avi

Bayes' theorem is not like garlic, something we add, to render our food more palatable.

No amount of "statistics", can change the data base.

Our arguments, in my opinion, require less mathematics, and more accurate, unadulterated, unredacted original data.

I am reminded of the famous Hindu story, or perhaps it is Chinese, I don't remember now, about the three wise men, all blind, who encounter an elephant, each of them touching only one small part of the elephant, and drawing very different conclusions about the nature of the beast, based upon the particular anatomical structures analyzed by touch alone.

avi

Toto

It's an Indian story. And each of the blind men had accurate data - they just needed a method for combining the data and making sense of it.

avi

a. Is it possible, that similarly, in ancient times, some of the authors lacked the data from their predecessors?

b. could the three blind men have "combined the data, and made sense of it", by employing statistics?

In my opinion, we gain very little by imposing a statistical analysis on deformed data sets, whether those data are distorted because of forgery, or simply because of omission.

avi

blastula

Historians already use Bayesian type of reasoning informally without the numbers. It's really what we ideally try to do in everyday life when thinking about whether to believe a proposition - we compare the claim with what we know about related factors and try to figure a likelihood. Bayes puts it all in mathematical terms. I don't think the reasoning behind it should be controversial. Of course, as has been mentioned, the utility of Bayes depends on the validity of the inputs. Carrier has said he thinks coming up with valid, justifiable prior probabilities is doable for this area of study. I'll wait and see.

ApostateAbe

Yeah, that would be even better, but I don't have such a high bar.

aa5874

It was those who could see the elephant who knew that the three blind men were wrong.

But, if all were blind then the three would be all right.

Now, some can see the elephant but the blind don't know who can see so may still BELIEVE they are right.

Perhaps the BLIND don't know that People can SEE MYTH Jesus in Matthew 1.18, Luke 1.26-35, John 1, Mark 6.49, Mark 9.2, Mark 16.6, Acts 1.9 and Galatians 1.1-12.

The blind don't know who can see. All they know is that they are blind.

WE CAN SEE MYTH in the NT. What can the blind see in the NT?

Only their imagination!!

premjan

http://wordinfo.info/unit/1?letter=B&spage=3
There were six blind men.

mountainman

This is not what I have claimed at all. Dura Europos is not faked evidence. The P.Oxy 3035 "Order to arrest "chrestian" is not faked. The entire index of the evidence for "Chrest" is not faked. These items of evidence are not faked. They are being erroneously claimed as representing evidence for the existence of "christians".

This is not "faked evidence" below, out of Graydon Snyder's Ant Pacem. It represents unsubstantiated claims. Is this a carving of a small nude Jesus next to the larger standing John the Baptist? I think not.



The theory of Constantinian commissioning/invention is based on the hypothesis of zero evidence prior to the 4th century. As such the thesis claims a negative, the absence of evidence; the burden of proof naturally rests in the positive complementary position, i.e. anyone that may believe that Christianity existed previous to that date.

The evidence normally put forward which I reject as being faked as follows:

(1) the new testament itself.
(2) the literary output of Eusebius.

The following is not faked evidence, but misinterpretted evidence.

(3) palaeographical-attestations-in-their-isolation for "early papyri fragments". (the handwriting script has been identified as similar to those identified as an early script therefore the fragment was written early). This does not necessarily follow. Sometimes manuscripts are puposefully presented as old. You will note I make reference to palaeographical-attestations-in-their-isolation to distinguish the normal use of palaeographical-attestations-in-their-corroboration-with-other-dating-techniques. In the case of the NT fragments, the palaeographical-attestations are not corroborated by any other dating technique other than Eusebius and/or inferences drawn from the new testament itself, and a bloated will to believe.


(4) archaeological stretches of the imagination, such as Dura Europos. (an art impression of someone walking on the river flats of the Euphrates is taken to be --- Of Course! - Its Peter walking on water!")

avi

Thanks for the link, and the correction.

Both much appreciated.

avi

Doug Shaver

Short answer: No, I can't provide you with that information. I have no idea whether such a site even exists.

But I can tell you this. With Bayes' theorem as with computers, the GIGO law applies. If you dispute the data fed into it, then the result isn't going to change your thinking. Sometimes it's a judgment call whether something is garbage or not.

As Carrier's article points out, the theorem is about the effect of evidence on our assessment of probabilities. Anything plugged into the formula as evidence is presumptively a fact. (If it isn't a fact, then the formula is irrelevant.) If you and I disagree over whether some statement is a fact, then you and I disagree about whether the referent of that statement counts as evidence, and so we're going to disagree about what if anything Bayes' theorem can tell us about its effect on the probability of what it is said to be evidence for.