Richard Carrier and The Bayes Craze (part 2)

Part 1 to this article)

Richard Carrier wants to indict all historiography not based upon Bayes Theorem. Carrier reasons that we can think of the past as future in those areas where we don't have the info. (see part 1). The problem is past events can't be quantified as to their probability because they happened. We may not know the outcome and we think of the likelihood or unlikelihood of an event, but the more information we get the less probable it becomes, yet I'm talking about events that happened. Events that we know happened are not probable they are done deals. The future is not like that because future events are always probable until they happen. We can wind up thinking event X is not likely to have happened when it did happen. An example, how likely is it that an eye witness to a great battle would get the date wrong? Yet Josephus did. The problem is what assumptions do we make (with Bayes where to set the prior probability). I think that's the real reason historians never put numbers to historical probability.

I base this upon a discussion with my old professor, Church historian William S. Babcock, although he never used Bayes for history but he was a math major at Brown. He says history is always matter of probability but we don't put numbers top historical probability because there is no way to know what numbers to put. In order to start the process of using Bayes you have to know something definite. In dealing with the past one is not dealing with a true probability but with an unkown which is actually happened. If we find it happened it's not probable. Until we do find that we don't know what assumption to make.There are only certain things for which Bayes can be used.

R. Joseph Hoffmann says:

What is known by people who use Bayes’s theorem to advantage is that there are only certain conditions when it is appropriate to use it. Even those conditions can sound a bit onerous: In general, its use is warranted when a problem warrants its use, e.g. when:

•The sample is partitioned into a set of mutually exclusive events { A1, A2, . . . , An }.
•Within the sample space, there exists an event B, for which P(B) > 0.
•The analytical goal is to compute a conditional probability of the form: P ( Ak | B ).
•You know at least one of the two sets of probabilities described below. •P( Ak ∩ B ) for each Ak
•P( Ak ) and P( B | Ak ) for each Ak ...The key to the right use of Bayes is that it can be useful in calculating conditional probabilities: that is, the probability that event A occurs given that event B has occurred. Normally such probabilities are used to forecast whether an event is likely to occur...

So far, you are thinking, this is the kind of thing you would use for weather, rocket launches, roulette tables and divorces since we tend to think of conditional probability as an event that has not happened but can be predicted to happen, or not happen, based on existing, verifiable occurrences. How can it be useful in determining whether events “actually” transpired in the past, that is, when the sample field itself consists of what has already occurred (or not occurred) and when B is the probability of it having happened? Or how it can be useful in dealing with events claimed to be sui generis since the real world conditions would lack both precedence and context?[1]...

That's where Carrier tries to think of the past like the future."To put it crudely: Not knowing whether something will happen can be treated in the same way as not knowing whether something has happened by jiggering the formula. Managed properly, he is confident that Bayes will sort everything out in short order:"?[2]

Carrier puts it:

If you treat every probability you assign in the Bayesian equation as if it were a syllogism in an argument and defend each premise as sound (as you would for any other syllogism) Bayes’s theorem will solve all the problems that have left [Gerd] Theissen and others confounded when trying to assess questions of historicity. There is really no other method on the table since all the historicity criteria so far have been shown to be flawed to the point of being in effect (or in fact) entirely useless. ).:"?[3]

I may have made this point in part 1, Hoffmann makes it as well: If all the historical works of the past is useless upon what, pray tell, does one set the prior? If t5he data used for Bayes is useless then Bayes is useless as well. More importantly, Hoffmann points out, "Bayes does not generate criteria and method; it depends on them, just as the solution to Marie’s dilemma depends on real world events, not on prophecy."[4]

Hoffmann tells an anecdote that his former student was speaking of Carrierer's assertion thqat Bayes can be used "where no 'real world data and conditions' can be said to apply." The Student remarked, "Is this insistence [Carrier’s] of trying to invoke Bayes’ theorem in such contexts a manifestation of some sort of Math or Physics envy? Or is it due to the fact that forcing mathematics into one’s writings apparently confers on them some form of ‘scientific’ legitimacy?"[5]

At this point Hoffmann backs my assertion that Bayes, when applied to an area of belief for which we have little real data is entirely subjective. It's a matter of guessing and prejudice as to what basic assumptions to make. As he says plug in different values you get different answers. The next point he makes backs up my point about the illusion of technique. That is the point that it's a gimmick, he's trying to lend scientific credibility to his opinions. "Do there exist good reasons to suppose the methods commonly used in different areas that have grown over time are somehow fatally flawed if they are not currently open to some form of mathematization?"(Emphasis mine).[6]

In his review of Carrier's book James McGrath emphasizes applying Bayes to history is just a matter of applying formal logic to historical reasoning."It does not turn history into mathematics, but nor does it guarantee that those who purport to use it will always manage to adequately assess their own blind spots, shortcomings, and clutching at straws in an attempt to reach a desired conclusion."[7]

