A Jesus tomb was discovered in Jerusalem and James Cameron has "proved" that there is only a 1 in 600 chance that this is not the tomb of the real Jesus and he waited until Lent to hold a news conference to announce this. This statistical argument is sketchy at best. The statistical calculation may be correct, it is just that the probability that the assumptions that went into that calculation are correct is probably close to 1 in 10,000. Mathematics alone cannot prove that one has found the tomb of Jesus. It is kind of like those documentaries that "found" Noah's ark in the '70s where fuzzy satelite images proved that location has been uncovered. There is an hour of my life which I still regret giving up. This is why I will not watch television and cringe while listening to the director of Titanic argue using statistics.
Christian groups are angry (the film was apparently censored in India), conservatives are angry, scientists and scholars are angry, all at James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici, the two responsible for making this documentary.
1 comment:
Good post.
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