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

[dastardly stem]

As a believer Dr. Rasmussen is, by default, going to factor God into any equation that is part of his analysis. How can he not? As a disbeliever you are going to base your analysis on your personal bias/views. Your conclusions are going to be different.

Why fight it?

You will ALWAYS go your way as a disbeliever trying to take God out of the equation. Believers are going to formulaically going to do the opposite. Who’s formula has the bona fides that lead to ultimate truth?

Depends on what you think about the supernatural.

Regards,
MG

Hey MG I see others have responded to this already, but you are asking me, so i figure I better respond.

I'd be interested to see what Kyler would say if you posed this question to him. I say that because I think he actually doesn't realize he's smuggling God into it. You seem to be thinking he should add God into the mix. I'd wonder if he'd disagree with you.

Ultimate truth? We're talking probabilities here, bub. Keep up.

So on to it...Let's consider I claim to jump on top of a 10 story building. I mean leap from the ground to the roof. I tell everyone and I gather witnesses saying I did it.

Someone comes along and wishes to determine the probability. Did I jump up there or have mechanical aid. These are the two options we narrow it down to. That is, for the analysis we'll go with the notion that I was on the ground and took one movement to the roof. The question is did I really jump, or did wires, perhaps, lift me?

After the evaluation, it is concluded I most likely tricked onlookers and used perhaps a series of unseen wires connected to pullies and the like to pull off the stunt. "oh" but I quip, "God did it. He gave me extra powers to jump up there." That claim wouldn't change the evaluation of probability. It'd still be more probable that I'd have pulled off a trick. It would suggest the claim of God and magic couldn't be evaluated. We have no reference points...it's simply a claim of magic and everyone would do well to think I pulled off a trick.

This is like evaluating the probability of the Book of Mormon being written anciently vs modernly. On Kyler's analysis even if it's more probable it came fr the 19C, it doens't matter, because God did. It's as if he wants to circumvent his own analysis.

Plus, as Dr Moore points out, he has a ton of other problems that render the whole evaluation a complete mess.

[dastardly stem]

I had to go see if episode 9 is out. It is.

Kyler evaluates whether Joseph could have written the book because there is the presence of Early Modern English in the text. Somehow the text including language from a couple centuries before Joseph means it was written anciently, in his eyes. A huge win, he delares:

It looks like we have our first critical strike in the Book of Mormon’s favor, a piece of evidence that meets the statistical bar set by critics for belief in the unusual and the supernatural. Of course, critics would likely beg to differ on that front—evidence against nineteenth-century authorship isn’t evidence of ancient authorship, particularly when that evidence points to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But without a clearly articulated theory that explains the source of this evidence, critics should rightly take pause.

In explaining his evaluation he offers:

When we get down to it, though, those are just assumptions we bring to the text as modern (and often implicitly mystical) readers. Gods ways are not our ways–we should be open to translation mechanisms that don’t fit whatever preconceptions we’ve held in the past, instead allowing the text itself to inform our beliefs about how it came to be.

Yes. If we are going to evaluate whether the text was written anciently or in the 19th century we have to consider "God could have tricked us" as part of the evaluation.

The best part is he gives himself a plus 23, which is the largest jump in either direction to this point. And, the Early Modern English theory already seems out of vogue anyway. Didn't Carmack himself claim most of his examples are fading away as more reference data has become available?

[Res Ipsa]

I had to go see if episode 9 is out. It is.

Kyler evaluates whether Joseph could have written the book because there is the presence of Early Modern English in the text. Somehow the text including language from a couple centuries before Joseph means it was written anciently, in his eyes. A huge win, he delares:

It looks like we have our first critical strike in the Book of Mormon’s favor, a piece of evidence that meets the statistical bar set by critics for belief in the unusual and the supernatural. Of course, critics would likely beg to differ on that front—evidence against nineteenth-century authorship isn’t evidence of ancient authorship, particularly when that evidence points to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But without a clearly articulated theory that explains the source of this evidence, critics should rightly take pause.

In explaining his evaluation he offers:

When we get down to it, though, those are just assumptions we bring to the text as modern (and often implicitly mystical) readers. Gods ways are not our ways–we should be open to translation mechanisms that don’t fit whatever preconceptions we’ve held in the past, instead allowing the text itself to inform our beliefs about how it came to be.

Yes. If we are going to evaluate whether the text was written anciently or in the 19th century we have to consider "God could have tricked us" as part of the evaluation.

