The Talpiot Tomb and the Bloggers

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The Talpiot Tomb and the Bloggers

• Mark Goodacre
• Duke University

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The Lost Tomb of Jesus
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• Statistics and the tomb

Dr. Andrey Feuerverger, professor of statistics
mathematics at the University of Toronto, has
concluded a high statistical probability that the
Talpiot tomb is the JESUS FAMILY TOMB.
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• Enter the bloggers

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• The Case Crumbles

• Cherry picking
• Judas son of Jesus
• Misreading Bovon
• Da Vinci Code
• The Beatles analogy

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• Discovery adjust their website

• Dr. Andrey Feuerverger, professor of statistics
  at the University of Toronto, has concluded
  (subject to the stated historical assumptions)
  that it is unlikely that an equally "surprising
  cluster of names would have arisen by chance
  under purely random sampling.

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• The Change in Tone

• 26 February 2007
• one of the most important archaeological finds
  in human history
• "literally this is the biggest archaeology story
  of the century

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• The Change in Tone

• 26 February 2007
• one of the most important archaeological finds
  in human history
• "literally this is the biggest archaeology story
  of the century

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• How important were the bloggers?

• The role played by other media
• Contrast with the James Ossuary in 2002.

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• Errors on the official site

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• Corrections fall on deaf ears

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• What have we learned?

• Taking on those with mega-bucks success and
  failure
• Flying the academic flag and keeping the tone
  right
• Googleization and the voice of the academic