$30k challenge to Interpreter’s “Team Bayes”

[Philo Sofee]

I brought it up early on. Kyles degree is not in mathematics, it’s in experimental psychology.

The fact that he doesn’t realize the significance of the number of sig figs that he’s using speaks volumes.


Honestly it makes me question my sanity. I can't believe someone who got all the way to the PhD level doesn't realize something we're all taught in high school.

I cannot imagine anyone with a PhD in experimental psychology not being very familiar with basic math, and with probability and statistics at a fairly advanced level.

But this is on Interpreter, so surely, I mean to a probability of close to 99.99% there are adjustments allowed...

[Dr Moore]

This episode 8 considers the historical probability of an internal story within the Book of Mormon, Lehi's boat ride to the Americas. Notably, KR's analysis excludes the "miracle" explanation about the construction of the ship and the success of Lehi's voyage (safely arrived, no death at sea). He arrives at roughly 1 in 100 odds against such a voyage succeeding, and therefore this counts as 2 orders of magnitude, or a -2 "evidence score" against the Book of Mormon being historical.

Now think about this for a minute... even if you are willing to accept the -2 evidence score at face value, what has Kyler done?

Well, I'd say by including this episode, KR has shot himself solidly in the other foot. Why?

Episode 8 considers an unusual, or hard to believe, story that is both entirely internal to the Book of Mormon and yet essential to its "truth" narrative.

Ah, well then. KR has opened the door wide open for ALL unusual, or hard to believe, or discomfortingly unverified, Book of Mormon stories to be likewise considered as contra-evidence, exclusive of "miracle" explanations.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of similarly long-odds or contra-science stories in the Book of Mormon. What about the Jaredite boats? The Mulekite boats? The Tower of Babel? The millions of well-armed soldiers felled in wars? The 2,000 stripling sons? The meteoric population growth? The existence of fully-developed Christianity in the Americas before Jesus' birth? Nephi fooling Zoram? Deutero- and Tritio-Isaiah? A headless man doing pushups and gasping for breath? This isn't to say those are even the best examples. There are many.

It won't take very many of those stories being properly considered before the whole analysis falls into the abyss. If he started with 1 in 10^40 against, it might be that the internal evidence from the book itself -- being so focused on miracles -- drops the odds to 1 in 10^100 or 1 in 10^200 against by the time all of the internal miracle stories are properly adjudicated. But all of those other difficult internal evidences, Kyler chooses to ignore. Why ignore them, when he's included one? How is the Lehite voyage as one evidence against a valid dice roll to count, but all of the others are not? It's another fatally inconsistent process flaw in Kyler's Mopologetic pornography project.

He's painted himself into a corner on this Lehite voyage episode. Arguably, the smart move would have been to exclude all "internal" evidence from the Book of Mormon text because the Book of Mormon is book about miracles, and miracles are by definition the least likely things to have happened. But he didn't go that route, so now he's got to explain why he chose to count just one out of a veritable sea of internal evidences that count against historicity. His chosen path is literally no different from excluding the dice rolls he doesn't want, leaving the dice rolls he does want standing out with higher reported frequency.

So anyway, now Kyler has to choose one of three doors, if he's an honest statistical hobbyist.

(1) conduct the same Bayesian analysis on ALL unusual Book of Mormon stories (dozens, if not hundreds)
--or--
(2) rescind episode 8, backtrack his process to exclude internal evidence from the Book of Mormon (because it's a book about miracles) and address the consequences to the remainder of his 22 episode analysis
--or--
(3) admit to the project being an amateur cherry-picking production (and apologize for wasting the time of his readers)

[Physics Guy]

I cannot imagine anyone with a PhD in experimental psychology not being very familiar with basic math, and with probability and statistics at a fairly advanced level.

It should certainly be harder to get all the way to the PhD and still be innumerate. I didn't see what degree Rasmussen has.

