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