mountainman

Hi aa5874 and avi,

The figures of biblical history and the narratives concerning biblical history have been enmeshed in a series of invalid rhetorical exercises such as "The Criterion of Embarrassment". As I see it, Carrier's use of Bayes theorem to expose the illogical nature of such criteria (and there is a list of many) is very useful for the field in general. You should understand that this represents a very positive step in the right direction. Until recently, these invalid criteria were the mainstay of the rhetorical framework, repeated generation after generation, in support of the postulate of the historical jesus.

Exposure of Illogical Errors in the HJ Argument for Historicity

We could summarise by saying that Bayesian analysis is capable of exposing errors in logic that have been used in the past (and present) in support of the mainstream HJ argument. By exposing "The Criterion of Embarrassment" etc as invalid historical criterions, the data itself is brought more into the focus - where it should be anyway.

We will certainly see whether the Bayesian method is much use for the basic analysis of figures of history with respect to the NT once Carrier completes his work, but IMO it is difficult to see in advance of this, since Carrier is pushing into new territory.

The GIGO over-rider in Bayes and everything else is with the postulates. We can be reasonably sure that Carrier is not going into the exercise with the postulate that there was an historical jesus, and for that we should be somewhat grateful. Just what Carrier's postulates will be, I guess we will have to wait.


Best wishes,


Pete








http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=302748

Ted Hoffman

Carrier's presentation of Bayesian theorem and hos it can be applied in the Historical Method is available online (I think its a pdf file - he made a presentation at the Jesus project meeting). If avi is serious, he can read it and respond to it.
Otherwise, he can talk all day about mosquitoes, quinine and how terribly unforgiving mathematics is.

jgoodguy

Here it is.

http://www.richardcarrier.info/CarrierDec08.pdf

ex

Major Premise 1: Christians would not invent anything that would embarrass them.
Minor Premise 1: The crucifixion of Jesus would embarrass Christians.
Conclusion 1: Therefore, Christians did not invent the crucifixion of Jesus.

OTOH Price says that it must not have embarrassed the first person to write of it or it would not have been written. So fancy logic nor math is really needed, just analytical thinking.

I think Carrier may be late to the party. The pdf was written in 08, after editing and peer review plus more editing looks like late 12 or early 13 before it gets here and it looks like most of the HJ methodology has been found wanting already.

Then we have to wait some time before Carriers 'proves' his argument before we see it applied to the HJ, if I understand the sequence of books correctly.

A discussion of it can be found here

from the above

Toto

That is a blog with comments from theistic philosophers, including Timothy and Lydia McGraw, who believe that they can use Baysian reasoning to prove that the Resurrection of Jesus happened. I would tend to distrust their reasoning.

GakuseiDon

Actually, no, they don't claim that they can prove the Resurrection of Jesus using Baysian reasoning. See the comment from Carrier I've bolded below, where he apologizes to the McGraws for his criticism of their use of Bayes's Theorem.

Timothy and Lydia McGraw haul Richard Carrier over the coals on his understanding of Bayes's Theorem, and particularly Carrier's review of the McGraws' use of Bayes Theorem on the Resurrection, here.

McGraw writes:

It's been brought to my attention that an atheist styling himself some sort of probability expert [Richard Carrier] has been going about implying that Tim and I are deceptive or slippery in our presentation of our argument for the resurrection, that I was misleading in my interview with Luke Muehlhauser on Common Sense Atheism, that our argument for the resurrection in our Blackwell anthology paper is worthless, and heaven knows what else...

In our paper, we concentrate on the Bayes factor. The Bayes factor shows the direction of the evidence and measures its force. We argue that it is staggeringly high in favor of R [Resurrection] for the evidence we adduce. Naturally, the skeptics will not be likely to agree with us on that. My point here and now, however, is that neither in the paper nor in my interview was there a mistake about probability, any insignificance or triviality in our intended conclusion, nor any deception...

To which Richard Carrier responds and, to his credit, apologizes (my emphasis below):

I apologize for my remarks in my interview with Luke Muehlhauser. I badly overstated my impressions, and drew the wrong inference from what I took to be the opacity of your paper's explanations. I agree with everything Luke has said [about Carrier being mistaken in his criticisms of the McGraws' use of Bayesian theory] in his latest blog on this question...

And you do explain the absence of prior probability calculations (I said you "hinted" at it, which is inaccurate hyperbole). What I should have said was that this explanation is too opaque to lay readers and most don't understand this caveat. Which is why I keep having people come up to me saying your article gives a Bayesian proof that the resurrection occurred or that Lydia McGrew "proved" the resurrection accounts are true (which even you would agree is not an accurate description of what your article does). I was reacting to those claims, not yours. I shouldn't have assumed this was your design, but only an accidental effect.

