Q&A: A correction regarding God Plays Dice
A correction regarding God Plays Dice
Question
In the appendix on prayer at the end of God Plays Dice, you addressed the issue of the "Bible code." In your remarks you tried to demonstrate the biases that exist in discussions in fields like this, and so you brought the following passage from Wikipedia as an example:
"A committee of mathematicians, with the participation of Israel Aumann and Hillel Furstenberg, examined the claim that the existence of hidden information in the Bible could be proven unequivocally, during the years 1996 to 1998 (the report was written later). The committee conducted additional experiments intended to prove this claim, but these did not succeed in confirming it."
And then you included a screenshot from the article by Furstenberg and Aumann in which it says in black and white that the experiments they carried out supported the conclusion that there is truth to the Bible code!
So here we have proof that one should not rely on Hebrew Wikipedia on such charged topics. After such a blatant bias on Wikipedia aroused my puzzlement, I went to the article in question (the link to which appears in that same Wikipedia entry), and then it became clear to me that the passage you photographed in your book is an appendix by Harold Gans to the document of Furstenberg and Aumann, and does not represent their opinion.
After examining also the study added as an appendix, from which you took the screenshot, and after conducting experiments of their own, Furstenberg and Aumann arrived at exactly the same conclusion written in Wikipedia.
I am attaching here a link to the document. Already in the abstract on the first page one can see the words of Furstenberg and Aumann themselves, who argue that the two tests they carried out did not succeed in confirming the reality of the code:
יש ללחוץ כדי לגשת אל dp364.pdf
In any case, as a side note, it is a bit ironic that in trying to demonstrate bias in scientific information, you yourself fell into the same failure.
Even so, I appreciate you very much, and therefore I assume that this mistake (especially since it is not critical or relevant to the main body of your arguments throughout the book) happened unintentionally.
Again, I apologize for the length on an issue that really is, all in all, marginal. It is just a point that occurred to me while reading, and I thought it might interest you to pay attention to it.
Answer
How did I myself fall into the same failure? Maybe I made a mistake, but where do you see bias here?
You tried to present Wikipedia as biased and as presenting incorrect information, while using incorrect information yourself.
Again, it is not really critical, because I am also convinced that it was a mistake and not intentional.