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Author | Topic: Bible Codes and Bible Numerics for Stephen ben Yeshua | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
Gilgamesh,
You say,
(in that they could be found in any text if you were able to shuffle the names as Witztum did. Witztum specifically described the way he got the names without any wiggle room or shuffling. Do you believe that he lied about this? That the rabbi he asked to give him the names lied? Gil, I can tell that you are quite sincere about this, which is refreshing. But have you read Gans' rebuttal to McKay? Have you looked at the Moby Dick Codes at Bible Code Digest.com - Home Page [Bible Code Digest]? Now, perhaps you would like me to go over in detail Witztum's findings, and those of other code researchers, who have done statistical tests. I can do so, and might find it interesting, if that's what you want. As long as we agree that what is claimed is not what McKay is refuting re Moby Dick. McKay is quite clear that he does not regard the Moby Dick codes as statistically improbable, and he is quite clear that the Rabbi's experiment of Witztum is statistically improbable. Only the latter are real codes. McKay claims that Witztum lied about how he got the names, using wiggle room to generate statistical improbability. I don't think that is a plausible explanation, given that it involves another Rabbi, and that Gans independent replication was successful. As well as other replications. As I say, I will walk you through the sites and papers if you want me too. But, try to read them yourself. And forget Drosnin. Nobody is trying to defend him. He's a straw man. Arguments against his work mean nothing.
If these claims were legit there would be a significant acknowledgement of it in all communities scientific and Christian. You will note that I pointed out that many fundie Christian groups acknowledge the deceptive fallacy of Bible codes and Bible numerics. As far as the scientific community is concerned it is nothing more than another blip in this list of unsubstantiated claims. Surely you are aware from the history of science that this is only occasionally the case. I would like to see a study done of major discoveries and how they were received, over the course of time. I predict that discoveries that weaken the power of evil in the land will always be vigorously repressed, because demons fight their acceptance. While discoveries that produce more chaos and destruction are readily received.
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
Gil,
I believe that you will find in here Gans report on the publishing history of BMckay's critique of the codes. Page not found - aish.com Because McKay's paper was not reviewed by those that he was criticizing, it was not peer reviewed. Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
Paulk,
You assert,
he seems quite happy to claim Drosnin's "Codes" as evidence at times Really! It could be possible, but I am unaware of when I have done so. Drosnin is an interesting popularizer, but evidence? Show me where I said that. Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
PaulK,
You say,
[qs]Your continued references to Bible Code Digest - a pro-Drosnin site - are sufficient.[/q/] Your kidding, right? Lord, I hope so. Then you add,
Indeed the Bible Code Digest response to Dave Thomas' "Moby Dick" codes attempts to defend Drosnin by implying that his work used the same methods as Witzum et al. And from this you conclude that I present Drosnin's work as evidence that Witztum's codes are statistically improbable? Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
TROR,
Lets take this comment of mine,
"(McKay) is quite clear that the Rabbi's experiment of Witztum is statistically improbable." Now, I am trying here to differentiate basically three events: first, the discovery of random ELS's in any string of words. Second, the apparently extraordinary co-occurance in a small part of a document of two related terms, cooked up by choosing the terms that worked out of many alternatives. And third, the actually extraordinary co-occurance in a small part of a document of two or more related terms, that were picked before the test, and still worked. Do you deny that McKay accuses Witztum of "tuning?" Of trying out various alternative lists of Rabbi names, and finding some that worked, and then presenting these as if they were chosen prior to any test? That he makes this claim mostly by implication and does not come outright and accuse WRR of lying, I will concede. But, the following quote is one I copied out of their reply to Gans.
"We are not claiming that WRR cooked their experiment in precisely the manner just described." "Oh, really? And in what way are you claiming that they cooked their experiment?" This in January of this year. This is not science, at least, not as I was taught it. Meanwhile, please look at Bible Code Digest.com - Moby Dick Article, where codes are presented with Brendan's name coded, as well as many features from Moby Dick. I count this as a real scientific test of the validity of WRR's paper, a real "replication." Granted, it has nothing to do with Rabbis and birth dates, but that's not the hypothesis being tested. The hypothesis being tested is that the Author of the Bible placed Codes therein to "sign" the document, so that you could know for sure that it was He who wrote it. But, tell me what you think of these codes. Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
Gilgamesh,
This comment is enlightening,
I see that you are still referring to Bible Codes as proof of Demons/God etc, First, H-D science does not prove anything beyond that a given idea is beyond reasonable doubt. Bible Codes cannot prove demons. They can prove that it is beyond reasonable doubt that the God Jehovah, really wrote the Bible, and signed it with "codes" so that we would know that He was it's author. Because He ought to know about demons, and describes their existence in this bible, knowing that He is out there, and that this book is a valid statement from Him, we can have more confidence that efforts to detect and deal with demons will be fruitful. That is, that it is more plausible than before, that demons are ontologically real, not figments of over-heated imaginations. OK? Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
P.