In one respect I disagree with McGrath. He says that in using Bayes for history, those who do are not being less precise and that Carrier rightly (according to him) points out that numbers lurk behind the assessments of all historians."All probabilities that historians currently use have numbers hidden behind them, as Carrier emphasizes. And so it is useful to be forced to articulate more clearly whether we think that the likelihood is closer to 70% or closer to 90%..."."[8]

There's a lot wrong with this. First, I disagree that they have numbers behind them. What they really have behind them is events that are not probable but have already happened. In trying to attach numbers that can't be there they are merely trying to ad a verification they don't really have and can't have. All the numbers really tell us is what our guesses are. Secondly I don't think we need the pretense of numbers to force u8s to clarify because we choose according to our prejudices so the numbers only serve to reinforce our prejudices. The numbers enable us to rationalize our prejudices and give them the illusion of scientific acuity.

For some reason McGrath tried to be conciliatory to Carrier and it's absurd. He says:

If the internet mythicists of today were to take this advice to heart, they might work on trying to actually publish scholarly works in appropriate venues, instead of complaining about their being dismissed in a manner that Carrier rightly says is appropriate when people without relevant expertise try to bypass peer review and scholarly discussion and promote their ideas directly to a public ill prepared to assess them...."[9]

Carrier has tried to involve some academics in his work but if he has done peer reviewed work in journals I don't see it. I do agree that Carrier has some good pointds but then he ruins it by makes such strident claims. He essentially says he's the nly valid historian. If that's not snearing at peer review I don't know what is. Then I go over to The Secular Outpost to argue with Lowder some more and find someone illustrating the kind of thing I' talking about in the use of Bayes. Those outpost guys are mad for Bayes. The context here is argument over resurrection. One of them says:

Jesus didn't appear to anyone. The dead do not appear. For that matter, many of the followers of Satya Sai Baba (not just some ancient books that claim that the followers claimed that) claim that he appeared to them, etc. - but he didn't; neither did Jesus.One may simply point out that the resurrection did not happen, on account of the astronomically slim prior probability, [emphasis mine] and the lack of any evidence sufficient to overcome that, or even coming close to overcome that, or even to introduce reasonable doubt. The probability that Jesus was never crucified - even if low - is surely much higher than the probability that he resurrected, even if counting all of the evidence or alleged evidence in support of the crucifixion.

I have to wonder if this guy understands the concept of probability. He doesn't understand the concept of miracles. Probability is just odds given the number of chances that a thing will occur. While a miracle is something impossible, that is not supposed to happen; something that left to its own devises nature could never come up with on its own. Miracles have no probability they are impossible. God is either necessary or impossible. God cannot be a maybe God cannot be something that might or might not have existed. If God exists he has to exist and if God does not exist (apologies to Paul Tillich)[10] it's because it's impossible for there to be God. So in setting a prior for God at all one is begging the question. There can't be a probability for something that has to be or that if it is not, cannot be. This just illustrates my point that atheists refuse to study theology or ace the hard issues of theology.

1 R. Joseph Hoffmann, "proving what?," The New Oxonian: Religion and culture for the intellectually impatientPosted on May 29, 2012 Blog, URL:
https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/proving-what/ (accessed 10/30/150)

following graduation from Harvard Divinity School and the University of Oxford, R. Joseph Hoffmann was tutor in Greek at Keble College and Senior Scholar at St Cross College, Oxford, and Wissenschaftlicher Assistant in Patristics and Classical Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He's an editor of Sources of the Jesus Tradition, Carrier is a contributor.

2 Ibid.

3 (Carrier, “Bayes Theorem for Beginners,” in Sources of the Jesus Tradition, Amherst NY:Prometheus Books, R. Joseph Hoffman (ed.), 2010 - Religion 107.

4 Hoffmann, Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid..

7 James F. McGrath, "Review of Richard C. Carrier, Proving History."August 7, 2012, Exploring Our Matrix, blog, URL:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/08/review-of-richard-c-carrier-proving-history.html (accessed 10/30/15). 8 Ibid..

9 Ibid.

10 Tillich believed in not using the term "existence" (or exist) in relation to God. Contingent things exist, God is not a thing existing in creation, God is the basis of all that is, being itself. Hartshorne did get him to accept the use of the term exist if it was used metaphorically.
I*'ve written extensively about this on Metacrock's blog, see "God and Being Itself," just one ofr many.

