanding reviews that I have ever experienced in 40 plus years of writing 300 plus research papers and 60 plus patents.
The review of our paper included an explicit review of the Bayesian analytical framework, and was judged satisfactory. But from my point of view, the most important quality control on the Bayesian statistics was provided by my son Brian, a Ph. D. biomedical engineer who uses Bayesian methods every day in his job at Siemens Medical Solutions.
So if you think our paper was flawed, I invite you to do better, as Kyler has suggested. Write your own paper on Michael Coe’s description of the culture, geography, warfare, religion, political structures, etc. of ancient Mesoamerica as compared with corresponding statements in the Book of Mormon. Use a better analytical methodology, get your paper peer-reviewed and published. Then maybe we can discuss this issue further.
Until then, I am done with this discussion on Episode 14…write whatever you want in reply. I am going to do more productive and useful things.
Bruce
Hmm.
Bruce Dale wrote:
....The Bayesian method my son Brian and I applied in our Interpreter paper may indeed be the best choice among set of bad options. It may be the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry. But before [our paper using the Bayesian method] was published [in the Interpreter], that paper went through one of the most rigorous and demanding reviews that I have ever experienced in 40 plus years of writing 300 plus research papers and 60 plus patents.
The review of our paper included an explicit review of the Bayesian analytical framework, and was judged satisfactory.
By whom?
Bruce Dale wrote:
But from my point of view, the most important quality control on the Bayesian statistics was provided by my son Brian, a Ph. D. biomedical engineer who uses Bayesian methods every day in his job at Siemens Medical Solutions.
His co-author? Who applies a Bayesian model to medical environments where he has an objectively measurable set of independent data points, and where not only are true positives and true negatives objectively considered, but also false positives and false negatives. These authors then applied this specialized knowledge by drawing from a single source, a non- 'sample' of almost exclusively positives, all found in a single book written by a single author and therefore by definition not independent in the most basic level. They subjectively measured the value, based on their opinion, of ONLY true positives, and then arbitrarily threw in a few true negatives, not sampled in any legitimate way, and completely ignored all false positives and false negatives.
And Dale says this bizarre methodology passed the most rigorous review he's ever encountered? Sorry, no. That's not a credible statement from him.
But this statement from Dale tells me he is, maybe purposefully but maybe not, missing the entire point about his faulty analysis:
...If you are thinking we made up those 131 correspondences we cited in our Interpreter paper, then just say so and have done with it. If the evidence doesn’t exist, we are wasting time here...
I really don't see that statement coming from someone who understands the math. That is a troublingly naïve objection to make, in the face of some very specific mathematical concerns that have been brought up. I am really beginning to doubt that Bruce Dale understands the math at all.
(No, really. https://insaner.com/calvinball/rules.html )