Again, I regret my hyperbolic remarks, and I have asked Luke to make public my corrections in these regards. I apologize for misrepresenting you and I hope I can mend fences on this score.

There are a couple of other blogs that attack Carrier on his understanding and usage of Bayes's Theorem.

avi

Analysis of extant data is not wrong. I am not arguing that we cannot, or must not analyze Mark 7:31, even though we have two completely different accounts, among the five versions online.

I am arguing that since the data is not uniform, i.e. one of the two versions must be erroneous, because the two different versions are mutually incompatible, that therefore this question is not amenable to Bayesian analysis, using that data.

I would not be able to argue against someone who maintained, for example, that version 1 was the absolute correct version, and therefore, we ought only employ the data corresponding to that version, in assessing whether or not the hypothesis that Jesus did in fact pass through Sidon is correct.

In the case where we are certain, that data has been corrupted, (e.g. because we have two antithetical versions, which cannot be reconciled), we must not use that data in a Bayesian inference engine, with the expectation of achieving a successful result.

I disagree, but, to humor you, I will examine Carrier's definitions, (see below,) and respond.

I disagree that one needs to read even one word of whatever Dr. Carrier, or anyone else has written about using the Bayesian model to explore new testament conundra. What one does need to do, and this, in my opinion, is what Carrier, or anyone else seeking to employ any statistical method in examining historical data, ought to have already performed, is a simple test case, readily apparent to anyone upon casual inspection, hence, my slender post above. I deliberately sought to respond in a lighthearted fashion, maybe that was inappropriate, sorry if so.

I have been avoiding confronting Dr. Carrier's assessment directly, because I sought to refrain from displaying an appearance of hostility directed to him personally.

Umm, two points: a. mathematics is unconcerned with ideology, b. we ought to offer the same method of scrutiny to anyone who seeks to employ a statistical approach to compute probabilities of veracity, using biblical source materials.

I hope that my rejoinder here, will not be viewed as attacking Carrier. I don't intend it to serve as more than a note of caution to anyone who seeks to address issues of contention, proposing a novel solution to such issues by providing discordant data as input to Bayes' theorem.

From these definitions, one can readily understand that Dr. Carrier seeks to compute probabilities.

Can we perform such computations using the Greek texts available to us?
I deny that we can.

Why do I write this, so emphatically?

Look at this point here, from Dr. Carrier's definitions:

e = all the evidence directly relevant to the truth of h (e includes both what is observed and what is not observed);

Perhaps my illustration was poorly chosen, mea culpa, if so, but sticking, for the moment with Mark 7:31, how do we define "e" here?

"All the evidence directly relevant to the truth of h"

Then, by definition, ALL the evidence embraces two mutually contradictory reports. How will the computer program assess this data?

Let us recall, "h", here corresponds to the idea that Jesus did in fact pass through Sidon. That's the hypothesis we wish to explore using Bayes' theorem. This is a situation in which "all the evidence" does not point to the truth of h. Some significant portion of our evidence must be false, i.e. corrupted. Whether that falsification occurred by accident or design, is irrelevant to the question of employing this corrupted data to perform a Bayesian analysis to signal the probability that Jesus did in fact pass through Sidon.

Hope this helps.....

avi

aa5874

You may have made a MISTAKE.

The Conclusion 1: Therefore, Christians did not invent the crucifixion of Jesus-- is a conclusion based on the Criterion of EMBARRASSMENT NOT Bayes Theorem.

jgoodguy

True. However as Mr John Stuart Mill said, all speech is useful. In this case, they are correct in their analysis, or party correct or it is an example of the BS a skeptic would face. In all cases an analytic reading is useful.

The idea here is to find find additional information and get comments on a new idea. I understand that Carrier has an attitude but that seems consistent with a driven personality. I do not consider criticisms as attacks, it is simple finding the best explanation among competitors.

Toto

more on the Baysian probability of the ResurrectionAnyone who thinks that the probability of the Resurrection is "staggeringly high" has some sort of problem.

Comments from Ed Babinski at that link seem quite pertinent.

jgoodguy

IMHO if it appears to a lay person that 'Bayesian proof that the resurrection occurred' exists, then it gives skeptics an additional problem to overcome. If you think arguing about flood geology is bad, then if you have to have an advanced degree in math to discuss this, we are all in big trouble.