Statistical Scriptural Truth?


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I'm sorry, but religious truths are not built on the foundation of Statistical Probability. It is really sad that so many so called scholars are fixated on Meso-America as the only possible location of the Book of Mormon lands. Honestly people, are your testimonies so weak that they must be supported by statistical analysis. Read the book and pray to know if it is true. Yes, a street sign in Hebrew that says "Zarahemla - 120 furlongs" with an arrow would be awesome, but if you have not received a spiritual confirmation of the truthfulness of the Gospel and Book of Mormon you will be let away from the truth, even with hard physical evidence.

http://bookofmormonresources.blogspot.com/2019/06/las-vegas-odds.html

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Thanks for the link, which leads to a link to the actual paper:

https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph-smith-the-worlds-greatest-guesser-a-bayesian-statistical-analysis-of-positive-and-negative-correspondences-between-the-book-of-mormon-and-the-maya/

Not sure why you find this type of research objectionable. No, it cannot replace a testimony. That is not its purpose, which is to buttress those who are tender in faith and allow them hope and strength to continue building their own testimonies. Seems like a worthy endeavor to me.

I haven't read the paper yet, but I will. I do not know anything about Bayesian statistics, other than that it's a term I've heard before. Perhaps @MarginOfError has some insights into this particular study. I do hope their statistics are solid; a paper like this, well-intentioned though it may be, will bear only evil fruit if the authors got the central proposition wrong. I'm encouraged by the claim that it went through extensive peer review, both by statisticians and by Mesoamerican scholars.

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34 minutes ago, Vort said:

I haven't read the paper yet, but I will. I do not know anything about Bayesian statistics, other than that it's a term I've heard before. Perhaps @MarginOfError has some insights into this particular study.

I don't know much about it either.  So, I may be wrong. 

With a broad brush: it appears to be an attempt at applying statistical probabilities in order to utilize Occam's razor to determine the truth (i.e. if it is more probablistic, then it is the simpler answer, therefore, true).  That is pretty stupid when considering the subject matter.

However, since the article was actually a point-for-point critique of a book that was simply musing about the unlikelihood of the BoM being true, they countered with the "likelihood" by using a statistical method.

34 minutes ago, Vort said:

I do hope their statistics are solid; a paper like this, well-intentioned though it may be, will bear only evil fruit if the authors got the central proposition wrong. I'm encouraged by the claim that it went through extensive peer review, both by statisticians and by Mesoamerican scholars.

Looking at the comments at the bottom, it appears that a primary complaint is that it didn't go into alternative explanations.  Forgive me, but when you're rebutting, it is not your responsibility to provide all the alternative explanations.  The rebuttal need only provide a reason to believe either a) the original claimant was wrong or b) At least ONE other possibility is more believable.  They did so.

But, yes, I don't know why they used the numbers they did.  I'm sure it has to do with the methodology used.  Being a non-expert, sure, why not use those numbers?  Regardless, it appears that the numbers used must be between 0 and 1.  With as many data points that they used, pretty much any number between 0.1 and 0.9 would render the probability of Joseph Smith being a "really good guesser" as being pretty much impossible.

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41 minutes ago, Vort said:

Thanks for the link, which leads to a link to the actual paper:

https://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph-smith-the-worlds-greatest-guesser-a-bayesian-statistical-analysis-of-positive-and-negative-correspondences-between-the-book-of-mormon-and-the-maya/

Not sure why you find this type of research objectionable. No, it cannot replace a testimony. That is not its purpose, which is to buttress those who are tender in faith and allow them hope and strength to continue building their own testimonies. Seems like a worthy endeavor to me.

I haven't read the paper yet, but I will. I do not know anything about Bayesian statistics, other than that it's a term I've heard before. Perhaps @MarginOfError has some insights into this particular study. I do hope their statistics are solid; a paper like this, well-intentioned though it may be, will bear only evil fruit if the authors got the central proposition wrong. I'm encouraged by the claim that it went through extensive peer review, both by statisticians and by Mesoamerican scholars.

The math is valid, but the math is rarely the challenge with Bayesian analyses.  The place where you run into problems with Bayesian analyses are first, the selection of the prior distribution, and 2, the choice of the likelihood function.

In this particular case, I don't really object to their choice of prior distribution.  They've effectively assigned a Bernoulli distribution with p = 1/1,000,000,000.

I'm a bit more skeptical of the likelihood function.  The likelihood function gets applied to each "statement of evidence" and adjusts our belief about the prior distribution based on the observed evidence.  In this case, the likelihood function operates on the general algorithm

  • If the statement from Coe and the statement from the Book of Mormon are concordant, increase our belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon.
  • If the statement from Coe and the statement from the Book of Mormon are discordant, decrease our belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

Unfortunately, Dale and Dale chose a likelihood function that, when the two sources are discordant, it simply says, "each has equal probability of being true."  That is, despite the prior probability that the Book of Mormon is non-historical, the likelihood function assumes that it is, at worst, equally historical as the best scholarly research when the scholarly research is discordant. I'm not sure that's the best way to penalize discrepancies, and may be overstating the conclusion.

 

The other place where this analysis gets mirky is in the evaluation of concordant or discordant.  One in particular that I found unconvincing was where they found concordance with Mayan writings talking about leaders being "seated" and the Book of Mormon using the term "seated" when changes of power occur.  But that seems to speak more to the translation process than the culture. Furthermore, it's claiming concordance based on changes of power occurring, which is a generally unsurprising observation through history. It would have been more impressive if the likelihood function were weighted based on the temporal proximity of changes in power reported by scholarly work and the Book of Mormon.  Likewise, they claim concordance (albeit weak concordance) simply because the Book of Mormon mentions volcanoes and earthquakes and so do the Mayans, but makes no attempt to match time frames.

My takeaway...meh....interesting concept. But I am not very persuaded as to the objectivity or rigor in which the points of concordance are selected, and I do think the likelihood function is biased in favor of the Book of Mormon.

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