Interpretering Bayesian Analysis

[kyzabee]

The analogy to the coin flip and what you and the Dales are doing, is in the fake, ridiculous prior, and watching the evidence slowly beat the fake odds.

If the evidence was fake and the coin flips rigged, I'd agree with you. But the evidence isn't fake, and I'm doing the best I can to make sure the coin flips aren't rigged.

[kyzabee]

From beginning to end, your series is about small probabilities. What small probabilities imply and how they should be interpreted is the issue.

Some are small. Some aren't. I agree that this issue is with how they should be interpreted.

In general, I think the distributions for quantifying the unlikeliness of the Book of Mormon that you've presented are a fresh and novel way of looking at the problem. But when such an analysis indicates that a naturalistic Book of Mormon is unlikely, I have to ask myself compared to what?

And I agree that the appropriateness of the comparison is central to everything I'm doing here.

Illustrating the issue in another way, imagine somebody reading the paper backwards. If they first read the statistics you plugged into the formula, what would they infer your argument is?

If they're making the kind of inferences you're making, I suggest they refrain from reading things backwards.

Since you seem to think I'm capable of getting the comparisons right, as per Episode 2, and you didn't have much to say on Episode 3 other than to present an alternate theory (a fair thing to do, though I don't think it works well in your specific case), maybe we can just proceed and take the others a step at a time.

Going to take a break from posting for a while to make sure I can get church stuff done today. Cheers everyone!

[Philo Sofee]

And there needn't be hard data to utilize Bayes Theorem from an epistemic view.

But if there is hard data, we should probably prefer it to epistemic theorizing.

Yet this cannot be ignored, since, ultimately, it is ALL that matters. What is it that helps us believe, and WHY do we believe? That means we must take into account all evidence and background knowledge. I agree with you, but the flip side is not downgrading epistemic beliefs, but justifying them after stating what they are. That also takes into account Bayesian probabilities.

[master_dc]

This has been an interesting thread and i believe exposes the value of dialogue and discussion around these topics.

From my stand point, i am not a huge fan of utilizing Bayes in this way. The anachronisms, imho, cannot be ignored or reduced to a measure that only decreases the odds of authenticity.

For example:

If i were to author a history of my mission, lets say, 1998-2000, in Paris, France (not my timeframe or real mission), and i told stories of tracting out Jean Luc and his family, mentioned the excitement and celebrations of the world cup, the great food i ate... i could make up a believable story that could pass as being true, fairly easily. Lets say i mention once that that my companion and I got lost, but luckily our cell phone enabled us to access google maps, and we were able to reach our destination...

That one sentence, one story would make readers question the entire record. When was a truthful? when was i lying? The implications aren't earth shattering, and maybe everything was true but that one line. Maybe we used a map instead of a phone with google maps. How would Bayes handle this?

The question comes down to intent to deceive. And that is where i have major issues with the anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. It is regarded as a history of God's children, and their experiences, to bring us closer to God. If it id a true history, translated from ancient manuscripts, there should not be a single anachronism. One anachronism denotes a fraud. hard stop. It id similar to the flight of death from Pres Nelson. If he didn't add details that appear to be false (flaming oil all over the engine and wing), i don't think anyone would question the events he described. Based off the research provided on a different thread, the flaming oil sounds like an anachronism. How would Bayes handle that?

This was a bit all over the place, but i just don't think a framework that can't leverage 1 piece of falsifiable evidence to identify a fraud can or should be used to try and determine the authenticity of a historical document.

[Philo Sofee]

Excellent point masterdc... in fact, that was Throckmorton's view concerning the forgeries of Mark Hoffman. ALL it takes is one anachronism, and you then KNOW its phony. So your point here is well taken. Which anachronism have you in mind? Because I know the apologists are attempting to show what we once thought were anachronisms have turned out to not be so. Do we have one absolutely SOLID anachronism that cannot be overturned in the Book of Mormon? I'm just asking...

[Gadianton]

If the evidence was fake and the coin flips rigged, I'd agree with you. But the evidence isn't fake, and I'm doing the best I can to make sure the coin flips aren't rigged.

Most of your evidence has nothing to do with whether the Book of Mormon is ancient, but that wasn't my complaint in that post. My complaint was that your prior was rigged, because you already knew the kind of volatility there needs to be in the LR's in order to produce an upward trend with multiple positive pieces of evidence.

Like I said, if you were watching a youtube video on any subject outside of apologetics, and you saw the presenter start with an astronomically low prior, and then feign amazement as that prior dwindles in test after test, you'd turn it off, and laugh.