Richard Carrier and The Bayes Craze

The Revd Thomas Bayes, 1701-1761

"The current discussion among Jesus-deniers and mythicists over whether probability in the form of Bayes’s Rule can be used in historical research is more than a little amusing. The current fad is largely the work of atheist blogger and debater Richard Carrier who despite having a PhD in ancient history likes to tout himself as a kind of natural science cum mathematics cum whachagot expert." --Hoffman, The New Oxonian

I've been missing the fun of message boards, those lovable wacy atheists using Bayes as a gimmick to afix the authority of science and mathematics to their subjective opinions. They can have the fun of insults on message boards, I am through with that. I must, however, through in my two cents because this is such a flagrant example of the Illusion of Technique.I allude to the concept by William Barrett in his book of the same name.[1] Technique is the basis of technological manipulation of reality, and the illusion of technique is the illusion that one is manipulating reality by manipulating the facts. The use of Bayes to replace discursive reasoning and so give the atheists and Jesus mythers a sense of victory is the gimmick of Richard Carrier in his book Proving History. I don't know who wrote th book ad but it betrays a certain arrogance:

Carrier's book add

This in-depth discussion of New Testament scholarship and the challenges of history as a whole proposes Bayes’s Theorem, which deals with probabilities under conditions of uncertainty, as a solution to the problem of establishing reliable historical criteria. The author demonstrates that valid historical methods—not only in the study of Christian origins but in any historical study—can be described by, and reduced to, the logic of Bayes’s Theorem. Conversely, he argues that any method that cannot be reduced to this theorem is invalid and should be abandoned.

"Carrier applies his philosophical and historical training to maximum effect in outlining a case for the use of Bayes’s Theorem in evaluating biblical claims. Even biblical scholars, who usually are not mathematically inclined, may never look at the ‘historical Jesus’ the same way again." -Dr. Hector Avalos, Professor of religious studies, Iowa State University, and author of , The End of Biblical Studies

The idea that "any method that cannot be reduced to this theorem is invalid and should be abandoned "may be the publisher's fantasy and not Carrier's idea at all but it is not only completely wrong but also a contradiction to the few historians who support using Bayes. More on that below. I also have to call attention to the blurb. Hector Avelos, my old sparing partner.[2] and poster on Loftus's Debunking Christianity blog, is an atheist activist who once tried to argue for closing down all of Biblical Scholarship. While the publisher Prometheus books is part of the atheist propaganda machine. That is the outfit that launched Loftus's career as an atheist activist when he shamed them itno publishing his book (he told me that story and I talked to his publisher--although they might not say "shamed").

Yet even though Carrier himself did not say that his own words are even more arrogant and strident.

Carrier in pdf

By Richard Carrier, Ph.D.
Visiting Lecturer for the Center for Inquiry Institute
Richmond, CA, USA
April 2012

"Several examinations of the methodologies employed in the study of Jesus have consistently found those methods invalid or defective. Which fact has resulted in the proliferation of endless different conclusions as to the nature of the historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity..." What studies? What is the problem with different views? This is nothing more than an attempt to reduce all knowledge to scientism and to give atheism the illusion of scientific authority. The so called studies he talks about are atheist Jesus myth polemics.[read about this Center for Inquiry Institute].But he gets even more strident:

Every expert who has specialized in examining these methods and published a study of them has come to this conclusion: Stanley Porter,[2] Dale Allison,[3] Hector Avalos,[4] and almost a dozen others[5]; even Gerd Theissen, who describes the common conclusion, that “there are no reliable criteria for separating authentic from inauthentic Jesus tradition,”[6] attempted to resist it, but his own effort to rehabilitate the method ultimately led him to agree with that consensus, concluding that the criteria simply don’t work, and some other method is needed to replace them, something that involves more general evaluations of plausibility, although he confesses he is not certain how to formally do that....

To me De Lorean (back to the future car guy) did a study of air bags by examining all the data from scientific tests. I know Dale Allison did not have any data to study from scientific tests examining the validity of Jesus' historicity. He says every expert has come to the same conclusion I know that's just BS because Luke Timothy Johnson wrote a book debunking the Jesus seminar and used the methods they are against. They are against those methods because they negate their assertion about Jesus existing in history. Or again:

Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne, titled Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity(T & T Clark, 2012), and featuring such luminaries as Mark Goodacre and Morna Hooker, all coming to the same conclusion: the method of criteria is simply not logically viable. This leaves the field of Jesus studies with no valid method, and puts into question all consensus positions in the field, insofar as they have all been based, to one extent or another, on these logically invalid methods.

It's not as though no historians support him. There are a few, but only a handful. Neil Godfry).[3] talks about Aviezer Tucker‘s Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography(2004).[4]

That’s the subject of Aviezer Tucker‘s Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography (2004). Tucker’s interest is the relationship between the writing of history (historiography) and evidence (p. 8). It is written for audiences interested in philosophy, history, biblical criticism, the classics, comparative linguistics and evolutionary biology (p. 22).

