Bill Dembski has another triumph under his belt. He has shown that James Cameron’s math in the Lost Tomb of Jesus show was wrong. It seems a little late, given that even the show’s statistician has made a retraction. But of course, Dembski’s got to claim that the analysis is tangentially related to his debunking of evolution, and further, he’s got to make this ridiculous taunt:
Question: You think any of the skeptic societies might be interested in highlighting this work debunking the Jesus Family Tomb people? I’ll give 10 to 1 odds that they won’t. Indeed, how many skeptics now believe that we’ve found the tomb of Jesus? And to think that until just recently the skeptics didn’t even think that Jesus existed.
They won’t be interested because the author is Dembski, a man with no credibility. They also won’t be interested because it’s a dead issue; none of the skeptics I know or read were at all impressed with Cameron’s methods or interpretations, and certainly didn’t make any declarations that Jesus’ tomb had been found. I saw the program, and I thought it was crap from beginning to end. I think the universal consensus was that Cameron was a laughingstock and the whole sorry episode was a joke. But now Dembski thinks he has accomplished something by debunking a claim we rejected months ago?
I have this mental image of Dembski strutting around the dusty roads of Texas and finding a dead horned toad, partially consumed by birds, dessicated and defleshed and clearly long deceased. He gives it a kick, and then pompously declares that he has slain the ferocious dragon that had the godless skeptics cowed. And he writes a paper about it.
That’s pretty pathetic, and it illustrates once again that they just don’t get it. Even if Jesus’s tomb were found, and the find was scientifically confirmed to a practical certainty, it wouldn’t change a thing for us. We’re not unbelievers because the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth hasn’t been found; we’re unbelievers because we find religion implausible.
“And to think that until just recently the skeptics didn’t even think that Jesus existed.”
That is wrong on so many levels. First of all there has for quite awhile been a debate between skeptics over whether or not there was a historical Jesus. Secondly, plenty of skeptics still don’t think he existed. Like me! Why does he think we all agree about this?
ddddembski the dumbass. ;)
http://thestubborncurmudgeon.blogspot.com
Yeah, us skeptics are only interested in debunking christian claims because, deep down inside, we know they’re right and we’re scared of eternal damnation.
Also, we hate freedom. And probably puppies too.
That’s why James Randi spends no time at all on frauds like Sylvia Browne, Deepak Chopra, Uri Geller, and such.
We’re such phonies; I don’t know how we live with ourselves. Oh, right. We have no morals, because morals only come from God (either that or we act like animals because we believe that we’re merely animals.)
Have I got that all right?
I have this mental image of Dembski strutting around the dusty roads of Texas and finding a dead horned toad, partially consumed by birds, dessicated and defleshed and clearly long deceased. He gives it a kick, and then pompously declares that he has slain the ferocious dragon that had the godless skeptics cowed. And he writes a paper about it.
No, he tells people he’s going to write a paper about it. Bill’s actual scientific output is still zero papers. Lots of waffly articles in religious magazines, though.
Have I got that all right?
You left out that we became ‘Darwinists’ so we can have lots of anonymous sex.
Ooh, where do I sign up?
–OW! No, sweetie, I was kidding!
Does this mean that if Muhammad’s tomb is ever found, Dembski will have to convert? That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.
From skeptical biblical scholar Robert Price in The Humanist, an atheist publication (http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/RobertPrice.html):
“In my opinion, though, the business about an ostensible wife and son for Jesus negates all the statistics about the tomb being the Jesus family mausoleum. We cannot first point to the precise set of relationships mentioned in the Gospels (father and mother: Joseph and Mary; brothers: Jesus, Joses, Simon, Judas, and James) as being reproduced in Talpiot and then point to other names that pointedly don’t fit the Gospel family unit (Jesus’s wife and son) and say, “Well, now that we’ve positively identified Jesus and his family, it looks like we can add some new members.” No, you have to count in “Mariamne also called Mara” and “Judah son of Jesus” from the start and compare that whole family lineup with the gospels. And then it doesn’t match. That ought to be obvious.
