Joseph Smith: Still the World’s Greatest Guesser (and Getting Better all the Time)

The original paper, which this is a follow up to, on can be found here: https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/joseph-smith-world%E2%80%99s-greatest-guesser-bayesian-statistical-analysis-positive-and-negative

We recently used Bayesian likelihood analysis to examine the number and strength of the correspondences (points of evidence) between the Book of Mormon and Dr. Michael Coe’s book The Maya (9th Edition). Our results provide strong evidence that the Book of Mormon is a non-fictional work accurately depicting the culture, politics, religion, geography, military, technology and other characteristics of a civilization similar to ancient Mesoamerica as understood and described by Dr. Coe. The likelihood that Joseph Smith correctly guessed all these points of evidence is vanishingly small.