Godfry goes on:

...the application of Bayes’ Theorem merely expresses in symbolic terms the way historians evaluate the nature of evidence and test hypotheses to explain evidence for certain events and artefacts. Some fearful critics have objected to the application of Bayes because they have never understood this fact...All Bayes’ theorem does is help us clarify our thinking. Bayes theorem is simply a symbolic way of expressing how we do our best thinking when seeking explanations for evidence or evaluating hypotheses against the evidence. The more complex the factors that need to be considered in addressing a problem the easier it is for us to overlook a critical point or draw invalid comparisons. Bayes’ helps us to clarify thinking about the most complex of issues, including those in the social sciences and history

There's the rube. It's doing what historians do anyway, but Dr. Carrier tells us what they do is useless unless they use Bayes, this is rather circular. If what they do is useless (ad above) and all Bayes does is clarify what they are doing then is just helping clarify the useless.

He gives an example

"The probability of the hypothesis that George Washington was the first president of the United States, given the massive amount of documentary evidence for it and background knowledge of the causal chains that led to this evidence, is almost 1. We are almost certain that George Washington was the first president.
Contrast this:

The probability of the hypothesis that Jesus was the founder of what became the Christian Church, given the massive documentary evidence for it and background knowledge of the causal chains that led to this evidence, is . . . ?

historians. (p. 96)

The Theorem

Tucker sets out Bayes’ Theorem thus:

Pr(H|E & B) = [Pr(E|H & B) x Pr(H|B)]:Pr(E|B)

Pr — the Probability of. . .

H — the Hypothesis, or any historical proposition about past events

E — the Evidence (often this means similarities between two or more independent sources)

B — the Background knowledge of theories, methods, other hypotheses

The vertical line | should be read as “given”. So the first part of the equation expresses:

The Probability of the Hypothesis being true given the evidence and background information.

Pr(H|E & B) translated into words:

The probability of the hypothesis that George Washington was the first president of the United States, given the massive amount of documentary evidence for it and background knowledge of the causal chains that led to this evidence, is almost 1. We are almost certain that George Washington was the first president.

Contrast this:

The probability of the hypothesis that Jesus was the founder of what became the Christian Church, given the massive documentary evidence for it and background knowledge of the causal chains that led to this evidence, is . . . ?

Unfortunately we have no background knowledge of the causal chains that led to the Gospels and writings of Paul. We only have other hypotheses (e.g. oral tradition) to fill in these gaps.

)[5]

Now h will have to prove that that's not enough. Atheists are always trying to hold believers to a standard to certain proof while they themselves never claim to meet such a standard. Bayes is certainly not going to give it to them.

Another example: early Christian studies example,

"If our evidence is Christian apologetic writings that claim to quote a letter from Jesus to the king of Edessa, it can be dismissed as a fabrication given all we know. If, however, we found the letter in scientifically verifiable archives of King Abgar of Edessa, it would be very surprising and lead to a serious rethink about Jesus and Christian origins."

I need this mathematical gimmick to tell me this? I have been aware of such letters and Gospels for 40 years and I've never given them credit. Those are not major sources for Jesus' historicity, we can do a lot better than that. For that matter we don't need a mathematician to notice that this same method that supposed to offer great objectivity and real historical proof is used to "prove" diametrically opposing views, Carrier says it disproves the existence of Jesus of Nazareth as a man in history; William Lane Craig says it proves he rose from the dead.[5] Neither Craig nor Carrier is an idiot. They both have advanced degrees from major universities, neither of them is in the dark about how Bayes works. Why the difference? Because they makes different assumptions as befits their ideologies, their beliefs, their biases. The initial problem is that the assumptions they make are made in the absence of real data, Bayes wont work in that space.

So there are two problems here when it comes to trying to apply Bayes Theorem to history: (1) Carrier and Craig need to treat questions of what happened in the past as the same species of uncertainty as what may happen in the future and (2) historical questions are uncertain precisely because we don't have defined and certain data to feed into the equation. Bayes Theorem only works in cases where we can apply known information. So, in the example above, we know how often it rains in a year and we know when the weather forecast is and isn't correct. So by inputting this meaningful data, we can get a meaningful result out the other end of the equation....Bayes Theorem's application depends entirely on how precisely the parameters and values of our theoretical reconstruction of a real world approximate reality. With a historical question, Carrier is forced to think up probabilities for each parameter he put into the equation. This is a purely subjective process - he determines how likely or unlikely a parameter in the question is and then decides what value to give that parameter. So the result he gets at the end is purely a function of these subjective choices...[7]

. I'm not even to the good criticisms yet. Stay tuned for next time (Monday?)



Sources

1 William Barrett, The Illusion of Technique: The Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization, New York:Anchor, 1979, no page indicated.