“When The Lost Tomb of Jesus speculates that we had never before heard of any son of Jesus only because of conspiracy and intrigue, we are being asked to explain a lesser mystery by means of a greater one. There is no reason to suppose there was a conspiracy; it is only required to keep the theory moving. And that’s the essence of crackpot pseudo-scholarship.”
Dembski was spectacularly wrong wrong wrong. Also paranoid.
Not quite. We love flowers and puppy dogs.
Baked together at 375 degrees with a little garlic and a few lemon slices.
Speaking of James Cameron, has anyone seen his other documentary, Exodus Decoded? That one I’ve watched several times and actually find a lot of it pretty convincing. Just in the sense that i think there were a series of natural disasters triggered by the eruption of the Santorini volcano. And there was a somewhat large group of semitic people that left Egypt. But i’d be really interested in hearing some refutations of it.
http://theexodusdecoded.com/ Here’s the site for it.
Thoughts?
Thoughts, Brian W.? Okay, here’s my thoughts without even looking at the site, knowing nothing about it til now: a bunch of cherry-picking BS with dubious support, if any.
Let me know how I did.
A limerick:
Will’s a man with the initials of W.A.D.
And his logic is totally flawed
True to his name
He substitutes Billiam for William
And it turns out it’s still just as B.A.D.
Here’s a piece from SciAm debunking the Cameron BS on “Jesus’ Tomb”:
http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?title=says_scholar_whose_work_was_used_in_the&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
So Dembski duplicates much of the work and argumentation of the “skeptics” that he derides, and declares his triumph. For all I know, he does make a marginal contribution to the debunking of Cameron’s claims, but clearly he adds little.
I wonder if the dumbass will ever get around to debunking the “Bible Code” that he fell for in the past.
And Brian, most of what Cameron says about the “Exodus” is considered to be equal flim-flam. He “finds” evidence of “Israelites” in Mycenae based on the flimsiest notions of similarity between the Biblical account and a few schematic pictures there.
I don’t have many specifics, as it all sounded like so much conclusion from so little evidence when I watched it, that I didn’t really take it seriously. Just look it up on the web, I’m sure you’ll find plenty to debunk Cameron’s “Exodus” claims.
Glen D
http://www.geocities.com/interelectromagnetic
PZ, you left out the most interesting part about Dembski’s post! He argues that Cameron’s argument from improbability is flawed. But then he ties it into ID< specifically mentioning Behe's "Edge of Evolution." But Behe also uses a flawed argument from improbability, so does that mean Dembski is trying to debunk Behe, too?
Hm, let’s try this again. Dembski argues (what we already knew) that the argument from improbability in Cameron’s documentary is based on bad statistics. But then he ties it into ID, specifically Behe: “Marks and I show that the probabilities really aren’t that bad. In light of the probability arguments that keep being made for and against evolution — the most notable recent case being in Michael Behe’s Edge of Evolution — the arguments we make in our ‘Jesus Tomb Math’ paper will have a familiar ring.”
But Behe also uses an argument from improbability based on bad math. So does that mean Dembski is trying to debunk Behe, or does he just not see the irony?
Next, Dembski will debunk the many Noah’s Archs, and laugh at the credibility of Bible freaks.
Shouldn’t we be encouraging him? He’s at least TRYING to think skeptically.
This skeptic debunked the statistics four months ago:
http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2007/03/jesus_tomb_lost.html
Ah, but Sylvia Browne thinks that God gave her the right to fleece others, Deepak Chopra thinks he is God, and God is Uri Geller a buffoon. (Ok, I ran out of material pretty quickly.)
However, I expect it’s projection-as-usual. How could dogmatic Darwinists not buy into every argument that seems to oppose creationism, regardless of whether it makes any sense, and without stopping to think about its implication? Evolution’s position of having actual evidence, so as not to have to grasp at straws, is hardly conceivable for the DI.
What, are you expecting two creationist arguments, even from the same bunch, to be compatible? They’re lucky if they can get a single argument to seem to work with itself.
Brian W., the Exodus connection to the Thera eruption rests completely on the theory that the Hyksos were one and the same with the Hebrews. And that theory is, to put it mildly, rather thinly supported. A couple of signet rings with similar names between two semitic peoples is hardly proof of anything other than that they were both speakers of Semitic languages. Plus there are primary sources for the end of the Hyksos reign that do not jibe at all with Biblical accounts. We’re talking defeated kings not escaping slaves when we talk about the Hyksos.
