The Interpreter; Bayes Theorem; Nephites and Mayans

[_Res Ipsa]

Can’t keep track of his hypotheses. Can’t keep track of his methodology. SMH.

[_honorentheos]

What?????

Is there a "wow" cap on this paper? If so, it's got to be getting close to capping out. Unbelievable.

[_Res Ipsa]

What?????

Is there a "wow" cap on this paper? If so, it's got to be getting close to capping out. Unbelievable.

All wow meters were shattered some time ago. Luckily, they were still under warranty.

[_honorentheos]

I am genuinely curious how Dr. Bruce will respond to Billy's point. I'm guessing it's less likely than 1/50 that he will recognize the point about the positive correspondences being superficial similarities between things described in the Book of Mormon and The Maya. He'll argue it is not a problem with the hypothesizes but with Billy's intention to make the discussion about something other than Coe's claim the Book of Mormon bares no resemblance to anywhere in the ancient Mayan setting. I'd guess its pretty likely, maybe 50 to 1, that he will try and take advantage of the out Billy provides and say he does believe Billy is being unreasonable with his critique of the methodology. This being his chance to try and get Billy to quit the field and claim victory without having to actually respond to his devastating comments.

[_honorentheos]

Maybe not the most technical exchange but possibly my favorite so far:

Brian Dale
on May 28, 2019 at 6:35 pm said:
Hi Billy,

You said “If I wrote an academic paper and claimed that a statistical analysis indicated that in all likelihood the leading experts in a field were wrong about something…”.

Please be aware that we are not claiming that Dr. Coe is wrong in his field of expertise. Quite to the contrary, in our analysis we assume without reservation that he is completely correct about everything he claims regarding the Mayans, his undisputed field of expertise.

Dr. Coe, however, is no expert on the Book of Mormon. The analysis indicates that in all likelihood he is wrong on his non-expert opinion about the Book of Mormon.

Reply ↓

Billy Shears
on May 29, 2019 at 9:54 am said:
Hi Brian,

The point of your paper is that “There is overwhelming evidence that the Book of Mormon has physical, political, geographical, religious, military, technological, and cultural roots in ancient Mesoamerica.” If that were true, a competent Mesoamericanist would only need to read the Book of Mormon once to recognize it.

Your assertion that Dr. Coe is an undisputed expert on the Maya but is not an expert on the Book of Mormon seems to tacitly admit that the Maya and the Book of Mormon are mutually exclusive.

[_Res Ipsa]

You know, the Dales might have saved themselves some embarrassment if they had just learned what hyperbole is.

[_DrW]

You know, the Dales might have saved themselves some embarrassment if they had just learned what hyperbole is.

There is an open question at this point as to whether Bruce Dale is even capable of being embarrassed. Same goes for the Interpreter editors and so-called peer reviewer. They have a lot of responsibility here, but have apparently quit the field.

Billy Shear has clearly won every exchange with Bruce over on the Interpreter comments section. Lemmie, RI and others on this board have continued to point out failure after failure in both methodology and basic logic. Being forced to change one's hypothesis and then failing to acknowledge that change reflects poorly on one's integrity, understanding, or both.

From the rapidly mounting page view count it's pretty clear that the article is doing more apologetic harm than good. (If interested lurkers were buying the Greatest Guesser story, they would have lost interest a long time ago.) And Bruce just twists and squirms and continues to dig. He should at least stop digging.

[_Gadianton]

It's to the point that even as a critic, I have to put up my hand to the screen so I can't read his full comments because I feel embarrassed for the guy. I wonder if at any point in this exercise he's wondered why, if his work is on such solid ground, he's fighting this alone against dozens of folks on the blog and across the web, with zero faithful math people defending him in the least? Has any faithful Mormon at all who knows the slightest bit about math showed up to broadly defend anything these guys have done? Where is Jeff Lindsay? He faithfully comments on nearly every article that has a science or statistical bent to it, as if it's his duty, being the resident science guy. Suddenly he's busy? How about the stats peer reviewer? Is he or she willing to come out and help, as he or she is in a real way responsible for sending his comrades to the wolves? Talk about 'anonymous cowardice'! Wont' DCP or Midgley, or Kiwi57 (who is good at math), or any of the SeN guys reach out to their math pals -- the dozens upon dozens of Phds they know including those who contributed to Mormon Scholars Testify -- to get these guys some help? "He's handling it really well on his own!". LOL! The old "Jenkins defense".

Let this be a warning to the rising generation of < 3 Mopologists: You better have a good sense of when you're in over your head, because your peers will push you to the edge of the cliff with their praise -- you can literally make no errors if you toe the party line -- and then they will leave you to topple over the edge and fall to your doom if they get the sense that supporting you further will in any way make themselves or the treacherous art of Mopologetics look bad.

[_I have a question]

Billy Shears on the “calendar” hit....

It’s worth pointing out that counting years with year 1 BC set as the year Jesus was born is known as the “Anno Domini” system, and was invented by the monk Dionysius Exiguus in the year AD 525. It is a huge anachronism that the Nephites started using the Anno Domini system at least 516 years before Dionysius Exiguus invented it; it was used from as early as AD 9 and was used continuously until the end of the book in AD 421 (See 3 Nephi 2:8 and Moroni 10:1). This is convenient for modern readers, but not in any way Mayan.

https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/josep ... -the-maya/

[_I have a question]

Maybe not the most technical exchange but possibly my favorite so far:

Brian Dale
on May 28, 2019 at 6:35 pm said:
Hi Billy,

You said “If I wrote an academic paper and claimed that a statistical analysis indicated that in all likelihood the leading experts in a field were wrong about something…”.

Please be aware that we are not claiming that Dr. Coe is wrong in his field of expertise. Quite to the contrary, in our analysis we assume without reservation that he is completely correct about everything he claims regarding the Mayans, his undisputed field of expertise.

Dr. Coe, however, is no expert on the Book of Mormon. The analysis indicates that in all likelihood he is wrong on his non-expert opinion about the Book of Mormon.

Reply ↓

Billy Shears
on May 29, 2019 at 9:54 am said:
Hi Brian,

The point of your paper is that “There is overwhelming evidence that the Book of Mormon has physical, political, geographical, religious, military, technological, and cultural roots in ancient Mesoamerica.” If that were true, a competent Mesoamericanist would only need to read the Book of Mormon once to recognize it.

Your assertion that Dr. Coe is an undisputed expert on the Maya but is not an expert on the Book of Mormon seems to tacitly admit that the Maya and the Book of Mormon are mutually exclusive.

Priceless.