But even at the PhD level I think it's all too possible to sleepwalk through experimental psychology with a witch-doctor-ish grasp of statistics, such that you can go through the approved hocus-pocus but you don't grasp why it works when it does. Folks like this may even profess a great reverence for statistical reasoning. Not understanding why the procedures they used were appropriate, they believe that the procedures are unconditionally infallible.

I'm not dissing psychology in particular. Good experimental psychologists understand statistics better than I do, since in physics the gold standard is just to have enough data that your conclusion can be drawn with a ruler. And people can plod through PhDs in theoretical physics with basic deficits, too. The problem is just that there's no good way to certify practical intelligence. The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao.

[Dr Exiled]

So anyway, now Kyler has to choose one of three doors, if he's an honest statistical hobbyist.

(1) conduct the same Bayesian analysis on ALL unusual Book of Mormon stories (dozens, if not hundreds)
--or--
(2) rescind episode 8, backtrack his process to exclude internal evidence from the Book of Mormon (because it's a book about miracles) and address the consequences to the remainder of his 22 episode analysis
--or--
(3) admit to the project being an amateur cherry-picking production (and apologize for wasting the time of his readers)

If Kyler is reading this, I'd like him to choose door no. 1. More specifically, I'd like to see how he tackles the Jaredite voyage. Going in submarines for almost a year, without a sufficient supply of fresh water, room for enough food, and sanitation problems, is a miracle indeed. God must have miraculously provided for these contingencies, yet they weren't ever mentioned as being provided or that they were even necessary to be provided. Why not when changing water into wine was so miraculous?

[Philo Sofee]

So anyway, now Kyler has to choose one of three doors, if he's an honest statistical hobbyist.

(1) conduct the same Bayesian analysis on ALL unusual Book of Mormon stories (dozens, if not hundreds)
--or--
(2) rescind episode 8, backtrack his process to exclude internal evidence from the Book of Mormon (because it's a book about miracles) and address the consequences to the remainder of his 22 episode analysis
--or--
(3) admit to the project being an amateur cherry-picking production (and apologize for wasting the time of his readers)

If Kyler is reading this, I'd like him to choose door no. 1. More specifically, I'd like to see how he tackles the Jaredite voyage. Going in submarines for almost a year, without a sufficient supply of fresh water, room for enough food, and sanitation problems, is a miracle indeed. God must have miraculously provided for these contingencies, yet they weren't ever mentioned as being provided or that they were even necessary to be provided. Why not when changing water into wine was so miraculous?

And the issue is, in order to do an actual realistic and proper Bayesian analysis he has no choice but to do it as No. 1 indicates, otherwise he is ridiculously cherry picking. I said he would do this from the very beginning of his project, and told him myself when he was here posting that he HAD to use ALL evidence, or it isn't a Bayesian legitimate enterprise. He isn't doing Bayes, he is doing apologetics. Dr. Moore has him pegged firmly down.

[dastardly stem]

Can we point out, as well, the reason why he chose Lehi's voyage, even though it works out in the negative? because of Heyerdahl's Kon-tiki experiment. He did it so he could point out, "look, it's possible. Someone in the 20th century did it, so people wholly unaware of sea-travel, or the world map, or boat building (unlike the Kon-Tiki experiment) could have done it too."

If someone in the 20th century attempted to show that people thousands of years ago could have built submersibles that, by chance, got someone where they needed to go, then he'd have used the example.

[MG 2.0]

This episode 8 considers the historical probability of an internal story within the Book of Mormon, Lehi's boat ride to the Americas. Notably, Kyler Rasmussen's analysis excludes the "miracle" explanation about the construction of the ship and the success of Lehi's voyage (safely arrived, no death at sea). He arrives at roughly 1 in 100 odds against such a voyage succeeding, and therefore this counts as 2 orders of magnitude, or a -2 "evidence score" against the Book of Mormon being historical.

Now think about this for a minute... even if you are willing to accept the -2 evidence score at face value, what has Kyler done?

Well, I'd say by including this episode, Kyler Rasmussen has shot himself solidly in the other foot. Why?