Even if one assumes the historicity of the Exodus, it probably took place a couple hundred years after the Thera period. 13th century BCE not 15th or 16th. One major issue with placing the Exodus in the mid to late 17th dynasty is that Egypt directly controlled Cannan at the time. Most scholars place the Exodus in the early 18th dynasty under Ramesses II or Seti I.
Heh, no, I don’t expect them to be compatible. But neither does one expect them to highlight any incompatibility. I imagine that if Dembski realized his take on the Jesus Tomb would also threaten Behe’s argument, then he wouldn’t have mentioned Behe at all.
Forget skeptics, nobody believed that crap. Would any one with a legit discovery debut it on cable? I sure wouldn’t, but I’d call a lot of researchers and beg em to confirm my discovery (and start writing those award recommendations).
Bear in mind, those horned toads used to kick the daylights out of him when he was little. Payback is hell.
Aaron wrote
Naw, Dembski’s cut Behe off at the knees before. See this thread on ARN. Read the first post and then scroll down to my #15478120 – Fri Jan 28 2005 12:36 AM post.
Dembski should set his sights on Shakhnovic et al.. But I think the only thing we can expect is a claim that he will write a paper/book soon debunking this proposed ab initio model of early microsciopic evolution.
And the side tangent of the Exodus in the comments section made me recall Velikovskyism, perhaps the first formal (eg seemed legitimate) pseudo-scientific work of the 20th century.
“We’re talking defeated kings not escaping slaves when we talk about the Hyksos.”
Right. I just think that perhaps descendants of those Hyksos, would have later on taken those stories of expulsion and natural disasters and combined them. They wouldn’t necessarily have to be connected.
One of my reasons for thinking there’s a connection between the early Jews and Egypt is that so much of Judaism and Christianity is clearly taken from Egptian mythology. For example the Egyptians have a story of a man climbing a mountain and coming back with laws from god. I think his name was Mises. And i’ve heard that the name Israel is a combination of the Egyptian gods Isis and Ra with the semitic god, El. However i’ve had trouble finding confirmation of that. From an atheist perspective it seems to make more sense that there is some connection between the jews and Egypt.
However, i was unaware that Egypt ever controlled Canaan and that could invalidate all of that.
Anyway, when i say that i found the documentary convincing, really what i meant is that i believe the elements of the stories were there, and someone else weaved them all together.
There are a number of Christian subcults (for example the Mormons) who believe Jesus was married, and had children. They have all sorts of imaginative re-interpretations of the Gospels – which in turn are imaginative reinterpretations of each other.
“And i’ve heard that the name Israel is a combination of the Egyptian gods Isis and Ra with the semitic god, El.”
So why is it that Americans pronounce it “IS-ree-ul”?
Well, pronunciations do change over time.
There was math in that? Now I wish that I had watched it! I’ll have to settle for debunking the math from the first reply. Muhammad was born 1437 years ago (or so). He founded Islam sometime after that. The figure of muslims with vested interests ruling the holy land for 2000 years is a bit off. Ok, I’m easily amused…
“One of my reasons for thinking there’s a connection between the early Jews and Egypt”Brian W
Israel/ Judah/ Caana is in between Egypt and just about everyone else who was civilized in the ancient world. Needless to say the Egyptians were very heavily involved in that what was basically their front door. The first recorded battle in history was between the Egyptians and the Hittes in Israel.
Religion was one way in the ancient word client states sucked up to powerful states. Needless to say the Jews wanted to show the Egyptians they were their guys. All the Egyptians had to do was in the Jews holy book and their it says the Jews came from Egypt.
The Jews did the same thing with the Persians when they showed up on the scene.
Am I the only one who sees the craziest part of Dembski’s argument? Try and follow his argument:
Question: You think any of the skeptic societies might be interested in highlighting this work debunking the Jesus Family Tomb people? I’ll give 10 to 1 odds that they won’t.
And why won’t they? The very next sentence:
Indeed, how many skeptics now believe that we’ve found the tomb of Jesus?
