Transcript The Talpiot Tomb and the Bloggers

The Talpiot Tomb and the Bloggers
Mark Goodacre
Duke University
“The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
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.”
Enter the bloggers
The Case Crumbles
Cherry picking
Judas son of Jesus
Misreading Bovon
Da Vinci Code
The Beatles analogy
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.”
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”
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”
How important were the bloggers?
 The role played by other media
 Contrast with the James Ossuary in 2002.
Errors on the “official” site
Corrections fall on deaf ears
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