2 Avalos is author of the book The End of Biblical Studies he is a professor of religious studies and teaches at University of Iowa. I had my own series of exchanges with him, challenged him to formal debate and he would not do it; he tried to answer me once I think he wished he had not.
see (all on Metacrock) Atheist Thought Police, Response to Avelos," Jan 17, 2008

"Critique of Hector Avelos's End of Biblical Criticism,"Feb 10, 2008

see Metacrock's blog, "Christianity, Force For Liberation," April 8, 2010,URL:
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2010/04/christianity-force-for-liberation.html
I comment on Avelos's rhubarb with Helmutt Koester in "Hector Avelos Takes on Helmutt Koster," Metacrock's Blog, July 21, 20 10. http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2010/07/hector-avelos-takes-on-helmutt-koester.html

3 Neil Godfry,"real Historians do Bayes" Virdar, blog (July, 18, 2013) URL: http://vridar.org/2013/07/18/real-historians-do-bayes/ accessed 10, 29, 15.

4 Aviezer Tucker, Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of HistoriographyCambridge, London: Cambridge University Press (2004), no page indicated.

5 Godfry quoting Tucker, Ibid., in Tucker, 97.

6 Tim O'Neill, "what is your opinion on the use of Bayes Theorem to discover the best historical explanation for data we have as outlined by Richard Carrier?" Quora, blog, (17 Aug 2014) URL: https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-opinion-on-the-use-of-Bayes-theorem-as-a-tool-to-discover-the-best-historical-explanation-for-the-data-we-have-as-outlined-by-Richard-Carrier

7 Ibid.

Page 2 of argument

Richard Carrier's Standard of Historical Proof

 


Richard Carrier is an atheistic apologist. He has been involve in atheist apologetic since the late 90s. He does have a Ph.D. in classical history from Columbia University (2008). Yet he doesn't work as an academic historian so much  as he uses his credentials to bolster his apologetic. Here is how the publisher of his work, Proving History, [1] bills his credentials on Amazon:

Richard C. Carrier (Richmond, CA), an independent scholar, is the author of Why I Am Not a Christian: Four Conclusive Reasons to Reject the Faith; Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn't Need a Miracle to Succeed; and Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism. He has also contributed chapters to The End of Christianity, edited by John W. Loftus; Sources of the Jesus Tradition: Separating History from Myth, edited by R. Joseph Hoffmann; The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails, edited by John W. Loftus; and The Empty Tomb: Jesus beyond the Grave, edited by Robert Price and Jeffery Lowder.[2]

 "Independent scholar" means he is not employed  in academic work, it also means he's pursuing his own advocacy rather than scholarly academic work.[3] Notice that all the publications mentioned are about mythicism or some other anti-apologetic discourse. This is not to say that Carrier doesn't have good skills of scholarship or that he doesn't have credentials. He has both. Yet he chooses to use them for a non academic pursuit, plugging atheist ideology. The list of his publications on wiki are also the same:

• "Flash! Fox News Reports that Aliens May Have Built the Pyramids of Egypt!". Skeptical Inquirer 23.5 (September-October 1999).
• "The Guarded Tomb of Jesus and Daniel in the Lion's Den: An Argument for the Plausibility of Theft". Journal of Higher Criticism 8.2 (Fall 2001).
• "Pseudohistory in Jerry Vardaman's Magic Coins: The Nonsense of Micrographic Letters". Skeptical Inquirer 26.2 (March-April 2002) and 26.4 (July-August 2002).
• "The Function of the Historian in Society". The History Teacher 35.4 (August 2002).
• "Hitler's Table Talk: Troubling Finds". German Studies Review 26.3 (October 2003).
• "The Argument from Biogenesis: Probabilities Against a Natural Origin of Life". Biology & Philosophy 19.5 (November 2004).
• "Whence Christianity? A Meta-Theory for the Origins of Christianity". Journal of Higher Criticism 11.1 (Spring 2005).
• "Fatal Flaws in Michael Almeida's Alleged 'Defeat' of Rowe's New Evidential Argument from Evil". Philo 10.1 (Spring-Summer 2007).
• "On Defining Naturalism as a Worldview". Free Inquiry 30.3 (April/May 2010).
• "Thallus and the Darkness at Christ’s Death". Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 8 (2011-2012).[4] 

 
Richard Carrier

One rally should expect that the standards he pushes as an academic are going to be in tension with the necessities of hawking advocacy for atheism. One of the basic reasons for academic standing is objectivity. How much objectivity can we expect from an apologist?

His unique contribution to the Jesus myth theory is the application of Bayes theorem. I've written about Bayes Theorem and why it can't be used to argue about the existence of God. That article was first published n this blog but can now be found on my site "The Religious a priori." See "Bayes Theorium and The Probability of God: no Dice." I am not opposed, however, to using Bayes for historical purposes. Jesus existence as a man in history is a matter for empirical research. Yet the Bayes theorem is not in an of itself and cannot be a substitute for historical work. The same problems recurs here as they do with the God question: how do you have new information coming in when we don't know that much about the era? The anti-apologist (or atheist apologist) is quick jump on the issue that we don't have the records that means set he prior low and thus the probability of Jesus existing is low. Yet if we did that with Tacitus we would have to have said that he didn't exist, since he was unknown until the middle ages. That just proves that there's a lot there that we don't know about. We don't know when new historical information is coming in. We can't assume that our current state of knowledge is equal to the task. Trying to use Bayes in that way is suspect at the outset. That's like trying to cheat on historical methods.