Episode 8 considers an unusual, or hard to believe, story that is both entirely internal to the Book of Mormon and yet essential to its "truth" narrative.

Ah, well then. Kyler Rasmussen has opened the door wide open for ALL unusual, or hard to believe, or discomfortingly unverified, Book of Mormon stories to be likewise considered as contra-evidence, exclusive of "miracle" explanations.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of similarly long-odds or contra-science stories in the Book of Mormon. What about the Jaredite boats? The Mulekite boats? The Tower of Babel? The millions of well-armed soldiers felled in wars? The 2,000 stripling sons? The meteoric population growth? The existence of fully-developed Christianity in the Americas before Jesus' birth? Nephi fooling Zoram? Deutero- and Tritio-Isaiah? A headless man doing pushups and gasping for breath? This isn't to say those are even the best examples. There are many.

It won't take very many of those stories being properly considered before the whole analysis falls into the abyss. If he started with 1 in 10^40 against, it might be that the internal evidence from the book itself -- being so focused on miracles -- drops the odds to 1 in 10^100 or 1 in 10^200 against by the time all of the internal miracle stories are properly adjudicated. But all of those other difficult internal evidences, Kyler chooses to ignore. Why ignore them, when he's included one? How is the Lehite voyage as one evidence against a valid dice roll to count, but all of the others are not? It's another fatally inconsistent process flaw in Kyler's Mopologetic pornography project.

He's painted himself into a corner on this Lehite voyage episode. Arguably, the smart move would have been to exclude all "internal" evidence from the Book of Mormon text because the Book of Mormon is book about miracles, and miracles are by definition the least likely things to have happened. But he didn't go that route, so now he's got to explain why he chose to count just one out of a veritable sea of internal evidences that count against historicity. His chosen path is literally no different from excluding the dice rolls he doesn't want, leaving the dice rolls he does want standing out with higher reported frequency.

So anyway, now Kyler has to choose one of three doors, if he's an honest statistical hobbyist.

(1) conduct the same Bayesian analysis on ALL unusual Book of Mormon stories (dozens, if not hundreds)
--or--
(2) rescind episode 8, backtrack his process to exclude internal evidence from the Book of Mormon (because it's a book about miracles) and address the consequences to the remainder of his 22 episode analysis
--or--
(3) admit to the project being an amateur cherry-picking production (and apologize for wasting the time of his readers)

Hi Dr. Moore,

What is your personal belief in regards to the miracles recorded in the Bible? Are there any that you put credence in insofar that you would be willing to say God is the source/origin of the miracle? Did Jesus perform miracles using God’s power?

Your answer would seem to be important as we look at the possible interventions of God in the Book of Mormon narrative. If God is in the Bible then we at least have a platform of belief to start with, right?

Regards,
MG

[drumdude]

What is your personal belief in regards to the miracles recorded in the Bible? Are there any that you put credence in insofar that you would be willing to say God is the source/origin of the miracle? Did Jesus perform miracles using God’s power?

Your answer would seem to be important as we look at the possible interventions of God in the Book of Mormon narrative. If God is in the Bible then we at least have a platform of belief to start with, right?

Regards,
MG

LDS apologists had it so easy when all they had to debate was other crazy crazy evangelical christians.

They met their match with atheists who realize all of the books are equally ridiculous

[Physics Guy]

To be fair, if someone in the 20th century had hand-made a transoceanic wooden submarine, that would indeed have made the Jaredite voyage more credible.

[MG 2.0]

What is your personal belief in regards to the miracles recorded in the Bible? Are there any that you put credence in insofar that you would be willing to say God is the source/origin of the miracle? Did Jesus perform miracles using God’s power?

Your answer would seem to be important as we look at the possible interventions of God in the Book of Mormon narrative. If God is in the Bible then we at least have a platform of belief to start with, right?

Regards,
MG

LDS apologists had it so easy when all they had to debate was other crazy crazy evangelical christians.

They met their match with atheists who realize all of the books are equally ridiculous

Well, of course you’re entitled to that point of view.

Regards,
MG