Editing Bible code (section)

====Harold Gans====

Harold Gans, a former [[cryptanalyst]] at the [[National Security Agency]], argued that MBBK's hypothesis implies a conspiracy between WRR and their co-contributors to fraudulently tune the appellations in advance. Gans argues that the conspiracy must include Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips, and S. Z. Havlin, because they all say Havlin compiled the appellations independently. Gans argues further that such a conspiracy must include the multiple rabbis who have written a letter confirming the accuracy of Havlin's list. Finally, argues Gans, such a conspiracy must also include the multiple participants of the cities experiment conducted by Gans (which includes Gans himself). Gans concludes that "the number of people necessarily involved in [the conspiracy] will stretch the credulity of any reasonable person."<ref>{{cite web |author=H. J. Gans. |url=http://www.aish.com/seminars/discovery/Codes/Primer/primer1.htm |title=A Primer on the Torah Codes Controversy for Laymen (part 1) |publisher= aish.com |access-date=April 7, 2008| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080318163420/http://www.aish.com/seminars/discovery/Codes/Primer/primer1.htm| archive-date= March 18, 2008 | url-status= live}}</ref> Gans further argued that while "the mathematical issues are difficult for non-mathematicians to comprehend, I can summarize as follows: Professor McKay and his colleagues never claimed to have discovered real codes in those non-Torah texts. Their only "successful" results were obtained by deliberately rigging the experiment in such a way that the layman wouldn't recognize the mathematical flaws."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://jewishaction.com/jewish-world/people/up_close_with_harold_gans/|title=Up Close with Harold Gans|date=September 2, 2007|website=Jewish Action}}</ref>

Brendan McKay has replied that he and his colleagues have never accused Havlin or Gans of participating in a conspiracy. Instead, says McKay, Havlin likely did what WRR's early preprints stated he did, in providing "valuable advices". Similarly, McKay accepts Gans's statements that Gans did not prepare the data for his cities experiment himself. McKay concludes that "there is only ONE person who needs to have been involved in knowing fakery, and a handful of his disciples who must be involved in the cover-up (perhaps with good intent)."<ref>{{cite web |author=B. McKay |year=2003 |url=http://cs.anu.edu.au/~bdm/codes/StatSci/gans_rep.html |title=Brief notes on Gans Primer |publisher=cs.anu.edu.au |access-date=April 7, 2008}}</ref>