Another concern comes out when we examine the spin the way Carrier's publisher hawks his wares. First of all, the use Bayes to try and show low probability of God or Jesus in history is really just the application of the atheist strategy of the fortress of facts. See my two articles, "debunking the Atheist Fortress of facts: part 1, and part 2." The fortress of facst says "we have the facts, science gives us this big pile of facts that proves our world view, and religion as no facts backing it." The use of techniques like Bayes theorem is an application of this concept I call (apologies to William Barrett) "The Illusion of Technique." In other words he's using a scientific tool applied and based upon bad assumption that contradict the basic assumptions of modern historiography. Let's look at the publisher's spin, mind you this is not necessarily Carrier's fault, yet I think it does fault his work.


The description on Amazon:

"Richard Carrier carefully exposes what happens when sound methodology meets biblical studies. Proving History is a brilliant lesson in the proper proportioning of belief to evidence. Even minimal attention to Bayesian probability theory reveals just how much of Jesus scholarship confuses 'possibly true' with 'probably true.' The only miracle Carrier has left to explain is why so few appreciate that extraordinary claims require extraordinary support." --Dr. Malcolm Murray, author of The Atheist's Primer"Richard Carrier applies his philosophical and historical training to maximum effect in outlining a case for the use of Bayes's Theorem in evaluating biblical claims. Even biblical scholars, who usually are not mathematically inclined, may never look at the 'historical Jesus' the same way again." --Hector Avalos, PhD, professor of religious studies at Iowa State University, author of The End of Biblical Studies and Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship

Look at this first line: "Richard Carrier carefully exposes what happens when sound methodology meets biblical studies. Proving History is a brilliant lesson in the proper proportioning of belief to evidence. Even minimal attention to Bayesian probability theory reveals just how much of Jesus scholarship confuses 'possibly true' with 'probably true." What's wrong with that? The illusion technqiue is employed in saying "the Christians don't have a valid fact about Jesus existing, that's just made up. Science gives us the facts and through this scientific technique we can expose the idea most of what we say about Jesus' life is just theoretical, possible." the problem is That's what history is!

Yes the Little children are taguht the "facts" of history, we recite the facts, 1776, that's a fact. 1941, we entered word war II, that's a fact!  1865 civil war ended, that's a fact. The problem is that's for school children. By the time we are in graduate school it's a little bit more complex. Carrier's publisher is trying to say that through Bayes we can expose the fact that we don't really know the facts. But historians have been telling us this all along. If they paid attention to what real academic historical scholarship is about they would learn it's probably. We don't know all the facts. When we don't know all the facts we have to speculate and play detective and put stuff together form reading documents. We don't always have all the documents. There are a lot of things we just can't know.

Wait there's a deeper problem here! They are trying to sell this as though Bayes theorum is not speculation or "possible truth" it's giving us the facts! No its not! Bayes is possible truth too, beacuse it's probablity not facts. That's what probability is, the chances of some hypothesis being fulfilled. The only fact that Bayes can give us is the extent to which the possible may be probable. That's not a the same as absolute truth or "proof." Bayes can't give us historical proof. If we find that hypothesis X is 80% probable. that' snot the same as saying it is a fact that hypothesis X is proved. It's only probable. We say X has an 80% chance of being true, yet the reality of it could be that it's not true. That is not proof. It's not the facts. The whole book ad is deeply flawed but then what else Carrier saying by trying to apply Bayes to this question?


Then we have the statment by Avalos:

Even biblical scholars, who usually are not mathematically inclined, may never look at the 'historical Jesus' the same way again." --Hector Avalos, PhD, professor of religious studies at Iowa State University, author of The End of Biblical Studies and Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship

See  my confrontations with Avelos.[7] He's just playing in the fortress of facts and illusion of technique. He has a hard enough time just dealing with ordinary scholarship. Its not he's running around proving things all over the ancinet world with Bayes. We would have to use the same methods that the scientism types deny as "speculative," the standard criteria for authenticity used by scholars since the enlightenment, which have evolved over time. There may be a place for Bayes among all that but the problem is establish a prior you have to draw upon those things. Those are the very things that the "scientfiism set" lambasts [8] as they call for Bayes which is going to give us the facts and correct it all. But the correction will have to be based upon the same kind of criteria. Nor do I find any of these methods being applied elsewhere, it's all in biblical criticism. They are not terribly anxious to find that we don't really if Julius Caesar existed or not. It's just another gimmick making use of the ideological scientism of the new Atheist ideology.

They have to have more information to set the prior probability accurately to use Bayes. Then they have to have new information coming in. To start out they are going to have to use the very methods that they (scientististic types) repudiate in order to get that information. Then if they try to pile Baysian conclusions on the premise that these are more probable then they just doing a citation circle. The use of mathematical probability can never establish historical fact.




