Page 321 - Coincidences in the Bible and in Biblical Hebrew

COINCIDENCES IN THE BIBLE AND IN BIBLICAL HEBREW
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A second argument, pertaining to why we were justified in selecting integer

values for events mentioned in Genesis creation story, relates to a more general

argument regarding the nature of explorative scientific research. This is addressed
in the next section.

22.5.2 The Nature of Scientific Empirical Modeling

Scientific enquiries typically progress in a two-phase process. In the first phase,

patterns in noisy data are searched for in order to detect those that may eventually
prove to contain valid information. In the second phase, hypotheses are generated
and tested, very often by means of statistical hypotheses testing. The first phase is

that of exploration, and it represents the induction part of the research. The sec-
ond phase is the deduction part of the research, when newly generated hypotheses
are put to statistical testing in order to establish the general validity of the pattern,
formerly detected in the sample.

A risk that often accompanies a genuine scientific enquiry is that the inves-
tigator may have innocently manipulated the data collection process to fit his

or her preconceived hypotheses. For example, the search for patterns may have
been directed to detect a certain category of patterns, ignoring others. Thus, one
may argue, when statistical testing is eventually implemented there is no wonder
that statistically significant results are obtained. While this is obviously a valid

point, there is no escape from the fact that the very nature of scientific explora-
tion requires probing the data until possibly meaningful patterns were revealed.
Therefore, one cannot blame a scientist that data were manipulated if he or she
had made several attempts to arrive at possibly meaningful patterns. After all, this

is what scientific enquiry is all about. One can only hope that manipulation of
the data mining process, in order to arrive at statistically-proven valid patterns of
nature, remains within allowable, acceptable and legitimate parameters.
To learn of the relevance of these arguments to the statistical analyses presented
in this book (and particularly for the results of this chapter), consider the claim
that the numerical values of the triad of Hebrew words for “moon, Earth, sun”
delivers information about the relative size of these celestial bodies (section 8.3).
One of the arguments I have encountered in my oral presentations on the subject
was that same rule should apply to all Hebrew words for this triad, and, further-
more, that this rule would be accepted as valid only if found to apply to other
features of the same celestial bodies, for example, their mass density.

I consider such severe requirements for acceptance of the scientific validity of
the statistical analyses in this book outrageous and unfair. Such demands are never

put on any other scientific enquiry of nature. For example, suppose that we inves-
tigate the relationship between the level of cholesterol in the human blood (X, the