I am happy to report that Discovery Channel has now removed ALL claims on its website that the 600:1 odds have any specific bearing to the "Lost Tomb" being that of the Jesus family.

You may recall that I had engaged in a discussion with Dr. Andrey Feuerverger (the show's in-house statistician), and he and I agreed that Discovery's original interpretation of the 600:1 odds on its site was statistically incorrect and highly misleading to the public. For your benefit, I am reproducing below the original wording and the new wording of three changed paragraphs. Note that all references to the Jesus tomb have been removed! Thanks again to Andrey and also to Discovery Channel for making these changes happen!

Now that Discovery Channel has backed away from its 600:1 odds claim (which was the bedrock of its case!) that this was the Jesus family tomb, one cannot but wonder what this show had to do with Jesus in the first place. With these changes, the show, in essence, has now dwindled to a documentary on a "surprising cluster of names"!

Joe

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Change 1:

"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."

changed to

"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."

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Change 2:

"Taking into account the chances that these names would be clustered together in a family tomb, this statistical study concludes that the odds – on the most conservative basis – are 600 to 1 in favor of this being the JESUS FAMILY TOMB. A statistical probability of 600 to 1 means that this conclusion works 599 times out of 600."

changed to

"Taking into account the chances that these names would be clustered together in a family tomb, this statistical study concludes that the probability under random chance of observing a cluster of names as compelling as this one within the given population parameters is 600 to 1, meaning that this conclusion works 599 times out of 600."
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Change 3:

"A statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters (Discovery Channel/Vision Canada/C4 UK) concludes that the probability factor is 600 to 1 in favor of this tomb being the tomb of Jesus of Nazareth and his family."

changed to

"A statistical study commissioned by the broadcasters (Discovery Channel/Vision Canada/C4 UK) concludes that the probability factor is in the order of 600 to 1 that an equally "surprising" cluster of names would arise purely by chance under given assumptions."