Sources

[1] Richard Carrier, Proving History: Bayes Theorem and The Quest for The Historical Jesus.:Amherst, New York: Promethius Books, 2012.

http://www.amazon.com/Proving-History-Bayess-Theorem-Historical/dp/1616145595
accessed 10/21/13

[2] Ibid.

[3] "So You Want to Be An Independent Scholar? why?" Acadmeic Editing Canada, academic writing and editing services.
http://www.academiceditingcanada.ca/blog/item/118-indy-scholar-why accessed 10/21/13.

[4] "Selected Articles," Richard Carrier. Wikipedia, on line resource:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier#Selected_articles  accessed 10/21/13.

[5] Metacrock, "Bayes Theorem and the Probability of God: no Dice." The Religious a priori
On line resource: http://religiousapriori.blogspot.com/2013/02/bayes-theorum-and-probablity-of-god-no.html  accessed 10/21/13

[6] William Barrett The illusion of Technique.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Illusion-Technique-Technological-Civilization/dp/0385112025

see also an abstract of the book written by student at UNCC, " 

"The Will to Power vs The Will to Prayer:William Barrett’s The Illusion of Technique 30 Years Later"

http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/SAAP/MSU/P54.html accessed 10/21/13
Questions or comments should be directed to Michael Eldridge, Department of Philosophy, UNC Charlotte: mleldrid@email.uncc.edu or 704/687-3318.


[7] Metacrock, "Atheist Thought police: my Response to Hector Avelos," Metacrock's Blog, blog:
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2008/01/atheist-thoguht-poilce-response-to.html 
accessed 10/21/13
see also:
"Further Answer to Hector Avalos," http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2008/09/further-answer-to-hector-avaelos-phd.html

[8]Raphael Lasater, "Bayesian Reasoning: Criticing the Criteria of Authenticity and Calling for a Review of Biblical Criticism." Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, (2012) Volume5 No2, 271-293.
Lasater is  Research post-graduate Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney

Atheists Attempt to Infur God's Non Existence From the Nature of Naturalism

An atheist on CARM makes this argument. He doesn't like me to quote him so I wont include his name. It's a public record, so I will quote it but I wont embrace him.

Atheist:

Through our observations of the cosmos we see that we are but one planet in a solar system of 8 planets is part of a larger galaxy which is in turn just one of billions of such galaxies. As well as all that there are some models of theoretical physics that point towards multiple universes! So why would a universe creating deity be interested in our small insignificant planet?

Moreover we know from biology that it took millions of years for life to develop by well understood mechanisms of evolutionary biology that the bodies that we currently have are just trade offs for certain abilities in terms of biology. So it seems that if a deity does exist and this isn't plausible from the argument above that he doesn't care about his creation at best as there are some serious design flaws in the human body. In terms of being "designed" to live long and just to survive the deity seems to care about beetles a great deal.

So do you still believe in a deity that cares about you personally?

Meta: This kind of argument has been made many times. James Still used to make it on sec web quite a lot. Richard Carrier has been known to make it. The argument is fraught with several bad assumptions that nullify it. One such assumption, probably the major one, is that it assumes we know what a universe designed by a caring God would look like. This is the same mistake the classical design argument makes. It assumes we know what a designed universe looks like with no inverse we know to have been designed to compare to it. This atheist is making the same mistake, he just makes it as a back up to his atheist views rather than as an argument for the existence f God.

Another perilous assumption made is that he pretends to know what God cares about. I thnk we have to assume that God cares about us to maintain a Christian tradition but that doesn't mean that we can assume that God would attach the same kinds of emotional feelings to al species. Why do you think we need to assume that we are the only intelligent beings God has created or that he created the whole thing for just us? why can't we assume that God set the principle of evolution in motion with the creation of sub atomic particles and allowed it to run as it would, creating a multiverse and perhaps giving it bias for bearing life.

God created the proceedings in such a way that it was possible for a complex creature who is capable of love to be produced in the universe over time as a result of evolution. Here we are. What's the big deal? The atheist assumes that caring = perfection That's a false assumption. Design flaws are not indications of not caring. Extinction is the natural process. That makes no more sense as an argument against God than dose arguing that death itself is an argument God. Extinction is not a moral issue, until humanity goes extinct it has not yet touched, to our knowledge, a species capable of understanding it. He's assuming a standard of concern for every species that he has no right to assume. God apparently values growth, change, progression and evolution too. The purpose of life seems to be to learn, to grow, to adapt, to progress. Allowing a species to go existinct, or making a huge universe with the possibility of many intelligent species are not any more indicative of not caring than is allowing one's child to make his own decisions and learn.