Witztum has *not* been replicated. Other researchers have played with different codes than the ones Witztum played with, but no one has replicated Witztum's results. Last time I read McKay's paper, he said that he replicated Witztum's statistical analysis, correcting an error, and got even more significant results. With the Rabbi's that Witztum presented, of course. I thought that McKay's main point was actually fairly interesting, that the chosen Rabbi's were a weird set, looked like they hadn't been chosen at random, or independently of the problem. Like the results had been cooked. But, of course, the underlying hypothesis being tested is that everything is cooked, by Jehovah, the author of the Bible. He even says, in the bible, that he controls the "lot that is thrown into the lap." In other words, if Jehovah is really out there and wrote the torah, and we want to know this, looking for codes to "prove" it, what's He going to do? If the search is sincere, His whole point is for those who want to know to find out. So, He would "cook" the arbitrary choices, so that they would work. Or am I missing something?
Even worse for you and Witztum, it has been copiously established that you can find intriguing words and phrases by these methods in any very long sequence of letters, whether from actual books or randomly generated. Are you talking about ELS's that are expected from the null hypothesis of purely random chance? Or ELS's, in combination, of terms picked before one looked? "intriquing?" What's that got to do with anything?
More bad news: even if it were established that the codes were statistically unique and could never occur in any text or random letter sequence outside the Bible, there is still no established connection between the presence of the codes and any other qualities of the Bible, such as that it's inerrant, that it's the Word of God, or that it is evidence for the existence of Jehovah or demons. There is if you understand H-D science. Oh, you said "established" connection. Then, of course, you are right. Real science establishes nothing, just keeps moving on. But it does increase the plausibility that the Bible's claims are valid.
Since codes can be found in any long letter sequence, that means that any long letter sequence must also be evidence that it is the Word of God. No one, to my knowledge, has ever claimed that codes, statistically improbable codes, have ever been found anywhere but the Torah. I think they will, that Satan will put codes in some books that he inspires, and that God will affirm other works of literary art as inspired by Him. But, statistically improbable signs have been found throughout the orthodox bible, by Theomatics.
You're stating the opposite of what McKay actually believes concerning Witztum's results. Not as I read McKay's writings,, but I do admit that, according to God, as expressed in the codes about Moby Dick and McKay in Job, McKay is out to "darken counsel." Hard to know what he believes. But he certainly works hard to explain away the statistically significant findings of Witztum, saying that these are due to tuning or selection of which Rabbi's Witztum would look at. Why would he do that, if as they stand, they weren't real? The only point I can see to arguing that someone "cooked" up results is that, without the cooking, they are valid. McKay's ridiculing of the whole matter persuades me that he's up to no good, while Gans especially approaches the whole matter with care and respect. I do want to hear from Gans on what happened when there was an independent effort to replicate his rabbis and cities experiment. At last report, it wasn't confirmed, but then mistakes were found, by those who chose the spellings, etc. It will be interesting to hear his take on that. To me, the most persuasive information was that in Satinover, where the codes played a key role in minimizing damage done by Scud attacks during the Gulf war. Proof of the pudding is in the eating. But, of course, most of my confidence comes from personally doing what the Bible says, to see if I will get what it promises. Beginning with hearing Jehovah speak, and finding that what He says is borne out by experience.
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
JonF
You note,
Re: McKay peer reviewed article on Bible Codes published in Statistical Science. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Because McKay's paper was not reviewed by those that he was criticizing, it was not peer reviewed. Er, not so. Peer review is a review by people qualified to judge the merits and completeness of the arguments and the validity of the conclusions. It is not necessarily review by those whose work is criticized. In fact, it seldom is review by those whose work is criticized because there is a prima facie case for conflict of interest. That's not what I was taught, or ever experienced. Gans cites the protocol for publishing a critique in Econometrics, I think, where one may not even submit a critique that has not been sent to those being criticized. Peer review without letting those criticized have their say is called good ole boy politics and censorship. Read Kuhn, read the history of science, to see where the real problems lie.
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
P.
