Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_Roger]

Of course Glenn's bar would be a 100%, topped by a 60%,
so you would still beat his score.

Not content with 2nd place, Glenn would no doubt argue that the results are rigged for Roger.

[_GlennThigpen]

So -- what does the Jockers study demonstrate? It shows us where the
most likely contributions to the text would occur IF one or more of those
19th century gentlemen ACTUALLY was a contributor to the Book's text.

Don't fall over backward. I actually agree with that statement.

For my purposes that sort of study is both interesting and useful.

To folks like Ben and Glenn, it makes about as much sense as asking
what parts of the Book most resemble the utterances of Queen Victoria;
assuming that Victoria ACTUALLY did write part of the "Nephite" text.

And, you know what?
That's OK with me. I do not expect any more.
I think that Bruce has done us all a favor, by delimiting the methodology.

I see the interesting part. I do not know what use it could be.

Now -- what do I want to see next? I want to see both "open" and
"closed" set NSC analysis for ALL the early Mormons who left behind
sufficient writings to enable their word-printing. That means W.W. Phelps,
Lucy Mack Smith, Orson Hyde, F.G. Williams, Orson Pratt, etc., etc.

It can be done, and it will be done.

That would be interesting. I also would like to see a few other names thrown into the mix. Someone like Alexander Campbell and Adamson Bentley. I know that they are not likely authors of the Book of Mormon, but they would be good control types because they were from the same period and vicinity, plus they were of a religious bent. I do not know if that has anything to do with it or not.

The Jockers team at Stanford, in the next couple of weeks, are conducting
an academic workshop on the subject of NSC textual analysis, and will be
making available a software package which will allow even us non-experts
the option of applying computer analysis to 19th century authors' word-prints.

Will this software include the ability to perform both open and closed set analysis? I would like to be able to have such software, but I am leery of the ability of the lay person to design a data set that would be valid on which to base the study.

The actual design of any experiment has as much to do with the outcome as the actual methodologies used. I am skeptical, but would really hope that the software can be made gigo (garbage in, garbage out) proof.

Glenn

[_GlennThigpen]

Of course Glenn's bar would be a 100%, topped by a 60%,
so you would still beat his score.

Not content with 2nd place, Glenn would no doubt argue that the results are rigged for Roger.

Sigh. When I was in high school my physique had a negative rating. My kissing was not rated. However, that put me in a unique category which made me the winner in a class of one. That is for the glass is half full crowd anyway.

Glenn

[_Roger]

Face it Glenn. I'm a better kisser. Statistics don't lie.

[_Roger]

Shades, PhD., wrote:

For reasons unknown, all of the longest threads on this forum are or have been Spalding-related.

They can stay in the church but they can't leave Spalding alone.

[_Roger]

Glenn:

I'm not surprised that you fail to get the correct answer with regard to the heartfelt, true and sincere account of how I became a Spalding advocate. No doubt you failed to ponder and pray. Regardless, putting your scientific baseline into action, how would you go about demonstrating that the story is not true?

[_GlennThigpen]

Face it Glenn. I'm a better kisser. Statistics don't lie.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Benjamin Disraeli

[_Dan Vogel]

Dale:

Our LDS (and our Smith-alone) opponents continue to complain
that they cannot understand such visual depictions -- but I suspect
that they are generally too lazy and too uninterested to even
read the accompanying explanations.

In my case I'm just too dense. (I realize, of course, what a great signature addition that will make for Glenn and Dan).

I have a feeling this will turn out to be a stupid question, but.... how is it possible to have percentage shared phraseology at over 100%?

If Dale’s chart of known OC phraseology is based on his word-string theory, that is, looking for three or more consecutive matching words, then you need to look my “EXPERIMENT USING BROADHURST'S WORD-STRING METHODOLOGY,” which compares James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 Last of the Mohicans and Book of Mormon.

http://mormondiscussions.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=22472#p22472

Is this a recognized methodology?

[_GlennThigpen]

[quote="Uncle Dale].
Our LDS (and our Smith-alone) opponents continue to complain
that they cannot understand such visual depictions -- but I suspect
that they are generally too lazy and too uninterested to even
read the accompanying explanations.
[/quote]

Dale, it is not that we, or at least I am uninterested. It is that you have yet to show how your matches are pertinent, especially in light of Bruce Schaalje's peer reviewed study. See Dan Vogel's post above for an interesting experiment using your methodology.

Glenn

[_Uncle Dale]

...
your methodology.
...

In 1982 Dr. Lester E. Bush, Jr. strongly suggested that I set aside
tabulations of randomly occurring shared word-strings as representing
any sort of useful methodology in textual comparison.

His suggestion was -- that I adopt a rigorously quantifiable method
of comparing texts --- such as counting vocabulary overlap. That
sort of comparison results in "hard numbers" and not just a random
list of subjective "favorite" textual similarities.

So, after a lapse of many years, I finally took Bush's council -- only
to be rejected by Mormons and Smith-aloners.

As best I can now fathom these objections, the complaint is that
I am NOT identifying the sections of the Book of Mormon most
resembling the known writings of these particular authors.

If shared vocabulary is now an invalid measurement, then perhaps
somebody here can direct me to a valid methodology.

Say that you, or Ben, or somebody else wished to compare
Brigham Young's sermons to the rest of the addresses printed
in the "Journal of Discourses." ---- If you rejected the comparison
of his vocabulary and phraseology with those non-Brigham
discourses in the set, THEN WHAT METHOD WOULD YOU USE
in order to make your comparisons?

I have before me a list of words shared by Joseph Smith, Jr.
and the Book of Mormon, which are NOT known to have been
used by Cowdery, Spalding, Rigdon, or Pratt. Since we only have
an excerpt of all that those five men said and wrote during their
lifetimes, I suppose it can be argued that Smith's "unique words"
are not a verified, scientific measurement.

But, it's the best I know how to produce under current circumstances.

I suppose that nobody (except S-R advocates) will be interested in
seeing that list, and discovering which parts of the Book of Mormon
hold the greatest clusters of words shared only with Smith.

Correct?

UD