Then he makes the protestation that He has no biases and he's not making assumptions. Not making assumptions! really? He's the first totally objective and completely unbiased human in hsitory. To this he says he's just using empirical scinece to tell us the nature of the universe, and that nature excludes a caring creator. That seems to him like a defense but in reality he's only just admitted to my point about the design argument. As for the idea that he can use science objectively and just infer from the nature of things the nature of God's caring (which is that mistake I just mentioned) I said:

Meta:I can use empirical scinece all day and not try to draw conclusions about the original of the world from the way it looks on the surface. The mistake that we make in doing this is to say "I know what design looks like" since we have never seen a world that we know is or is not designed we don't know what it looks like. You make that very assumptions. you say "I know what the created world of a caring God looks like" you can't determine that based upon looking at the world that's like trying to find design based upon looking at the world with no undersigned to look at.

I also argue that

I have explained the reason that we live in a universe where God is not immediately obvious. I have expalined this in terms of the need to search for truth through personal understanding of our existential situation (understand "existential" in the Sartean and Kierkegaardian sense: private subjective reflection upon our own individual existences).

Until you answer that the look of the universe and the way its natural processes function is quite irrelevant. All you are doing is a bait and switch. you are answering the wrong questions and the pretending they are the right ones. This is encapsulated in my argument I call Soteriolgical Drama:

Basic assumptions

There are three basic assumptions that are hidden, or perhaps not so obivioius, but nevertheless must be dealt with here.

(1) The assumption that God wants a "moral universe" and that this value outweighs all others.


The idea that God wants a moral universe I take from my basic view of God and morality. Following in the footsteps of Joseph Fletcher (Situation Ethics) I assume that love is the background of the moral universe (this is also an Augustinian view). I also assume that there is a deeply ontological connection between love and Being. Axiomatically, in my view point, love is the basic impitus of Being itself. Thus, it seems reasonable to me that, if morality is an upshot of love, or if love motivates moral behavior, then the creation of a moral universe is essential.


(2) that internal "seeking" leads to greater internalization of values than forced compliance or complaisance that would be the result of intimidation.

That's a pretty fair assumption. We all know that people will a lot more to achieve a goal they truly beileve in than one they merely feel forced or obligated to follow but couldn't care less about.

(3)the the drama or the big mystery is the only way to accomplish that end.

The pursuit of the value system becomes a search of the heart for ultimate meaning,that ensures that people continue to seek it until it has been fully internalized.

The argument would look like this:


(1)God's purpose in creation: to create a Moral Universe, that is one in which free moral agents willingly choose the Good.

(2) Moral choice requires absolutely that choice be free (thus free will is necessitated).

(3) Allowance of free choices requires the risk that the chooser will make evil choices

(4)The possibility of evil choices is a risk God must run, thus the value of free outweighs all other considerations, since without there would be no moral universe and the purpose of creation would be thwarted.


This leaves the atheist in the position of demanding to know why God doesn't just tell everyone that he's there, and that he requires moral behavior, and what that entails. Thus there would be no mystery and people would be much less inclined to sin.

This is the point where Soteriological Drama figures into it. Argument on Soteriological Drama:


(5) Life is a "Drama" not for the sake of entertainment, but in the sense that a dramatic tension exists between our ordinary observations of life on a daily basis, and the ultiamte goals, ends and purposes for which we are on this earth.

(6) Clearly God wants us to seek on a level other than the obvious, daily, demonstrative level or he would have made the situation more plain to us

(7) We can assume that the reason for the "big mystery" is the internalization of choices. If God appeared to the world in open objective fashion and laid down the rules, we would probably all try to follow them, but we would not want to follow them. Thus our obedience would be lip service and not from the heart.

(8) therefore, God wants a heart felt response which is internationalized value system that comes through the search for existential answers; that search is phenomenological; introspective, internal, not amenable to ordinary demonstrative evidence.


In other words, we are part of a great drama and our actions and our dilemmas and our choices are all part of the way we respond to the situation as characters in a drama.

This theory also explains why God doesn't often regenerate limbs in healing the sick. That would be a dead giveaway. God creates criteria under which healing takes place, that criteria can't negate the overall plan of a search.

See the full argument where I present objections and answer them. See also my corollary Twelve Angry Stereotypes where I answer parodies of my argument made by atheists.

This explains why we have a world that doesn't look like it was created by a caring God. Yet the argument also ignores numerous reasons to interpret caring as designed into the chaos. For example the human ability to love. It's not as though atheists don't sell that short. Now to this he answered that I accuse him of making assumptions yet I'm making assumptions to. In fact I even clealry label part of my argument "assumptions." (see above). Yes, we can't avoid making assumptions of cousre. So I do make them. The trick is to make good assumptions not bad one's His assumptions are based upon the desire to show God up, mine are based upon what I feel is given me and required of the Christian tradition. I think assumptions can be defended as logical implications of the tradition itself, and based upon the character of Christ.

That's my most basic assumption that Christ behaved in a matter that illustrates for us God's true character.