Geesh, Stephen, how do you come up with this stuff? If you're really Stephen Fretwell then you *know* that's not the definition of peer review. Well, in this case, I have had several papers critiqued, and was always included in the peer review. Then, Gans cites a journal that has in its protocol the stipulation that one cannot even submit a critique until communication with the authors of the original paper have been consulted, and their rebuttal must be included. Finally, I judge debates, and it is standard to give both sides of a critique equal time. Statistical Science promised to do this to WRR, when McKay's paper was in review, but backed down, without telling them, according to Gans. So, that's the source of my opinion that peer review of a critique hasn't happened if the critiqued authors are not included. Why do you think otherwise? Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
PaulK,
Well, at least I know how you guys feel, arguing with a madman. I mean, this is incredible to me. Drosnin's book is denounced by every serious code researcher that I know of. The site on Moby Dick, which reviews Drosnin's contribution, is kindest, to be sure. But it even says:
McKay like Drosnin did not demonstrate any use of such rules or guidelines. In fact McKay admits this on his web site. Granted Drosnin claims to have used rigor, and to be consulting with some statistician in his analyses. But that rigor is not presented in a scientific way, with a materials and methods section. How you read that article, and concluded that, because I reference it, I find Drosnin worth arguing about, is beyond me. Talk about grasping at straws. How badly do you want to find reasons to ignore the codes? Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
P.
You know, there's this great movie, Joe versus the Volcano, in which Joe's first boss is on the phone, tediously saying over and over again, "I didn't say that. I didn't say that! If I had said that, I would have been wrong." Now, as we are discussing this, I with my goal to make something understandable, it is clear to me that you keep hearing me say something else. I say that the plausibility of an idea is increased, from, say, .6 to .61, by some evidence, and you hear me say that the evidence proves the idea is true. If I had said that latter statement, I would have been wrong. The evidence only budged the plausibility up a little. This, I think, Mammathus understands, gets my point. Do he and I agree that the plausibility of demons is .6? Of course not. His estimate, if I recall correctly, was 10 to the minus 73. But at least he can come up with some non-zero estimate, and in his work, he runs into other ideas to which he assigns a plausibility of .5 or so. And, I think you can too, if you try real hard. I know, you said that you couldn't, that you didn't even know what a demon was. Duh. Who does? Finding out is part of the point. But, here's a start: "vague, dark-matter-like "spiritual" being with malign intentions towards humans and Jehovah. Much more intelligent and powerful than humans. As far above humans as humans are above earthworms." You'll find it easier if you say "I choose life." What WRR and McKay disagree on is whether or not the statistically significant results of the 94 paper, and subsequent studies, were due to wiggle room, tuning, or due to divine intervention, in either the writing of Genesis, or the choice of terms supposedly coded. McKay treats the list of Rabbi's names as "special" not Genesis. Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
Paulk
To my mind, Scientific Bible Codes is tied to Satinover, not Drosnin. Drosnin is a popularizer, who, actually, as a popularizer, I respect. His work just has no place is any scientific discussion, unless one is trying to attack a straw man. Biblecodesdigest is a digest, a place where one can find all sorts of contributions, some scientific, like Verboom's, some political, some cultural. But, the fact that you want to discuss Drosnin, instead of the fact that Moby Dick ELS's are mostly found in Job 41, the only book in the bible about harpooning whales, tells me a lot about your agenda here.