Implies that skeptics believe “we’ve found the tomb of Jesus” and that is the reason they won’t “highlight this work”. Yet the very next sentence reads:
And to think that until just recently the skeptics didn’t even think that Jesus existed.
The last sentence makes no sense. Why would they think he existed? When they have such insightful debunkings by brilliant minds like… William A. Dembski?
It reminds me of that old anti-drug commercial: “I learned it from watching you, Dad. I learned it from watching YOU!”
I know of no “skeptics” that gave that show an once of serious consideration. Claiming many were convinced by it shows, either pure ignorance about the average “skeptical” opinion on the matter, or an ability to lie with a straight face. Again, one needs only go back and look at everyone’s posts on the show when it came out…
>>You think any of the skeptic societies might be interested in highlighting this work debunking the Jesus Family Tomb people?
Most had already debunked it before it aired.
>>I’ll give 10 to 1 odds that they won’t.
I’ll take that bet. I’ve a 1000 dollars in the bank. I’ll put it all down.
>>Indeed, how many skeptics now believe that we’ve found the tomb of Jesus?
If they are real skeptics, 0. The story was completely stupid.
>>And to think that until just recently the skeptics didn’t even think that Jesus existed.
Actually, that’s the reason I first reacted as strongly against this as I did. I’m pretty confident with mythicism and figured that this would thusly need to be a forgery, then more things stuck out with the story. In fact, using that same theory “Jesus story complete fiction” I predicted correctly about that James ossuary thing too.
I dare say it’s been more than 1800 years since the gospels were written and there’s a conspiracy of silence, I doubt anything is going to drop into our lap anytime soon. It would be like suddenly uncovering William Tell’s bow.
So if I get this right? He proves that they didn’t find the tomb of a man who didn’t exist? Hmmm. What a wizard at calculating.
I thing he is excited creationist fashion because his Baylor links shows that it will be published as a book chapter “… [arguing] for the credibility of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, engaging the issue in relation to the recent “Jesus Family Tomb” claims …”.
While he hasn’t got his 3 papers with Robert Marks through peer-review yet.
Some commenters took a brief look at those papers on a GMBM thread.
What they are doing is to look at search algorithms, such as GA’s, and try to extract “active information” from the problem constraints. The overarching goal is of course to point at evolutionary mechanisms and conclude that ‘information is put in there’.
The best comprehension was by commenter secondclass, which noted that “they never support the first claim that they make in the abstract, namely that NFL poses an obstacle to biological evolution”.
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[There are a lot of other problems.
As Dembski is working with another person, he seems forced to stick with his definitions for once. So instead he has to really concentrate to produce useless theory and faulty examples, and it shows.
For example, in the technical section of the paper where they analyze the evolutionary model of the ev perceptron, they outright ignore the detailed analysis of the ev constructor to be able to go outside its applicability and then complain about problems in its behavior.
But foremost, secondclass’ complaints holds:
1. Marks’ & Dembski’s model builds in a dependency between RM+NS as the search algorithm and RM+NS as determining the targets. Of course they find that selection isn’t random. Why should it be?
2. Constraining an infinite search space to a realistic finite example constitutes active information. If the search space is arbitrarily chosen, we should get infinite active information and can’t make any discrimination. ]
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Nick Matzke on PT is pushing for blog “reviews” or rather interaction. Maybe we should start a pre-publishing debunking project for bad papers.
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Skemono, I’m not used to making baked meats. But I happen to be looking for a recipe for puppy pie, and would be grateful for any pointers.
Btw, aren’t skeptics supposed to eat babies? I can’t find those recipes either.
I thing he is excited creationist fashion because his Baylor links shows that it will be published as a book chapter “… [arguing] for the credibility of Jesus Christ’s resurrection, engaging the issue in relation to the recent “Jesus Family Tomb” claims …”.
While he hasn’t got his 3 papers with Robert Marks through peer-review yet.
Some commenters took a brief look at those papers on a GMBM thread.
What they are doing is to look at search algorithms, such as GA’s, and try to extract “active information” from the problem constraints. The overarching goal is of course to point at evolutionary mechanisms and conclude that ‘information is put in there’.