The best part is he gives himself a plus 23, which is the largest jump in either direction to this point. And, the Early Modern English theory already seems out of vogue anyway. Didn't Carmack himself claim most of his examples are fading away as more reference data has become available?

Is that 23 orders of magnitude?

[dastardly stem]

Is that 23 orders of magnitude?

Yessir.

[Res Ipsa]

Is that 23 orders of magnitude?

Yessir.

[dastardly stem]

Yessir.

i Feel pretty bad for him. Its like Interpreter is using him. If they gave any effort to review his work....I mean, this is bad.

[Dr Moore]

A small group of researchers, paid by church funds to study the Book of Mormon, find some 1600's era language in a book that was written in the 1800s.

This isn't time travel, mind you. This is recognizing the flow of language patterns through the natural arrow of time.

Here, Kyler commits a 6th fatal flaw. He dismisses the highly probable naturalistic explanation for "evidence" in favor of a miracle. He's gone the other way this time, crushing the obvious explanation in favor of an insanely improbable miracle theory, eg a ghost committee.

It’s a non sequitur case study for the ages.

By the way, at the outset of this project, Kyler asserted 20 orders of magnitude odds against time travel.

Kyler's episode 9, with in its 23 orders of magnitude, in context: because the Book of Mormon has Early Modern English in it, time travel is MORE likely than the Book of Mormon being ahistorical.


It's a stupid waste of time. I can't tell who is using who, actually. Is Kyler using the Interpreter to make them look foolish? Or is the Interpreter using Kyler to pass blame for the foolishness? They all look foolish, that much is for sure.

[Lem]

I had to go see if episode 9 is out. It is.

Kyler evaluates whether Joseph could have written the book because there is the presence of Early Modern English in the text. Somehow the text including language from a couple centuries before Joseph means it was written anciently, in his eyes. A huge win, he delares:

It looks like we have our first critical strike in the Book of Mormon’s favor, a piece of evidence that meets the statistical bar set by critics for belief in the unusual and the supernatural. Of course, critics would likely beg to differ on that front—evidence against nineteenth-century authorship isn’t evidence of ancient authorship, particularly when that evidence points to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But without a clearly articulated theory that explains the source of this evidence, critics should rightly take pause.

What? In an Interpreter blog entry 9 months ago, Carmack and Skousen retracted the majority of their Early Modern English findings. From a thread discussing it that was posted here:

…but just as a reminder, based on the recent retractions published by the Interpreter, here is the count as it currently stands:

Section 1, Archaic Vocabulary: 26 proposed as archaic [out of 41 originally proposed, 37% have been retracted]

Section 3, Archaic Phrases: 14 proposed as archaic [out of 29 originally proposed, 52% have been retracted]

Section 4, Archaic Grammar: 2 proposed as archaic[out of 15 originally proposed, 87% have been retracted]

Section 7, Archaic Expressions: 7 proposed as archaic [out of 37 originally proposed, 81% have been retracted]

For an average retraction of 60% of previously published results, most or all included in the sales of hardcover, expensive publications.

I haven’t read KR’s stuff yet, so I will be interested to see if his conclusion is based on the Early Modern English findings, pre- or post- redactions. Either way it doesn’t support a 23 magnitude jump. For something with zero credibility outside of Mormon apologetics? That’s ridiculous.

[malkie]

OK, folks, here is a summary of each of Kyler's episodes 10 to 23:

Episode 10: godidit!
Episode 11: godidit!
Episode 12: godidit!
Episode 13: godidit!
Episode 14: godidit!
Episode 15: godidit!
Episode 16: godidit!
Episode 17: godidit!
Episode 18: godidit!
Episode 19: godidit!
Episode 20: godidit!
Episode 21: godidit!
Episode 22: godidit!
Episode 23: godidit!

Conclusion: Book of Mormon is true!

[Gadianton]

By the way, at the outset of this project, Kyler asserted 20 orders of magnitude odds against time travel.

I think this is a significant repeat of a problem from the beginning with his use of the alt-hypothesis version of Bayes. I could compare the likelihood that one of the three Nephites left a cold glass of water for me against the likelihood that air molecules in that same spot spontaneously reconstituted themselves into a glass of water. It was that one day when it was really hot, I was working outside and felt faint, and as turned to head inside, I stumbled; before me on the concrete was a glass of water.