You keep referring to an article attacking the Moby Dick "codes" - an answer to Drosnin's challenge, put forward as a refuation of Drosnin. How can these things not be seen as support for Drosnin ? I find this argument totally ingenuous. The article I refer to is an effort to show that statistically improbable codes exist, by showing how the Moby Dick Controversy is coded in the scriptures. It's a sort of replication of the original study, one of many that you can find from Witztum's site, and Biblecodedigest. That's how science deals with Witztum's study. Did Witztum fudge his data? Did Newton? Did Galileo? Did Mendel? Did Faraday? But what did replication find? That they were right, anyway. Not that I'm agreeing that Witztum did, but so what? It hasn't ever mattered in science, and still doesn't matter. What matters is replication, and the site I point you too, that you refuse to discuss to details of, shows this happening. Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
PaulK,
You cite,
We see there that McKay ASSUMES that Drosnin did not conform to any rules and therefore does not apply any himself. Now, in normal grammar, this sentence is about McKay, not Drosnin. Verboom is a gentleman, and although Drosnin says he has statistical backup for his codes, we are not given support for this. Nor should we be, since it's a popularization. Drosnin reprints WRR, claiming that all, all scientific support and discussion of the issue needs to be there. He's just showing that, if it's scientifically true, as he believes, look how interesting it is! But, the statement by Verboom simply refuses to accuse Drosnin of lying. But it doesn't say that he was telling the truth. Drosnin doesn't ask that his work be taken that way, and Verboon says, fine. McKay, on the other hand, is coming on as a scientist (as I am here), and wants to show that if Drosnin was lying, all sorts of codes can be found. That's not science, that's subtle defamation of character. Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
TROR,
Here is the site, again, Bible Code Digest.com - Moby Dick Article. As I noted in my reply to PaulK, I'm not too worried about the details of how WRR selected the Rabbi's and dates, and I expect them to change their minds about how it ought to be, or ought to have been done, as they continue to work on the ELS's. Even if they fudged, it's not that great a problem. Great men of the past have fudged, and still been right, as shown by replication. The fact that they got an outside person to come up with the final list, did it twice in response to a reviewer, and got similarly significant results, and got contrasting results with control texts, is what got the paper through such an extraordinary review. Philosophically, I don't trust McKay, to be honest. When I read his articles and posts, and compare them to Gans, the latter have a much steadier, philosophically sound approach. But, I have judged some high school debates, and am trained to look at style. McKay does not appear to be interested in finding codes, which is an unhealthy attitude. His Panin's Panic is a good example. He does all this work showing that a computer can do what Panin did, to discredit Panin. But, he should have used that program to test Panin's hypothesis, that verse 1 of Genesis has more add-ups to seven then you would expect on the basis of chance. That is, Taking seven words at random, how many add-ups to seven (or factors of seven) can you find? Do this with 1000 or so random seven word collections, and see if the number that comes from Genesis 1 is average, or greater. That's what a scientist, and a truthist, would have done. When Gans goes back to work for the CIA, I'll be impressed that he discovered fraud or foolishness in WRR. Or Satinover retracts, as he gets his physics degree. Meanwhile, the plausibilities lean towards the codes. But, let's let science do its job. Stephen
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Stephen ben Yeshua Inactive Member |
P.
On page 8, I think, of McKay's paper, he says: "For the sake of argument, we are prepared to join them in rejecting their null hypothesis and conclude something interesting is going on. Where we differ is what that something is." Hence, my point that they agree that the null hypothesis is rejected, we have statistical significance. WRR attribute this to an inclusion in Genesis of truth about the future, McKay to something interesting and queer about the list of Rabbis and their dates. But, when Gans attempted to test WRR's hypothesis (Genesis has information in it that could only have been put there by God), he got a confirmation, strong enough to motivate him to leave his intelligence job, and research this. There have been other confirmations. WRR is ten years old. Look at the Verboom test.
He calls the findings bunk, Stephen. Which proves he is not a scientist, and almost certainly wrong. Real scholars who love the truth never say things using words like bunk. Or apologize when they do.
subjective Bayesianism I thought we established that what you thought I was saying about subjectivity was a mis-understanding. I confine subjectivity to the formation of hypothesis, not to evalutating evidence testing predictions, as you thought I was saying. Hence, my Bayesianism is the simple thing itself.
You're engaging in irrational leaps of logic again. You've established no link between statistically improbable codes on the one hand, and God and Biblical validity on the other. You need a deductive chain of reasoning connecting the two. Read Satinover, where he developes the argument that codes are signatures, to help humans know when a document is inspired by God or not.
You're only doing what you think the Bible says, and you only think you hear Jehovah speak. You have no objective evidence that your Biblical interpretations are correct, and the voice of Jehoval you think you hear can never be confirmed by anyone else. Your comments have no standing as science. You have no right to say that, without support, according to the rules of this forum. As a professional scientist, with an extraordinary record of scientific success, I have more right than you do to make "unsupported" claims. But I have supported with clear references all of my claims to what science truly is, and that it is not what evolutionists want the world to think it is. And never has been. Robbing the culture of a clear view of what is science and what is not, so one can stay in their denial about spiritual reality, using their phoney view of science as their hidey hole, is despicable. I think of the many lost souls who, if they only knew they could, would take the power of science and the scientific method into the hearts of their lives and families, would experiment on their kitchen tables with all sorts of interesting and important personal problems, and would find useful answers. But noooo, the evolutionists controlling education have created a science that only the elite can deal with, thank you very much. Humans! Always some who want to be priests, making everyone dependent on them. Must be Satan. Cheers, Stephen
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