Debunking the Bible Code

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Debunking the Bible Code

• A Modern Conflict Between Religion and Statistics
• Mark D. Schlatter

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Michael Drosnins The Bible Code

• Published in 1997 and quickly became a
  best-seller
• Based on the Great Rabbis experiment of
  Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg
• Predicted the assasination of Israeli Prime
  Minister Yitzhak Rabin using codes

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Whats a skip code?

• Consider the following text
• Core classes can often provide a terrific segue
  to a minor in some area which reawakens your love
  of learning.

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Whats a skip code?

• Remove the spaces, capitalization, and
  punctuation
• coreclassescanoftenprovideaterrificseguetoaminorin
  someareawhichreawakensyourloveoflearning

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Whats a skip code?

• Count off every nine letters, starting at the
  first c
• coreclassescanoftenprovideaterrificseguetoaminorin
  someareawhichreawakensyourloveoflearning

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Whats a skip code?

• Arrange the letters in rows of nine
• coreclass
• escanofte
• nprovidea
• terrifics
• eguetoami
• norinsome
• areawhich
• reawakens
• yourloveo
• flearning

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Drosnins Rabin Prediction
The letters in Rabins name are 4772 characters
apart. The verse cited is Deuteronomy 442.
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Drosnins Conclusions

• The odds against Rabins full name appearing
  with the prediction of his assassination were at
  least 3000 to 1.
• The Bible Code may be a timed series of
  revelations, each designed for the technology of
  its age.
• I am persuaded only that no human could have
  encoded the Bible in this way.

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Can you argue against this?
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Can you argue against this?

• The odds of winning the jackpot are
  80,089,127 to 1.
• Were not surprised when someone wins because the
  event connected to the probability (buying a
  Powerball ticket) is repeated so many times.

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When my critics find a message about the
assassination of a prime minister encrypted in
Moby Dick, I'll believe them.
Michael Drosnin, Newsweek, June 9, 1997
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Herman Melville, Prognosticator
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When trying to establish the truth of a
proposition using statistics, we must show that
the evidence supporting the proposition is
significantly different than what chance would
predict.
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The Great Rabbis Experiment

• 1) Create a list of pairs of names and dates
  corresponding to famous rabbis

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The Great Rabbis Experiment

• 2) Create many lists where the pairs are mixed

Random List 1 rabbi1 date3 rabbi2 date1 rabbi3
date2 ...
Orginal List rabbi1 date1 rabbi2 date2 rabbi3
date3 ...
Random List 2 rabbi1 date7 rabbi2 date9 rabbi3
date22 ...
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The Great Rabbis Experiment

• 3) Run a race by finding which list has the
  greatest closeness number for the text.
• If there are no skip codes in the text,
• we expect the original list to finish in the
  middle of the pack.
• If there are skip codes in the text,
• we expect the original list to beat most of the
  other lists.

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The Great Rabbis Experiment

• In the Book of Genesis, the original list came in
  4th out of 1,000,000 lists, but in War and Peace
  the list came in the middle of the pack.
• We conclude that the proximity of ELSs with
  related meanings in the Book of Genesis is not
  due to chance. Statistical Science 1994, vol. 9,
  no. 3.

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How do you show an experiment is flawed?

• Look at the experimental design
• How were the rabbis chosen?
• How were their names and dates chosen?
• Is there room in the choosing process for bias
  (intentional or not) to be introduced?

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Was cheating possible?

• The team of McKay and Bar-Natan created a new
  rabbis list following the original rules as
  closely as the original team did.
• They created a list which came in close to first
  (57th out of 100 million) for War and Peace, but
  in the middle of the pack for the Book of
  Genesis.

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Did the choices matter?

• The team of McKay, Bar-Natan, Bar-Hillel, and
  Kalia analyzed many of the choices made by
  Witztum, Rips, and Rosenberg in the Great Rabbis
  Experiment.
• Almost every choice made helped the original list
  finish in a higher place.

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Some web sites to look at

• cs.anu.edu.au/people/bdm/dilugim/torah.html Brend
  an McKays site on Bible codes
• www.torahcodes.co.il/ Doron Witztums site
  on Bible codes
• www.rsingermanson.com/ R. S. Ingermansons
  site on Bible codes