The best comprehension was by commenter secondclass, which noted that “they never support the first claim that they make in the abstract, namely that NFL poses an obstacle to biological evolution”.
…
…
…
[There are a lot of other problems.
As Dembski is working with another person, he seems forced to stick with his definitions for once. So instead he has to really concentrate to produce useless theory and faulty examples, and it shows.
For example, in the technical section of the paper where they analyze the evolutionary model of the ev perceptron, they outright ignore the detailed analysis of the ev constructor to be able to go outside its applicability and then complain about problems in its behavior.
But foremost, secondclass’ complaints holds:
1. Marks’ & Dembski’s model builds in a dependency between RM+NS as the search algorithm and RM+NS as determining the targets. Of course they find that selection isn’t random. Why should it be?
2. Constraining an infinite search space to a realistic finite example constitutes active information. If the search space is arbitrarily chosen, we should get infinite active information and can’t make any discrimination. ]
…
…
…
Nick Matzke on PT is pushing for blog “reviews” or rather interaction. Maybe we should start a pre-publishing debunking project for bad papers.
…
…
…
Skemono, I’m not used to making baked meats. But I happen to be looking for a recipe for puppy pie, and would be grateful for any pointers.
Btw, aren’t skeptics supposed to eat babies? I can’t find those recipes either.
It fits Dembski’s usual pattern. He’s a fairly bright guy who nevertheless evinces monstrous gaps/leaps in logic, and has difficulty putting the big picture together. Lacking any sort of gestalt, God substitutes.
Treat it like veal.
Tomb, schmoomb. If they found Yehoshua’s ossuary in the company of possible family and it became a firm, reasonable conclusion, it would indicate that the “Jesus” didn’t make it to the “resurrection” or “assumption” stages. This “Jesus” name = Yehoshua = Joshua who was a heroic mythic fabrication. That there was a Rabbi, Yeshua, of the school of R. Hillel one can accept as a probability on scholarly grounds. He could have pissed off the Temple priests AND the Romans & got himself strung up. If he survived & his bones wound up in an ossuary it’s no big deal. The crucifixion+ resurrection + assumption= godhood = All Must Submit needs a bit of demonstration.
Hey, the Chicago school of economics has a similar myth!
I think you mean the first recorded peace treaty, which was concluded between Egyptians and Hittites after a battle in Syria. The Hittite empire was centered in central Anatolia, close to modern Ankara.
I think you mean the first recorded peace treaty, which was concluded between Egyptians and Hittites after a battle in Syria. The Hittite empire was centered in central Anatolia, close to modern Ankara.
I think it’s fair to say that there is more and whackier nonsense generated in the field of Biblical studies than particles stream off the face of the Sun. So many people approach it with a wish to confirm their particular prejudices (often reinforced with strong religious or nationalist motivation), and the evidence is so fragmentary and ambiguous, that it’s very hard for lay people — even those good at research and working with academic material — to work out what the true state of the art actually is. (But it is extremely entertaining, if you like that sort of thing, which I do).
For example, there’s no general agreement about the Exodus: when, where, who or even if are still heavily debated. It is of course of primary importance to the foundation myth of Israel, hardly a neutral issue at the moment, so the debates go beyond heavy sometimes…
Dembski’s contribution to the background count of silly would be just another tiny doltino in the endless shower, were it not coming from a chap with theological chops who really should know better.
Pfft. He makes absolutely no sense with this one, as usual. Cameron’s tomb of Jesus was met by skeptics with as much excitement as Geraldo’s opening of Al Capone’s vault. Heck, I can find dozens of tombs of Jesus if I go to a cemetery in Elizabeth or Perth Amboy, NJ – that’s how credible it was.
And speaking of credible – since the DI has taken to calling stuff they all agree on among themselves as “peer reviewed”, how authentic do we think the “peer review” will be on these new papers of his?
Shawn Wilkinson: A lot of the pseudoscience (and pseudotechnology) of psychoanalysis was also founded in the 20th century …
Very nice, Rupert! I hope you don’t mind if I quote you.
I guess poor Dembski wasn’t reading any science blogs when the ossuary was opened, or he would have noticed the upwelling of skeptical comments.
That would be flogging a dead unicorn.