Gee's paper on Four Idolatrous Gods in the Book of Abraham

[_Shulem]

The four Idolatrous Gods versus the canopic jars! Gee could get into a real visceral argument with this one.

It's the only thing Gee has going for him.

But rest assured, Shulem can kick his ass!

You know that, don't you?



Shulem

[_moksha]

It's the only thing Gee has going for him.

But rest assured, Shulem can kick his ass!

You know that, don't you?



Shulem

You show him we don't need no stinking Idolatrous Gods around here! Kick his butt back to Egyptology 101!!!

[_Shulem]

You show him we don't need no stinking Idolatrous Gods around here! Kick his butt back to Egyptology 101!!!

I'm John Gee's worst enemy. Never fear. I've got it handled.

Step aside, Ritner. This is an in house job that needs be done.

Shulem

[_aussieguy55]

Strange response to paper
Kyler Rasmussen on July 17, 2020 at 4:26 pm said:
Thanks for this Dr. Gee. Always refreshing to see people actually work through the math when going through this evidence.

That said, I’m not sure you’re entirely on the mark. You seem to be treating it as if the Book of Abraham referenced a single god with a name 10 syllables long. The probability of getting all four names right would work out a bit differently.

Elkenah = 3 syllables
p = 1 in (484*484*484)/2130
p = 1 in 53230 = .00001879

Mamackrah = 3 syllables
p = 1 in (484*484*484)/2130
p = 1 in 53230 = .00001879

Libnah = 2 syllables
p = 1 in (484*484)/2130
p = 1 in 110 = .009

Korash = 2 syllables
p = 1 in (484*484)/2130
p = 1 in 110 = .009

The overall probability would multiply those four together, resulting in a probability of p = 2.8 x 10^-14. Still astronomically small, but still billions of times more likely than your estimate would suggest.

I also wonder if there really are 484 different syllable combinations. It’d be interesting to run through the list of 2130 gods and see how many syllables are represented in that set.

Continue the excellent work!

[_moksha]

Kyler Ray Rasmussen • 17 hours ago
I had some thoughts on Dr. Gee's math that I posted in the comments. He's at least 8 or so orders of magnitude too high on his odds estimate, and deeper linguistic analysis could drive it down further. Still unlikely, but it's not a statistical silver bullet on its own.

Moksha Kyler Ray Rasmussen • 13 hours ago
What are the odds on idolatrous canopic jars?

Kyler Ray Rasmussen Moksha • 13 hours ago • edited
Yuuuuuuuge, to the power of orange.

[_Physics Guy]

If any scholars of ancient languages want to rack their brains for god-related things whose names might have shared some consonants with the syllables I provide, I'd be willing to make up some names that sound kind of ancient-Egyptian-godlike to me. You'll contribute your linguistic expertise to the project, while I'll bring enough ignorance of ancient Middle-Eastern religions and languages that I definitely could not have known of the tenuous connections you find. We'll be a great research team.

Even though I'll be the one with the miraculous guessing powers, I'll generously let you be first authors on the paper. I'm a nice guy that way. I try not to let my magic powers go to my head.

[_Dr Exiled]

Gee's a hack and I blame his priesthood leaders in SLC for creating this hack monster and those like him.

Funny thing is that these church leaders would throw him under the bus, so quickly, if the Fund and tithing were at stake, that we would need some sort of high powered detector to perceive how fast it was.

Gee should be learning from Dr. Hauglid instead of looking for ways to undermine him.

[_Philo Sofee]

Like Olishem, and as Hauglid has so accurately described, Egyptological "bulls eyes" like this are, indeed, "thin gruel."

[_Dr Moore]

Finally completed reading Gee’s “astronomical odds” article this weekend.

What an incredibly brilliant assemblage of case studies in the sharpshooter fallacy.

The fluff around his key arguments gives an appearance of the thesis being well researched. Gee must know this because he admits the reader will see his work as a “meagre amount of information” ... but then Gee does the last thing one might expect in an exploratory paper by taking his “meagre” information all the way to 11 by performing an astronomical odds manipulation a la Greatest Guesser.

His paper has already stretched every possible connection by adding and removing syllables, including all nouns across multiple languages, and allowed for untold variants within syllables he kept.

Who is he kidding, with Gee holding up the targets, Joseph’s odds are 1 in 1 of making impossible bulls eyes.

The odds of Joseph Smith guessing the names correctly is astronomical.

Challenge accepted.

[_Res Ipsa]

Strange response to paper
Kyler Rasmussen on July 17, 2020 at 4:26 pm said:
Thanks for this Dr. Gee. Always refreshing to see people actually work through the math when going through this evidence.

That said, I’m not sure you’re entirely on the mark. You seem to be treating it as if the Book of Abraham referenced a single god with a name 10 syllables long. The probability of getting all four names right would work out a bit differently.

Elkenah = 3 syllables
p = 1 in (484*484*484)/2130
p = 1 in 53230 = .00001879

Mamackrah = 3 syllables
p = 1 in (484*484*484)/2130
p = 1 in 53230 = .00001879

Libnah = 2 syllables
p = 1 in (484*484)/2130
p = 1 in 110 = .009

Korash = 2 syllables
p = 1 in (484*484)/2130
p = 1 in 110 = .009

The overall probability would multiply those four together, resulting in a probability of p = 2.8 x 10^-14. Still astronomically small, but still billions of times more likely than your estimate would suggest.

I also wonder if there really are 484 different syllable combinations. It’d be interesting to run through the list of 2130 gods and see how many syllables are represented in that set.

Continue the excellent work!

They're looking at the wrong set of odds. The actual question is "what are the odds that, after the fact, Gee can draw some tenuous connection between the four "egyptian" gods and something in the ancient middle east.