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

[_Roger]

Dale:

Correct me if I have this wrong, but whenever we see a "false positive" on Bruce's chart for, say, Rigdon, it would correspond to one of the wandering dots on his PC1 chart that went swimming away from the Book of Mormon group out to nearby 19th century waters, correct? That would be one of the dots he was reluctant to acknowledge to you? Correct?

[_Uncle Dale]

Dale:

Correct me if I have this wrong, but whenever we see a "false positive" on Bruce's chart for, say, Rigdon, it would correspond to one of the wandering dots on his PC1 chart that went swimming away from the Book of Mormon group out to nearby 19th century waters, correct? That would be one of the dots he was reluctant to acknowledge to you? Correct?

I don't have blow-ups of the pca charts for Bruce's published version (which
included Smith among the author-candidates).

I'd have to examine his later set of pca charts, in order to know what they
say about Smith/Book of Mormon chapters proximity, etc.

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

So I was looking at Bruce's chart you posted, Dale. For some reason it made my computer run about 60x slower so I eventually had to close it, but while it was open an interesting thing jumped out at me.... guess who Bruce attributes 2 Nephi 3 to?

Interesting that we should be discussing Joseph Smith's prediction of a coming spokesman--who had to have been Cowdery!--and yet Bruce gets a "false" positive for Rigdon! The irony!

According to the probability matrix that Bruce posted, 2 Nephi 3 was a false positive attributed to Isaiah. 2 Nephi 2 was a false positive for Rigdon.

Glenn

[_Roger]

Glenn:

According to the probability matrix that Bruce posted, 2 Nephi 3 was a false positive attributed to Isaiah. 2 Nephi 2 was a false positive for Rigdon.

Well maybe... it sure looked like it was 2 Nephi 3 on the chart I looked at. But like I said for some reason it majorly slowed down my computer so I hesitate to open it again.

[_Roger]

Okay Glenn, I got brave and tried it... there is definitely something about that graphic that my computer doesn't like, but I was able to open it again and it really looks like 2 Nephi 3 is attributed to Rigdon. 2 Nephi 2 appears to be "other" and 2 Nephi 4 is the false Isaiah/other.

Can you take a look and see if you are seeing what I am seeing?

[_GlennThigpen]

Okay Glenn, I got brave and tried it... there is definitely something about that graphic that my computer doesn't like, but I was able to open it again and it really looks like 2 Nephi 3 is attributed to Rigdon. 2 Nephi 2 appears to be "other" and 2 Nephi 4 is the false Isaiah/other.

Can you take a look and see if you are seeing what I am seeing?

Where can I find the chart?

Bruce produced a probability matrix of his results and posted a link where it could be downloaded when the information that his paper was first available. I think that the link was posted over on the Mormon Dialogue board. I downloaded a copy. It is in a plain text format. 2 Nephi, chapter 3 is chapter 25 linear in the Book of Mormon and it is attributed to Isaiah (a false positive) by the extended NSC methods. Linear chapter 24 is 2 Nephi Chapter 2 and is a false positive for Rigdon. The probability matrix is laid out in a, well, in a matrix, which makes for accurate and easy checking.

This is using the modern chapter divisions of the Book of Mormon which was used in the original Jockers Study and in Bruce Schaalje's extensions.

Glenn

[_MCB]

What I find interesting is the fact that the opposition has refrained from any methodology which entails actually looking at the text and comparing the strongest Jockers et al. results with previously generated hypotheses. All a matter of the "There is nothing worth looking at here. Now move along. " strategy.

[_GlennThigpen]

What I find interesting is the fact that the opposition has refrained from any methodology which entails actually looking at the text and comparing the strongest Jockers et al. results with previously generated hypotheses. All a matter of the "There is nothing worth looking at here. Now move along. " strategy.

What I find interesting is the fact that the opposition has refrained from attaching any significance to the results of Bruce Schaalje's enhancements to the Jockers algorithm. The strongest Jockers results are only relative to the author candidate sets tested.

Glenn

[_MCB]

Glenn, what is the current discussion doing, if not exactly that?

Part of the problem I have with the Schaalje study is that it is difficult to understand.

I would suggest that the basic problem with the Schaalje study is that the correction for KJE worked well when comparing Isaiah with Isaiah in good KJE, but did not work when correcting for exaggerated KJE with bad grammar.

Again, Occam's razor can be applied very nicely to statistics. The simpler the statistical method is, the more likely it is that it was appropriately applied. Why use ANOVA when chi-square will do?

Roger and Dale:
I need to comb through the D&C and look for more parallels with the Book of Mormon.

[_GlennThigpen]

Glenn, what is the current discussion doing, if not exactly that?

Part of the problem I have with the Schaalje study is that it is difficult to understand.

I would suggest that the basic problem with the Schaalje study is that the correction for KJE worked well when comparing Isaiah with Isaiah in good KJE, but did not work when correcting for exaggerated KJE with bad grammar.

Again, Occam's razor can be applied very nicely to statistics. The simpler the statistical method is, the more likely it is that it was appropriately applied. Why use ANOVA when chi-square will do?

MCB, I was just poking a little fun. I don't know why smilies are turned off for me. I have them turned on in my personal settings. Maybe I'm supposed not to have a sense of humor???

As far as Bruce's study being too hard to understand, the same can be applied to the original Jockers study. Bruce et al used the same methodology and actually got the same results as the original Jockers study before applying the extensions to correct for a skew that is introduced if the actual author is not included in a particular candidate set.
Bruce's logic can be followed fairly easily. It is the math that is hard to follow. Jockers et al did not include the math in their published paper in an effort to make it more easy to follow by a lay audience.

When it comes to statistics, I have to defer to the statisticians as to what methods they employ.

Glenn