[Dr Moore]

Like I said, if you were watching a youtube video on any subject outside of apologetics, and you saw the presenter start with an astronomically low prior, and then feign amazement as that prior dwindles in test after test, you'd turn it off, and laugh.

QFT.

The priors KR uses should not be random people or events, but themselves are each in some way dependent Baysians with Joseph Smith himself. It’s like studying any person - a bank robber, a mentalist, a cult founder, a chess champion - and analyzing their most unique life achievements, using priors based on cherry picked criteria without controlling for the common fact that the same person exists IN the prior every time. Of course every person will turn out to be astronomically rare via such a process.. And for those who claim to speak for God, astronomically impossible not to follow. It may be fun as an amateur pastime, but the process is flawed throughout, garbage-in/garbage-out.

Which is fine - just use truth in advertising. I’ll help with a free disclaimer. “This is fun with themes and numbers, but in no way intended to be a serious academic endeavor and not at all representative of a professionally peer reviewed study.”

As for episodes 1, 2 and 3.

1 is so completely uncontrolled as to be meaningless.
2 is wholly irrelevant to the truth or falsity of the Book of Mormon. Kyler has never addressed that critique.
3 is redundant with 1 in too many ways, in particular for the reason above that it’s just another way of double counting the mind of Joseph in the prior.

Kyler claiming this exercise is useful for creating helpful dialogue about “truth” is no different than a porn producer claiming their art is helpful in fostering conversations about healthy sex.

[huckelberry]

kyzbee, this is a rather thin reply. I have read some stuff about these questions. What essays are you referring to? What am I missing?

The point of the thread, I'm pretty sure:

https://interpreterfoundation.org/estim ... vidence-0/

I suppose this is some help, it is the first connection I have seen to the specific essays you are working with.
............
unless there is a link problem only the first three essays access. I read the third.
How many hours writing and memorizing.?????????? .
I do not remember ever having imagined such a thing. It sounds unlikely.

[Gadianton]

That one sentence, one story would make readers question the entire record. When was a truthful? when was i lying? The implications aren't earth shattering, and maybe everything was true but that one line. Maybe we used a map instead of a phone with google maps. How would Bayes handle this?

Bayes could handle it fine. First of all, the probability of the stuff that is consistent with your mission isn't impressive at all with Bayes. This is one of the main points the apologists miss in their Book of Mormon assessments. They find a way to take the Bayes out of Bayes. As Billy keeps repeating, the power of Bayes comes in taking in account false positives.

In your mission example, the fact that you correctly described all of these things that could be true for France doesn't really add much credibility to your account because you could equally have read about France and made the whole thing up. Unlike an apologist's rigged prior probability, a prior can actually be meaningful. Let's say that I know you pretty well and believe you are a trustworthy person. I might say the prior is .9, 90% that you're telling the truth just because we have decent history. That you describe things correctly about France -- That isn't going to increase my belief that you went to France beyond what I already know about you as a trustworthy person. Then comes the blunder. The cell phone from the 80s. Funny enough, that isn't detrimental, but it would be a hit. I mean, we have to consider also the possibility that you got mixed up in your story somehow. Maybe for a moment you recalled that time many years later when you went back to France with the gang and made the call. Now, if your story repeatedly relied on cellphone use in a material way -- it was fundamental to the way the story was unfolding, such as it's unlikely that you're simply conflating experiences, then that could be detrimental. But the important thing to remember, for me, is that the anachronism's detriment is mostly working against the prior probability that I give you for honesty because I know you. That you got many facts correct never actually amounted to anything, because they could have been easily fabricated.

For the Book of Mormon, the many "hits" of the Dales can be explained by Joseph Smith or other modern author simply writing an adventure about an advanced society in ancient times, just as you could make up a story about your mission to France, but there is enough in common between France and other first-world countries that you could have been talking about anywhere. Joseph Smith's "guess" covered millions of square miles of territory between North and South America; the apologists find 50 square miles that are plausible, draw an arrow around that target, and the exclaim, "What are the odds!" -- all the while that hit not being anything that can't be accounted for in a fantasy novel. Already, the thesis is dead in the water. That on top of that there are the anachronisms, that's just the "fatality" move where the spine is pulled out for show during a fight that was already over.

[Dr Moore]

This is one of the main points the apologists miss in their Book of Mormon assessments. They find a way to take the Bayes out of Bayes. As Billy keeps repeating, the power of Bayes comes in taking in account false positives.

Yes!
Zelph, for instance. Means Lamanite DNA is should be lying around in graves everywhere, readily available and yet… has this been factored into the prior?

False positives abound as negative evidence, and again I would wager this board can identify 500 points missing from Team Bayes works, without breaking a sweat.