Title Author Date

the methods of the Bible code McKay, Brendan Aug 14, 2003

The reason for preferring the mathematical approach is that the claim of a Bible code becomes precise and so can be tested using mechanical means. In addition, the proponents and skeptics agree at least in principle on what type of experimental result counts as a success.

However, it is a reasonable hypothesis that the important things about the codes are properties, such as the importance of an event, that it is difficult for a computer program to judge. This doesn't eliminate the possibility of doing valid statistical experiments, though. It is similar to the problem of testing the efficacy of a drug when the only available measure of the patient's well-being is how well they report feeling. There are well-proven rigorous methods for conducting such tests.

The reason I would not bother with such a test is that there is no prima-facie support for the claim that the events predicted by codes in the Bible are more important than the events predicted by codes in Moby Dick. In fact, I'd say the opposite has been proved since almost every prediction found in the Bible code can been replicated in Moby Dick, and this has been demonstrated many times. In other words, the predictions of Moby Dick can't be less important than those of the Bible because they are the same predictions.

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